| VanceIX said: It's very much alive and no where near a niche genre quite yet, but I can't argue that it has lost traction in the west to WRPGs. I would say that's just because those WRPGs are flat out better, though. The JRPGs last gen all paled in comparison to Skyrim in terms of gameplay, with little to no real innovation. Square Enix, the people who have always been at the forefront of the JRPG genre and almost single-handedly responsible for any of the genre's success in the west, released an absolute disappointment with Final Fantasy XIII, and continued it by making it a trilogy with each game getting progressively worse. Not only that, but they were a no-show for arguably the most anticipated JRPG (Kingdom Hearts III), and they moved towards pushing western games like Tomb Raider and Thief rather than put most of their focus on Japanese titles. |
Yeah I guess I wouldn't call it a niche genre (that would be more like strategy RPG), but it's nothing close to what it was in the golden era on the SNES and PS. I miss those days, and when everywhere you look people are playing FPS games and see JRPGs as the "nerdy" genre, it's hard not to get a little frustrated with the state of the RPG genre. And yeah, not sure what Square Enix was thinking putting off KH3 for so long. I just hope the game ends up better for it, not worse. And while they released the horrible XIII trilogy, many forget they also released the much worse XIV. Sure, it was one of the MMO iterations, but holy shit, I've never even heard of a game being so bad that the company has to completely remake and relaunch it. That has to be an industry first, no?
