...Yahtzee isn't a reviewer, he's a critic. He's a very funny critic, but his videos are more focused on shitting on things (even things he likes) rather than an indepth review of all the games elements. Just pointin' that out, at least.
And... honestly, outside Square-Enix trying desperately to get anyone to give a shit about Final Fantasy XIII by releasing a half-dozen games under it's weird, hyper-complicated story and unlikable fuckhead characters, JRPGs have been... well, doing fine. Hell, even SE's other game series like Bravely Default are quite popular, and the Tales series hasn't slowed down in forever (though it's hard as fuck keeping track of their names, good lord) so it's... yeah, not a dying genre at all? It hasn't even had any attempts at 'reviving' it, all the JRPG developers have just been doing their shit for decades without fail.
Plus, like, Sun and Moon are coming out soon. It's hard as hell to say JRPGs are failing when there's a new Pokemon game just around the corner that's going to sell like fucking hotcakes.
deadish said:
IMHO, the biggest problem with JRPGs is their combat system.
For the longest time, it has been turn-based which works very well for a team of characters.
Starting from FFXII, combat-wise it has been downhill. Real-time + controlling a group of characters = clusterfuck.
Going back to turn-based combat probably isn't an option for a AAA title.
JRPGs are still alive though. In the form of "indie" games, porting and distribution of old obscure JRPGs to platforms like Steam and the Final Fantasy MMOs.
My 2c.
I mean, while the combat systems for some JRPGs have been pretty fucked up, I feel it wasn't FFXII that started the problem - hell, it was literally Dragon Age: Origins combat system, just with Quickenings and horribly overpowered melee characters instead of horribly overpowered mages and drinking poltices. UI was a little clunky but overall it wasn't that out of place from many Western-style combat systems.
It's just... when they started over-complicating the systems, that's when shit got weird. X and XIII are good examples of this, since in X there was all that active-time switching or whatever it was, and XIII had the whole 're-arrange your entire class composition on the fly and oh also you can't change party-lead in battle and if they die you're fucked' deal. XII did change the system to the Real-time active command deal, but it didn't feel... over-the-top? Just run of the mill, really.
...Granted, 'run of the mill' probably isn't the best selling point either, and it definitely could've been ironed out a bit more (good god are the AI partners dumb), butit worked well enough.