Will we ever see a JRPG resurgence?

No we won't see a resurgence of popularity. Unless/Until quality improves.

JRPGs have not kept up with modern expectations of gamers. While many decent JPRGS still come out, it's been a long time since any of them really did anything new. Where once their graphics and story were light years ahead of other genres now it's even or behind. WRPGs show that the RPG genre gameplay itself is fine, so I think the issue is all on the dev side not keeping the genre fresh.

I'll still play them, but I have hard time seeing the gen gaming public getting fired up about them again as they are.

Sometimes genres basically decline. When was the last time you played a Brawler?

@Char12 said:

@Bourbon_Warrior: Only FF Im played before 13 was 10-2 which was ok, after 13 I played almost all that I could get my hands on, I wouldn't say Im new to games, but neither am I that experienced. I do have Skyrim and while it has a good world the cons out weigh the pros, and if that is meant to be the pinacle of WRPGs then Il just stick to FF and Persona

So would you like them to stick to the Formula of 13? And you only tried FFX-2 which after playing FFX I thought was a joke you should try the FFX HD remake thats coming out or even VII-IX if you have a PSP. Never mind I saw you dissing FFVII in your previous posts even though you just admitted to only playing X-2 before XIII your opinion means nothing.

@FancySoapsMan said:

@OppressiveStink said:

@wmaustin55:

I think JRPGs the way we knew about them are dead, for several pretty well documented reasons.

1) As the demographic ages(average video game player is mid-to-late 30s) so do tastes. The typical JRPG archetype is aimed at either girls(read: Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts series) with their ultra effeminate pretty boys, or perverted boys(see Hyperdimention Neptunia). Most adult men and women don't want to participate in that particular form of wankery.

well that's just dumb

It is the dumbest.

I highly doubt they'll ever be as popular as they were in the late 90's-early 2000's. That ship has sailed.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

Never, JRPGs were only Popular in 90s/early 00's cause they did the most you could do with the tech limits. Look at skyrim its just leaps and bounds ahead of FFXIII now, who new to games would seriously pick up a JRPG over a Skyrim. I really want a good JRPG again but maybe just one real good one every couple of years but I cant see them surviving as really I think the only people that are even interested now are people who gamed in the 90s and has the nostolgia attached to them and that will slowly drop away as more people keep getting burned again and again,...

+1 this

I still like 'em since I've played them since DQ1, but if I were 10-3 years old today would I play them? Probably not. Not only does the gameplay not look compelling by modern standards but I doubt I would even hear of them.

If nothing else they are barely advertised anymore. Skyrim had a great ad campaign.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

Square Enix just needs to figure out to cater to these people instead of going in crazy new routes like 13 did, and just accept they not gonna pull in the numbers they used too so maybe just lower the budget of these games and set their sales expectations lower.

disagree. I think that's what most JRPGs are trying to do now and their audience just shrinks every passing year. They need to innovate or the subgenre will die.

I'm just holding out for Persona 5 or see a new non FF XIII product

I'm not really a fan of JRPGs, in fact I'm not a fan of RPGS in general but I could see a market for them on iOS. After seeing the guys play Chrono Trigger, I started looking for a similar experience on iOS and failed. But it seems like a missed opportunity that an app developer could capitalise on.

The problem with RPGs, is that they were designed the way they were because of technical limitations, limitations that we no longer have. So I'd be surprised if we got a massive resurgence in them.

There's a new Tales of game being released this year and that's enough to have me excited about JRPG's again <3. Also, watching through the CT ER and finally for the first time sinking into FFVI, I'm currently swamped in a vat of moist melodrama that is the JRPG.

Plus just look at Dark Souls: ostensibly one of the most Japanese of (action) RPG's and it's heralded as one of the best games of last year - and was my own personal GOTY, too.

@Hailinel said:

I think part of this so-called decline of the JRPG/rise of the western RPG has a lot to do with the popular perception of Bioware. Although Mass Effect 2 received its share of criticisms for simplifying the gameplay of the original game, both it and Dragon Age: Origins were critical darlings, as is the vast majority of Bioware's back catalogue. (People tend to overlook the abject failure of Sonic Chronicles, but I digress). In this generation in particular, the west had found an RPG developer to put on a pedestal even though the structure or narrative of Bioware games haven't been particularly innovative. By comparison, people unfamiliar with JRPGs beyond a few select titles maintain a distant view of the JRPG genre, which for all of its variety, advancements, and innovations is still labeled by these people with the misconception of largely being stuck in 1997.

So in effect, Bioware was put in a position where they could feel comfortable saying and doing whatever they wanted because the press would fawn over them no matter what. They trashed the JRPG genre in interviews, claiming that their way of RPG design is the future. But that hubris has come back to bite them. Between the reception of Dragon Age II (which basically tried to pull a Mass Effect 2 on Dragon Age), and the supposed story leaks of Mass Effect 3 (which, if true, take a massive dump on the entire franchise), Bioware's untouchable status is slipping away from their grasp, and with it, the status of the western RPG as the "better" school of RPG design.

