Topic: Japanese style games going extinct?

[KDR_11k]

Because some idiots derailed and killed the FF13 thread while I was typing this up I'll post this in a separate thread.

It seems to me that the japanese style of game design is dying out on the HD consoles. Even the games that do get made on them seem to be designed to look like western games. Where previously Square-Enix and co dominated the RPG scene now they've yielded to the likes of Bioware and Bethesda. The only genre that still seems to live is the Dynasty Warriors clone. The games that do come out fail critically and in the market. Of course anything that comes out is a retread of an idea from the previous gen but that's hardly a surprise. The gaming landscape on these platforms is becoming as brown and dull as the next-gen graphics themselves.

This is probably a misperception by me but when I look at store shelves for these systems everything is dull and uninteresting. Seems the only place where anything is still happening is on WiiWare.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

and DS, you might want to note.

[Pale]

I think it's definitely the case, but not because fans of Japanese style games are starting to hate them.  I think it's just a product of North America becoming the video game cash cow.

It did that by pulling many more gamers in, and those gamers just like western games more.

Now that the Wii is pulling in non-gamers with what could be called a "neo-japanese" game design of simplicity, fun, and cuteness, I can't help but wonder if tides will shift back to Japan, but classic Japanese games will continue to die out. (which would make me sad. Why can't we have all types of games?)

[ThePerm]

good! I watched my sister in law play some shitty RPG when i wanted to do much better things. Damn that game was so cliche and awful. I really don't like most RPG's they are all the same. I do like RPG elements in games, but you will not catch me playing a traditional one.

"[People who play RPGs are] depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games." Amen

[Ymeegod]

Well to be fair the last two Square-Enix games I played were Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant and both of them were underpar and deserverd to be overlooked. 

For the most part the US never did have a huge japanese RPG fanbase.  Final Fantasy was one of the few games that sold millions even though there's been plenty of good RPG titles.

Personally I love my turn-based games.  Nearly cried when I heard that Front Mission games weren't being converted to NA anymore.  Just spent over 100 hours with Pesona 4 and loved everyminute of it.   

[Ymeegod]

""[People who play RPGs are] depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games." Amen"  Ouch.  Not really depressed though as long as I have my cake.

[KDR_11k]

The Wii will probably shift the focus back but I don't think the Wii's absorption can account for the lack of eastern games on the HD consoles (since it doesn't seem to have absorbed much third-party dev power yet, at least not much that led to any results, the game releases still resemble the Gamecube situation). Maybe it's the DS that ate them all, yeah. Western companies seem seriously inept on that system since many treat it as a market for cheap knock-offs of big console releases. Western devs seem to be skilled mostly at PC development and since the HD consoles are pretty much PCs for casual gamers...

[ThePerm]

""[People who play RPGs are] depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games." Amen"  Ouch.  Not really depressed though as long as I have my cake.

i was quoting Hiroshi Yamauchi.....QFT

[Deguello]

I'd be more willing to believe this if Nintendo wasn't crushing down on the entire industry with the massive weight of it's DS and Wii empires and making more money than the rest of the industry combined.  Nintendo is a Japanese company and their games are THE biggest sellers this gen.  Just because Japanese developers want to ignore the Wii doesn't mean that Japanese games themselves are going to die out.  Those companies will either adapt or die.

Besides, it's not as if Western games have the rosiest image of performance these days, either.

[Bill Aurion]

If anything I see Japanese games making a comeback, considering the direction 3rd party support on the Wii is going (focusing more on Wii now, with Western 3rd parties still in HD Land...)

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I think Nintendo makes Japanese games.

[NWR_pap64]

Let's see who is the first to "troll" this thread an anger the forum gods...

[Ghisy]

Dang, if JRPGs just go extinct, I would be a sad, sad gamer...

[Adrock]

Square Enix is not going anywhere because their brand might is far too strong. Despite SE's hyper half-assed attempt to appeal to western gamers with The Last Remnant, their design philosophy, both in terms of aesthetics and gameplay, don't seem primed to change any time soon. FFXIII's Lightning was designed to be a female version of Cloud, who already looked kind of female to begin with. Tetsuya Normura's zipper laden character designs will be seen in many a J-RPG to come, mark my words.

Many Japanese developers are noticing that there are too many copycats out there and consumers are responding by what they do and do not spend money on. I don't think it's a matter of Japanese style games dying out and/or Western styled games taking over. Rather, I think many Japanese developers are beginning to figure out what Miyamoto has known for the past 30 years and what many Western developers learned first: innovation is key to game development and you can't just gank someone else's idea and hope to succeed.

[Ian Sane]

I thought the issue was the Japan's gaming tastes have changed.  Nintendo was really emphasizing that when they first introducing the non-gaming concept.  Iwata was talking about people getting bored of games and such and here in North America it was like "what the hell are you talking about?"  It just didn't seem to make that much sense from the Western perspective.  But Twilight Princess apparently didn't sell so hot in Japan while non-games and portables are all the rage there.

