Are The Days Of Big-Budget JRPGs Dead And Gone Forever?

I think we can still hope, Ben. With Wada gone, Squeenix may actually turn around Final Fantasy and start producing the type of games we've been wanting since X.

In the meantime, I've been getting my RPG fix on the PC. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced has been loads of fun, and BG2:Enhanced is on the horizon. Then there's Project Eternity, the new Torment… man, it's gonna be a great couple of years for RPGers on the PC.

And, if worse comes to worse, you could always join the Tabletop RPG fold. We've got room at the table for you….

Sadly SE, in cahoots with MS, destroyed the genre this generation through various unscrupulous means. They denied some titles a PS3 release and created some sort of atrocity with FFXIII that was not to be the foretold herald of JRPG success that spurs other devs forward with their hopes and dreams.

Well if FF is falling apart then JRPGs must not be what people want right? Wrong. There hasn't been a contender yet, just a few decent pretenders that got too westernized. If SE does a 180 and makes a AAA FF that maintains what it was then it won't matter if you are an anime fan or whatever, a good game with a proven mechanic and epic story WILL sell well.

The problem is a multifaceted one as to why JRPGs suddenly became less popular, but basically it was because they were forced into being something they were not and thus a product nobody asked for or wants.

The right direction by SE could turn things right back around and have FF pulling down unimaginable numbers yet again which would spur on others to continue franchises like Grandia, Dragoon, Suikoden, Chrono, etc.

I have to say that I think the answer is yes, the days of the big budget JRPG are done. Even first party titles can't hope for decent support from publishers, which translates into lack luster sales and poor performance overall.

Let me give you an example of one of the reasons I think the genre is dying, or at least reverting to being a niche genre and no longer AAA. This is a personal example for me, because it involves a game you all know I love. White Knight Chronicles.

White Knight Chronicles 2 is a first party title that was actually co developed by Sony Japan and Level 5. The game IP is owned by Sony, and the game was published in JPN and Asia by SCEJ, in the EU SCEE did the job, they also handled the localization. In NA, SCEA declined to publish the game. D3 was broght in to handle the game in NA because SCEA would not.

However, even though the game is a Sony property, and despite the fact that SCEE had already localized the game, D3 re-localized it. English, French and spanish localizations already existed in the EU version, and yet D3 re-did it. Sadly they did only a partial job, and the two versions of the game (EU and NA) were not the same, they could talk to each other and share a server, but the differences had dire consequences for the game later.

WKC2 was release with next to no marketing push, or publicity. Unfortunately, the early reviews of the game were quite frankly terribly written, and in some cases factually incorrect reviews. The publisher did nothing to correct or mitigate these reviews. Once the game was out, the online portion of the game is based in a service called geonet. This facilitates online questing, and includes message board functionality and bmail – a sort of email-lite. Unfortunately D3 who as well as publishing the game handled the server, did nothing to support the game online. There was no server maintenance, no moderation of the in-game message board, very little to non action taken for grief reports, no action to prevent cheating, and an absolute lack of communication with users of the service. Basically the game was launched, and more or less dropped by D3. The single exception to this is the guild system that was delivered. This was an absolute promise made before the game was published, and consequently, D3 had to deliver it. However, other than that patch, none of the additional DLC that was made available to customers in Japan ever made it to EU or NA players of WKC2.

Despite the fact that the game sold more copies outside Japan, than it did inside Japan, only Japanese customers got the additional quests. This is where the localization woes come back to bite everyone. Had everyone used the Sony localization that SCEE distributed, it would have been possible to bring game patches and additional content from Japan because the game that they distributed had all the hooks and stubbs needed for the additional content. The NA version is different though. The disc distributed does not contain that material, because D3 failed to put it there. Si, no additional content for anyone outside Japan. It would have been possible to still bring that content by patching the game, however that would have meant additional coding and testing, and by that time D3 were not interested in spending money on the game, only collecting revenue from it.

Unfortunatley, the Internet being what it is, it was impossible for players here not to know about the content in Japan. Players got dissatisfied and started to leave the game. D3 made public statements to the effect that no more content would be coming, and even more players left. The WKC2 community attempted to gain the attention of the publishers to request the additional content be localized in a last ditch effort to save the game. Copies of a petition and letter were distributed in writing to SCEA, SCEI, D3 Publisher and Level 5 International. Not one of them even bothered to acknowledge that communication.