I dont think it's only BioWare, i think Bethesda as also kicked down the door on what we expect from RPGs, Fallout 3/New Vegas/Skyrim, showed that you can have these massive worlds and still be a throw back to classic RPGs.

I think the West got good at putting their own spin on the genre, I mean random nameless character whose destiny is to save the world from a deadly threat... sounds like FF to me, but also Mass Effect, sounds like Skyrim to me. JRPGs just seemed trapped in that FFVI -VII and they dont go and try to put a creative spin on the genre. I think the devs that do this are the ones that get a bit more loved, Persona 4 has your Checklist of JRPG tropes, but it creates a style of its own.

I kinda wish FF would just create a style that doesn't evoke the ideas of , YOU REMEMBER FFVII~!

I hope not.

@OneManX said:

@Hailinel said:

I think part of this so-called decline of the JRPG/rise of the western RPG has a lot to do with the popular perception of Bioware. Although Mass Effect 2 received its share of criticisms for simplifying the gameplay of the original game, both it and Dragon Age: Origins were critical darlings, as is the vast majority of Bioware's back catalogue. (People tend to overlook the abject failure of Sonic Chronicles, but I digress). In this generation in particular, the west had found an RPG developer to put on a pedestal even though the structure or narrative of Bioware games haven't been particularly innovative. By comparison, people unfamiliar with JRPGs beyond a few select titles maintain a distant view of the JRPG genre, which for all of its variety, advancements, and innovations is still labeled by these people with the misconception of largely being stuck in 1997.

So in effect, Bioware was put in a position where they could feel comfortable saying and doing whatever they wanted because the press would fawn over them no matter what. They trashed the JRPG genre in interviews, claiming that their way of RPG design is the future. But that hubris has come back to bite them. Between the reception of Dragon Age II (which basically tried to pull a Mass Effect 2 on Dragon Age), and the supposed story leaks of Mass Effect 3 (which, if true, take a massive dump on the entire franchise), Bioware's untouchable status is slipping away from their grasp, and with it, the status of the western RPG as the "better" school of RPG design.

I dont think it's only BioWare, i think Bethesda as also kicked down the door on what we expect from RPGs, Fallout 3/New Vegas/Skyrim, showed that you can have these massive worlds and still be a throw back to classic RPGs.

I think the West got good at putting their own spin on the genre, I mean random nameless character whose destiny is to save the world from a deadly threat... sounds like FF to me, but also Mass Effect, sounds like Skyrim to me. JRPGs just seemed trapped in that FFVI -VII and they dont go and try to put a creative spin on the genre. I think the devs that do this are the ones that get a bit more loved, Persona 4 has your Checklist of JRPG tropes, but it creates a style of its own.

I kinda wish FF would just create a style that doesn't evoke the ideas of , YOU REMEMBER FFVII~!

You seriously think that?

Go play Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and afterwards, just tell me that's a fucking spikey haired Final Fantasy clone. Or Persona 3. Or Valkyrie Profile. Or Xenogears, or for that matter Xenosaga. Perhaps Vagrant Story, or perhaps Final Fantasy XII. How about Etrian Odyssey games?

TELL ME HOW THOSE GAMES ARE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME I FUCKING DARE YOU.

I.

FUCKING.

DARE YOU.

Here's a hint:

YOU CAN'T.

Because they aren't all the same. Each does its own thing in its own way.

No, seriously. Read this page, READ THIS FUCKING PAGE and tell me that the game it describes is like Final Fantasy VII. Jesus Christ, I am so fed up with the ignorance surrounding this genre. Holy shit.

@Hailinel said:

@OneManX said:

@Hailinel said:

I think part of this so-called decline of the JRPG/rise of the western RPG has a lot to do with the popular perception of Bioware. Although Mass Effect 2 received its share of criticisms for simplifying the gameplay of the original game, both it and Dragon Age: Origins were critical darlings, as is the vast majority of Bioware's back catalogue. (People tend to overlook the abject failure of Sonic Chronicles, but I digress). In this generation in particular, the west had found an RPG developer to put on a pedestal even though the structure or narrative of Bioware games haven't been particularly innovative. By comparison, people unfamiliar with JRPGs beyond a few select titles maintain a distant view of the JRPG genre, which for all of its variety, advancements, and innovations is still labeled by these people with the misconception of largely being stuck in 1997.

So in effect, Bioware was put in a position where they could feel comfortable saying and doing whatever they wanted because the press would fawn over them no matter what. They trashed the JRPG genre in interviews, claiming that their way of RPG design is the future. But that hubris has come back to bite them. Between the reception of Dragon Age II (which basically tried to pull a Mass Effect 2 on Dragon Age), and the supposed story leaks of Mass Effect 3 (which, if true, take a massive dump on the entire franchise), Bioware's untouchable status is slipping away from their grasp, and with it, the status of the western RPG as the "better" school of RPG design.

