A brief history of Japanese RPG innovations - The 80s

In this video we take a look at the most significant Japanese role playing games developed in the 80s that shaped the modern video game world.
We delve into the unique gameplay mechanics and innovative UI elements that JRPGs introduced or solidified in video games.
Games featured
------------------------------------
0:00 Final Fantasy XV (2016)
1982
3:00 Underground Exploration - Koei
3:13 Spy Daisakusen - Pony Canyon
3:25 Dragon & the princess - Koei
1983
3:42 Bokosuka Wars - ASCII Entertainment
4:11 Nobunaga's Ambition - Koei
1984
4:29 Dragon Buster - Namco
4:48 The tower of Druaga - Namco
5:28 Dragon Slayer - Nihon Falcom
5:50 Hydlide - T&E Soft
6:26 The Black Onyx - Bullet-Proof Software
1985
6:46 Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu - Nihon Falcom
8:08 Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness - T&E Soft
8:40 Dragon Quest - Enix
1986
11:22 The Return of Ishtar - Namco
11:46 WiBArm - Arsys Software
1987
12:49 Deadly Towers - Lenar
12:49 Rygar - Tecmo
13:31 Sorcerian - Nihon Falcom
14:00 Final Fantasy - Enix
14:51 Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei - Atlus
15:24 Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord - SEGA/KOGADO
15:38 Magic of Scheherazade - Culture Brain
16:05 Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - Konami
16:35 Ys - Falcom
17:38 Hydlide 3: The Space Memories - T&E Soft
18:20 Phantasy Star - SEGA
1988
19:36 Dragon Quest III - Enix
20:23 Final Fantasy II - Enix
21:31 Star Cruiser - Arsys Software
22:26 War of the Dead Part 2 - Fun Factory
22:43 XZR: Idols of Apostate - Telenet Japan
1989
23:12 Phantasy Star II - SEGA
23:52 Sweet Home - Capcom
24:16 Tengai Makyo: Ziria - Hudson Soft
24:47 Ys I & II - Nihon Falcom
26:04 Dungeon Explorer - Atlus
26:22 Final Fantasy Legend - Enix
26:55 River City Ransom - Technōs Japan
1990
27:34 Gate of Doom - Data East
27:47 46 Okunen Monogatari (E.V.O.: Search for Eden) - Almanic/Enix
28:04 Crossed Swords - Alpha Denshi
28:17 Snatcher - Konami (Hideo Kojima)
1991
29:01 Brandish - Nihon Falcom
29:17 Lord Monarch - Nihon Falcom
29:30 Arcus Odyssey - Wolf Team
Credits - Special thanks to all KZbinrs from which I took the necessary footage.

[@suiken3149]

Great video. Nice insight about JRPGs released in the 80's. Although you mispronounced some words like Ys (pronounced as ees) and eroge (eh-roh-geh, or just a short term of erotic game.) You also missed out another long-running franchise in Legend of Heroes, although Dragon Slayer is its predecessor.

[@Sushiperv]

Right, thanks for the heads up! About Ys I added the correct pronunciation in the captions. Also when I found out how these terms where correctly pronounced, I had already recorded the audio. Since the first Legend of Heroes game released in 1989 and the following ones on the 90s+ I'll be adding them in the next 90s video.

[@craiganderson7085]

As a long time RPG fan this video was great and incredibly well researched. Good work. Subscribed!

[@PiterMorbid]

One of the coolest videos I've seen lately

[@Praxeus7]

Great video. You deserve a ton of praise for what you did here. I really appreciate the detail and how you weaved it all together. Well done!

[@lazygamer4746]

Been playing jrpgs since the mid 80s. I've lived through it all. One day my experience and knowledge will be useful...right?

[@bestboutgaming3212]

Mother introduced the modern day JRPG setting which you still don't see a lot

[@fervcorsica3358]

Megami Tensei did it first and better

[@JoePescisAngryCousin]

Excellent video. The best I've seen on the subject

[@thomasffrench3639]

Great video, but I do feel like some games were missed. Destiny of an Emperor introduced a giant cast and had a creative gameplay with commanding troops, the Glory of Heracles games were the first to have breaking equipment, and I feel that Momotaro Densetsu should’ve been mentioned even if it was just a Dragon Quest clone, because it really showed how the formula could be replicated to such a big success.

