more jrpg stuff for the 360 announced tomorrow.

[wild_whiskey]

Originally Posted by Lost Ranger

I think they are just using the word emo a little to loosely is all. Alot of these main characters are insanely immature but as its been pointed out the vast majority of them are teenagers. Also, alot of them may be 18-19 but the japs have a hard on for pretty boys who look like they are 12 so honestly age rarely seems to matter anyway.

I always found it funny that some of these games have supporting characters who seem to fit the bill of "main hero" better then the games real hero. Best example I can think of is the pirate from FF12. I can't for the life of me remember his name but I remember him being pretty cool overall.

You're thinking of Balthier. That's how FF12 was made, though. Vaan, the main character, isn't really the protagonist of the story. Basch, Ashe and Balthier are.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by wild_whiskey

You're thinking of Balthier. That's how FF12 was made, though. Vaan, the main character, isn't really the protagonist of the story. Basch, Ashe and Balthier are.

FFXII was an epic trainwreck. Was so obvious the development direction changed more then once.

[wild_whiskey]

Originally Posted by Vinen

FFXII was an epic trainwreck. Was so obvious the development direction changed more then once.

Hah, well the train did crash, but it had a promising startup, and it was a good ride for the most part. The story went off the deep end into clichedom and the creativity sputtered and died in a puddle of its own piss, but I still consider it a triumph for many reasons. The battle system was, imo, the last great step forward in making a tired and increasingly niche genre feel somewhat rejuvinated. As a disenfranchised appreciator of JRPGs, I meshed well with the new gameplay direction, and the amount of polish and content is bar none for Final Fantasys.

I'm glad to see Square has ditched the purism perspective (which ultimately makes games like Lost Oddysey feel so mediocre). At the end of Final Fantasy XII, I thought "Can't wait for the next one," which is something I haven't thought about concerning Final Fantasys since FF6.

[Needless]

misread.. oddly enough eventhough luke was such a little bitch at the beginning of TOTA, he did turn out to be a good character later on (i havent finished it though) so obviously yes there are good main charaters in JRPS, that wasnt my argument at all.

I just kind of found it funny how dead set on defending the statement of the majority are little bitch boys. TT

[Sean]

Young? Yes. Little bitches? No. Whiney emo femi-pussies? No.

This "stereotype" being perpetrated due to a couple Square titles is absolutely absurd.

[Soygen]

It's definitely harder to relate to most jrpg characters, the older I get. That said, I still enjoy them if they have cool equipment options, battle systems, etc. I'm still not nearly as into them now, as I was 10 years ago.

[Kobalt]

Originally Posted by wild_whiskey

You're thinking of Balthier. That's how FF12 was made, though. Vaan, the main character, isn't really the protagonist of the story. Basch, Ashe and Balthier are.

You can sort of say yuna in ff10 was the protagonist, but that doesn't come anywhere near ff12. Honestly the entire game I was wondering why vaan was even there, if they took him and pennelo out of the story no one would have noticed.

[wild_whiskey]

Originally Posted by Soygen

It's definitely harder to relate to most jrpg characters, the older I get. That said, I still enjoy them if they have cool equipment options, battle systems, etc. I'm still not nearly as into them now, as I was 10 years ago.

And therein lies the crux of the issue. The generation of gamers that made JRPGs absolutely explode in the mainstream has fallen out of touch with them, because we're aging, and the JRPGs aren't. Admittedly it's an over generalization, but there's no doubt that JRPGs don't have nearly the same amount of mainstream acceptance that they did during the glory years of FF6, Super Mario RPG, FF7, etc.

[Wombat]

You need a young/naive/amnesiac/outsider character as the "main" character you're playing behind, because otherwise it makes no sense that people have to explain to them how the world works - e.g. having to tell a lifetime NYC resident what a subway token is for.

At the same time, the number of rational reasons why bumpkin X has a surprise destiny to save the world has been used up, so they've developed this hybrid system where the bumpkin happens to run into the savior of the world and somehow gets absorbed into his/her party.

