Ben-DutkaSony is well known for their exclusives.
This generation, Uncharted , inFamous , Heavy Rain , LittleBigPlanet , Killzone , MotorStorm , and Demon's Souls all became new exclusive IPs that cemented the PlayStation 3 as the hardcore gamer's platform. The continuation of already established franchises, like Metal Gear Solid , God of War , Ratchet & Clank , and Gran Turismo has continued to bolster the brand.
But once upon a time, there was a first-party RPG that fans of the genre really loved, despite the lukewarm critical reception. It was Legend of Dragoon , Sony's first role-playing attempt and one that boasted a decent story and a turn-based mechanic with a timing twist. I distinctly recall certain elements of the game; i.e., the strange contrast between the beautifully designed towns and the drab, linear world map. I also remember thinking that Sony probably should leave RPGs to the experts (like Squaresoft), but this was before I played it.
Much was made of the amazing movies included in the game; they surpassed just about everything else in terms of technical proficiency, and were the reason the game shipped on 4 CDs. We had heard about it for a loooong time, too, as it had been in the works for over 3 years and the development team consisted of over 100 members (big numbers in those days). And you know, we really don't have a lot of high-profile RPG exclusives in the PlayStation realm. There's White Knight Chronicles and Demon's Souls , along with a few other Japanese-developed RPGs, but where's our LoD sequel?
If you want action, you go to God of War . If you want chilling, innovative drama, you play Heavy Rain . If you want more innovation in the realm of player creativity and platforming, you go with LittleBigPlanet . Racing? Gran Turismo . Action/adventures? MGS, Uncharted , inFamous . But where's our first-party RPG? Why couldn't it be a LoD follow-up? Oh, I know…it's impossible. Yeah, we've heard that from Square Enix a million times before. Oh well. 'sigh'
Legend Of Dragoon 2 please.
care to elaborate?
How about some Chrono Cross??! Anyone? I know they put it out on the JPSN but what about us in NA suffering from the LACK of RPGs. Hell ill even take a remake of chrono cross, I know that Trigger an Cross are "same kinda story" as in time travel. Altho that's like saying we need a FF remake..not just an HD collection.
I love you, Ben 😛 As anyone who reads my comments probably knows, LoD is my favorite game of all time. Yes the world map was linear but honestly that means nothing to me when I think of this game. Is it nostalgia talking? More than likely. But technologically, this game was amazing for its time. I would accept anything Sony added to this game with open arms. Although instead of a sequel, as I've mentioned before I would really prefer a prequel; to play through the Dragon Campaign first-hand as Zieg, Rose, Shirley and the rest of the old Dragoon squad. I would also more than gladly take a full-fledged remake, but with a few conditions.
1: DO NOT mess with the addition system. If I were to add ANYTHING to it, it would be the ability to choose which addition you use when you attack. But even that could derail the difficult curve of the game (despite my ability to play through without dying unless I fight Faust).
2: Allow Dart to be taken out of the party. I wouldn't do this, he's my favorite character and element, but I'm sure some people would appreciate it.
3: Keep the same music tracks, but update them. Don't make the music sound like it belongs on PS1, but keep the tune the same. Do you know what I mean?
4: More side-quests. In LoD, you had stardusts and Faust, and the Dragoon Ghosts. There were a few bonus bosses, but they were just dragon spirits really.
5: Fix the voice acting. Oh god fix the voice acting…
I don't know how I feel about a sequel. I don't know what they could do with the future of the story, and I don't want them to risk messing it up.
TL;DR: I'm nostalgic and I have conditions for a remake.
Last edited by Riku994 on 8/7/2011 10:13:35 PM
fix the translation as well, the english script was poor
Oh and I would also like to point out to Ben that Dark Souls isn't PS3 exclusive.
Was about to say the same thing… Sad as it is 🙁
Yes, I know. Edited.
