I've been wanting to post a thread like this here in NeoGAF, but was too lazy...
Anyway, I think that most Westerners probably have never heard of Chinese RPGs, but in the late 90's, they were big. Big in mainland China, Taiwan (where the first Chinese RPGs were made), Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. Unfortunately, because of piracy issues, the market of those games slowly dwindled, and right now the only games on the Chinese market are MMORPG rip-offs of World of Warcraft and Lineage. New single player RPGs are almost dead in China.
So what's a Chinese RPG like? Well, for the most part the game plays exactly like a Japanese RPG (although there are some Action RPG variants that play almost exactly like Diablo), with all the standard level ups and etc. Most of the games were released for PC only. The games were almost always set in Ancient China, and many of them actually had plots linked to real historical events. Instead of magical spells, Chinese RPGs had martial art techniques. They were not exactly like Jade Empire (which was made by a Western developer, targeted toward a Western audience); Instead, Chinese RPGs usually contained tons of Chinese poetry and literature and artistic stuff, and many of them were directly based off Chinese novels. Because of this, virtually none of them were translated into a foreign language, so you can't really enjoy them if you don't read Chinese...
You can look at these games as simple knock-offs of traditional JRPGs set in a Chinese environment, but from what I've played (my first RPG was Chinese...then came Pokemon and Dragon Quest), there was just something special about these games. There was a certain level of maturity in the development of the characters and the settings in these games that were simply unmatched by traditional JRPGs.
For a more detailed overview on Chinese RPGs check out this article:
http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature,25/section,178/
Fan translations of Chinese RPGs:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/Fantranslation/Romhacking3.htm
List of many obscure Chinese-language games (not limited to RPGs):
http://hg101.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=games&action=display&thread=7000
MobyGames is probably the only English website that has an extensive database on Chinese RPGs, most of them submitted by the author of the above article, Oleg Roschin. He has also reviewed many of these RPGs, and I'll pick some of my personal favorites below.
Note: the following descriptions contain spoilers. Of course, if you know you will never get the chance to play these games you might as well read them. Images of the games can be found in the links.
Sword of Xuan Yuan III: Beyond Clouds and Mountains (軒轅劍叁：雲和山的彼端
This is perhaps the best game for Westerners to get into Chinese RPGs...provided that they can read Chinese. The story takes place in 8th century, in Kingdom of Francs. The main character, Septem, is a knight of the court. The story follows him as he travels from Europe to Middle East and finally to China, mostly wrapped around two men's love for a girl and the search for an unattainable wisdom. In the end, the hero gets to fight Satan.
The game is part of the Xuanyuan Jian franchise. Xuanyuan Jian is the oldest Chinese RPG series, with its first game released in 1990. The latest main installment in the series, Han zhi You (Clouds of Han), is based in the era of Three Kingdoms. Dream of Mirror Online, an online spin-off of the franchise, was actually released worldwide.
The Legend of Sword and Fairy (Remake) (新仙劍奇俠傳
This game is a remake of the most popular single Chinese RPG ever made. The original game was released in 1995, and this remake added some new story points, updated graphics and sound, new dungeon layouts, etc. The main theme about this game is love. A young boy accidentally marries a young girl, and the girl turns out to be a descendant of a Chinese Goddess. Near the end of the story, the girl gave birth to their children. In the end of the game, the girl dies. Yep, it's got a very tragic ending. For the remake, fans expected it to have alternative endings where the girl would survive, but there was none.
There is actually a demo of the game in English translated by fans. It's a long way from being complete and I have absolutely no idea how well it will perform on modern PCs, but it's up for grabs from here:
http://english.fairysword.info/project.html
The game is part of the Chinese Paladin series. This particular game was the start of the franchise, and it was actually made into a TV serial a few years ago. The third game in the series is also currently being made into a TV series. The original release of the game was also translated and ported to the Japanese Sega Saturn, the only Chinese RPG to do so. Both this franchise and the Xuanyuan Jian franchise from above are the two most popular RPG franchises in Chinese-speaking regions, and they both are owned by one company: SoftStar.
Heroes of Jin Yong (金庸群俠傳
This particular game was released around the same time as the original Legend of Sword and Fairy (1995), but it went on a very different route in terms of its gameplay. It did not have a coherent, deep storyline to speak of, as the game was based on 14 novels written by a very famous Chinese Wuxia (martial art chivalry...a literature genre particular to China) author named Louis Cha (aka Jin Yong). It had a world map devoid of enemies, and the emphasis of the game is to allow the player to play the game however he wants. There are different locations in the world map, each one is based on a location found in the novels, and by going into the different locations the player will initiate events, sometimes battles, all based around snippets of stories found in the original novels.
