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[Squishy3]

Type-0... really isn't western influenced. Unless that was your point.

It isn't really western-influenced, but it's more action-oriented compared to the Xenoblade games.

FFXV's combat seems more influenced by Japanese character action games than anything western.

I was saying out of the examples for western-influenced action JRPGs, FFXV and Type-0 are obviously far closer to that end of the spectrum than Xenoblade X, which only has real-time movement and some arts that require positioning to maximize damage or effects.

 

[redcrayon]

I really don't get how a JRPG that doesn't use turn-based combat suddenly isn't a JRPG any more, it's then 'western influenced'.

It seems to come from the same mindset that moans that JRPGs don't change, then when they do, they aren't counted any more so the genre is still accused of being static. Bonkers.

 

[silvermember]

Using your set of self impose restriction, yes, JRPG are dead and I am glad they are dead. They should stay dead.

 

[Tye The Czar]

When is this game releasing? It's become vaporware to me now, I recall hearing about it in what 2013, 2014? No offense, but I really wanna play that game of yours XoX

There are frequent updates on their Kickstarter page.

 

[Chev]

So hey, First Person Shooters are dead, right? Obviously those with mouselook don't count.

 

[Falk]

So hey, First Person Shooters are dead, right? Obviously those with mouselook don't count.

Bahahahah I was actually about to post this, except about iron sights and/or regenerating HP.

Those are very western concepts.

 

[Servbot24]

Tales is close enough to being turn based IMO.

 

[Kintaro]

JRPGs aren't dead, but they are certainly pretty damn niche. Turn based ones? Even more so.

 

[Producer]

Lmao. Traditional turn based games like kingdom hearts, tales, and valkyria chronicles right OP.

They are doing just fine. The 3DS has most of them.

 

[Mandoric]

cinematic AAA genre built around ebin feels and being The Game Everyone's Playing falls when new cinematic AAA genre built around ebin feels and being The Game Everyone's Playing is settled on by group of publishers with larger budgets

this should surprise no one

persona and tales will cling on because they have the good sense to embrace their anime and sell to that market, final fantasy will cling on because it's the only option that can pretend to play in the new budget space and it's never really cared about keeping traditional gameplay around, dq has a long way to fall and will likely not finish falling before one of the horii/toriyama/sugiyama triumvirate dies and ends it anyway

 

[Squishy3]

Oh god I didn't even comprehend the part about Tales, KH and Valkyria Chronicles.

Yeah JRPGs are dead OP you won't like them anymore better move on.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

If we ignore the OPs "limitation", then I think I'm perfectly fine with the current output of JRPGs.

Falcom, Atlus, Gust, Namco, Nintendo, Square, Experience, and even freaking Compile Heart(they are slowly getting better) are making more than enough games that I don't even have time to finish.

 

[fork_bomb]

If OP's title is to be believed, then good riddance.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

If OP's title is to be believed, then good riddance.

There's nothing "good" about it.

Thankfully, it's not happening.

 

[Arulan]

I've enjoyed the recent surge of releases and announcements of JPRGs for PC, and from what I've read it seems to have worked out incredibly well for these developers/publishers. This was from a recent interview of Nihon Falcom:

http://www.windowscentral.com/falcom-gurumin-interview

With the recent releases of Gurumin and Ys VI, six of Nihon Falcom's PC games are now available to English audiences through Steam. As a whole, how well have your English Steam games sold compared to your more recent English PlayStation releases?

To be honest, we were surprised to see that many of our titles enjoyed better sales volume on Steam then PlayStation. There are some titles that did way better than when sold in Japan as packaged goods on the PlayStation; there are some titles that are worthwhile businesses based just on their North American Steam sales. Suffice it to say, we are very aware of Steam.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

It still gets a chuckle whenever someone asserts that Action JRPGs are anything new to the genre. They've been around since the 80's. Time to take off those rose-tinted glasses.

 

[Yellowflashdude]

This is why gaming genre definitions is stupid. I don't get how a style of combat can be limited to a region. This is just playing into the narrative that Japan is "outdated" and anything western gaming is "Innovative".

 

[Kasumin]

(Note: the title reflects traditional, turn-based RPGs developed in Japan, not western-influenced action RPGs developed in Japan such as Bloodborne and Xenoblade X.)