I dont think it's only BioWare, i think Bethesda as also kicked down the door on what we expect from RPGs, Fallout 3/New Vegas/Skyrim, showed that you can have these massive worlds and still be a throw back to classic RPGs.

I think the West got good at putting their own spin on the genre, I mean random nameless character whose destiny is to save the world from a deadly threat... sounds like FF to me, but also Mass Effect, sounds like Skyrim to me. JRPGs just seemed trapped in that FFVI -VII and they dont go and try to put a creative spin on the genre. I think the devs that do this are the ones that get a bit more loved, Persona 4 has your Checklist of JRPG tropes, but it creates a style of its own.

I kinda wish FF would just create a style that doesn't evoke the ideas of , YOU REMEMBER FFVII~!

You seriously think that?

Go play Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and afterwards, just tell me that's a fucking spikey haired Final Fantasy clone. Or Persona 3. Or Valkyrie Profile. Or Xenogears, or for that matter Xenosaga. Perhaps Vagrant Story, or perhaps Final Fantasy XII. How about Etrian Odyssey games?

TELL ME HOW THOSE GAMES ARE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME I FUCKING DARE YOU.

I.

FUCKING.

DARE YOU.

Here's a hint:

YOU CAN'T.

Because they aren't all the same. Each does its own thing in its own way.

No, seriously. Read this page, READ THIS FUCKING PAGE and tell me that the game it describes is like Final Fantasy VII. Jesus Christ, I am so fed up with the ignorance surrounding this genre. Holy shit.

First off... Sodium levels are way too high, no need tog et salty.

I was speaking more of the FF series and alot of those games you mentioned, I have played. And yes, other games that aren't FF do their own thing, but when people say JRPGs, 9/10 they are talking Final Fantasy.

@OneManX: Final Fantasy isn't a genre. You're generalizing without solid statistics or any other basis to form your statement on.

The broad resurgence you want that takes full advantage of the current generation or the next?

No

Nope...don't cry for me Nippon

Genres come in waves. Right now modern shooters are huge. But eventually people will get tired and some developer will make the next big thing that everyone else will copy. Will it be the JRPG? I hope so. I really can't remember the last time I was deeply invested in a Japanese role playing game.

We saw the rebirth of the fighting genre with Street Fighter IV, Mortal Kombat, the vs. Capcom games, etc. I'm sure the JRPG genre can do the same.

Most of the "good" JRPGs are moving to handhelds, and the old established franchises like FF are still clinging to the old ways. The biggest reason that most of the people I know who have slipped away from eastern RPGs is because of a lack of meaningful evolution. A new battle system doesn't fix everything else that in this day and age makes a lot of older RPGs feel outdated and kind of poor.

@Hailinel said:

@OneManX: Final Fantasy isn't a genre. You're generalizing without solid statistics or any other basis to form your statement on.

No just everytime the of talk the death or rise of the JRPG in any forum I've been in, FF is one of the top subjects, while it's not the genre, it sure as hell is the face of the genre.

I've tried out a bunch of JRPGs, but none of them have ever struck my fancy. It's just not my style, I guess.

So I hope there is a resurgence, because I can tell JRPGs make a whole lot of people very happy, but I don't think I'll ever play one unless it shows a lot of western influence.

@Hailinel said:

@OneManX: Final Fantasy isn't a genre. You're generalizing without solid statistics or any other basis to form your statement on.

No just everytime the of talk the death or rise of the JRPG in any forum I've been in, FF is one of the top subjects, while it's not the genre, it sure as hell is the face of the genre.

It bothers me this thread keeps reappearing, and I will say in a shortened form what I said in the last one of these threads: JRPGs were never mega-popular outside of Japan, I am unsure why people think they were. FF and Pokemon sold loads in other regions sure, they still do in fact, but outside of those the genre as a whole was never popular. As others have pointed out most of the production has simply gone to handhelds due to just how damn expensive it is to make a console game nowadays. So if you care about the genre there is still loads of games to buy, just go get a PSP or DS. We will see a "resurgence" on consoles if we ever get back to the point where making them is profitable on the console. We've already seen stuff like Chantelise and that other game they made about items n' shit on Steam which is where I see the future of the genre on consoles (that is to say, fairly inexpensive downloadable games).
 
Also yeah, I never understood why Final Fantasy is the face of the genre at all. At this point Pokemon is more popular and sells more copies and I always feel captures more of what I love about the genre as a whole. I guess it's just because the FF series influenced so many other devs, but meh.

