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sc94597 on 14 April 2015
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Hynad said:
sc94597 said:

I am well aquainted with the Final Fantasy series, Megami Tensei series, Dragon Quest series, Pokemon series, Tales of series, and plenty of individual JRPG releases (Chrono, Terranigma, Secret of Mana, Rogue Galaxy, The World Ends With You, Lost Odyssey, etc, etc.) I also played Xenogears and Xenosaga I-III before playing Xenoblade. The closest JRPG to Xenoblade is FFXII, but the differences are still way too vast, and while FFXII's reception was poor Xenoblade's was a success. Xenoblade X seems to incorporate even more innovations to the genre. XBC also so happens to be the best acclaimed JRPG in the seventh generation, a generation which represented the decline of the JRPG. What am I missing? 

1. Yeah, you have experienced the entire universe. *rolleyes*

2. Xenoblade did a lot of things right. And some not so right. The blend of all the aspects made for a great JRPG. How did it reinvent anything though...

It took a lot of cues and aspects from other games in the genre, and blended them together. FF XII, Tales, DQ... But it certainly didn't reinvent a genre at all.

 

3. Finally, as far as I'm concerned, Lost Odyssey is a much better JRPG. Heck, The Last Story "reinvented" the genre a whole lot more than Xenoblade.

1. It is one of my favorite genres, and I have been familiar with it since I was four. Of course I will have played a lot of games in many different series. 

2. What exactly were some things Xenoblade didn't do right? Xenoblade reinvented what we think when we think of JRPG's. No longer do we think linear corriders, or limiting world maps as the only route JRPG's can take. In Xenoblade you actually could experience a breat-taking and fresh, semi-open world, which was something missing in every other 7th Generation Japanese Role Playing Game. Xenoblade Chronicles X goes further, and adds an extra layer of non-linearity to the genre in the form of its story and character specialization. You'll be able to choose unions which drastically determine how you play the game for certain segments. There is also an addition scale of verticality, and it is the first real-time RPG which properly incorporates mechs. All of these things are not things characteristic of the JRPG genre. Certain CRPG/WRPG's have had them for a while now, but not JRPG's. So yes, Xenoblade has reinvented how we think of JRPGs, and other series, like FInal Fantasy, have taken the hint. 

3. I liked Lost Odyssey very much. It had an excellent story and solid traditional JRPG gameplay. In fact, it is one of the games that makes me wish I had brought my 360 with me when I left for school. I still was much more impressed by Xenoblade though. As for The Last Story, it seemed to me to be a typical ARPG with stealth mechanics. Again, a good game, but definitely nothing more unique to the JRPG genre than Xenoblade.