If you ask people for their favourite video game genre, a lot of them would answer, “JRPGs”. I know that because I did it at TheGamer and that’s the response I got. However, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida (affectionately known as Yoshi-P) has recently described the term as “discriminatory”, and admitted that he and his fellow developers don’t like the term. Since many hold the genre as their favourite, and use the term with love, some have been surprised by this. However, once you look into the term’s past, it’s hard not to see Yoshida’s point of view.

JRPGs and RPGs are understood by most to mean different (if similar) things. On the surface, an RPG is a role-playing game, and a JRPG is a Japanese role-playing game. It feels strange to make the distinction, and this is where that sense of discrimination comes from - why are just the Japanese games being syphoned off? It seems to imply they are lesser, they’re not actual role-playing games, they’re Japanese role-playing games.

Related: Final Fantasy 16 Preview - The Legendary JRPG Has Finally Grown Up

For a while, that was how many took it, too. Some RPG fans would avoid JRPGs altogether, and while they would cite typical features of the genre as reasons (overly long runtime, melodramatic story and characters, extra grinding, anime tropes, slow and complex combat…), these features did not apply to every game coming out of Japan. There’s some debate over whether Pokemon is a JRPG - it’s an RPG made in Japan, but fits almost none of the classic conventions.

Final Fantasy 16 Cid

How you feel about Pokemon’s categorisation is how you feel about JRPGs as a whole. Are they just RPGs made in Japan (in which case, why make the distinction at all?), or is it a specific subgenre of RPGs that refers to a style of game, not its geographical origin?

We should also consider CRPGs, or ‘computer role-playing games’. Both RPGs and JRPGs can be played on the computer, but we know CRPG to specifically mean a classic, old school RPG akin to Dungeons & Dragons rather than the action-packed approach we associate with Final Fantasy or The Witcher. We know this means a specific thing deeper than its language, and shouldn’t that also be the case with JRPGs?

Ifrit in Final Fantasy 16.
Screenshots are from a bespoke version of Final Fantasy 16 made for media to experience, and the contents may differ from the final version.

JRPGs are no longer confined to Japan. China and Korea are both experiencing gaming breakthroughs, and many of their games follow the conventions of JRPGs and thus are labelled as such. Genshin Impact might be the example with the highest profile. Of course, this could be taken as further discrimination - the idea that all Asians are the same. But we’ve also got games made in the West which fit the description of a JRPG; Indivisible, Child of Light, Dust: An Elysian Tale, Omori, Costume Quest, and most obviously, Undertale. If we consider these to be JRPGs because of their sensibilities, then we have moved past JRPG being a discriminatory term. If we balk at the idea because they’re not games from Asia, maybe there’s still some work to do.

The question put to Yoshida was whether he felt JRPGs had evolved in the same way as RPGs have recently. It’s a question that pits them as two very different things, perhaps even as rivals. It’s a fascinating question - there can be a trend among fanbases of wanting public figures to be untouchable and lambasting journalists for any questions that upset them or even force them slightly beyond PR fluff, but I think this is a great question. It led us to an insightful answer, but with the baggage behind it, I can understand Yoshida feeling it to be loaded, too.

FinalFantasy16Puppy

For my money, the answer is ‘yes’, JRPGs have evolved significantly in the past few years, introducing better pacing and more grounded characters, seeing a resurgence first at an indie level and now across the board, and with several major properties enjoying a renaissance. But I understand bristling at the idea of “our video games have gotten better, have yours?” when Yoshida has been around for long enough to have seen JRPGs be pushed to the side in favour of Western RPGs. We do have the term WRPG, but no one uses it, which suggests Western is the default, again highlighting the discriminatory origins of JRPG.

We aren’t going to get rid of the term. I’m not even advocating that we do, especially. It’s too entrenched in gaming culture, and this was a minor complaint raised in the thick of a busy press junket. Yoshida isn’t dedicating his life to the eradication of the word and despite its history, I do think these days it’s used with love and admiration. But it’s important, especially in a medium so keen to wipe out its history by leaving art behind, constantly replacing it with HD reskins, and pushing ceaselessly forward, to be aware of our history. We use ‘JRPG’ with love. We didn’t always.

Next: Final Fantasy 16 Has Earned The Right To Take Itself Seriously