Sales speak louder than reviews, if you ask me. The former certainly puts more money in the pockets of developers than the latter, and encourages further development of that kind of game. That said, there hasn't really been any RPG (western or Japanese style) to sell particularly well so far this generation. I guess Oblivion counts, if you want to count up all of its various versions. For the most part, though, RPGs seem to be getting more and more stagnant sales levels...

It could be that the popularity pendulum has swung so far in the favor of Western rpgs and shooters that we might not be seeing AAA jrpgs anymore, and not because of the lack of quality of the games themselves, but because they aren't "popular" enough for most Western game journalists to give them 9s and above.

Now one thing about Lost Odyssey. I haven't played the game, but it is my understanding a substantial part of the game isn't even a game, but reading short stories. That is not what I want to do when playing a game or rpg. The things in the stories are supposed to be acted out on the screen and not read through. I think if this same game had been made for the PS3 with the added disk size and if the budget had been there, then the stories would have appeared in the game instead of having to be read, so I would take off points for that aspect of Lost Odyssey and give it an 8 instead of a 9.

The JRPG sub-genre is dieing. In the 90's it was far more popular than WRPGs, but now it is below WRPG and way below MMORPGs.

Even if you count handheld JRPG sales, it will still be below WRPGs. And MMORPGs trounce both JRPGs and WRPGs.

  Its because WRPGs are BETTER now.  It used to be they were different but that ship has sailed.  Now they are just flat out better.  Games from Bioware are the best RPGs available and have been for years, followed closely by Bethesda and sometimes Obsidian (who picks up Bioware's leftovers).  There just aren't any JRPGs from the last 5 years that compete at ALL with games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, the Witcher, Jade Empire, KOTOR ect ect ect.  Grind and stats just don't do it any more.  What makes WRPGs great is the addition of CHOICE.  branching character options, multiple dialogue options, moral choice and repercussions...every game I listed has those things and it is a huge boon.  Once you've played KOTOR and games that adopted the light/dark morality dynamic its so hard to go to preset canned dialogue and stories without any real branching choice.  

   In a game like Eternal Sonata, which I DO like, everything is set and you just follow a path leveling up your character in a pretty set way.  In Fallout 3 you arrive at a new town and can either help the sheriff out or take a 500 cap payout from a sleezy character and nuke the town.  JRPGs really need to evolve into something more then grind and repetition of what made FF1 a hit in 1988.  You'd think over 20 years they would be able to make something better consistently.

   I do LIKE JRPGs but I hold no illusions about them being the best thing out there these days.  WRPGs are just so good thanks largely to Bioware and Dungeons and Dragons games like Baldurs gate as a trailblazer its really hard to justify JRPGs as anything near the best out there.

  Actually its kind of ironic you mention the stories.  That was the ONLY bright spot in the game.  The stories were easily A list, they were VERY well written and engaging, far more then the game itself.  Seriously, they were A+ writing and gave a much better picture of what it meant for the main character to be immortal then the game itself ever did.  I found myself suffering through the game just to get to the next story before I gave up on the gameplay because it was just so bad.

  Reviews have little to do with popularity, instead I really do think they deal with Quality.  I mean Valk Chronicles was hardly hyped at all and still managed a bunch of 9s, ditto with Persona 3.  Cream from the JRPG world DOES still rise, there just isn't as much of it coming out and alternatives (MMOs and WRPGS) are improving in quality WAY faster then JRPGs have managed.

I very politely disagree. I think Bioware makes some of the most overrated crap in the world.

Seriously? How can you not like Jade Empire or the original KOTOR? (NOT KOTOR 2, that was Obsidians fault)

More recently Mass Effect is without a doubt the best RPG on the market from the last 3 years. I don't know...everything about their games is more or less spot on, I can't think of a bad game they've made offhand. There aren't many companies I can say that about (maybe Naughty Dog).

The "AAA" hype is more harmful to the gaming industry than helpful.  This is about gaming, not hype.  Of course hype is involved in most everything, but hype should only serve as a far secondary catalyst to inform and not distort.  In regards to quality JRPG's, WKC might be a very good contender as a fine example judging from screenshot and movie clips.  We just have to wait and see.  Of course the main line Final Fantasy series has always done well regardles of its userbase.  I just hope its quality and gameplay will appeal to me as a former diehard Final Fantasy fanatic.

Hmmm... we just might have something in common.

I liked the first KOTOR, I haven't finished Jade Empire, and Mass Effect was biggest overrated game of 2007. It filled with tons pop-in, textures issues, slowdown, and huge load times. And I really hated that once you got til the last two hours of the game, you couldn't go back and explore more.