| kain_kusanagi said: I think the genre either needs to change or it will die. Xenoblade is a great example of a Japanese RPG for the 21st century. It has all the quirkiness and story tropes of a JRPG without the tedious random battles or turn based nonsense that only Japan seems to prefer in great enough number to warrant further releases. I don't think the traditional JRPG will die completely. I do think it will shrink to the naturally small niche genre that it was before Final Fantasy exploded it's popularity. WRPGs have taken the place of JRPGs and I don't see that changing any time soon. I think what people really like about JRPGs is the Japanese style in character design, plot, etc. I don't think that the majority of JRPG player that came into the genre with FF7 are totally in love with the JRPG gameplay. Japanese devs need to fine a balance between Japanese content style and Western gameplay. |
I agree with you that random battles can be rather annoying and some JRPGs have made me want to tear my hair apart with encounters every 5 seconds, but turn based nonsense? Have you tried the Persona games? Would you call their battle system nonsense? I understand in your opinion it might be but I think turn based battles are just another way of playing games. Look at how successful pokemon is with turn based. Either way I don't think gameplay needs to be "western", it just needs to be revolutionary. Something new because we want new experiences like the world ends with you was. It wasn't open world but at the same time it provided freedom to really play the way you wanted.
But anyway I do agree with you that JRPGs may just be a niche but I just hope that they bring back the quality from previous gens as well as everything (character+story) people generally love about JRPGs. The last thing I want is every game becoming a Skyrim clone. I mean look at COD. It was great when it first came out and then everyone copied it and now people hate it lol.
