GamerBraves Newsletter vol. 84 – JRPGs And The Struggle For Japanese Games In The 7th Generation

Final Fantasy XVI Producer Naoki Yoshida sparked controversy last week when he said that he didn’t want his upcoming game to be known as a “JRPG” as he thought it was just an RPG. When more about the term however he said the following:

“This is going to depend on who you ask but there was a time when this term first appeared 15 years ago, and for us as developers 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”.

This has sparked a debate over the term JRPG. Many people who use it today did not think of it as a negative term. It is mainly seen as a way to distinguish between different types of RPGs.

With that being said, Yoshida and other Japanese developers are valid in their comments because while I also never saw the term “JRPG” as a negative I do remember how games in the genre were treated 15 years ago during the 7th console generation (the late 2000s to early 2010s). At the time Japanese games were looked down upon by many journalists, YouTubers, and the general gaming community as outdated, childish, and poor quality, and it’s only in the last ten years or so that they’ve started to be praised more outside Japan. If you want to read more about why this was, find out by subscribing to our newsletter. You can read the full article for free just by putting your email address in the box below:

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