I think Persona 4 may be one of the Best RPGs I have ever played and I have been playing them since the first BoF came out. You have to play this if you are a fan, there is no excuse.

@shadowsoldier, RPGs are meant to be fun, just like other games. DQ VIII is very fun. Its story is ok and cliched and it has a very traditional battle system, but the game is fun and beautiful (and the music is awesome). You are not giving it enough credit.

I do agree with the OP to a certain extent. JRPGs have been rather few and far between, and most of them have been dissapointing. I must admit however that I've personally only played a couple of them; Infinite Undiscovery and Lost Odyssey.

A lot of the JRPGs have garnered poor reviews, especially the more obscure ones for X360. But, games like Enchanted Arms, Star Ocean 4 and Lost Odyssey have been awarded with 7+ ratings, which is what most "low-key" RPGs got the last generation. The huge titles are yet to come, like Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts. Some games have garnered very favourable reviews though, in the 8+ range we have titles like Tales of Vesperia and Eternal Sonata.

I mentioned Enchanted Arms and Star Ocean 4 getting pretty good reviews, but I agree, they seem stuck in the past, with clichéd characters and story. To hurt it even more the overall presentation of the story seems to be very flawed and archaic. But at least the gameplay in Enchanted Arms seems to mix things up a little, and the battle mechanic in Star Ocean 4 looks great as always.

Infinite Undiscovery is a prime example of how wrong you can go with a game. It tries out a couple of new things in it's gameplay, but with poor design. And the story, while offering somewhat new elements, is stuck in the past with predictable and derivative characters. The presentation of the story is atrocious, with horrible script and poor voice acting.

Lost Odyssey is a strange case for me, a lot of reviewers tend to like this game, but not enough to give it a high score. I personally LOVE Lost Odyssey. The overall story is pretty derivative of the standard formula, but the presentation, with the script and the dream segments, is in my opinion fantastic. The main characters are great and realistic within their context, and I was impressed with the voice acting. The graphics are very very good, and even though there are some loading screens and framerate drops, it doesn't take away much from the experience. The gameplay is admittedly very "classic", but I've been an RPG gamer for many years, and I still love the standard classic RPG battle mechanic as long as it is done well.

RPGs have been fairly big the past generations, but the archaic gameplay of the genre seems to put newcomers off. And even though Lost Odyssey represents the "WOW" factor for a seasoned RPG player like myself, I agree that the genre needs to move forward, at least if they want the genre to appeal to a new mass market. It would be great if the big three did "step up to the plate" as you put it and helped pushing the genre forward. I think new blood is the only way to get the genre out of its archaic roots. However, doing this might ruin just what makes RPGs so enjoyable in the first place (at least for the current genre fans).

As the queen of JRPGs used to be Square (Enix), and looking at their state right now, I don't see ay of this as a surprise. I mean, their games usually target the Japanese market, yet they completely ignore the dominant platform!

The genre itself isn't very big compaired to other genres. I think that is one of the main issue that prevents visionarys from trying to revolutionise it.

my only answer to this is that

the KING of JRPG's isn't out for this gen of consoles i.e. FINAL FANTASY 13

FF13 will come & it will breathe new air into the genre & also it will act as a catalyst for new JRPG's

Not big budget?! It looks pretty budget-y to me!

it's not FF or DQ budget lol.

The problem is that JRPG developers tend to copy off of the FF games when they come out. They did not copy off FFXII because many Japanese gamers hated it and FFXIII hasn't come out yet. What's impressive is that Resonance of Fate has quite a few similarities in setting and premise to FFXIII and the battle system in both seem very innovative. I think both of those games have a chance at really impressing reviewers.

@riachu

exactly

each FF sets the standard for a generation

with FF12 it backfired for the first time ever

Truth be told, the fate of JRPG genre on HD COnsoles firmly lies in the hands of FF13 & how its received

back when FF7/FF10 were mega hits, other JRPG's also became hits as people told their friends "hey its like FF7/FF10" & then their friends brought them too

So far we have had a few good JRPG's and one excellent JRPG(ToV).

Personally i think the issue with JRPG's at the moment is the way their made. We often end up far too much bad dialogue wasting dev time(and player time), horrible released schedules(seriously localize and the polish at the same time dammit), stories that fail to encourage the user to keep going (even if it doesn't get better make me believe it'll get better) and slow paced gameplay OR large jumps difficulty that promote grinding. (wouldn't be a problem if gameplay was more fun).

Well at least ill be able to import FFXIII spring 2010 (i doubt the PAL version will be out before holiday 2010/early 2011)