Had me clapping tbh! Suikoden V was the first game I played in the series and I adored it. I still consider Lymsleia one of my favourite child characters in RPGs. And Lyon messed me up at the end because I didn't know about the whole Stars of Destiny thing. Cannot believe that a company with so many great IPs under their belt turned to so much shit.
As a kid I begged my mom for xenogears.... for that FF8 demo. After playing the demo over and over I eventually played xenogears and its in my top 3 jrpgs of all time
@@Danielzilla Holy crap you're right. My memory is bugging. The demo was in another game. I could have sworn it was in xenogears but I'm wrong. That's what it was! I got parasite eve for the demo disc. Loved parasite eve. And after playing ff8 I saw xenogears on it and that got me interested in the game. Forgive me, it was over 20 years ago
@@Angeloojohnson 36. But I'm partially wrong. The game with the demos was parasite eve. That demo disc also had xenogears. FF7 and FF8 just got me into jrpgs so I wanted more. The internet was barely a thing so that xeno demo caught my eye
@@Angeloojohnson chrono cross... parasite eve.... FF7... FF8.... xenogears. God I miss peak golden age square. This is why psx is my favorite generation. That and metal gear solid.
@@withoutthejuice7193 for sure, it has similarities in gameplay. I started with Ys too and bought Tokyo Xanadu when it was on sale and I'm so glad I did so. It was a really good game imo, which gameplay/ story peaked in the mid of the game until the end. It can feel very slow in the beginning but believe me, the end makes up for it for sure. Oh and the music is also extremely good.
Or HAHA Kingdom Hearts go brrrrrrrr And honnestly let's not talk about the poor JRPG which were release in Japan at the same time as a Dragon Quest games XD
Feels like a lot of companies have reason to hold grudges against Squaresoft. At the same time, they owe them big for making FFVII and creating the watershed era for JRPGs where everyone was interested in them again.
I doubt even if Xenoblade Chronicles 2 hadn't released around that time that Tokyo Xanadu eX+ would've done much better. Falcom is still pretty niche especially around that time. Aksys did luck out with Falcom making the eX+ version though.
I doubt it has anything to do with release schedule. The reviews of 1 were rough, reviews on 2 were hit or miss, most people don't even know they are sequels to Kouldelka, and they were barely advertised if at all. RPG's back then got little to no love in general, even Final Fantasy was considered small and niche until 7. It is hard to describe it to people who didn't grow up with it, but until FF7 it was not cool to play RPG's, like you were weird even to other people who played video games.
@@DKarkarov I never had problems with other gamers thinking I was weird for playing them back then....probably because I played other games besides JRPG's.
I love the Shadow Hearts series, but the game play and graphics for the first one were ROUGH. Its story is what it had going for it. If anything, the first one was somewhat lacking in the trademark goofyness of the other two. I only went back to play SH1 after SH2.
Why SEGA release jrpg's with the same time of Square Enix games ? And most important WITH x50 LESS BUDGET FOR GAME AND NO MARKETING IN WEST !!! Examples: - Skies of Arcadia (SEGA) / FF IX (Square Enix) = SEGA GAME flop, IP dead - Valkyria Chronicles 4 (SEGA) / Dragon Quest XI (Square Enix) = SEGA GAME flop, IP dead (?) - Shin Sakura Wars (SEGA) / FF VII Remake and Trials of Mana (both Square Enix) = SEGA GAME flop, IP dead (?) Its like SEGA want kill franchises other than Yakuza and Sonic intentionaly.
@@Melodyofthesea78 Yeah, but VC and SW are also very good, those games also suffered in bad release date. Also Skies of Arcadia was released on dead platform - Dreamcast, and Gamecube release date as u mentioned was very bad. Fun fact: all those games series i mentioned are from the same devs - Overworks. They worked on Sakura Wars 3 and 4, Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles. This dudes are seriously so underrated.
@@shutup1037 Yes without 100 000 000 $ production budget and no markateing, its fucking impossible to compete Square in this moment. Why they trying compete SE with new IP's in West with absolute no money behind ? Maybe they still have complex: ,,SEGA must win with Nintendo from 90 years'', now they have new complex ,,SEGA must win with Square Enix''.
Among all the Suikoden franchise, Suikoden 2 imo has the deepest story, something about its depth that cannot be made anymore, and few rpg or games can do this. I love the other entries at the same level but this game touches the heart differently, besides, characters like Flick and Viktor are hard to find nowdays.
I agree while claiming suikoden 2 to be overrated and Suikoden 5 doesn't the attention it deserves since I can only experience it in my memories since my PS2 doesn't work anymore.
Skies of Arcadia is still one of my favorite games. I've gotten 100% on that game twice. The story is really fun and the characters are awesome and the lore is good.
I loved Skies of Arcadia on the GameCube so much that I wrote my own guides, completed it multiple times, and feel nothing has come close to imitating it. I love the unique ship combat.
Man March to April 2020 was such a good time for JRPGs. Even though some got screwed about it, between Langrisser, VII;RE; P5 and the Trials of Mana remake it was a really good way to take my mind out of COVID.
@@hiro6164 Dragon Quest is basically Japan's FFVII: the game that introduced the concept of the RPG to the masses. In many ways the progenitor of the genre. It's so absurdly popular there that Enix negotiated with Nintendo to ship new releases on Saturday in Japan specifically because so many people would skip school/work to play it (as opposed to the industry standard which was Thursday).
It wasn't just Langrisser and Sakura Wars that got hammered by the P5R/FF7R combo. The 3D remake of Trials of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3) came out on 4/24/20--just 2 weeks after FF7R--and the long-awaited port of the original Utawarerumono came out a month later, on 5/26/20. Spring 2020 was a strange season for JRPGs, to say the least.
Dunno how much hate gonna get for this but yeah had to get trials of mana above ff7r. It just came across as a real good remake/remaster where as the FF title just felt wrong to me
What can you see, actually now would be the best time to revive Suikoden for Konami. Now really many people know about the series! Konami could show that they still care for gaming fans and JRPGs are still a good genre going strong. Suikoden is like in every top jrpg list I ever saw. It would marketing itself actually. Also Eyuden Chronicles showed people still care ... a lot.
