hmm kotor is awesome have to try out this jade empire

When I think RPG I automatically think turn-based. In fact, games like Ys I don't even consider to be RPGs in the first place; they're action games that just happen to borrow a few (non-genre-defining) elements of the RPG genre.

In particular, if someone is looking for an RPG to play, I would not recommend a Ys game to them, no matter how good.

With this said, the Ys games do make good action games. Boss fights are well done (excluding some of the early ones), though I don't like the rule changes that some installments have with them (like not being able to access the inventory, or Ys I not allowing rings to work during them).

Two problems with that:
1. America is a continent, not a country.
2. The terms JRPG and WRPG don't have anything to do with the place the CRPG was made; it's more a categorization of the style of game. So yes, you can have JRPGs made outside of Japan (aside from Septerra Core, I'd put Ikenfell in this category, and if you count Japanese-style SRPGs, I'd also put Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark in there), and you can have WRPGs made in Japan (the Romancing SaGa series comes pretty close here).

Thinking that was rather a tongue in cheek comment?

Drop force powers, go Kung Fu. Way of the open palm/closed fist, the donkey quest, drunken fighting style, arenas, a changed play in the city, etc. Tons of interestin things to see.

Necroing.

Not quite. FF9 was made in Hawaii by Japanese and some American gamedevs. You can view a list of non-Japanese looking names outside the localization and customer support staff here. The generic JRPG genre is becoming useless in categorizing newer games because Japanese gamedevs recruit non-Japanese talent (and other non-Japanese companies inwards to Japan). Another example is Astria Ascending, which is primarily made by a Canadian or French indie studio with writing and music composition from two former SE Japan staff.

Also, wanted to say thanks to servobeupstry, Lifthrasil, and Zimerius for their contributions to my list of loosely-defined JRPGs on GOG. I have the following to add not mentioned in this thread:

JRPGs

Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited

Japanese-X JRPGs

Astria Ascending (TBA)

Non-Japanese JRPGs

Battle Chasers: Nightwar
Bug Fables
Celestian Tales
Mistover
Undertale
Wolfstride (TBA)
YIIK

Japanese ARPGs

Akiba's Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed (TBA), Undead & Undressed (2015)
Assault Spy
Baldr Sky
Bloodstained

Non-Japanese JARPGs

CrossCode
Indivisible

Non-Japanese JSRPGs (FFT Clones)

Banner Saga series
Children of Zodiarcs
Fell Seal
Regalia
Sunrider series

EDIT - moved Battle Chasers to non-Japanese JRPGs.

We could use more necromancers in JRPGs....

And for people who are more concerned with DRM-free, this site has (as of this post) 26 JRPGs (most if not all of which are DRM-free). There's alot more if you're into stuff for those 18 and above (yes, RPGs, not just vidual novels).

And i hear there's plenty on itch, as well.

In the Japanese ARPGs category, if it includes games like Ys, I note that the SNK collection includes Crystalis, which is clearly the same genre.

Saviors of Sapphire Wings/Stranger of Sword City Revisited is in the same genre as Elminage Gothic.

Thanks for the recommendations. If only itch.io had better reinforcement of tagging games as DRM-free - out of 1265 JRPGs, only 4 of them are tagged DRM-free.

Thanks for the addition. And yes, I think it's fair to say these games, Wizardry, and Mary Skelter belong in the Dungeon Crawler genres where progressing through dungeons is the main focus. Some of the art styles are anime enough that I wouldn't classify them as a Western-based, though. Though I'm not an expert on this genre at all.

So far, no issues with dlsite, and i've bought quite a few games there, recently. There are games with DRM in them, but dlsite is very clear and upfront about that. Moreover, from what i've read on some of the DRMs being used, they're very, very easy to break, not that it excuses anything. Fortunately, though, almost all is DRM-free.

Their ancestry can be chased back to Wizardry in a way that games that evolved from Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy can't. For example, you have things like random bonus point rolls (you roll a random number of bonus points that you distribute between stats) as well as some spell that is similar to the MAHAMAN spell of classic Wizardry; those are generally not mechanics you see in conventional JRPGs.

Of course, this doesn't mean there's no JRPG influence; in Stranger of Sword City Revisited, there's a bit of Dragon Quest 3 influence (the class change system feels a bit like DQ3 with the halving of HP/MP), and the Life Point system of that game reminds me of SaGa 1 (complete with the heart meter; note that it's specifically the SaGa 1 version that this reminds me of, and not the LP of Romancing SaGa 2 or later games).

Very interesting to attach this discussion as if there were actual genetics involved...

That said, the first thing a new daddy adds is personality. Have you seen the characters and tropes? From a strictly gameplay perspective, just about everything comes from D&D.

Another game on GOG that hasn't been mentioned yet is Ara Fell. Not from Japan itself perhaps but definitely inspired by older JRPGs. I enjoyed this one a lot.

Yeah, GOG's sleeping on Japan for sure. The official 東方 games at this point are DRM-free on dlsite and that means that ZUN could strike a deal with a translator to be selling them here on GOG. Not an RPG, but GOG could get that and get JRPGs from Japan as well.

Yes, I agree. I'm not how much effort it'd be for GOG to create a Japanese bizdev team. But I certainly seen an opportunity to cut out the bilingual publishers using the 28-42% and 42-28% (GOG-adjusted) model to one that looks like 60-40% between the gamedev and GOG with that extra 10% going into localization and support.

Of course, Playism also died a couple months ago, so it's very possible the market demand for Japan-exclusive games isn't very high and GOG hasn't yet hit critical mass to make this effort economically feasible.

Well, this is where it gets interesting. The big indies like 洞窟物語 (Cave Story) and 東方 (touhou) have fanbases that are more than happy to translate for free. Someone like Zun could easily contract out to, say, 10 translators to get the games for free in exchange for translating them and then uploading to GOG. Or, we could just do things the GOG way, have them get permission to sell the game with the free translation packs online which they get permission from the translators to do. Not that different from GOG selling Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines with the fan fixes of Deus Ex with the mod that comes with that one. GOG already has a history of doing what is necessary, but they haven't done it in this case for some reason. The 東方 fanbase in particular is known for having trouble getting things working, and even more trouble doing things legally. Given the amount of 東方 related memes, i'd say that's quite a sizeable market GOG's sleeping on, and if they can get that set up then getting some other games over to GOG would be a matter of doing a similar process and that would very quickly turn into JRPGs from Japan, shmups of other types, as well as other games. Could you imagine seeing Cave Story+ on GOG?