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Fou-Lu · Dec 1, 2016

Man Called Aerodynamics said:
Not a great time to be a JRPG fan who primarily plays on Xbox however! Lol.

There was never a time for that.

It feels like there is a disconnect between fans who compare what we have now to PSX or PS2 era, and fans who are comparing to what we had last gen. Yes we might not have what we had during the time of the PSX and PS2, but I certainly feel happier as a JRPG fan this gen then last gen. Though the DS and PSP certainly had some gems.

Man Called Aerodynamics · Dec 1, 2016

Fou-Lu said:
There was never a time for that.

Oh I wouldn't say that. There was a time when most big Japanese games got 360 versions, and you had exclusives like Tales of Vesperia, Lost Odyssey etc. on top. Plus games like Star Ocean IV and Eternal Sonata that were 360 exclusives until PS3 ports came much later. I remember early on in the gen, Valkyria Chronicles was like the only big Japanese game that I wanted to play that wasn't available on 360. Of course that all changed with time.

kswiston · Dec 1, 2016

entremet said:
We're also not done with the generation. Although the Switch will technically usher another.

Generations are dead. Switch/PS4/maybe PC multiplats are going to end up being the Japanese non-AAA norm when Vita dies.

the_sun_king · Dec 1, 2016

April 4 isn't "soon" enough for me.

😞😞😞

Omnistalgic · Dec 1, 2016

Man Called Aerodynamics said:
Oh I wouldn't say that. There was a time when most big Japanese games got 360 versions, and you had exclusives like Tales of Vesperia, Lost Odyssey etc. on top. Plus games like Star Ocean IV and Eternal Sonata that were 360 exclusives until PS3 ports came much later. I remember early on in the gen, Valkyria Chronicles was like the only big Japanese game that I wanted to play that wasn't available on 360. Of course that all changed with time.

Yeah, but looking to generations, it's a relatively short amount of time that Japanese games were on Xbox. Even then, it wasn't an extensive amount of games, but more of a push in the early days of the gen. But the tail end of last generation, PS3 were getting Japanese exclusives again.

Games from Japan have always been pretty dominant on PS and Nintendo platforms.

Aeana · Dec 1, 2016

YianGaruga said:
What do you consider Atelier, 7th Dragon, Experience DRPGs, Summon Night, Exist Archive, God Wars, Dark Rose Valkyrie, Blue Reflection to be? Are those not B Tier JRPGs?

No, most of those are C-tier games. And before you get offended, I am speaking purely in terms of budget and market placement. This tier of games has always existed and has plenty of great games within it, but they tend to target specific niches. Nippon Ichi, Gust, and Idea Factory have been very successful within this space for a long time. Etrian Odyssey currently happily occupies this space and does well for itself.

The B-tier used to consist of franchises like Shadow Hearts, Wild ARMs, Lunar, Grandia, Megaten spinoffs including Persona before the explosion, etc. This tier of games has all but died out. Now you have high budget, a large gap, and then the lower budget games that target very specific niches. The B-tier is where this genre's best ideas were explored and executed, so it's very sad to see it go.

It isn't completely gone yet, at least. I would say that the Bravely games still aim for this space, and perhaps the Trails series has also managed to elevate itself into the B-tier. You could also say that mainline SMT lives here now, as sad as that makes me.

There was a time when every publisher had an RPG franchise that they ran alongside their flagships, and these kinds of things pretty much no longer exist.

Angel_DvA · Dec 1, 2016

I agree for Pokemon and Persona 5.

YianGaruga · Dec 1, 2016

Aeana said:
No, most of those are C-tier games. And before you get offended, I am speaking purely in terms of budget and market placement. This tier of games has always existed and has plenty of great games within it, but they tend to target specific niches. Nippon Ichi, Gust, and Idea Factory have been very successful within this space for a long time. Etrian Odyssey currently happily occupies this space and does well for itself.

The B-tier used to consist of franchises like Shadow Hearts, Wild ARMs, Lunar, Grandia, Megaten spinoffs including Persona before the explosion, etc. This tier of games has all but died out. Now you have high budget, a large gap, and then the lower budget games that target very specific niches. The B-tier is where this genre's best ideas were explored and executed, so it's very sad to see it go.

It isn't completely gone yet, at least. I would say that the Bravely games still aim for this space, and perhaps the Trails series has also managed to elevate itself into the B-tier. You could also say that mainline SMT lives here now, as sad as that makes me.

