Community Blog (Xalgar) - RPG Discussion

Are RPGs a dying genre?

Xalgar

"Slowly and slowly, I've been noticing that RPG's are constantly reusing the same storylines over and over and western RPG's are lacking in the innovation department. The kids at my school don't even know what Elder Scrolls, Square Soft, or even "Tales of" games are, and I constantly here the story "I bought Fallout 3, but it's ****ing boring, there's so much talking and ****! I just want to shoot stuff like in Halo" I seriously wanted to spit in this idiot's face.

I do know however that RPG's are mainly played by older audiences who are not into raging at incompetent team mates and instead, appreciate the peace of a good story and the thrill of watching your character get stronger and have more abilities. But with my generation which is mainly into FPS's, will RPG's eventually receive the same fate as adventure games? Or am I wrong and this is just where I live that these kids are so close minded to their game selections?"



jasix

"Not really no, you have to look at the bigger picture not just where you live, RPG is huge in Japan, they go nuts for it. Xbox360 sales was terrible in Japan until Blue Dragon came along and Lost Odysee. Also Fallout 3 isn't really your standard RPG and the need to shoot something is only natural with that game. RPGs are still going strong and will remain i believe, the only problem with them at the moment is the lack of them in EU/US for next gen consoles. The Xbox360 has quite a few but they aren't anything special PS3 has a few and some great looking ones lined up like White Knight Chronicles and Hopefully Demon Soul will come out of Japan too if not the game has English option already so importing won't hurt, its a hack n slash RPG Demon Soul but it looks awesome!"



Mordiford

"Games like first person shooters are much easier to get into, to pick up and play. In the same way that the people you referenced in your original post were being closed minded, so are you. RPG's are usually a pretty big commitment, I myself sometimes have a hard time due to their formidable length. In that sense it is likely that the number of RPG's released will drop in the west, but not by much. In Japan RPG's are still quite successful so there really isn't an issue on that end.

Even in the long-run though, there will still be a large number of hardcore RPG fans that will keep the genre alive in both Japan and the West. There will likely still be quite a few strong franchises in the coming years.

Also, as per your note on rehashing the same storyline, if you break down most storylines in games you will find major similarities, this occurs with characters as well. However this is not exclusive to the RPG genre, you may just notice it more because those games are so story driven that it's easier to draw a comparison. Really though, similarities in characters and story are apparent in almost all genres."



ceby

"Xalgar I don't know if you remember this but RPG were considered dead back in the 90's and their revival was basically because of Diablo, a hack/slash RPG. I think RPG like any genre come and go in cycles.

I mean sure you don't see as many adventure games out their but their still are some. The Sam and Max adventures for the PC quickly come to mind.

If you just keep the faith and keep buying RPG's they wont' be going anywhere."



streetninja

"RPG's will never go away entirely. There used to be a whole bunch of old JRPG's but over the last 10 or so years we've seen the genera change and blend with others. We've seen RPG's mix with FPS's, RTS's and several other kinds of genera to make great new experiences."



maskedarcstrike

"I can see your point that it seems like not many traditional RPG's come out these days but I believe japanese developers only have themselves to blame for that for losing originality.

J-developers have followed the same formula for the past 20 years without really stepping outside the boundary that much and when they have with games like Vagrant Story they never want to try again because the game didn't sell well.

Hell look at Atlus I think the only reason the shin megami tensei has done so well the past 6-7 years was because of it's original setting.

After 13 years I'm sick of Tetsuya Nomura's spiky haired character designs if you've seen characters in one game of a series you've seen em all. Star Ocean, Tales of, Final Fantasy.

The last japanese RPG I really loved was Dragon Quest VIII, the british voice acting and charming script really made the characters come alive and make you grow attached to them. Even though the game followed the standard J-RPG formula to the T it had so much charm and soul it's hard not to love that game.

Earthbound followed the same formula IMO but just had a different setting.

50% of the game in an RPG is telling a story and how can you enjoy the game if you don't give a crap about the characters?"



yanki

"What I learned in Japanese class is that Japan likes to believe in the "if it's not broke, why fix it" statement. Okay, maybe that is simplifying it too much, but it struck me as a rather interesting comment on the "kata" (the way) to do things. If you take a look at a lot of things that come out of Japan, not just rpgs, there is a formula to how they work. Shonen and Shojo manga are very similar no matter what story you are reading and JRPG's are noted even more now for having unoriginal storylines. The Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series I find to be the more breakaway from that rehashing of similar plots. I just finished Persona 3 and am currently playing Persona 4 and I'm saddened I have to take a break due to finals! If you want a JRPG that isn't so by-the-book, I would give Persona and SMT a try, especially if you can find a copy. The new Devil Summoner is coming out and the first one is actually quite easy to find compared to SMT:Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga.

But even if most JRPGs are similar, I still love them. To answer your thought, I do not see this genre dying out in 5-10 years. In Japan, they are indeed huge. I went there like two months after FFX-2 was released and I saw ads and merchandise just about everywhere for the game. Famitsu poll on top 10 games of all time largely consisted of FF games, though the poll is quite old, I doubt if a new one were done it would contain less RPG games. The Dragon Quest series, though not really popular in the US, are phenomenally huge in Japan. I have no idea how true this is, but I heard that schools will actually take a holiday when a new DQ is released in Japan. The only 360 games I hear doing well in Japan, are indeed JRPG's."




Keep up the quality discussion guys and gals.

Brad