The problem with suikoden is the OG team who worked on it already disbanded but konami still hold the ip and im not sure konami still care with gaming industry
Sakura Wars (2019) wasn't ruined by Final Fantasy 7 Remake. It was ruined by not being Sakura Wars. Sakura Wars was originally a turn based strategy game that had the development of the various Combat Revues (Kagekidans) as they faced the oncoming demon invasions around the world. New Sakura Wars started off by not only abandoning this premise, but also locking every major character in the franchise so far other than the one retiree inside of Shadow Tokyo, essentially killing them off screen. Once word of this got out, you really started to see the frustration that people had. What you ended with up isn't something that's a tribute to the original. Instead, it's something more of a perversion as you have an evil clone of the original Sakura running around and the original character only makes a voice cameo during the climax. One game that doesn't resemble the original, one dead mobile game, and one shoddy anime later, nothing has really changed. We aren't any closer to saving the original cast or seeing them back on screen. We haven't had the original cast featured in any way either and it's baffling that they never corrected their course and instead doubled down on the new cast that the original people who supported a revival of the franchise wouldn't have had an interest in. And then elsewhere, you have Trails into Reverie going strong...
@@Kaimax61 Sakura Wars V was actually Sakura Wars unlike 2019. It was ruined by Sega not caring about their western market. It took them FIVE YEARS to translate the game. The fan translations beat them to it by at least two years. Sakura Wars 2019 was just a cheap Dynasty Warriors knock off with no stakes.
Maybe becouse Shin Sakura Wars was made for new Western fans who dont played past games (total casuals in musou and Visual Novel genre). And this is first game made by not original studio Red Company, but made by Team Sonic - they didnt created a good Sonic game for years and you expected a good Sakura Wars game from that studio ? They should give SW to Valkyria Chronicles devs, where a large proportion of the employees are former members of the Red Company, not to unexperienced with SW Team Sonic . Also combat change was a bad idea (Valkyria Revolution flashbacks). Musou without RPG elements and progression system is very boring and repetive. And u just cant made musou with teamwork feature from older SW games, this is impossible becouse u cant play all 6 characters in one moment in action game like in turn-based SRPG (in one turn) . I think its still good and fun game, but as i man who played all SW games i understand why fans are mad on that game.
@@ohnosmoarlulcatz Sakura Wars 5 was not translated by SEGA, but by NISA, thats why translation of this game took 5 year. Yes release game on PS2 in 2010 was great idea :)
@@nr2676 Sakura Wars was revived because of a poll conducted by Sega of Japan towards the Japanese audience. It doesn't make sense to use that poll to justify the creation of a game directed at a western audience rather than the target demographic of your poll. It's just another thing to pile onto the dumb decisions made by Sega. And like I've said, they had plenty of time to try to correct this. Yet, their mobile game and anime only doubled down. I suggest you take a look at how Warriors Orochi is done. It's Musou with a basic framework of teamwork features. Warriors Orochi 3 even featured I think a 5 man Gauntlet Mode (I forget the exact numbers, but it was more than 3) during the PS3 era and you could switch between them as well. You could utilize teammates as assist strikers and team attacks. Warriors All Stars was another twist on this that utilized 1 playable character with 4 assists. Was it crude? Yeah. But Warriors Orochi 3 was 5 years before Sakura Wars 2019 and Warriors All Stars was 2 years before. Considering Sakura Wars 5 had its numbers fudged by NISA's 9,999+ report rather than a more accurate sales figure, that's not something you should have confidence in. The total figures since then look a little better at about 120k for the west, but not sure if those are accurate numbers for Sakura Wars 5 as it is from VGChartz, which is not a reliable source.
Man the shadow hearts series is one of my favourites, I remember picking up the first one from a local game store in the uk on the recommendation of one of the employees as he knew I liked the final fantasy series, it's great to see it mentioned here!
'Onimush Tactics' "You probably never heard of this." 'Laughs' I own and beat it, it's pretty damn good. Even Recruited the optional party member. Also it seems the recurring theme is "Don't release your game next to big IPs, you dumbass.".
7:50 Curious, was Fire Emblem a big hit back then? The series was pretty unknown, but I know that Smash Bros Melee brought in a lot of curiosity/excitement because of Roy and Math is SSBM. I wasn't paying attention back then, so no idea if Fire Emblem 7 made a splash on the GBA.
From my understanding, The Blazing Blade did very well both in Japan and in the west which is the main reason why they pushed forward with the Path of Radiance series on the Gamecube. Sadly, they didn't get the success they wanted with those titles and after a few more misses, were in danger of Nintendo pulling the plug on the series until Awakening released and basically saved the franchise.
I loved Suikoden V, the characters were something really special for me. If they make a Switch re-release of it, even without many improvements, Id still pick it up and play the hell out of it. I also loved Tokyo Xanadu, but it was in fact the game that made me realize I was a Falcom fanboy, so little wonder.
I think I read somewhere that part of what stands in the way of a Suikoden V digital release has something to do with voice over contracts. I wish it would come though. I had to sell my game collection, due to homelessness, and getting a copy now costs so freaking much. I have also had terrible luck trying to emulate it.
The graphics for Suikoden V were about the best cel graphics for the time as well. It blew most of the competition out of the water. Looked way better then Star Ocean sprites.
All throughout this video I could picture Square and Nintendo as kings seated on their thrones with Atlus at their right hand as archduke, and all of the other JRPGs from the other companies rising to challenge them for the throne only to be completely, utterly, and mercilessly crushed.
Tokyo Xanadu I bought day one for Vita and never regretted. Nowadays any Falcom game that gets released now I will buy day one to make sure to support Falcom
Eyyyy, love seeing Asuka get the thumbnail! Love to see it! Also yeah, poor game, had such a chance to be big, but nothing can compete with Xenoblade. Lol. Let's hope one day TX gets a sequel and another chance at life.
Fun fact Tales of Destiny on the ps1 is actually capable of 2 player and also a special ring that allows you to perform all the special attacks without going in options to change them arouind with street fighter like moves during the battle.
7:12 Aw man, such a nostalgia bomb to see the gang from Onimusha 2 on the cover. I was so sad when the next Onimusha game came out because even though they brought back Samanosuke the series just abandoned Ekei, Magoichi, Kotaro, and Oyu.
Some of these really need some loving and our man Erick is here to deliver! Good stuff! Man I hope some of the other Langrisser games get a remake like 1 and 2. Just please, please pleeeeeease give us some quality of live improvement. There´s 0 reason to slowly hover over every enemy that won´t even move yet when some modern games like FE let you skip whole enemy fases with by pressing one button.
Idk if it's too soon but more recently, I actually think NEO: TWEWY might be able to fit on this list. I heard it only sold 28k copies its first week in japan whereas the original game sold 84k copies in its first week. Monster Hunter Stories 2, Ys IX (PC/Switch versions), and FF1-3 Pixel remasters all launched around the same time as NEO: TWEWY which gave it a lot of competition from what it looks like.