Now to wrap up this tail of woe, D3P announced that they are killing the game server(s) for WKC and WKC2 on June 18th 2013. Not even 2 years will have passed for NA customers before the service is killed. The game still has a core group of regular player and fans. This was communicated by Facebook. D3 could not even figure out how to disseminate the news via the game server itself. D3 says that SCEA, SCEE and SCEJ were all involved in the decision, but we have no indication why the service is being killed so quickly.

Whatever the reasons behind the server closure the point is that it is further evidence of how little commitment Sony (SCEA) was willing to give it's OWN JRPG game. D3 did a frankly horrible job of publishing and supporting the game.

Remember this was supposed to be a AAA first party JRPG for the PS3 co-developed by Sony and Level 5. And yet SCEA could not bring itself to even publish it.

That right there is a perfect example of why the JRPG genre has diminished, no support, no push, no drive, no commitment from Sony, game publishers or game makers. Had Sony really put their weight behind the game, and given it even a tiny bit of marketing, sales could and would have been stronger. Had there been better support of the online experience, the game would have a far larger online audience now that it does. If you ask players of WKC2, they'll tell you how skeptical they are of buying further JRPGs from anyone involved in this fiasco.

You could mention FFXIV and it's failure to launch, FFXIII which turned out not to be much of a JRPG, though perhaps a good game in it's own right. Square Enix' fall from grace has been spectacular and has hurt the JRPG genre too.

The most successful JRPGs this generation have been the niche titles like the Atelier series from NISA.

So, with a combination of lack luster AAA titles, poor support from publishers and Sony, and a rise in RPGs from western developers, the JRPG is in an awful lot of trouble. Not to mention that gaming tastes have shifted to the faster flashier games. It seems that there is little room for big JRPGs any more, reviewers seem to enjoy ripping them, and gamers seem to enjoy looking down on them. The fans of the JRPG have a hard time being heard, and even publishers ignore them.

After high profile failures and the issues games like WKC have had, I can't see any developer or publisher willing to risk 10s of millions of dollars on a new JRPG.

Sad really.

And yes, before anyone asks I am upset about the termination of WKC, it's a unique game, the people that enjoy it, really appreciate the game for what it is, and the community within it. That community is pretty much dead after D3s announcement.

So, no more AAA JRPGs in my view except perhaps FFXIV ARR – assuming SE finishes the game. It's a pretty poor time to be a fan of the JRPG.

Last edited by TheHighlander on 3/29/2013 12:35:47 AM

Agreed Shams, a lot of older genre have suffered at the hands of the mainstream trends including the impact of mobile and casual gaming.

White Knight 1 has still sold more copies than Ni No Kuni, so how huge is Ni No Kuni again?

AAA games can't survive on 1 million copies sold, not today, not with the costs they have to make them. Ni No Kuni has a ways to go before getting to 1 mil.

I agree with world.

As for nnk, it had significant digital sales and had a ds release in jp that did very well. Wkc had no digital version. So well never know which sold more. Nnk was clearly a better game though.

None of those are "huge." Case closed.

Highlander, really? Dragon age: Origins sales graph was a constant up and down a smooth curve a year or more after its launch. Dragon Age 2 spiked for one month and then plummeted. I think the quality of the game dictates whether or not sales continue or not.

Don't know where you pulled 80% from but I dont think that that is always the case.

Also triple A games can totally survive on 1million copy sales. The witcher 2 sold 1 million copies, and that was enough to profit for CDprojekt red. Enough in fact that they have the money to build an entire new engine for The Witcher 3 and make a whole new game cyberpunk.

The argument that AAA games are super expensive is a bunch of balogna. This late in a console generation using engines that are 5 plus years old? Come on industry veterans moved to kickstarter because they were sick of this. They only need 1 million – 3 million dollar budgets to make great games. That would mean that they would profit from even 500 000 if they charged 60 bucks for it. Games cost money but largely publishers are either wasting it or the profits from the game need to be high so that the quarterly profits are up to keep shareholders happy and the corporation "profitable"

You can make top notch high quality games without spending 100 million dollars in your budget. Indy devs are proving this more and more as time passes.

Last edited by xenris on 3/29/2013 3:07:40 PM

There is always going to be a spike that much is sure, but the sales charts I have seen for PC games the tail usually maintains for a year not a couple months. These were on reddit so I have no access to them for reference.

I think that the praise Ni No Kuni has gotten will help with its long term sales though. Even the employees at EB were recommending it to people.

I think the only thing that is holding NNK back is the lack of marketing. I don't know why Namco bandai didn't put a little bit of marketing into it but I guess they didn't think it was going to sell anyway? Probably that judging by how little copies and special editions they created.