Unfortunately, as much as I loved JRPGs in the SNES era, the better the graphics got, the shittier the games got. Really, really, really faggy (for lack of a better word) characters, horrible voice acting and dialogue, etc. Ever play that Star Ocean game for 360? Cutscenes practically sent me into a rage in that game haha Final Fantasy is certainly no better these days. I never was able to sit through that Xenosaga game for PS2 either, and Resonance of Fate was just boring in my opinion. I can't think of any other recent JRPGs I played, besides those .hack games but what the hell were those supposed to be anyway?

You know, I would love to see an American made Final Fantasy. We sure as hell can't do any worse than Square.

@MideonNViscera said:

You know, I would love to see an American made Final Fantasy. We sure as hell can't do any worse than Square.

Remember the Final Fantasy game made for Americans? I can't imagine the situation being improved if it was made by Americans.

@Zenaxzd: Sorry about that, man. I literally just joined yesterday and this is the first forum I've ever actually posted on. I always browsed the forums for news but most always seemed too hostile or inane to even bother contributing to. Just trying to stir some good conversation, that's all. =)

@Nidzumi said:

I'm not really a fan of JRPGs, in fact I'm not a fan of RPGS in general but I could see a market for them on iOS. After seeing the guys play Chrono Trigger, I started looking for a similar experience on iOS and failed. But it seems like a missed opportunity that an app developer could capitalise on.

The problem with RPGs, is that they were designed the way they were because of technical limitations, limitations that we no longer have. So I'd be surprised if we got a massive resurgence in them.

Hey man,

Totally agree with you here, especially that last line. RPG's made sense before due to prior technical limitations (see random battles), but it's ridiculous how we've seen VERY few developers take advantage of new technology in a way I think the genre begs for. An example of the new Final Fantasy 13-2 implementing Quick-Time Events. Where is the logic there? When I look at older, classic jRPG's, I see the typical "Attack / Defend / Magic / Item / Etc" menu to be a way of allowing the developers to represent much more than they could do at the time. There's no reason some of that can be more real-time in 2012, and allow for more user-input than something as shallow as a *Quick-Time Event*.

Like the OP, I used to LOVE jRPG's back in the day and never foresaw them to be in this lull as they are today. I never thought I would stop buying Final Fantasy for example, but here we are. Not one of my friends would have guessed this to become the case. Luckily, I see SO much potential in this area.

Here's a quick example: Anyone remember how beautiful the towns were in games like Saga Frontier (Kowloon), Star Ocean (Arlia, oh gosh Arlia Village's theme), the PSX FF's (think towns like Fisherman's Horizon, Balamb)? The pre-rendered backgrounds and the soothing music, I think, draws out the adventurer in all of us -- to long for a world that clearly does not exist and escape into it, at least for a while. My thoughts were, hey, these beautiful vistas would SOON be realized in real-time, without this pre-rendered stuff. But no, it's almost like, despite the technology, no developer has really the cajones to make beautiful, realized environments like that (and the ones that have, have made them *extremely* linear). I thought FFX (when they started making their backgrounds in real-time) would be a great start to what I thought was a trend going the right way -- I was dead wrong. So linear, I have yet to finish FFX (which is unbelievable to me).

These environments and worlds has still not been re-created in real-time with the expansiveness they deserve and no developer has still made me feel the same things I felt with certain jRPG's in the late 90's, early 2000's. Recent Western RPG's like Mass Effect and Skyrim have been great, but they cannot capture what I've experienced with jRPG's in the past. It's not too late, jRPG developers. You can do it.

First off, I'm going to define what a JRPG is to me since everyone in this thread seems to have a different idea about them. "A narrative driven RPG as opposed to a more 'system' / 'mechanic' driven one, developed in Japan". Which would encompass franchises like Final Fantasy, Persona, Tales and cuts off the likes of Demon's / Dark Souls (which has more in common with games like the Elder Scrolls franchise or Ultima, and eliminates the Etrian Odyssey and SMT games, who trace their lineage more or less directly from games like Wizardry and Might and Magic).

A resurgence in JRPGs? Well...