There was a time when every publisher had an RPG franchise that they ran alongside their flagships, and these kinds of things pretty much no longer exist.

I see where you're coming from. I was more thinking of a two tiered system where you just have the big games and then you have smaller, "B-tier" games. Since the B-tier has all but disappeared, doesn't that mean C-tier is B-tier now? And the A tier also has disappeared for the most part. Where would the lastest Star Ocean fit in? B-tier market placement with C-tier budget?

I think the segments themselves have shifted a lot and that makes games from different generations hard to compare in this way.

Anyway, my point was that there's a ton of mid to low budget games and a lot of them are great and shouldn't be ignored as "lesser" games.

isamu · Dec 1, 2016

Man you guys are killing me! I only plan on playing jrpgs on Steam(only have access to my laptop) but even then it's...fuck! Way too many games

kswiston · Dec 1, 2016

Aeana said:
No, most of those are C-tier games. And before you get offended, I am speaking purely in terms of budget and market placement. This tier of games has always existed and has plenty of great games within it, but they tend to target specific niches. Nippon Ichi, Gust, and Idea Factory have been very successful within this space for a long time. Etrian Odyssey currently happily occupies this space and does well for itself.

The B-tier used to consist of franchises like Shadow Hearts, Wild ARMs, Lunar, Grandia, Megaten spinoffs including Persona before the explosion, etc. This tier of games has all but died out. Now you have high budget, a large gap, and then the lower budget games that target very specific niches. The B-tier is where this genre's best ideas were explored and executed, so it's very sad to see it go.

It isn't completely gone yet, at least. I would say that the Bravely games still aim for this space, and perhaps the Trails series has also managed to elevate itself into the B-tier. You could also say that mainline SMT lives here now, as sad as that makes me.

There was a time when every publisher had an RPG franchise that they ran alongside their flagships, and these kinds of things pretty much no longer exist.

What are you counting as A-Tier?

To me, the A-Tier was just the reliable million sellers (with even the spin-offs doing several hundred thousands). Basically Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and I guess the Souls games now. Stuff that saw more mainstream crossover.

Are Persona or Tales really A-Tier?

EDIT: I suppose some of this depends on if we are talking about just Japan or the entire worldwide market.

Omnistalgic · Dec 1, 2016

Aeana said:
No, most of those are C-tier games. And before you get offended, I am speaking purely in terms of budget and market placement. This tier of games has always existed and has plenty of great games within it, but they tend to target specific niches. Nippon Ichi, Gust, and Idea Factory have been very successful within this space for a long time. Etrian Odyssey currently happily occupies this space and does well for itself.

The B-tier used to consist of franchises like Shadow Hearts, Wild ARMs, Lunar, Grandia, Megaten spinoffs including Persona before the explosion, etc. This tier of games has all but died out. Now you have high budget, a large gap, and then the lower budget games that target very specific niches. The B-tier is where this genre's best ideas were explored and executed, so it's very sad to see it go.

It isn't completely gone yet, at least. I would say that the Bravely games still aim for this space, and perhaps the Trails series has also managed to elevate itself into the B-tier. You could also say that mainline SMT lives here now, as sad as that makes me.

There was a time when every publisher had an RPG franchise that they ran alongside their flagships, and these kinds of things pretty much no longer exist.

Agreed and disagree...we still have some gems in that space and Indy games largely make up the difference IMO.

Disgaea 5
Grand Kingdom
Legend of Heroes
Tales Games (been lacking lately)
Persona 5 (I guess this is AA)
Remakes galore (KH, FF, DQ)
Transistor & The upcoming game from them
Indy RPG's too many to count

Indies seem to really be taking to this genre, I think it's the next boom after platforming and metrovania wears out it's welcome.

Evolved1 · Dec 1, 2016

Idk seems nearly everything is action rpg these days... I miss turn-based.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · Dec 1, 2016

Aeana said:
No, most of those are C-tier games. And before you get offended, I am speaking purely in terms of budget and market placement. This tier of games has always existed and has plenty of great games within it, but they tend to target specific niches. Nippon Ichi, Gust, and Idea Factory have been very successful within this space for a long time. Etrian Odyssey currently happily occupies this space and does well for itself.

Yeah, I look at a lot of the portable JRPGs coming out these days and think, "I bet they don't have that much more of a budget than indie team does."

