Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Has Reignited Toxic JRPG Talking Points
Clair Obscur is great but please stop saying it's redefining a genre that you don't play.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the new megahit JRPG by French studio Sandfall Interactive, has taken the video game industry by storm. The game sits at a 92 average on Metacritic at the time of writing, making it the joint highest reviewed game of the year so far (alongside indie hit Blue Prince), and it has sold over 2 million copies. This number excludes any players that may have tried the game via Xbox's game pass service, which the game released on day-and-date.
I have long been a fan of the genre of JRPGs and have wanted to write an article for a while discussing the changing perceptions over the years around Japanese RPGs, the history of dismissive at best and racist at worst coverage of many of these games historically, and how a growing number of games made by western studios fitting the style and tone of the JRPG genre is emblematic of a more inclusive shift within gamers, games media and the games industry towards the genre.
Because of this, the release of Clair Obscur was very exciting for me. A 'Triple A'-feeling RPG, made by a French studio and heavily promoted by Xbox of all companies, that was not just turn-based but proudly taking its notes from the JRPG genre felt like a landmark moment in these shifting tides. I had planned to make my review of Clair Obscur more of a lens with which to examine this longstanding and everchanging dynamic between the JRPG genre and the western games industry.
Unfortunately, as I was starting to play through the game at launch, Discourse™ began to happen. While a lot of this discourse ties back into my initially planned review of Clair Obscur, it is starting to become so toxic around the game itself that I don't think it is fair anymore to tie my review of a game that I am enjoying to what is now going to be a quite frustrated analysis of its role in the discussion of JRPGs.
So, I'm sectioning off my full review of Clair Obscur to a separate article (it will be in a few weeks, still need to finish the game) and this article will be a look at western discourse around the JRPG genre and how Clair Obscur fits into it all.
A quick note
You may have noticed that I have already referred to Clair Obscur as a JRPG multiple times despite it being a French-made game. Simply put, I view JRPG as a genre distinction that is more about the style and design choices that a game makes than attributing the locality of the team that made it. These games are typically turn-based (though there are exceptions) and revolve around having a small and diverse party of characters that level up and gain various spells and abilities tied to that process, with a strong emphasis on a linear narrative structure that is the primary driving force of the game.
This is opposed to CRPGs, like Baldur's Gate or Fallout, that typically have branching narratives that are controlled or greatly influenced by player choices. These games typically also take notes from Table-Top RPG systems. And so, the term JRPG in this article can refer to games like Deltarune or Chained Echoes but not a game like Elden Ring even though the latter is the only Japanese made game of the three.
If I am specifically talking about Japanese made games I will use the phrase 'Japanese RPG' as I want to specifically center the Japanese-ness of those games in the discussion. And this description would include something like Elden Ring but would exclude a game like Deltarune as Toby Fox is an American.
I will expand on why I think this is the best approach later but for now just remember that this is what I mean when I use these terms as people tend to bring their own interpretation of what the phrase 'JRPG' should mean into these discussions.
Some Japanese Developers Don't Like the Term JRPG
In a 2023 interview with Youtuber and games critic Skill Up, during a preview event for Final Fantasy 16, Naoki 'Yoshi P' Yoshida, the Director of both Final Fantasy 14 and 16, made note of a disdain towards the term JRPG.
"When we create games, we don't go into them thinking we are creating JRPGs...The term JRPG is used by western media rather than users and media in Japan... the first time we heard it it was like a discriminatory term."
After this Yoshida goes on to describe how the discussion of what a JRPG is would often devolve into discussion that was "compartmentalising what we were creating into a JRPG box" even though "that's not how we go into creating." Also noting that the perception was of games that are "anime like, these teenagers saving the world, 'very JRPG'."
Although the origins of the term JRPG come from a desire to differentiate the style of games like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger from those of Western-made RPGs like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and the Summoner series, that were beginning to make the transition from PC to consoles during the PS2 era, the corruption of the term throughout the 2000s was stark.
