It’s no secret that the JRPG genre has suffered from a considerable quality deficiency lately. Truly great Japanese RPGs come along once in a blue moon these days, and the most promising titles often turn out to be the biggest disappointments. BioWare’s Greg Zeschuk believes that the East has grown complacent, and that Western RPG experiences are shaking studios up.
“I think what happened is they got very complacent for a very long time,” he explains. “They kept making the same thing, and the same thing, and, in a sense, almost provided an opening for all of us to jump in with our style of games. I know first hand that they’re looking at our games now; they’re kind of looking at our stuff, the Fable stuff, and Fallout, and all that, and going, ‘what are these things?’ I think they had gotten used to making the same thing over and over, and it was working.
“I think the other thing, too, is that the Japanese market has gotten quite a bit weaker and weaker. It’s just not as strong a market. It used to be a tremendously strong game market, so I think they’re kind of looking at it going, ‘man, we’ve got to figure out where else we can sell these,’ and I think the traditional, very structured, old-school structure RPG wasn’t selling anymore; so now, I think we’re going to see some changes.”
Unfortunately though, I think changes have been something of a problem. The last truly great console JRPG, in my mind, was Lost Odyssey, and it was great because it didn’t change a thing. Meanwhile, you have utter drek like Infinite Undiscovery, trying a brand new battle system and failing because the rest of the game was so crap. If anything, JRPG makers need to stop attempting to be “innovative” and concentrate simply on making a game that doesn’t completely suck.
Japanese RPG Developers Have Become ‘Complacent,’ says BioWare [Industry Gamers]