• Much has been said about how Japanese developers have been struggling this generation (PS3 / 360). A rise in development costs for the "next-gen consoles", needing to find an international appeal, whatever. Simply put, the less Japanese developers are active on a platform, the less likely we're going to see JRPGs flourish. Of course, there will always be the big players like Square Enix or Namco Bandai, but there aren't a lot of Japanese developers left with the manpower to develop for the current consoles. Apart from the stuff that companies like Compile Heart / Idea Factory inexplicably churns out. Which leads into...
• While the West primarily games on consoles - the big, bulky ones that sit in our living rooms -, mainstream Japan has gone into an entirely different direction: portables. Monster Hunter, Dragon Warrior / Quest, Pokemon (there's probably a case to be made for stuff like Golden Sun, Fire Emblem and many, many more). That's just a handful of franchises that've flourished on the portable platforms. Which leaves consoles like the PS3, and to a larger extent the 360, in the hands of the, let's say, "more fanatical" facets of Japanese culture? Console RPGs? Well...
• You'd better cater to the tastes of your home market first before exporting it overseas if you ever expect to make a profit. Let's turn the three major consoles into cute girls! Let's take dating simulation elements and put them into our RPG! Let's make our fans dream come true and mash all of our "mascot" characters into one single game! Go through the library of developers like Compile Heart / Idea Factory, you'll see what I mean. Well, that's going to go over well in the West.
• Lastly, before this generation, the RPG split was between consoles and PCs. On the one side you had Squaresoft (Final Fantasy), Enix (Dragon Warrior / Quest), Namco Bandai (Tales), to name but a few. The PC side had developers such as BioWare / Black Isle (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout), Origin (Ultima), Bethesda (Elder Scrolls). How convenient, East vs West! As consoles grew in processing power and the gap between consoles and PCs became smaller, some developers started to spill over (for some non-RPG examples, look at Epic Games). Unlike their Japanese counterparts, Western developers had no problem switching to the current generation of consoles.

So, a resurgence in JRPGs? Not until the West en masse switches to portables, or Japanese starts cramming bulky consoles in their small homes.

@wmaustin55: That's... fine, I just get really annoyed with this topic specifically when there is pretty much no truth behind it. I mean they haven't even vanished, they just exist elsewhere now. You can't walk 2 feet through the PSP or DS' library without tripping over a generic JRPG. 

Nope, we won't. People like action, which is why first person shooters and third person shooters are popular. JRPGs don't give you any of that.

@Video_Game_King said:

@MideonNViscera said:

You know, I would love to see an American made Final Fantasy. We sure as hell can't do any worse than Square.

Remember the Final Fantasy game made for Americans? I can't imagine the situation being improved if it was made by Americans.

haha Couldn't you go in and out of rooms and the chests would all reappear?

@OneManX

@Hailinel said:

@OneManX: Final Fantasy isn't a genre. You're generalizing without solid statistics or any other basis to form your statement on.

No just everytime the of talk the death or rise of the JRPG in any forum I've been in, FF is one of the top subjects, while it's not the genre, it sure as hell is the face of the genre.

Truth

First off, I'm going to define what a JRPG is to me since everyone in this thread seems to have a different idea about them. "A narrative driven RPG as opposed to a more 'system' / 'mechanic' driven one, developed in Japan". Which would encompass franchises like Final Fantasy, Persona, Tales and cuts off the likes of Demon's / Dark Souls (which has more in common with games like the Elder Scrolls franchise or Ultima, and eliminates the Etrian Odyssey and SMT games, who trace their lineage more or less directly from games like Wizardry and Might and Magic).

A resurgence in JRPGs? Well...

• Much has been said about how Japanese developers have been struggling this generation (PS3 / 360). A rise in development costs for the "next-gen consoles", needing to find an international appeal, whatever. Simply put, the less Japanese developers are active on a platform, the less likely we're going to see JRPGs flourish. Of course, there will always be the big players like Square Enix or Namco Bandai, but there aren't a lot of Japanese developers left with the manpower to develop for the current consoles. Apart from the stuff that companies like Compile Heart / Idea Factory inexplicably churns out. Which leads into...
• While the West primarily games on consoles - the big, bulky ones that sit in our living rooms -, mainstream Japan has gone into an entirely different direction: portables. Monster Hunter, Dragon Warrior / Quest, Pokemon (there's probably a case to be made for stuff like Golden Sun, Fire Emblem and many, many more). That's just a handful of franchises that've flourished on the portable platforms. Which leaves consoles like the PS3, and to a larger extent the 360, in the hands of the, let's say, "more fanatical" facets of Japanese culture? Console RPGs? Well...
• You'd better cater to the tastes of your home market first before exporting it overseas if you ever expect to make a profit. Let's turn the three major consoles into cute girls! Let's take dating simulation elements and put them into our RPG! Let's make our fans dream come true and mash all of our "mascot" characters into one single game! Go through the library of developers like Compile Heart / Idea Factory, you'll see what I mean. Well, that's going to go over well in the West.
• Lastly, before this generation, the RPG split was between consoles and PCs. On the one side you had Squaresoft (Final Fantasy), Enix (Dragon Warrior / Quest), Namco Bandai (Tales), to name but a few. The PC side had developers such as BioWare / Black Isle (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout), Origin (Ultima), Bethesda (Elder Scrolls). How convenient, East vs West! As consoles grew in processing power and the gap between consoles and PCs became smaller, some developers started to spill over (for some non-RPG examples, look at Epic Games). Unlike their Japanese counterparts, Western developers had no problem switching to the current generation of consoles.

So, a resurgence in JRPGs? Not until the West en masse switches to portables, or Japanese starts cramming bulky consoles in their small homes.