From what I heard, the bad localization choices and lack of marketing killed it way more than the other games that launched at the same time. I'm a Squeenix fan and at least pay attention to what they put out, and even I didn't know NEO TWEWY even existed until 4 days ago.
Just goes to show how much of a juggernaut the FF games were during the PS1 era. When it came to sales they were easily the kings back then. No one could touch them.
smt 3 aka nocturne was the first smt main line game to be released in the Us it wasn't really on the radar for the US audience at the time. Unfortnate it got over shadowed by other titles due to release dates.
I recently played Tokyo Xanadu eX+ on my livestream to kill time before Tales of Arise came out and I loved it! It really is a shame it was such a commercial failure, cause I would have loved to see more of this.
This is another reason why Grandblue fantasy Re-link RPG hasn't come out yet aside from the pandemic slowing it down too, they didn't want to release it close to final fantasy 7 remake, so they will hopefully before remake part 2 comes out.
That's one thing I *CANNOT* stand in the last 5 years or so -- at times 3 or 4 games release on the same day as a AAA title. I do not remember that happening as often back in the Electronics Boutique days (pre-Gamestop). Now there'll be 2 or 3 lesser known titles released on the very day as a AAA title, then one wonders why the lesser known ones didn't sell well. Hello! Game Republic would still be around with a Folklore sequel if it wasn't for Sony knowing that it was the PS3's fault the 1st Folklore didn't sell.
Wild Arms 2 is one of the best RPGs in the series, but I have no idea why it wasn't big outside Japan. Feels like it must of had bad timing like the others but I don't know why for sure.
Pretty sure the fact that it was a Dreamcast game was why Skies of Arcadia didn't sell well. Heck if Grandia 2 didn't get ported to PS2 it probably wouldn't have been as well remembered as it was.
Both of those games, as well as phantasy star online, were my top 3 played games on dreamcast. I admit the dreamcast was not my favorite system, but even with later ports I felt it was the best way to play those games. (I just hated the controller and the weird memory cards)
I think Sakura Wars would see a bigger success if they ported it to other console especially PC instead of making it a PS4 exclusive and forcing it to compete with FF7. It's kinda niche but there's always a demand for a Mecha-JRPG games. Persona and Yakuza has seen a huge success with the PC port despite being a rather 'unique' RPG, not sure what stopping them from porting Sakura Wars as well
Reason is simple: Sakura Wars PS4 had lowest budget from all Sakura Wars games. Only opening in Sakura Wars 3 costed arround 3 000 000 $ (in 2001 !!!), its 1/3 budget of PS4 game. In interview they mentioned: Team Sonic must had to choose between ENG dubb or subtiles in multiple languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian). They had to choose subtiles becouse its ofcourse cheaper. Simply they dont had money for porting game.
so what i learned is, final fantasy killed a number of games merely by its over blown fame. so konami is killing games since its birth, and nintendo proclaiming itself as video games god, killing off all kinds of competition, in short, if you wish to have a chance in life, don't try to fight a pre-existing giant.
As an owner of half of these games, Im glad I delved into the weirder & more obscure games before they got expensive. Now I mostly just play on my Vita/PC through emulation & its a blast. Great video as always.
Had and played all of these when they first dropped. Me and my cousin was heavily into rpgs and Suikoden II is in my top 5 easily. For a long time the Luca Blight boss fight gave me nightmares lol. He was evil af and was a real monster. Taking on 3 six man parties and a duel with Riou. All while being peppered with arrows. The dude literally set himself on fire for his attacks. Everyone thought used a fire rune lol. Great video bro.
I'm playing Tokyo Xanadu is a very good action JRPG. I laughed when talking about Shadow Hearts Covenant that had to compete with Shin Megami Tensei 3 and Paper Mario, because for me Shadow Hearts Covenant was my most anticipated JRPG in 2004 I hadn't played any Atlus JRPG, and I didn't have Game Cube and I didn't even know about Paper Mario. I had played the first Shadow Hearts and liked it so much , it was my favorite JRPG franchise from the PS2 era , surpassing even Final Fantasy .
Would Star Ocean 5's developers being pulled from their game to help with FF15 and other games count as a JRPG being ruined by other JRPGs? Also is that story true? I heard somewhere that that was the case.
I think that I found the problem: Pretty much all of these rpgs were released in October, the time where Big Games are released. Forcing them to compete instead of releasing them in February-July when players are looking for something new to play and the competition is much, much less steep.
Seriously doubt it, they stabbed themselves in the foot just like Capcom did with Breath of Fire by massively changing the games mechanics and not in a good way. I was a die hard wild arms fan, and 5 hours of 4 had me returning it for a trade in at gamestop. By the time 5 showed up the IP had already been shot and left for dead.
The one game I remember playing and loving was Dual Hearts, a hack and slash game that focused around the concept of dreams and nightmares with the RPG mechanics focusing around leveling all the various weapons you acquired. It got destroyed by Kingdom Hearts, they came out barely a week apart from each other.
This is a really interesting commentary. I’m just not sure that it matches reality, because in most cases they “competing” games were on separate platforms. Most people didn’t have multiple competing consoles, really just the most affluent, who could afford to buy multiple games in the same month; similarly, those unable to afford multiple consoles wouldn’t have to choose at all. I can’t argue that some of these publishers had some pretty odd timing though, on top of poor localization and marketing efforts. It’s really interesting to revisit all of this in hindsight though. Thanks for making this video! :)
I remember when Xanadu EX+ came out on my birthday that year. It looked cool to me so I went to find it. Never did. Wound up buying the special edition a year later and I keep it installed on my PS4 as I think it’s good enough to demand hard drive space.
Funny story about Shadow Hearts. I went to my local EB games to buy Final Fantasy X a couple days after release. Sold out. But what I did find was Shadow Hearts 1, a game I'd literally never heard of before, that quickly became one of my favorite jrpgs of all time, even more than FFX after I eventually played it.
I don't think many people will care about pokemon compare to SMT V which is high anticipated and the graphics plus seeing demon out and about is what everyone wanted from S&S, but didn't get it. Any Pokemon is just the same plot, but SMT is better written.