The game was really unusual for its time, as unlike most of other Chinese RPGs that are based on a linear story and standard RPG fare, Jin Yong actually used a grid-based battle system similar to SRPGs, but much simplified. There was absolutely no random encounters to speak of in the game, and the player was allowed to recruit both bad guys and good guys from the novels. The player could do some bad deeds to decrease his morality, or do good deeds to improve it. Ultimately, who the player fights as the final boss battle depends on whether his in-game morality scale is above 50 or below it.
Heroes of Wulin (武林群俠傳
And finally, one of my favorite games of all time. Made by the same developer as Jin Yong's, this 2001 game also deviated from standard RPG fair by adding a sims gameplay element to it. People have compared its gameplay with that of Koei's Taikō Risshiden series. Unlike most RPGs released around its time that used 3D model images for their maps, Wulin's maps were entirely hand-drawn. The battle system followed Jin Yong's, but was even more simplified. The emphasis of the game became centered around the sims portion of the gameplay, and the goal of the game was simple: to become the strongest martial artist in China. The game allowed multiple levels of moral choices that would let the game end up in one of 3 major endings, each with its own variations depending on the feats of the player throughout the game.
The player cannot die in this game. If you lose a battle, it becomes part of the storyline, and you would only be injured and have to rest for a few days in sims mode, but the story of the game continues. There are a variety of mini-games that are pretty much forced onto the player, as there is no leveling up in this game, and the player can only enhance his attributes by playing the various mini-games, select training options in sims mode, and by actually participating in battles. Each time the player does any one of these activities his attributes would go up a bit, but there is never a sudden change as a level up.
The biggest draw of the game for me was actually its emphasis on traditional Chinese cultures. There are so much information in the game about a variety of Chinese subjects from herbal medicine to sumi-e art. Not saying that the game is edutainment or something, but I did learn a lot from the game that really helped me to appreciate more of Chinese culture. The game just flows really nicely in balancing the mini-games, RPG mode, and sims mode. If the player gets particularly good with a certain skill (i.e. gardening or hunting), the player can even get a special title. And this title can be different depending on the player's morality in the game.
...And that's that. The Chinese single-player PC market is virtually nonexistent today, with only about 5 games released per year! Even though, SoftStar's two most popular RPG franchises are still getting new releases once in a couple of years, but other, smaller game series are long gone now.
UPDATE:
Just realized the newest Chinese RPG (Gu Jian Qi Tan 古剑奇谭 has been released for digital download...and it's only 10 US dollars through Paypal. Their official site is here: http://gjqt.gamebar.com/. Here's the super deluxe limited edition packaging:
Anyway, I think that most Westerners probably have never heard of Chinese RPGs, but in the late 90's, they were big. Big in mainland China, Taiwan (where the first Chinese RPGs were made), Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. Unfortunately, because of piracy issues, the market of those games slowly dwindled, and right now the only games on the Chinese market are MMORPG rip-offs of World of Warcraft and Lineage. New single player RPGs are almost dead in China.
So what's a Chinese RPG like? Well, for the most part the game plays exactly like a Japanese RPG (although there are some Action RPG variants that play almost exactly like Diablo), with all the standard level ups and etc. Most of the games were released for PC only. The games were almost always set in Ancient China, and many of them actually had plots linked to real historical events. Instead of magical spells, Chinese RPGs had martial art techniques. They were not exactly like Jade Empire (which was made by a Western developer, targeted toward a Western audience); Instead, Chinese RPGs usually contained tons of Chinese poetry and literature and artistic stuff, and many of them were directly based off Chinese novels. Because of this, virtually none of them were translated into a foreign language, so you can't really enjoy them if you don't read Chinese...
You can look at these games as simple knock-offs of traditional JRPGs set in a Chinese environment, but from what I've played (my first RPG was Chinese...then came Pokemon and Dragon Quest), there was just something special about these games. There was a certain level of maturity in the development of the characters and the settings in these games that were simply unmatched by traditional JRPGs.
For a more detailed overview on Chinese RPGs check out this article:
http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature,25/section,178/
Fan translations of Chinese RPGs:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/Fantranslation/Romhacking3.htm
List of many obscure Chinese-language games (not limited to RPGs):
http://hg101.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=games&action=display&thread=7000
MobyGames is probably the only English website that has an extensive database on Chinese RPGs, most of them submitted by the author of the above article, Oleg Roschin. He has also reviewed many of these RPGs, and I'll pick some of my personal favorites below.
Note: the following descriptions contain spoilers. Of course, if you know you will never get the chance to play these games you might as well read them. Images of the games can be found in the links.
Sword of Xuan Yuan III: Beyond Clouds and Mountains (軒轅劍叁：雲和山的彼端
This is perhaps the best game for Westerners to get into Chinese RPGs...provided that they can read Chinese. The story takes place in 8th century, in Kingdom of Francs. The main character, Septem, is a knight of the court. The story follows him as he travels from Europe to Middle East and finally to China, mostly wrapped around two men's love for a girl and the search for an unattainable wisdom. In the end, the hero gets to fight Satan.