Fury451 · Dec 1, 2016

I started becoming a JRPG fan with Persona 4 on PS2, then the Digital Devil Saga, and my Vita is basically a P4:Golden/Persona 3 Portable machine; while it's still not entirely my genre, I am very happy to see a lot of great quality games to try out now. I wonder if digital distribution helps with boosting the localization; less of a financial risk maybe?

Just picked up Disgaea 5 and FFXV also, so lots to keep busy with.

kswiston · Dec 1, 2016

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Yeah, I look at a lot of the portable JRPGs coming out these days and think, "I bet they don't have that much more of a budget than indie team does."

Definitely less than some of the more established studios. Larian spent 4.5M euros on Original Sin for example. Some of these Japanese RPG series are getting sequels on 30-50k sales with no international release.

Sesha · Dec 1, 2016

I'm broke and have been for a while, so I wouldn't know. Happy for my fellow JRPG fans though. Maybe in like a year I'll be able to join the party, no pun intended.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · Dec 1, 2016

kswiston said:
Definitely less than some of the more established studios. Larian spent 4.5M euros on Original Sin for example. Some of these Japanese RPG series are getting sequels on 30-50k sales with no international release.

Yeah and by mainstream standards, even spending $5 million on an entire game's budget is chump change. Some of these JRPGs must have budgets that are under $1 million based on how sequels are getting greenlight despite seemingly bad (by our standard) sales.

Sumio Mondo · Dec 1, 2016

Aeana said:
No, most of those are C-tier games. And before you get offended, I am speaking purely in terms of budget and market placement. This tier of games has always existed and has plenty of great games within it, but they tend to target specific niches. Nippon Ichi, Gust, and Idea Factory have been very successful within this space for a long time. Etrian Odyssey currently happily occupies this space and does well for itself.

The B-tier used to consist of franchises like Shadow Hearts, Wild ARMs, Lunar, Grandia, Megaten spinoffs including Persona before the explosion, etc. This tier of games has all but died out. Now you have high budget, a large gap, and then the lower budget games that target very specific niches. The B-tier is where this genre's best ideas were explored and executed, so it's very sad to see it go.

It isn't completely gone yet, at least. I would say that the Bravely games still aim for this space, and perhaps the Trails series has also managed to elevate itself into the B-tier. You could also say that mainline SMT lives here now, as sad as that makes me.

There was a time when every publisher had an RPG franchise that they ran alongside their flagships, and these kinds of things pretty much no longer exist.

Lost Dimension and Grand Kingdom were both solid recent B tier JRPGs, I felt. Really fun systems in both. I'd also argue Atlus is one of the last bastions of crafting the mid tier JRPG. I do greatly miss Sting though. They were great. I'm still catching up with all of the games that got released during the PS2 gen, including these kinds of games.

isamu · Dec 1, 2016

So what would you say are the must have Jrpgs for Steam(minus any FFs)?

entremet · Dec 1, 2016

YianGaruga said:
I see where you're coming from. I was more thinking of a two tiered system where you just have the big games and then you have smaller, "B-tier" games. Since the B-tier has all but disappeared, doesn't that mean C-tier is B-tier now? And the A tier also has disappeared for the most part. Where would the lastest Star Ocean fit in? B-tier market placement with C-tier budget? I think the segments themselves have shifted a lot and that makes games from different generations hard to compare in this way.

Anyway, my point was that there's a ton of mid to low budget games and a lot of them are great and shouldn't be ignored as "lesser" games.

I would agree. Let's not forget that rising dev costs have made the distinction a little more granular. Outside of the FF series, what franchise is legit AAA in terms of budget? Pokemon?

Sir_Crocodile · Dec 1, 2016

entremet said:
Nice list, but there's a lot B-tier stuff out now that challenges those above. We're also not done with the generation. Although the Switch will technically usher another.

I've got most of the current gen stuff and I haven't found a great deal that challenges much on the list personally.

And there's nothing that challenges the top tier stuff like Grandia, BOF3, SF3S1 or PDS.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · Dec 1, 2016

isamu said:
So what would you say are the must have Jrpgs for Steam(minus any FFs)?

Recettear, Trails in the Sky FC & SC, Grandia 2. There's also some high quality Genesis RPGs in some of the Sega Genesis bundles (Phantasy Star 4 & the Shining Force games being the cream of the crop).

Outside of the FF series, what franchise is legit AAA in terms of budget?

I'm guessing Ni no Kuni wasn't cheap.

entremet · Dec 1, 2016

Sir_Crocodile said:
I've got most of the current gen stuff and I haven't found a great deal that challenges much on the list personally.

