What is a JRPG? Japanese role-playing games and how they began

JRPG stands for Japanese role-playing game. It is the name given to role-playing games made in Japan, a tradition that grew mainly on consoles and that has its own style compared with Western RPGs.

Typical traits

• Turn-based combat chosen from menus, as in Dragon Quest
• A party of several characters, often with classes that can be changed, as in Dragon Quest III (1988)
• A strong focus on story and emotional involvement
• Character progression through levels or, in some games such as Final Fantasy II (1988), skills that improve as you use them

How they began

Japan’s first role-playing games appeared in 1982 and were experimental. The big step came with Dragon Quest, released by Enix in 1986, which combined the overhead exploration of Ultima with the menu-based combat of Wizardry and became the template for future console RPGs. Its art was by Akira Toriyama. In 1987, Square released Final Fantasy on NES, with a character creation system and side-view battles that soon became the norm.

How they differ from Western RPGs

Japanese console RPGs were more streamlined than Western computer RPGs such as Wizardry, Ultima or Might & Magic. Dragon Quest was designed for players who did not know Dungeons & Dragons and to avoid hundreds of hours of repetitive fighting.

Action RPGs and other branches

Japan also pioneered other branches early on: Dragon Slayer (1984) is considered the first action RPG, followed by Hydlide and Ys, and Megami Tensei (Atlus, 1987) introduced recruiting monsters through demon summoning, an idea later games would build on. If you like demanding combat, see also our guide to soulslikes.