Because all the other titles listed are genre renaissance fodder *eye roll*.
Obviously to anyone looking at these titles it's more about possibly high quality or high profile jrpgs being listed than any of them actually qualifying as poster children for the jrpg renaissance. Sen III was an obvious omission cause evidently less and less people care about stories in their JRPGs. But for those that do I had to mention it as a name that should definitely be in that TC list.
If Final Fantasy XV is a sign of a renaissance the genre might as well be dead to me.
What I really dislike about the Sen series is the tale of how Rean's friendship saves everything and the entire world.
It doesn't. Funny how you can show so much appreciative nuance for 15s concept yet not even pay basic attention to the actual situation Sen 2 left us with.
Rean's friendship didn't get him anywhere in that beyond giving him the confidence that a safety net of good friends would give any normal person.
Actual political problems as well as underlying ones relating to overall antagonist have remained unresolved.
That is not to say that I don't agree with a lot of other criticism towards the first 2 sen games but this statement is just a false representation.
It really wasn't a Final Fantasy except for spell and enemy names.
Sen 2 was such a safe, predictable game and that's coming from someone who is invested in the series' overall narrative. Very little that we have seen of 3 suggests this will change.
Sen 2 was such a safe, predictable game and that's coming from someone who is invested in the series' overall narrative. Very little that we have seen of 3 suggests this will change.
Predictable?
Major Cold Steel 2 SPOILER WARNINGFreaking Osborne being alive? Rean being his son? Rufus being an Ironblood?
I'll agree that I think that CS2 certainly plays out in a fairly predictable and at times underwhelming fashion but the major revelations at the very end of the game completely change the scope of what should be expected in CS3. CS2 ends...On very sad note with Rean losing the support of his friends and in a vary damaged place. He's been used by his father and the Empire and he absolutely hates it but he doesn't feel he has a choice in the matter. He's been able to get by because of Class 7, his friends who have kept his spirit up and made him feel at home, with them gone we really don't know what that ultimately will do to him in CS3.
I really don't get how anyone could think THATS how CS2 would actually end, its a completely different tone then anything done in CS1 or CS2, hell the events of CS2 play out and it barely feels like a war happens but the ending is so dark when you really think about what Rean ultimately has to deal with all alone.
You want unsafe go play FF I guess according to some people. There you get your "unsafe all new innovative shit".
We're probably not on the same page here - you're talking about narrative. I'm talking about structure and game design.
This sentence lowers the credibility of your post, especially after I literally namedropped Ys VIII in my last post. There are so many games and followups that shake things up and be designed in exciting ways that aren't called Final Fantasy XV.
I think this debate over Sen is rather pointless anyway, it's got little to do with whether the JRPG has seen a renaissance or not. See my next post...
Sen 2 was such a safe, predictable game (not to be confused with bad or not good) and that's coming from someone who is invested in the series' overall narrative. Very little that we have seen of 3 suggests this will change.
It doesn't. Funny how you can show so much appreciative nuance for FF15s concepts yet not even pay basic attention to the actual situation Sen 2 left us with.
Rean's friendship didn't get him anywhere in that beyond giving him the confidence that a safety net of good friends would give any normal person.
Actual political problems as well as underlying ones relating to overall antagonist have remained unresolved.
That is not to say that I don't agree with a lot of other criticism towards the first 2 sen games but this statement is just a false representation that just reeks of not having played them or utter inattention to what actually happened in the games.
This sentence lowers the credibility of your post, especially after I literally namedropped Ys VIII in my last post. There are so many games and followups that shake things up and be designed in exciting ways that aren't called Final Fantasy XV.
I think this debate over Sen is rather pointless anyway, it's got nothing to do with whether the JRPG has seen a renaissance or not. See my next post...
Looks ugly, get a better .gif instead.I think that while that list does includes some good games, half of those are not even out so we cant really tell if they are good or not, also, I don't think we have reached the main stream level of acceptance that they had between the snes and ps2 era
chill, there is no shame in liking Yoshi or Kirby, specially Kirby
Why does it lower the credibility of my post? Did you take it as some derogatory listing?
Also there was no debate about Sen I was setting the record straight. When it seems like you imply that past Kiseki titles have not been "safe" games in several ways that is just simply wrong. Kiseki has always been safe in most things aside from trying to have this long multi game/console spanning narrative that can be as intricate and involved because it can have all these games to tell it.
You're very post brings up the series overall narrative and is a reply to a post also discussing the narrative. When did we start talking about game design?
See:
and:
I think the best way to gauge whether we're in the middle of a JRPG renaissance would be to look at how things have changed over time in terms of what's greenlit, what sort of risks publishers or developers might be taking, how the market for JRPGs is structured (is it still just AAA with some low-budget titles? Has it all moved to one platform?), which publishers are still investing heavily in the genre, and so on.
I don't think much has really changed over the last four years. And I suspect things might actually change for the worse for some publishers. If Lost Sphear performs poorly, Square Enix might not see Unity and lower-tier RPG development as something worth pursuing anymore. Likewise we're still a long ways off even platform holders heavily investing in the genre again. And as I mentioned previously in the thread, there are no signs of some developers (like Jupiter, Tri-Ace or Camelot) making bold comebacks or new developers replacing those who aren't in the business anymore (like Imageepoch).
