I don't think Japanese companies have anything to learn from western developer. I just think Square Enix should look back at how their games were better in the SNES/PS era. There was a time when I would just buy a Square game without even looking at the cover. Now, I need to read a lot about it to see if it's not a piece of garbage like The Last Remant.

IGN have really turned into a bunch of idiots lately.

Yeah, sure, let's turn all JRPGs into WRPGs, that would really help the industry forward?!?!?

Can someone please tell these morons that there are actually a lot of people that love the JRPG game mechanics. And that I don't want to develop my person into a good or evil person in every game. And maybe add that linearity does allow for deeper and more cinematic story developments. Or simply that they're two completely different genres that coincidentally share the same name.

The Unreal Engine was the most stupid thing I ever read. So SE makes ONE RPG with the Unreal Engine and these idiots think they should tell SE to learn how to use it. WTF.

Really IGN, get your act together.

One thing to consider, about using the Unreal Engine is the lack of Japanese developers familiar with the system.

In the West, many developers are familiar, and have used the UE middleware suite. The West has also had a long tradition of using middleware products such as Havok, Torque, Unreal, Source, and others. Whereas many Japanese developers still go with building the game's engine from the ground up.

Because of this, I feel that the Japanese developers using the said engines may just not understand it well enough to use it properly. Given time, I think they can do wonders with it - Square-Enix commented about how great UE3 was for making The Last Remnant (saying it cut significant time off of building the game had they used a totally proprietary engine).

As time progresses, and Japanese developers learn to use UE3, they will be able to make a more viable product.

Also, I understand that the 'systems need to evolve', but gosh darn it - When the writer says 'Oh noez! I don't getz the Unionz! I never haz played Ogre Battle b4! The oldest RPG I've played wuz Morrowind!'

I like the occasional turn based system. And for as much as they want to argue, games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey have made the turn-based system fresh, and somewhat innovative. And I cannot wait on playing The Last Remnant when I get my X360 back - I may even buy it to support more SE projects on the X360.

How many people is "a lot of people"?  Are you talking about the FF fanbase?  I definitely like the good or evil person thing of WRPGs but I don't want that in every game.  Some people just don't get the fact that JRPGs and WRPGs are different sub-genres.

Oh, and another thing:

The Last Remnant, Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect are all UE3 RPGs. All 3 have technical issues. I don't understand why they singled out SE concerning this gripe. How many UE3 games have we seen that are trash outside of Gears of War? That's not saying that UE3 is a bad engine, just that it has a pretty harsh learning curve for developer optimizaiton.

Why didn't they mention Mass Effect? Or Lost Odyssey?

Dang it, I need to be doing more X360 JRPG reviews for VGC :-\

The voice gimmick adds nothing. Square is right to hold back on it.

Lost Odyssey made some nice twicks in the turn based battles.  S-E will get better at utilizing the UE3 as they use it more.  Japanese developers should've just started using middleware a long time ago.  Using middleware seriously cuts the development costs off of games that use it.