JRPG's are dead

[lestatdark]

demonfox13 said:

lestatdark said:

JRPG's aren't dead. And your datalog excuse is far from being fair. Mass Effect tells a ton of story through the logs themselves. Why suddenly that's a different standard for JRPG's?

I do agree though, that FFXIII relied way too much on cutscenes, but that's an inherent fault to FF itself, especially the post-SNES FF's and the appearance of FMV's.

But as a genre itself, JRPG's are far from dead. DS  JRPG catalog alone can pretty much put to shame every home console WRPG and JRPG combined (except maybe Demon's Souls and Lost Odyssey).

I honestly can't fully agree with DS vs the home console ones simply because I had an amazing time with Folklore, Demons' Souls, Resonance of Fate, WKC and Valkyria Chronicles as far as current gen goes. Kingdom Hearts on DS was fun but I did force myself to finish it. Fire Emblem was ok. Surprisingly I had a good time with Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume though. I can't stand the pokemon series as I am no long 9 or 10 years old (actually even my 10 yr old nephew can't stand pokemon either). ME series (although not my cup of tea) puts just about every DS rpg to shame, as well as Fallout3.

Now if you want to bring out DS vs other generations (remember you didn't specify DS vs what gen), Valkyrie Profile 1 and 2 alone blow the entire DS rpg catalog out the water (unless you hate the fast paced wonderful battle system), but then I can go further into xenogears, or legend of legaia, or grandia 2, hell even BoF: Dragon Quarter.

I also don't see a fault of including some FMV's and stuff in the FF series as long as it's not overdone. I did enjoy them in FFVII, and I enjoyed them also on FFVIII (one of the sickest intro's to date), they both had solid gameplay to back it up, and that cool amazing stuff that people wanted to do was done via limit breaks (Zell's stuff was memorable, and I still think that Squall's Lionheart > Omnislash).

DS has a fairly solid library of rpgs, and it's true that this gen has been fairly lackluster vs previous gens, but there are several rpgs that surpass anything the DS has to offer.

When I said that the DS catalog can put to shame home consoles catalog and then insert Demon's Souls and Lost Odyssey, one would realize that I was implying this gen alone

I'm not going to go into the older gen argument, since my favorite games of all time are from past gens. I don't have a reason to argue against you there. 

As for this gen, I'll have to say that there are quite a grand number of RPG's on the DS that have a very high amount of quality. Both Mario&Luigi games, Devil Survivor, Dragon Quest IV and Dragon Quest V, SMT: Devil Survivor, Rune Factory, all of the Castlevania games, all of the Pokemon games, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, The World Ends With You, Suikoden Trieskis, Phantasy Star Zero, the Megaman Starforce games, Lunar Knights, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days. 

And there's probably a lot more than that. Since I only got my DS a couple of months ago, I'm still far behind the DS RPG catalog. I'm pretty sure someone like Kenryoku_Maxis can list you a couple of more good DS RPG games. 

This is what I meant as the DS catalog putting to shame the home JRPG and WRPG catalog. Probably home consoles have a few higher rated games than DS, but in the overall panorama, it just can't compete with the DS. 

And the punchline: I didn't bring up the DS catalog to discuss handhelds vs home consoles. I just find it extremely appalling when someone says that JRPGs are dead, or that this gen has had fewer quality JRPGs than previous gens, when you have quite a good amount of quality JRPGs on handhelds. I can list you a couple more good ones on PSP as well.