Re: Will JRPGs ever return to the forefront of the console RPG genre?

On Feb 12, 9:51 am, The alMIGHTY N <natle...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 9, 8:38 pm, "Nick Soapdish, Jr." <JGordon...@xxxxxxx> wrote:





On Feb 9, 3:58 pm, The alMIGHTY N <natle...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...] It’s been a while since the shift of power in the console gaming
industry from Japanese developers to their Western counterparts.
Microsoft kick started this trend with the introduction of the Xbox, a
video game console that was similar enough in architecture and design
to a PC that formerly PC-centric developers had little problems
porting their titles to the system. All of a sudden, Western
developers like Bungie, Epic, id, and Valve who were marquee players
in the world of Windows and Macintosh gaming but virtually unknown by
gamers whose cash lined the coffers at Nintendo, Sega and Sony found
themselves at the door of a whole new market of consumers.

However, while the console gaming population’s appetite for games like
Halo, Grand Theft Auto III, and Splinter Cell grew, they still relied
on Japanese developers like Square and Namco for their role-playing
fix. Game series like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Kingdom Hearts, and
Dragon Quest were among the many Japanese role-playing franchises
available on the PlayStation 2, and the genre contributed to the
console’s greatest strength: its “something for everyone” library of
software. Some titles even reached blockbuster status with four in the
top ten list of best selling PlayStation 2 games.

Then, the Xbox 360 arrived and everything changed. (Cue dramatic
music.) [...]

http://www.n2o2p.com/wp/2010/02/09/in-the-world-of-rpgs-west-is-the-n....

Here's the thing- Western RPGs have actually had to move closer to
some of what JRPGs relied upon as their core appeal to the West.
Namely, the production values of Western RPGs lagged behind the best
of what JRPGs had to offer.  Say what you will about the effeminate/
emo characters or linearity of JRPGs, but the presentation was fairly
memorable.  KOTOR might've been the first time that a western RPG
tried to compete with the production and scope of JRPGs.  It may have
not succeeded as well, but the cutscenes and very effective story
twist both echoed JRPG production values.  Oblivion's presentation was
somewhat more cinematic than its predecessor Morrowind, which may have
been deeper, but felt more "staid" and wooden.  Mass Effect and its
sequel took things further in terms of emphasizing the cinematic
values that JRPGs held sacred, while Fallout 3 took the bold step of
devoting resources towards the VATS system combat camera, which, in my
opinion, was a seminal moment in bridging the divide between gameplay
and cutscenes.

As for JRPGs for this generation, it seems as if they've been few and
far between, but more importantly, there's been little in terms of
trying to compete with the advertising that western developers use to
promote the new breed of WRPGs.  Tales of Vesperia, so far, has been
the best in terms of emphasizing positive, personable elements of
anime, while drawing in the more action-oriented "western gamer".
Unfortunately, there's about 18 people who know the game exists, not
including myself.  Star Ocean: The Last Hope has the scale that JRPGs
are good at providing, but stubbornly clings to JRPG tropes such as
limiting saving to specific save points (Vesperia at least lets you
save anywhere on the world map), and disturbingly creepy or annoying
character design, as seen with characters such as the "Loli" design of
Lymle, or ditzy Sarah's annoying airhead personality.  The most mature
JRPG that I've played this generation, Lost Odyssey, is sadly still
rooted gameplay-wise in traditional, random, turn-based battles.
Final Fantasy XIII was going to be a buy for me......until I heard
about how unabashedly linear the game was.  I felt the series had
potential to rebound, when Final Fantasy XII did such a good job of
mixing things up.  Guess I was wrong.

You present an interesting theory, but I think that said theory is
wrong.

JRPGs were popular in the West long before the advent of the
"production values," which really were nothing more than a bunch of
FMV cutscenes, that started with Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation.
The previous six Final Fantasy games didn't have anything like that
and were still quite popular with Western gamers.

In actuality, these production values you refer to weren't an
evolution of the JRPG genre but of console games in general. Prior to
the PlayStation and its CD-ROM media, it really wasn't viable to have
high quality video cutscenes on a console. A lot of games started
taking advantage of this new ability - the JRPG genre just happened to
have a high visibility representative.

The other thing to note is that Western RPGs (computer RPGs, whatever
people want to call them) weren't even represented that early on. I
can't think of a single Western RPG for the PlayStation. I've combed
through a bunch of different lists online, all of which are just JRPG
after JRPG.

They started coming over for the Xbox but there weren't even that many
then. Morrowind. The two KOTORs. Anything else? Bard's Tale, maybe?
The games were popular specifically because of their actual role-
playing elements and because of their stories. Especially in the case
of the two KOTOR games, the quality of the story and everything
involved - character development, moral choices, dialog, etc. - was
what really drove the games home to console gamers. The inclusion of
the cutscenes didn't really indicate a mimicry of JRPGs but the usage
of a feature that had been employed by most console games for six or
seven years already, and it was done for the purpose of supplementing
the story that was already being told within the actual gameplay.

Therein lies a key difference between JRPGs and Western RPGs: in the
former the cutscenes are essentially the *only* time you get the story
whereas in the latter the cutscenes are simply one method of moving
the story forward.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I think it's hard to assert that western RPGs began to have higher
production values regardless of what JRPGs did. For a while, you had
action games that were becoming more immersive than western RPGs,
which relied heavily on text boxes for their story points. You can't
ignore that Japanese RPGs had a definite influence on western RPGs
coming over to consoles. They both shared the same general genre, and
it seems clear that western developers realized that mass market
appeal would require adapting some of what made some JRPGs relatively
successful. The most successful western RPGs on consoles all had
production values that skewed more towards JRPGs. And let's not
forget this isn't simply about cutscene-based story movement versus
conversation-based story movement. A lot of what I see as
similarities are more about overall presentation.
.

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