As evidence, remember the two sequels to Chrono Trigger?
Radical Dreamers is unknown except to the most extreme hardcore fans, and it's basically just a visual novel.
Chrono Cross is what it is, itself sort of a re-imagining of Radical Dreamers. It's... not great. Cross was successful, but hardly sold at all compared to Trigger.
Xenogears games are sort of a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger (and originally were supposed to be a direct sequel), but they deviated in the way that we see today.
So consider for yourself these questions:
1. What was different about Cross compared to Trigger?
2. Why did every attempt to make a true sequel fizzle (remember Chrono Break?), fail (Xenogears), or become rapidly forgotten (Cross)?
3. Despite crazy demand AND a huge nostalgia industry, why is there still no proper sequel or successor?
The best "JRPG" in modern history is Undertale, and it's a deconstruction.
Honestly I think the reason Trigger is so popular is it one of a few JRPGs that actually keeps the pace moving. Cross doesn't really do this. In fact I put it on my Vita not too long ago and started to get very bored of it almost immediately. Trigger has almost no griding, battles go fast, and they're far apart enough that they struck the balance of it never getting tedious. Top that with great music, amazing characters, and an interesting world and premise and you have yourself a tasty cocktail. I think Xenogears is actually a really good game, but it's got some classic anime space opera sluggishness. They start things off with some good mysteries, you get your fill of mechs, the atmosphere of the world and characters are very well formed. Dialogue is very good. But it just keeps going and going, trickling out deliciousness at a snails pace.
Why jrpgs are not so popular anymore is not isolated question and should not be looked as one. It's not 90s anymore and Japan is no longer the absolute sole king of console games, like they used to be. Most people who play video games these days play and prefer more western games and are more used to their style, gameplay and stories. So it's no wonder that genre that by definition basically is very Japanese is becoming more of a niche.
At least the genre is not yet dead, not really even properly dying. And being a genre of time sinks, I'm fine with lesser number of games, as long as there is enough quality.
That might be a reason but it doesn't explain mechanically and aesthetically what is different about them to the point of saying the latter games were not good.
Kinda want to make an RPG with almost no grind and some ridiculously amazing skin.
Evoland is a JRPG with no grind, and the "upgrade through the history of JRPGs" conceit is a pretty good skin, but the game is pretty crap. Without grinding, all that's left is "travel from point A to point B" and "click on 'attack' until you win." Someone, I think Yahtzee in a Zero Punctuation video, compared it to watching a movie that periodically stopped and refused to continue until you'd mashed a button a sufficient amount of times.
There were some I beat but most JRPGs I would play I'd get about halfway in and stop.
There was another way to play JRPGs? I think I only ever beat FFVII; everything else I stalled out on. And when you go back to one of these games after a few months (or worse, years) you'd either load a save file where you have no clue what the hell you were doing, or you start a new game.
The Conan video I'm sure you've seen pretty much sums up why JRPGs aren't as big as they once were. Here it is, case you haven't.
Games like IV, VI, Chrono Trigger, etc. have stories and characters that are on the level of an all-time great fantasy anime or manga. If you just took FFVI and made a direct and accurate adaptation to a TV series or movie, it would be holy shit crazy good. Imagine how badass the ghost train and river poisoning episodes would be!
The newer ones are... uninspiring incomprehensible crap. You can't motivate someone to sit through a grind of random encounters to be rewarded with a boy band pushing a car through the desert.
So, if newer RPGs are uninspiring incomprehensible crap, how did we get from Chrono Trigger and FF IV/VI to where we are now? And why does Square seem like it's incapable of making the changes necessary to reinvigorate the genre?
That's pretty simple really. All of the people who worked on those games are either retired or moved on to other companies. The company is perfectly capable of making great games, but the people in charge don't want to. They think their main draw is from spectacle and nostalgia, so they are going to keep going that way.
THE CUTSCENE
/thread
The cutscene doesn't really explain why we are getting flooded with JRPGs with weak stories and characters no one really cares about. It certainly explains why games have gotten longer since then, which is its own problem, but cutscenes didn't bring forth gun swords, outfits made of belts and zippers, and female ice deities that turn into motorcycles. I think it really does come down to the fact that a lot of Japanese game makers target the whales that will give them the bulk of their revenue, and those whales tend to like weird shit that pushes away the mainstream.
EDIT: And to bring it back to my first point, I think a lot of that mentality comes from the fact that a good chunk (not all, as you pointed out) of those original creators have moved on. And the ones that didn't got overpowered by others *cough cough* Tetsuya Nomura *cough cough* who took the games into the weird direction.