[@phaethonvandoros6046]

that was very informative. I just realized that pokemon (yellow/red/blue) ripped every single features from previous RPGs. Keep it up Tasos!

[@beezerseamans115]

Pokémon was mostly innovative because of the trading system

[@pavlospolymenakos]

Excellent video!

[@SEGAClownboss]

28:20 - That's not Snatcher, that's SD Snatcher, and a completely different game. The first Snatcher was just a VN. Also Hideo Kojima had much less to do with the development of SD Snatcher.

[@Boujonzu]

had to check if anyone had mentioned thiss

[@JonKimMedia]

I can't believe this doesn't have more views. Excellent video! I loved the level of detail and sense of progression in the genre.

[@AutFaciam]

Nice work! I didn't know about the Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil connections/inspirations, very interesting!

[@CaptainStupendous]

Love this document video. I'm looking forward to the 90's!

[@Sushiperv]

It's coming! (Slower than expected)

[@orangutan-halibut-walrus]

extensive research. well done. keep it up man.

[@stelabouras]

Amazing video! Keep up the great work Sushi! 😊

[@Cugelclever]

Thanks for this great vid. Can't wait for the 2nd part.

[@Sushiperv]

It's in production :)

[@sabbathAndy]

love your vids bro, very on point and lots of work put in! 👍😊

[@jonathanplooij3666]

thanks for the video

[@coleowing]

Nice video. Very interesting information about the 80's.

[@igroteka90]

So many great games are missed... Too many action games, too little real classics. For example: "Poibos Part 1" by Zat-soft, "In The Phychic City" and "Kaleidoscope" by Hot-B - nice examples of early sci-fi JRPGs "Mugen no Shinzou" series, that affected heavily on Dragon Quest "Miracle Warriors (Haja no Fuuin)" came out not in 1987 (Master System), but in 1986 (PC-88). It's a nice example of pre-DQ gameplay. "Heracles no Eikou" - early DQ competitor with a very good adventure element. "Laplace no Ma" - a REAL survival horror predecessor, Sweet Home is just a child affected by it. "Indora no Hikari" - first CLASSIC turn-based JRPG without random encounters. "Momotarou Densetsu" - high quality DQ-clone, humor & japanese folklore. "Hoshi wo Miro Hito" - infamous "worst game ever" JRPG (with a great potential) "Jaiseiken Necromancer" - first 16-bit console JRPG "Last Armageddon" - early brutal post-apocalyptic JRPG with a brilliant plot. "Kaijuu Monogatari" - open-world heavy freedom DQ clone. And I still don't touch 1989...

[@Sushiperv]

Whoa! Thanks for the extensive list. I don't know nearly any of them! Definitely gonna look them up :) Most of the games in my video though are somewhat commercial successes / more known to the general population. I do not examine the origins of JRPGS but what elements some of the titles innovated on and brought fourth to the video game industry so that they have been standardized, like for example the health bar.

[@skalitstudio2208]

just finished Xanadu, what a great game! i recommend the Saturn version, it aged really well.

[@EnriqueMartinez_jp]

Very nice job:)

[@GeoAnas]

EPIC!

[@MrCamel254]

Just a friendly tip, for your future videos you might wanna bump down the music volume a little bit. At times its hard to understand you.

[@Sushiperv]

Thanks, I noticed that after I uploaded the video. The next videos (90s) have better audio. For this purpose too I started creating subtitles for my videos, also because english is not my native language (shocker I know :) )

[@SADDANIEL]

great job!

[@Sushiperv]

Thanks :)

[@emmastarr5242]

Nice World of Longplays footage, mate. ;)

[@Demonskunk]

Very nice video! But Ys is pronounced "Ees"

[@HUNTER-tv1ew]

Great video xak and the ksk games are badass to xak is like the next evolution to ys and First Queen is so unique pc rpg's are the best aspecially on pc88

[@Charlymorfin]

This list would be complete...but you missed Megami Tensei II :c

[@DemuDesu]

Really great video. I don't know why you included action RPGs like Ys or Hidlide but not Zelda, but overall it seemed quite accurate and well researched. Btw, I don't know why the devs chose the weird spelling but "Ziria" is pronounced "Ji-ra-i-a (ジライア, like Jiraiya)."