Killzone is a continuing franchise too, but I know Ben doesn't count the first one 🙂
We're talking about RPG's, World ;P
Last edited by Riku994 on 8/7/2011 11:19:01 PM
Uh, you should probably read the article.
He only really mentioned other genres in the last paragraph, the article was mainly about RPGs.
Second paragraph Riku, where he mentions new IPs and continuing ones this generation…
Ben… This may just be the best article you've ever written. I've been aching for another LoD game for an eternity and I agree 100%. It's time!
Please Sony, you've been ignoring my pleas for over a decade, but listen to Ben!
I think we all know LoD isn't ever coming, but I too wonder why there are no first party RPGs or even RPG making studios. If they had people that could make the next Final Fantasy quality RPG now that Square has gone batsh*t crazy they could really grab a lot of fans that are just waiting for something in that realm.
Or if that is too risky imagine a Sony exclusive Mass Effect or Dragon Age killer, on a frigging blu ray. Imagine all the space they could work with. Why we are navigating menus this generation instead of huge worlds makes no sense to me. How is that a step up from world maps on PS1?
i wish there was another jrpg developer that could rival square's production values. when i turn to level 5 or atlus for my jrpg fix i always find myself missing the great production values of square.
I think Level 5 has what it takes when they have the monetary backing to support them.
Dragon Quest 8 was a visual feast!
that's a great point about dq8, but i don't think their hd titles look so great. i'm struggling to think of any other jrpg that even comes close to the production values seen in ff13 and i've yet to see a jrpg maker that can rival square's production values consistently. especially this gen. that's just my opinion, though. what's really sad is that we have so few titles to compare this gen. jrpgs are almost on life support.
Sony should buy Level 5, that should give them the resources they need.
I'm with teddie on this one.
The Legend of Dragoon is one of my favourite RPGs, even now amongst the very limited selection.
It's funny that you bring up this title, Ben. I was on my break at work and we were having a conversation about classic RPGs including this title.
We discussed this very topic and some ideas on how to recreate the classic feel aside from the ordinary things like story and gameplay. I think games have lost a sense of progression and achievement. Yes, we have trophies and such but, to me, they have very little meaning. The thing that had the bigger impact to a game, including LoD, was the disc change. That new disc provided the ultimate sense of achievement.
It also provides something entirely different. If done correctly, it can provide to the cinematography of the game in the form of an edit. It can reinforce elements of the story like theme and separate them to show things like character foils and personality changes. I'm reminded of FFVII in this respect.
I believe reintroducing a simple thing like a disc change will provide a just little bit more than the competition at this point. What if we had 3 bluray discs? Higher resolutions and renders. More environments. More story (i.e FFXIII issue). Might see a slightly higher price but could be worth it.
It is strange though. I just gave you all an idea I plan to implement myself, being a game design student.
You are awesome, b! I whole heartily hope this is going to work for you.
Seriously though. The plan you have laid out here seems so simple even to someone like me who doesn't have any experience in the game creation/design area. Just imagine what sony could do with this! If only, bro. If only…
Lol, 3 blu-rays – That would actually be really awesome…because it would add up to 150 GB of content! Even one dual-layer blu-ray is bigger than 10 Xbox 360 discs. It would have to be one huge game.
Most consumers don't know the difference between a blu-ray and a DVD, so the marketing ploy may be lost on them. But that's a really interesting idea you have…twice the discs, twice the fun!
Your math is not good.
DVD-9 = 9 GB (minus a bit that M$ withholds).
Thank God for Youtube!!
Checking out Legend of the Dragoon now. As a big RPG fan, I'm really looking forward to Dark Souls, Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim. I might check out White Knight Chronicles 2 when there's a drop in price.
And now to play Resistance 2. Need to catch up before the release of Resistance 3.
Just be careful about the White Knight price drop. It's going to be cheaper, sure. But the thing you're gonna worry about is that you're going to have to pay for the ONLINE licence if you want to try out the questing online.
Ludakriss,
Only if you buy it second hand. If it's new, it doesn't matter how long it's been on the shelf, the unique code is still there.
