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Are JRPGs dead?
jp4lyfe
Member UncommonPosts: 165
As the thread title says, are japanese role playing games slowly slipping away?
I feel this thread is more target to those of us who grew up with the NES,SNES, Sega and even into the PS1 generation. During those times, it was the JRPG's that were the cream of the crop. Some of my all time favorite video game memories came from these games. Some of today's big name RPGs out today still can't hold a candle to the outdated classics like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI. Hell, some of the lesser known JRPGs are comparable to todays RPGs.
It seems like once the PS2 generation hit, these types of games sunk like a brick. American RPGs began to rise up in the ranks while JRPG's pretty much fell off the raider completly other then the new flashy breed of Final Fantasy titles, which lets be honest are complete junk to what they once were. I'm not saying that to troll, if you grew up during the SNES/Sega era I'm almost 100% positive you would agree with me on this. And i'm also not saying I hate today's American RPGs either. I enjoy them a lot but they just don't quite have the same touch.
It's just sad to see these games go. And maybe I just feel this way because that's what I grew up with and I have a soft spot for them and direct memories. Perhaps not though, maybe they truly were the grand daddy's of them all? Why else would square still keep pumping out FF titles even long after the magic is gone?
Comments
JRPG always had a super strong console presence. I played langrisser, Shining Force and Final Fantasy, almost played every release.
There were no FPS on consoles at the time, the only FPS you could find were pretty weird, tehre was one Megadrive game that had a decent 3D system, but it was very basic.
With the advent of Xbox and Halo, the US markets changed to FPS, Xbox completely changed the RPG landscape for Japan, I remember reading they lost billions year after year. Now the JRPG scene is a shell of it's former self. There are still good JRPG but FPS and 3D action games did so much damage.
Also, cellphone games, often not RPG, did a lot of damage to Japanese handhelds. Nintendo went from 70% marketshare to 28%.
If I had to point to one thing, I would say Xbox and FPS. At the time FPS was a PC only thing, consoles was where you could find JRPG a plenty, now I'm forced to buy a PS3 to even get a few good JRPG.
If you look at those JRPG companies from years ago, many either only develop Nintendo DS games or they were bought out by Square Enix.
Western RPG's have been running rings around JRPG's for years, and they've struggled to keep up. They're diffiently not what they use to be.
I don't agree with that, other than the fact that most games regardless of their true genre now have tons of RPG elements. Most of the modern day western RPGs are not that great and are only selling better because they're the only options of late ~ it seems that most JRPGs don't get localizied anymore {unless its for the DS/3DS/PSP}. For example there are at least 3 great JRPGs for the Wii that Nintendo refuses to localize here, even though one of them is already fully translated and released in EU.
To get my RPG fix of late I've had to mostly look to the indie developers for that which delivers these days. Or the obscure EU developer...
A lot of Japan's games don't get localized because some of their franchises that are popular in (J) are not over here, so wouldn't be worth the time, money, and effort. But Japanese developers haven't stopped trying, like Tri-Ace with End of Eternity (Resonance of Fate (US)) and Star Ocean. Even CC2 (CyberConnect) are releasing a feature length 3d movie of dot//hack and talking of a new big project. But currently the movie is only to be released in Japan, pending further notice. But we should see a comeback soon.
Nintendo US have always been very bad at translating and porting over JRPGs, there's an entire documentary on the campaign to get Mother 3, also Jim Sterling has dealt with this issue, as only he can, thank god for him.
Yeah... I been wanting those games pretty bad. It'd be nice to use my Wii as a console instead of an expensive paperweight.
P.S. I think you just convinced me not to get a Wii U.
My theme song.
I do think Nintendo has lost the plot as a company, their machines are not a good investment anymore, though talent is still in Japan to make good games, (maybe on PC more often). FFXIV's launch, and other cases demonstrate the people running things are useless with software as well as miss-reading the hardware market. Some Korean mmos over the years have helped to carry the flame, Archeage shows promise. I miss the glory days of Chrono, Mana, FFV, and the rest on the SNES. I don't resent the western rpg, though I only recently got into them, Skyrim, Witcher 2, Bioware's stuff do carry on some of that magic, though without the Japanese sense of style and absurd imagination.