And there's nothing that challenges the top tier stuff like Grandia, BOF3, SF3S1 or PDS.

Fair enough.

My favorite era is probably SFC/SNES/Genesis/GB. However, we didn't get a lot of localizations then and I've had to track down rom translations to play the majority of them.

Today, we basically get everything, which is nice. Localizations are also much much better.

Sir_Crocodile · Dec 1, 2016

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Recettear, Trails in the Sky FC & SC, Grandia 2. There's also some high quality Genesis RPGs in some of the Sega Genesis bundles (Phantasy Star 4 & the Shining Force games being the cream of the crop).

Absolutely not a knock on you, but I should note in furtherance of my disagreement with the OP's main point that the newest of these games is nine years old.

I'd love to have more ports of old games though

entremet said:
Fair enough.

My favorite era is probably SFC/SNES/Genesis/GB. However, we didn't get a lot of localizations then and I've had to track down rom translations to play the majority of them.

Today, we basically get everything, which is nice. Localizations are also much much better.

Yes, the official localisation process today is fantastic (probably helped by digital distribution reducing risks and the onwards march of technology making the translation process a bit easier).

SNES era was a fantasticly creative time for RPG's, though we got few and even fewer had good translations. I still wince at that Breath of Fire 2 translation lol

Plywood · Dec 1, 2016

entremet said:
What do you feel is still missing?

pc versions

randomkid · Dec 1, 2016

CaviarMeths said:
These + looking over my 3DS games, there's Etrian Odyssey and SMT spin-offs from Atlus, Stella Glow as Imageepoch's swan song, Forbidden Magna, Story of Seasons, and Rune Factory from Marvelous, various Mystery Dungeons from Chunsoft, Legend of Legacy, and probably some more on the eShop that didn't look interesting enough to buy. Also about 30 games from Idea Factory and Gust per year and some great recent years from Falcom. Like, I can only describe the amount of B-tier JRPGs coming out this gen as a shit ton.

at one point B-tier referred to RPGs like Breath of Fire, Suikoden, and Quintet games. Now it refers to Idea Factory RPGs. That pretty much says it all.

having said that, it was definitely a weird and surreal feeling earlier this year to see my three favorite RPG series release entries within a day or two of each other.

desmax · Dec 1, 2016

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Yeah and by mainstream standards, even spending $5 million on an entire game's budget is chump change. Some of these JRPGs must have budgets that are under $1 million based on how sequels are getting greenlight despite seemingly bad (by our standard) sales.

Wasn't Dragon's Crown budget about 1 million? I remember them announcing somethinh like that.

I'd expect some nichier titles costing less than that.

Xeno_V · Dec 1, 2016

I don't feel happy with what's going on with JRPGs nowadays.

I feel that my choices range from extremely old fashioned JRPGs (Dragon Quest 7) to more niche choices (Etrian Odyssey or whatever) to games that try to look modern but in reality they just borrow heavily elements from western RPGs or MMOs (Xenoblade X or FFXV). Some other JRPGs have an extremely anime feel to them, and I am not fan of the aesthetics (no names come to mind now but there are plenty niche JRPGs like this) or the themes/storylines (Persona)

I am happy with traditional mechanisms and I don't really mind RPGs that borrow elements from other kinds of RPGs unless they go way too far with boring and meaningless sidequests (Xenoblade X). I would be happy with a nice OST (do I have to mention how much I hated Xeno X again?) and a deep plot or at least some nice character development.

I love Squaresoft RPGs from the SNES/PS1 era (FF 6-9, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Vagrant Story, FF Tactics etc) and until the PS2 era I had plenty of choices to keep me happy.

Maybe the genre can't impress me as easily as it did in the past, but it can't be just me, I really believe that the whole storyline/character development aspect has hit rock bottom in recent years.
Is it so hard for developers to come with something decent? I rarely have time for 40-60 hour games, so I want to feel that I spend my time on something's that worth it and not on something that feels like a mindless grindfest.

Nozomi · Dec 1, 2016

Plywood said:
pc versions

It's getting better though with every year.

Im mean we are even getting Atelier titles now. If someone told 2 years ago that we getting Gust titles on Steam i would have laughed and him (and cried inside).

Tokyo Xanadu, Tales of Berseria and many more title will also be released on PC.

vireland · Dec 2, 2016

entremet said:
What high profile Japanese games are coming out next year?