Sony has 15 (or was it 16?) internal studios, i'm sure one of them could make a great RPG if they put their minds to it.
16 with Sucker Punch.
Thanks, i couldn't remember for sure. A little bit off topic, IGN recently did an article about 10 studios sony should purchase, level 5 was mentioned. I remember reading some comments here at psx a while back saying sony should purchase level 5, I just thought that was interesting.
Last edited by Fox hounder on 8/8/2011 3:06:47 AM
i enjoyed it back then, but it wasnt near my favs. I've been pretty darn critical of it acutally and although id welcome a new addition, id rather have something original
Last edited by aaronisbla on 8/8/2011
We need more RPGs, period. Sony or not, exclusive or not, we just need more RPGs! 😀
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/8/2011 12:27:16 AM
Maybe Sony want to bring it back….but at the same time the current market condition don't favor it finacially.
Harsh ain't it?
i believe world is correct. this is not going to happen. it seems publishers have lost faith in the rpg genre. releases have been few and far between. what we do get has trended towards faster and dumber. the fact that sony does not own a rpg studio says a lot. they must not think it is worth their time. what was weird is that for a big chunk of this gen the 360 had more jrpg material. games like blue dragon, lost oddessey, magna carte, and tales. star ocean 4 debued on the 360, and appeared much later on the ps3. i guess ms went out there and financed a bunch of these games. i would argue those titles were on the wrong system and would have done better on the ps3.
i'm a big jrpg fan so i find it somewhat strange to say my favorite rpg of this gen is fallout 3. the game had a huge world to explore, and featured a ton of depth. there is just so much to do in that game. absolutely loved it. the vats combat system was a lot of fun as well. i liked me2 a lot, too.
anyways, i think the idea of sony owning a rpg studio is a good idea. at the very least sony should try to finance a couple of rpgs. it is a genre missing in sony's exclusive line up. it would be great if someone could ask sony what they think of this idea.
I don't mean to sound like a broken record about MS, but I think they are responsible for the RPG climate. What PS2 had that made it king was the JRPGs, just like the PS1 before. Xbox1 had zero.
MS figured if they could steal that audience then they would be the kings this gen. What happened instead was they paid off Japanese companies for JRPG exclusives for a market that didn't want them. Namely Xbox 360 owners. So the result was either bad sales on good games like Lost Odyssey or just plain old bad games that tried to cater to the west like The Last Remnant.
Any market research done in that time when the PS3 wasn't out yet or was struggling because MS had made certain it wouldn't get any JRPGs would have told Japanese developers that JRPGs aren't popular any more because 360 owners aren't buying them.
Voila, now we have few JRPGs, which left a nice hole for WRPGs to flourish in and condemned the JRPG to either a tiny niche or a scary land where it has to become an action game to survive (Final Fantasy).
MS salted the earth with their greed yet again.
Well said World.
@world
i could not agree more. that's why i said i think those games were on the wrong system. that's probably why they did not sell. like you said now publisher's remain convinced rpg's aren't popular as a result. i think ms was a big factor in hastening in the death of rpg's. it probably did not help that the ps3 struggled so much out of the gate, either. we had the combination of a system where rpg's would have done better struggling, and a system where rpg's tend to struggle doing better. it's no wonder that the market got confused and now thinks rpgs won't sell. i would love to see how a game like lost odyssey would do on the ps3. i think there is a bigger market for this type of game than publisher's think.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 8/8/2011 1:38:56 AM
But do we have any sales numbers to base our assumptions on? Any cold, hard, concrete facts? Cause I have a hard time believing that the market really is this uninterested in RPGs as so many claims. Even Xbox gamers. Hasnt both Fallout and Mass Effect received numerous GOTY awards? Did they still not sell? What about the Dragon Ages? DA2 were not as well received but it did still sell? Or?