@@outkastshadowking2719 actually Pokémon games are always highly anticipated regardless of their plot or graphics as well. Pokémon are also the most popular JRPGs of all time, every single mainline game sells over 10 million copies, outselling multiple times the most successful game of the Megami Tensei series. Even if we consider that most of the people who are going to buy the Sinnoh remakes are casuals, there is also a huge amount of “hardcore” gamers who really love Pokémon and SMT but can’t get them both, so they’ll have to pick just one. I actually would only buy the Pokémon games if I didn’t have the money to get both.
Man that blows, I thought for sure people pick would a game that's more interesting. I don't like Pokemon games, but just recently played SMT III which is amazing and SMT V is exactly what people wanted from Pokemon Sword & Shield, so crazy to think want a remake over SMT V.
The funny fact is - back in the day, i just came to the store, to buy myself "somenthing new with amazing story" - and i got myself "Tales of destiny". So Tales of destiny is one of my first PS1 games ever. And second JRPG in my life! (First was Lunar). And of course, one of my favourite games of all times. I was able to buy Parasite Eve much later. And as for the Xenogears - i NEVER seen it in the stores, and so, i was able to play it after the end of PS1 Era - on PC, through emulator.
Me is interested about that cartoon draw of Suikoden 3 and I read the description they have kany characters and stories... So Im buy it.. so my favorite character is Chris Lightfellow and the mysterious girl Sarah.
I'm surprised that tales of the abyss' PS2 NA release did not make the list. It was in all of bandai-namco's infinite wisdom set to october 10th, 2006 for it's release date, meaning it was sandwiched between two at the time hyped square-enix releases...valkyrie profile 2 on september 26th 2006 and more importantly final fantasy goddamn 12 on october 31st 2006. Another niche game that could have split attention from the crowd that normally buys these types of games was phantasy star universe, which released on october 24th, 2006. Despite being a damn good game, abyss' sales got dumped on so hard that the PS2 version never saw a release in EU. (Which means they had to wait for the 3DS release to even play it). Tales of abyss definitely deserved better, =(
I personally own Onimushia tactics, Shadow Hearts : Covent and Tokyo Xanadu, it's a bit sad to hear that they lost to other games in the past, I'm just glad I have these games now and there really fun to play ✌️
World of Final Fantasy by Final Fantasy 15 to some extent. Yes, World came out one month before it, but 15 was the way more known game of them. What Square the hell was thinking to release them together?
I'm happy to report I picked up both Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts covenant practically Day 1. The original charmed me with its amazing - for the time - cutscenes. By the time I found out the game was NOT fully voiced - something extremely important to me from 2000 to now - I was committed. THen I found out it was a sequel to Koudelka and that kept me going. Finding out Covenant was a great deal more voice acting I absolutely picked that up and was not disappointed. I did also pick up FInal Fantasy X and Kingdome Hearts 2. Would have picked up Tokyo Xanidu too since I remembered loving YS games back in the day and it looked interesting. Then I found out it was Japanese only voice acting, which is always an immediate nope for me. ANd yes, I realize that criteria has made me miss out on some greats, and yes, that IS very disappointing.
I got the Langrisser 1&2 remaster but haven't played much because moving each unit individually is a chore when there's no way to just cycle through the units like in fire emblem.
Hey mate, would you mind listing the games in the comments or in the video description? I often listen to your videos while working, space out for a bit and miss the name of the game you are talking about and often cannot rewind right away. Having a written would be useful for these scenarios
Skies of Arcadia is one of the few JRPG's I've fully completed. And I played both versions. It was one of the best I ever played. Shadow Hearts 1 & 2 were also brilliant.
1:40 I really liked Tales of Destiny and rented it a few times but if I knew how hard it would have been to get a physical copy (SINCE IT NEVER GETS RELEASED DIGITIALLY IN THE WEST FOR SOME GD REASON!) I would have begged my parents for it instead of waiting till it now sold for over $100...
I for one did my part for Tokyo Xanadu and Langrisser. I got the LEs for each, which means twice for Xanadu. Admittedly I got the PS4 version years later for $50 but I still got it. Though what also did Xanadu in was the absolute stupidity in releasing only the base version of it on vita (WITH NO UPDATE DLC) while PS4/ PC got the updated games.
The tales series is awesome. The first one I played was tales of phantasia on the emulator, so I was excited about tales of destiny and destiny 2. The wild arms series is one of my favorite. I think they went downhill after wild arms 3. The games got too linear with wild arms 4 and the grid like battle system was boring. I will say the music in all the games were good though.
Ah Shadow hearts 1&2 my favorite JRPGs of all time. I bought part 1 merely out of curiosity and at the time it was dirt cheap. I fell in love and bought part 2 right away. The games were also pretty dam hard jrpgs since you had to time things just right for combat. Part 1 also caught me off guard since the ending you really had to work for did not end up being the canon ending which was a pretty big blow to me lol. As for Tokyo Xanadu and Sakura Wars it also didn't help they were sub only games which decreased their reach as well.
not really they just need to space out the releases better and not come out so close to bigger titles. if a bigger JRPG comes out, just wait a month and half at least b4 releasing yours
I'm not sure if this is worth mentioning but I feel like The Last Story goes unmentioned from I have seen. It's one of my favourite games aesthetically speaking and it's a pretty good game with a simply fantastic OST. I never see it mentioned anywhere bar like 2 people with one actually playing it. I think it deserves a re-release on the switch or whatever nintendo console it will come out on.
Too bad that Shadow Hearts was overshadowed by Final Fantasy X, even if Shadow Hearts is a way better game. Same with Shadow Hearts Covenant. Considering Langrisser I&II, there was also the Trials Of Mana remake, which was released later.
At the time nothing could stand next to FFX, not only other JRPGs but only few games were better or the same as FFX at the time... Playing FFX in 2002 was an experience...
Man Suikoden II...I got it on greatest hits and the only reason I bought it was because I happened to have extra money and recalled someone mentioning that Suikoden had a unique battle system
Growing up in the 90s and buying the majority of these titles day one (only to put them on the back burner :P) the nostalgia was real for me in this one. Also a lot of bad memories of early SCEA's scorn for 2D/sprite based titles, RPGs in particular... it still kills me to this day that we got all 4 Toshinden games in america somehow.
Well, Jack Bros for the Virtual Boy was the first Megami Tensei released on the West. Nocturne as Eric mentioned didn't mess up Shadow Hearts 2, but Nocturne for a while also got extremely rare and expensive at the time.
2001 & 2004 were so stacked it's not surprising Shadow Hearts I & II wouldn't garner much attention unfortunately. Those were two of the most game changing years for video games of the last 20 years.
