RPG's lack the Franchise it needs....

[NeoCracker]

Okay, this thread is inspired by the Square and Capcom discussion with Wolf and Haste in the SE forum, and in my head I was going 'I need to drop a Breath of Fire referance here'. And then something occurred to me after that thought. Even though my first and most consistant RPG series from the SNES and PS1 era had been Final Fantasy, I feel that if it died right now, or even if the PS2 generation didn't happen, it wouldn't really matter, at least not to me.

Yet I sit here thinking about Breath of Fire. The world of RPG's really seems to be missing something without a new Breath of Fire game. We have the Xeno Crew creating this epic and god scaled stories spanning the galaxies, and Atlus messing around with Lovecraftian style gods and horrors, but Breath of Fire was something esle. It was a more classic struggle against dark and evil gods. And really, as I thought of it, as classic a tale as that sounds, it's not really something you saw in Video games often, not even the RPG Genre where it sounds like it fits most at home.

The fall of Breath of Fire has left a pretty big hole in RPG's, something that wouldn't really be missing these days in the absence of Final Fantasy.

Then I thought more, and Wild Arms is another one like Breath of Fire. A game that, without it, RPG's seem to be lacking. There is no other Wild West RPG out there, at least not any I know of, and for that matter Wild West is a lacking Genre in games, though there is a few up. Even if 4 and 5 added more sci-fi elements, they still had a fun Wild West atmosphere.

Wild Arms got me thinking of Lufia, the RPG that probably had the best puzzles, and solving the maps puzzles actually ended up being a major focus of the game. This and Wild Arms were the only RPG's that had such strong elements of Puzzles to beat the game, and they have faded as well. There is Golden Sun, but with no sign of the final installment, have the heavy puzzle focus's also died out?

Even Earthbound was vastly unique, at least to an American Audience (There were a few Parody style RPG's that never saw stateside releases.) We do have Hyperdimension Neptunia, but even though I enjoy those games, they don't really fill the Earthbound style of cracking jokes at pretty much everything. Neptunia is pretty limited in it's scope of humour, catering almost purely to one very small niche.

I guess you could call this a thread about games that we wish would come back, really this was just me reflecting. I look back and see all these great styles of RPG that I really do feel have a place, yet their existence has faded. While there are still some great RPG's coming out, Atlus and the Xeno Team for example, I can't help but feel they alone don't really make up for the holes left by those other games, nor does it seem anyone at all is interested, at least not on the developers side of things.

Well, there's the ramblings of an old man.

[Ultima Shadow]

Even though my first and most consistant RPG series from the SNES and PS1 era had been Final Fantasy, I feel that if it died right now, or even if the PS2 generation didn't happen, it wouldn't really matter, at least not to me.

Yet I sit here thinking about Breath of Fire. The world of RPG's really seems to be missing something without a new Breath of Fire game.

I can feel the same to some degree regarding FF, however... if FF had actually ended with 9, I'm pretty sure I would have been all "oh, I wish they'd make another FF game" these days.

Even Earthbound was vastly unique, at least to an American Audience (There were a few Parody style RPG's that never saw stateside releases.) We do have Hyperdimension Neptunia, but even though I enjoy those games, they don't really fill the Earthbound style of cracking jokes at pretty much everything. Neptunia is pretty limited in it's scope of humour, catering almost purely to one very small niche.

Super Robot Taisen og Saga: Endless Frontier

I'm not entirely sure you'd enjoy the game as much as I do, but... that game got two things going for it: its battle system and the jokes. And holy crap do I love that game for those two things alone.



As for games I miss and want to come back... well, not as much actual series as just another Super Mario RPG. No, not Paper Mario. A REAL sequel to Legend of the Seven Stars please.

[Bolivar]

With the big partnership between Nintendo and Sega, and Camelot now a Nintendo First Party Studio, I really have no idea why they aren't making a new Shining Force and making the Wii U Bolivar's preferred next-gen console...

I don't know about big long running series, mostly because I don't venture too far out from the mainstays, but I also like a lot of RPG series that are new (Valkyria Chronicles) or were never long running (Ogre Battle Saga). Honestly, I kind of feel like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have been missing, with the former struggling to put out a current generation title and the latter having a handheld and an MMO as its last two entries. Honeslty I'm a little shy to check out a lot of newer RPGs since I'm really turned off by the anime style that so many games try to emulate. JRPGs were great because they invented their own aesthetics. Again, Nintendo has some great first party studios, I'd like to see their interpretation of HD JRPGs.

[Polnareff]

Super Robot Taisen: Endless Frontier is great. Hard to find, but great.

Anyway, I didn't go and check out the reply Wolf gave me in that thread yet, but I agree that without games like Grandia, BoF, etc. the JRPG genre feels really empty. I remembered looking forward to hearing about a possible new BoF game after the first one.