If you're into SRPGs, Summon Night 6 should definitely be on the list. It looks amazing, especially on the Vita version...

And the Wonderful Edition (the presale-only collectors edition closes in a couple weeks):

ULTROS! · Dec 2, 2016

Femto. said:
I bought the CE for this game and I still haven't played it.

What's worse SO5 or Tales of Zesteria? Own both but have yet to play either.

Tales of Zestiria had bad system mechanics but at least the game is actually complete despite the obvious cuts. The end is obviously rushed.

SO5 had great mechanics but the budget favored graphics over the narrative and worlds. It's short and it's obvious they were restricted to a few locations.

Aeana said:
The B-tier used to consist of franchises like Shadow Hearts, Wild ARMs, Lunar, Grandia, Megaten spinoffs including Persona before the explosion, etc. This tier of games has all but died out. Now you have high budget, a large gap, and then the lower budget games that target very specific niches. The B-tier is where this genre's best ideas were explored and executed, so it's very sad to see it go.

Sadly this is true. Only few B-tiers make up for this gen like Tales, Persona (is this series considered B-tier?), NieR, and the FF/DQ Spinoffs.

isamu · Dec 2, 2016

vireland said:
If you're into SRPGs, Summon Night 6 should definitely be on the list. It looks amazing, especially on the Vita version...

And the Wonderful Edition (the presale-only collectors edition closes in a couple weeks):

That is one nice looking game.

UberTag · Dec 2, 2016

Xeno_V said:
I don't feel happy with what's going on with JRPGs nowadays.

I feel that my choices range from extremely old fashioned JRPGs (Dragon Quest 7) to more niche choices (Etrian Odyssey or whatever) to games that try to look modern but in reality they just borrow heavily elements from western RPGs or MMOs (Xenoblade X or FFXV). Some other JRPGs have an extremely anime feel to them, and I am not fan of the aesthetics (no names come to mind now but there are plenty niche JRPGs like this) or the themes/storylines (Persona)

I am happy with traditional mechanisms and I don't really mind RPGs that borrow elements from other kinds of RPGs unless they go way too far with boring and meaningless sidequests (Xenoblade X). I would be happy with a nice OST (do I have to mention how much I hated Xeno X again?) and a deep plot or at least some nice character development.

I love Squaresoft RPGs from the SNES/PS1 era (FF 6-9, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Vagrant Story, FF Tactics etc) and until the PS2 era I had plenty of choices to keep me happy.

Maybe the genre can't impress me as easily as it did in the past, but it can't be just me, I really believe that the whole storyline/character development aspect has hit rock bottom in recent years.
Is it so hard for developers to come with something decent? I rarely have time for 40-60 hour games, so I want to feel that I spend my time on something's that worth it and not on something that feels like a mindless grindfest.

Xenogears is probably my favorite game of all-time... so I can sympathize with you quite a bit. That said, you NEED to take Trails in the Sky for a spin if you're lamenting the absence of old school JRPGs of the past. It boasts all of the traditional JRPG qualities you're missing from involving turn-based gameplay to rich evolving characterizations and an epic storyline spanning multiple titles.

hosannainexcelsis · Dec 2, 2016

entremet said:
I would agree. Let's not forget that rising dev costs have made the distinction a little more granular. Outside of the FF series, what franchise is legit AAA in terms of budget? Pokemon?

Maybe if you count all the marketing and cross-promotion, but the Pokemon games themselves are technically weak. Certainly not what people think of as AAA production values.

BigEmil · Dec 2, 2016

Omnistalgic said:
Agreed and disagree...we still have some gems in that space and Indy games largely make up the difference IMO.

Disgaea 5
Grand Kingdom
Legend of Heroes
Tales Games (been lacking lately)
Persona 5 (I guess this is AA)
Remakes galore (KH, FF, DQ)
Transistor & The upcoming game from them
Indy RPG's too many to count

Indies seem to really be taking to this genre, I think it's the next boom after platforming and metrovania wears out it's welcome.

Missing Digimon cyber sleuth and Odin Sphere Leifthrasir

vireland · Dec 3, 2016

isamu said:
That is one nice looking game.

Really worked hard to make the Summon Night 6 Wonderful Edition great, and even the regular editions will get actual color manuals, too.

Just got a build in with a lot of the English audio in (the mountains of text have been in for a while). It's always a relief to hear what you've been working on actually in the game and sounding good!

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