I played Tales of Destiny back when it came out. It was really fun and a long adventure. It was the first Tales game I ever played and remains my favorite.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
"Thank you, Konami. Go to hell." Had me rolling. 😂
Same.
Had me clapping tbh! Suikoden V was the first game I played in the series and I adored it. I still consider Lymsleia one of my favourite child characters in RPGs. And Lyon messed me up at the end because I didn't know about the whole Stars of Destiny thing.
Cannot believe that a company with so many great IPs under their belt turned to so much shit.
As a kid I begged my mom for xenogears.... for that FF8 demo. After playing the demo over and over I eventually played xenogears and its in my top 3 jrpgs of all time
Im guessing from this statement your at least 30? I remember asking my mom for the same thing plus chrono cross
Xenogears didn’t come with an FF8 demo in any region.
@@Danielzilla Holy crap you're right. My memory is bugging. The demo was in another game. I could have sworn it was in xenogears but I'm wrong. That's what it was! I got parasite eve for the demo disc. Loved parasite eve. And after playing ff8 I saw xenogears on it and that got me interested in the game. Forgive me, it was over 20 years ago
@@Angeloojohnson 36. But I'm partially wrong. The game with the demos was parasite eve. That demo disc also had xenogears. FF7 and FF8 just got me into jrpgs so I wanted more. The internet was barely a thing so that xeno demo caught my eye
@@Angeloojohnson chrono cross... parasite eve.... FF7... FF8.... xenogears. God I miss peak golden age square. This is why psx is my favorite generation. That and metal gear solid.
Tokyo Xanadu is a fantastic Falcom jrpg, a must play in the genre.
Agreed it is one of my favorite games
I love Falcom, but I got really bored with Tokyo Xanadu after a while.
@@scottmichaelhedge5055 yeah it can happen, to each his own.
I’ve had my eye on it for a bit, would you suggest it to someone who loves Ys?
@@withoutthejuice7193 for sure, it has similarities in gameplay. I started with Ys too and bought Tokyo Xanadu when it was on sale and I'm so glad I did so. It was a really good game imo, which gameplay/ story peaked in the mid of the game until the end. It can feel very slow in the beginning but believe me, the end makes up for it for sure. Oh and the music is also extremely good.
Other developers: FINALLY the localisation is DONE time for releas-
Square: haha ff games goes brrrrrrrrrr
Or HAHA Kingdom Hearts go brrrrrrrr
And honnestly let's not talk about the poor JRPG which were release in Japan at the same time as a Dragon Quest games XD
@@nesoukkefka1741 RIP
And if Square is taking a hiatus or something its usually Nintendo going, "Hey there, made myself another first-party RPG."
Feels like a lot of companies have reason to hold grudges against Squaresoft. At the same time, they owe them big for making FFVII and creating the watershed era for JRPGs where everyone was interested in them again.
I doubt even if Xenoblade Chronicles 2 hadn't released around that time that Tokyo Xanadu eX+ would've done much better. Falcom is still pretty niche especially around that time. Aksys did luck out with Falcom making the eX+ version though.
Truth be getting spoken here.
Shadow hearts 1 & 2 were such great games, some of the best jrpg I’ve played, too bad they launched at the wrong moment.
That they are. Dark themed games like them are rare. I didn't know they were released next to other titles.
I doubt it has anything to do with release schedule. The reviews of 1 were rough, reviews on 2 were hit or miss, most people don't even know they are sequels to Kouldelka, and they were barely advertised if at all. RPG's back then got little to no love in general, even Final Fantasy was considered small and niche until 7. It is hard to describe it to people who didn't grow up with it, but until FF7 it was not cool to play RPG's, like you were weird even to other people who played video games.
@@DKarkarov I never had problems with other gamers thinking I was weird for playing them back then....probably because I played other games besides JRPG's.
The 3rd one is crazy fun too. I love the series.
I love the Shadow Hearts series, but the game play and graphics for the first one were ROUGH. Its story is what it had going for it. If anything, the first one was somewhat lacking in the trademark goofyness of the other two. I only went back to play SH1 after SH2.
Jesus Skies of Arcadia the same day of ff9, that's Just Crazy as fuck.
Why SEGA release jrpg's with the same time of Square Enix games ? And most important WITH x50 LESS BUDGET FOR GAME AND NO MARKETING IN WEST !!!
Examples:
- Skies of Arcadia (SEGA) / FF IX (Square Enix) = SEGA GAME flop, IP dead
- Valkyria Chronicles 4 (SEGA) / Dragon Quest XI (Square Enix) = SEGA GAME flop, IP dead (?)
- Shin Sakura Wars (SEGA) / FF VII Remake and Trials of Mana (both Square Enix) = SEGA GAME flop, IP dead (?)
Its like SEGA want kill franchises other than Yakuza and Sonic intentionaly.
@@nr2676 To be fair Skied of Arcadia was awesome just released at the absolutely wrong time.
@@Melodyofthesea78 Yeah, but VC and SW are also very good, those games also suffered in bad release date. Also Skies of Arcadia was released on dead platform - Dreamcast, and Gamecube release date as u mentioned was very bad. Fun fact: all those games series i mentioned are from the same devs - Overworks. They worked on Sakura Wars 3 and 4, Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles. This dudes are seriously so underrated.
@@nr2676 sounds like SEGA believe that they can compete with square kek
@@shutup1037 Yes without 100 000 000 $ production budget and no markateing, its fucking impossible to compete Square in this moment. Why they trying compete SE with new IP's in West with absolute no money behind ? Maybe they still have complex: ,,SEGA must win with Nintendo from 90 years'', now they have new complex ,,SEGA must win with Square Enix''.
Among all the Suikoden franchise, Suikoden 2 imo has the deepest story, something about its depth that cannot be made anymore, and few rpg or games can do this. I love the other entries at the same level but this game touches the heart differently, besides, characters like Flick and Viktor are hard to find nowdays.
I agree while claiming suikoden 2 to be overrated and Suikoden 5 doesn't the attention it deserves since I can only experience it in my memories since my PS2 doesn't work anymore.
@@Gooong my ps2 is damaged too.. but I still can play suikoden 5 in my laptop.
Skies of Arcadia is still one of my favorite games. I've gotten 100% on that game twice. The story is really fun and the characters are awesome and the lore is good.
Whenever I see a Giant Laser Cannon I still say "Moonstone Cannon FIRE!"
@@zepheric3188 same here but i have a knack for "harpoon cannon fire !" instead, the fight vs grendel is printed in my mind
I loved Skies of Arcadia on the GameCube so much that I wrote my own guides, completed it multiple times, and feel nothing has come close to imitating it. I love the unique ship combat.