I love the eastern style more than many of the less stylised western rpgs, (helps cover up the shortcomings in 3D well at times), but I found I started drifting away from them some years ago, I havn't played a Japanese game in a long time, I see them as something from my past, there just isn't either enough good titles, or localisations, and my gaming habits just look to western companies now.
Well, that's the thing isn't it? Some of the Japanese have a "weird view about Gaijin" (I'm using a less insulting phrase here) and how we take to certain parts of their games. The majority of course don't cross over into the US / EU. Some do, but mostly they're old, recognized franchises like Final Fantasy, who at least has long roots with Western gamers, going back so far as the 8-bit days of gaming.
Man, it makes me remember my days gaming with the 8-bit, 16-bit, and even PS1/Saturn days. There were many, many Japanese titles I was keenly interested in but they were pretty much gauranteed never to cross over into the US. A great example was Hideo Kojima's "Policenauts," an adventure game that was a sequel to "Snatcher," which I had on the Sega CD. Snatcher was a great adventure game, and it killed me that the sequel never came out in the US.
The only Japanese company that really tries branching out is Capcom. Hell, they've even made some decent PC versions of a few of their games. In the USA. They're the only Japanese game company that has done so. No others have tried.
Edit to add: As for the thread topic, JRPGs aren't dead to me, but they are as stale as MMORPGs. The biggest flagship franchise, Final Fantasy, isn't what it used to be.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I don't think Japanese RPGs are dead. The Dragon Quest series is proof that Japan still makes great RPGs. However, the Final Fantasy series seems to be in pretty big trouble. I mean, the last "good" game I played in this series was probably Final Fantasy X. Since then, we've had a mediocre online RPG, an okay game (Final Fantasy XII) and well, Final Fantasy XIII was nice to look at but honestly was one of the most boring and linear RPGs I've ever played. I'm not even sure who pulled the trigger to create a direct sequel to that game. I won't even get into everything that is wrong with Final Fantasy XIV.
I think they are, atleast the ones being done on PS3/360 today.
They are always a cross between action/turn based/strategy now. Personally I just don't enjoy that style of JRPG gameplay, and would preffer pure static turn based. If I wanted to play an action or strategy game, I would..
The closest thing to classic turn based JRPGs you can find now are basically all on the PSP, but even then I have found only a few that sparked some nostalgic interest (a lot of them are bluntly made for kids though.. and pretty much anything starting out in school immediately losses me now).
The unfortunate reality is that JRPGs are becoming obsolete. The plots, the combat systems, the graphics- they all feel wonky and dumbed down to me, especially compared to modern Western RPG like Skyrim and The Witcher II. Oh, sure, games like Pokemon and Dragon Warrior are going to continue appealing to the kiddie crowd, but the days of blockbuster console JRPGs outside of maybe numbered KH and FF titles are long since over. It's a shame, really, because niche JRPG series like Star Ocean and Persona, which were once considered quite innovative, have been dragged to obscurity overseas by JRPG developers unwilling to modernize.
The 100 floor dungeon of Lufia II still brings back fond memories.
I have seen a few iterations of this done in browser games and what not but it's hard to get immersed in it when I'm being asked to like it on Facebook every 5 seconds or having to buy crystals/jewels/stones to go.
However if someone out ther makes a top down 16/32 bit MMO JRPG with core elements and a limit on the cash grabbing, I would always be happy to give them a fair shake.
I don't know that JRPGs are dead, I think it's more of a function of American games appealing more to Americans. Dragon Quest does great in Japan. Here? Not so much. The Xbox 360 does great in the US. In Japan? Not so much. People tend to like their own homegrown stuff, that's the way it is. I grew up with the NES/SNES and owned games like Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 2, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Lufia 2, etc. Fond memories and I still play them every now and again, but I think games like Skyrim have completely blown them out of the water. I just like the freedom more.
