jrpg hate in america.

[Starmongoose]

I am America, and I hate JRPGs.

I am Britain and I agree with America, as usual.

[Akanbe-]

Pictures

Yeah, character designs like that are probably half the reason why there is hate.  The other half are probably because of irrational fanboys, like what you see on Gamefaqs, are incredibly annoying.  Ironically enough, the anti-fanboys that spawned are equally annoying.

Bullshit aside though, the issue is complicated for a number of reasons, but to boil it down into a short post that I can get out quickly and without confusing the forum goers of this site (because I can get really fucking confusing at times) is that the combination of the fallout from the PS2 era, MMOs, and the utter lack of quality meshed with the blind drive to turn JRPGs into semi-interactive movies. The PS2 era saw a huge boom of JRPGs, many of which are semi decent at best

PS2 had a lot of great games.  No clue what the fuck you're talking about.

Additionally MMOs like WoW take a tremendous amount of available playtime for many people cutting into playtime for JRPGs and considering the social aspects of an MMO over the stodgy, recycled, plots of today's JRPGs there isn't even a competition.

MMOs cut into all gaming playtime, not just RPGs.  Not even a competition?  Nope.  Sorry, but I'd rather not waste time out of my day to play with the dredges of life aka your average MMO player.  After awhile, holding the hand of the rest of your party because they stand in the fire or are spouting off random racist jokes gets old very very quickly.

[CDFN]

Now there's plenty of manly men in jrpgs. Like this badass.

That's a guy?! You can't be serious. From what game is that?

[kyuusei]

In reality,  many are more likely to look at a commercial for a game, or look at the box, or screenshots and say "Dude, that's bad-ass!" or, as you noted, "Dude, that's gay!" and make their decisions based on that.  Hell, look at how many copies CoD: Black Ops has sold!

Welllll, some companies (cough cough Activision, Treyarch) also have way more marketing $$$ than most JRPG devs/pubs. JRPGs don't have a very wide audience these days to begin with especially compared to FPSes, let alone the resources for a good promotion campaign.

Now there's plenty of manly men in jrpgs. Like this badass.

That's a guy?! You can't be serious. From what game is that?

Ha, Lucius from Fire Emblem GBA. I can't get over the womanly hips on him.  (Fun fact: he was 'Lucia' in the Japanese version of FE: Rekka no Ken. :-P)

I am Canada and still love some JRPGs. I've been much more selective these days.

The PS2 was also a fantastic JRPG era, and my favourite for the genre (tied with the late SNES era that is - the latter didn't bring me MegaTen, though).

[Fei]

Hyperdimension Neptunia: a JRPG for the straight man or homosexual woman, AKA the people

not that gay men aren't people, I'm just playing on the homophobia angle here

[cj_iwakura]

Now there's plenty of manly men in jrpgs. Like this badass.

My example would be Wein Cruz from Growlanser 2.

[Annubis]

Memorable Traps in Video Games - Games at IGN
http://games.ign.com/articles/916/916102p1.html

oh wai...

[Sagacious-T]

I don't care about transgendered or homosexual characters, they're fine. Characters like Vaan and Tidus are just pure shit though. The little kid gimmicks have to go as well.

I mean look at this shit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlHZrBUimuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-KL0Cpke9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNauq6_9iP0

[Annubis]

I don't care about transgendered or homosexual characters, they're fine. Characters like Vaan and Tidus are just pure shit though. The little kid gimmicks have to go as well.

If Vaan looked this badass, I would have put him in my party

[Starmongoose]

What is wrong with her legs!?

[Annubis]

That's a very Korean style of drawing. Nothing weird.

[Parn]

[Sagacious-T]

I don't care about transgendered or homosexual characters, they're fine. Characters like Vaan and Tidus are just pure shit though. The little kid gimmicks have to go as well.

If Vaan looked this badass, I would have put him in my party

Hell yeah. I mean the vest still looks stupid, but that's a big improvement. Vaan could have been so much cooler but he ended up being a personality void hunk of flamboyant man-meat.

[Desert Walker]

In reality,  many are more likely to look at a commercial for a game, or look at the box, or screenshots and say "Dude, that's bad-ass!" or, as you noted, "Dude, that's gay!" and make their decisions based on that.  Hell, look at how many copies CoD: Black Ops has sold!

Welllll, some companies (cough cough Activision, Treyarch) also have way more marketing $$$ than most JRPG devs/pubs. JRPGs don't have a very wide audience these days to begin with especially compared to FPSes, let alone the resources for a good promotion campaign.

Agreed, but I'm not saying that makers of RPGs need massive marketing dollars and TV commercials to compete.  All I'm saying is that, for better or for worse, more 'normal' (less androgynous) character design would likely contribute to sales because even without commercials people would still focus on box art, screen shots they found online, that sort of thing.  Whether they should do that is another matter entirely, and is not a point that I'm trying to argue.

[Fei]

What is wrong with her legs!?

Fish eye lens.