the tales characters may have expressions that you can tell from the get go but they usually have pretty good backgrounds and evolve through the story at a good pace. Making them not so cookie cutter lol.

they were creative and different 10 years ago , but now they are all alike, back them if i wanted to play a good story based game i played a JRPG, now they are all about some emo kid looking to kill a powerful entity and finding out it really wasnt evil it was doing all for a greater good, so you cry and find the true meaning of friendchip.

@khuutra

There is a difference between something being right/wrong, and something being popular/unpopular. There is nothing wrong with eating roadkill, but I think the vast majority will concede that it isn't a popular dining choice. You are correct in saying that there is nothing wrong with a thoroughly linear experience directed at young children. However I am also correct in saying this isn't what the vast majority of gamers want. Western gamers fundamentally want more freedom, and they want more choice. This isn't even a phenomena specifc to the genre. Western gamers are demanding this in almost all the genres. Accept maybe the casual market, but that isn't exactly the market thats going to play out a sixty hour story.

What is happening is that JRPGs are being placed head to head against Western roleplaying games, and losing badly in the sales race. I love JRPG games I have bought Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, and Star Ocean thus far this generation. That said when it comes down to head to head between two solid titles I have to defer to the wrpg over the jrpg. One is generally more fun then the other so if I can only buy one. I am going to buy the wrpg. Hell I probably won't be able to buy another JRPG until next year at the earliest. I am a fan of multiple genres, and I already have too many games on my must buy list.

The defense that it is good isn't a defense against it isn't popular, or it isn't as popular as something else. That is what the fault of the genre would be for the sake of argument. You don't have to be bad. You just have to be less popular with consumers. That said if JRPGs started to incorporate more WRPG features it would only increase their sales. All I am pointing out is these titles need to get less restrained, and be more open. Hell it would really help to diversify the genre. Could even bring about some real break out hits.

Actually it isn't even fully about western RPGs.

The main change between the current JRPG culture actually traces back toward the rising development costs and dwindling returns of the traditional cinematic JRPG even in its native land, as well as the rise in popularity of Monster Hunter. The western RPG has grown in popularity, in part thanks to MMORPGs but the main switch from the old guard is the increase in technology, the difficulty to mask the similiarity of turn based combat and to make the games stand out when there are dozens of them out there with similar stories.

JRPGs had several things going for them in the earlier generations:

-Plot, in my opinion, JRPGs had the best stories out of every other genre, if not all of them combined, these days, there's things like FF13, lol.

-Soundtracks, soundtracks are an excellent method to draw a player into the game, from tracks like "bombing mission" to "One who is torn apart", nowdays the game with the best soundtrack is FF13, lol.

-Interesting gameplay, if you look back to the PS1-2 days, there was a variety of gameplay within the genre (in the PS1 era games like Vagrant Story or Chrono Cross, PS2 era the SMT games etc), these days it seems like either a rehash of older generation games or streamlined shit like in FF13, lol.

These days, Square-Enix, the only big JRPG company, has lost all of their key persona, and seems to only be able to make shitty games, other devs just don't have the financial backing to make a good JRPG.

If people really feel embarrassed playing a game that features teenagers or children, and rely on the 'mood' or 'image' of a game to justify their enjoyment, then they might as well go to the clothing store.  Some of the best written, acted, directed, and philosophically sound stories contain no generic sci-fi worlds, tedious branching text bombs, or 'gruff' and 'adult' characters who, while apparently being mature (though adulthood being no sign of maturity) – are so tied up in sexual tension. This is seen well in the highly lauded (read: juvenile) sex scenes in the new popular Western RPGs such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age.  

Nthing can be done.

when changes are made ppl hate it for being differnt. When changes arent made ppl hate it for not innovating. Othrwise th games are too niche to sell.

jrpg are dead

only gud jrpg this gen has been valkyria, twewy, lost oddesy and ff13

I'm a bit of an old school gamer, so my views may differ a lot from some here. The major things I hate with RPGs today:

1. Linearity - I like a big open world to explore and possibly find hidden things. Also some aspects could be completed in different order to a previous attempt (and possibly give different results)

2. Slow, cumbersome small battles - This plagues close to every menu based 3D JRPG. While the earlier FFs focused on getting smaller battles out of the way quickly, it seems like a lot of time is being wasted in watching the realistic effect of the player walking right up to the enemy to hit them.

3. Characters that I cannot feel for - It's one thing to make a game dramatic by suddenly killing off a player or NPC, but if I have no feelings for that character to begin with, it just turns into a "Meh..." moment.

4. Inventory/Battle/Equip/etc systems that become overly complicated - I don't like spending most of my time in the menu configuring a new weapon or such. This is my main gripe with WRPGs, but I see more JRPGs are starting to head in that direction.

Once again, probably very radical views compared to most others. What I'd really like to see is JRPGs take a "2D revival" branch, similar to other franchises this gen (NSMB, Sonic 4 etc).

This thread is very funny. Seems that the ppl who played FF13 are thinking that the JRPGs are in great decline... But those who played DQ9 think it is quite OK condition...

And the funniest thing that both of that games are made by Square-Enix... :)

uh.... DQ9 developers-----> Level 5 ( my most trusted developer this gen) it was Published by SE since they hold the rights for the franchise of course, they didnt develop it, and even if they did it wouldnt have been the same team that is killing FF.