JRPGs can work with a sense of freedom to it, Skyrim has a main quest after all... it's just not the only thing it has. The only thing that Skyrim is extremely weak in is character development which to me is one of the definitive things that JRPGs trump Western games in. Main quest length is another thing that JRPGs have over Western games, I was somewhat disappointed at how quickly I burned through the main quest in Skyrim. To me the perfect amalgamation between Skyrim and JRPGs is Mass Effect. ME is a very good bridge between both. It has just enough freedom in it and it has very good plot/character development, and it's not hindered by an archaic, command window-based battle system which I think is the biggest problem that some JRPGs have.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
Visit my fail Youtube channel(don't leave me nasty messages!): http://www.youtube.com/user/Mirii471
Ive played some of those back in 90s but i still never liked turnbased rpgs i hate them and western rpgs are way more realistic and realtime combat.
To be honest im sick and tired of anime looking asian games with huge weapons. Skyrim is my CUP of TEA.
Back then i had no choice early neintees i had no pc but console so i played those Jap rpgs and some where ok like grandia-finalfantsy7 later skies of arcadia on dreamcast but after starting with Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall '98 and asherons call '99 and later Morrowind i gave up on Jap/asian rpgs. Korean Lineage2 was ok becouse no turnbased but Jap FF11 was terible combat slow and stil game that gave me kind of feeling it was turnbased.
No asian turnbased ANIME game on my PC ughh noway.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
They died for me after plang FF13.
I only bothered with that game because of nostalgia. Playing regular RPGs just doesn't do it for me anymore. After games like Oblvion, Fallout 3, GTA, Saints Row 2, etc etc regular RPGs just don't work for me. I think the only people who can still enjoy them are people who like to play games for the story, which is great, because there should be something for everyone.
I'm not sure if they are dying really. If they are, maybe thats why I didn't care for FF13? I mean, I just found the game boring and I didn't care about any of the characters except for the black dude's son. I remember really enjoying FF8, 9 and 10, and for some reason skipped 12. I wonder if I'd enjoy those games if I played them now. Thinking back, I get nostalgia, but nostalgia plays tricks on you.
Personally I think RPGs in general were the best things out there back in the game because they were the games with decent massive worlds. The other games you had back then were platforms, fighting game, shooters and such. Not much could be done with those games as far as adventure and exploring. Thinkingback on PS1 games, RPGs were probably great because of what they were up against in other genres. Now days, they have to compete with games that actually feel like action movies and let you truely free roam adn create your own story. idk if RPGs can really evolve to bring it back to glory.
White Knight Chronocles was okay. The story was generic, but the fact that you could create your own character and sort of watch the events unfold as you partnered with the game's actually main character was clever. And you could take that character online, but the ranking up was tedious and the online levels were mostly boring as hell. It felt like playing a korea MMO with a longer than usual grind only you had to do puzzles that could take up to 2 hours sometimes.
Another problem with JRPGs though is that they lack replayability. I'll never understand why people prefer to play a 50-60 dollar game once and then put it down. With a game like, say...Monster Hunter. You can play that for a long time because you go out and keep doing missions with no real story but your own. With Final Fantasy, you just play it one way and beat it one way and thats it. You can play it over again, but you don't really get anything from it. I think my thoughts are jumbled, so I'm just gonna stop typing.
Suppose I can scratch that comment now, as Nintendo confirmed today that Xenoblade Chronicles ~ the one translated and already released in EU is finally getting a US release on April 3rd, 2012. Hopefully we'll someday see Last Story and Pandora's Tower too, but I could see Nintendo banking that on sales numbers for XC.
Course being that close to a possible fall release of the Wii U, I may as well wait for that new system and play XC there instead of getting a standard Wii, that which I've still never bought yet.
JRPGs with freedom? That I disbelieve. They have great degrees of linearity. They may not be as bluntly straight forward like FF XIII, but they no doubt follow a strict story path. You are not progressing if you aren't doing what the game tells you to do. Some will allow you limited degrees of straying to the side, but again, progress is minimal or there won't be much to see.
That's the way JRPGs have been in the 80s and 90s, and that's how they still are.