With the collapse of traditional gaming devices in Japan and the continuing rise of mobile gaming, it's not surprising that talent is diminishing within current console development teams and that the old guard is transitioning to mobile. Imageepoch is dead. Valkyria Chronicles is dead. Traditional Final Fantasy is seemingly dead. Kingdom Hearts is ??? Tales Of isn't what it used to be. Square Enix is more concerned about churning out Dragon Quest remakes. Atlus isn't churning out games anymore, Sakaguchi founded Mistwalker, which currently concentrates on mobile platforms. Matsuno left Level-5 to work on mobile games.

What of JRPGs? What used to be the symbol of Japanese gaming, with record-breaking sales year after year, it now resides in front of Death's door, waiting for the killing blow. The Japanese simply don't have the time and attention spans to play 20+ hour single-player games anymore. Sure, studios like Capcom are developing JRPGs such as Breath of Fire for the mobile audience, but how many similarities it shares with traditional JRPGs and how successful they will be on mobile platforms remains to be seen.

Will mobile save JRPGs? Or will the genre focus itself on small indie development teams, which is currently almost non-existant in Japan? Or will traditional gaming make a comeback with the next generation of consoles like what Ni No Kuni did for a short while? Whatever it may be, the future looks dire.

I'll agree with you that traditional gaming devices do seem to be doing a lot worse in Japan nowadays. Consoles doing worse I can understand. But even the 3DS isn't doing as well as its predecessor, and who knows how well a successor could do. Mobile phones are just way more convenient.

I also agree that Tales of isn't what it used to be. Especially when it comes to having fresh, new (and good) mechanics in games. But who knows what Bandai Namco will do with their next game. Either they'll take fan criticisms seriously or they'll push out another low budget, rushed game. Though people seem to be fine with the later, anyway.

As for the rest of your post... you're over-simplifying things a bit. You can't simply exclude Bloodborne and Xenoblade X based on some arbitrary categorization. They have Western elements, yes, but they're still Japanese RPGs.

I'll agree with you that JRPGs do seem to be a tenuous future in Japan. But I'd say that for any non-mobile game series over there right now. What has made me think this way, though, isn't looking at JRPGs. But rather the way that Konami just let Hideo Kojima go and canceled Silent Hills. Kojima is pretty well known in the industry and has even won awards. And Silent Hills had PT as an indication of market interest. Yet Konami just threw those away. I'm not saying their decision was a bad one business-wise, either. The fact is that there is so much money to be made in mobile games that even an award-winning developer for console (and sometimes) handheld games apparently doesn't matter anymore.

This rejection of talent in Japan in favor of chasing after the mobile market is what scares me the most, really.

 

[Necromanti]

The diversity is definitely lacking these days because only certain types of games are successful.

 

[names2hard4you]

Really? And here I thought they were going strong with publishers like Atlus, XSeed, NISA and even S-E now amongst many others bringing stuff over. Idk OP, maybe you are just looking in the wrong places, my Vita and n3DS has such an extensive backlog of JRPGs that I don't even know where to pick up what I didn't finish.

 

[LowerLevel]

Lost Odyssey was the last best traditional JRPG for me and one of my favorite games of all time.

Microsoft if you make Lost Odyssey 2 I'll forget all the bad things you did recently.

Man... Phil, make this happen!

 

[Necromanti]

Idk OP, maybe you are just looking in the wrong places, my Vita and n3DS has such an extensive backlog of JRPGs that I don't even know where to pick up what I didn't finish.

Any examples? I wasn't aware that the Vita had any noteworthy RPGs other than P4G, and even that is just an enhanced port. I would love to expand my library.

 

[KDR_11k]

It's silly to demand some "true JRPG" style, the genre is too vague and diffuse to clearly say that one game is and another game isn't a JRPG. As the years went on the genre has been experimenting with crazier combat systems and whatnot. Take Resonance of Fate, that game's combat system is bonkers. Many of them started combining action and turn based elements, if not entirely action based.

As far as not being big budget, well, no shit. They're fairly niche now that gamers have gotten used to fully realtime gameplay and RPGs are no longer either jRPGs or incomprehensible. And games like CoD have taken up the role of the fancy cutscenes of PS1 era FF. When you don't have a huge audience you cannot afford to invest the crazy amounts of cash needed to make an AAA JRPG. Polish levels have just gone through the roof over the generations and 6 hour games with that kind of polish are already absurdly expensive to make, polishing a JRPG to that level so that it doesn't look low budget in comparison would take ludicrous amounts of cash

 

[Jomjom]

Hmmm I feel exactly the opposite of OP.

