Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997. Fans treated the game as if it was sacred, the game was one of the finest Final Fantasy games ever. Back then, Japanese role playing games (JRPG's) was the genre to beat. 15 years on and JRPG's have lost their charm and appeal to so many people, or has it?
Intro's aside, lets get straight to the point…
Developers have made their mistakes, this is the simple reasons the state of the genre is what it is.
To improve or broaden the appeal of the genre I believe the following should happen in the order of least to most importance:
10. More online multiplayer JRPG's: there are some people who play games only for the Multiplayer, and it’s the multiplayer feature which is the main selling point of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft & Fifa, and those games sell a LOT ! Where is the western JRPG equivalent of these games? Nowhere to be found, don’t say Monster Hunter as that isn’t that popular in the west. [This will get the online gamers on board]
9. More turn based battle systems/Traditional JRPG's: the only turn based JRPG I can think of this console gen is Lost Odyssey, I am of the view that there are some people who believe the Genre has strayed from what it was and they just want TRADITIONAL JRPG's back. [This well get the old school JRPG gamers on board]
8. Better & smarter marketing & more marketing: I am yet to see a viral video on the internet to promote a JRPG game, viral videos are a good way to advertise, since there is none for JRPG games (that I can think of) it indicates the marketing is poor. Sony spent $100 million on the marketing and promotion of FF7, the game even appeared in Playboy magazines, look at how popular that game was. [This will get all sorts of people on board, even casual gamers]
7. Loss in popularity of FPS games e.g Call of Duty: too many people are buying FPS games, but it seems now that people are getting tired of FPS games, the future looks brighter. Think about it, if a substitute product/competitor is taken out of the equation, it can only mean that the most likely thing that will happen is your sales will increase. [This will get all sorts of people on board, even casual gamers]
6. More localization i.e release more games in the west: how can consumers buy a game if the game isn’t even available in their language and country, how can that JRPG series broaden its fan base if the game isn't available ? [This will keep existing JRPG fans interested in the genre]
5. More real time action battle systems: 1 of the biggest complaints I here is that the JRPG genre usually has archaic battle system, you will notice I already mentioned "More turn based JRPG's", anyway developers are now making more real time action based battle systems. But why not make both more Turnbased and action based JRPG's? They don't need to oppose each other. [This will appeal to the whiners and haters who complain about traditional "archaic" JRPG's]
4. More western themed games (both in terms of story, and characters) e.g dark souls: "oh, the men all look like girls there all borderline heterosexual", "eww, they all have long hair", "all the characters look like children and cartoons, ewww"….yeh you get the point [This will appeal to those whiners]
3. Just 1 epic JRPG to get people into genre, like how COD got people into FPS: FF7 already did this in the past as mentioned in the intro, and we know the effect, but now that effect has started to wear off, we need another game [This will get all sorts of people on board, even casual gamers]
2. Less cliches, better voice acting: a major complaints, possibly the most major, if their were less clichés and better voice acting, most JRPG's would get higher review ratings as reviewers would have 1 less thing to complain about (the thing they complain about most often when they want to pick on the genre), and reviews directly effect sales. [Better reviews=More sales=more fans]
1. Go back to your roots and think about what made JRPG's so great in the golden age (1990-2006) and try to revive those ideas, the loveable characters, the amazing unique stories, the side quests, mini games, exploration, customization, addicting gameplay that rewards you for: levelling up, collecting items, achieving certians things e.t.c am talking to people like you Square Enix.[If this happened we should be back to how the state of the genre was in the Goldenage (1990-2006)]
We were expecting problems with mod support, but there are a lot of other issues.
This is why you get the GOG version on gog you can select the version of the game to download.
On pc fallout 4 fallout new vegas and skyrim are all broken on steam because they all got the same "next gen" update.
Skyrim dec 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/sky...
Can not find new vegas but anyone that modded it knows the script extender there was also broken
Not accidental, they want modders to stop modding their older games to force them to mod Shitfield.
There doing the same on starfield with a mods store and blocking mods
There goal is like blizzard and what they did with fallout 76 you make mods they can sell and you become a slave.