As a younger gamer, I did enjoy some of the old school JRPGs, but now, I enjoy the freedom of open world games that I started experiencing with PC gaming in the 90s. Open-ness is something JRPGs have NEVER been good at. I'd like to be proven wrong though, but no JRPG I know of that has ever existed or in development now that allows such gameplay. It's like Japanese developers are allergic to them.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
That's what I'm saying about the issue with JRPGs state-side. Linearity. To me linearity and turn-based battles are the big two that really hurt the genre state-side. They worked well in the 80s and 90s because that's what was primarily around in the marketplace. You had a few niche titles here and there but nothing outsold JRPGs during that time. Then games like Morrowind(before that you could consider the Elder Scrolls series as sleeper hits) started showing up, and even games like Deus Ex and System Shock which were hybrids, and people started seeing the potential of RPGs as being more than spreadsheet battles.
Again I think the perfect bridge between JRPGs and Western RPGs like Skyrim is Mass Effect. Mass Effect has one main story, you pick the order in which to experience the story so there's some freedom to it, you can be 'good' or 'evil' and still arrive at pretty much the same conclusion, you can do various side quests that aren't required and there are quests that expand your relationship with crew members in the case of Mass Effect 2. The reason why Skyrim is the other end of the spectrum and Mass Effect is the bridge is that in Skyrim you have several significant quest lines(significant in terms of time)... the main one, then one for the college of magic, one for the companions, one for the thieves guild, one for the Dark Brotherhood, etc. Mass Effect only had the main quest and then through DLC you started getting expanded and more significant side stories like the Shadow Broker side story in ME2. Mass Effect 2 has the character buildng that JRPGs have while that's something that Skyrim lacks.
But hey, JRPGs are called JRPGs for a reason. They're meant to cater to the Japanese. If the Japanese people took more of a liking to Western RPGs and were less interested in their style of RPGs then maybe we'd have JRPGs with a little more gameplay and a little more freedom. Until that happens I think they'll definitely try things but they'll probably be more inclined to stick to their roots until it doesn't work in their own home country anymore.
There's even some preferences in MMORPGs even though they're all basically the same. Games like Priston Tale have always worked better in the East than in the West, but games like Maple Story seem to work for both. Final Fantasy XI works better in the East while World of Warcraft works better in the West.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
Visit my fail Youtube channel(don't leave me nasty messages!): http://www.youtube.com/user/Mirii471
There were japanese rpgs that did have some openess like the Romancing Saga series on the SNES, the reason why it was not translated was because of the options. If anybody played the Saga Frontier 2 game you would have seen what happened there as well. Very open lots of possibilities, but nobody bought that game.
And even though at the end of the day it was a brawler, what about River City Ransom with its rpg elements?
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
FF 7,8 and 9 were my fave JRPGS of all time.
I love the style of them on pre rendered backgrounds and amazing cinematics. I love how they don't have voice acting too, there is nothing worse than voice acting in Japanese games because the writing is so bad and cheesy. I just loved those three games and FF died for me with 10, that game was so bad I don't get how it got good reviews.
I cannot find anyother games with the same style of them Playstation FFs, love them and play them from time to time and still find them fun.
JRPGs are a big deal for me. I have followed the Final Fantasy franchise since the first one on the NES. I loved Final Fantasy III (US)/VI (J) on the SNES as well as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Lufia, Final Fantasy II (US)/ IV(J) and many more. Later, I even played some games that didn't make it over to the US despite being excellent via translated ROM and an emulator (Seiken Densetsu 3, Bahamut Lagoon, Final Fantasy V, Star Ocean, Tales of Phantasia)...
The PSX generation was also brilliant: Suikoden 1 and 2, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VII and IX (wasnt a fan of VIII, sue me), Chrono Cross, Vandal Hearts, Legend of Legaia, Lunar series, Valkyrie Profile... so many
The PS2/Gamecube had some strong titles as well... Final Fantasy XII (I really loved it, despite early reservations about teh battle system... I thought the game had a lot of content and meticulously crafted world and beautiful graphics... Final Fantasy X (which also peeved me off at first, because of the amount of cut scenes and no world map, but I got over it and realized the game had many strong points)... the underrated Baten Kaitos series on the Gamecue... Suikoden V, Star Ocean 3, Valkyrie Profile 2... OK. So at this point, I think it is evident that I am a huge JRPG fan.
