FFvsXIII (at least in Japan...)

WKC2

Project Dark

Disgaea 4

Xenoblade

The Last Story

A Tri-Ace jrpg possibly

Ni no Kuni

Tales of Xillia

Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll

Ar Tonelico 3

The 3rd Birthday

among others...  I'm sure there is something there to float your boat.

Well, the industry has grown catastrophically from the SNES, PS1 and even the PS2 days. The casualties to this growth are independent Japanese developers who cannot attach a "Final" or "Dragon" next to their world shattering, obscure JRPG who gets its plugged pulled because of publisher demands, time constraints, and on. In this sense, I blame the publishers for not fostering a more diverse selection of games in EVERY genre, not just JRPGs.

Look at FPS games, the big sellers every year come down to Call of Duty and Battlefield. In racing it is Forza and Gran Turismo, also throw in a Need for Speed every now and then, but that series is really lagging from what I read from the feedback. As for sandbox games it is even more narrow with all the great sellers being made by Rockstar.

The RPG genre (JRPG and WRPG) is on a similar plane of diversity as the action adventure/platforming genre where there are so many titles every year, just trying to figure out which one to buy can be a mind boggling, heart tugging process. Every year, you can count on 3 to 5 must buy WRPGs, which almost all are heavily advertised. JRPGs on the other hand, don't get the same quality or quantity of advertising outside of Japan as WRPGs do in the Americas and EMEAA.

Who is to blame? Not one person or sector. I would blame it on a number of factors:

1. Overly long development times for a must buy JRPGS. This has to do with JRPGs focusing on hand-drawn graphics as opposed to computer generated graphics common in Western games along with a bunch of other factors including localization outside of Japan.

2. Publishers not fostering obscure titles to the same extent they do a Final Fantasy, Call of Duty, or Halo game. Rather, the lack of new JRPG series implies the publishers put excruciating demands on lesser known developers, while they allow a Final Fantasy game the monetary support and 4 to 5 years of development to create.

3. Sheer diversity of the RPG genre with WRPGs dominant everywhere outside of Japan. Final Fantasy alone cannot compete with Mass Effect, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Borderlands all at the same time.  I am speaking of console RPGs, if you want to pick straws and throw in hand-helds then you have a point.

4. Japanese advertising. Nintendo is the only company who "gets it," while the rest with Square Enix included suck compared to Microsoft, Rockstar and Bioware.

I don't believe JRPGs are dying or dead. I just think the way they are made entails a longer development time compared to a WRPG. Throw in WRPGs now in their prime and publishers not taking risks like they did during the SNES, PS1 and PS2 era and one can only conclude JRPGs are in a rut. However, as we all know it will only take one title, even a Final Fantasy game, to get gamers outside of Japan hooked on the latest JRPG.

This post is kinda counter-productive.

First you say that the JRPG genre is stale and hasn't evolved since the SNES days, yet you say that FPS have been constantly evolving. Aside from finally being able to work well and adjust to the needs of console gaming, FPSs haven't evolved that much.

It takes more than just adding a regenerating health mechanic to call evolution in an entire genre. If that were the case, then JRPG's have evolved much more than FPS's, since there are at least a dozen more mechanics to different JRPG games than FPSs. 

If you take a look at games like Suikoden, Xenogears, Final Fantasy, Persona, Arc the Lad, Parasite Eve, Chrono Trigger, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Lufia, Terranigma, Golden Sun, Grandia, Wild Arms, Kingdom Hearts, Shadow Hearts, Dragon Quest, Mario&Luigi RPG, etc, you'll see that their underlying mechanics are different, be it battle systems, how the story develops and how it is structured, heck there are only minute similarities between all those games.

Now, if you look at the FPS genre, starting from the PC days and not just the console days (heck if you want to make that kind of comparison, you can't put JRPG's in the 16 bit era and forget that FPSs have been around since the early 90s), and you see that only minute additions are added to the genre and in a very low quantity/time ratio.

Advanced AI? Half-Life AI or F.E.A.R AI's are still amongst the est in the genre, if not the best.
Competitive online? Counter-Strike is probably still the granddaddy of the genre and one of the best competitive games ever.
Regenerative health? It isn't quite a positive evolution to  the genre, rather it only made it more accessible, just as it was the introduction to consoles, with the added aggravation of making a lot of FPSs that rely on that system too easy.
Introduction of Melee attacks? Those have been around almost as long as the genre exist.
Online Character Customization? Has been around since Quake, Doom, Unreal and so on. Heck, Unreal Tournament had some of the best customization options ever.
Application of slight RPG mechanics, such as levelling up, in FPSs? Also has been around way before the recent implementation in consoles. Hexen, Heretic, Hexen 2 had them way before it became popular to have those rudimentary RPG mechanics in other genres.

I could go on and on, but it would be rather pointless. It just tickles me the wrong way, when someone calls JRPG a stale genre and then goes on saying that FPS, of all genres, has been evolving. Becoming a popular genre is not evolution, especially when most of the current FPS games are only becoming more accessible to the mainstream by downgrading most of their functionalities or their overall difficulty/time span, in detriment of the online experience.

No, they are just on handhelds now. You do get 1 to 2 JRPG's released every month on handhelds just like the PSX days.

Its funny as many JRPG's today are criticized for not being old school and adding too many new things. So Mr Puggsly's post wasn't just factually wrong, but it was also the opposite of the general opinion people have towards JRPG's now, the opinion that many of them are trying new gimmicks and forgetting what used to work so well in the 16-bit and PSX days.

I agree with you what you said.  I don't like FPS or WRPGs...i still love the good old JRPGs.  I have big hope for The Last Story and FFXIIIvs.  I just don't enjoy RPGs on handheld as much as i do on TV screen.  

The problem is that JRPG's, today, is a genre that's on the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

For as many expert media, gamers and even JRPG fans rage about the fact that the genre's molds have trying to adapt to standards that don't have anything to do with genre itself, forgetting, as you said quite well, what made them be an exceptional genre back in those days; there's a counter-force who's always criticizing JRPG's for being a genre that's subject to similar cliches and that they don't feel the genre has changed anything from those days. 

And then, in the end, there are those who constantly forget that handhelds do exist and that the genre is quite alive and well in them. But this is more of a "la-la-la-la I can't hear you, if I don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist, la-la-la".

Most of the JRPGs seem to stay where they are developed.. Japan and the westerners are having to export them to enjoy it. They are made, but mainly just never leave Japan, DS and PSP are crowded with JRPG's this gen in particular, I am not sure about PS3, but the only JRPGs that I've heard of on 360 were: Lost Odyssey, FFXIII, Blue Ocean, Infinite Undiscovery or something and a few more I can't remember off the top of my head. Considerably lower amount in the west nowadays imo.

Actully from the releases i've seen i dont think console JRPGs or handheld JRPGs are declining at all. in fact here in Europe for the first time we getting localisations of RPGs that you never would have heard of before. perhaps that has something to do Microsoft helping these developers localise (like when they got exclusive JRPGs first) so they can accomodate the JRPG market here in the west.

unfortunatley here in the west, JRPG fans support Sony, and its the PS3 console where JRPGs do better sales both in Europe and to a lesser extent the US.

so we've had very messy releases, but there are definitly a lot of JRPGs here in Europe, whether or not people are buying them is another question althogether. (simple answer, i dont know if 200,000 copies, or 100,000 copies sold in Europe qualifies as a success).

in Japan, RPGs are strong, with Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest breaking records. but here in the west JRPGs are standing on the very weak shoulders of Final Fantasy 13. but i think if the developers keep localising with top quality products, there success will grow.

a list of some console RPGs in Europe and the US:

Agarest Generations of War

Tales of Vesperia

Resonance of Fate

Star Ocean 4

The Last Reminant

Magna Carta 2

Eternal Sonata

Valkyria Chronicles

Nier

Last Rebellion

Diseaga 3

Infinite Undiscovery

Ateleir Rorona: the Alchemist of Arland

so in a nutshell the JRPGs are here in west, both on consoles and handhelds, whether they are successful or not is not something i can ascertain, as i dont know what qualtifies as a success for developers.

What I find funniest about this thread is the fact that the people who are correcting the grammar... are wrong.

Let me explain.

Are JPRG's dying would infer that JPRG's are people or living things and they are dying... this is not true.

The OP was right in the sense of  "Is" but the rest is wrong in a sense. It should read "Is the JPRG genre dying?" now that is the correct terminology.

This was fun :)