The Changing Dynamic Of Japanese RPG Hero & Villain Alignment’s

Having reemersed myself in Japanese RPG’s over the past couple of weeks and read up on some of the classics, there’s something I’ve notice about how the narrative of RPG Hero and Villain storylines have changed over the recent years.  If you follow the D&D Alignment Philosophy you will notice that with early games like Dragon Quest the narrative was typicall that Good versus Evil or the Y Axis of the grid.  Good heroes fought Evil villains and it was as simple as that.  However starting sometime in the mid 90’s you can notice a definite shift towards an X Axis style narrative of Chaotic Heroes versus Lawful Villains.  Whether they are Chaotic, Good, Neutral or Evil Heroes or Lawful, Good, Neutral or Evil Villains seems to vary.  What always seems to stay the same though is that games will invariably end with this prinicple I’ve described at the forefront.  Let’s look at it in a little more detail shall we?