Just going to point out that the reason you dont see tri ace on consoles anymore is because stuff like star ocean 5, which might be viable in the ps2 era, isnt going to cut it by todays jrpg standards. Stuff like nioh, persona, nier, etc are much better and thats where the fans gravitate towards.
It does because you're cherry picking one game to represent many dozens of games.
I never even mentioned previous Kiseki games, only the most recent and the upcoming one. Actually, I'm in total agreement with this entire quote. I'm not sure what you're debating here.
I never mentioned Final Fantasy XV in that debate, though. I think you are mistaking someone else's post or reply for mine. ULTROS talked about FFXV. My argument was pretty simple: That Sen 3 isn't really renaissance material and it's not exactly going to rock the boat.
Dude. Do you know what an example is?
Is your Ys VIII example now a cherry pick to represent many dozens of games too?
Pls actually just read what is there and don't make stupid assumptions like this.
Don#t think too hard it was a SINGLE example of what I assumed would fit your criteria of a "not safe" game.
Also no you just started an argument about how Sen 2 was the safest game ever and Sen 3 probably will be too, not even stating whatever you mean with safe or why that is some characteristic worth mentioning in relation to the series given that it has been that way always. That's like me randomly telling you DQ11 will have slimes dude.
Sorry if that made me confused and think you're implying that you thought it was safe unlike prior titles or something.
Ys VIII - example of a Falcom game releasing in the same timeframe as Sen 3 that shakes things up in a long-running series. Ys, as you're aware, doesn't sell as well in Japan, so Falcom can afford to take risks in pursuit of sales performance. Sen 3 is going to generate stable revenue for the business so they can't afford to change much between entries.
Your example represents far, far more than just another game from a developer - you're using it to paint a picture about what experimentation and risk taking across the entire genre can lead to.
Nah man it's you just making a ton of assumptions about the intention of my example so pls stop or at least make it clear that these are the things this example made YOU think of.
Nothing honestly annoys me more than other people putting words in my mouth.
It kinda makes me not to post anything more when people are just going off in their own fantasies regarding all my intentions/statements.
Sen III.
Well I don't see it that way, so I don't think you need to either. I think you're also making a lot of assumptions about what I'm trying to say, but no offense or annoyance taken.
Let's be honest, you made it pretty easy for people to make a host of assumptions when your initial contribution to the thread was just two words!
Pretty fucking funny when I tell you no this isn't what I meant pls don't make assumptions like that "I don't see it that way".
Also about me making wrong assumptions maybe fucking correct them instead of going off on fantasies of what I meant.
I'm always happy to correct but I'm pretty sure I laid out why based on your statements there was not enough there leaving me no choice to make certain assumptions.
Whereas I already said it was meant to be 1 example that seemed to fit the general idea of people of what an unsafe/innovating franchise is no deeper meaning or any of the shit you said about the implications of me citing it.
It'll be a renaissance when we are getting AAA JRPG that aren't just from current franchises but plenty of new IP. And that's not happening.
SNES.Nah, unless the handheld market magically returns. JRPG output during the era where these platforms were around and overlapping was crazy good:
GBA
DS
PSP
X360
PS3
Wii
PS2
And you could argue the same for the developers/publishers as well. Whether it's due to a changing market or Sega's ownership, it's hard not to argue that Atlus is less willing to take risks nowadays. There hasn't been new equivalents to the likes of Radiant Historia, Etrian Odyssey, Trauma Center and Catherine.
There are still great RPGs coming out, just that the mobile market has essentially eaten a chunk of the output that publishers would have considered pre-2011. Or that publishers have simply given up - last time Konami produced an RPG was when they greenlit a duo of games from Tri-Ace. Likewise Sega has yet to put out another game like Infinite Space or Resonance of Fate. Jupiter hasn't been allowed to work on an RPG for *years* despite finding success with The World Ends With You and Spectrobes. The list goes on.
Very true. Basically this definition of JRpGs coming back in the big way would need to be like the PSX era of new and great IP in the genre.And I think it'll be a renaissance when we don't get pedantic hairsplitting over the definition (not you just some others in the recent past).
All I have to add here is that Tokyo Xanadu plays structure and game design even safer than Sen II or Sen III. Toxanadu literally just drops recycled Zwei (II)/Gurumin/Nayuta-derived systems and action into a Cold Steel-based modern-day setting and structure. Sen III's actually changing the flow of battle (by giving enemies the chances to S-Break!) in a way unprecedented for the series, and it could break up the structure into smaller pieces to handle storytelling for many separate plot-lines and characters more evenly. I agree that, compared to previous Ys titles, Lacrimosa of Dana's the newest and most exciting for synthesizing older Ys elements with the party system (Origin's arena mode, mid-2000s platforming, a solo story starring only a heroine, etc). Falcom's true renaissance, should it happen, would be escaping the Ys/Legend of Heroes/recycled Zwei-like mold via remakes of older IPs (Brandish, Popful Mail, etc) and different new IPs they could put out. But they're definitely not focusing on this until the Trails series concludes, freeing up their staff more.We're probably not on the same page here - you're talking about narrative. I'm talking about structure and game design.
If Final Fantasy XV is a sign of a renaissance the genre might as well be dead to me.
Having a quick look through just my portable selection of the past 2 generations, I'd make a rather strong case that they never went away actually.
Just ignore the Yoshi and Kirby game. lol
I wouldn't class World of FF part of these big RPGS, I found it kinda dull.