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Randalor posted:So Baldur's Gate is a JRPG now? Or Mass Effect? Pillars of Eternity? I agree with the general sentiment (stop using the term), but these gotcha questions are weird. It's an artistic medium, they merge and blend according to near uncountable influences. It's going to be an output of broader cultural cultural influences in Japan, previous games in Japan that never made it international, non-Japanese games that did make it international into Japan and made an impact, among unknown other things. Acting like games made within Japan aren't going to have significant influences that don't appear in games made outside Japan is some weird denial of Japan having its own independent culture.
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Mar 8, 2023 03:54
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Randalor posted:So Baldur's Gate is a JRPG now? Or Mass Effect? Pillars of Eternity? Baldur's Gate is pretty squarely a 'WRPG' by the old genre conventions, and has a lot of distinctions from JRPGs. I do agree that not using the term is just fine if Japanese devs want it, but is there a better term that gets across the genre's distinct parts that draw people to it? I guess we could go with Console RPG and Computer RPG, though that would introduce a new type of confusion, and isn't exactly accurate either.
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Mar 8, 2023 03:59
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PharmerBoy posted:I agree with the general sentiment (stop using the term), but these gotcha questions are weird. It's an artistic medium, they merge and blend according to near uncountable influences. It's going to be an output of broader cultural cultural influences in Japan, previous games in Japan that never made it international, non-Japanese games that did make it international into Japan and made an impact, among unknown other things. Acting like games made within Japan aren't going to have significant influences that don't appear in games made outside Japan is some weird denial of Japan having its own independent culture. It's not really a gotcha question, Detective No. 27 said that to them a major defining trait of "JRPGs" is that they're single player, those are three major western releases that are predominantly single player RPGs, so I was asking if those would count. Replace every mention of Japan with USA and see how dumb it sounds. Yes, no poo poo Japan has its own independent culture. That doesn't mean you should label every RPG that comes out of there with its country of origin as its genre as though every RPG has exactly the same gameplay. Instead of "Western RPG", should we start calling them "US RPGS", "English Canadian RPGs" or "Quebecian RPGs"?
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Mar 8, 2023 04:18
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That's fair then. For my part, I'll say that I was conflating your post with some earlier posts that seemed to be angling towards that point.
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Mar 8, 2023 04:27
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Just use the term “fun games”
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Mar 8, 2023 04:30
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Randalor posted:It's not really a gotcha question, Detective No. 27 said that to them a major defining trait of "JRPGs" is that they're single player, those are three major western releases that are predominantly single player RPGs, so I was asking if those would count. There's a difference between "a" major trait and "the" major trait. The other major traits grouped under the jRPG label are turn-based combat (generally of a fairly simple slugfest type where the meat of gameplay is in the interplay of your actions - more "tactical" systems are under the sRPG label), completely predefined characters, and a strong, generally linear story. The three games you mention (except possibly Pillars, I haven't played that one) don't meet those criteria - they have character creation, lack simple turn-based combat (Mass Effect uses FPS mechanics for combat), and you can approach a lot of the plot points out of order.
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Mar 8, 2023 04:33
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I think why WRPG is a thing and ERPG or ARPG isn’t is because, for many different reasons, is that the Western world isn’t exposed to many video games from Eastern countries that aren’t Japan. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but Japan overshadows the Western perception of the gaming industry.
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Mar 8, 2023 04:37
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Improbable Lobster posted:It's really racist and the weirdly persistent racism around japanese games from the early 2000s to the 2010s was loving everywhere Same deal with old Japanese sci-fi films. I read so much criticism from the 70s-90s growing up that was just plain racist. When you see Willis O'Brien's fingerprints on Kong's fur that's proof of what a labor of love he was, but if you see, I don't know, the wires holding up Rodan or whatever it's proof that the Japanese are congenitally incapable of filmmaking. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin said some dumb poo poo promoting their 1998 Godzilla too, claiming that the original Gojira team was inspired by King Kong but couldn't figure out how he was done with stop motion so they stuck a guy in a suit - of course, Eiji Tsuburaya and co. knew what stop motion was, they debated using it in Gojira but decided it would take too long and cost too much, hence the suitmation. There still ended up being a couple of split second stop motion shots in the film, of Godzilla's tail and a crashing firetruck.
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Mar 8, 2023 04:41
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Gnoman posted:There's a difference between "a" major trait and "the" major trait. The other major traits grouped under the jRPG label are turn-based combat (generally of a fairly simple slugfest type where the meat of gameplay is in the interplay of your actions - more "tactical" systems are under the sRPG label), completely predefined characters, and a strong, generally linear story. This post is completely correct, I feel.
