360 can be the rpg console of 2008

[Riachu]

naznatips said:

mrstickball said:
A few notes from me, in my opinion:

Why is the JRPG market decreasing? It's too stale. Ever look at the "amazing variation" in RPGs from Japan lately? Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the other 5-10 series share too much in common. Because of the lack of evolution of the genre. Even though I love JRPGs, lets face it: the difference between Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy 10 were graphical updates, and very little else. The same can be said from Dragon Quest 3 to Dragon Quest 8. The Japanese-style game is just too much the same for those outside the hardcore JRPG niche to really enjoy alot.

The WRPG market is vastly different - it's spearheaded by a plethora of incredibly varied titles over the years: Fallout. Ultima. Elder Scrolls. Baldurs Gate. Betrayl at. and recent hit new IPs such as Planetscape Torment, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, and others that are insanely good, and vary much stronger over the years.

All of this is spearheaded by the most popular RPG to date (not FFVII) - World of Warcraft. And guess what? It's not just fat nerdy Americans playing WoW. It's fat, nerdy Chinese, Koreans and Europeans too!

The RPG market is changing, and faring much stronger toward the much-improved Western style of RPG gaming. It's more diverse, even if it is more action-oriented. The style of RPGs has evolved strongly from the dice-rolling D&D style RPG, and gathered many other styles into what is a Western RPG, kind of like the ball from Katamari Damacy.

You clearly don't play Final Fantasy, and the fact that you had never touched a JRPG until this gen is showing itself clearly stickball.

First, most Final Fantasy games are completely different. VI to VII was a jump from fantasy to steampunk, and XIII is jumping into sci-fi. Personally I consider this a bad thing, but moving on from that... they are hardly all alike. There are JRPGs accross just as many settings and styles as WRPGs. Look at Fragile for Wii. It's a post-apocolyptic empty world JRPG set in the future. Or horror RPGs about freaking suicide like the Persona series. Or how about Kingdom Hearts in the worlds of Disney.

And claiming diversity in Western RPGs is a joke. I love a lot of Western RPGs, but the style is painfully unchanging. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Diablo 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Fable 1 and 2, and Oblivion all remake the same tired as hell medieval setting with little to no variety in artistic design. The only change to this was KOTOR, and what do ya know, they rip that off with Mass Effect. The few exceptions to the "All we can make is medieval settings" rule are games like Dues Ex and Too Human, which are only loosely even related to RPGs, and largely unappreciated by people who prefer to play repetitive crap like Oblivion.

PS: Not saying I dislike WRPGS (other than Bethesda games, which I hate), but they are certainly lacking in variety.

 I think he is referring to the gameplay which painfully hasn't changed as much as people would want it to.  For example:go to towns,go to dungeons and battle monsters, beat boss, rinse and repeat.  There is also the matter of lengthy cutscenes which non-RPG fans absolutely hate