 

[Hades Hotgun]

Big budget Turn-based JRPGs are pretty rare these days though. Just about everything's either Action/RPG hybrids or low budget sexualized moe dungeon crawlers. I mean, what's the most recent big budget turn-based JRPG? Lost Odyssey in 2008?

I really hope Persona 5 is amazing.

Personally, I don't need a big budget game since a lot of my favorite turn based games (Suikoden, Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, and FFTactics) were all fairly low budget affairs. Even higher tier games like Xenogears or Chrono Trigger/Cross are far from the AAA games of today.

I just wish these kickstarter JRPG homages would emulate more than some game mechanics of the genre and start to pursue the narrative ambition of guys like Matsuno or Masato Kato or Yoshitaka Murayama or Tetsuya Takahashi. The games I have seen on KS are so often tongue-in-cheek or parody or otherwise adverse to pursuing the kind of imaginative storytelling that I enjoyed about the genre.

Even when the stories showed signs that the writer's reach exceeded their grasp, it was still something to appreciate for the sheer ambitiousness of it. The audacity of the storytelling was beyond the half-hearted parody of many western imitators or what now feels like an ever narrowing group of modern anime tropes in actual Japanese games.

 

[Tanoooki]

Aren't there a plethora of SNES style JRPGs being produced for mobile phones that are exclusive to Japan?

 

[Christhor]

(Note: the title reflects traditional, turn-based RPGs developed in Japan, not western-influenced action RPGs developed in Japan such as Bloodborne and Xenoblade X.)

With the collapse of traditional gaming devices in Japan and the continuing rise of mobile gaming, it's not surprising that talent is diminishing within current console development teams and that the old guard is transitioning to mobile. Imageepoch is dead. Valkyria Chronicles is dead. Traditional Final Fantasy is seemingly dead. Kingdom Hearts is ??? Tales Of isn't what it used to be. Square Enix is more concerned about churning out Dragon Quest remakes. Atlus isn't churning out games anymore, Sakaguchi founded Mistwalker, which currently concentrates on mobile platforms. Matsuno left Level-5 to work on mobile games.

What of JRPGs? What used to be the symbol of Japanese gaming, with record-breaking sales year after year, it now resides in front of Death's door, waiting for the killing blow. The Japanese simply don't have the time and attention spans to play 20+ hour single-player games anymore. Sure, studios like Capcom are developing JRPGs such as Breath of Fire for the mobile audience, but how many similarities it shares with traditional JRPGs and how successful they will be on mobile platforms remains to be seen.

Will mobile save JRPGs? Or will the genre focus itself on small indie development teams, which is currently almost non-existant in Japan? Or will traditional gaming make a comeback with the next generation of consoles like what Ni No Kuni did for a short while? Whatever it may be, the future looks dire.

???????????? Did I just travel to an alternate reality or something, here all of these games are turn based JRPGs? How high is the OP?

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Any examples? I wasn't aware that the Vita had any noteworthy RPGs other than P4G, and even that is just an enhanced port. I would love to expand my library.

Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Freedom Wars
Demon Gaze

 

[Mexen]

Everytime I think of JRPGs today, handhelds come to mind unlike back then when I'd trade catridges or discs with friends and hope no one had plugged in the VCR to the CRT.
Maybe it's time I gave the mobile phone platform a chance.

 

[Foffy]

I think the industry simply moved on from that basic formula of RPGs. It worked in the 80's, but people want more meat to their experience. I have a hard time even considering a turn based RPG made today let alone one with random battles...

The only ones I can get with are ones that are still old school in their design; Dragon Quest and Pokemon. If you're making a new franchise, that type of old school formula is almost thrown out before even making the design document for the game, unless you're aiming for retro types of throwbacks.

 

[Tetranet]

There's more to JRPGs and RPGs in general than the exact way the combat works. It's not just about fighting hundreds upon hundreds of enemies and the way you do it. It should be pretty apparent that this is the case. What happened to their story and characters, visual design and music, themes and ideas? Combat combat combat. Kill kill kill. Is that all you see?