I also think that the disinterest is actually a fairly new thing as far as the series goes. I remember people being excited for every Final Fantasy game up until XIII, that was really the one that broke the camel's back. The promises were just so ridiculously high and the game essentially bombed in the eyes of critics and fans, plus the awful XIV launch didn't help restore faith, that it's going to take a couple actually good games for them to rebuild their reputation. Conan's assessment aside, I've heard from other reviewers that FFXV is better than they expected, but their expectations weren't terribly high considering the last few games in the series plus the length of development time for this title. So, we'll see if it does well or not.
There were some I beat but most JRPGs I would play I'd get about halfway in and stop.
There was another way to play JRPGs? I think I only ever beat FFVII; everything else I stalled out on. And when you go back to one of these games after a few months (or worse, years) you'd either load a save file where you have no clue what the hell you were doing, or you start a new game.
And then as the story plays out you start to remember what was happening and don't want to sit through it again.
The cutscene doesn't really explain why we are getting flooded with JRPGs with weak stories and characters no one really cares about. It certainly explains why games have gotten longer since then, which is its own problem, but cutscenes didn't bring forth gun swords, outfits made of belts and zippers, and female ice deities that turn into motorcycles. I think it really does come down to the fact that a lot of Japanese game makers target the whales that will give them the bulk of their revenue, and those whales tend to like weird shit that pushes away the mainstream.
I hate to tell you this, but even in the oldest JRPGs the characters had outfits made of belts and zippers and crazy shit along the line of gunswords as well. The only difference was they didn't have the technological capabilities to actually render all of those things on the screen, so you didn't realize it.
Before the 16-bit era, they didn't have enough technology to really get across the story in a really epic way. Beyond the 16 bit era, they had too much. There was this sweet spot where they had enough bits to get the message across without getting too much of the message across.
As evidence, remember the two sequels to Chrono Trigger?
Xenogears games are sort of a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger (and originally were supposed to be a direct sequel), but they deviated in the way that we see today.
Source? Not trying to be an ass about it but I'm pretty sure Xenogears was it's own entire thing and had zero connections to Chrono Trigger.
As evidence, remember the two sequels to Chrono Trigger?
Xenogears games are sort of a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger (and originally were supposed to be a direct sequel), but they deviated in the way that we see today.
Source? Not trying to be an ass about it but I'm pretty sure Xenogears was it's own entire thing and had zero connections to Chrono Trigger.
It had pretty much the same development team so people thought of it as a spiritual successor.
As evidence, remember the two sequels to Chrono Trigger?
Xenogears games are sort of a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger (and originally were supposed to be a direct sequel), but they deviated in the way that we see today.
Source? Not trying to be an ass about it but I'm pretty sure Xenogears was it's own entire thing and had zero connections to Chrono Trigger.
It's common knowledge. Even the wikipedia page specifically calls it out.
The initial concept was to make Xenogears a sequel to Chrono Trigger, but after multiple clashes with the company over this and unspecified practical difficulties, it was decided to make it a completely original title.
The only JRPGs I've really enjoyed since Chrono Trigger in 1995: Super Mario RPG, Mario & Luigi, FF7, FF8, FF12, Riviera, the DS remakes of DQ4 and DQ5, Persona 4, Undertale, and Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (for getting out ahead of the roguelike-like trend in a really unique way)
Xenogears desperately wants to be Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Jrpgs are great for those who can only afford obe video game every four months or to post on your YouTube channel so that other people can watch the story parts.
Comments
Radical Dreamers is unknown except to the most extreme hardcore fans, and it's basically just a visual novel.
Chrono Cross is what it is, itself sort of a re-imagining of Radical Dreamers. It's... not great. Cross was successful, but hardly sold at all compared to Trigger.
Xenogears games are sort of a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger (and originally were supposed to be a direct sequel), but they deviated in the way that we see today.
So consider for yourself these questions:
1. What was different about Cross compared to Trigger?
2. Why did every attempt to make a true sequel fizzle (remember Chrono Break?), fail (Xenogears), or become rapidly forgotten (Cross)?
3. Despite crazy demand AND a huge nostalgia industry, why is there still no proper sequel or successor?
The best "JRPG" in modern history is Undertale, and it's a deconstruction.
At least the genre is not yet dead, not really even properly dying. And being a genre of time sinks, I'm fine with lesser number of games, as long as there is enough quality.
Bucket Duty 4 Life!
EDIT: And to bring it back to my first point, I think a lot of that mentality comes from the fact that a good chunk (not all, as you pointed out) of those original creators have moved on. And the ones that didn't got overpowered by others *cough cough* Tetsuya Nomura *cough cough* who took the games into the weird direction.
Before the 16-bit era, they didn't have enough technology to really get across the story in a really epic way. Beyond the 16 bit era, they had too much. There was this sweet spot where they had enough bits to get the message across without getting too much of the message across.
Xenogears desperately wants to be Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Desperately.