The demographic for JRPGs hasn't changed, it's just the gaming market has grown. It's not like sales got worse because of "brodudes". It's not like they gave all the JRPG nerds wedgies and hung them on flagpoles so they couldn't buy their favorite games. The market for JRPGs has never been big here unless it's a household name like Final Fantasy.
For the record WRPGs don't do too hot in Japan on the flip side of the coin.
Maybe not but it kind of felt that way to me at least. I bought an Xbox 360 for like the 5 games on it that I actually enjoyed. The rest were just shooters and senseless action games. I had to take refuge by playing PS3/Wii/DS games.
Probably because the Xbox 360 does well in the west but not in Japan. It has some JRPGs (FFXIII, Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata, etc) but not many. It does however have a fantastic WRPG library. It's certainly not "just shooters and senseless action games". Plus it's not like shooters or action games are any less than a RPG, I'd take a good action game (like, I dunno, inFamous 2) over 90% of JRPGs any day.
You do know that JRPG's are immitations of "WRPG", also known as "actual cRPG games" from the 80'ties and 90'ties? You could draw zillions of correlations with the current trends in JRPG and the trends of the past in western RPG games.
Well turn based RPGs are just a simplified series of role-playing game rules like Dungeons and Dragons, right?
Besides current JRPGs are a bit of a shell of what they were. I don't want to sound hipsterish but most JRPGs just are based on consistent tropes and paint-by-numbers characters and plots.
Its all a matter of preference.
Of course your also talking to someone who preferred the old RE games to the new ones and would rather catch pokemon than shoot aliens.
I agree... but Xenoblade was epic it reminded me of my 90's favorites.
I would go further and say it's, in a lot of areas, literal immitation.
Think back to Ultima Underworld or Stonekeep. Nobody in the west does Dungeon Crawlers like this anymore, aside from the odd project like Legend of Grimrock. In Japan though, they remain popular to this day, people love this stuff.
There's also the negative side of the coin - meticulous management of the inventory and the stats where the game becomes less of an adventure in some unfamiliar lands of fantasy and more an adventure with the calculator - in western RPG's this factor is increasingly nullified by introducing game mechanics that allow even the least seasoned gamers to play them.
But I digress.
I would go further and say it's, in a lot of areas, literal immitation.
Think back to Ultima Underworld or Stonekeep. Nobody in the west does Dungeon Crawlers like this anymore, aside from the odd project like Legend of Grimrock. In Japan though, they remain popular to this day, people love this stuff. There's also the negative side of the coin - meticulous management of the inventory and the stats where the game becomes less of an adventure in some unfamiliar lands of fantasy and more an adventure with the calculator - in western RPG's this factor is increasingly nullified by introducing game mechanics that allow even the least seasoned gamers to play them.
But I digress.
Also to be honest turn based combat is a relic of old generations where they couldn't get solid combat on limited hardware. Like I just don't see why people still enjoy turn based combat. It's basically just the equivalent of watching a D20 disco ball or a shiny version of Microsoft Excel. You put inputs and you get slightly randomized outputs.
I could go on and on about relics of older generations that just need to die but we'd go off topic. Although this thread is already off topic.
I like Turn-Based combat when it's done right, like for example in Fallout 1/2 or Baldur's Gate 1/2. Sometimes I like to have a look at the playing field and properly manage both my skills and my weapons to maximize DPS while still using cover and environmental benefits, but that's a very different story compared to the average Turn-Based JRPG situation where the playing field is just two groups wailing at each other. In this day and age, Turn-Based has to be done really well not to be offensive. It has to be an integral part of the experience and introduce a requirement for strategic thinking into the game instead, as you said, turn it into a spreadsheet.
JRPG generally does not do well. Western market prefers hard core games, not RPG really. For the record same applies to visual novel, which sells badly on US market.
Hardcore is relative.
I could probably beat 3-4 western games with the same time and effort it takes to beat a JRPG like Xenoblade.
Because there isn't no credible source and pure hard facts about this? LOL, then I'm am glad of having such little faith. 'Cause I know I will not be dissapointed.
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