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Mar 8, 2023 04:55
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Gnoman posted:There's a difference between "a" major trait and "the" major trait. The other major traits grouped under the jRPG label are turn-based combat (generally of a fairly simple slugfest type where the meat of gameplay is in the interplay of your actions - more "tactical" systems are under the sRPG label), completely predefined characters, and a strong, generally linear story. So which of the following are not JRPGs to you: Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Paper Mario, Star Ocean, Pokemon, Atelier Sophie. How many of those traits does a game have to have before its a "jRPG"? Why does Commander Shepard not count as a predefined character in a strong, generally linear story? Sure, you have some say in what order you tackle the main quests, but you always have to do certain things in order. The only thing it's missing is the turn-based gameplay. Final Fantasy games stopped being turn based when they hit the SNES and used timers for everything, are they not jRPGs now?
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Mar 8, 2023 04:58
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Gnoman posted:There's a difference between "a" major trait and "the" major trait. The other major traits grouped under the jRPG label are turn-based combat (generally of a fairly simple slugfest type where the meat of gameplay is in the interplay of your actions - more "tactical" systems are under the sRPG label), completely predefined characters, and a strong, generally linear story. right, so Zill O'll and the SaGa games are not JRPGs
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Mar 8, 2023 05:05
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I like the Yoko Taro definition where: Fishing minigame => JRPG No fishing minigame => Not JRPG
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Mar 8, 2023 05:06
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Mar 8, 2023 05:08
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Gnoman posted:There's a difference between "a" major trait and "the" major trait. The other major traits grouped under the jRPG label are turn-based combat (generally of a fairly simple slugfest type where the meat of gameplay is in the interplay of your actions - more "tactical" systems are under the sRPG label), completely predefined characters, and a strong, generally linear story. So is The Witcher a JRPG? PharmerBoy posted:I agree with the general sentiment (stop using the term), but these gotcha questions are weird. It's an artistic medium, they merge and blend according to near uncountable influences. It's going to be an output of broader cultural cultural influences in Japan, previous games in Japan that never made it international, non-Japanese games that did make it international into Japan and made an impact, among unknown other things. Acting like games made within Japan aren't going to have significant influences that don't appear in games made outside Japan is some weird denial of Japan having its own independent culture. The reason for all the "gotcha questions" is because there isn't any actually good or concrete definition of a JRPG that remains exclusively to JRPGs, especially since this thread has pretty conclusively confirmed that yes, you don't have to been developed by a Japanese studio to be A JRPG. So it's not being Japanese that defines it. Is it being turned based? Then is Wizardry or Bard's Tale a JRPG? A linear story? Games like Dragon Age 2 and Fable are pretty linear; are those JRPGs? Is it the pre-defined character thing? Then again, The Witcher, you have no control over who Geralt is. If you need all of the above, then you're already excluding a ton of traditional JRPGs in one way or another, and it leads to a lot of weird weaselly situations like people saying pokemon isn't a JRPG because it has monster collecting, despite other JRPGs having it when it comes down to exactly what that video linked says; it's a popular game people like that avoids the stink of being a weird anime thing so it can't possibly be a JRPG! It's always been a stupid term for a genre that largely came to be because weird nerds got mad that their CRPGs shared a space with Final Fantasy, which clearly weren't ~real~ RPGs. But as terms like CRPG or WRPG faded out of common use, they were just kind of folded into the umbrella term RPG. While JRPGs just kind of get excluded from it for virtually no reason despite being such a nebulous nothing term.
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Mar 8, 2023 05:10
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Foxfire_ posted:I like the Yoko Taro definition where: This is my new definition. Stardew Valley, Sonic Adventure, and Red Dead Redemption 2 are fantastic JRPGs.
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Mar 8, 2023 05:14
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"JRPGs are like pornography. I know it when I see it."
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Mar 8, 2023 05:18
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Leave posted:This is my new definition. Stardew Valley, Sonic Adventure, and Red Dead Redemption 2 are fantastic JRPGs. Skyrim was originally not a JRPG, but became one when the Anniversary Edition was released
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Mar 8, 2023 05:21
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In the Witcher you make a lot of choices pertaining to the story that affect the ending and quest outcomes, more than I typically associate with say Final Fantasy
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Mar 8, 2023 05:30
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Witchers genre is 'Eurojank'. Please do not confuse this.
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Mar 8, 2023 05:32
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I don’t know if Witcher 3 counts as eurojank but the first one is a perfect example as is Greedfall and anything else made by Spiders
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Mar 8, 2023 05:36
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Nuebot posted:So is The Witcher a JRPG? Welcome to art, glad you're here? Art genres don't have hard lines. Its a constant blend and remix of styles and influences, there isn't going to be a simple definition that accurately captures all the possible permutations while simultaneously excluding all others. I like bluegrass, not big on country. I don't think I could write you a definition of bluegrass that successfully encompasses all of bluegrass and excludes all of country, certainly not in less than essay space. That's if you could get agreement on which songs specifically count as bluegrass or country. That doesn't mean its not useful to discuss the general idea of "bluegrass." Tell me what, take any other example of popular art and write me a definition of one of its genres in a paragraph or less. If you fail, does it mean that genre doesn't exist?