'Western Game, Shit Game'
To demonstrate much of the absurdity around the term JRPG I'm going to temporarily flip the script. Similar to the use of JRPG to delineate design choices in the RPG genre that are more common in games made in Japan, Japanese players have historically used the phrase 洋ゲー(Yō Gē), meaning 'Western Game', as a catch all term for games made in America and Europe. This term encapsulates anything from Baldur's Gate to Call of Duty and was long used in a similarly dismissive way to present all of these games as inferior to those made by Japanese studios. In fact, the phrase 「洋ゲー、くそゲー 」("Yō Gē, Kuso Gē") or 'Western Game, Shit Game' has long been used by Japanese gamers to deride the perceived quality of all games made outside of Japan. Games that historically have had difficulty penetrating the Japanese gaming market.
JRPG then, became a similarly derisive term used to dismiss the percieved quality of Japanese games. And while you may say that 'atleast JRPG is talking about a specific type of Japanese game' the use of JRPG over the years has been spotty at best. A series like Fire Emblem, from a mechanical standpoint, shares much more in common with XCOM than it does Dragon Quest but due to its anime aesthetic it is much more likely to be associated with the latter than the former. Even Final Fantasy 16, the game being discussed when Yoshida expressed his issues with the term JRPG, was pretty blatantly trying to be an action game and not an RPG. In fact, it could be argued that a mainline numbered entry of Final Fantasy has not been a JRPG since 2013's Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, and yet some critical reviews felt the need to point out that it "makes for a poor JRPG".
The 2000s were really bad for JRPG discourse
(Quick note: A lot of the history I'm about to pull for the 2000s era of JRPG discourse comes from this phenomenal article by Kazuma Hashimoto on Polygon and you should go read it. It's much more comprehensive than I have time for in this article)
With the western gaming industry moving away from RPGs on the whole in the mid-2000s in favour of shooters and action games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, video games began to center a very particular type of cishet and white masculinity. This era is defined by stoic manly men who were above trivial things like "emotions" and western games media became hostile to anything else.
In contrast to the rough and tumble aesthetic seen as desirable in the west, particularly by male players, Japanese male beauty standards preferred the イケメン (Ikemen) archetype. Ikemen being a term used to describe a particular type of handsome guy who is clean shaven, charming and has a certain boyish charm to them. The Ikemen is much more Timothée Chalamet than it is Jason Mamoa. Combined with the heavy influence of Visual Kei, a subgenre of Japanese rock that focuses on eccentric outfits and androgyny, on the work of Tetsuya Nomura, the lead character designer of the Final Fantasy games throughout the 2000s and Director of Kingdom Hearts, the perception of the JRPG protagonist is one of the effeminate and flamboyant.
As noted by Kazuma Hashimoto, reviews of JRPGs in this era were often filled with racism and homophobia. G4TV, an American television network focused on covering video games were notoriously bad on this front. Their 2006 review of Baten Kaitos: Origins developed by tri-Crescendo and Monolith Soft (makers of Star Ocean and Xenoblade respectively) opens with a fearmongering joke about the great replacement theory (a conspiracy theory that the goal of immigration is to replace white people with people of colour) and features an uncomfortable running gag around comparing the protagonists name 'Sagi' to the drink Sake, which the presenter mispronounces as 'Sakee.' The review is snide about common JRPG design choices before ending on dismissively saying "It's an RPG on the Gamecube, 3 out of 5."
Meanwhile, G4's review of Final Fantasy 12, although much more positive in nature than the review of Baten Kaitos: Origins, still takes time to make note of how JRPGs have become associated with androgyny while overlaying an image of Final Fantasy X's protagonist Tidus, whose design is prototypically 'Ikemen' before calling Final Fantasy 12 protagonist Vaan "disturbingly girlish."