Man March to April 2020 was such a good time for JRPGs. Even though some got screwed about it, between Langrisser, VII;RE; P5 and the Trials of Mana remake it was a really good way to take my mind out of COVID.
Final fantasy: exists.
Other rpgs: why must i suffer like this!!.
Interestingly, Square was saying the same because of Enix's Dragon Quest Series, until Final Fantasy 7.
@@brycekillor318parker6 waat, didnt know.
@@hiro6164 Dragon Quest is basically Japan's FFVII: the game that introduced the concept of the RPG to the masses. In many ways the progenitor of the genre.
It's so absurdly popular there that Enix negotiated with Nintendo to ship new releases on Saturday in Japan specifically because so many people would skip school/work to play it (as opposed to the industry standard which was Thursday).
It wasn't just Langrisser and Sakura Wars that got hammered by the P5R/FF7R combo. The 3D remake of Trials of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3) came out on 4/24/20--just 2 weeks after FF7R--and the long-awaited port of the original Utawarerumono came out a month later, on 5/26/20.
Spring 2020 was a strange season for JRPGs, to say the least.
Dunno how much hate gonna get for this but yeah had to get trials of mana above ff7r. It just came across as a real good remake/remaster where as the FF title just felt wrong to me
What can you see, actually now would be the best time to revive Suikoden for Konami. Now really many people know about the series! Konami could show that they still care for gaming fans and JRPGs are still a good genre going strong. Suikoden is like in every top jrpg list I ever saw. It would marketing itself actually. Also Eyuden Chronicles showed people still care ... a lot.
And Capcom with Breath of Fire, and Sony with Wild Arms, Grandia, Alundra and SE with Xenogears, and Chronos games...
The problem with suikoden is the OG team who worked on it already disbanded but konami still hold the ip and im not sure konami still care with gaming industry
Let's keep praying for Eiyuden Chronicle to be good
Konami makes most of it's bank with Pachinko and VLT gambling machines I'm pretty sure. The whole gaming section is kind of left behind.
I still hoping there will be Suikoden 6. There are many stories and mysteries not answered and tell.
Damn skies of acadia was a classic
Sakura Wars (2019) wasn't ruined by Final Fantasy 7 Remake. It was ruined by not being Sakura Wars. Sakura Wars was originally a turn based strategy game that had the development of the various Combat Revues (Kagekidans) as they faced the oncoming demon invasions around the world. New Sakura Wars started off by not only abandoning this premise, but also locking every major character in the franchise so far other than the one retiree inside of Shadow Tokyo, essentially killing them off screen. Once word of this got out, you really started to see the frustration that people had.
What you ended with up isn't something that's a tribute to the original. Instead, it's something more of a perversion as you have an evil clone of the original Sakura running around and the original character only makes a voice cameo during the climax. One game that doesn't resemble the original, one dead mobile game, and one shoddy anime later, nothing has really changed. We aren't any closer to saving the original cast or seeing them back on screen. We haven't had the original cast featured in any way either and it's baffling that they never corrected their course and instead doubled down on the new cast that the original people who supported a revival of the franchise wouldn't have had an interest in.
And then elsewhere, you have Trails into Reverie going strong...
No, it was ruined by Purist like you.
Same thing you guys did to Sakura wars V.
@@Kaimax61 Sakura Wars V was actually Sakura Wars unlike 2019. It was ruined by Sega not caring about their western market. It took them FIVE YEARS to translate the game. The fan translations beat them to it by at least two years.
Sakura Wars 2019 was just a cheap Dynasty Warriors knock off with no stakes.
Maybe becouse Shin Sakura Wars was made for new Western fans who dont played past games (total casuals in musou and Visual Novel genre). And this is first game made by not original studio Red Company, but made by Team Sonic - they didnt created a good Sonic game for years and you expected a good Sakura Wars game from that studio ? They should give SW to Valkyria Chronicles devs, where a large proportion of the employees are former members of the Red Company, not to unexperienced with SW Team Sonic . Also combat change was a bad idea (Valkyria Revolution flashbacks). Musou without RPG elements and progression system is very boring and repetive. And u just cant made musou with teamwork feature from older SW games, this is impossible becouse u cant play all 6 characters in one moment in action game like in turn-based SRPG (in one turn) . I think its still good and fun game, but as i man who played all SW games i understand why fans are mad on that game.
@@ohnosmoarlulcatz Sakura Wars 5 was not translated by SEGA, but by NISA, thats why translation of this game took 5 year. Yes release game on PS2 in 2010 was great idea :)
@@nr2676 Sakura Wars was revived because of a poll conducted by Sega of Japan towards the Japanese audience. It doesn't make sense to use that poll to justify the creation of a game directed at a western audience rather than the target demographic of your poll. It's just another thing to pile onto the dumb decisions made by Sega. And like I've said, they had plenty of time to try to correct this. Yet, their mobile game and anime only doubled down.
I suggest you take a look at how Warriors Orochi is done. It's Musou with a basic framework of teamwork features. Warriors Orochi 3 even featured I think a 5 man Gauntlet Mode (I forget the exact numbers, but it was more than 3) during the PS3 era and you could switch between them as well. You could utilize teammates as assist strikers and team attacks. Warriors All Stars was another twist on this that utilized 1 playable character with 4 assists. Was it crude? Yeah. But Warriors Orochi 3 was 5 years before Sakura Wars 2019 and Warriors All Stars was 2 years before.
Considering Sakura Wars 5 had its numbers fudged by NISA's 9,999+ report rather than a more accurate sales figure, that's not something you should have confidence in. The total figures since then look a little better at about 120k for the west, but not sure if those are accurate numbers for Sakura Wars 5 as it is from VGChartz, which is not a reliable source.
Man the shadow hearts series is one of my favourites, I remember picking up the first one from a local game store in the uk on the recommendation of one of the employees as he knew I liked the final fantasy series, it's great to see it mentioned here!
'Onimush Tactics'
"You probably never heard of this."
'Laughs'
I own and beat it, it's pretty damn good. Even Recruited the optional party member.
Also it seems the recurring theme is "Don't release your game next to big IPs, you dumbass.".
It is more like don't release your game on a tanking system, with literally no fanfare or advertisements of any kind.
@@DKarkarov That also doesn't help.
7:50 Curious, was Fire Emblem a big hit back then? The series was pretty unknown, but I know that Smash Bros Melee brought in a lot of curiosity/excitement because of Roy and Math is SSBM. I wasn't paying attention back then, so no idea if Fire Emblem 7 made a splash on the GBA.
