Financial stuff

[Bolivar]

I never found XII to be a "western RPG" and offline MMO most certainly but hardly a western style RPG. Of anything it reminded me of FFV. Of anything, I feel XII reintroduces alot of elements that have gone missing in the franchise in the last few years. What I've seen and heard of Last Remnant has never given me the idea of a western RPG either but then again the project doesn't suit my taste to begin with so I know very little about it outside of the fact that a major character is being tailored made for western audiences (the brain dead ones anyway ) so I can't really comment.

Akitoshi Kawazu himself has stated in interviews that FFXII was made with western gamers in mind, expecting that it would be especially well received in North America, and that they purposely tried to contrast the the qualities of FFX specifically which were considered too linear or too restrictive. Furthermore, I think anyone familiar with PC RPGs over the last 10 years could easily discern the more western elements. Everything from the map-approach to the visual presentation of battles was a large departure from what Final Fantasy and the JRPG canon has been. Furthermore, the game is best played like a western RPG - going out to discover new regions and dungeons in order to seek out the best equipment for your characters. When the game is played like a JRPG, as in the player participating in a story, the player easily finds him/herself underleveled and underequipped.

The Last Remnant, as with FFXII, has been easily recognized as having certain qualities that might be more appealing to a western audience, and there is such a sweeping acknowledgment of this on the net alone that it would be futile for me to entertain the idea that it isn't.

I feel the comical thing about all this is the fact that exploration was originally an element in early JRPG (and even many well known JRPG series today) hell even the early titles many people claim started the genre had pretty heavy exploration elements so its difficult for me to say its an element not in the genre itself though it did almost completely disappear in the PS2 generation of RPGs. I will concur that XII had some western elements but nothing that would have been foreign to a DQ fan. I won't argue the point but I do feel its silly that JRPG's are considered to have no exploration/stat tweaking but alas it seems to be common knowledge on the web that they don't...

I don't think anyone on the net proposes that JRPG's lack exploration/stat tweaking, only that it does it in noticeably different ways. We're also foregoing many other differences others might pick up, little things such as the free camera, when the more traditional japanese style is to use a fixed, cinematic angle.

Also, some of the earlier games which defined the east's style in the genre gave only the illusion of exploration, as any area you find is something you would inevitably have to encounter, anyway. The fourth installment of the FF franchise had a total of, what, 3 optional "quests" (if you could even call them that): Excalibur, Phantom Beast World, and Bahamut if I remember correctly.