@wmaustin55 said:

@Gaff

First off, I'm going to define what a JRPG is to me since everyone in this thread seems to have a different idea about them. "A narrative driven RPG as opposed to a more 'system' / 'mechanic' driven one, developed in Japan". Which would encompass franchises like Final Fantasy, Persona, Tales and cuts off the likes of Demon's / Dark Souls (which has more in common with games like the Elder Scrolls franchise or Ultima, and eliminates the Etrian Odyssey and SMT games, who trace their lineage more or less directly from games like Wizardry and Might and Magic).

A resurgence in JRPGs? Well...

• Much has been said about how Japanese developers have been struggling this generation (PS3 / 360). A rise in development costs for the "next-gen consoles", needing to find an international appeal, whatever. Simply put, the less Japanese developers are active on a platform, the less likely we're going to see JRPGs flourish. Of course, there will always be the big players like Square Enix or Namco Bandai, but there aren't a lot of Japanese developers left with the manpower to develop for the current consoles. Apart from the stuff that companies like Compile Heart / Idea Factory inexplicably churns out. Which leads into...
• While the West primarily games on consoles - the big, bulky ones that sit in our living rooms -, mainstream Japan has gone into an entirely different direction: portables. Monster Hunter, Dragon Warrior / Quest, Pokemon (there's probably a case to be made for stuff like Golden Sun, Fire Emblem and many, many more). That's just a handful of franchises that've flourished on the portable platforms. Which leaves consoles like the PS3, and to a larger extent the 360, in the hands of the, let's say, "more fanatical" facets of Japanese culture? Console RPGs? Well...
• You'd better cater to the tastes of your home market first before exporting it overseas if you ever expect to make a profit. Let's turn the three major consoles into cute girls! Let's take dating simulation elements and put them into our RPG! Let's make our fans dream come true and mash all of our "mascot" characters into one single game! Go through the library of developers like Compile Heart / Idea Factory, you'll see what I mean. Well, that's going to go over well in the West.
• Lastly, before this generation, the RPG split was between consoles and PCs. On the one side you had Squaresoft (Final Fantasy), Enix (Dragon Warrior / Quest), Namco Bandai (Tales), to name but a few. The PC side had developers such as BioWare / Black Isle (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout), Origin (Ultima), Bethesda (Elder Scrolls). How convenient, East vs West! As consoles grew in processing power and the gap between consoles and PCs became smaller, some developers started to spill over (for some non-RPG examples, look at Epic Games). Unlike their Japanese counterparts, Western developers had no problem switching to the current generation of consoles.

So, a resurgence in JRPGs? Not until the West en masse switches to portables, or Japanese starts cramming bulky consoles in their small homes.

Now this is the type of insight/discussion I lie to see. No "yawn" or "this has been done befor"'s. *slow clap*

Gaff seems to have forgotten that those esoteric RPGs he mocks like Hyperdimension Neptunia, Record of Argarest War and so on have actually beeen released in the west and have their audiences.

Also, *yawn*, this has been done before. Several times in the past week alone. In separate threads.

@wmaustin55 said:

@Gaff

First off, I'm going to define what a JRPG is to me since everyone in this thread seems to have a different idea about them. "A narrative driven RPG as opposed to a more 'system' / 'mechanic' driven one, developed in Japan". Which would encompass franchises like Final Fantasy, Persona, Tales and cuts off the likes of Demon's / Dark Souls (which has more in common with games like the Elder Scrolls franchise or Ultima, and eliminates the Etrian Odyssey and SMT games, who trace their lineage more or less directly from games like Wizardry and Might and Magic).

A resurgence in JRPGs? Well...

• Much has been said about how Japanese developers have been struggling this generation (PS3 / 360). A rise in development costs for the "next-gen consoles", needing to find an international appeal, whatever. Simply put, the less Japanese developers are active on a platform, the less likely we're going to see JRPGs flourish. Of course, there will always be the big players like Square Enix or Namco Bandai, but there aren't a lot of Japanese developers left with the manpower to develop for the current consoles. Apart from the stuff that companies like Compile Heart / Idea Factory inexplicably churns out. Which leads into...
• While the West primarily games on consoles - the big, bulky ones that sit in our living rooms -, mainstream Japan has gone into an entirely different direction: portables. Monster Hunter, Dragon Warrior / Quest, Pokemon (there's probably a case to be made for stuff like Golden Sun, Fire Emblem and many, many more). That's just a handful of franchises that've flourished on the portable platforms. Which leaves consoles like the PS3, and to a larger extent the 360, in the hands of the, let's say, "more fanatical" facets of Japanese culture? Console RPGs? Well...
• You'd better cater to the tastes of your home market first before exporting it overseas if you ever expect to make a profit. Let's turn the three major consoles into cute girls! Let's take dating simulation elements and put them into our RPG! Let's make our fans dream come true and mash all of our "mascot" characters into one single game! Go through the library of developers like Compile Heart / Idea Factory, you'll see what I mean. Well, that's going to go over well in the West.
• Lastly, before this generation, the RPG split was between consoles and PCs. On the one side you had Squaresoft (Final Fantasy), Enix (Dragon Warrior / Quest), Namco Bandai (Tales), to name but a few. The PC side had developers such as BioWare / Black Isle (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout), Origin (Ultima), Bethesda (Elder Scrolls). How convenient, East vs West! As consoles grew in processing power and the gap between consoles and PCs became smaller, some developers started to spill over (for some non-RPG examples, look at Epic Games). Unlike their Japanese counterparts, Western developers had no problem switching to the current generation of consoles.