From my understanding, The Blazing Blade did very well both in Japan and in the west which is the main reason why they pushed forward with the Path of Radiance series on the Gamecube. Sadly, they didn't get the success they wanted with those titles and after a few more misses, were in danger of Nintendo pulling the plug on the series until Awakening released and basically saved the franchise.
FE wasn't known because it wasn't released outside Japan before BB
I loved Suikoden V, the characters were something really special for me. If they make a Switch re-release of it, even without many improvements, Id still pick it up and play the hell out of it.
I also loved Tokyo Xanadu, but it was in fact the game that made me realize I was a Falcom fanboy, so little wonder.
I think I read somewhere that part of what stands in the way of a Suikoden V digital release has something to do with voice over contracts. I wish it would come though. I had to sell my game collection, due to homelessness, and getting a copy now costs so freaking much. I have also had terrible luck trying to emulate it.
The graphics for Suikoden V were about the best cel graphics for the time as well. It blew most of the competition out of the water. Looked way better then Star Ocean sprites.
All the games I wanna play come out at the same time, which really sucks for RPGs.
All throughout this video I could picture Square and Nintendo as kings seated on their thrones with Atlus at their right hand as archduke, and all of the other JRPGs from the other companies rising to challenge them for the throne only to be completely, utterly, and mercilessly crushed.
No marketing + bad release date + new IP (in West) + low budget game = bad sales
Tokyo Xanadu I bought day one for Vita and never regretted. Nowadays any Falcom game that gets released now I will buy day one to make sure to support Falcom
Man, the 90s to 2000s must've been hell for JRPGs not made by Square Enix.
Eyyyy, love seeing Asuka get the thumbnail! Love to see it! Also yeah, poor game, had such a chance to be big, but nothing can compete with Xenoblade. Lol. Let's hope one day TX gets a sequel and another chance at life.
Tokyo xanadu 2 would be a blessing from falcom
@@IThinkIStoleYourSandwich It would, would love that so much
Fun fact Tales of Destiny on the ps1 is actually capable of 2 player and also a special ring that allows you to perform all the special attacks without going in options to change them arouind with street fighter like moves during the battle.
Shadow Hearts is such an amazing game series plus Shaodw Hearts 3 is such a silly game but cool with its weird mechanics
Holy shit, these are some cursed releases.
Loved shadow hearts. I played 2 first then was lucky enough to find 1 and able to play through it. Wished the series could come back it was great.
Kuro no Kiseki got wrecked by Tales of Arise in Japan sadly.
Tales of Arise dope gotta finish that playing shadowverse champion battle
Getting it on Thursday, just finished up Xillia 1 to make room for it.
Well, Falcom's not as big as Bandai Namco unfortunately. They feel like the underdog at this point.
They might go back to waifu simulator cause it sells...
7:12 Aw man, such a nostalgia bomb to see the gang from Onimusha 2 on the cover. I was so sad when the next Onimusha game came out because even though they brought back Samanosuke the series just abandoned Ekei, Magoichi, Kotaro, and Oyu.
Some of these really need some loving and our man Erick is here to deliver! Good stuff!
Man I hope some of the other Langrisser games get a remake like 1 and 2. Just please, please pleeeeeease give us some quality of live improvement. There´s 0 reason to slowly hover over every enemy that won´t even move yet when some modern games like FE let you skip whole enemy fases with by pressing one button.
Idk if it's too soon but more recently, I actually think NEO: TWEWY might be able to fit on this list. I heard it only sold 28k copies its first week in japan whereas the original game sold 84k copies in its first week.
Monster Hunter Stories 2, Ys IX (PC/Switch versions), and FF1-3 Pixel remasters all launched around the same time as NEO: TWEWY which gave it a lot of competition from what it looks like.
Also with zelda skyward sword hd along the way
From what I heard, the bad localization choices and lack of marketing killed it way more than the other games that launched at the same time. I'm a Squeenix fan and at least pay attention to what they put out, and even I didn't know NEO TWEWY even existed until 4 days ago.
@@koxame um zelda isn't a rpg...
Just goes to show how much of a juggernaut the FF games were during the PS1 era. When it came to sales they were easily the kings back then. No one could touch them.
Tales of Destiney Director's Cut on PS2 has an excellent fan translation by the way, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to play that game.
If only I could figure out how to get a working ps2 emulator on my computer
@@sharebear421 Pcsx2, what gives you trouble?
@@Fermin-hw5pd it’s a lot more complicated than getting something like a gba or snes emulator going idk. Just too high tech for my dumbass
I'll wait until it's 100% translated.
smt 3 aka nocturne was the first smt main line game to be released in the Us it wasn't really on the radar for the US audience at the time. Unfortnate it got over shadowed by other titles due to release dates.
Unique title.
Ruined seems like the wrong word when it’s mostly about poorly timed western releases
I recently played Tokyo Xanadu eX+ on my livestream to kill time before Tales of Arise came out and I loved it! It really is a shame it was such a commercial failure, cause I would have loved to see more of this.
Agreed, I played it earlier this year and loved it from start to finish
This is another reason why Grandblue fantasy Re-link RPG hasn't come out yet aside from the pandemic slowing it down too, they didn't want to release it close to final fantasy 7 remake, so they will hopefully before remake part 2 comes out.
Hey, Eric! Are you keeping up to date with the Destiny DC fan translation as well as the Tales of Abyss HD project?
I keep wishing for Skies of Arcadia to get a digital rerelease, it was one of my childhood favourites. I'd love to play it again.
i remember when xenogears was ruined by FF7 and it deserves to be Remade into the game it should have been.
That's one thing I *CANNOT* stand in the last 5 years or so -- at times 3 or 4 games release on the same day as a AAA title. I do not remember that happening as often back in the Electronics Boutique days (pre-Gamestop). Now there'll be 2 or 3 lesser known titles released on the very day as a AAA title, then one wonders why the lesser known ones didn't sell well. Hello! Game Republic would still be around with a Folklore sequel if it wasn't for Sony knowing that it was the PS3's fault the 1st Folklore didn't sell.
If they make a brushed up TX Definitive Edition and release it on Switch it would actually be so good.
Wild Arms 2 is one of the best RPGs in the series, but I have no idea why it wasn't big outside Japan. Feels like it must of had bad timing like the others but I don't know why for sure.
tokyo xanadu was ok.... but HOLY CRAP it would NOT DIE! you have to "beat" the game like 3 times before its ACTUALLY over!
