Why are most JRPGS set in Medieval Europe / Western Fantasy?

[Sea lion]

Don't get me wrong, I love knights and castles and forest dungeons that never seem to end, but how come there's so little based on Japanese culture?

It just struck me when I was reading the Octopath Traveler interview, where the devs stated they just wanted to make a game they love as Japanese people, yet most of it takes inspiration from medieval Europe?

Ninjas, Samurais, Daimyos.. all this stuff is epic, yet seems to get little attention in JRPGS, apart from maybe one little town like Wutai in FFVII.

It just seems a lot of Western RPGs are set in Western fantasy, and it'd be cool to get more Eastern influenced RPGs, yet the East don't seem to be too bothered? Even Fire Emblem took like 14 entries to get a Japanese inspired land, and has gone right back to the Western setting with Three Houses. Even though I wasnt a fan of Conquest and Birthright, using Samurai and Ninja was a nice change of pace and was cool to see a different perspective.

So yeah, whats the deal?

 

[badcrumble]

You're going to get a lot of counterexamples, OP, and fairly rightly so (JRPGs also often take place inside a sort of techno-Shinjuku fever dream, after all), but -

*to the extent that what you say is true*, it's because JRPGs originated from dungeons and dragons stuff (and, I believe, imitated some DnD based games of the time like eeeearly Ultima titles), and Dungeons and Dragons (as it's classically known, anyway, I know there are a lot of settings) is REALLY REALLY heavily influenced by Tolkien.

J.R.R. Tolkien's influence over basically most fantasy-genre stuff in most of the world is difficult to overstate. I'd argue that that's often a bad thing (I love Tolkien but he's great because of literally an entire scholarly lifetime of careful worldbuilding, not because his writing has swords and dragons in it) - a lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to duplicate the feeling of Lord of the Rings instead of imagining something completely new.

 

[garion333]

Western cultural hegemony

 

[passing breeze]

I feel like just as many if not more of them are steampunk type magic+industrial revolution settings, not trad medieval fantasy.

edit: the actual answer is probably in their lineage though, starting from Wizardry.

 

[RM8]

Really? It seems to me like high school settings are everywhere these days.

 

[higgsboson1997]

I agree. This has always been my biggest problem with fantasy books. Although, in recen times, I feel like they are getting more varied in their settings.

 

[SilverArrow20XX]

Because fantasy is synonymous with Tolkien-like the world over basically.

 

[Deleted member 36622]

Cause Europe has the best and richest history, especialy Middle Ages is the best.

 

[Vault]

Because they started by being Wizardry and Ultima clones

 

[Deleted member 249]

Tolkien influence, mostly.
I have always enjoyed Atlus and FF games for this, their settings strike out from this norm.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Serious answer: because Japanese history isn't as magical to Japanese people. It's their history. They know it.

Comparatively, European history (or a Japanese tinge on it) feels significantly more magical and foreign.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

I wish RPGs in general had more variety in their settings. Fantasy stuff is almost always Medieval European inspired.

 

[Sea lion]

You're going to get a lot of counterexamples, OP, and fairly rightly so (JRPGs also often take place inside a sort of techno-Shinjuku fever dream, after all), but -

*to the extent that what you say is true*, it's because JRPGs originated from dungeons and dragons stuff (and, I believe, imitated some DnD based games of the time like eeeearly Ultima titles), and Dungeons and Dragons (as it's classically known, anyway, I know there are a lot of settings) is REALLY REALLY heavily influenced by Tolkien.

J.R.R. Tolkien's influence over basically most fantasy-genre stuff in most of the world is difficult to overstate. I'd argue that that's often a bad thing (I love Tolkien but he's great because of literally an entire scholarly lifetime of careful worldbuilding, not because his writing has swords and dragons in it) - a lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to duplicate the feeling of Lord of the Rings instead of imagining something completely new.

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Yeah, I was bit hasty saying "most JRPGs". Theres quite lot based on settings other than medieval Europe / Western fantasy, but none of them seem strictly Japanese to me. I think I just want to know why there isn't as many based on Japanese historical settings. Like, instead of a team of high schoolers or mages and knights taking on dragons, you have a team of samurai taking on Yokai. Is there such games like that?

That stuff is really cool and they should take pride in it and represent it more.