So, a resurgence in JRPGs? Not until the West en masse switches to portables, or Japanese starts cramming bulky consoles in their small homes.

Now this is the type of insight/discussion I lie to see. No "yawn" or "this has been done befor"'s. *slow clap*

Gaff seems to have forgotten that those esoteric RPGs he mocks like Hyperdimension Neptunia, Record of Argarest War and so on have actually beeen released in the west and have their audiences.

Also, *yawn*, this has been done before. Several times in the past week alone. In separate threads.

I'd say (and this is just a wild guess) when something like FF13 Versus or KH3 comes out and is made really well, sells really well to make other developers notice hard, and triggers a wave of games that take their own spin on the formula, providing a constant stream of good quality and 'fresh' JRPG experiences. Their active systems that still incorporate a tactile menu of JRPG-esque options that can be employed at any time, whilst facilitating the ability to move about the combat area freely and the ability to explore environments to the extent that open-world games do will be simply amazing. I'm sure some particular members might show me some examples of games that already do that, but then again they haven't been good enough to cause a resurgence in the sense of seeing a lot more attempts at making a AAA JRPG that can sell units in the millions, which is really the point of all of this (JRPG's aren't really dead and doing fine in other avenues, so they don't need a revival).

Also, bring more JRPGs to the PC goddamit. I'm thinking of getting The Last Remnant on steam even knowing that I hate elements of their system for being pretty dumb, because that's probably one of the only JRPG's with a big budget that is somewhat good that I can play on a PC in general. The japanese really need to embrace the PC market some more at least to profit from foreign countries who are interested in playing them.

Idk, man. My favorite RPG's are Persona 3, Exenogears, Suikoden 2, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 9 and FF 12. Honestly, and I'm probably in the minority here, I wish Square had stuck with the FFXII format. I had such a great/immersive time with that entry that I didn't care that the story didn't live up to the "Final Fantasy" legacy standards; whatever that is.

Handheld are where it is at. Radiant historia. Dq 9and valkira chronicles 2 are great games

@wmaustin55 said:

Idk, man. My favorite RPG's are Persona 3, Exenogears, Suikoden 2, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 9 and FF 12. Honestly, and I'm probably in the minority here, I wish Square had stuck with the FFXII format. I had such a great/immersive time with that entry that I didn't care that the story didn't live up to the "Final Fantasy" legacy standards; whatever that is.

Final Fantasy is an ever-changing series. You can't expect one entry to be the same in structure as the next. It's been that way ever since Final Fantasy II.

@Zenaxzd

@wmaustin55: That's... fine, I just get really annoyed with this topic specifically when there is pretty much no truth behind it. I mean they haven't even vanished, they just exist elsewhere now. You can't walk 2 feet through the PSP or DS' library without tripping over a generic JRPG. 

That isn't even what I asked, though. No one is disputing the abundance of generic JRPG's. My question was did I just outgrow them or are they really that stagnant. Where the community took it I had no part in. Haha

Also, bring more JRPGs to the PC goddamit. I'm thinking of getting The Last Remnant on steam even knowing that I hate elements of their system for being pretty dumb, because that's probably one of the only JRPG's with a big budget that is somewhat good that I can play on a PC in general. The japanese really need to embrace the PC market some more at least to profit from foreign countries who are interested in playing them.

@Zenaxzd said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

Also, bring more JRPGs to the PC goddamit. I'm thinking of getting The Last Remnant on steam even knowing that I hate elements of their system for being pretty dumb, because that's probably one of the only JRPG's with a big budget that is somewhat good that I can play on a PC in general. The japanese really need to embrace the PC market some more at least to profit from foreign countries who are interested in playing them.

You should give it a try, the game is rather excellent if you actually read the part where it says increasing squad level doesn't increase stats so you don't fuck yourself over by constantly making enemies higher levels without increasing your stats... Actually the whole system promotes fighting fewer battles than many so you don't have to grind or anything if you find enemies that give good stats. Though that said a lot of the stuff got changed on PC and it's a much better game overall there than on consoles. I have yet to actually play the PC version myself, but from my understanding you can actually do things like use a full 5 squads instead of the like 3 you essentially get shoehorned into on the 360.

