Insomnia | Commentary | On role-playing games
Insomnia | Commentary | On role-playing games
And there was never a question of these games evolving to overcome their humble origins, as happened in the West. Western CRPGs have kept evolving because there has always existed consciousness of a direction towards which to evolve; JRPGs, meanwhile, have been going round in circles ever since their inception — Fallout is worlds away from Akalabeth; not so Rogue Galaxy from Final Fantasy.
The only kind of evolution JRPGs have undergone is of a cosmetic nature: Final Fantasy was no Ultima, and its endless sequels had to be justifed in some way — and so they were. CG or anime-style cutscenes and countless hours’ worth of voice-acting and orchestral soundtracks were the justification, piled up, stacked and shoved inside cartridges, CD-ROMs, GD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, and soon enough Blu-ray discs and who knows what else.
And the results of this unchecked and wholly misdirected “evolution”? They can be clearly seen today simply by contrasting the kinds of questions asked by fans of Western and Japanese CRPGs on the launch of a new title. While the former are eager to know about the character creation process, non-linearity, multiple endings, and whether they can be evil, the latter seem to care little about anything besides the names of “character” designers and music composers. Market economies being what they are, everyone ends up getting what they asked for.