 

[Hieroph]

I'd love to see more games with Japanese mythological / historical settings.



But I guess it might be too "specific" to Japanese devs and audiences? With western medieval fantasy there's a lot of leeway of what that can actually contain.

 

[MidiPour]

You're going to get a lot of counterexamples, OP, and fairly rightly so (JRPGs also often take place inside a sort of techno-Shinjuku fever dream, after all), but -

*to the extent that what you say is true*, it's because JRPGs originated from dungeons and dragons stuff (and, I believe, imitated some DnD based games of the time like eeeearly Ultima titles), and Dungeons and Dragons (as it's classically known, anyway, I know there are a lot of settings) is REALLY REALLY heavily influenced by Tolkien.

J.R.R. Tolkien's influence over basically most fantasy-genre stuff in most of the world is difficult to overstate.

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Pretty much this, D&D's inspiration on earlier games (FF, DQ, Ys) has influenced the genre as a whole to maintain some association, and a game like Octopath is paying homage to said older games.

JRPGs are generally more varied though, incorporating tech (either ancient, industrial, futuristic or retro), Eastern sections with pagodas, musical arrangements and monster designs that have a Japanese sensibility to them, etc. Games with an anime direction are also being fairly common, with many of them taking place in high school.

Edit: also, Near and South East sections are pretty common in JRPGs as well, with archetypal sand sections, character features, bazaars, Bedouin inspired clothing, Garudas, stoned pagodas, etc.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

I mean...they aren't. I can come up with so many examples that take place in modern, historical, or mythological Japan alone, not to mention the ones that are sci-fi or use settings that differ greatly from a western medieval fantasy style setting.

That setting is popular, but much more so among Western-developed RPGs than it is Japanese-developed RPGs.

 

[SkyOdin]

Dungeons & Dragons and related table top RPGs were the direct ancestors of all early videogame RPGs, and that includes ones made in Japan.

The original Final Fantasy is pretty much an unlicensed D&D game, and a Dragonlance game in particular. The game's monster list is pretty much the classic D&D bestiary, mindflayers and beholders included. The three kinds of mages are based on the White, Black, and Red mages of Dragonlance. Bahamut and Tiamat are just reprising their D&D roles. Sakaguchi and Kawazu were fans of tabletop RPGs before they ever made Final Fantasy, and had wanted to make an RPG even before Dragon Quest was ever released.

 

[Deleted member 5535]

Because they were inspired by Western RPGs at the time and then other came later and were inspired by those

 

[Leek]

Really? It seems to me like high school settings are everywhere these days.

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Other than Persona and Blue Reflection, what else has there been recently?

 

[MidiPour]

Other than Persona and Blue Reflection, what else has there been recently?

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I was thinking of games like Tokyo Xanadu, Trail of Cold Steel, Caligula, Yokai Watch, and #FE, but some of them either simply take place in a modern setting or gave me the impression of being in high school (Trails isn't in high school after further inspection). I played a 7 hours of Yokai Watch 2 and you go through the school as a dungeon, but I'm not sure if you actually attend classes later on. The new Vanillaware game looks like it takes place in high school, with mechas.

Strictly speaking, Persona is probably the only real obvious one that comes to many people's mind. Though after doing a bit of research, high schools aren't as common as I thought it would be.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Final Fantasy from 1 to 6.

 

[1upsuper]

Dragon Quest, the father of the console JRPG, was heavily inspired by Ultima, which was in turn inspired by Tolkien and D&D. There's always a pretty clear thread leading back to Tolkien and D&D.

 

[Dekuman]

I believe computer RPGs were just digital versions of D&D which are set in a European fantasy setting. JRPGs were heavily inspired by both D&D and early computer RPGs

 

[WestEgg]

Probably because JRPGs are derived from tabletop RPGs, most prominently Dungeons and Dragons which assumes a stock medieval european (ish) fantasy setting, so the earliest games (FF, DQ, etc) reflected that, and via momentum and inspiring other series, kept the trend going, even while series like FF started veering away from that.

 

[Sylmaron]

Because real castles are cool they are also cool in games.

 

[Instro]

Most early JRPGs were designed by people who were fans of tabletop game and early WRPGs like Ultima. A lot of it was emulation of what was already popular/being done in the medium on PCs and early home consoles.