Oh I've actually played it before at a friend's place and know how it works. I love the idea and most of the systems involved, however the idea that I cannot choose what to do at any time without proper game reasoning continually bugs me. I had a point where a couple of my teams were KO'd and I wanted to revive them. However no matter which team I focused on, the team with the revive spell didn't want to give me the option at all, even though I have the means to do it. That kind of situation annoys me in that game and turned me off of it a bit, but not enough to consider picking it up and having a proper go at it, because I can see the good qualities of it right there. I wish Square Enix would try to do another of those games even with my gripes.

@wmaustin55 said:

Idk, man. My favorite RPG's are Persona 3, Exenogears, Suikoden 2, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 9 and FF 12. Honestly, and I'm probably in the minority here, I wish Square had stuck with the FFXII format. I had such a great/immersive time with that entry that I didn't care that the story didn't live up to the "Final Fantasy" legacy standards; whatever that is.

It's an interesting point, as while I also quite enjoy JRPGs, you listed my two least favourite FFs by far. I feel that within FF itself (which is the flagship as far as big name console JRPGs), there's ALWAYS been this kind of doom/gloom. Someone fixates their favourite final fantasy and the one that comes after it never delivers quite what they want. This isn't always the case, but something I've noticed is that people's least/most favourite Final Fantasies are often next to each other. Many diehard 7 fans strongly disliked 8, and those of us that liked 8 weren't necessarily the biggest fan of 9. I enjoyed XIII and rather disliked XII. They just are always changing, so they appeal to different people and tastes. FFXIII-2 even draws heavily from some western RPG influence, for better or worse.

As far as other JRPGs, they still exist and do really really well, but as stated before they are primarily on the portable systems. Which is totally okay with me, my PSP was by far my most used console of the last generation and my Vita is already rapidly catching up to time spent on my PS3. My point of view is skewed, here in Japan, but I still see JRPGs doing very very well, moreso than WRPGs (which are harder to get over here and I'm not exceptionally interested in them myself). They are totally different genres, and any genre tends to be a bit cyclical.

Aside from all that, from a pure development point of view, a modern JRPG on a console with high production values is not something many companies (outside of SE and a few others) have the funds for. RPGs are long involved narratives that can often span 60+ hours. In a generation where companies drop millions on putting together a 6 hour game, the amount of effort to do modeling and engines and environments (never mind testing) for 60+ hours is much harder to do. Some developers can, but it's a lot different from the smaller teams that could put out a long product like that in the days of the Super Famicom.

@Hailinel said:

Gaff seems to have forgotten that those esoteric RPGs he mocks like Hyperdimension Neptunia, Record of Argarest War and so on have actually beeen released in the west and have their audiences.

Going by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a resurgence is a "a rising again into life, activity, or prominence", which kind of precludes niche audiences and implies the mainstream taking notice (in a good way). Have games like Hyperdimension Neptunia, Agarest War or Cross Edge ever penetrated into the mainstream like Final Fantasy X / VII / VI have? Side-scrolling shooters had an incredible run in the Nineties and are still being made and released in the West. I wouldn't call that a "resurgence" by any means.

Looking at video game genres in general, the only bygone genre that has had a resurgence like this is the 2D fighting genre, largely due to Street Fighter 4's release. What did that game do right? Was it going back to basics, like Jeff Gerstmann mentions in his review? Did it add just enough depth to keep aficionados satisfied but not alienate the more casual player?

Developing a story-driven, 40 hour JRPG is of course an entirely different beast than developing a fighting game, but perhaps JRPG companies should take a long, hard look at what happened with SF4, and then a hard, long look at themselves. Do away with the more convoluted and imprenatable mechanics, tell an engaging story, don't try so hard. And for the love of God, keep Tetsuya Nomura away from the characters.

The death is probably caused more by Japanese culture. The JRPG's have progressively become more aimed at the Japanese market than Western. Look at the styles that 16-25yr old Japanese guys have and the styles in JRPG'S with regards to fashion,hair etc. The cheesy pop songs for end game credits and intros. The cutesy-poo-ness of everything. It just something that Westerners don't get.

The death is probably caused more by Japanese culture. The JRPG's have progressively become more aimed at the Japanese market than Western. Look at the styles that 16-25yr old Japanese guys have and the styles in JRPG'S with regards to fashion,hair etc. The cheesy pop songs for end game credits and intros. The cutesy-poo-ness of everything. It just something that Westerners don't get.

@wmaustin55 said:

Idk, man. My favorite RPG's are Persona 3, Exenogears, Suikoden 2, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 9 and FF 12. Honestly, and I'm probably in the minority here, I wish Square had stuck with the FFXII format. I had such a great/immersive time with that entry that I didn't care that the story didn't live up to the "Final Fantasy" legacy standards; whatever that is.

Final Fantasy is an ever-changing series. You can't expect one entry to be the same in structure as the next. It's been that way ever since Final Fantasy II.