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Mar 8, 2023 05:37
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I don't know how specifically offensive the term "jrpg" is but I'm plenty tired of the Whacky Japan meme mindset
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Mar 8, 2023 05:39
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Randalor posted:So which of the following are not JRPGs to you: Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Paper Mario, Star Ocean, Pokemon, Atelier Sophie. Out of all of those, Pokemon and Etrian Odyssey are not typically thought of as JRPGs. Pokemon is a Monster Collector and Etrian ODyssey is a Dungeon Crawler in the WRPG vein of Wizardry (which it is explicitly based off of). And Final Fantasy actually still had turn-based combat. Like... The system is even called Active-Turn-Based in Japan, and was in use until Lightning Returns. 15 and 16 are more ARPGs instead. But yeah, there is definitely a "you know it when you see it" vibe to RPG genres.
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Mar 8, 2023 05:59
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Detective No. 27 posted:I vaguely remembered an X-Play review of one of the Raidou games where they made fun of the name. I just found it on YouTube and watched for the first time since it aired. They made fun of the name for being overly long, which, I suppose, fair. They mostly praised the game and their criticisms were fair (too many random encounters, lack of voice acting). it was mostly fine, until the super cringey and casually racist skit at the end. There is a LOT from the old ZDTV/TechTV/G4 days that aged real, real terribly in that kind of way. People don't notice because who goes back and watches old TechTV. I do, I'm the one weirdo who does that. I have a massive archive or it all that I've been using for this stupid very short range UHF 90s/2000s tv station to a CRT project. There's one thing I don't know if I have in that archive but I remember clearly. Maybe I mentioned it in the thread before, because I've mentioned it in some places but I don't know, Chris Pirillo and his cohost (Maybe Cat?) doing, from what I remember, a live Call-For-Help-athon. Chris makes an incredibly awkward "joke" about the size of her breasts. She reacts awkwardly. After the next commercial break he gave one of those fake-joking around lighthearted apologies. And no one remembers it besides me because that wasn't a big deal at all in the early 2000s.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:09
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Something that I specifically associate with Japanese games is the idea of judeo-christian body horror, like Shadow Hearts having a boss that's Skinless Jesus, Sefer Sephiroth (final boss named after two Jewish terms although mistranslated as "Safer", with the body horror bit mostly being from Bizarro Sephiroth) and all of Bayonetta. Honestly the bit I'm most looking forward to in the FF7 remake series is getting to (disk 3) Heretic Hojo as that boss OWNS. At least I'm not familiar with other countries dabbling in that unless it's specifically referencing a Japanese property.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:12
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Kchama posted:And Final Fantasy actually still had turn-based combat. Like... The system is even called Active-Turn-Based in Japan, and was in use until Lightning Returns. 15 and 16 are more ARPGs instead. if you think final fantasy 7, 10, 12 and 13 all had the same combat systems then you really don't know what you're talking about lmao
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Mar 8, 2023 06:13
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Nuebot posted:So is The Witcher a JRPG? It's an arpg. But, yeah, game genres are categories like electronic music genres where something can be many at once and the boundaries between genres are nitpicky and controversial. But I don't think an arpg can be a jrpg because jrpgs are turn based. The terms are stupid because lots of jrpgs arent from Japan and lots of western rpgs (which is weird that I say it like that, I've never said wrpg, but I've said western rpg a lot) are made in Japan. I could see that we'd need new terms just because of that. But, the two rpg styles are really different, and have a different history even though they both influenced each other. I have never heard anyone use it in any kind of derogatory way now or 15 years ago, just to make a distinction because we have these very different styles of games that are all rpgs, but they're different enough that it's useful to distinguish between them, and one of those styles happened to be mostly coming from Japan and the other happened to be mostly coming from western countries.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:20
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Alaois posted:if you think final fantasy 7, 10, 12 and 13 all had the same combat systems then you really don't know what you're talking about lmao They didn't have the exact same combat system, duh, no FF really does, but all the main-line games after 3, except for 10, until 13 used ATB in some form. Like, I don't get you trying this dumb dunk when the post I was replying to about how they couldn't be considered JRPGs because they stopped using turns as part of the combat system. Like, maybe I was just replying to the very specific thing they were talking about and not the entire combat system? Like, let's break it down. 1, 2, 3: Turn-based 'traditional' system. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: ATB. And in basically all of these you could switch it to pause when it becomes someone's turn so it acts like the old games. 10: Non-Active Turn-Based, though the combat system did not look like 1-3 at all beyond that. 12, 13, 13-2: Uses ATB, though 12 isn't much like the other games Lightning's Return downplays the traditional ATB aspects a lot more. This is just talking about how the turns work. Kchama has a new favorite as of 06:36 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 06:31
