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Is JRPG dying or already dead?
MyAnimeList.net Forum »» Games Discussion »» Is JRPG dying or already dead?

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11-08-09, 9:54 AM
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kawaiimisato said:
those archaic weapons give the game more of a fantasy feel to them, along with the magic that you can usually somehow combine with said weapons. it just wouldn't have the same feeling if everyone was running around PEW PEW PEWing everywhere. and it just makes them that much more of a badass if they can save the universe with a weapon invented sometime around 3300 BC.
Fantasy feel is alright in a fantasy setting, but if they are going to include firearms above the level of muskets and handcannons, they should at least explain why some people still use blades. Star Wars has it's Jedi with their superior senses and reflexes, so that's justifiable at least. But if they're going to have a sci-fantasy setting, it just seems silly when they mix ancient and useless weapons with modern firearms without explaining why.
 
11-08-09, 11:25 AM

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I don't think they are dying, many good JRPGs are coming (or are already on) the three major consoles. But yeah, in the west JRPGs and RPGs aren't as popular as they are in Japan. However, if you look at the PSP and DS line up alone, you will see many of this genre on there. So I don't think that hardcore fans of this style of gaming should worry.

Though even if RPGs were to completely die one day (never will happen), it wouldn't be that big of a deal to me personally, since RPGs are only one of the many genres I play. Not to mention, that's what importing is for. If you don't mind kanji that is.
 
11-08-09, 11:41 AM

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Well everyone knows Pokemon hasn't changed their formula since the beginning of creation. =P

Overall in the videogame market, you rarely see something that is off the wall different. Most games make small improvements and innovations that compound on one another until, ten years down the line, you take a look at a classic versus a new bestseller and gush at all the progress.
 
11-08-09, 1:08 PM

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Personally, I believe that it has an issue to do with Western culture. Since the United States always look high to the idea of war heroes sort of thing, it is only natural that Western gamers tend to love FPS games over anything else with the exception of sports but part of the reason is that most of those games are in the major discount section. Nonetheless, Western gamers do like RPGs like Fable II, Fallout 3, and the Elder Scroll series.

Rather than saying that RPG isn't popular, it depends on which country you are talking about. Perhaps, the situation in Europe is different than that of North America or Australia. In Japan, on the other hand.. RPGs and visual novels are very popular but some people do play FPS games, as well as Western-styled RPGs. On the contrary, I guess Biohazard (Resident Evil) and MGS (Metal Gear Solid) cannot be considered as Western games, even though they are FPS.
 
11-08-09, 1:19 PM

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Fabzor said:
The thing is. JRPG games don't really appeal to Western gamers. At least not most of them. It def not dead though. There just aren't as many good releases :/.


Indeed. No good releases, AT ALL. And the imported games are almost impossible to play if you don't know some written Japanese.

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11-08-09, 1:28 PM

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Another problem: people don't buy games without good marketing behind them. See Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls. Both excellent games with somewhat underwhelming sales figures (Demon's Souls sold better than expect, almost sold out, but figures are less than half million worldwide). I believe Lost Odyssey sold way better than those two in the US. It was basically marketed as the spiritual successor of old school FF.

Other innovative good games that didn't sell crap are Madworld and Zaki & Wiki both on Wii. They are not JRPG, but they are good example of excellent games that didn't sell out.
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11-08-09, 1:31 PM
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How does guns make it not a role-playing game anymore? Fallout 3--a game in which you play the role of a person traversing the Wasteland, armed with a gun. A role you can take in many directions. Sounds like a role-playing game to me, where you occasionally shoot people in the face instead of chopping them in two. VATS even gives it a turn-based feel at times. We need more futuristic ones.

JRPGs aren't dying, but holding to status quo perhaps. Whether that is good or bad is up to the player. After you play so many, it's certainly easier to be mediocre.

And yeah, swords in futuristic games with no explanation make me facepalm too. :/ Arcanum mixed this decently, as did Star Wars and its Jedi.
 
