naznatips said:
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. |
Final Fantasy games are different in terms of setting, not much in gameplay or interaction. It's go into battle screen, order off a menu. Scant NPC interaction, no choice of going for or against a particular action, no thief skills usable outside of combat, no pre emptive attacks. Same as Dragon Quest. Same damn thing since Dragon Warrior and Phantasy Star. And tactics games do that type of thing better anyways. FF12 was a step forward in some ways, but it's poo-pooed by the supposed fanbase on the internet, even though every adult JRPG fan I know of in the real world thinks it's the best thing to happen to the series in a long time. Why should the genre even progress when it's fanbase wants FF7 everytime.
And if you're going to include Kingdom Hearts, you might as well include Deus Ex. In Deus Ex your performance and options and even the story itself are effected by numbers and character interactions to a FAR greater degree than Kingdom Hearts, or any SquareEnix game for that matter. Not to mention it's infinitely more immersive than any of the so called traditional RPGs on either side.
But I do agree that WRPGs need a serious injection of art and style.