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Gamasutra Opinion: "2009 - The Last Days of the Japanese RPG?"
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Half the article is flat out wrong, the rest is peppered with factual errors or dubious extrapolations, but the one point it does have /to a degree/ is that people are tired of what the author calls "kid's stuff". That's a simplification in itself however. I've actually introduced new people who thought they didn't like jRPGs to Dragon Quest and they love it - why? Because Dragon Quest, for example, is like a fairy tale or Pixar flick that all ages can enjoy. Its characters and story are not juvenile so much as timeless and innocent, like say, Mario.
It's very easy (and popular) for people to categorize things based on surface appearance. for instance, The World Ends With You is about an angsty Japanese teenager and is set in the epicenter of Japanese pop culture and fashion. But its storytelling movements are not stereotypical, it has real characterization, and goes places the typical jRPG never goes - at least not with any good writing or balls.
What is wrong with jRPGs is not their themes or that they look eastern; they have an advantage over western games in that they typically feature more creative world building. What's wrong is that so many execute their themes badly, and twist them towards a small but fanatical cult of fanboys who will buy anything and everything.
The real problem is Final Fantasy and Squaresoft. This has been the problem for years now.
Square is too determined to extract every dime from the stereotypical otaku-goth-vampire-fanfic writer teenagers with their games. The one console game they released that breached expectations was FFXII - and predictably the otaku and Final Fantasy fetishists recoiled in horror. The game still sold well; over four million copies or something. But rather than forge ahead and work on expanding their audience using FFXII as a foothold, Square has retreated in panic with FFXIII and their other games. Back to business as usual. Even if it means their audience is slowly shrinking.
Final Fantasy seems to help set the tone for RPGs in Japan. Everyone wants a slice of the action, and it creates a stereotype to pick off the shelf and use wholesale. Square also leads the way in sprawling bloat projects, spending five years and tens of millions of dollars to insure that their games are full of the Advent Children-esque cut scenes and backdrops that they've clinically refined to appeal to the FF fanboy.
It's very easy (and popular) for people to categorize things based on surface appearance. for instance, The World Ends With You is about an angsty Japanese teenager and is set in the epicenter of Japanese pop culture and fashion. But its storytelling movements are not stereotypical, it has real characterization, and goes places the typical jRPG never goes - at least not with any good writing or balls.
What is wrong with jRPGs is not their themes or that they look eastern; they have an advantage over western games in that they typically feature more creative world building. What's wrong is that so many execute their themes badly, and twist them towards a small but fanatical cult of fanboys who will buy anything and everything.
The real problem is Final Fantasy and Squaresoft. This has been the problem for years now.
Square is too determined to extract every dime from the stereotypical otaku-goth-vampire-fanfic writer teenagers with their games. The one console game they released that breached expectations was FFXII - and predictably the otaku and Final Fantasy fetishists recoiled in horror. The game still sold well; over four million copies or something. But rather than forge ahead and work on expanding their audience using FFXII as a foothold, Square has retreated in panic with FFXIII and their other games. Back to business as usual. Even if it means their audience is slowly shrinking.
Final Fantasy seems to help set the tone for RPGs in Japan. Everyone wants a slice of the action, and it creates a stereotype to pick off the shelf and use wholesale. Square also leads the way in sprawling bloat projects, spending five years and tens of millions of dollars to insure that their games are full of the Advent Children-esque cut scenes and backdrops that they've clinically refined to appeal to the FF fanboy.
When have they been a good thing?Nuclear Muffin said:
RPG's are my favorite genre, but I don't love them that much that I prefer playing early gen 3D games on tiny screens over gorgeous looking HD games on my 52" plasma. Playing persona 4 was painfull enough for my eyes.
How is FFXIII a retreate? I haven't played the game yet but it seems to take the franchise in the right direction imo.Kaijima said:
Segata Sanshiro
Member
The right direction is stripping everything out of the game but the battles and cut-scenes?M°°nblade said:
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Alrighty then. Different strokes for different folks and all, but I couldn't feel more differently.M°°nblade said:
Cow Mengde
Banned
Huh, I guess gamasutra wanted to end the embarrassing game journalism thread with a bang, huh?
Amibguous Cad
Member
Adults just ain't the target audience of JRPGs, and they don't have to be. They can continue appealing to the youngins, and we can keep buying the seminal games in the genre trying to relive Christmas in 7th grade playing the hell out of FFIX 
Segata Sanshiro
Member
I think having towns enriches the world of the game and can do a lot to really establish the setting. One of FFX's strongest points were its towns and settlements, not because there were items to find or shops to hit, but because it really helped "sell" Spira.M°°nblade said:
From what I've heard, FFXIII resorts to an in-game encyclopedia to build its world. That's lazy and ineffective, iin my opinion.
FF always evolves. XIII shouldn't be too strong of an indication to what the next single player installment will be like. At least humanity hopes so...
I just dare to imagine what kind of spectacle a Final Fantasy game would be with a great story again. With the amazing combat these games have and the high production values... luckily I'm young!
I just dare to imagine what kind of spectacle a Final Fantasy game would be with a great story again. With the amazing combat these games have and the high production values... luckily I'm young!
speculawyer
Member
EA's Simpsons game does a good job of portraying my view of JRPGs.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
7Th said:
:lol
charlequin
Banned
A Twisty Fluken said:
On the plus side it's going to be a phenomenal sales success in Japan and pure prestige bait for whoever picks it up over here, on the minus side the localization costs will be extremely high (due to the book and the unprecedentedly huge cart it comes on) and NoA suckles curdled milk from the devil's own teat so they may pass it over out of spite.
Hcoregamer00
The 'H' stands for hentai.
NeonZ said:
This
The failure of JRPG's on consoles is mainly one thing, that there was not enough quality JRPG's in the beginning of the generation. Final Fantasy 13 took way too damn long to be released.
Lost Odyssey was a great start, but there was not follow up great RPG's to come out in the same timeframe. Not only that, the PS3 didn't get a quality JRPG until Valkyria Chronicles, which is not even a traditional RPG, but a niche subgenre within JRPG's.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
I too am shocked that there exists more ipods and cellphones than DSs. Its almost as if people us ipods and cellphones for something other than playing videogames!
pancakesandsex
Member
I'm sick of the press manufactured decline of Japanese development, decline of the jrpg, bullshit. It's so incredibly dismissive and wrong.
The majority of this article is obvious horsepoop so I'll skip to his bullet points at the end.
"Everyone has a story." - This is the only thing that's even close to a valid point. There is legitimate competition in the story department from other genres that, in the past, did not exist. But other genres have been gung ho on cinematic storytelling since the ps1, so why does the author think this suddenly matters so much NOW? It's also flat out wrong to insinuate that the speed of delivery somehow makes a story better.
"RPGs are labor intensive and expensive to create." - LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU DS
"The anime and manga bubble has burst." - Completely irrelevant. The anime market's performance has no correlation to the performance of jrpgs whatsoever. The reason the anime bubble burst was because people could no longer be suckered into paying 30$ a disc for 2 hours of cartoons. High speed penetration increased the ease of access to pirated content, which was already a cornerstone of US fandom through fansubs. People are still watching, they just aren't paying for it. The overlap between anime viewers and jrpg players is tenuous at best, which further puts into question why he even brought this up.
"Grown-ups don't like kids stuff." - This sentiment reeks of a writer far too influenced by his industry peers. Not every genre needs to grow up with you. Just because the press cliques have outgrown them, and can't put themselves in the shoes of someone who hasn't played every jrpg since the NES days (read: the majority of people reading this trash,) or are entranced by 15 year old PC game ideas which are just now leaking onto consoles, doesn't mean that a game is bad. He's literally complaining that there are not more jrpgs targeted to people his age. Is that a really a problem for the genre, or a personal issue? Just because your inner child is dead doesn't mean you should take it out on the whole genre. Maybe if jrpgs tackled more mature topics like "badass biotic bitches" he mentioned he wouldn't have this problem.
The majority of this article is obvious horsepoop so I'll skip to his bullet points at the end.
"Everyone has a story." - This is the only thing that's even close to a valid point. There is legitimate competition in the story department from other genres that, in the past, did not exist. But other genres have been gung ho on cinematic storytelling since the ps1, so why does the author think this suddenly matters so much NOW? It's also flat out wrong to insinuate that the speed of delivery somehow makes a story better.
"RPGs are labor intensive and expensive to create." - LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU DS
"The anime and manga bubble has burst." - Completely irrelevant. The anime market's performance has no correlation to the performance of jrpgs whatsoever. The reason the anime bubble burst was because people could no longer be suckered into paying 30$ a disc for 2 hours of cartoons. High speed penetration increased the ease of access to pirated content, which was already a cornerstone of US fandom through fansubs. People are still watching, they just aren't paying for it. The overlap between anime viewers and jrpg players is tenuous at best, which further puts into question why he even brought this up.
"Grown-ups don't like kids stuff." - This sentiment reeks of a writer far too influenced by his industry peers. Not every genre needs to grow up with you. Just because the press cliques have outgrown them, and can't put themselves in the shoes of someone who hasn't played every jrpg since the NES days (read: the majority of people reading this trash,) or are entranced by 15 year old PC game ideas which are just now leaking onto consoles, doesn't mean that a game is bad. He's literally complaining that there are not more jrpgs targeted to people his age. Is that a really a problem for the genre, or a personal issue? Just because your inner child is dead doesn't mean you should take it out on the whole genre. Maybe if jrpgs tackled more mature topics like "badass biotic bitches" he mentioned he wouldn't have this problem.
discoalucard
i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
pancakesandsex said:
I disagree. There's a huge overlap in the art style and storytelling techniques in anime/manga and JRPGs, and their fanbases definitely do overlap. And while it's hard to measure, I don't think that saying that the manga/anime audience has decreased is that crazy either. I think the same thing happened with JRPGs - people grew up, the media didn't grow up along with them, and they gave up.
pancakesandsex said:
WRPGs can target older gamers, why is it such a problem with JRPGs? The demand is obviously there, otherwise people wouldn't bother complaining about it. The "Well, that's where their market is" is an apologist attitude.
I really don't think the article is bad at all, but this sort of overreaction is typical. The only thing I don't care for is its sensationalist title, because it's hardly dying, but it is shrinking. Otherwise most of the ideas are pretty sound. The fact that people are listing DS titles as evidence that the genre is alive and healthy perfectly points out the problem - portable platforms are still ultimately viewed as for kids, and it's always going to feel like a step backward compared to console games. Until console development ramps up (if it ever does), this attitude is going to persist.
pancakesandsex
Member
discoalucard said:
Of course the art style and storytelling will be similar. It's the same reason the art style and storytelling in any region's game is similar to other popular media in the region. I'm saying the fanbase over lap is smaller than you would think. The implication that the bubble bursting has anything to do with the popularity of the art style and storytelling among cartoon watchers is false. People are still consuming the product (anime,) but in different ways. What went to pot was the retail dvd business, which is currently undergoing some major growing pains while it tries to find it's place again.
Riddle me this: Did wrpgs really grow up? As someone who grew up playing gold box D&D games on an old 486, I say no. There are games from both sides of the pond that are less entrenched in their demographic than usual, but I don't think someone should be criticizing maturity in games when you they looking forward to "badass biotic bitches."
Gritty art styles and swearing does not a mature game make.
A Twisty Fluken
Member
discoalucard said:
By who?
7Th said:
holy crap just noticed this
:lol
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
Article's author seems to be mistaken. At what point did JRPGs outside of Final Fantasy really sell gang busters?
JRPGs outside of Final Fantasy seem to still be selling in similar numbers than before. We have not had much of a drop off in releases either.
He's wrong in many places. JRPGs have moved to, and sell well on, the DS. So he just dismisses the entire platform and all the games and sales related because... they aren't pretty enough?
Anime like JRPGs are are style. Just like western RPGs have Knights and Dragons and Demons in the traditional Tolkien expression. Each genre has plenty of games that break new ground/do something different/or do something old really well that it's refreshing. Etrian Odyssey, for example, and it sold relatively well for a FPS dungeon crawl on the DS.
I think the point that the OP is desperately trying to get to, but fails to reach, is that WRPGs sell so well so why don't JRPGs? Well, JRPGs are niche to a fault. Anime. Lolis. 13 year olds saving the world. Again, these same games sell to the same demographics and sell similar, if not slightly reduced numbers, as they have in the past.
Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Oblivion. These appeal to RPG fans, certainly, but they also appeal to the average action gamer as well.
JRPGs still sell well in the US. Look at Lost Odyssey. It probably sold around 500K total. It's typical JRPG trappings were pretty well hidden, it wasn't full of animated cutscenes, and the big tittied character and the whining kids were held back until the second or third disc.
To summarize cause I'm rambling a bit, JRPGs aren't really in any major danger outside of the inherit dangers related to developing high cost games on high cost systems in a very marginalized market. The games still sell in a similar fashion to how they did in the past, and even with FF Sales lagging a few hundred thousand each release, FF13 will probably make up for that.
WRPGs sell better because they rely on a market less niche. They sell to RPG fans who may pick it up as well as Tales of Vesperia. They sell to Gears of War fans as well. People who would never buy Tales of Vesperia or Infinite Undiscovery.
I think the solution would be for Japanese developers to aim their JRPGs at the digital marketplace. Cuts down on overhead, cuts down on shipping, less danger. Unless they're a big developer like Square who want to push huge boundaries I don't think relegating your release to Live/WiiWare/PSN is such a bad idea.
I don't know many JRPG fanatics who would mind either, especially since the genre has been picked up so quickly on the DS.
And for the record, I severely dislike many JRPGs after playing hundreds of them growing up. Anime too. Yes, I prefer Fallout 3 over Persona. My opinions on them are often times inflammatory, but that's just the nature of the internet, as I'll definitely buy Final Fantasy 13 and probably the next Mistwalker game and that new one from Tri Ace and SEGA.
I also dislike Tolkien-esque stories. I didn't finish Dragon Age. Glad it sold well though. It was fun, but the setting was just absolutely bland.
Borderlands. Now that's where it's at.
Torchlight. Now that's where it's at.
Etrian Odyssey. Now that's where it's at.
EDIT
Someone really doesn't think there's an overlap with Anime and JRPGs?
REALLY?
JRPGs outside of Final Fantasy seem to still be selling in similar numbers than before. We have not had much of a drop off in releases either.
He's wrong in many places. JRPGs have moved to, and sell well on, the DS. So he just dismisses the entire platform and all the games and sales related because... they aren't pretty enough?
Anime like JRPGs are are style. Just like western RPGs have Knights and Dragons and Demons in the traditional Tolkien expression. Each genre has plenty of games that break new ground/do something different/or do something old really well that it's refreshing. Etrian Odyssey, for example, and it sold relatively well for a FPS dungeon crawl on the DS.
I think the point that the OP is desperately trying to get to, but fails to reach, is that WRPGs sell so well so why don't JRPGs? Well, JRPGs are niche to a fault. Anime. Lolis. 13 year olds saving the world. Again, these same games sell to the same demographics and sell similar, if not slightly reduced numbers, as they have in the past.
Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Oblivion. These appeal to RPG fans, certainly, but they also appeal to the average action gamer as well.
JRPGs still sell well in the US. Look at Lost Odyssey. It probably sold around 500K total. It's typical JRPG trappings were pretty well hidden, it wasn't full of animated cutscenes, and the big tittied character and the whining kids were held back until the second or third disc.
To summarize cause I'm rambling a bit, JRPGs aren't really in any major danger outside of the inherit dangers related to developing high cost games on high cost systems in a very marginalized market. The games still sell in a similar fashion to how they did in the past, and even with FF Sales lagging a few hundred thousand each release, FF13 will probably make up for that.
WRPGs sell better because they rely on a market less niche. They sell to RPG fans who may pick it up as well as Tales of Vesperia. They sell to Gears of War fans as well. People who would never buy Tales of Vesperia or Infinite Undiscovery.
I think the solution would be for Japanese developers to aim their JRPGs at the digital marketplace. Cuts down on overhead, cuts down on shipping, less danger. Unless they're a big developer like Square who want to push huge boundaries I don't think relegating your release to Live/WiiWare/PSN is such a bad idea.
I don't know many JRPG fanatics who would mind either, especially since the genre has been picked up so quickly on the DS.
And for the record, I severely dislike many JRPGs after playing hundreds of them growing up. Anime too. Yes, I prefer Fallout 3 over Persona. My opinions on them are often times inflammatory, but that's just the nature of the internet, as I'll definitely buy Final Fantasy 13 and probably the next Mistwalker game and that new one from Tri Ace and SEGA.
I also dislike Tolkien-esque stories. I didn't finish Dragon Age. Glad it sold well though. It was fun, but the setting was just absolutely bland.
Borderlands. Now that's where it's at.
Torchlight. Now that's where it's at.
Etrian Odyssey. Now that's where it's at.
EDIT
Someone really doesn't think there's an overlap with Anime and JRPGs?
REALLY?
Scythesurge
Member
Yeah, this. (Except for Persona 4Kittonwy said:
)cosmicblizzard
Banned
This damn topic comes up every year and sometimes every month. JRPGs are fine and can only go up from this point now that a mainline Final Fatnasy is out.
pancakesandsex
Member
Zuhzuhzombie!! said:
What the writer of the article is implying is that anime dvd and manga graphic novel sales being in the shitter has some effect on the jrpg market because they look similar. This is false, the people who buy anime dvds and the people who buy jrpgs do not overlap that much. Discoalucard has reading comprehension issues so he took it to mean that I don't think they share artistic similarities, which I never said.
Hcoregamer00
The 'H' stands for hentai.
pancakesandsex said:
Very good point on the anime market argument.
Let's assume that the anime market hypothetically is tied to the JRPG userbase. It would be disingenuous to say that the JRPG market is in decline because anime is in decline in the USA. The quick answer is that it isn't, the market that loves anime and manga pirate it like crazy. There are so many illegal means to get both of them. With anime you can get fansubs anywhere, and it is so ingrained in the culture that downloading anime in any form is not wrong. With manga, the popularity of scanlations are eating into the sales of manga because the people who are most likely to buy manga also knows many sites to read scans of everything.
Anime and Manga are more popular than ever in the United States, the problem is that the industry has been in decline because the market has accepted dubious means to get them. Just look at anime conventions like Otakon and Anime Expo, if anime really was in decline over the "glorious" days of the past, then why has attendance been increasing in each of these anime cons? Attendance for Anime Expo has increased three-fold since 2000 and Anime Expo 2010 is on the way to beating all previous attendance records.
cosmicblizzard
Banned
elbkhm said:
Ar Tonelico 3, Atelier Rorona, White Knight Chronicles, Arc Rise Fantasia, Last Rebellion, Tales of Graces (possibly). Then there's the Atlus PS360 game and that Suikoden trademark. Yeah, it's still not at the level it once was, but it is making a comeback.
Hours Left
Member
These "Death of the RPG" (Or now JRPG) articles are a dime a dozen, not to mention have been thrown around for 10+ years.
No genre ever dies, there are obvious shifts in mainstream popularity but that doesn't mean it will just stop existing. To completely dismiss the DS as the current RPG stronghold because of a small screen and stating that WRPGs will completely take over? Ridiculous.
No genre ever dies, there are obvious shifts in mainstream popularity but that doesn't mean it will just stop existing. To completely dismiss the DS as the current RPG stronghold because of a small screen and stating that WRPGs will completely take over? Ridiculous.
discoalucard
i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
pancakesandsex said:
Then do tell us why the markets are mostly unrelated as you seem to be claiming? The point is because they share artistic (and thematic) similarities, they attract the same audience, which brings the argument back into full circle. There are obviously multiple reasons for the shrinking market and the decline of anime/manga is far from the biggest one, but to claim there's no correlation is totally blind.
There have been some decent selling RPGs outside of the Final Fantasy series - Chrono Trigger/Cross, Xenogears (and Saga, the first one, anyway), Star Ocean Till the End of Time, Tales of Symphonia (only that one, though), even Dragon Quest VIII sold pretty well. None of these were ever million sellers like the Mass Effects or Fallout 3s of today but it's not always been niche as people seem to be claiming.
discoalucard
i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
cosmicblizzard said:
Two of those games are pandering fanboy nonsense, Last Rebellion looks terrible, and the last thing we need is Yet Another Tales game, if Namco even bothers localizing it.
"Last days of the JRPG in the West?" should have been the title. Oh wait the clicks lol.
I wish Western developers would make as many RPG's on as many systems as the Japanese side does. The WRPG genre is so dry on the DS, PSP, and Wii. Oh they do not cater to those audiences? That's nice. Then stop bitching that Japanese developers don't cater to the HD consoles. At least they make enough on them to create a library of the genre.
I wish Western developers would make as many RPG's on as many systems as the Japanese side does. The WRPG genre is so dry on the DS, PSP, and Wii. Oh they do not cater to those audiences? That's nice. Then stop bitching that Japanese developers don't cater to the HD consoles. At least they make enough on them to create a library of the genre.
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