On skyrim they have "trusted" mod devs now basically a badge that lets your mod on the store you get a crumb of the sale when someone buys it.
lol to the disagrees, the last Skyrim update broke mods too. They've been trying to kill mods to monetize them in creation club for years, it's not a stretch that they purposely put out patches just to break free mods.
The disagrees are from people who have common sense. They aren't trying to kill mods. Most mods for any game will break with a new update because they rely on files/code that have been changed. This isn't new. Even with Bethesda this would happen way before the creation club. Mod support is literally one of the things that got Bethesda to where they are, and they're one of the only devs that releases comprehensive mod tools for each of their games.
Over 14 GBs and doesn't change much at all? What? Taking up that much drive space for a pathetic 'remastering' is shameful.
Par for Bethesda.
LOL people are actually expecting massive improvements or something? From Bethesda?? the same people who released Skyrim multiple times and the all look like shit? THAT Bethesda? are people for real?
The ps5 version doesn't change a ton but from my small playtime it's enough to make me want to replay it just to have it running at 60.
A side note to this my PS4 version no longer boots after it's "update" so I guess that's what it feels like to own a Bethesda game on PC
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
A voice actor from The Coalition's third-person shooter series, Gears of War, has hinted at a new game announcement coming in June.
Hopefully Microsoft will go back to the original story line and get away from that woke nonsense from the last Gears game Gears of Woke! But were talking about Microsoft so all the betting money is on more of the same woke nonsense.
The Locust trilogy concluded with Gears of War 3. I don’t get how Gears 4 and 5 are “woke” .
I really liked reading this and I agree with you on every issue you put up. There are a few reasons for why things are the way they are, such as the economy keeping the industry from wanting to step too far outside of the box and not as much "young blood" being given the freedom to do what they would like to. For example, the creators of FF7 are gods in JRPG companies. They are now the big bosses. They reflect on their own fame to judge what will be put out today. It is human nature. But their moment of fame isn't today. What worked before won't work now. This is why FF10-13/2 were not as popular as they could have been. New designers and storywriters need to have the same freedom of creativity that the big guys had when they were starting out. the "I know better than you" attitude is strangling the industry.
Still, perhaps the slowly approaching demise of big names like Square may be a good thing. Indie groups may not have the budget, but they have the fresh ideas that will lead us into the next few decades of gaming. As the big guys fall, perhaps they will get wise and seek the support of the indie game makers. Hopefully then this cookie cutter style way of making games will take the hit for the big companies and we can all have new and imaginative games back on the market.
Aren't there alot of JRPG's on handhelds this gen? handheld gaming is huge in Japan, companies cater to those tastes, the hardware tends to be weaker and easier to develop on and none of those nasty currency fluctuations or localisation issues to worry about,
I think number 9 is the main reason.
What happened to turn-based battles? They've all but gone. I like a bit of action in some of my RPGs, but not all of them. Final Fantasy in particular have changed their formula way too much to the point where the games don't even resemble what the genre used to represent.
Why can't we have random battles again? Have the little fade-out and music change and into the screen with the ATB gauges and the "attack, magic, special, item" menus. And the ability to level up our characters the way we used to.
It's not my tastes that are changing. I could go back and play FF 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 and have a blast, so they've obviously done something to them to make me not like their more recent games.
You want more turn based games but at the same time you also want more real time action games. So what your really saying is just make more JRPGs with a lot of variety.
There's been no significant change or advancement in story presentation, mature themes, or character development since the change over from the SNES to the PS1. And where things coasted and fell into a rut with the PS2, they've largely gone backwards while also ignoring/forgetting aspects like towns and turn based combat in favor of resource heavy graphics.
While FF7 got points for looks, it was the overall influence and death of a central/main character that's made it so memorable. As many will point out, other party members died in other games before then, even Square titles, but those were only ever events within the game. Aeris' became pivotal to the main plot. Then there's the theological and psychological things Xenogears tried to do. The first Wild Arms integrating mini-games into the game world, as well as giving rival NPCs real active roles.
@Captain Tuttle:
My point is that you may as well be complaining how there are more JRPGs on the PS3 than the 360 at this point. Saying that checkers is as complex as chess.
Though the PSP and 3DS are on par with the PS2, current handhelds vs current consoles are apples and oranges.