11-08-09, 1:47 PM

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iroquois_pliskin said:
Recently WRPG's have made a move away from being only available to PC gamers and, largely thanks to Bioware, have become more easily available to console gamers. This has helped increase their popularity. JRPG's have done the opposite in a way. Many Japanese developers are choosing to develop RPG's for handheld consoles. Suikoden, Kingdom Hearts, Valkyrie Profile and Dragon Quest were all previously only on consoles but the most recent entry from each series has been released on a handheld console. While this does not generate as much sales, it is a far cheaper and safer way to develop games then on console and so from a business point of view it makes sense, particularly with the economy. Many JRPG fans care a lot less about graphics and so are happy to play handheld console RPG’s then most western gamers are. The problem is many people ignore handheld RPG’s and don’t seem to take them into consideration when saying JRPG’s are dead. They’re not, many games are still selling well there just hasn’t been as many blockbuster titles this generation. Sure western RPG’s are doing better in the west then Japanese games are but they are aimed at the west so that is understandable.
Jigero said:
JRPGs aren't dying they just aren't progressing, very rarely do JRGs feature any real innovation they stick to old played out formulas that just don't work anymore. JPGs are horribly niche right now, they are just about as niche as simulation games now. Only do the big names sell anymore, whens the last time a virtually unknown JRPG done very good? WRPGs are doing a hell of alot better then JRPGs ever did.

WRPG's stick to the same formulas as much as JRPG's, if not more. It has always only been the big names that sell well, regardless of genre. To answer your question, Valkyria Chronicles exceeded sales expectations in the west, selling out in many online retailers, and Demons Souls has been selling very well. Sure they are not completely unknown, Sega and Atlus are huge game developers but both games were still new IP's and not would not have been well known outside of JRPG fans. When was the last time a virtually unknown WRPG sold very well anyways? Fallout 3, Mass Effect and Fable 2 are by no means unknown. Oh and WRPG's aren't even close to the bigger JRPG's in terms of sales. Every main Final Fantasy series since VII have sold way, way more than any WRPG has globally, and so have Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest. Even now WRPG's are only doing better in the west, they don't sell at all in Japan, and they are not doing that much better.


Square-Enix is a powerhouse, but for every rpg square-enix that does good in western markets, their are tons that don't. And they only bring over what appeals to the western gamer. Same with Sega and Atlus. And we are talking about America, not what does well in Japan, what does well in japan doesn't mean shit here. They are are 2 vastly different markets. And your argument is pretty null, Mass effect and fable are only 2 to 3 years old as IPs and their companies have been around alot less then the popular Japanese developers. The only JRPGs that do well are the ones that have been around forever, and don't even count Kingdom hearts, that's just nonsense, If that game had not had popular final fantasy characters and western characters it would have never even seen the sales it did. It was a gimmick and still is and Demon souls can hardly be counted, they came right out and said the barrow alot of western ideals.
Modified by Jigero, 11-08-09, 1:53 PM
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11-08-09, 1:55 PM

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People in the West like to do that whole Galactic Martial Artist theme too sometimes.
See: Star Wars. It's just universal, swords and other old weapons will never die.
People Romanticize their use too much.
Modified by ukonkivi, 11-09-09, 1:48 AM
 
11-08-09, 2:53 PM
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Now, if someone wants to have awesome close combat duels with firearms, why don't they do like in Equilibrium? I would love to see a game like that.
 
11-08-09, 2:56 PM

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Jigero said:
Square-Enix is a powerhouse, but for every rpg square-enix that does good in western markets, their are tons that don't. And they only bring over what appeals to the western gamer. Same with Sega and Atlus. And we are talking about America, not what does well in Japan, what does well in japan doesn't mean shit here. They are are 2 vastly different markets. And your argument is pretty null, Mass effect and fable are only 2 to 3 years old as IPs and their companies have been around alot less then the popular Japanese developers.

Sure not every JRPG is going to sell like Square Enix’s larger titles but that alone doesn’t mean that JRPG’s are dying and that isn’t exclusive to JRPG’s, not every WRPG will sell well. And why are we only talking about America, the whole gaming industry doesn’t revolve around America and, over time, more and more Japanese games are being released in the west so there is not a risk that companies won’t bring games over anymore. Before Final Fantasy II, III and V weren’t originally released in the west, nor were the earlier SMT games. Also Mass Effect and Fable were both big budget games that had large amounts of marketing and were produced by Bioware and Microsoft. They weren’t at all unknown; in fact both were pin-up games for the consoles and each had a huge amount of hype surrounding them before they were released.
Jigero said:
The only JRPGs that do well are the ones that have been around forever, and don't even count Kingdom hearts, that's just nonsense, If that game had not had popular final fantasy characters and western characters it would have never even seen the sales it did. It was a gimmick and still is and Demon souls can hardly be counted, they came right out and said the barrow alot of western ideals.

