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Nuvendil on 04 May 2015
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outlawauron said:
Nuvendil said:


A JRPG in name, but has most of the earmarks if a western RPG, character models not withstanding.  It's open world, it's SciFi, the combat is closely related to systems popular in the west, the setting isn't Japanese I culture centric, the game has a player made main protagonist.  All these things help improve its potential appeal in the west.  The JRPG genre's defining trait being the country of origin makes it a bit hazy in terms of judging the selling potential of the whole genre.  IMO,XCX has the *potential* to sell quite well in the west.  It is not a guarantee, but it has the necessary traits to appeal to a large number of people who would not be interested  other RPGs.

 

Also, those franchises you listed are the biggest character action franchises by far, yet even of those only two have done really well.  GoW peaked with 3 at 4.77mil, DMC back on the PS2 with almost 3mil (been much lower since), but Ninja Gaiden struggles to reach 1mil, having only broken that threshold three times.  The character action genre is about the same in makeup as the JRPG genre:  a small to medium size with a few standout big sellers.  Only the Character Action standouts are smaller than the JRPG standouts.

XCX's combat is nothing like anything a WRPG and it's closest comparisons are other JRPGs. It's got mech suits and has been inspired a lot by popular mecha shows. A player created character isn't a Western or Japanese characteristic. Whether it appeals more to the West or not, I do think it's a reach.

Custom characters are a very popular thing in the west, imo.  Dragon Age and especially Elder Scrolls have made it a big thing.  It is not a distinctly western RPG aspect, but it is a popular feature in them right now.  There are RPGs in the west that use a similar real time combat system, a number in fact.  Obviously, you have your MMOs, including the largest.  Dragon Age: Origins used a system akin to this, though with its own quirks that leaned it towards tactical.  The traditional perception of JRPGs is turn based, which XCX most definitely is not.  As for mech suits, giant robots are kinda universally popular right now, I think that's easy enough to see.  Titanfall didn't get hamstrung by the fact that it had mecha suits. 

Now if you disagree that these aspects help, that's your opinion.  I'm not making predictions, only speculating on market potential and I think XCX has it.  Whether that potential is fulfilled or not is up to Nintendo.