Even considering those elements, they still have taken a huge hit, but nowhere near as much as it is made out to be.


EDIT: On the news sites I frequent I also notice plenty of small-medium production JRPGs for handhelds, the 3DS and PSVITA have plenty of games and still more come out.

 

[DeSolos]

I love JRPGs, hands down my favorite genre, but I'm more in love with what is at the heart of the JRPG genre.

Going on an adventure with a band of misfits. There's probably some love along the way. Maybe even a stupid obtuse puzzle(

Spoiler

those can probably stay in the past

). That said, as long as the journey is still there, that's all I need. Gameplay is just the package to me.

I'm glad that gameplay associated with JRPGs is expanding to include other things. It's starting to be fun to play them just to play them. Not just to get to the next cutscene. I'd never go out of my way to start up FF6/FF7 to knock out a few battles just because I want to battle. I've already done that with FFXV.

 

[batrush]

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

 

[Kasumin]

Is this a 'portables don't count' thread? Because I'm struggling to keep up with the releases by just Atlus on mine.

If there is a 'last bastion of turn-based JRPGs', going by what has released in the last couple of years, it's a portable one rather than a home console. Development for home consoles seems to be about action-based combat these days.

Seems like a lot of people on this forum ignore portables entirely. I've always been baffled by this "consoles are the only thing that counts" mentality. But I'm worried about even portable/handheld stuff considering how badly the Vita is doing (compared to the PSP, for instance). And I wonder how Japanese players see the 3DS as compared to mobile.

 

[Inuhanyou]

You should write for Polygon OP.

.

Sure, the Japanese market isn't what it used to be at all, and it probably will never return to that.

But your definitions of death, dying and what counts as not being a JRPG versus what does is very strange to me.

Half of your list arent even turn based, and that's before you get into the debate of whether or not Japanese RPG's that arent turn based are classified as JRPGs(they obviously are along with every other Japanese RPG)

Even console which is the weakest spot these days for the genre, Dragon Quest Heroes, Persona 5, Star Ocean 5, Ys 8, Kingdom Hearts 3, FF15, Level's 5 project as well as CC2's efforts and Tales of Zestiria ensure i see way more JRPG's on the horizon now on console than i did 3 to 4 years ago, that's only a good thing

Of course, that's before we get into Vita and 3DS. I have a VIta TV, so that automatically gives me even more JRPG's to play like Tokyo Xanadu and the like.

Just very weird OP.

 

[EMT0]

You should write for Polygon OP.

I wish GAF had an upvote system. We must exist in entirely different worlds, OP.

 

[WiiRevolution1]

It just goes over my head when anyone says JRPGs are dead. Why does noone count Vita and 3DS? :lol

There are literally too many JRPGs to keep track of.

 

[kamineko]

TC, sometimes your favorite franchises move on and make games catering to somebody else. It hurts, but it's a fact of gaming life. Game long enough and the ones you love will hurt you, either by dying out or evolving. It's the rare exception that doesn't.

What exactly is/was the last bastion of JRPG's? You never said.

 

[Nightbird]

It just goes over my head when anyone says JRPGs are dead. Why does noone count Vita and 3DS? :lol

There are literally too many JRPGs to keep track of.

Because Handhelds never count for anything.

It's really getting annoying, and i'm not taking anyone serious whos ignoring Handhelds in Discussons

 

[inner-G]

Don't worry. They'll be revived on Kickstarter 10-15 years from now under weird new names.

I would prefer a kickstarted retro-ish FF over what we're getting with XIII, XIV and XV

 

[Inuhanyou]

I would prefer a kickstarted retro-ish FF over what we're getting with XIII, XIV and XV

14 is amazing, 15 hasnt come out yet, 13 i can understand...but there are plenty of pixel turn based RPG's like Cosmic Star heroine

 

[wmlk]

Why would you ignore evolutions within the genre like FFXV and XCX? JRPGs don't have to be turn-based and things have been trending away from that for a long time now.

 

[inner-G]

14 is amazing, 15 hasnt come out yet, 13 i can understand...but there are plenty of pixel turn based RPG's like Cosmic Star heroine

14 sucks

15's demo sucks

13 sucked really bad.



The should make Final Fantasy more like Cosmic Star Heroine.

 

[WiiRevolution1]

Because Handhelds never count for anything.

