So Kitty and I killed some time today going to Gamestop and Best Buy, and we're wondering what happened to the JRPG genre. Seems like it doesn't exist outside of hand-held devices, and even then, there's such a limited amount of choices.

Kind of sad that we got these pretty Xbox 360 and PS3 systems, and yet no pretty RPGs to play on them.

I bought Dragon Age back before FF14 launched, and I was so disappointed by it. As soon as I realized that I couldn't grind on monsters, I immediately started to dislike the game. As a result, I haven't really rushed off to buy any new American RPGs.

FF13 was so disappointing, too. I played Enchanted Arms, and it was an okay game, but I'm really jonesin' for a good, old-fashioned JRPG.

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Have you played Lost Odyssey? It's my favorite current gen RPG. It has the feel of a good old school JRPG.

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Not heard of that one before, no. I may have to go back and try to beat some of the old psx/ps2 rpgs I never beat.

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Suikoden series!

it's not that they aren't being made, but for some reason (either on the fault of NA or JPN) marketers have come under the impression that jrpg style games do not sell in America. Nothing can be further from the truth. People can't buy them if they're not localized and sold. Or are but have no marketing team behind them. Tales of series is good example of this.

I love how capcom says that noval style games will not sell in the US, despite Phoenix Wright series doing pretty well. Why say things like the dating sims won't sell in the US if you never /tried/ to sell them in the US?

As I understand, if you want to play JRPGs now, you buy a DS or a PSP. The huge library you had on the PS2 migrated over to handheld.

Traditional JRPGs are too niche for the huge budgets required to make a PS3/360 game.

The team behind the original Final Fantasy worked on it. It's very good, especially considering the lack of RPGs on the Xbox to begin with.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

This is the reason I've drastically slowed down in buying console games. Last year for home consoles I bought Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, and FF13. The first two were phenomenal, the third is probably another reason not many JRPG are made on consoles: They cost a lot and they take forver to make, and SE has done a fine job of pushing the genre into territory gayer than a dumptruck full of cocks. They got too big and wore it all out.

When it comes to old timey traditional RPG, handheld is king. Among others, Atlus has done a particularly great job of bringing many and varied titles to the DS and PSP, with a solid handheld pedigree going back to gameboy advance.

Lost Odyssey, as mentioned, was pretty good. Personally I didn't think it was all it was cracked up to be but the battle system and the ability system (both very important factors for me) were engaging. As dmitry said, the game was made by a company formed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshitaka Amano, and Nobuo Uematsu after they all said fuck it and left SE.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

I kinda find old school sprite turn based rpg's on a handheld far more appealing than these million dollar budget console games coming out.

not that i'm not impressed by their technical achievements, but someitmes I feel making something as shiney and pretty as possible has stolen away the focus from just making it "fun".

I agree. I still enjoy sprite-based RPGs. I did enjoy the Disgaea games. I beat the 3rd one, but I didn't do everything to max out my characters.

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