And this had reverberating effects throughout the Japanese game's industry. Final Fantasy has largely moved towards being an action game series, even the more JRPG-like Final Fanatasy 7 remakes include real time action combat, putting it in line with Kingdom Hearts as what I would describe as an action-JRPG. Furthermore, Resident Evil moved away from the camp B-movie horror of the earlier entries in favour of increasingly serious and militaristic games, resulting in a Resident Evil 6 game that was widely panned by players and critics alike.
Most harrowingly though was the case of DmC: Devil May Cry. Despite Devil May Cry 4 being a commercial and critical success, the decision was made to reboot the series in order to chase a percieved wider western audience. In a now infamous GDC panel, members of Ninja Theory used images to demonstrate what they declared protagonist Dante to be and not be, one particular slide showing that Dante is not Visual Kei but is a cool and tough western youth.
The 2010s were a bit better for JRPG discourse
Ironically, around the time that many Japanese game studios would begin to move away from this specific idea of Japanese aesthetics, Japanese cultural touchstones began to get more recognition in the west. While I can tell you from first-hand experience that it was by no means cool to be into these things as a teenager in the early 2010s, anime in paricular began to gain a lot of traction among younger people. 2014's Attack on Titan in particular feeling like a watershed moment for the mainstreaming of anime in the west.
It would not be long after this that JRPGs and Japanese RPGs alike would follow suit in gaining popularity. Dark Souls, though based much more in western-gothic fantasy, was catapulting Fromsoftware to the forefront of the game's industry with massive sales success in the mid 2010s. Undertale became the first major western game styled after the JRPGs of the 90s to get major success (Steamspy estimates over 5,000,000 people own the game on Steam alone).
2015 would also be the start of distinctly Japanese feeling Japanese RPGs making a comeback in terms of western critical acclaim. This was in thanks to games published by Sega. First in 2015, Ryu Ga Gotoku studios' Yakuza 0, a prequel story to the long running Yakuza franchise, would see critical and audience acclaim and reinvigorate the series into one of Sega's biggest properties. The studio having now released 12 games in this style in the last decade, including 2 that have turned the series into a typical turn-based JRPG. Atlus would also see big success as the studio behind the critically acclaimed Persona 5 in 2016, picking up a nomination for 2017 game of the year at The Game Awards (following a delayed international release).
While much better, not all was perfect. Internet funny man, game critic and owner of independent games publisher Big Mode videogamedunkey has a now infamous video about Monolith Soft's 2017 release Xenoblade Chronicles 2. In it he predominantly and comedically takes issue with the game's objectification of women alongside other gripes that are more general things about the game's systems. Ultimately he declares the game "weirdo shit." Dunkey's critiques of the game's misogyny is extremely valid but the video had a ripple effect that has made any online discussion about the Xenoblade franchise online very toxic. People have latched on to the valid criticism that the misogyny in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is "weirdo shit" as a way to continue to disparage not only other much less misogynistic games in the franchise but JRPGs as a whole.
The 2020s have been very good for JRPGs
Despite this, JRPGs on the whole have continued to blossom into the 2020s. Although The Game Awards remain a ceremony that favours the western third-person action game above all else, the 2020s have seen 4 JRPGs be nominated for game of the year, something only Persona 5 managed in the 2010s, and a Japanese RPG in Elden Ring picked up Game of the Year in 2022. 2024 in particular was a fantastic year for JRPGs with the release of both Metaphor Re:Fantazio by Atlus and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth by Square Enix that both got nominated for a Game of the Year award.
Outside of 'Triple A' game development, western indie games have become a phenomenal haven for games in the JRPG genre. 2020's OMORI by OMOCAT has crossed over 1 million copies sold, 2022 saw the release of Matthias Linda's Chained Echoes and 2023 saw the release of Sea of Stars from the Quebec-based Sabotage Studio. These games showing how those who grew up with a love for the JRPG genre in the west have grown up to create the next generation of JRPGs. And this ignores the wide array of smaller JRPG-styled indie games such as Jack Move and Keylocker that have released in recent years too.
