Japanese Developer Enthusiastically Teases Revival of JRPGs

[InsanityBaronOfAtrocity]

Right so even their little teaser video had shitty voice acting. Wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

I mean, they are currently developing a game about spanking demon girls [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102589-Nippon-Ichi-Developing-Girl-Spanking-RPG], so that's a good sign.

No. No it is not.

Possibly you have lead a much more blessedly sheltered life than I as regards Japanese popular culture and therefore think that this concept is somehow novel or experimental, but in fact it is not. This kind of pandering bullshit is exactly what's been destroying the genre and stopping it from progressing. A good sign would be if they were experimenting with completely new gameplay systems, interesting and unusual visual styles, and writing and characterization beyond what is commonly seen in video games. Classic JRPGs are so fondly remembered for their stories and characters because they were so much more advanced in that regard than the average game at time. All the other genres have now caught up to or exceeded that level, so they're really going to have to push the envelope if they want to make something worth playing again.

 

[MattAn24]

[sub](I'm not actually so reactionary that I'd condemn a company for some questionable design choices in what is already an incredibly weird game, especially when they're one of the few people who're actually showing some enthusiasm about trying to rejuvenate a genre I personally have great affection for. Nonetheless, the idea that these people are talking about the negative image JRPGs have internationally, while making a game where you spank underage anime demon girls, has too much delicious irony for me to ignore.)[/sub]

I find it mildly (read: fucking brilliantly!) hilarious that you wrote about spanking underage anime demon girls and delicious in the same sentence.

Surely, this game will have nothing bad about it! I'm certain it will cater to Cock of Doody fanboys the world over! (They need some form of sexual relief, y'know.. With the whole "not having a girlfriend" thing [sub]Because Call of Duty is their girlfriend now.[/sub])

 

[Weaver]

That video does nothing but make me laugh and really doubt they're going to revitalize the genre.

Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing of value to the discussion. You've added nothing but a stale sentence that just makes you look like an ignorant twat. Seriously. Please post something valuable..

I'm glad you see your inflammatory reply as adding "value to the discussion" as you so put it, but I'll bite:

This video exemplifies one of the many, many things plaguing the JRPG genre in the west: poor voice acting and bad translations. If they can't even make their "hype everyone up" trailer hype everyone up, why should I trust them to deliver not only one but eleven games which will be an entire revolution to the genre?

Seeing things entirely from a Western perspective, voice acting is an area we've really been hurting for in JRPGs and the trailer can't even rectify this issue, hell it doesn't even pluralize things properly.

Secondly, JRPGs aren't only losing popularity in the West. Famitsu wrote tons of articles on the stagnation of the genre, sales are dwindling in Japan with tons of gamers complaining about, guess what? Exactly the same things people complain about over here (minus the voice acting). I mean when Yōichi Wada makes a press statement saying he wants to move on to the "next generation" of JRPGs because gamers want something new, you know this is a genre that needs some new blood in it.

 

[spartan231490]

I truely dislike turn based combat, it breaks immersion for me. I also dislike all the micromanagement that goes with trying to coordinate attacks and spells with AI, which is notoriously retarded. Even in dragon age, where you could directly control the other chars, usually ended up with having the AI doing the most retarded thing possible during a boss fight. I had to run like, 3 seperate types of tactics to make my chars act even remotely sensibly during different encounter types (boss fight, horde, boss with minions), and even then, they usually tried to kill me at least once a fight. Admittedly, this was on nightmare difficulty, but you get the point.

 

[MattAn24]

Possibly you have lead a much more blessedly sheltered life than I as regards Japanese popular culture and therefore think that this concept is somehow novel or experimental, but in fact it is not. This kind of pandering bullshit is exactly what's been destroying the genre and stopping it from progressing. A good sign would be if they were experimenting with completely new gameplay systems, interesting and unusual visual styles, and writing and characterization beyond what is commonly seen in video games. Classic JRPGs are so fondly remembered for their stories and characters because they were so much more advanced in that regard than the average game at time. All the other genres have now caught up to or exceeded that level, so they're really going to have to push the envelope if they want to make something worth playing again.

Wait, so you're suggesting the typical ill-informed shtick that JRPG's are ALL THE SAME and NOTHING IS EVER CHANGED OR REVAMPED EVER?

Hm.. Let's see here..

FFX Battle System (2001/2002): http://i42.tinypic.com/9sb8km.jpg
FFXII Battle System (2006/2007): http://rpgaming.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/adb.jpg
FFXIII Battle System (2010): http://www.joshuakennon.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/final-fantasy-13-battle-system.png

Yes. Yes they're TOTALLY THE EXACT SAME THING WITH NO CHANGES AT ALL. Bloody ignorance.. Yes, they happen to have names, HP, etc in the corner, but the entire play-style is different for ALL three of those games, which are several years apart.

There's also the constant misconception from WRPG nuts that assume that Final Fantasy I-XIV is the SAME game, and are direct sequels to each other. As it is constantly stated, they are all totally different games, with completely new ideas and concepts. There are certain minor "traits" that stick through the series, but here's the kicker, no one (that actually gives a shit about the series) really minds. It's PART of the series. They're just done in different ways! Which is also why no one is forcing anyone to like EVERY GAME IN THE SERIES. SE's always trying different things and often sticking with the things that people enjoy. A lot of Westerners apparently enjoyed XII because it was real-time. No transitioning to a battle screen. That's all well and good, but of course the games are far from perfect. People are going to prefer certain ones. Hell, I'm sure there are FF fans that hated the early games and love the recent ones as well as lovers of the early games and haters of the recent ones. It doesn't matter. Just play the one/s YOU want to play. They aren't meant for everyone, just like Mass Effect and Fallout isn't meant for everyone.

 

[spartan231490]

I truely dislike turn based combat, it breaks immersion for me. I also dislike all the micromanagement that goes with trying to coordinate attacks and spells with AI, which is notoriously retarded. Even in dragon age, where you could directly control the other chars, usually ended up with having the AI doing the most retarded thing possible during a boss fight. I had to run like, 3 seperate types of tactics to make my chars act even remotely sensibly during different encounter types (boss fight, horde, boss with minions), and even then, they usually tried to kill me at least once a fight. Admittedly, this was on nightmare difficulty, but you get the point.

Uh, why are you comparing Dragon Age's AI controlled companions to turn based combat where you control all the characters?

I'm not, I'm saying that:
a) turn based combat breaks my immersion and
b) I dislike the micromanagement of dealing with multiple characters at the same time. I mentioned dragon age because i thought it was the best at controlling the retardness of AI but that it still wasn't good enough. I mention this because most JRPG's, maybe all I don't really keep track of the genre but i heard multiple characters is a big part of it, have multiple characters and that is another reason I dislike them.
Sorry, Should have made that more clear.

 

[MattAn24]

I truely dislike turn based combat, it breaks immersion for me. I also dislike all the micromanagement that goes with trying to coordinate attacks and spells with AI, which is notoriously retarded. Even in dragon age, where you could directly control the other chars, usually ended up with having the AI doing the most retarded thing possible during a boss fight. I had to run like, 3 seperate types of tactics to make my chars act even remotely sensibly during different encounter types (boss fight, horde, boss with minions), and even then, they usually tried to kill me at least once a fight. Admittedly, this was on nightmare difficulty, but you get the point.

There's a simple solution to this issue. Don't play the games with turn-based combat! Which also means it gives you no right to complain about it. You have your games that you enjoy more, that's perfectly fine. But don't go proclaiming (if not you, then pretty much everyone else that bitches about it) that it needs to be abolished! A lot of gamers don't like real-time action combat (like Mass Effect, etc).. There are people who would prefer to plan out their strategy and use a string of attacks. Rather than mashing multiple buttons to fight bosses, etc, it's more of a "how could I take this guy down using the abilities at my disposal".

You don't have to like it for it to be a good game. That's just plain arrogance and/or ignorance.

[sub]Note also that this is not a "OMG YOU HATE THE GAMES I LIKE SO WE CAN'T EVER BE BEST FRIENDS 4EVZ </3".. It's a "You don't like X series/genre? Awesome! Just don't tell me what I can and can't play/enjoy." Again, it's just common courtesy.[/sub]

 

[MattAn24]

I'm glad you see your inflammatory reply as adding "value to the discussion" as you so put it, but I'll bite:

Funny story, you'll notice that several of my posts are detailed and actually contain something valid to the topic. Your original one didn't. Please don't take it offensively, I wasn't targeting you specifically. It's a staple on The Escapist forums/comment threads (including content like LRR videos, etc) where people just won't -discuss- the video properly, just going "Yes. That was a video and I indeed did watch it."

That.. Neither adds nor explains anything. It helps if there's at least some feedback..

 

[spartan231490]

I truely dislike turn based combat, it breaks immersion for me. I also dislike all the micromanagement that goes with trying to coordinate attacks and spells with AI, which is notoriously retarded. Even in dragon age, where you could directly control the other chars, usually ended up with having the AI doing the most retarded thing possible during a boss fight. I had to run like, 3 seperate types of tactics to make my chars act even remotely sensibly during different encounter types (boss fight, horde, boss with minions), and even then, they usually tried to kill me at least once a fight. Admittedly, this was on nightmare difficulty, but you get the point.

There's a simple solution to this issue. Don't play the games with turn-based combat! Which also means it gives you no right to complain about it. You have your games that you enjoy more, that's perfectly fine. But don't go proclaiming (if not you, then pretty much everyone else that bitches about it) that it needs to be abolished! A lot of gamers don't like real-time action combat (like Mass Effect, etc).. There are people who would prefer to plan out their strategy and use a string of attacks. Rather than mashing multiple buttons to fight bosses, etc, it's more of a "how could I take this guy down using the abilities at my disposal".

You don't have to like it for it to be a good game. That's just plain arrogance and/or ignorance.

[sub]Note also that this is not a "OMG YOU HATE THE GAMES I LIKE SO WE CAN'T EVER BE BEST FRIENDS 4EVZ </3".. It's a "You don't like X series/genre? Awesome! Just don't tell me what I can and can't play/enjoy." Again, it's just common courtesy.[/sub]

Back off. This was a discussion about JRPG's and at least to an extent, why they are disliked. Did i say they are bad games? did I say you have to hate them? No. I explained why I dislike them. So don't jump down my throat about something I didn't do, that's just projecting your dislike of other people on to me.

Also, real time action games, IN MY OPINION(sinse you seem to think that every opinion I voice is one I'm trying to cram down your throat), are more strategic, because you don't have such an expanded time to plan your strategy. Western RPG's, like mass effect and dragon age, have just as many techniques as JRPG's, and have spell/attack combos just like JRPG's. You just have less time to employ them, which in my opinion requires more strategy and tactical thought.

 

[Weaver]

That video does nothing but make me laugh and really doubt they're going to revitalize the genre.

Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing of value to the discussion. You've added nothing but a stale sentence that just makes you look like an ignorant twat. Seriously. Please post something valuable..

Okay fine:

This video exemplifies one of the many, many things plaguing the JRPG genre in the west: poor voice acting and bad translations. If they can't even make their "hype everyone up" trailer hype everyone up, why should I trust them to deliver not only one but eleven games which will be an entire revolution to the genre?

Seeing things entirely from a Western perspective, voice acting is an area we've really been hurting for in JRPGs and the trailer can't even rectify this issue, hell it doesn't even pluralize things properly.

Secondly, JRPGs aren't only losing popularity in the West. Famitsu wrote tons of articles on the stagnation of the genre, sales are dwindling in Japan with tons of gamers complaining about, guess what? Exactly the same things people complain about over here (minus the voice acting). I mean when Y&#333;ichi Wada makes a press statement saying he wants to move on to the "next generation" of JRPGs because gamers want something new, you know this is a genre that needs some new blood in it.

I remember reading that SE wanted to make DQ IX have a realtime battle system and Japanese fans protested so it didn't happen.

Isn't it just as likely that JRPG's are losing sales in Japan because they are dropping what made JRPG's great in the first place? Turn based combat, explorable world maps, the ability to grind if you choose to, proper towns and shops, buying weapons and armor instead of some half baked upgrade system, etc...

I also say that long load times, long animations (usually to cover up even more loading), too many cutscenes and voice acting are to blame. I can read faster than the voice actors can speak a scene and I do find myself skipping to the next sentence before the voice actor is finished alot (subtitles on obviously).

I'd say there are some big questions here that I wish I knew the answer to and I also wish I had more reliable data on game sales in Japan.

Let's then for a moment just try to abstract the problems out:

Firstly, fans protesting a radical change to a series is par for the course in basically any medium in which there is a fanbase. In gaming I assume most of the protests comes because gamers have preconceptions about what a game should be like. Keep in mind I'm basically making this up, I have no psychological credentials.

However, if we think about this logically it makes sense. Halo is an FPS game, if the next Halo game in the main franchise (that is, it's not a spin off) turned out to be a 3rd person shooter you KNOW the internet is basically going to explode with fan rage.

Your point about sales in japan is a real chicken and egg situation and I don't really know if I have an answer to it specifically, and might even be the reason WHY so many JRPGs are similar. If fans of the genre expect certain things and a game comes out which betrays these expectations, people who are "in the know" as it were would say "This game isn't what I'm looking for" and not buy it, while people on the outside (who don't like JRPGs) would say "Oh, it's another one of those JRPGs" and not buy it. From a business stand point this is frightening, however reading news stories like this http://www.totalvideogames.com/Final-Fantasy-XIII/news/Square-Enix-To-Move-Away-From-Traditional-JRPGs-14871.html gives a bit of insight into the situation.

Wada says that currently JRPGs in Japan appeal to a very small and specific audience. So basically he wants to do what developers have been doing in the west and "broaden" the scope of his audience. This brings up even more questions: will it work? And, more importantly, will it make good games?

I personally think that innovation WILL work. If we look at FROM software's infamous Demon's Souls, we find that a good idea with solid execution can work in both the east as well as the west. This was a JRPG which broke pretty much every JRPG convention while simultaneously being unlike games here in the west. It's main "problem" was that it was targeted at the hardcore audience. While this is good for people such as myself, it likely isn't as great for sales as a mass appeal game.

I fully agree with your last point (about load times, acting, animaions, etc). People might think I'm picking on JRPGs but these are just a genre where these problems are most prevalent. If you put too many boring cut scenes with bad acting and long, boring animations with a tired story in ANY game of ANY genre it is certainly going to hurt it.

Personally (and on topic) I would LOVE for a JRPG revolution as it were, to bring us more great classics like Chrono Trigger I just don't really know if Imageepoch is the developer to lead us there. But hell, good on them for trying at least.

 

[Weaver]

I'm glad you see your inflammatory reply as adding "value to the discussion" as you so put it, but I'll bite:

Funny story, you'll notice that several of my posts are detailed and actually contain something valid to the topic. Your original one didn't. Please don't take it offensively, I wasn't targeting you specifically. It's a staple on The Escapist forums/comment threads (including content like LRR videos, etc) where people just won't -discuss- the video properly, just going "Yes. That was a video and I indeed did watch it."

That.. Neither adds nor explains anything. It helps if there's at least some feedback..

I guess you just ignored the two paragraphs of text below that line then? Yes my first post was worthless but I, as you so politely request, added content to the discussion.

 

[yanipheonu]

The JRPG will be revived the exact moment Persona 5 is out.

Though the portable space has been pretty good for JRPGs. Consoles definitely need a revival. It'd help if Namco actually releases a Tales game in North America as well.

 

[spartan231490]

I truely dislike turn based combat, it breaks immersion for me. I also dislike all the micromanagement that goes with trying to coordinate attacks and spells with AI, which is notoriously retarded. Even in dragon age, where you could directly control the other chars, usually ended up with having the AI doing the most retarded thing possible during a boss fight. I had to run like, 3 seperate types of tactics to make my chars act even remotely sensibly during different encounter types (boss fight, horde, boss with minions), and even then, they usually tried to kill me at least once a fight. Admittedly, this was on nightmare difficulty, but you get the point.

Uh, why are you comparing Dragon Age's AI controlled companions to turn based combat where you control all the characters?

I'm not, I'm saying that:
a) turn based combat breaks my immersion and
b) I dislike the micromanagement of dealing with multiple characters at the same time. I mentioned dragon age because i thought it was the best at controlling the retardness of AI but that it still wasn't good enough. I mention this because most JRPG's, maybe all I don't really keep track of the genre but i heard multiple characters is a big part of it, have multiple characters and that is another reason I dislike them.
Sorry, Should have made that more clear.

Just for the record, I think that the Gambit system in Final Fantasy XII worked alot better than DA's tactics.

I never played FF XII, but i googled the gambit system and it sounds just like the tactic sytem from DA: origins, except it may have had more options. But that wasn't my problem, my problems were a) they didn't follow the tactics I had set, or b) they followed them, but were retarded 100% of the time between following them.