If there are facts to support these claims then I am willing to accept it – othervice I can't help but thinking the reason must be found elsewhere…
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/8/2011 1:40:06 AM
@beamboom
world is speaking of jrpgs which were very popular right up until this gen. lost oddysey has sold under 500,000 copies in the US. the other games mentioned above have done even worse so i understand why publisher's thought jrpg's are not popular anymore.
yes wrpg's have stepped into this gap, and some are considered popular. we still see evidence of developers wanting to strip rpg elements out of games even in these titles.
Yes, but you spoke in more general terms in the beginning of this thread. Why limit the topic to jrpgs when there is a shortage of *any* subgenre of RPG for the Ps3?
In comparison the PC gamers are *swimming* in RPG titles to choose from, and has got just another RPG now lately that's supposedly of very high quality, The Witcher 2. If it is a proven fact that PS owners do love RPGs, why are none of them released also for consoles?
Lord knows I am no MS fan but I find it extremely hard to believe that the blame for this is mainly resting on Microsoft's shoulders. We can blame MS for a lot of things, but in this case we should cut them some slack. 😀
I do not have any answers here, I just find it hard to believe that it is the market, us, that are to blame either. Obviously we'd buy it if it were released, and as I said, the few quality RPGs that *has* been released has all, afaik sold well!
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/8/2011 3:37:50 AM
I took the liberty of moving the discussion towards JRPGs, feel free to sway it another way.
@beamboom
i don't know much about pc gaming but i take you at your word. when i first bought up rpg's in this thread the games i cited were all jrpgs except for fallout 3. you are right there is no reason to limit the discussion to jrpgs, but i believe world is correct in pointing out how the way ms meddled in that particular market had a negative impact on the genre.
hey, i don't blame ms for trying to nueatralize sony's advantage concerning jrpgs. i do think that it distorted the jrpg market…many publishers drew the conclussion these games would not sell anymore. it's more the individual companies fualt, though. they should be smart enough to know that a console that has a huge shooter fanbase is not the ideal platform for jrpg's,
i think we all agree there should be more rpgs no matter what subgenre they come from. i think it is noteable the way jrpg market seemed to flatline this gen. ms probably hastened that, but is not entirely to blame. there are other factors involved. overall market preferences seemed to have changed a lot. the rise of twitch gaming has probably done more to kill off rpgs now that i think about it.
Regarding PC RPGs: If you do a search on Gamerankings for reviewed RPG titles released for the PC within the last 12 months you will get a search result of 65 titles. Sixty five! That gives an average of more than 5 titles _every_single_month_.
Now, this search result includes DLC packs too, and some of the listed titles are not exactly hardcore rpgs, but still… It's quite the difference.
And I simply don't buy that Microsoft, a competing hardware manufacturer that has *nothing* to do with PS3 games, are to blame for this situation.
But again, it's not that I have an alternative explanation. I just suggest we keep searching. 🙂
Now, to the overall market: This is where I can only look at myself, my PS3 friends and my son at 12 and his friends. Two quite different categories gamers. But I believe we *all* own At least one of the BioWare games and one of the Fallouts, as a bare minimum. My son beat Dragon Age 2 this summer and absolutely *loved* it, asking when the next one is released. He and his friends also very often play around in Fallout – they prefer that open world to GTA, believe it or not.
So what I am trying to say here is that the way I see it there *is* a demand for RPGs, and we play the few RPGs we got to pieces, and absolutely *loves* them.
So why are there not more released? I have *no* clue!
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/8/2011 5:39:45 AM
@Beamboom
There is a shortage of jRPG's. And an even greater shortage of good ones. Plain and simple. The PC rpg's aren't exactly jRPG's.
World's description of the fall of jRPG's is pretty damn accurate. It isn't that there just isn't a market anymore… it's that at the start of this gen, many jRPG's released on 360 only. And sales were terrible.
It isn't that there aren't jRPG fans on PS3. It's that dev's don't want to risk it. I mean, games are made more and more to appeal to a larger audience. I personally think we'll see more jRPG's at the end of the generation when development costs are much cheaper and more risks can be taken.
