This weeks show starts off with a lengthy discussion of recent RPG news. This weeks announcement of Etrian Odyssey III has Jeremy excited, it sounds like Atlus are putting a lot of effort into the sequel. The crew are pretty universally annoyed at the treatment of the Yakuza series in the west. They feel the fact that the games are story driven RPGs isn’t properly indicated to those who may be interested in the games.

The main topic this week is the semantics of what makes an RPG. Jeremy feels this is something they should come to some sort of consensus on for the future of the show. There is alot of discussion about the differences between JRPGs and western RPGs, more emphasis on a linear story and character is widely agreed to be what defines a JRPG. Western RPGs differ in allowing the player to make lots of decisions about the character they play and how their story plays out. The guys get down to a lot of the minutiae of RPGs during the debate, trying to determine when a game is an RPG proper or just has “RPG elements”.

Covered games and topics: RPG news, Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Level 5, World of Warcraft, Sunsoft, What is an RPG

Jeremy Parish, Kat Bailey, Travis Williams, and Christian Nutt ask themselves, “What is an RPG?” It’s a soul-searching, history-spanning semantics argument for the ages. Also: Talking about Etrian Odyssey III and the rebirth ( ? ) of Nihon Telenet.

Runtime – 1:37:42

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