 

[Kcannon]

Nowadays, it feels like JRPGs are more into Urban Fantasy and Science Fantasy.

At least the more notable ones.

 

[Gezech]

I like to think that some jRPGs (especially those that have steampunk elements and stuff like airships) drew inspiration from the 1984 Ghibli film Laputa: Castle in the Sky which in turn took inspiration from Gulliver's Travels, Welsh mining towns and Hayao Miyazaki's own 1978 series Future Boy Conan (which was an adaptation of The Incredible Tide by Alexander Key).

 

[Glio]

Dragon Quest was influenced by Wizardry and Ultima, which in turn were influenced by Dungeon and Dragons.

 

[EvilRedEye]

Isn't it partly because that was what was established to be commercially successful early on? I believe the original Star Ocean stuck quite close to traditional fantasy despite the fact that it was supposed to be a sci-fi JRPG because they weren't sure the market would be interested in sci-fi.

 

[Cameron122]

I'd like more fantasy worlds based in antiquity

 

[Garlador]

Japan had a TON of Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy games in the 70s and 80s that paved the way towards a lot of cultural love for that approach to fantasy, not just in JRPGs but in their anime as well.

Record of Lodoss War was basically a manga/anime created by people who just wanted to chronicle their D&D sessions together, for instance.

 

[Skyfireblaze]

It's something that bugs me too but thankfully the variety has increased lately. Other people have answered why already and I don't have much knowledge about that but I know that I'm overstuffed on the generic western Tolkin fantasy setting. With JRPGs I can still tolerate them as they usually have their own twist and atmosphere about them, for example Star Ocean or the Tales of series but if it's 100% run of the mill dragons and fantasy I audibly groan by now. That said Dragons Dogma actually held my interest very well, it just felt "different" but yeah that's not a JRPG.

Also when everything is said and done I urge you to play Ar Tonelico 1 & 2 OP! Then if you like them, read up or watch the video summary on Ciel no Surge and play Ar No Surge afterwards. They are all part of the EXA.PICO universe and say what you will about the games themselves and the characters but the world and worldbuilding is just so interesting and mindbogglingly well crafted and unique!

Aside from that we need more JRPGs like Grandia 1 too, such a well realized post middle-ages setting but I suppose the Trails series has that covered.

 

[Redcrayon]

Because the Middle Ages/Medieval Europe encompasses a thousand years of dozens of conflicting cultures, empires, ideas and technologies, locked in warfare that funded constantly advancing tech and shifts in weaponry, armour, siegeworks, tactics. That's what gives the depth of weapon variety etc, it's not as static as it often appears in fantasy worlds where castles and tech thrive untouched for a thousand years. There's a lot to choose from as a melting pot.

Even then, when an RPG is using bronze weapons through to late renaissance platemail, wooden palisade villages through to multi-tiered late medieval castles and character classes from Celtic-inspired berserkers through to crusader-knight-inspired paladins, you can add an extra thousand years on top of that. Add another thousand or more when they start adding in ideas from Ancient Greece, Persia and Egypt etc.

I get that the popular idea of medieval Europe is Knights/archers/castles but really rpgs tend to take from European history over thousands of years, blended together because spears and bows and shields are simple weapons, but even they saw a lot of change. It's not uncommon to see technologies thousands of years apart in an RPG that many players would describe as 'medieval Europe'.

Even Tolkien didn't base LOTR on the Middle Ages, each of his cultures has specific reference points, often hundreds of years apart. When fantasy media copies Tolkien, they blend his cultures into a stew of European (and beyond) influences that spans ten times the length of time the USA has been a country.

 

[Chocobo Blade]

Because medieval Europe to Asians is as exotic as ninjas and samurais to us gaijins.

 

[Tyaren]

Because medieval Europe to Asians is as exotic as ninjas and samurais to us gaijins.

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This. Japanese actually simply love the setting. It's exotic and charming to them. It has less to do with "cultural hegemony" as some here mentioned.
This little German town, that embodies the quintessential medievil fairy tale/fantasy image, is swarmed each year by many thousands of Japanese tourists. It's so popular most signs are bilingual: German and Japanese. You might have seen this place or heavy influences in many Japanese fantasy games, manga and anime: