richardhutnik said:
It is hard to get at what is going on there, with Japanese voiceovers, because I don't know Japanese. And also, you are talking Wii here as the platform. What technical specs does it add, besides motion control, to add needed innovations to the JRPG genre? Or, are you saying because Nintendo does it, you will get a boost in JRPG sales that would be considered "revived"? |
I'm talking from a design standpoint, not technical specs or sales. Both MonolithSoft and Mistwalker took a long hard look at the problems with JRPGs, as well as looking at what works in WRPGs and other western genres with some crossover (MMO, shooters, sandbox), and went in with these games by trying to smash genre conventions and expectations. This is also probably why Nintendo greenlit the games (XB was the first home console game they approved after buying Monolith) and that's likely in part due to Nintendo also always being a vocal critic of JRPGs (WAY before it was "cool", lol). Both games look to innovate in a ton of ways (mechanics, progression, narrative, etc) but I think the big central thrust for each would be the world in Xenoblade and the combat in The Last Story.
Xenoblade's world is gigantic, sprawling, non-linear and fully traversable. Basically if you see a point, we can get to it, and you can see for relative miles in parts. It also emphasizes world exploration in other ways, like it actually netting you EXP, and it has a big emphasis put on wildlife and natural populations in the world. It feels alive and real basically, and that actually factors into the story (hint: the world is the bodies of two dead gods), almost like a single player MMO (think Bethesda, but with better combat and an animu story).
The Last Story's combat is pretty much unlike any other JRPG too, it's real-time, squad based (up to six!) and highly tactical. There's heavy emphasis on enemy baiting (or "gathering" as the game puts it), you'll want to draw enemy targets so your mages can get their spells/summons off, gathering also allows you to perform context sensitive attacks/evades, and there's also an almost puzzle-like element of environmental use to the combat (ie: target a bridge to wipe out multiple enemies). Really, it probably has more in common with Bioware RPGs than anything else in Japan, and the influence from Gears of War specifically is readily apparent (which Sakaguichi already more or less admitted to). This is looking like the JRPG for gamers who hate JRPGs.
The platformer comparison wasn't a very apt one on my part honestly, Nintendo's overtures there have been exceedingly traditional (though that in itself is arguably novel in today's market). I've no clue what sort of marketing muscle Nintendo will put behind the games outside Japan either, but if we're talking reinvigorating the JRPG genre on home consoles (both from a design and sales standpoint), I'd say the best chance probably lays with these two games. We'll see what happens...