If JRPGs for example aren't selling in Japan then they probably aren't going to last too long here and it won't even be because of the American market's tastes.  I don't think too many Japanese companies design their games specifically with the Western market in mind.  Most of those great Japanese games we love were designed to sell in Japan and it's like "oh that's a nice coincidence" that it sold in America as well.  Look at how Nintendo seems so down on Metroid.  Metroid isn't so popular in Japan.  Now their attitude should be "who cares?" because the US is a larger market but I don't think they see it that way.

[Adrock]

Changed because all the games were so formulaic. Nintendo's own non-non-gamer titles consistently sold well. There's a perfectly sound reason Twilight Princess didn't perform as well as expected: it took no chances, it was formulaic, it was everything so many Japanese gamers were railing against.

Final Fantasy will always sell in Japan. Dragon Quest will always sell in Japan. JRPGs will sell so long as Japanese developers shy away from cliches, such as the spiky haired hero (Cloud), amnesia (Cloud), emo personality (Cloud), orphans (Aeris), the innocent magically gifted girl (Aeris) and so on.

[WuTangTurtle]

Where previously Square-Enix and co dominated the RPG scene now they've yielded to the likes of Bioware and Bethesda.

I liked Mass Effect and Fallout 3 but it would be a very sad day if those kind of games replaced JRPRGs.  Anyone else feel like Mass Effect was pretty linear and empty for a game where you are exploring different galaxies!?

Luckily some JRPGs are on the way though, I believe Star Ocean comes out next month on 360.

[NWR_pap64]

Would you say that one of the reasons JRPGs are not doing as well as they should in Japan is because the market was over saturated? It seemed like RPGs were being released non-stop, creating an apathy in gamers, save for the likes of FF and DQ?

Its kinda like right now the American market is being over saturated with FPS games and casual games (being fair here, forum gods!). Sooner or later the public will get tired of them, forcing an eventual disappearance of the genre while another genre steps in.

[Ian Sane]

I think pap is pretty dead on about the genre being oversaturated.  They are a lot of RPGs and a lot of them are very similar.  I've gotten rather bored of them because the stories and settings are so damn similar.  At first I kind of liked that because that was new and interesting to me and I wanted more of it but everything gets boring after a while.  And I'm not even a regular RPG guy here in the West.  So if you were a big RPG nut in a country where the most RPGs are released you would easily get burned out on the franchise without some shake up.

I'm hoping it doesn't disappear but just shrinks back a bit.  There was a time where beat-em-ups and shmups were huge.  We still get decent shmups.  Last gen we got Ikaruga, R-Type Final and Gradius V.  If you're into shmups those three games are heaven.  It isn't like the TurboGrafx 16 days where every second game was a shmup but they still do make those games and there isn't as much filler.  With beat-em-ups though the genre has died.  The last good beat-em-up was, what, Dynamite Cop on the Dreamcast?  I think if RPGs became a little more like shmups, in that you see them less frequently but when they show up it's like a really major game in the genre, it wouldn't be so bad.  Better than disappearing outright.  And considering the length of RPGs if one really great one came out a year it would be much easier to follow the genre.

[Bill Aurion]

Interestingly enough, I think this generation has been lacking in RPGs of the traditional variety, or at least original titles (original as in not a remake)...Consoles have had a mere handful, with most of them going to the DS, and even then there's been way less than was on the PS2 last gen...

But I do believe SRPGs specifically have this over-saturation problem...There's like a billion of them for the DS!  And right when you think something new and exciting will be announced, it ALSO turns out to be an SRPG!  I guess it's the flavor of the generation for whatever reason...

[KDR_11k]

SRPGs seem fairly cheap to develop since there's not much need to make areas to explore, everything can be composed of fairly ugly tiles and there's no need for NPCs either, everything can be an enemy or a controllable character (or frequently both). Battles take so long that 2-3 can be enough filler to take a few hours.

[LuigiHann]

Phoenix Wright is a pretty Japanese-style game.

[Flames_of_chaos]

I don't think Japanese style games are extinct there are a ton of small niche Japanese games and all platforms even the HD consoles. If companies like Aksys,Koei,Atlus,Xseed, Marvelous, Ubisoft(they localized their share of niche Japanese games), NIS, Majesco(they localize occasionally), Ignition(they localize occasionally),Q? Entertainment, Atari(they occasionally publish niche Japanese games) exist there will always be a big pool of Japanese games in America since they usually come from those publishers.

[GoldenPhoenix]

I honestly think it is a cycle. We see it all the time where a genre gets over saturated (I think the FPS genre is getting close to this point) and collapses, but after a few years it can see a resurgence again.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I don't wanna wait a few years, I gotta see collapse NOW.