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Naoki Yoshida Dislikes the Name “JRPG”

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Naoki Yoshida, the producer of the next Final Fantasy XVI and shepherd of the rejuvenated MMO Final Fantasy XIV, is not the biggest admirer of the label JRPG, as it turns out. Many people in the West use the term “JRPG” fairly casually, and we continuously debate as fans what really makes a true Japanese role-playing game. It serves as a shorthand to refer to a particular school of game design that emerged in that nation in the late 1980s, experienced a golden era in the 1990s, and contributed significantly to the popularity of the PlayStation as a platform.

Yoshida was questioned about how JRPGs have developed in comparison to action games in an interview with YouTuber Skill Up, who traveled to Japan to speak to the senior development team. Yoshida was reportedly obviously uncomfortable with the term, according to the interviewer.

Director of localization Koji Fox noted that “one point [Yoshida] wants to make is that when we make games, we don’t approach them with the intention of making JRPGs; rather, we just make RPGs. The name JRPG is used by western media rather than consumers and media in Japan”.

We admit to occasionally using the word, but we never really gave it much thought because we thought it was just another neutral descriptive abbreviation like MMO.

Fox’s translation of Yoshida’s statement continues, saying that some Japanese developers dislike the word: “Depending on who you ask, this phrase may have originally appeared 15 years ago, and for us developers, it felt like a derogatory phrase when we first heard it. For some game creators, the name “JRPG” may conjure up negative memories of how it was in the past, as if we were being ridiculed for making these games.”

Yoshida continues by saying that “That wasn’t meant as a praise to many Japanese devs.” “Although we are aware that JRPG is now used more positively and with better meanings than in the past, we are also aware of its past bad implications.”

It seems that some developers don’t want to be associated with a moniker that, in some situations, is used in a derogatory manner, especially given that Final Fantasy XVI is up against other AAA heavyweights like Hogwarts Legacy and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Yoshida clarifies that the phrase has negative connotations, “that it’s turn-based, that it’s anime like, these teens saving the world, “very JRPG’,” for example.

Given how common the term has become in the industry, it is not clear if its use will change in the future, but Yoshida’s comments have definitely sparked discussion. How do you feel about the word “JRPG,” and can you understand Yoshida’s perspective?

As Editor here at GeekReply, I'm a big fan of all things Geeky. Most of my contributions to the site are technology related, but I'm also a big fan of video games. My genres of choice include RPGs, MMOs, Grand Strategy, and Simulation. If I'm not chasing after the latest gear on my MMO of choice, I'm here at GeekReply reporting on the latest in Geek culture.

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Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made

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As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.

Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.

The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.

The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.

The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.

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This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive

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Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.

For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”

Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.

Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.

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