Should The Term “JRPG” Be Retired?
With the much-anticipated release of Final Fantasy XVI coming this June, an interesting topic has been brought up that had been unbeknownst to many people throughout the world outside of Japan until now.
Square Enix is a video game development studio that is in charge of bringing the Final Fantasy series among other games to the masses. The YouTuber Skill-Up was invited to interview the game director among other developers on the project for the soon-to-be-released title Final Fantasy XVI. The YouTuber had mentioned the term “JRPG”, and the game director Naoki Yoshida had a certain look on his face once the term was mentioned, and had this to say:
The thing that we want to get across is that when we are creating games, at least with our team, we don’t go into them thinking that we’re going to be creating JRPGs, we just go into them thinking we’re going to create RPGs.”
Yoshida-San’s History With The Term
After that initial first statement, Skill-Up went on to pursue that angle of questioning, and when he did, Yoshi-San went into a more detailed explanation of why he does not like the term since about 15 years ago. This is what the acclaimed game developer said:
For us as developers in Japan, the first time we heard it, it was like a discriminatory term, as though we were being made fun of for creating these games, and so for some developers, the term JRPG can be something that will maybe trigger bad feelings because of what it was in the past.
It wasn’t a compliment to a lot of developers in Japan. We understand that recently, JRPG has better connotations and it’s being used as a positive but we still remember the time when it was used as a negative.
Yoshi-San then went on to recount a certain article about Final Fantasy VII that he had seen that “compartmentalized them into a JRPG box” when Final Fantasy VII came out years ago.
What Does The Term JRPG Mean?
The term JRPG, simply put, means Japanese Roleplaying Game. Over the years the term has been a definition of an entire genre of games. The genre of JRPGs normally equates to long hours of gameplay, a linear world, and is story-focused and cut-scene-heavy, as well as turn-based. However, nowadays many JRPGs are trying to evolve and get out of that box of tropes; one such game is the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI. The newest numbered Final Fantasy game will feature real-time action combat, which is very rare for a Final Fantasy game. This is a welcome change because over the years the same old formula tends to get stale.
Yoshi-San went on to explain the term a bit more:
The term JRPG is used by western media rather than users and media in Japan.
Who is Yoshi-P?
Yoshi-P or Yoshida-San is the game director for Final Fantasy XVI. However, his most notable work that many people know him for is Final Fantasy XIV.
Yoshi-P is a legend in the Final Fantasy XIV community, he and his team are the reason the acclaimed MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) is still afloat. In 2010, Final Fantasy XIV launched in such a rocky state that barely anyone played it, and Square Enix themselves knew it was a tremendous failure. So they hired Naoki Yoshida. He and his team were tasked with the responsibility to craft a brand new Final Fantasy XIV experience from scratch in secret for two years while the rocky original version was still live and being updated. When the new game was ready to release, the original game had a live event for what was left of the remaining populace. The remaining loyal players had gathered in unity as a moon titled Dalamud descended closer and closer to the original world of Eorzea. Once the moon got close enough, the servers to the original game went offline, and then an epic exclusive cinematic started to play for all of those that experienced the end of the original Final Fantasy XIV and witnessed the birth of A Realm Reborn.
So, should The Term “JRPG” Be Retired?
The term has been around for years at this point and is widely used throughout the world today. Being privy to this interview via YouTube, it was very enlightening and it makes sense why Yoshi-San feels that way, and it should be respected. Many games are considered JRPGs such as the Yakuza series of games, Persona, Final Fantasy, and many more, however, they are just RPGs to the creators of the games themselves and everyone should label them as such. The term JRPG is an extremely outdated term that should have been retired long ago. It’s time for the world to move on and just call it what it is. An RPG. The time of putting other countries in their own boxes is over. It’s in the past. Pokémon isn’t labeled a JRPG, so Final Fantasy and other titles related to Japan shouldn’t be either. It’s an era of unity.
Final Fantasy XVI is slated for release on June 22, 2023, with no plans for delays in sight.
For those interested, the link to the original video that holds the interview with Yoshi-San is down below.
The link to the documentary of the extraordinary inspirational tale of the hard-fought success of Final Fantasy XIV is linked below as well.
