Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
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.
I think it could work, it's all about managing expectations and knowing the audience. For example, Hyper dimension Neptunia is a financial success. The Atelier Series has been doing well on the PS3. The amount of copies they sell aren't anywhere near the amount that games like FF sell (I don't believe they sell as well as even Shin Megami Titles), and often don't even get reviews in Game Informer (Plenty of other places do give it reviews, mind you. ).

As long as they keep their heads level about the reality of likely sales, I think they could all do fine.



Quote Originally Posted by Bolivar View Post
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?
Most of which were Shin Megami Titles.


And on topic of Atlus and if they are a big studio, it really depends what you mean. Do you mean Atlus USA which has published the likes of Demon's Souls, Radiant Historia, the latest King of Fighters? Or are we talking about Atlus USA, the publisher?

According to Wikipedia, the most notable games from Atlus the developer are anything with Shin Megami Tensai and Trauma Center. Mostly more Niche titles, so I don't think I'd call them big, at least not in the US. Not sure about Japan.

Atlus USA, on the other hand, not only publishes all the developers titles, but the biggest titles they turn out stateside aren't the ones developed by Atlus back in Japan, even if those are all my favorites. They may not be up with the bigger publishers like Ubisoft, Square, activision, or EA, but they are pretty big.


Edit: I do want to make sure it's clear, I don't think the current landscape of RPG's is bad, there are a lot of wonderful games out there from this gen for RPG's, and quite a few styles we've not seen before.

I just don't think they need to come at the sacrifice of some of the things we've had before.