Now to address the question... are JRPGs dying?
No. But JRPG fans have definitely had it rough this generation.
Many of the acclaimed JRPGs are on handhelds such as Radiant Historia and The World Ends With You. In my personal opinion though, the handheld JRPGs of this generation lack the robust systems and detailed worlds of the console JRPGs of the past... so definitely not a replacement for me.
This generation we have had:
Demon's Souls - Japanese and RPG, but not really a JRPG. It's not a Western-style RPG either though, do not except that lie. No Western developer would make a game with Demon's Souls tough arcade-style gameplay and collect souls to level up gameplay. The game is Japanese by design, complete with epic bosses, but it is not a traditional JRPG. Just a Japanese game that happens to be an RPG.
Valkyria Chronicles - World War II anime strategy RPG. It's a good game and you can even have Skies of Arcadia characters Vyse and Aika in your militia. A great game, but not for those who do not like SRPGS. SRPGs share the same fanbase as JRPGs, but at the same time, it does not fulfill the need for a big budget, epic JRPG.
Folklore - A Japanese adventure game with RPG elements. Not a traditional JRPG and arguably not a RPG at all. Great game though.
Monster Hunter Tri - The game revolves around epic monster hunting, and has RPG elements and is a Japanese game.
Nier - a very good and interesting Japanese action-RPG. I think it's story qualifies it as a JRPG. The game isn't going to appeal to all JRPG fans though.
Atelier Rorona - has turn based JRPG battle system but is NOT a save the world adventure game. The game has simulation elements such as time management and economics as well as adventuring. Definitely not for everyone, but this is a popular series and the concept is liked in Japan.
Rune Factory series - like the Atelier series, the focus is not on adventuring. Rune Factory is harvest moon with adventuring and combat added.
Eternal Sonata, White Knight Chronicles, Star Ocean IV, Resonance of Fate, The Last Remnant, Enchanted Arms, Infinite Undiscovery were all crappy games. IMHO, Final Fantasy XIII, while missing key features for an FF game, was much better than these games because at least it was modernized and polished.
These games lack the scope and depth of JRPGs from previous generations and I believe it has 100% to do with the expense of developing games this generation. That has caused many games to go to handhelds instead or the games that do get released on the PS3/Xbox360 offer limited or unpolished JRPG experiences. The quality between Star Ocean III (ps2) and Star Ocean IV (ps3/x360) is staggering and it sucks.
However, I do think that things will get better. For three reasons:
1. There is still interest in JRPGs. Many want an amazing, high quality console JRPG on the PS3 and Xbox360. While many gaming jouranlists have pronounced the JRPG dead, there are still many loyal fans that would be willing to play a high quality JRPG release if only because of their memories of JRPGs from previous generations.
2. As the hardware gets older, and game developement gets cheaper we will see more JRPGs made for the consoles.
3. There are some interesting games being developed such as Capcom's Dragon's Dogma. Dragon's Dogma has a lot of features that draw similarities from everything to Capcom's own Monster Hunter to Bethesda's TES series. The game is going to feature character customization, a world with NPCs that have a day-night schedule, powerful and vicious monsters that are difficult to kill, a pawn system that allows yuo to build a party of AI combatants, and a main story said to take about 50 hours to complete... Square Enix is also develiping a medieval inspired RPG and are studying the architecture to perfect the game's design... Persona 5 is in developement...
With all that said, I do believe that the traditional JRPG is going out of style, but that there is going to be an emergence of RPGs from Japan... But they will be much different. We're going to see more Japanese games from other genres fuse with RPG, just as the West has done... It's already started to happen with games like Demon's Souls and Nier... Japanese style action games with RPG elements, simulation games fused with JRPG style adventuring, etc.
Favorites: Vanguard SOH, Final Fantasy XI, Dungeons and Dragons Online
Future:
Final Fantasy XIV 2.0
EverQuest NEXT
Wizardry Online
Vanguard F2P edition (fingers crossed)
http://vgrpgblog.blogspot.com/
Xenoblade Chronicles.