It's really getting annoying, and i'm not taking anyone serious whos ignoring Handhelds in Discussons

Me neither. They are just ridiculous.

I prefer handhelds but won't ignore console games if its one I really want. (Unless that game is also on handhelds then I ignore it. ) I'm even planning on getting a PS4 JRPG next month funnily enough. (Omega Quintet...which is turn based even!)


Edit: And I agree with Inner-G. Of course they would never do that. Ah well.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

14 sucks

15's demo sucks

13 sucked really bad.



The should make Final Fantasy more like Cosmic Star Heroine.

14 is legit great, I'm super impressed by the game and can't wait for the expansion that is dropping next month.

13 dues suck and well, I haven't played the demo of 15 to judge it.

 

[TheSpoiler]

A good portion of PS1 RPGs were action, tactical, or some new system that had you being more active. The PS2 had a huge jump in non-traditional RPGs. I hesitate to say traditional, because action RPGs have gone as far back as the NES days.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Jrpgs are not defined by turn based combat. Its just a battle system that lots of devs are comfortable with.

 

[Megidolaon]

I wish that they could just make JRPGs with the level of graphics they want to make instead of feeling like they have to compete with Western AAA. A JRPG with that level of graphics is gonna be difficult. Look at FF.

I wouldn't care if the graphics were more at the level of the current stream of HD remasters (XII needs one so bad), as long as we get a real world to explore, and not XIII's linear halls. FFXV looks graphically amazing, I just hope the game didn't lose out on a ton of features in its transition to PS4. We already know we lost the ability to play as Noctis' buddies. I remember a long time ago, they said they were gonna have an airship in the game and some other FF staples. Stuff like that. Reviews complained about Type-0's graphics, but I didn't care. It was more fun to play.

P5 isn't pushing any hardware but it looks great to me with its art direction. I wouldn't mind RPGs going for that level of graphics, even on the new consoles as long as the game is good. Heck I wouldn't even care if they were for Vita, since I have a PSTV. But even the handheld market in Japan is losing to mobile lately. I do think there is an audience very starved for these kinds of games. Look at Operation Rainfall. I just hope that that the industry listens and doesn't let the genre die.

I still have hope for FFXV, KH3, XCX, P5, FE, and maybe someday we'll see another great new IP like Valkyria Chronicles, TWEWY or Suikoden.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

JRPGs aren't dying. With that said, I'm not pleased with the general state of the medium.

I dislike that the once fairly even balance between Action/RPG and turn-based/RPG releases is now heavily skewed towards Action/RPGs.

I dislike that we're back to having to beg Square-Enix to release games in English that aren't numbered Final Fantasy entries. I mean, come on, if you can't make money with Dragon Quest in the West, you're doing something very wrong.

I dislike that most lower budget JRPGs heavily cater to Japanese otaku which means creepy underage sexuality.

I dislike that most turn-based JRPGs are dungeon crawlers.

I dislike that after being on fire during the PS2 generation, Atlus stumbled with the next generation. At least Radiant Historia was awesome.

I dislike that after a quick turnaround from 3 to 4 (about a 2 year gap), there's been about a 7 year gap between Persona 4 & 5 during which time the series has been milked to death with remakes, TV series, movies, fighting games, cross-overs, and even music games, and in fact everything EXCEPT Persona 5.

I dislike that the mid-tier is pretty much gone outside of Tales unless you're generous with your definition and also include lower budget fare like Atelier, Disgaea, and Falcom's games.

I dislike that after getting off to a promising start with Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and Last Story, Mistwalker jumped on the mobile bandwagon instead of further perfecting their craft.

Now don't get me wrong. I like Action/RPGs. I like dungeon crawlers. I like Atelier and Ys and Kiseki. This year is shaping up to be one of the best years in a while with games like Persona 5, Xenoblade X, and Trails 2. But I definitely miss the PS2 era when interesting mid-tier JRPGs flourished and being turn-based wasn't considered taboo or a design flaw.

 

[Aureon]

You're making a fundamental mistake.

JRPGs' philosophy never wanted to be turn-based - it was but a a compromise, that even FF shed as often as possible with ATB.

JRPG as we know it was born because someone said "I don't think i have what it takes to make a good action game, i'm better at telling a story".
Twenty years later, that somebody started teaming up with those who also have what it takes to make good action games.