It is something of a revelation, but it also you know... kind of makes sense. It is weird that we define entire genres of art not by their characteristics but rather by their source country. It's why I define things like Avatar and Arcane as anime - because they look and act like it.

There definitely are design differences between Final Fantasy and Skyrim, but perhaps they should be defined in terms of what they focus on. Like, the JRPG could become the Narrative or Cinematic RPG, because they do tend to be more linear and story-focused (and that's not a bad thing).

Huh... I guess I always looked at it similar to food - specifying the origin of the style isn't indicative of quality, just composition and flavor.

That said... fifteen years ago feels extremely recent for that kind of Japanophobia.

I guess it makes sense for food because most food is grouped by regional cuisines, for everyone.

Whereas with video games, we kind of arbitrarily decided that this one genre is Japanese, despite Japanese studios being hugely influential in many of the best games across all genres. Like, we don't call Mario a JPlatformer, we don't call Castlevania Japanese Metroid, and we don't call Blazblue a JFighter.

I had never thought about it but it makes sense. And it's a little scary really how easily terms slip into our general lexicon without ever really pondering how it can actually be received by the subject of the term.

A good learning opportunity to improve ourselves.

This is true. Nobody called the PS1 classic RPGs JRPGs 20 years ago. That term started during the PS3 & 360 era. I use RPG.

True, but that's a matter of distinction. If two regional variants of something aren't significantly different from one another, specifying the region doesn't make sense. It doesn't offer anything. There are plenty of foods which we don't assign origins to because they're generic such that no significant regional styles have developed, or they've become so "universal" that specifying a style is only done when called for, not in general.

Game genre's are similar - no, there is no distinctly JFighter or JPlatformer, but that's because there's no significant variation on the matter. Either there aren't enough entries to constitute a separate genre or subgenre, or there's simply not enough of a difference to separately categorize it. A whole genre will have multiple series from multiple producers, which the JRPG qualifies for. Mario, Castlevania, Metroid - these are just singular franchises, while the JRPG has a plethora of IPs, multiple similar touchstones, and style that is both distinct from western RPGs, and generally shared among most entries.

It's a legitimate distinction with a significant presence in the gaming landscape.

Buuuuuuut... as with all things, especially linguistic, tradition has outsized influence. We call things JRPGs because we've called them that for decades now, and will continue calling them that for as long as civilization stands. But... that's not a bad thing. It's a descriptive name that sets a reasonable expectation, same as any genre.

Seems kind of hypocritical on Japan's part because they use terms like Jpop and JRock.

Do they or are those terms people outside of Japan came up with as well?

Japanese rock (Japanese: 日本のロック, Hepburn: Nihon no Rokku), sometimes abbreviated to J-rock (ジェイ・ロック, Jei Rokku), 

Was it ever used to make fun of the japanese though? I don't know about the US, but at least in my country, since the first time I've heard it, it was associated to the unique visuals, storytelling and gameplay. You had Fallout and Star Ocean, both RPGs but also completely different from each other. One of them would be classified as CRPG and the other, JRPG.

I can honestly see why. To them it’s just an RPG. Why the need to categorize it that way? I’ve actually never thought about it that way but can absolutely see how that’s detrimental.

I always saw it as a positive. Japan made them popular, and when i saw jrpg i was much more interested than just rpg.

Of course, i am not japanese game dev but i seriously saw it a kudos to them for accomplishing something interesting and different enough to warrant its own category.

Saddens me that it was seen as derogatory. It was never my intent when i used the term.

Yeah this surprised me, but I suppose it's similar to how KMMO is often used derisively of korean style mmos.

This is correct. CRPG was a term first used in the late 70's and early 80's to differentiate between computer role playing games and table top games like DnD. By the time FF1 and Dragon Warrior hit the NES in the US, the term CRPG was no longer used. And the RPG moniker was applied to video games.

The big change came with Bioware. Their early RPGs were vastly different than the (now combined) Square Enix style of RPGs, and the term CRPG came back to the US gamer lexicon. JRPG began being used to describe the more linear style of most big name RPGs from Japanese studios. Whatever slight they felt was perceived, and unfortunate. Because I highly doubt any slight was intended.

It's not, though, because a JRPG is vastly different in scope compared to a normal RPG. JRPGs are incredibly linear with no meaningful choices, while RPGs have freedom and consequences. It doesn't make JRPGs worse than RPGs, but they are different. The only thing that is shared between them is story focus and a leveling system. But those things alone don't make a game an RPG, otherwise games like God of War and the recent Assassin's Creed games could be called RPGs, which they are not.

In the west it was never a negative term. It also dates back to the early 90’s. It was a category of games, and if you liked RPGs it was the best category of the genre.

That said, in the late PS3 days it did become somewhat synonymous with cheap anime crap game on the PSN marketplace. But broadly speaking it was still a positive term.