You realise that Kingdom Hearts sold 3.5 million copies in the US, that’s more than any other RPG in the US outside of the Final Fantasy series and Diablos 2. So what if it uses pre-established franchises, that is something very common in the west. Think about how many Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons games have been released over the years. Does that mean we shouldn’t take KOTOR and Baldurs Gate into consideration as the reason they were built around already existing Lore/Universes was most defiantly to increase sales and appeal to the already existing fans. Kingdom Hearts was one of the most unique RPG’s ever made and the mix between the action game elements and RPG elements, as well as the use of Disney worlds, was done perfectly. I haven’t played another RPG with a similar setting, concept, or such a strong feeling of melancholy, nostalgia and adventure as Kingdom Hearts. Oh wait a second, sorry, you don’t like the game. You’re right we should just ignore it then.

Also, why does Demon Souls borrowing western ideals change anything at all? Many JRPG’s borrow some western ideals, particularly using western mythology. They are still Japanese and there is nothing wrong with Japanese game developers using western ideals.
 
11-08-09, 3:21 PM

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Fabzor said:
The thing is. JRPG games don't really appeal to Western gamers. At least not most of them. It def not dead though. There just aren't as many good releases :/.


This kind of fits the bill. For example games such as Tales of the Abyss being very well recieved in Japan don't get nearly as much reception here. However other JRPGS such as the Shin Megami Tensei series are some that have a rep for doing very well.

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11-08-09, 4:01 PM

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jRPG is dying fast. That's why Dragon Quest IX sold so bad in japan.





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11-08-09, 4:16 PM

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shinkeikaku said:
How does guns make it not a role-playing game anymore? Fallout 3--


fallout 3 isnt a jrpg ;)

reason why jrpg are dying out is due to most people just wanting to go running and gunning
jrpg also has competition with MMO because people would play that over them
 
11-08-09, 4:33 PM

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Personally I think JRPGs are doing great. They just need to come up with some new more inovative ideas.
 
11-08-09, 4:35 PM

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It is dying in the west. Everyone here is too busy playing CoD4 or getting big dicks for Modern Warfare 2. I think most people at one point has played some type of FPS on a console but not everyone has played a JRPG.

There is still a small audience of fans that love their JRPGs. The thing is, they usually have to wait for the localized version to play it.


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11-09-09, 1:49 AM

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What I have learned from this thread:
Japan has good taste in Japan.
The West(a place/culture which doesn't exist): Used to have good taste in games.
 
11-09-09, 1:27 PM

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ukonkivi said:
What I have learned from this thread:
Japan has good taste in Japan.
The West(a place/culture which doesn't exist): Used to have good taste in games.
What I have learned from long ago: We (the USA) invent things, Japan makes them better.
 
11-10-09, 4:01 AM

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Forgive me if I took too long to respond but I take lots of time reading every single replies. I agree with you all, even I don't like some of them.

For some WRPGs, I just don't like few stuffs. First the character creation. While everybody else think its cool but I think its a biggest mistake. People will spend too much time decorating his or her character rather than make any progression. Create-a-character feature works better in some fighting games like Def Jam: Fight For NY, Tekken 6 and Fight Night series than any RPGs.

Second, the FPS. Its pretty obvious for JRPGamer like me don't like FPS gameplay, just like most Western gamers on JRPGs. For recent years I saw most Western gamers are obsessed with some FPS games like Halo series and Call of Duty. Just look like how the raved Modern Warfare 2. No offense to any fans in this forum but I think putting FPS into RPG just don't work. The only WRPGs I like are Diablo series and Titan Quest.

I don't think JRPGs are dying or dead. Western gamers just don't like them because they just too busy with shooting games.
 
11-10-09, 4:28 AM

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We will start with a normal RPG.

Now lets say its completely generic.

Now lets say its a complete stereotype.

If you add cuter/younger looking characters, its instantly a JRPG.

If you add gritty stuff to it, its a WRPG.

If you add oversized weapons its a JRPG

If you add oversized people/armour its a WRPG

If its all swords and magic, its JRPG

If its all pew pew boom, its WRPG


The only way that there will be less complaints (always will be some), is if these two things merged completely, and flawlessly

For that, its probably going to have to be based on an anime, that seems gritty.


I suggest a black lagoon based rpg.

-Can play FPS as Revy
-Can play as the boat for the arbitrary vehicle/ transport part
-Can kill multiple things in a fast time
-Can freeroam around the city
-Can buy stuff with your limited funding

Seriously, thing about it. There will always be plenty of things to shoot, pleasing the WRPG fans, and there will be an actual storyline, pleasing the JRPG fans.


And I suppose you could always add in a blank robot character for them to customize... maybe just give clothing options for rock?
 
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