It's why jRPG's are nearly exclusively made on handhelds. There's almost no risk. Cheaper to make games, and since handhelds are SUPER huge in Japan, a jRPG is almost automatically a decent seller.
RPG's aside from jRPG? yeah… sure… those are still made.
There is a shortage of *all* RPGs on the ps3, Underdog, including the japanese ones! Heck, how many wrpgs are we blessed with the last… say, five YEARS? it's not like those of us who prefer western RPGs are that much happier…
The interesting question here is however "WHY"? When historically rpgs have sold well on earlier PS generations, the RPGs that *are* released for the ps3 have done well, and PS3 owners on a weekly basis complain about this ever since the ps3 launch, then *why*?
What you want me to believe is that because owners of a new console platform, the xbox, did not buy their jrpgs then the entire business assumed they would not sell on the PS3 either, a platform that was there LONG before the xbox (ps platform in general) and during those years sold bucketloads of rpgs? Now all of a sudden *all* of those devs suddenly find the Playstation platform to be too much of a risk?
I am sorry, but that does not make sense to me! There *has* to be another reason!
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/8/2011 9:52:29 AM
World, i'm thinking that you've got it in a nutshell.
LOL – I can't believe you all seem to think that *another* console platform is to blame for the current status on the PS3! I just… Can't believe what I am seeing here!
To me this is like saying that the xbox gamers are the decision makers in the gaming world and that they are who every developer, even traditional playstation developers, first and foremost listen to.
"If the xbox gamers don't want it, *noone* want it" – is that so?
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/9/2011 6:48:07 AM
No, Beamboom.
No one is saying Microsoft is to blame for PS3 success.
We're saying they're to blame for the failure of jRPG's.
Don't forget, the 3rd party exclusive is pretty much extinct. Almost all dev's seek to create games on all platforms. Which means, they will want to create a game that is successful across all platforms. So, when looking at market trends this generation, they see gaming as a whole… not PS3 would do this well, and XBOX will do this well. They see, jRPG's with a traditional jRPG style, has failed numerous times. (They don't care what console it failed on)
It's -not- PS3 developers saying, "It failed on 360, therefore it will fail on PS3." It's multiplatform devs saying jRPG's aren't working. (Again, considering systems doesn't matter.) And also, again, the 3rd party exclusive is almost no more.
It's very much not really "Xbox destroyed jRPG's for PS3". It's more "Xbox destroyed the jRPG." It just HAPPENS to be that jRPG fans have traditionally preferred the PS3, as World outlined.
Occasionally, we see a jRPG like WKC become exclusive to PS3. And it has done well. But if we're all honest, it definitely doesn't have the production values DQ8 or Final Fantasies have had on past platforms. You know?
So for now, we're stuck in this hole of jRPG's for PS3 are "risky" to make, so we never see a smash hit since no one is spending the big bucks on making one. We have average production values resulting in average sales. It's why I said I think we'll see some top notch jRPG's at the end of the generation when it's less expensive, and therefore, less of a risk, to make them.
Does that make sense? Just, when I hear you describe what you think you are hearing from us, it doesn't quite sound like what I'm trying to say.
Thanks for the reply Underdog! I *think* I understand you, however things are still a bit foggy here… So just to further clear things up:
These mentioned titles, blue dragon, lost oddessey, magna carte and tales, they were only released for the xbox, right? Ergo they are not "multiplat" then, but xbox games? Or is this wrong?
And my second question:
Are those developers known from the PS2/PSX-era or are they new jrpg devs? Ergo, are they playstation devs too? Did they release jrpgs for the ps2?
I feel this is the core here: They were never released for the ps3 (afaI understand)! The console that traditionally is *the* rpg console from earlier (judging from you guys other posts). This is what I find so utterly strange.
I mean, how many games do you have to sell to be profitable? Is it *that* unlucrative to release a ps3 exclusive?
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/9/2011 10:26:41 AM