[@Sushiperv]

+Ricardo Zvaydchek Well technically The Legend of Zelda is considered an Action-Adventure and not an rpg. Hehe true Ziria makes sense now, I was wondering what it means.

[@Luso1221]

Music name? 3:00

[@YukitoOnline]

6:38 *"SCATMAN"*

[@ar_xiv]

What is the very last song in the video?

[@Sushiperv]

Ys I ・ II (PC Engine CD) - Beat of the Terror (Awesome soundtrack!)

[@ChaosLolz]

Great video. I wasn't aware of how big the rpg genre was in Japan. You really put a lot of work into this video. Any chance you will do a video for Western rpgs? I feel like the early wrpgs are completely unknown to most modern gamers.

[@Sushiperv]

Hey thanks! Yeah I'm considering creating a wrpg at some point. This one took me over 2 months of work (due to real life & real work occupying a lot of my free time) so I'm gonna make something smaller first.

[@thomasffrench3639]

Yeah RPGs were the biggest genre on the original Famicom.

[@BOB-wx3fq]

Phantasy Star doesnt get the credit it deserves

[@LisaSamaritan]

@Sushiperv Great video series, hope you end up doing the FF XV video, one day.

[@blackenfist]

Good video. Before I even watched the video I scrolled through it just to check if you mentioned Legend of Zelda because mentioning Legend of Zelda in a video about computer RPG's is the fastest way for me to know that the video maker doesn't know what their talking about.

[@DijaVlogsGames]

How can people pronounce Ys this way when it tells you the pronunciation right on the title screen?

[@ThrowedGenji]

So let me get this right, Hydlide is the first open world game while Dragon Quest is the first "classic jrpg" in terms of a difference merging between western rpgs and jrpgs where the character gets into random battles. Also from my research Ultima is the first rpg though it is not Japanese, I'm much more of a fan of the jrpg style that developed

[@thomasffrench3639]

The first RPG was Akalabeth which is known as Ultima 0, but the original Wizardry came out before the first official Ultima game.

[@draganskoda3338]

The guy is literally reading the Wikipedia page on this subject. But a cool video nonetheless

[@jaysonrogoz8822]

Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy scene VII Rebel Army theme

[@Judex1963]

YES! Thank you I was looking for that song's name (I thought It was dragon quest, which led me to listen to many dragon quest themes, which was nice but ultimately didn't help me finding this one.)

[@jaysonrogoz8822]

PaulaNess This Version of this song was record in 1989 at Tokyo symphony hall.

[@user-ci5ul9it7x]

とても面白かった。日本人とは視点が違うのが興味深い。 以下、感じたこと。 ・全体的に、ややFFびいきではないか、と感じた。 ・RPGの定義の範囲が広い。「くにお君」や「ドルアーガ」を、RPG扱いしているのはびっくりした。 ・「ドラゴンクエスト」の影響の深さと偉大さと素晴らしさをもっと伝えるべき。 ・SRPGの「FE」を取り上げないのは疑問。

[@thomasffrench3639]

In the west, Final Fantasy is the JRPG franchise people think of, but I would agree that Final Fantasy in the 80s was more of a footnote. It didn’t become that important until Final Fantasy III which was released in 1990. But the original game was the most successful NES RPG in North America, so we are a bit biased. I feel like Kunio-Kun and Tower of Druga are close to and really influential to RPGs, so I think that they count. Also FE was in the 90s not 80s.

[@Carbabydoll]

Great video but one thing. . Ys is pronounced iee's

[@Sushiperv]

Yep, realized that after uploading the video so it was too late to change it :)

[@Carbabydoll]

:)

[@emmastarr5242]

@18:00 - Yeah, Final Fantasy totally didn't do that.

[@1122slickliverpool]

@4:20 Bruh are you telling me the Japanese invented turn based RPGS in the 80s??!?! lol

[@yizhang7027]

1:44 that's Chinese, not Japanese.

[@flamehiro]

>.> why did you go the 90s in this video if it's a 80s video