My hope is that it will win some awards or be mentioned during the game of the year awards the VGAs or whatever and sales will spike again around christmas.

I still believe its going to keep slowly selling throughout the year though.

JRPGs are dying on the big consoles. They are pretty vibrant on handhelds however. I personally like my JRPGs portable as they are more intimate, usually grinding is easier on a commute than at home on the console, and graphics are usually not the main issue so handhelds are fine.

Persona 4 Golden on the Vita is excellent. I'm sure Persona 5 will be big! Maybe we are just experiencing the end of Square Enix.

There is no doubt the JRPG's among our PlayStation selection are vanishing. I just looked through my PS2 collection to see What JRPG's have gone on to this gen.

Dark Cloud 1 & 2 – Nothing
Dragon Quest VIII – Dragon Quest IX (DS)
Final Fantasy X, X-2 & XIII – Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2
Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 – Converted to portable consoles.
Rogue Galaxy – A unique JRPG and I will accept Ni No Kuni to take that place.
Shin Megami Sensei titles – Nothing, not even a Persona V
Star Ocean 3 – Star Ocean 4
Valkyrie Profile 2 – Understandable why this might not have expanded much…
The only new IP I have is Neir…

Now that was just from looking at successors from my PS2 JRPG collection, which isn't that grand to be fair. But even from that you can see how the JRPG market has pretty much vanished especially on main consoles, if anything JRPG ports and remakes have infested the PSP & DS – there's tons of them!

There have been quite a few JRPG's on the PS3, but they are usually presented with this over the top anime art direction – which I personally find really off putting. I am not saying every JRPG has to have realistic looking characters as FFXIII. I love the art direction in Ni No Kuni which makes use of the surreal imagery of Studio Ghibili very well, Another example is Dragon Quest, I love t he look of the character models by the same artist of Dragon Ball Z. But them art styles are very distinctive and work, What I cannot stand is when you get characters with them generic boggly eyes in an attempt to be cute, especially if they want me to take a certain character seriously – it doesn't work.

Had we not had Xenoblade this generation i'd completely agree with you. But that game really restored my faith in the classic JRPG. Sadly, it was released at the end of the Wii's lifetime and usually goes for a price which makes it quite a rarity. Meaning, it's not a game that people will casually pick up and the only people that will really go after it are 'hard-core' JRPG fans like many on this website.

As for what Square have done with this Lightning Rises. It's the first time I am not excited for a Final Fantasy – which for me is a big deal. I hope this announcement at E3 will blow my mind but like most all I am expecting is Final Fantasy Versus XIII to be renamed Final Fantasy XV…

I have yet to play Legend of Dragoon, here in the UK that goes for about double the price of normal PS3 release o_0 Though I have got it on the wonderful US PS Store and intend to playthrough it someday.

I think thats the problem World. It seems like publishers waste a lot of money now on things not crucial to the game. Either adding multiplayer to the game, or wasting money on high profile voice talent.

Sadly the corporate way everything is going with game development I don't know if this is even an option outside of devs kickstarting or doing budget titles.

I still don't know why NOW people need to sell 5 million copies to just break even when in the PSX and PS2 era 1 million was considered a huge success.

People say its more expensive to make games now but that is bollocks. Publishers and devs waste money. When you see the quality stuff 5 man dev teams put out on a budget that is well under 1 million bucks you start to question all this crap that people are spitting out.

Indy games are slowly showing people that you do not need a big budget for a game to appear big budget and to be of quality that much is clear to me.

The shifting tides of the industry mean that in fact, anime-inspired games like most JRPGs were HAVE been relegated to niche.

We simply didn't have a choice before. Most ALL RPGs on consoles were Japanese and hence, most all had at least some anime influence. Some were stronger than others (i.e., heavy in Granstream Saga and lighter in Chrono Cross) but it was basically always there. In fact, most of the industry was still dominated by Japanese developers and therefore, we saw that cultural influence everywhere.

Now, it isn't necessary. Western gamers don't need to adopt another culture's style for their gaming entertainment, and when given the choice, they typically turn to Western studios. Furthermore, I strongly believe that many JRPGs we see today are much more heavily infused with Japanese anime and style than before. At least before we had games like Vagrant Story and Legend of Dragoon and Star Ocean, where the art style was very different, even unique.

Now, it's mostly just the Atelier games, White Knight, Disgaea, Hyperdimension Neptunia, etc. These are all HEAVILY Japanese. So this, combined with the aforementioned shift, has indeed made JRPGs far more niche then ever before. I can use myself as an example, in fact:

I've never liked anime. But I loved JRPGs. Only if they were REALLY anime-like did I start to have a problem. These days, I really can't handle most of the JRPGs I play to review because they are SO much like anime. Trust me, I see the differences.

Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 3/29/2013 11:37:35 AM

@highlander

You used VGChartz. and you go on to say only WKC2 and above sold more than 500,000 copies world wide. What does "and above " mean? Is and above a typo and you didn't mean to put the word "and above" in there? Or are you saying only WKC2 and the games listed above sold more than 500,000. hmm. It must be the latter because I know WKC1 sold 850,000 copies and Ni No Kuni sold 660,000 copies.

Anyways, it's your thread and you can leave Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 out if you want to but I disagree with your claim they aren't JRPG's. An action RPG? If you said action JRPG the then I would be more inclined to go along with it maybe. Now we have to define what a JRPG is. By the way FF13 sold 4.96 million copies on the PS3. I don't remeber how much it sold on the 360 but it may have been under 2 million.

FF13 has some JRPG elements in it like long winded speaches that scream JRPG. Snow's over-the-top here comes your hero speaches comes to mind. A lot of posing in the cutscenes that are very Japanese. There's a lot of melodrama in the cutscenes that is common in a lot of a JRPGs. The baby chocobo nesting in Shaz's hair feels very JRPG like and Japanese to me.

Now let's move onto the battle system. The two sides face taking turns attacking each other. You can Paridigm shift to go offensive, defensive, and to heal your party. There are all kinds of posiblities in the paridigm system and you can create your own that exploits an enemies weaknesses. The way the characters pose during battle is over-the-top and very Japanese. Still sounds like a JRPG to me. Auto battle stream lines process but you never have direct control over the character like you would in an action RPG.

For it to be classified as an action RPG you would have direct control over your character and be able to move your party member around during battle like you could in Kingdom Hearts. KH is a great example of an action RPG. FF13 isn't an action RPG in my humble opinion.

In FF13 you can level up with a system that is very close to the sphere system found in FF10. You can also focus on specific classes as you level up. You can level up your weapons and accessories. You can equip different weapons and accessories. Sounds like a JRPG to me.

FF13-2 is even more JRPG like because you can capture animals like Pokemon and level them up. There are shops and towns in FF13-2.

Lightning Returns looks like an action RPG to me. I'd have to play it and then decide whether or not to put a J in front of RPG.

How about we call FF13 JRPG lite? FF13 definitely has some Japanese flair to it. It also has some definite RPG elements like leveling up different classes. Auto battle streamlines the process for you but you are sill facing off with the enemy and taking turns like you did in FF10. FF10-2 had the dress sphere system that let you change your characters class. FF 13's battle system kind of reminds me of a hyped up version FF10-2's.

Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/29/2013 4:05:02 PM

I thought I had hit reply, but I guess I posted a brand new comment. My apologies.

Ben,

I would only suggest that the influence has not changed but the style and content of anime has. Not liking the medium, I can't blame someone for not seeing the shift, but the style and content of anime has changed drastically in the last few decades. Wherein successful anime of the 80's and 90's were large-scale, epic confrontations with strong science-fiction overtones (this is admittedly general, as abundant exceptions exist), popular anime today is more whimsical and comical, with greater emphases on character interactions and attractive designs. The "moe" and "slice of life" flavor has infiltrated game and character design due to it's popularity on both sides of the Pacific. So, again, I suggest that fluctuations in popular anime has relegated the shifts that you are observing.

Highlander,

It's a ridiculous statement I know (and I said I don't agree with it), but it is true that the workload to create a game world the size of Final Fantasy VII's with the fidelity that would be expected of the title is absolutely daunting. Of course it's possible, but gamers are not proving themselves to be a patient lot. White Knight Chronicles was 2-3 years in development, no? It yielded good results, but I would suggest that it's graphics did not come close to what was in either FF XIII installment (despite their flaws). Having the large open-world and abundant inhabitants equates to a graphical compromise, whereas the two FFXIII titles were the opposite. To have both is the great challenge.

Last edited by Siris86 on 3/29/2013 2:21:28 PM

I don't believe they are gone just in a slump. As it stands once created nothing really dies, so long as there is a want somebody will be there to supply what they need. All it takes is for the right developer to play the right game and be moved to create one themselves. Eventually one of them will have a large budget at their disposal. And once one succeeds that is it, the parasitic industry will follow giving you many high budgeted JRPGs. Mind you many of them will suck and then we will be talking about the overbearing amount of bad JRPGs flooding the market.

Ahhh….the wheels just keep turning.