Using the term JRPG for these games, despite their western origin, I believe is an important step in destigmatising a term that is unlikely to be going anywhere any time soon. Ascribing the J in JRPG to represent the country of origin of a set of design ideas that have formed a genre that anyone can contribute to, divorces the term from a nation of creators that both do not want to be pigeon-holed into a 'JRPG shaped box', regardless of their creative intentions, and disarms the ability for the term to be used as a cudgel against Japanese games and developers.
I've had to read some really dumb stuff since Clair Obscur came out and now its your problem
It is in this context that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was revealed at Xbox's 'Not-E3' presentation in 2024. A shockingly high-budget looking turn-based game by the French Studio Sandfall Interactive. Xbox promoting this game at a time where they have been actively persuing increasing their market share in Japan and the rest of Asia. From its first trailer the inspirations of Persona's stylish menus, Final Fantasy 10's speed-based turn order and even Sekiro's parry based action combat were confidently displayed. This game was clearly aiming to be a love letter to both JRPGs, and Japanese RPGs.
Upon releasing, Clair Obscur has become the new darling of the game's industry. With a core team of just 30 people (though with the help of lots of outsourcing) a musician found on Soundcloud, a writer found on Reddit, an all star cast featuring the likes of Ben Starr, Andy Serkis, Charlie Cox and Jennifer English and a clear love for the JRPG genre, it is clear to understand how it has become so beloved. The game is very good and deserves the plaudits its getting.
However, to say that some of the headlines coming out about Clair Obscur are a little much, would be a mighty understatement. Former Bioware writer David Gaider called the game 'kind of to JRPGs what Baldur's Gate 3 was to CRPGs' ascribing a level of quality to the game that places it above all JRPGs that have come before. Joel Franey at GamesRadar+ wrote an article titled "After years of despising JRPGs, Clair Obscur has finally brought me around by ditching the standard cast of tedious teenagers" that weaponizes Clair Obscur to attack the entire JRPG genre for not being grown up enough. While Eric Switzer at TheGamer declares "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Will Make Turn-Based RPGs Mainstream Again" and in a separate article calls it the "Dark Souls of Turn-Based RPGs" while dismissing the entire genre as "Tired."
Even ignoring that Baldur's Gate 3 would also fit into the label of "Turn-Based RPG" and has sold over 15 million copies, JRPGs have been successful in the mainstream of the game industry for at least the last decade on multipe fronts. Of course the aforementioned work of Atlus and RGG studios has been great, Dragon Quest 11 has sold over 7 million copies, and there has been a litany of other turn-based JRPGs that have been successful such as Octopath Traveler, Xenoblade Chronicles and Shin Megami Tensei, that have sold in the millions.
While I won't assume malice to any of these specific articles, there has been an undercurrent to a lot of this discourse around Clair Obscur, from people who have not historically enjoyed the JRPG genre, positioning the game as the answer to the genres woes and often citing reasons that are adjacent to much of the negative discourse around the genre from the 2000s. The remark about 'tedious teenagers' in particular seems willfully ignorant of many great characters of JRPGs past and present and tying the age of characters into a limiting factor for the potential quality of the writing, plays into narratives around JRPGs not being manly enough.
The most frustrating part of this discourse is that Clair Obscur itself is a game deeply reverential to and in love with the genre. You can feel every game it has pulled from as an influence, for every design decision big and small. Stylish UI and guns from Persona, level design straight out of Final Fantasy 13, speed-based turn order from FF10, stacking AP from Bravely Default and I could go on. But despite this clear love, Clair Obscur is now being used like a cudgel in the same way the term JRPG was to deride years long gripes with a genre.
So Now What
JRPGs have a long and storied history and are one of the richest genres of games that we have. Clair Obscur is a great take on the genre and I hope that it encourages more people to dive into the worlds of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Like A Dragon and Chained Echoes (seriously play Chained Echoes) etc. And I'm not trying to gatekeep the genre from new players who may not have vibed with the general tone of the games being produced throughout the 2000s but I do ask that you think twice about making sweeping statements about JRPGs based on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 if you are not truly familiar with those whose blood paved the path it walks.
