youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI
the title on this one seemed a bit of a bait and switch. The video is a general overview of some early influential RPGs with very little in the way of discussion on the difference between how that influence manifested differently in Japan vs Everywhere Else
One interesting difference in the old school dungeon crawler space for instance is just how strictly Japanese DRPGs adhere to wizardry 5-esque design that elsewhere has been disregarded as unnecessary or bad like rolling for stats during character creation, abrasively punishing dungeon traps and encounter design, or map restrictions.
Also interesting is the general focus on breaking the combat systems. Hyakki Castle, Labyrinth of Refrain, Elminage Original, Stranger in Sword City are all games where most enemy encounters are pretty difficult, but the goal of the game is to build a party that trivializes them. You go from the enemies being way stronger than you, to you being way stronger than them. Bosses are also challenging in the way that they ask you to put together a party composition that essentially neutralizes whatever bullshit/gimmick the boss uses to stomp you if you are unprepared. These games feel like they stack the deck against you, but then leave the system agnostic enough that you build some way more fucked up shit as a reward for figuring how to play the systems right. The catharsis of being able to yell "well, how do you like it!?" at the monitor. Old Wizardry is like this too, but there it feels more like the games are poorly balanced, while these recent Japanese titles are very deliberate about it. Even relatively popular titles disgaea and Etrian Odyssey are similar.
This type of design is entirely different from the sort of old school Dungeon Crawlers made more recently in Europe or the USA: Legend of Grimrock, The Quest, Bards Tale 4, Might and Magic X, Operencia, Legend of Amberland, Aeon of Sand. The games all have what we would call "quality of life improvements" that remove a lot of the tedious and fucked up shit.
A similar thing I've noticed with how korean RPGs are famously grindy is that people who play the roguelike Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on the Korean server do way more 15-rune games (aka the most grindy way to play the game) compared to literally anywhere else (the game is built around 3-runes, and is balanced to minimize grinding as much as possible). Someone clever should do something interesting with all of this at some point imo.
/rant
PS: I was reminded of another youtube video essay on 'genre' in video games that I think is quite good:
