It's good to see new RPGs on Wii, and "Xenoblade" is a definite upgrade over "Monado" for me when it comes to RPG names.  I am a little wary of The Last Story since Mistwalker's 2 360 RPGs (Blue Dragon and Last Odyssey) apparently were were not all that good.  Still, it's great to think that we might be seeing the Wii's first good RPG in one of these two titles (Tales of Symphonia 2...ugh...).  It's a pity that it's taken 3 years to get to this point, though.

Final Fantasy
Last Story

"Conclusive Reverie"

What's with these awful names?  What's with this writer?

Let's not forget the best one of them all: End of Eternity (Resonance of Fate in the US).  Yeah, this may be Mistwalker's most blatant attempt to create a Final Fantasy game if the name is any indication.  Of course, given that we haven't seen a true Final Fantasy RPG on the Wii yet (and probably not ever), I think I'm OK with that.

I love me some rpgs.

So this is what Monolith was up to after Disaster! I was beginning to think that they've been let go or shuttered despite being bought by Nintendo.

Monado: Beginning of the World was announced (including a trailer) back at E3 2009.  They just now changed its name to Xenoblade.

Xenoblade? Didn't Monolith make Xenogears and later Xenosaga where the Xeno bit was supposed to point at a connection between XG and XS despite lacking the XG license? Does that mean XB will be related to that whole thing?

Tales of Graces ring a bell? That's not Symphonia 2.

These certainly seem like something to keep an eye on which is really the best I can ask for.  I see the headline "new screenshots for Xenoblade/Last Story" I'll look.  I'll be somewhat excited to look.

You figure with the Wii being the king of Japan that more RPGs would come to it.  Or is that genre no longer popular?

Tales of Graces gets to count as a good RPG on Wii when Namco-Bandai gets off their lazy ass and brings it to North America (preferably alongside Tales of Vesperia for PS3, but that's just wishful thinking at this point).  Yes, I know these two haven't been confirmed for North America yet, either, but Mistwalker and Nintendo have a far better track record for bringing their games over here than Namco-Bandai does with the Tales series.

Final Fantasy
The Last Story

The Final Countdown. BANA NA NAA BANA NA NA NA!

Japan is too busy buying DS and PSP systems to care much about consoles anymore.

I just hope Nintendo gets its act together and brings some of these over to the states.

Infinite Undiscovery is worse that Final Fantasy or Last Story IMO. Though Last Story does sound like a cheap knock-off of Final Fantasy since the meanings of the names are so similar.

What exciting news! Mistwalker has had some problems, but with Nintendo's cooperation, they could do amazing things. And Xenoblade is an awesome name -- I'm still excited for Monado, no matter what they call it.

Nintendo adding their input on a Mistwalker game raises the value of the game in my book.

But both of these games have to be good, as they are the appetizers for the main course.
Nintendo has to make sure both of these games find their intended audiences and put up better than decent numbers so that the crowd is anticipating the Chef's Special that is Dragon Quest X.

Nonsense.  Both these games could sell less than 100 units and DQ X would still sell in record numbers.  That's just the way the Japanese market is, and it's the only market Nintendo and Square-Enix really care about.

Now, if Square-Enix had something like an Ogre Battle Wii or Valkyrie Profile Wii on the horizon, I'd say you'd be right that these titles needed to sell well to drive interest in those later titles.

I wish we could have both of those games, Brood. I really am hoping that sales of the N64 version of Ogre Battle on VC are high and it spurs S-E to make a new Wii version. It's not like the series is competing with them anymore since they own it now.

I never said that DQX wouldn't sell well on it's own.
But it will sell even better if there was an established RPG market already on the Wii.
Most traditional RPG players in Japan are currently owners of a PS3 and DS and most jRPG's on the Wii haven't really been BIG sellers. So if Nintendo can prove that there is a market for RPG's on the Wii, not only will Nintendo have established to new IP's on the Wii, but they will have SE enthusiastic about getting DQX up to par and out the door to take advantage of the waiting masses.

If Nintendo's own RPG's do well, that could even mean some FF could be on the way (wishful thinking) or a DQVIII remake(early 2011) before the release of DQX(late 2011).
That would mean that you could then find every DQ game on a Nintendo system and that traditional RPG are not a dying genre(outside of FF and DQ)

Ah, must've missed it or forgot about it.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=28408.0

The way Nintendo seems to hide these 'core games' in the back corner like an unloved child born of an adulterous relationship makes it easy to miss them. How many people are aware of this, Cosmic Walker, Span Smasher or Tact of Magic? Not many I'll bet.

