I agree!

Yea, I have been thinking the same thing ever since reading that article. Just about the only original feeling JRPG i've played recently is Demon's Souls and Baten Kaitos (most of you have probably never played that game).

A long time ago, WRPG took a leap forward in gameplay when they set the principle of damage prevention as opposed to damage healing. Most JRPGs are heal fests aka: you have to heal constantly to stay alive, and there is little incentive to use other spells. When I played Baldur's Gate, I set my expectations for an RPG higher. I know they basically ripped off the dungeons and dragons system, but it worked. The game was so strategically minded, it puts most JRPGs since then to shame. I say JRPGs, but there are several bad WRPGs too. It is just that JRPGs seem to consistently create shallow heal-fests.

Bottom line, if I find out that FFXIII is a heal fest, I'm not buying or playing it. I was very disappointed in that regard when it came to FFXII. However, if Final Fantasy came into dominance again with an outstandingly original and polished FFXIII and FFXIV, I would be estatic. Why does it seem that Final Fantasy names are starting to look like old sundials?

I agree.

I agree with him for the most part.

The biggest problem with JRPG is that due to their linearity, they all seem exactly the same and except for the 1st 5 or so that I played early in my life, none are memorable in any way.

The most glaring problem with JRPG's is the horrendous writing. Characters, characterization, plots, and lore are pathetic bad. Again this wouldnt be so bad if the games were not so linear however linearity makes them all seem un-original.

Next is their game play. The east seems hellbent on making brain dead games. Most JRPG's games are so easy they are almost unbearable and the few exceptions seem to rely on luck or chance rather than intelligence to artificially simulate difficulty.

The good news is that there are exceptions. So far, no JRPG since FFVI has impressed me more than Lost Odyssey. It is by far, the most polished JRPG of all time. Its story is equally refreshing and so are the characters. Unfortunately, the game play is just like any other JRPG and the side quests are uninteresting. Weirdly enough, I actually loved the memory flashbacks. They were brilliantly written. LO is the only JRPG since Xenosaga EpI that I actually completed without feeling like I was forcing myself to play.

Anyway, I think what is killing JRPG's is linearity more than anything else.

Considering the JRPG seems to be retreating from the home console to the handheld space i guess there may be some truth to what he says. I don't expect the point to sink in with any of the japanophiles here and thats not to insult the genre but to make an observation and rightly or wrongly he made it.

You just didn't pay attention before the Infinity Engine. Seriously, you need to read an article on the history of CRPGs - the late 80s and early 90s were packed full of successful CRPGs. There was a lull in the mid-90s before the Infinity Engine brought about a renaissance, though.

yep, seems about right.

So long as you don't have the category as something called "RPG" and you call it a "JRPG" then you are stuck with a form of RPG that isn't going to change, because it stops being a "JRPG". This is NOT to say that RPGs from Japan can't evolve or revolve, just they will start to deviate from the template we put what we call "JRPGs" then we start to think of them as something else. And speaking of Demon's Soul, anyone here consider it a"JRPG" as opposed to an RPG from Japan?

One can say the same about Val. Chronicles. Is this a JRPG? Or is it a strategic RPG from Japan?

This man clearly doesn't understand JRPG, so I'm not surprised by his comments.
I was bored by WRPG far before JRPG. True tabletop RPGs are about role-playing, imagination and maths problems that you have to overcome. On consoles/computers, only maths and imagination remained in the past, and now, with all the useless fluff they are adding in most JRPG, only math remains. Same with WRPG. There are exceptions like Dragon Quest or Pokemon, but that will disappear if they make them less stylised and more "real".

I understand since a long time why I'm starting to prefer SRPG, because as only math remains, most JRPG and WRPG are moving their content to strategy and tactics. Maths stays the main attract of JRPG and WRPG though.

But with how simplified they have become this gen, I'm not surprised JRPG are on the decline in the western countries. Only if you play for the maths can you appreciate JRPG, but I've yet again seen people play FFXIII and now I clearly understand.
Playstation era gamers play these games just to see the story through the end, so they seem to not enjoy the combats at all, and the combat, strategy and tactics is the main interest in JRPG. But most people don't understand that and call battles "grinding": they don't enjoy it.

I see these people entering battles, spamming attack and heal, showing they lack any ounce of strategy or tactic (or maths). When they're wiped out by a more powerful enemy, they will retry sometimes 10+ times the battle (they're fortunate in the case of FFXIII) before finding a way to get it past! When I would have cleared the battle the first time!
Some would have resorted to grinding instead, which they hate doing.
JRPG allows for all those types of play, but people that play JRPG like this sure must find them boring and dull, thus the decline.

But I'm not surprised that maths is a chore to them, these Playstation era players can't even read! Countless times I hear about "too much text to read", "it lacks voice over", "we don't need the original VA" (because it forces them to read the subtitles).

The decline of JRPG, to me, is not due to JRPG not evolving, but because of it evolving to resemble WRPG. Lots of JRPG (except, again, DQ or Pokemon) evolved to the Playstation era gamers, putting off the traditional gamer like me, with lots of useless things like cutscenes, long boring intro sequences, dumbing down the maths, ...

FFXIII especially looks boring to me, which is sad. While sth like EoE looks more interesting to me, and unfortunately it looks like another SRPG. This generation, I think I have more SRPG than traditional JRPG, which is sad.

At least JRPGs don't DEVOLVE from Role Playing Games to shooters.

Almost every oldschool WRPG lover that I know is disgusted with this gen's WRPG, their lack of depth, lack of (good) story, feeling watered down and... just being bad.

JRPGs in this gen haven't been that better either, but games like Valkyria Chronicles do evolve the genre, even though they have real-time elements to them it's not about who has the best aiming, but about tactical thinking.

Also, they just ignore the fact that JRPGs DO evolve, compare games like DDS, Persona 4, VP:S and plenty of other games from the PS2 era (since there just aren't enough JRPGs in this gen), gameplay-wise, to games from the PS1 era (and before)... you'll see the diefference.