Yeah they really need to pull back the focus on the garphics and focus more on the characters and whatnot. It's just gotten to the point with agme development where it costs so much money to make HD games that you have to sell massive amounts of copies to even break even, which just isn't possible with a niche genre like the JRPG.

I honestly don't see the JRPG genre really making it much longer in the west, outside of a couple key franchises that will have a presence. Over and over they are released here and fail to move hardly any copies, especially on the handhelds which is where the bulk of JRPG development has headed to cut developmental costs. Pair that with the rise of the WRPG in the past decade and you pretty much have to think that the era of the JRPG is coming to and end. Luckily for us there are SO many great JRPGs that we should have plenty to continue playing for quite awhile.

Yeah, from the 16bit through the PS2 era they luckily made a shitload of JRPGs, many of which never made it to America but thanks to the hard work of fans have translation patches now. There's plenty out there to play, hell I have a need to play list so long I'll probably never get to them all, lol.

Post edited 2:19 am – September 26, 2012 by dystopia

Both of those games are amazing, Xenogears is so great once you start to unravel the story it really takes off. Vagrant Story is right up there too, I know the part you're talking about! lol, I got stuck there too for awhile, it took me several tries to best that damn dragon.

The Tales series doesn't exactly have a history of being a big selling here in NA, you can't really blame them as I expect localizations keep getting more expensive too.

It really is a shame, sadly it seems all western gamers want to do is…
a) shoot stuff
b) play sports sims
c) hack n' slash

If only story mattered more.

It's amazing (not really) how they've gone from XII to XIII, which was a direct response to the philosophy of XII. I say “not really” because the series is known to try out different things despite 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9 being similar when taken from a cursory point of view. For me, its XII gameplay that trumps XIII in every manner (and I liked XII at its release too so I'm not one of those guys who needs to play the most recent to appreciate its predecessor(s).)

As for FFXIV, I wish it were an offline FF.

What would you guys like to see from FFXV?

Didn't give a care for its high tech world, but the other half below was all right. The director was feeling himself a bit too much when he tried to blame James Cameron's Avatar for ripping off the setting. Joke or no, a little suspicious to even mention that.

I was a bit reluctant to get that point across above, but there isn't a rote formula FF follows. I'd like something that's a cross between the Industrial Revolution and our Interwar years, but I don't want to see them “return” to anything specifically. And if anything, something more like FF5 is what I'm clamoring for where gravitas is exchanged for something carefree.

XIII basically inverted the role of the light warriors from previous FFs in an attempt to usher them into a grey area. It's also irritating how they have ridiculous terms for gods, deities, and “light warriors”, as to suggest by using these terms that they're somehow nuanced from past FFs. No matter how it's spun, their concepts and ideas will always be transparent to me.

Kind of sucks because the worlds are often unimaginative. Same old design, lore, and vapid aesthetics.