An argument I've often thought about, and something I've never decided which camp I sit in is which do I prefer, a Japanese role playing game or a Western Role playing game. My friends who play computer games seem to either match my school of thought and enjoy both, or they go completely against me and think both are crap and boring - which is an unhelpful opinion.
To assist me in my argument I'm going to rely on my good friends Final Fantasy, but for the purposes of my argument I have to ignore Final Fantasy XIII - as it has thus far put me off of the franchise from now on until they remake Final Fantasy VII (yes, I'm still holding my breath for that one). To help me balance my argument I will confer with my younger, better looking friends Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Oblivion and Skyrim - sorry Mass Effect, I count you as sci-fi even with your morality system.
Final Fantasy VII was my first RPG ever, as it predated Pokemon Red/Blue by a year, and it is the game I feel that even now I could turn on and gladly waste a good few months of my life playing. I felt that the story was wonderful, the characters were well fleshed out and contrasting and the materia system was brilliant, allowing for a good level of customization.
Admittedly that was 15 years ago when I first thought all of those things and I was 7 years old then, so nostalgia fills me up because the story is pretty confusing and there's your generic angsty one, angry one, madly in love one, quirky one and mysterious one in there - which seems like a pretty solid formula to not only every other Final Fantasy I've played but to pretty much every JRPG I've played. The materia system did allow for a good level of customization, but my 7 year old self thought it was good to sort of flesh out my characters with their spells, so Tifa healed (because she was a girl, and girls can't fight), Cloud got the ice and thunder materia with related summons (because he started with them and was obviously supposed to have them) and Barret got fire materia (because he was angry and fire is angry too, and so was Ifrit - he was angry).
My simplistic choices aside, the materia system gave a sense of freedom that enabled the player to subdivide the characters into a class system, or allowed the player to make each character similar to each other to enable flexibility in combat. This on the whole is pretty consistent with other Final Fantasy games, as if the classes weren't predetermined (Final Fantasy IX) they allowed for equal customization (Final Fantasy VIII) or gave a rough guide line that could later be overruled in favor of creating immensely powerful characters who were similar (Final Fantasy X). Ultimately this means that the game offers you a range of classes to mix and match and sense of freedom to make whoever you want into whatever you want, but really what it gives you is a linear structure for you to work around - on boss fights you will need someone who can heal and often a certain element to use against the boss.
Linking to the false sense of freedom is the ability to roam the open world whenever you get your air ship or can escape from the city you start in. This again seemingly allows you to travel across the entire world and do whatever you please, but due to restrictions in the game - either story imposed or level imposed - you can often only go to one location due to the fact that other places are either; inaccessible due to a plot device, are too low level to warrant going to or are too high level that monsters will instantly kill you.
Western RPG's on the other hand often allow you to make a nameless, voiceless character who has to endure a tutorial level before being flung into an open world, allowing you to do whatever you want in whatever order you want. My choice of the Bethesda games really allow you to make whatever decision you choose, for example I will always remember Mr. Burke asking you to blow up Megaton and giving you the promise of a good reward. This is a true open world experience that can only be made linear by if you choose to play the game as an utter saint or an utter douchebag.
The combat and character leveling system is also as open ended buy allowing you to put skill points into certain skills and picking talents or perks to augment your pre-existing skills. I did find that this is often seemingly less linear than it is seems too, as in my earlier blog about the imbalance at around level 40 of Skyrim you're pretty much forced into archery and sneak if you want to survive dungeons, and in Fallout if you want to take on Deathclaws you're pretty wise to have a gun orientated character.
Currently all I seem to have concluded is that neither game is as open ended as they first appear, but there is always the replay and difficulty to compare. I've found that across all of the Final Fantasy games the story has a progressive difficulty curve - if you don't level up you will not defeat the bosses, and usually the end boss is generally very challenging to an average team. This can be averted by leveling to the max difficulty, but in Final Fantasy VIII the monsters level with you, and in virtually all Final Fantasy titles there are the super bosses that will prove challenging to even the highest level characters; and if you beg to disagree I ask you to kill Emerald Weapon in Final Fantasy VII with ease without using Knights of the Round.
The Bethesda games seem to have taken a leaf out of Final Fantasy VIII's book and have given their monsters scaled leveling, so the world gets harder the more powerful you become. This seems to be more manageable in the Fallout games, as you can often rely on a powerful sniper rifle to eliminate threats before they become too much of a problem (thank you Anti-Material Rifle), but in games like Oblivion and Skyrim this poses a real threat and a real challenge, especially when you get high level Daedra, Dragons and Vampires all out and looking for your blood. Though these games don't particularly have boss mobs (usually there is a final boss, or difficult and high stat named normal monsters) there is a Hardcore Mode in Fallout: New Vegas that factors in tiredness, hunger and dehydration as well as having all items being weighted and no instant health recovery items. Though I have not personally been man enough to complete a Hardcore run, I know for a fact it is challenging.
It seems after all of this typing I've not found out which camp I reside on the JRPG vs WRPG debate, perhaps anyone who reads this could leave a comment and tell me what they feel is the superior genre.
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