I don't understand this thing gamers have about story.
Every time someone talks about JRPG, I'm hearing at least one people criticises story.
Which makes absolutely no sense to me.
It's like if the story is not sth extremely sophisticated (a bit like Memento movie or more), it's bare-bones.
I still go back to most tales I read before, that I know very well, which are pretty bare-bones, and yet I still enjoy them and still think they're good. Even the very simple ones like those from Andersen and the like. But I've read Dune books only once. It was extremely sophisticated, but that doesn't make it better.
Same with movies. I can go back watching most of my bare-bones story movies without problem. As much as I can go back watching the more sophisticated ones like most old-school Kitano ones, but I've not even the Matrix DVD.
Same with music, ...
And same with games. I don't understand this fascination for supposedly not bare-bones stories. Makes no sense to me. The global experience will shape my appreciation of the story. The mythos created by the global game is what I will appreciate or not.
Xenogears has a very sophisticated story, but to me it's a bad game, one of the worst JRPG I ever played.
One of my very first JRPG (if not the first) was Secret of Mana. That's why I'm shocked at what I read there.
I could go back to play and appreciate Senkei Densetsu II without any problem, and appreciate the story.
Also, I highly appreciate the stories of ToS or FFVII or FFTactics or even Rogue Galaxy (among the games I played the most). That's because the whole games are very good to me, the whole experience is very satisfying.

That's why I always evaluate who gives advice about a JRPG before knowing if I can trust him. Must be a very western kind of thinking, that most of the time people stay stuck on one aspect of sth (graphics, story, ...), and are unable to appreciate the whole thing.

For now, I have a good feeling about Arc Rise Fantasia.

This brings back fond memories. These old school RPG, like most Enix ones, were "hard". I never thouht they were hard though, was normal difficulty to me. I know most people that played JRPG back then never passed the hardest point in the game. Those that played it know what I'm talking about. In this game, you traveled with a friend so that you could survive most battles. You have several characters from which to choose from too, and the replay value is very good, as to know the whole story of the game, you have to play them all. It's basically a dungeon crawler, but once again, I enjoyed the story a lot.

So I'm still shocked to read that you don't play this game (7th Saga) for the story. Makes no sense to me. I replayed 7th Saga specifically for the story, which was VERY GOOD to me. Perhaps the game is too hard for current players, as there's even a XP cap, so you can't even reach lvl 50 IIRC. You sure can't reach lvl 99.

Well, I'm not certain - he usually just sais things to oppose whatever I'm content with, granted it may not be so introverted a case and he may just say what he means which is that he hates waggle. (refuses to use a wiimote)

In the end though is own arrogance cares not for to appreciate his own hypocrasy, in fact he is above hypocrasy. V_V Elitist much? (Yep and he's damn proud of it) Self-supporting ineptitude.

Soriku said:

looks like these will be my three favorites. which sucks, since theres a 3 person limit in battles (right?)

The game looks good. I'm digging the character art. If the Wii can grab a few more JRPGs, I'll have to get one this winter.

So far we have, Arc Rise Fantasia, Rune Factory Frontier, and Muramasa: The Demon Blade coming this year? Is that all of them?

I had this RPG written off, but once I saw those gameplay videos I´m sold. It looks like a quick, active turn-based combat (reminds me of FFX-2) which is a good thing for me. Some of the character designs are too extravagant for my tastes, but others like the guys with the rapier, dagger, gun and 1h-sword are nice. As long as the visuals stay nice like that, I´ll pick it up.

DQX sure as hell isn't coming this year, see his post =P

You forgot Fragile (already out in Japan) and Dynamic Slash.

You know, in a way, Arc Rise Fantasia sounds like a modern equivalent of Chrono Trigger: all of the best, brightest, and most renowned members of the JRPG scene getting together to collaborate on one project. One can only hope that it will be as amazing as Chrono Trigger, as well.

Just don't expect reviewers to praise it to hell like CT.  A lot of them consider story to be a crucial element in a JRPG and from what we know, the story is clearly ripped out of Generic RPG 101.  Also, they didn't have bias against JRPGs back in 1995 like they do know.  As unfair as the bias can be at times, I'm not sure if they will stop being biased against them.  That's unless FFXIII wows people to the point where other JRPG developers try harder to make them as good as possible.