I'll readily admit that I did a fairly poor job explaining, and used some improper words. I'll give it another shot below, but I'm not sure how much better I can do.




All you have control of is the aesthetics. The "fluff," if you will. You play a fighter, and you stand toe to toe with the boss, hitting him 20 times, and taking his punishment. The battle takes five minutes. Then you play a mage, and you run around avoiding the boss's attacks, casting a powerful spell when you have time. It takes five spells to kill him, and then he's dead. The battle takes five minutes. You play a rogue, and you sneak around, waiting for the boss to stop running, then you stab him in the back, and disappear again. It takes three backstabbin's to kill him. The fight takes five minutes.

All of your choices have meant nothing. You spent time choosing skills, shopping for appropriate equipment, etc, but, in the end, you fight a boss, he is challenging, and he dies in five minutes. What if you wanted to portray an incredible hero, who listens confidently to the boss's arrogant speech, and then wipes the floor with him? Can't do it. Level caps, lack of monsters, diminishing returns and what have you will keep you nicely on pace. What if you wanted to play a weakling, challenging yourself to get through the game as fast as possible, relying on perfection (and a little luck) to get through bosses? Can't do it. The huge XP bonuses given for completing unavoidable plot objectives will make sure you're ready for that boss.

Who cares how much "choice" you have if it doesn't make a difference? You could intentionally choose the worst possible skills and armor in a game like Fallout 3, and STILL complete the game without much trouble. You're not changing anything in the world, you're just changing what buttons you have to push to make that happen. There's some value in that when it comes to replayability, but what you're really changing is the action portion of the game; the role-playing part is unaffected. In fact, the game could practically play itself. You could pick any point in the game and guarantee that the player would be within a certain level range, have certain skills, and have a particular level of resources. That's not choice.



Yep, I know what you mean. I'm not a game designer, but I took two or three game design electives during the course of my CS degree, so I know the basic concepts and lingo. I know you need to limit resources. I don't believe those limitations have to be rigid, however. I might see a spell that I'll be able to learn soon, and think that it would be fun to have it for the next boss. I might spend two hours grinding to get that spell. Am I likely to just keep going, though, and grind out the rest of the powerups in the game? No way. I certainly recognize that it's not fun to grind rabbits in the first zone for 50 hours so that I'll have everything all at once. Allowing for that possibility will not break the game, though.

Obviously, I'm not suggesting that developers should give players a menu at the beginning and say, "here, choose whatever skills and stats you want." You have to provide challenge, limitations, difficulties, and so on. By all means nudge the player, show him the right way, and set him on the path, but then step back and let him do what he wants. Make unusual choices more difficult, suboptimal, somewhat frustrating, etc, but don't box him in.




I know there are a lot of "rails" in JRPGs. Probably more than in Western RPGs, for that matter. I just don't feel them, though. I guess this is the part I'm going to have the hardest time explaining, because it's just my perception as a player. When I play a JRPG, I can do what I want. I can challenge myself with low levels, spend a few hours getting some rare piece of equipment to see what it'll do against a boss, spend all my cash on a spell I shouldn't have yet, etc. When I play a Western RPG, though, I step into an area, and the game says to me, "You may now gain two levels, kill 4-6 scorpions, and make your choice of thirty different skills! Uh, all of which will increase your effective damage potential by five. Anyway, please complete the above (no more, no less) and then proceed to the next area."

/sigh.



Meh, character customization was probably the wrong thing to say. I'm not sure what the right thing is, though. I just want to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I'm willing to work for it. Western RPGs give you a lot of illusory "choice," but enforce strict rules. JRPGs keep you focused on what's important, and expose a lot of the game's mechanics to you.

Let me try again. Western RPGs let you do a lot of different things as long as you'll do it exactly how they want you to. JRPGs give you a more limited selection, but they let you bend the rules so that you can play how you want, and make the game your own.

Anyway, I'm running out of steam. I'll leave it at that. If you're not convinced, well, so be it. I'm not trying to say I'm really "in the right" here, just that the above is how I feel about the genre differences.