JRPG's

         First, I want to say that I completely understand that some the Japanese community doesn't exactly have the best opinion with the term "JRPG", but I want to make it clear that I'm simply referring to an RPG that was made in Japan, because they're overall significantly different in style than Western RPGs.


       Anywho, I want to talk for a second about how much I love JRPGs. Now, if you were to ask me, I'd say that I definitely prefer action over turn-based because my brain works better when it comes to action and not the puzzle-style battles that turn-based can provide. However, my very first JRPG (or RPG in general) was Dragon Quest II on the Game Boy. For 4 year old me, that game was so ridiculously hard that I never beat it! However, I loved the monster designs and how the game felt as a whole. Maybe half a year after getting that, I got introduced to Pokemon. One of the most kid friendly JRPGs out there, and one that truly made me fall in love with the genre. The characters, the easy to understand game play, the exploration, everything was just so enticing to me. I can remember playing Pokemon Blue for hours and hours (probably more than a child should at that age) and I eventually captured all 150 Pokemon that were available at that time. I managed to do this because my brother ended up getting a GameBoy as well as Pokemon Red, so I was able to trade. Just a couple years later, Pokemon Silver dropped and ignited my love for the series even more.

       
Now, I'm 28 (almost 29!) and I still default to JRPGs when it comes to choosing a game. Doesn't matter if I'm looking to play a retro game, or something new, I almost always fall back onto that genre. The majority of time I've experienced a strong emotion due to a video game, it's been a JRPG. Something about the world building, characters, gameplay, all of it, just lends itself to making me become strongly attached. I cannot possibly understate how much I love this genre as a whole,  and I truly hope I never get tired of it.


       
I don't want to go on and on here, because I hate just repeating myself, so I'm just going to include some of my favorite JRPG series below just in case anyone is curious and wants to look into them. I am not putting these into any particular order:

  • Pokemon
  • Dragon Quest (including the spin-offs)
  • Final Fantasy
  • Kingdom Hearts
  • The Souls Games including Elden Ring (Yes, they are JRPGs)
  • Legend of Zelda

I firmly believe that, while each series has its high and low points, these are shining examples of what the JRPG genre has to offer for fantastic game play and stories. I know many people are put-off by the "anime-like" graphics of many games in this genre, but there are so many out there that don't have that style and are just so incredible. I love almost all genres of video games, but this one is so near and dear to my heart that I had to write about it.