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BrainDance posted:It's an arpg. But, yeah, game genres are categories like electronic music genres where something can be many at once and the boundaries between genres are nitpicky and controversial. But I don't think an arpg can be a jrpg because jrpgs are turn based. exactly, the Ys and Tales of games have NEVER been called JRPGs
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Mar 8, 2023 06:31
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BrainDance posted:It's an arpg. But, yeah, game genres are categories like electronic music genres where something can be many at once and the boundaries between genres are nitpicky and controversial. But I don't think an arpg can be a jrpg because jrpgs are turn based. A JRPG doesn't have to be turn-based to be a JRPG. Tales series for example is very much a JRPG series and it's not turn-based at all.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:33
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Alaois posted:exactly, the Ys and Tales of games have NEVER been called JRPGs I don't think I've ever seen Ys be called a JRPG since they're more akin to Zelda, but Tales is still a 'JRPG' because it checks basically every other aspect of it. Again, there's the art aspect where even if you aren't entirely it, you are close enough to count. It's like, as someone mentioned above, Roguelikes. EDIT: To be fair to Ys, I've only played the old ones.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:38
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Sorry to interrupt video game chat. I was watching a Golden Girls episode. Sophia makes another joke about getting senile, that she's so out of it, she thinks she's carrying Steve Garvey's baby. That didn't age well, not because of the material, but because they really set it up to be good for a limited period. In short, Steve Garvey was a pretty good baseball player with an incredibly squeaky clean image. In February 1989, it was revealed that Garvey was expecting babies with two girlfriends. Decades before Nick Cannon, this was a little wild, especially with how perfect Garvey had always seemed until then. The Golden Girls episode aired April 1, 1989. This must have been written and taped very close to the air date. The paternity suits against Garvey dropped a few days after it was broadcast. So nothing wrong with the joke or how it was supposed to be received, but wow is it tied to a very specific moment in time.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:40
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Alaois posted:exactly, the Ys and Tales of games have NEVER been called JRPGs Right and those people are wrong. People have called Zelda an RPG too they're just wrong though
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Mar 8, 2023 06:43
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Sorry to interrupt video game chat. I was watching a Golden Girls episode. Sophia makes another joke about getting senile, that she's so out of it, she thinks she's carrying Steve Garvey's baby. I'll always associate Steve Garvey with the old ESPN show Cheap Seats
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Mar 8, 2023 06:44
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Let's compromise on a solution that will make nobody happy and call them dragonquestlikes. (It's been a very interesting discussion all round and I've spent a fairly entertaining chunk of time thinking through my personal edge cases of jrpgs and trying to narrow down the common factors. Genres are all fake is the lesson, I think.) To bring things more specifically back towards media that didn't age well, I've been on a weird kick of watching some mid-2000s kinda trashy dramedies, specifically Desperate Housewives and Weeds. I was expecting (and got) the rampant homophobia and slurs but I was not expecting so much jokingly treated statutory rape, what the poo poo was that about
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Mar 8, 2023 06:44
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Nier Automata is not entirely an RPG but does include two important RPG components - statistics and deicide.
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Mar 8, 2023 06:45
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woke kaczynski posted:Let's compromise on a solution that will make nobody happy and call them dragonquestlikes. since Dragon Quest and so many other roleplaying games developed in Japan are inspired so directly by Wizardry i think we should call them Sons of Sir-tech
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Mar 8, 2023 06:45
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RPG chat has gone on for 5 pages. Maybe take it to the Video Games sub forum?
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Mar 8, 2023 06:50
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Randalor posted:So which of the following are not JRPGs to you: Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Paper Mario, Star Ocean, Pokemon, Atelier Sophie. Is mayonnaise an instrument? How do blankets work? What are frogs?
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Mar 8, 2023 07:09
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PharmerBoy posted:Welcome to art, glad you're here? Art genres don't have hard lines. Its a constant blend and remix of styles and influences, there isn't going to be a simple definition that accurately captures all the possible permutations while simultaneously excluding all others. I like bluegrass, not big on country. I don't think I could write you a definition of bluegrass that successfully encompasses all of bluegrass and excludes all of country, certainly not in less than essay space. That's if you could get agreement on which songs specifically count as bluegrass or country. That doesn't mean its not useful to discuss the general idea of "bluegrass." Yeah I was gonna say if people think video game subgenres are too esoteric they should never try to get into metal or electronic music. A lot of this discussion just makes me think of how there are two distinct kinds of Swedish death metal but only one really is referred to as “Swedish death metal” (the other more specifically being “Gothenburg”) and you don’t have to be from Sweden to play either.
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Mar 8, 2023 07:20
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