Personally, I thought FF12's combat system was intellectually interesting, both because Baldur's Gate & FF have gone in such opposite directions with their party commands that they've passed each other, and as a remedy to the extremely oldschool playstyle of DQ8, where I must have told Angelo to cast his mp drain arrow 50,000 times in the course of the game.
At the same time, this second level of combat abstraction (I tell someone he should swing a sword at something, eventually) really does distance the player from the action.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by wild_whiskey

And therein lies the crux of the issue. The generation of gamers that made JRPGs absolutely explode in the mainstream has fallen out of touch with them, because we're aging, and the JRPGs aren't. Admittedly it's an over generalization, but there's no doubt that JRPGs don't have nearly the same amount of mainstream acceptance that they did during the glory years of FF6, Super Mario RPG, FF7, etc.

Quite the opposite is true. JRPGs have far more acceptance today than they ever did back then. Barely anything was localized and ported back then - it was basically a miracle if something was.

Today nearly everything gets localized and there are far more JRPGs being made and sold across everything. The steps toward worldwide releases and the amount of games being developed compared to back then pretty much contradict every bit of bullshit you try to push here.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Wombat

You need a young/naive/amnesiac/outsider character as the "main" character you're playing behind, because otherwise it makes no sense that people have to explain to them how the world works - e.g. having to tell a lifetime NYC resident what a subway token is for.

I disagree. Plenty of games(rpgs included) introduce you to the game without you being a noob in the actual story.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Sean

Quite the opposite is true. JRPGs have far more acceptance today than they ever did back then. Barely anything was localized and ported back then - it was basically a miracle if something was.

Today nearly everything gets localized and there are far more JRPGs being made and sold across everything. The steps toward worldwide releases and the amount of games being developed compared to back then pretty much contradict every bit of bullshit you try to push here.

Yep, shit.

Major games which people think of which were never released in the US. (Or were released years later)

Star Ocean
Tales of Phantasia
Secret of Mana 3 (I can't spell it's real name :| )
Romancing Saga 3
Shin Megami Tensei
Shin Megami Tensei 2
Final Fantasy 2
Final Fantasy 3
Final Fantasy 5
...(Could keep going)

I can't think of *any* games currently being worked on for a Japanese released which arn't going to be released in the US down the road that are worth mentioning.

[Szlia]

I think you are both right or both wrong...

The JRPG that sold the most in the US is Final Fantasy VII (3m) and a not so close second is Final Fantasy X (2.7m - more than 6 years ago already). More recently, Kingdom Heart 2 (2m) and Final Fantasy XII (1.8m) are the one that sold the most it seems. Focusing on the PS2, games like Rogue Galaxy or Persona 3 sold around 200,000 units.

EDIT: On X360 Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata are in the 200,000 ballpark while Lost Odyssey is a tad above 400,000. You can't really compare these numbers to the PS2 ones, but let's just say Mass Effect, an ORPG, sold 1.4m.

So I think on one hand there are more JRPG that are brought to the US than ever, but they did not become somehow super mainstream all around. Publishers simply realized that there are some people who are very passionate about JRPG and enough of them to form a niche worth catering to.

In way it's just a normalization of the genre. Back then, only a few of the major AAA titles crossed the ocean, while now we have a broader spectrum of games resulting in a broader spectrum of sale numbers. JRPG are now like every other genre: lead by a few smash hits and trailed by many other games.

A question remain in my mind: Should we understand the lowering of the peek numbers as a sign of a decline in popularity of the genre? As far as I am concerned, that seems a little ballsy to claim, since it's based on the performance of a very limited number of exceptional titles, but the gap is so huge than I still think it has some merit. Should we compare total sales of the genre to have a better idea? I am not sure it would help since the morphology of the offer changed so much...

[Lorrac]

Originally Posted by Szlia

Mass Effect, an ORPG, sold 1.4m.

Mass Effect is an A(wesome)RPG.

[Szlia]

I am trying to send a new acronym out there to see if it sticks ORPG for Occidental Role-Playing Game.