For some reason I've never been a fan of modern RPG's, they just don''t seem to have the same magic as the ones on the Super NES. Of course, part of that is that I can't really put that kind of a time investment into a game like I used to. If anyone could get me back into an RPG though, it'd be Nintendo. Considering their track record, I'm not expecting these to be released here, but... here's hoping!

The Last Story is spiritually the successor Final Fantasy.
notice the similarity in the names.

Last = Final / Story = Fantasy

Also the Mistwalker is made-up of ex SE employees and the head guy(Sakaguichi) is the creator of Final Fantasy (someone correct me if I get something wrong here).

If you also check the picture of The Last Story logo art, you will notice a clock behind the girls head. all you can see on that list is III - X, and FFX is the last FF that Sakaguichi worked on.

Sakaguichi had paired up with Nintendo back in 1987 to create the original Final Fantasy, and here is is again paired up with Nintendo in 2010 to create The Last Story.

He has also said that he is putting his everything into this game and now we know that Nintendo is picking up the tab, so we can expect this game to be everything that FFXII & FFXIII wasn't especially since it will have some Nintendo guidance to help it along the way. This game will be Nintendo's Final Fantasy since Square doesn't seem interested in bringing the franchise back.

I actually liked Mystwalkers two games.  Blue Dragon suffered mostly from it's combat--it's a turn-based RPG but it really didn't add anything to keep the battles exciting. 

Lost Odyssey was a great emotional feel to the characters--especially Kain.  There's these texts(lost memories) you find thoughout the game and I'll admit left me in freaking TEARS. 

-------------------------------
I'm glad to see another Xeno title as well.  Of course an 2010 release for Japan means 2011 for us--BLEH.

If we even get a release. NoA needs to get on the ball with these Japanese games.

This could bee huuuge kick in the balls to Square if it does well.

If Last Story is a bonafide hit it will destroy Final Fantasy in sales because the Wii just has so many more systems out there.  It would essentially destroy the idea Square has about spending who knows how much on FF as well as letting the former creator rub it in their faces.  Obviously a big if since we don't know jack about the game yet.

Someone has edited in the new Xenoblade music with the original trailer for Monado. The music makes all the difference I think. What do you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNvFp4jVU6U&feature=player_embedded

The cynic in me believes that it will be a super-generic JRPG that will be poorly marketed to a Wii audience that's pretty iffy on RPGs to begin with, and as a result it will sell abysmally.

I'd love to be proved wrong, however.

I hope you are proved wrong.

John Lindemann: Cynic, Troll and beloved Director of NWR. ;)

Never happening.  It doesn't matter how good the game is, FF XIII will sell better because of the name alone.

I would expect Last Story will need several different titles in its lineup before it can truly challenge Final Fantasy in any way. And they all have to be pretty good.

There are people who grew up with Final Fantasy who will never abandon it.

The Last Story 2: End of Tales

The Last Story 3: Final Fantasy

Lets make it happen Nintendo.

I agree. The Super NES RPGs were set in a magical fantasy world of Myths and Magic, which was really cool. Then came the PS1 era and the RPGs for that system and every system thereafter were an enormous disappointment to me. Instead of being medieval myth and magic rpgs, we had steampunk JRPG crap. So I really lost interest in RPGs at that point...

I'm quite on the flipside (yeah, big surprise...I know): Medieval Fantasy is played to ****ing DEATH in RPGs.  I like seeing steampunk/futuristic/modern-style RPGs, as I haven't been playing them for over 20 years.  Stuff like Personas 3-4 and Valkyria Chronicles (which is a WW1-style RPG) are a real breath of fresh air in the RPG genre, and I'll be quite content if we see that become the standard for many years to give the Medieval Fantasy time to become interesting again.

Can't wait for VC2--I know I kept that damn PSP for something.  In case you missed VC it was made by Overworks the developer for Skies of Arcadia so it has the "warm" feel to it when it comes to game characters.

And I just loved Persona 4 (not so much 3 but that's because I played them out of order).

Kinda wish more RPG's took the "bad" route instead of being always leaning on being "good".  Wouldn't mind buring down the villages instead of being the poor sad who just had a bon-fire start to his adventure.

I don't think it is necessarily the themes which made Super NES RPGs more engaging. There's... another quality to them, but I'm not quite sure what.

Why do all RPG's need to have swords?

Because if there's a gun involved then it is considered a shooter.

Wasn't VC on the PS3? Why is the sequel coming to PSP? VC was one of the incentives I had for eventually getting a PS3 so it will be a bummer that the sequel isn't on it.

Mass Effect says hello.

For me to like an RPG I have to like the story, the setting and the characters.  The problem is a lot of RPGs star whiny teenagers that I don't relate to while the stories are cliche and make really DUMB attempts at drama that come across as the sort of thing a 14 year old would write.

In Skies or Arcadia I liked the characters and the whole pirate theme so it worked.  I've got to get Valkyria Chronicles.  Super Mario RPG is also one of my favourite games because I like Mario and like the world in that game.  Mario isn't some brooding emo teenager.  Actually the best RPGs usually star outright HEROES who want to do the right thing instead of spineless pussies who only think of themselves.

That's not exactly the best example, as many would argue that Mass Effect is, in large part, a shooter. The Fallout games would probably be better to point out. But this whole discussion seems to be ignoring Western RPGs and focusing solely on JRPGs.

Ian Sane's post made me realize something: in my three favourite RPGs (Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG), the protagonist never speaks a word. I wonder if this has something to do with the charm that I find missing from most recent RPGs...

Resonnance of Fate (End of Eternity) and Valkyria Chronicles also say "hello".  Granted, those are tactical strategy RPGs but whatever.

It's funny how my facetious remarks tend to get more responses than anything else I say...

I'd love an RPG that mimic the business world. Pen is mightier than the sword, indeed.

Have you heard of a Super NES game titled AeroBiz? You operate an airport in that game, so some might call it a "business RPG."

I was thinking more like you start as a small business and try to transform it into a multinational conglomerate.

I'm pretty sure there are a few of those surrounding different businesses on the PC. There is a mall sim and a pizza/restaurant one I can recall but their names escape me. I think they had Tycoon in the name so I'd check out that line of games.

Also there was that Harvest Moon game on WiiWare that was a store-sim.

The more I read about these two games the more excited I am for them. It has been some time since I've really been into RPG's. I used to love them during the SNES era, and with Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound and FF4 things were good. I went through a little bit of a return to RPG's with FF9 which I followed up by playing 7 and 8, but FF4 stayed my favourite FF. I'm actually playing through FF10 right now, but I have a lot of the same problems with it that Ian has indicated.

I think that part my problem with RPG's is that the main character seems to always wonder whether or not they should do the right thing, but their never seems to be any question about what the right thing is. I would like to see a story where the main character isn't debating whether or not they should be the hero, but facing choices that are morally ambiguous and not being sure about what the "right" course of action is. There was a little bit of that idea in FF4, and I think that is why I find it to be the most compelling FF.

The video for xenoblade looks pretty neat, and I'm interested to see what this previous creator of FF can come up with for The Last Story. With a name like "The Last Story" they are clearly setting the game up as a competitor for final fantasy, and I think that competition breeds the best innovations and most exciting games. I look forward to getting sucked back into the RPG genre again, I hope that these games turn out to be good and I'm not excited for nothing.

Well, I've certainly found the near-monopoly that Square-Enix has on the RPG genre to be one of the worst things to ever happen to the industry (even if I'm really looking forward to FF XIII), so if Mistwalker can finally start mounting some real competition I'm all for it.  Now if only Namco-Bandai would get with the program and start really pushing the genre as it once seemed they would with the Tales series (which has since seemingly become a parody of itself).  But the Tales franchise is perfection incarnate compared to what I've heard has befallen Star Ocean.

Something I'd really like to see Nintendo push for is a partnership with Atlus.  Atlus already largely makes budget-tier games that kick ass and they're one of the few companies to stick with the PS2 instead of jumping headfirst into the HD consoles (Demon's Souls and DeathSmiles being the notable exceptions), so they'd fit in perfectly on Wii.

The Witcher?

"Wasn't VC on the PS3? Why is the sequel coming to PSP?

Saddly as the case with Skies of Arcadia, VC didn't sell so they didn't have the budget to make a full sequel on the PS3.  Yeah VGC has it at 800K but the game was in the barginbin--fact you might find a few new copies at Walmart still.  Was $15-20 and yeah, worth every penny especially if you like SoA.

I just looked this up, I've never heard of it before. Looks a little too much like the elder scrolls games to me. I'm not a big fan of American RPG's. I typically find that there are too many menus to navigate. Also I'm not a terribly big fan of the totally open world in my RPG as I like to be told a story. I think that FF does a good job of this by typically leading you through a fair bit of story before opening up the world to you.

After re-reading my post I think that I may have overstated myself. I don't think that the lack of moral ambiguity is the biggest problem with RPG's it's just something that I've noticed and would like to see someone try to change.

You aren't going to get much moral ambiguity in a linear game with no choices. The Witcher does tell a story and the menu navigation isn't problematic IMO (pretty much on a level with Diablo).

Before they go PSP maybe they should have made it a DS game?

Well, maybe we'll luck out and it can be ported to Wii since PSP and Wii porting seems to be a common trend with developers.