(Article)Opinion: 2009 - The Last Days of the Japanese RPG?

[Dincrest]

Dead horse once again.  And couldn't similar sentiments of staleness be said for other genres of games as well, that they're relying too heavily on "trite-and-true" ideas rather than pushing their respective genres forward?  Could it be said that the best examples of various genres this year were not the envelope/boundary-pushing titles but merely the ones that executed tried-and-true ideas really well?  

One of my favorite video games this year is inFAMOUS.  I think the game is fantastic.  Does it reinvent the wheel?  No.  But it is a beautifully crafted wheel.

[Eusis]

No no no, I want to clarify whether it's made up statistics or ones you can't trust anyway.

[Parn]

It's very likely the former, based off of selective viewing of the latter.

[Blace]

Dead horse once again.  And couldn't similar sentiments of staleness be said for other genres of games as well, that they're relying too heavily on "trite-and-true" ideas rather than pushing their respective genres forward?  Could it be said that the best examples of various genres this year were not the envelope/boundary-pushing titles but merely the ones that executed tried-and-true ideas really well? 

One of my favorite video games this year is inFAMOUS.  I think the game is fantastic.  Does it reinvent the wheel?  No.  But it is a beautifully crafted wheel.

inFamous was one of my favorites for the year too. I think it has the best sandbox world I've played. GTA can suck it.

[Robert Boyd]

"Retro Game Challenge had poor sales"?  Says who? 

The US publisher said that the sales of Retro Game Challenge weren't good enough to justify doing the sequel. That sounds like poor sales to me.

Personally, I think 2009 has been one of the weakest years for JRPGs in a long time, but 2010 looks much better so I'm not too worried.

[Gen Eric Gui]

But they also said we wouldn't get Fragile if the sales weren't good enough, and we're getting it.  That tells me they did just fine.

It also depends on what "good enough" means in the two cases, of course.  The game could have been a financial success, but the second game might require much more work to the tune of XSeed not thinking they could make return on investment for that game.

Personally, I think this is another case like TWEWY, where it was judged a "failure" despite the fact that it sold out everywhere, simply because it didn't reach the same sales numbers that Final Fantasy usually does.

[Eusis]

When we miss out on the sequel I can't say the sales were just fine at all. Maybe not an catastrophic failure or anything, but it's not a success when we're missing out on the sequel.

[Tooker]

One of my favorite video games this year is inFAMOUS.  I think the game is fantastic.  Does it reinvent the wheel?  No.  But it is a beautifully crafted wheel.

inFamous was one of my favorites for the year too. I think it has the best sandbox world I've played. GTA can suck it.

Thirded.  That game was the reason I wanted a PS3, and it delivered.  Not sure if it was my absolute favorite game of the year - too hard to remember everything I played - but it's way up there.  Played through it twice, start to end, and I don't do that too often.

[Husk]

They cited Windwaker as a JRPG

lol

And also Shenmue.
/facepalm

[Prime Mover]

Alright, for those of you who are insisting that I made that up:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/home/950918.html

GameFAQs Reader Average: 8.1
GameRankings Average: 8.8

Usually this is the other way around. More often than not, fanbois inflate the rating more than critics do. However, across the board, in all 3 versions of DA:O, critics seemed to rate the game higher than readers. I'm seeing the same over at 1up, although they don't actaully post an average. Critic gave it an A, most of the readers gave it somewhere around a B.

Of course, Parn and the other naysayers will have some assinine comment to make, either about GameFAQs, or about how I shouldn't trust reader scores or something. I'll be waiting for it.

[Dincrest]

Considering the flurry of threads/topics like this, perhaps my newly posted editorial has a shred of relevance:

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2009/640.html

[MeshGearFox]

My favorite JRPG is FFL2. I think that the modern trend of having settings that make sense is ruining games.

Seriously people!!!

FFXII is an epic quest about doing epic things with politics and deifacted nethicyte and more politics and things I didn't really understand because I am illiterate.

FFL2 is about leading a party of robots and elves inside of a priestess to look for magic gems and then you shoot the bad guys with rocket launchers.

[Lord Scottish]

FFL2 is about leading a party of robots and elves inside of a priestess to look for magic gems and then you shoot the bad guys with rocket launchers.

And your fist is a breakable weapon (or is that just FFL1? not sure).

[Ryos]

The sky is falling the sky is falling the sky is

[Lord Scottish]

The two best selling games in Japan this year are JRPGs.

The genre is doomed