Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post

I don't really agree. Unless you're being really xenophobic, I don't think there's any reason to call Dark Souls a JRPG or Child of Light a WROG by any stretch. Stylistically, they're both pure example of the opposite, despite being designed elsewhere.
I've been wanting to ask this for a while and I guess this is the thread to do it: why do people say the Souls games are Western-style RPGs?

I honestly can't think of a single WRPG like them, except for Lord of the Fallen, a 2014 game specifically designed to be a Souls-like. To me their closest analogue was the Quest mode in games like Ehrgeiz and Tobal. And FROM has stated many times it's the spiritual successor to King's Field, which didn't have any Western games like it at the time. Most people also seem to recognize Ghosts & Goblins as oldest analogue - a Japanese medieval fantasy game centered around map memorization and attack timing.

I guess it's the macabre sword & sorcery setting but I really don't know when that was ever the exclusive domain of WRPGs.