Same thing happened when they made 2 and 3 and so on. But IV and V kind of failed sales-wise (V was a giant experiment to the point where it was barely a full game. If you managed to play it front to back it was 1/5 the length of BoFIV), and Capcom is a bit more conscious about where they stick money now, so I can't see another BoF happening unless they let Camelot, the makers of Shining Force, Beyond the Beyond, and Golden Sun, make it. Camelot has expressed interest in doing so at least once.

Lufia was an awesome game for people who liked puzzles. The puzzles put even Zelda's to shame. The last Lufia game I can think of is the action-RPG remake of the second one. It's a great game actually. I was surprised how good it was, but from what I can recall, the puzzles were scaled down.

Wild Arms kind of fell off the wagon for me once they introduced that whole hexagon thing. My favorite WA games are Alter Code F, 3, and 2, in that order. I even liked Crossfire, except for how cheaply difficult it was. Wild Arms 3 was the best game in the series, I felt. Everything just came together seamlessly. I'm not sure if Media.Vision is around anymore. I know they made the WA games, and Rapid Reload, but am not sure about any other games.

[Del Murder]

There is definitely a lack of great JRPG franchises around these days. I would love to see a new BoF game. Or Mana or Chrono or Lufia. Problem is, this genre has dwindled so much in the English markets that it may not make financial sense to revive these great series out here.

[Mirage]

With the big partnership between Nintendo and Sega, and Camelot now a Nintendo First Party Studio, I really have no idea why they aren't making a new Shining Force and making the Wii U Bolivar's preferred next-gen console...

I don't know about big long running series, mostly because I don't venture too far out from the mainstays, but I also like a lot of RPG series that are new (Valkyria Chronicles) or were never long running (Ogre Battle Saga). Honestly, I kind of feel like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have been missing, with the former struggling to put out a current generation title and the latter having a handheld and an MMO as its last two entries. Honeslty I'm a little shy to check out a lot of newer RPGs since I'm really turned off by the anime style that so many games try to emulate. JRPGs were great because they invented their own aesthetics. Again, Nintendo has some great first party studios, I'd like to see their interpretation of HD JRPGs.

WiiU next gen?

In either case, I can't really say I miss breath of fire, even if I did like playing them back in the day. Aren't the Tales of games often pretty simplistic in their good vs evil stories? They're certainly not always very complex in their stories.

[kotora]

The RPG genre has the same symptoms of the entire industry. Nearly all releases by major studios are rehashes of stuff we've seen decades ago, and when studios try do bring some innovation to the genre, they end up screwing up all the other parts of the game.

[Depression Moon]

When are we going to get new stuff to talk about. Mostly all I here on here is abut why aren't games like they used to be or that same thing, just directed towards SE, or the same subjects talked about in the past FF games over and over again.

[Bolivar]

Nearly all releases by major studios are rehashes of stuff we've seen decades ago, and when studios try do bring some innovation to the genre, they end up screwing up all the other parts of the game.

[kotora]

I've only played two of those, Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles, so I can't speak for the other games. While VC had an interesting concept, I did feel like there were a lot of improvements to be made: the gameplay was rather lacking in challenge and depth, and got repetitive pretty soon, and the storyline relied on way too many cliches. I was pretty interested in a sequel to see if they improved on those points, but then they had to go and release them on a different platform

Either way, it ain't that large a list. 6 games across 4 platforms, in a time span of 5 years.

[Polnareff]

And out of that list, personally only three of those games are _that_ great. Ni no Kuni being one of them. I just got that game a few days ago.

[Mirage]

Also, Level5, Atlus and Monolith are not major studios. They are many things, and many of these things I enjoy, but they are not big, really.

[Bolivar]

Never said they were major studios or "big" (not sure what you mean by that Mirage or what it has to do with this thread), but those six are pretty universally well-received games that brought a lot of innovation. The list would grow if you get into debatables, there's a good deal more I would add to the list and I'm sure NeoCracker could think of more than a few as well.

But six critical darlings with big innovations is pretty nice. Has any other genre innovated more than JRPGs this generation?

[Polnareff]

Atlus is definitely a big company now. They've come a long way from the PSX days. I'd venture to say that Level-5 is big too. Inazuma Eleven alone got them so much bank, and how would they be able to develop games like Dragon Quest and Ni no Kuni if they were lacking in funds?

[Bolivar]

Well to be fair, Level-5 makes a lot of their titles either with Square Enix's money (when they did Dragon Quest) or with Sony's money subsidizing exclusives, but I would consider them a major studio. They helmed the premier Japanese franchise for some time.

In any case, I'm not saying "big studios" make innovative JRPGs, or that there have been many of them. Just that Kotoroa made an overly pessimistic statement that was pretty easily discredited.