Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post

Stylistically, King's Field (Souls and Bloodbourne's predecessor series) has far more in common with old school WRPG PC titles like Dungeon Master, Lands of Lore, and Ultima Underworld than it does with the Action-RPGs commonly associated with Japan's market. I think that is where many people get the impression. The only JRPG series it has anything in common with that I'm aware or (barring some obscure game I'm obviously ignorant of that someone like ShinGundam would know) is actually old school MegaTen which was light on plot, heavy on dungeon explorations and both series have an obsession with dark and foreboding world's where things like "happiness" and "hope" are lies parents tell their children at night so they don't give completely into despair.

So yeah, gameplay and style-wise, From Software's RPG franchise really traces it's roots back to old Western PC RPGs than Japanese ones. The fact the series lacks the narrative and gameplay functions of your typical JRPG doesn't help it to shake off that distinction. Frankly, I don't understand why people even bother with the semantics of it all. It's a fun series, so does it matter if we should define it by it's root's or it's heritage?
That's like saying Dragon Quest clones are really Western-style RPGs because DQ was based on Wizardry and Ultima.

I guess I've just played too many Japanese first person dungeon crawlers and low fantasy medieval JRPGs to understand how any of that could be in the exclusive domain of the West. Most of all, I've yet to hear someone actually point out a Western game that looks like and preceded Demon's Souls. There's just so many obvious Japanese influences (not sure if you read mine) that the absence of any poignant Western counter-examples is deafening. The thing that really makes me do a double take is when people make Child of Light comparisons and claim it was intentionally designed to mimic Western games - especially when so many Western games and RPGs now vocally cite the Souls series as an influence. I'm not sure if anyone has read a Miyazaki interview about this but I would be incredibly surprised if he put any Western influences before the Japanese ones.

Have you played Ehrgeiz or Tobal's quest mode?