"JRPGs" Need To Die
Genre for games has gotten pretty out of hand. To accurately describe a game, it usually needs a long string of labels that to most people, probably make no sense, or worse, fail to describe it accurately. For the most part, I pay it no mind, but when it comes to the term JRPG, Japanese Role-Playing Game, I’ve got some issues.
To get this out of the way, I have nothing against games that get labeled as JRPGs, if anything, quite the opposite. For a long time, that was what I described as my favorite genre of games. Though after hearing from the devs of some of my favorite games, my way of thinking changed.
Over the past two years or so, more and more Japanese developers have opened up about their feelings regarding the term “JRPG”. Broadly speaking, they feel the term both marginalizes them and their games, while also being used as shorthand to diminish their quality. These are not RPGs like Mass Effect or Baldur’s Gate, they belong in their own separate category.
A large part of this sentiment was built up in the 2000s and 2010s, when the term JRPG was often used alongside dismissive or prejudiced articles and reviews. I was playing tons of games that fell under this label, but wasn’t engaging with games media at the time, so for me, it was a term of endearment.
Slowly though, I began to realize this wasn’t a commonly held sentiment. While some people use the term with love, others dismiss these games as having less value, either due to common aesthetic choices, gameplay, or perhaps even being developed somewhere other than the west.
It was a bit of a shock, since these were the games that often felt the most resonant to me. Games like Final Fantasy 10, Persona 4, and The World Ends With You were deeply influential to me. I’d go so far as to say they both shaped my worldview and helped me refine my preferred taste for video games.
To hear that this term had been wielded as a weapon against these games for decades, and had hurt the people who created these games, really struck a chord with me. At first I felt resistant about giving up the use of the term, it was what I had used to describe the games I liked for so long. That was until Renata Price on the Waypoint Radio podcast changed my mind.
Not only is Japanese Role-Playing Game a label used against those games, it is also horrible at actually describing them. The only thing it tells us is that it was made in Japan. Role Playing Games have several permutations like Action Role Playing Game (ARPGs), Tactical Role Playing Games (TRPGs) or Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) that far more accurately describe the games they are attached to.
Chrono Trigger tends to be the game people think of as the quintessential JRPG. However, Nier Automata is also considered to be a JRPG. Chrono Trigger is a 2D, 32-bit turn based game, while Nier Automata is a 3D action game, but somehow they both get reduced down into being “JRPGs” first and foremost.
Role-Playing Games are already somewhat poorly defined, and people will argue back and forth about whether something like Elden Ring is an RPG or not. Personally, I would say yes, but if you accept that premise, why is Elden Ring, and the Souls games not typically considered JRPGs? They are made in Japan, many people would argue that they’re RPGs, so why do they avoid this label?
Is it because they use a more “western” aesthetic than something like the Persona series? If JRPG is shorthand for “looks like anime” then we’re discussing visuals, not genre. The more you pick this apart, the more glaring it becomes that JRPG is selectively used to categorize games, but not in terms of genre, but often in terms of personal opinion.
The great trick here is that people who dislike those kinds of games get to freely use that label, because everyone sees JRPGs differently. People who like games that are labeled as JRPGs see it as a badge of honor, rather than the slant people tend to mean it as.
Nothing has frustrated me more than people discussing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a brilliant game that seems to be caught in a weird tug-of-war regarding its status as a JRPG. It’s a turn-based game that incorporates timed inputs, dodges, and parries during combat. The developers have cited games like Final Fantasy 10 and Persona 5 as inspirations, games defined as JRPGs. However, it’s not developed in Japan, so what is it?
Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Where something is developed can certainly be useful knowledge as context, but JRPG as a term just comes with far too much baggage, and as a term it’s woefully imprecise.
Unfortunately, as much as I wish it would, I can’t see this term really going away. People still believe it has merit for describing games, or simply don’t care about the feelings of developers who publicly decry the term. But for me, I want to respect the work of the people who made the games I adore, and discuss it using the language that allows them to be seen.
Final Fantasy 10 isn’t special because it was developed in Japan. That game is special to me because it spoke to me. It was my first time seeing a love story in a game that felt resonant. Tidus was a character I was able to see myself in and see as a role model.
There are so many games that I love that are labeled as JRPGs, and that does them a disservice. They are amazing RPGs, with talented developers and teams that created works of art that I adore. If we love these games, we need to let go, because we need to outgrow the term Japanese Role Playing Game, we can do better.
