Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida reveals his resentment towards the term jRPG. The developer believes that defining games in this way can be discriminatory.
“jRPG” is a term many of us use often. It’s used as a short name to describe a particular style of RPG design that originated in Japan in the last century. However, it turns out that many developers in the land of the rising sun do not want their productions to be called jRPG. Among those who dislike the term is the producer of final fantasy 16Naoki Yoshida.
jRPG was a “discriminatory term”
On the occasion of the game’s promotional campaign, Yoshida, accompanied by Koji Fox (localization director, who translated the statements of the developer), took part in an interview with the Skill-Up channel. During the interview, the producer of Final Fantasy XVI was asked if jRPGs have an advantage over modern action games.
In response Yoshida noted that the term “jRPG” is mostly used by Western media. The developer also added that the aforementioned name “started appearing regularly online 15 years ago or earlier”, and that it was a “discriminatory term” for Japanese developers at the time..
“One of the things he (Yoshida- ndlr.) wants to convey is that when we develop games, we don’t think of them in terms of jRPGs. We are creating an RPG title. The term jRPG is used more by Western media than by users and media in Japan.
It depends who you ask, but about 15 years ago the term first appeared and when we heard, it was a discriminatory term for us, as if we were being ridiculed for making these games. For some developers, the term jRPG may be something that causes bad feelings because of it.
For many developers in Japan, this was no compliment. We understand that lately jRPG has better connotations and is used as something positive, but we still remember times when it was used in a negative context,” Yoshida’s words translated.
Yoshida sparked a debate
Given how ubiquitous the term is in the industry, it’s hard to expect it to suddenly fall out of use. However, Yoshida sparked an interesting online discussion with his comments.
Journalist Alex Donaldson somewhat agreed with the producer, saying that the term “jRPG” is primarily intended to draw attention to feature solutions, game systems, or game themes, later adding that it might be useful to think of a new term that won’t evoke such extreme emotions in the Land of the Rising Sun.
jRPGs aren’t just about Asia
It should also be added, as rightly noted by the editor of TheGamer, among others, that games classified as jRPG are no longer the exclusive prerogative of Japanese developers. Such games are also developed by western creators. A perfect example of this is last year’s RPG Chained Echoes, designed by Matthias Linda and published by Deck13 Interactive from Germany.
Finally, remember that Final Fantasy XVI will debut on June 22, 2023 on the PlayStation 5 console. Later, the game should also arrive on PC.