JRPGs...nowadays, what company has the most potential to be "the new Squaresoft"?

[Viper1]

the_dengle said:

F0X said:

The question is a matter or potential, not whether they're at the same level yet. Monolith also has Xenosaga and Baiten Kaitos under its belt, but they're still far too small even with two development teams. Intelligent Systems is not likely to move beyond Paper Mario and Fire Emblem. Mistwalker apparently can't even develop a game on their own. Atlus has difficulty finding mainstream success worldwide.

So I say the winner is Level-5.

I don't see what most of that has to do with being "the King of the JRPG genre." Especially Atlus... so they don't sell as many games as Final Fantasy. Doesn't change the fact that their games are way better. If we're going by sales, Square is still the King.

Likewise, I don't see why Intelligent Systems limiting themselves at the moment to a couple of franchises disqualifies them. The games are generally excellent, with a couple exceptions that are merely great.

The deal with Monolith is that yeah, they made an outstanding game, but they have to prove it wasn't a fluke. They have to make another excellent game. Baten Kaitos was good but not great, and uh, Xenogears was made by Square? Sure there was some staff from that project who now work at Monolith (including the director), but that doesn't make it their game.

I could get behind Level-5 though. Let's see how Fantasy Life shapes up.

The simplest solution would be to just say Nintendo and its subsidiaries and call it a day. Then you get Monolith Soft, Intelligent Systems, the Pokémon Company, Creatures Inc (Mother), and a couple less notable studios.

XenoGears was Square.

XenoSaga was Monolith.