I don't. Heavy Rain's developers keep describing it as an "interactive drama" instead of a video game, which sounds like a desperate grab at legitimacy. If they don't have the sense to call a spade a spade, then I doubt that they have the sense to design a good game. Maybe I'm being harsh, but stupid behavior deserves harsh response.

hey im not trying to argue the definition of a role-playing game here. Just saying that demon's souls gives much more role-playing options than today's wrpgs. ReaperV7

On that note, one pound of velvet cake is better for me than two pounds of velvet cake, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm becoming a fat-ass, now does it?

I'd rather play Max Payne than Indigo Prophecy, so I'd rather play Alan Wake than Heavy Rain. Plus the Heavy Rain devs don't even have the guts to call it a video game, so I'm leaning towards the possibility that it might not be a very good video game.

well i mean more like the ability to go along with the story with your self-imaged character going on a journey through the unknown. ReaperV7

No, it doesn't.

'Role playing' is a specific concept, with a specific meaning. Taste has nothing to do with this.

To answer the thread, yes, WRPGs have been widely known to have much better role playing content than JRPGs. This is because JRPGs don't really have any role playing content at all; the RPG in 'JRPG' is, as typically applied, a misnomer.

Even so, confusion is understandable; the distinction between JRPGs and WRPGs is much less defined today than it was in years past with games like Fallout and Arcanum; titles like Mass Effect that manage to pass as great RPGs these days really aren't very good at the whole role playing thing.

This is because modern studios don't give a **** about quality role playing; they're much more interested in telling their story than they are in allowing the player to tell their own, and as for the gameplay side of the role playing equation (ie, stealth, diplomacy, and character development choices that actually mean something)... well, don't even get me ****ing started.

jethrovegas

Then all this BS about story and "heart" that most people use to describe JRPGs, and "choices" that most people enjoy in WRPGs, will be exposed for the shams that they are.

Note: Also, SRPGs are just turn-based strategy games -- modifiable stats have been present in war games since before World War II.

well jrpg's like demon's souls gives the players more role playing abilities then ever. ReaperV7

Very rare is an RPG, both WRPG and JRPG alike, an actual role-playing game. Sure, you have choices, but most of the games, the goal is the same and the ending, no matter how many there are, are fixed. I believe an actual role-playing game may be impossible to make. You have dialog trees, yes, but you can only choose among what choices you're given. Most WRPGs, regardless if you become a jerk in the end, still have you "save the world." The process and so forth to make an actual role-playing game, withactual role-playing, a reality is difficult. Everyone has a different way of doing things, but in video games, the choices are limited. It's this illusion, I believe, which has given way to the ignorance on both sides. JRPGs play more like adventure games with stats, but WRPGs are the same, especially mainstream ones. I'd like someone with a vast knowledge on the subject to give me a game which grants you COMPLETE freedom, and not just limits you to choices which you yourself, as a person, might not even think about but are forced to choose. I've heard The Witcher many times, but in that game, are you truly free from the shackles the designers slap on you?

Cerberus_Legion

Who cares about the console graphics king? It's like arguing which fast food restaurant has the best burger meat, when there is a gourmet restaurant down the street with Kobe beef.

I suppose I should tell you that you shouldn't give out your Social Security Number, either.

On Role-Playing Games is the best article about role-playing games written by a video game oriented website. It will open your eyes to the possibilities of role-playing games, why nobody in video games cares about tapping those possibility wells, and why what most people refer to as RPGs are not being reviewed properly. This is the second time I've posted the article tonight, but quality is always good, right?

The Western approach to CRPGs (or, An Exercise in Futility)
So the point of RPGs was never the tedious stat-recording and incessant battles -- indeed, the more creative gamemasters quickly discovered that all the calculations and dice-rolling often got in the way of the story, and acted accordingly to minimize it.

Yet from the very beginning of computer role-playing games (CRPGs) it was clear that the stat-recording and incessant battles werethe only thingsthat could possibly survive the transition to the electronic medium, and that nothing short of the invention of human-level artificial intelligence could change that. Because what could possibly be left of the idea of role-playing without an intelligent gamemaster to breathe life into the world surrounding the players? What chance would the players have to make decisions and act them out -- in other words, to role-play -- if they were denied the ability to express themselves, and if their actions were limited to inventory-management, battle tactics, and wandering around static maps? The quality of the RPG experience had from the very first depended on the ability, talent and dedication of the gamemaster, and some dumb computer program was indeed a pitiful substitute for a Gary Gygax or an Ed Greenwood.

All this was of course instantly recognized by the pioneers of CRPGs, who, being programmers, were well aware of the limitations of the primitive software engineering techniques available to them.

And so they focused on the stats and battles.

[...]

So CRPGs have always been -- and still are -- mostly games of strategy, with only occasional sprinklings of action and adventure, the exact formula of the mixture varying depending on the developer and the game in question. But whatever the formula, the end result has never had much to do with role-playing -- one need only sit in for a few minutes at aDogs in the Vineyardgame in progress in order to realize this. For those used to equating hit points and levelling to role-playing, such an experience would prove truly eye-opening.

And here it's worth noting that even games likeFallout(1997) andPlanescape: Torment(1999), as well as Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series, came nowhere near enough to be considered true RPGs -- though it has to be said that they at least tried harder than everything else.

[...]

The Japanese approach to CRPGs (or, Making Numbers Go Up)
In Japan, meanwhile, things were proceeding in a most amusing direction.

The key to understanding the debacle that are modern JRPGs is to realize that role-playing took ages to arrive in Japan, and was largely ignored even when it did.D&Dtook almost a decade to be brought over, at which point the Japanese had already been playing western-made dungeon crawlers for several years.

That fact alone explains everything. You see Western developers have always been aware of the nature of role-playing, so at least they've always known what they should be aiming for. Granted, they messed up big-time (there's no technical reason why CRPGs with extensive dialogue trees likeTormentcouldn't have appeared back in the mid-'80s -- no reason why it took over a decade for them to start getting made), but one has to acknowledge the enormous difficulty of the task; and besides it is true that even the most trashy late-'80s early-'90s CRPGs contained at least a few moments which could, perhaps, by making appropriate allowances for the challenges presented by the electronic medium, be considered as actual role-playing.

But the Japanese designers who set out to make their own CRPGs had no such understanding. They playedWizardryand other early dungeon-crawlers, and then sat down in smoke-filled izakayas and exclaimed, "Sothisis what a role-playing game is then!"

And off they went to do what the Japanese do best.

[...]

But since no one involved -- neither designers nor players -- knew the first thing about RPGs (even the term "role-playing" itself affording them no clue as to the nature of these games, since most Japanese don't speak English), and sinceDragon QuestandFinal Fantasyhad much to recommend them despite their not being RPGs, that was the end of the story. They kept selling, and so they kept getting made. The extremely risk-averse corporate policies of Japanese publishers such as Square, Enix and the rest of them (many of which were practicallybuilton the success of their early JRPGs), have been efficiently crushing any hopes of a change ever since. Alex Kierkegaard

Basically, the Japanese didn't know, and the Westerners forgot.