Here's Why You Didn't Like Final Fantasy XIII: A Primer on the JRPG vs. Western RPG Debate

As an American gamer and a former high school exchange student who spent a year in Japan, I've been fascinated by some of the negative reviews of Square Enix's latest installment in the long-running Final Fantasy series. Among the most common complaints are things like linear level design, no real choices to customize your characters besides their equipment, and this 50 to 60 hour game's slow beginning. Many gamers are asking, "Why didn't they add more side quests early on?" or, "Why aren't there more little paths I can explore?"

These are legitimate concerns, and even those of us who really liked the game maybe wished for a little more freedom to explore at times, too, but very few seem to understand that what we might see as a negative, gamers in Japan, where the game was developed and for whom the developers were largely creating the game for, find these aspects very appealing.

What it comes down to is a simple cultural difference that has created two different genres under the name Role Playing Game: the JRPG, and the Western RPG. Final Fantasy XIII is very much a JRPG, created by Japanese developers for a Japanese audience. Other popular RPGs, like Mass Effect, its sequel, Mass Effect 2, and Fallout 3, were developed by American or Canadian developers for a largely North American and Western European market.

The key difference? Freedom to choose the path your game follows.

In the West, we like to be in control. We like to explore large, open worlds, create characters look like us, and decide whether or not we want to be a Paragon or a Renegade. Sure, a good story is important, too, but we would gladly sacrifice a bit in the story department just so we can buy a space hamster for our quarters on the Normandy or run around the nuclear wastelands wearing a giant 50's-style sun hat with our power armor.

On the flip side, Japanese gamers don't really want to bother with side quests, and they'd rather have a character who comes with the funky hair and interesting fashion choices. What's by far the most important aspect of an RPG for the Japanese market, though, is the story. They want that epic tale of a group of people thrown together by fate to fight the forces of evil. They want the stunning cinematics woven in between the battles.

So when Square Enix goes to make a game, they are going to stick to this formula, especially now with the advent of high-definition. FFXIII's creators have been very honest when asked about the linearity of the game - it's simply too time-consuming to create a game with that much visual detail to make it more open. If they had, it would have extended the already years-long development time, and they would have needed to cut something from the story in order to do so.

It's true, however, that in many ways the JRPG is an endangered species. The Japanese market is shrinking for home consoles (portables are a different matter - everyone and their great grandma has a DS in Japan!), whereas the North American and European markets continue to grow. That's why the developers chose the craft a battle system that required much less micromanagement compared to previous installments in the series. You'll notice that Bioware, the makers of Mass Effect, cut down on the micromanagement when it came to leveling up and equipping weapons and armor when they created Mass Effect 2, and on the whole it was a change many fans appreciated. For the past two Final Fantasies, Square Enix has ditched the turn-based model of FFX in favor of a real time system, and I think this was largely to appeal to Western audiences who are used to this type of gameplay.

When it all comes down to it, the cultural differences between Japan and the North American and European gaming markets can easily be seen in the review scores for Final Fantasy XIII; while English-language publications and websites gave the game a high score overall, some gave it less-than-stellar ratings precisely because they found the linearity and lack of choice to be boring. The Japanese gaming press had nothing but praise for this game, with one even rating it above a perfect score.

With this in mind, I can only say to those who gave it a bad score that they are perhaps being a little unfair. If you didn't like this game, there's a very high likelihood that you don't like JRPGs in general; in fact, some of the worst reviews came from notorious JRPG haters. (Yes, I mean you, Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation!) It's no different than if I were tasked with reviewing a Halo game: I wouldn't enjoy it much at all (and I don't enjoy Halo games) because I don't like First Person Shooters. Still, it would be unfair of me to call Halo a bad game based on that. It is an excellent example of what a First Person Shooter-style game should be.

That's what Final Fantasy XIII is - a Japanese RPG, through and through, and it's a shining example of what the genre can become.