The game is part of the Xuanyuan Jian franchise. Xuanyuan Jian is the oldest Chinese RPG series, with its first game released in 1990. The latest main installment in the series, Han zhi You (Clouds of Han), is based in the era of Three Kingdoms. Dream of Mirror Online, an online spin-off of the franchise, was actually released worldwide.
The Legend of Sword and Fairy (Remake) (新仙劍奇俠傳
This game is a remake of the most popular single Chinese RPG ever made. The original game was released in 1995, and this remake added some new story points, updated graphics and sound, new dungeon layouts, etc. The main theme about this game is love. A young boy accidentally marries a young girl, and the girl turns out to be a descendant of a Chinese Goddess. Near the end of the story, the girl gave birth to their children. In the end of the game, the girl dies. Yep, it's got a very tragic ending. For the remake, fans expected it to have alternative endings where the girl would survive, but there was none.
There is actually a demo of the game in English translated by fans. It's a long way from being complete and I have absolutely no idea how well it will perform on modern PCs, but it's up for grabs from here:
http://english.fairysword.info/project.html
The game is part of the Chinese Paladin series. This particular game was the start of the franchise, and it was actually made into a TV serial a few years ago. The third game in the series is also currently being made into a TV series. The original release of the game was also translated and ported to the Japanese Sega Saturn, the only Chinese RPG to do so. Both this franchise and the Xuanyuan Jian franchise from above are the two most popular RPG franchises in Chinese-speaking regions, and they both are owned by one company: SoftStar.
Heroes of Jin Yong (金庸群俠傳
This particular game was released around the same time as the original Legend of Sword and Fairy (1995), but it went on a very different route in terms of its gameplay. It did not have a coherent, deep storyline to speak of, as the game was based on 14 novels written by a very famous Chinese Wuxia (martial art chivalry...a literature genre particular to China) author named Louis Cha (aka Jin Yong). It had a world map devoid of enemies, and the emphasis of the game is to allow the player to play the game however he wants. There are different locations in the world map, each one is based on a location found in the novels, and by going into the different locations the player will initiate events, sometimes battles, all based around snippets of stories found in the original novels.
The game was really unusual for its time, as unlike most of other Chinese RPGs that are based on a linear story and standard RPG fare, Jin Yong actually used a grid-based battle system similar to SRPGs, but much simplified. There was absolutely no random encounters to speak of in the game, and the player was allowed to recruit both bad guys and good guys from the novels. The player could do some bad deeds to decrease his morality, or do good deeds to improve it. Ultimately, who the player fights as the final boss battle depends on whether his in-game morality scale is above 50 or below it.
Heroes of Wulin (武林群俠傳
And finally, one of my favorite games of all time. Made by the same developer as Jin Yong's, this 2001 game also deviated from standard RPG fair by adding a sims gameplay element to it. People have compared its gameplay with that of Koei's Taikō Risshiden series. Unlike most RPGs released around its time that used 3D model images for their maps, Wulin's maps were entirely hand-drawn. The battle system followed Jin Yong's, but was even more simplified. The emphasis of the game became centered around the sims portion of the gameplay, and the goal of the game was simple: to become the strongest martial artist in China. The game allowed multiple levels of moral choices that would let the game end up in one of 3 major endings, each with its own variations depending on the feats of the player throughout the game.
The player cannot die in this game. If you lose a battle, it becomes part of the storyline, and you would only be injured and have to rest for a few days in sims mode, but the story of the game continues. There are a variety of mini-games that are pretty much forced onto the player, as there is no leveling up in this game, and the player can only enhance his attributes by playing the various mini-games, select training options in sims mode, and by actually participating in battles. Each time the player does any one of these activities his attributes would go up a bit, but there is never a sudden change as a level up.
The biggest draw of the game for me was actually its emphasis on traditional Chinese cultures. There are so much information in the game about a variety of Chinese subjects from herbal medicine to sumi-e art. Not saying that the game is edutainment or something, but I did learn a lot from the game that really helped me to appreciate more of Chinese culture. The game just flows really nicely in balancing the mini-games, RPG mode, and sims mode. If the player gets particularly good with a certain skill (i.e. gardening or hunting), the player can even get a special title. And this title can be different depending on the player's morality in the game.
...And that's that. The Chinese single-player PC market is virtually nonexistent today, with only about 5 games released per year! Even though, SoftStar's two most popular RPG franchises are still getting new releases once in a couple of years, but other, smaller game series are long gone now.
UPDATE:
Just realized the newest Chinese RPG (Gu Jian Qi Tan 古剑奇谭
has been released for digital download...and it's only 10 US dollars through Paypal. Their official site is here: http://gjqt.gamebar.com/. Here's the super deluxe limited edition packaging:
