JRPGs to handhelds

[Ando85]

I've noticed a trend lately that this generation the majority of JRPGs are being released on PSP and DS rather than on consoles. This does have it's pros and cons. For one handheld games that are just enjoyable as console titles are roughly half the price of a brand new console game. Also, portability is good at times but if I'm at home I'd prefer actually playing on my big nice HDTV. I notice also that handhelds are a bit less comfortable for playing long periods at least for me. Sometimes I can't get in a comfortable position or my hands fall asleep. This is much more apparent in lengthy JRPGs as opposed to pick up and play titles.

Games that come to mind are Dragon Quest IX, Trails in the Sky, Ys the Oath in Felghana, Ys 7, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Radiant Historia, Knights in the Nightmare, Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together, and a slew of others.

Your thoughts on this trend?

 

[Austin Howe]

Portable RPGs have been a trend for a LONG time, this isn't a new trend. That said, most of them are really, really good, especially all that tasty Atlus published stuff like Dept. Heaven. I certainly don't think the console JRPG is dying though. True, most of the great developers have either had a rough time this generation on the consoles (Square) or have really been painfully absent with their best series (ATLUS and Tri-Ace come to mind), but many of them have great stuff on the way like

True Godess Reincarnation: Persona 5
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
and Tri-Ace just put out the highly under rated Resonance of Fate.

 

[Zantos]

Last JRPG I played and liked was Final Fantasy 9, and I always thought that with the very non-intensive ATB combat it could have easily made it's way onto a handheld. Don't know how the others are but if they follow a similar style then I imagine they're moving it to the handhelds for one of two reasons. Either, because handhelds are really big in Japan or because they can corner the market on the handheld consoles rather than having to compete with the huge amount of shooters, RTS and western RPGs that are making up the top selling game lists most of the time.

 

[Wuffykins]

Personally I'm enjoying it because it's giving me a lot more life out of my PSP than I oringally gave it credit for, and secondly I'm seeing it work more because sprite based & 2d graphics are a lot more accepted on the PSP than they would be on the PS3 (same for the DS compared to the Wii).

I'm seeing this as developers able to get away with spending less time on graphic and asset design and more time on story/gameplay mechanics. I'm sure that sounds like an odd thing to hear at first, but remember how the universal voice of gaming seems to cry against not having HD 3D graphics being played on their shiny expensive console/Television combo (I do hate to massively generalize like that, but there is some truth in there). So companies get to experiment more by spending less, and smaller companies can get retail releases in there as well. Also having a slew of classic rereleases (Ie: Valkyrie Profile, Persona, Star Oceans 1&2, Ogre Battle, etc) definitely help things along.

Still, I have to get a DS soon. I'm a huge Wizardry style Dungeon crawl fan. Somehow all the games in that vein are ONLY on the DS.

 

[Devornine]

Persona 3 Portable and Trails in the Sky are my favorite PSP RPG's so far! Oh can't forget Crisis Core!

 

[Pearwood]

Final Fantasy 9

It's on PSP via PSN I believe.

 

[Zantos]

Final Fantasy 9

It's on PSP via PSN I believe.

Yes, I found that out about a month after I made the post that V, VII, VIII and IX are available, and now I have to make a difficult decision over whether I care more about FFIX being portable than I do about rent