That’s like a classic Falcom move haha
Pretty sure the fact that it was a Dreamcast game was why Skies of Arcadia didn't sell well. Heck if Grandia 2 didn't get ported to PS2 it probably wouldn't have been as well remembered as it was.
Both of those games, as well as phantasy star online, were my top 3 played games on dreamcast. I admit the dreamcast was not my favorite system, but even with later ports I felt it was the best way to play those games. (I just hated the controller and the weird memory cards)
I think Sakura Wars would see a bigger success if they ported it to other console especially PC instead of making it a PS4 exclusive and forcing it to compete with FF7. It's kinda niche but there's always a demand for a Mecha-JRPG games. Persona and Yakuza has seen a huge success with the PC port despite being a rather 'unique' RPG, not sure what stopping them from porting Sakura Wars as well
Reason is simple: Sakura Wars PS4 had lowest budget from all Sakura Wars games. Only opening in Sakura Wars 3 costed arround 3 000 000 $ (in 2001 !!!), its 1/3 budget of PS4 game. In interview they mentioned: Team Sonic must had to choose between ENG dubb or subtiles in multiple languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian). They had to choose subtiles becouse its ofcourse cheaper. Simply they dont had money for porting game.
so what i learned is, final fantasy killed a number of games merely by its over blown fame.
so konami is killing games since its birth, and nintendo proclaiming itself as video games god, killing off all kinds of competition, in short, if you wish to have a chance in life, don't try to fight a pre-existing giant.
The shadow hearts ones hurt 😞
Shadow Hearts was a CRIMINALLY underratted series. Man the first two games were amazing!!!!
As an owner of half of these games, Im glad I delved into the weirder & more obscure games before they got expensive. Now I mostly just play on my Vita/PC through emulation & its a blast. Great video as always.
Had and played all of these when they first dropped. Me and my cousin was heavily into rpgs and Suikoden II is in my top 5 easily. For a long time the Luca Blight boss fight gave me nightmares lol. He was evil af and was a real monster. Taking on 3 six man parties and a duel with Riou. All while being peppered with arrows. The dude literally set himself on fire for his attacks. Everyone thought used a fire rune lol. Great video bro.
I'm playing Tokyo Xanadu is a very good action JRPG.
I laughed when talking about Shadow Hearts Covenant that had to compete with Shin Megami Tensei 3 and Paper Mario, because for me Shadow Hearts Covenant was my most anticipated JRPG in 2004
I hadn't played any Atlus JRPG, and I didn't have Game Cube and I didn't even know about Paper Mario.
I had played the first Shadow Hearts and liked it so much , it was my favorite JRPG franchise from the PS2 era , surpassing even Final Fantasy .
Would Star Ocean 5's developers being pulled from their game to help with FF15 and other games count as a JRPG being ruined by other JRPGs? Also is that story true? I heard somewhere that that was the case.
I think that I found the problem: Pretty much all of these rpgs were released in October, the time where Big Games are released. Forcing them to compete instead of releasing them in February-July when players are looking for something new to play and the competition is much, much less steep.
If Wild Arms 5 had been released a couple of years earlier, it would be considered one of the best RPGs of all time.
Seriously doubt it, they stabbed themselves in the foot just like Capcom did with Breath of Fire by massively changing the games mechanics and not in a good way. I was a die hard wild arms fan, and 5 hours of 4 had me returning it for a trade in at gamestop. By the time 5 showed up the IP had already been shot and left for dead.
I actually finished Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ pretty recently. I really hope we get a second one!
Nice, I really liked it too on PC.
The one game I remember playing and loving was Dual Hearts, a hack and slash game that focused around the concept of dreams and nightmares with the RPG mechanics focusing around leveling all the various weapons you acquired.
It got destroyed by Kingdom Hearts, they came out barely a week apart from each other.
Poor Jeanne D'Arc, one of my favourite strategy RPGs doomed to obscurity!
🥺 well Tecmo Koei has a game called the Hundred years war Jeanne D Arc is in the game its a Strategy beat em up game.
This is a really interesting commentary. I’m just not sure that it matches reality, because in most cases they “competing” games were on separate platforms. Most people didn’t have multiple competing consoles, really just the most affluent, who could afford to buy multiple games in the same month; similarly, those unable to afford multiple consoles wouldn’t have to choose at all. I can’t argue that some of these publishers had some pretty odd timing though, on top of poor localization and marketing efforts. It’s really interesting to revisit all of this in hindsight though. Thanks for making this video! :)
I try and I like Suikoden 2 than Ff7.
I remember when Xanadu EX+ came out on my birthday that year. It looked cool to me so I went to find it. Never did. Wound up buying the special edition a year later and I keep it installed on my PS4 as I think it’s good enough to demand hard drive space.
*If* only they would port Tokyo Xanadu EX+ to modern consoles including the Switch.
I agree same genre on same console will effect each other sales but disagree for difference console.
Funny story about Shadow Hearts. I went to my local EB games to buy Final Fantasy X a couple days after release. Sold out. But what I did find was Shadow Hearts 1, a game I'd literally never heard of before, that quickly became one of my favorite jrpgs of all time, even more than FFX after I eventually played it.
Pokémon Shinning Pearl and Brilliant Diamond are going to be released next week, 7 days after SMTV… hope that won’t affect SMT’s sales
I don't think many people will care about pokemon compare to SMT V which is high anticipated and the graphics plus seeing demon out and about is what everyone wanted from S&S, but didn't get it. Any Pokemon is just the same plot, but SMT is better written.
Diffirent audience. Pokemons are for casuals. Most of Pokemon players dont know even SMT exist or SMT is older brother of Pokemons.
@@outkastshadowking2719 actually Pokémon games are always highly anticipated regardless of their plot or graphics as well. Pokémon are also the most popular JRPGs of all time, every single mainline game sells over 10 million copies, outselling multiple times the most successful game of the Megami Tensei series. Even if we consider that most of the people who are going to buy the Sinnoh remakes are casuals, there is also a huge amount of “hardcore” gamers who really love Pokémon and SMT but can’t get them both, so they’ll have to pick just one. I actually would only buy the Pokémon games if I didn’t have the money to get both.
Man that blows, I thought for sure people pick would a game that's more interesting. I don't like Pokemon games, but just recently played SMT III which is amazing and SMT V is exactly what people wanted from Pokemon Sword & Shield, so crazy to think want a remake over SMT V.
I was that one kid who bought the PS1 and got BOTH Suikoden 2 and Final Fantasy VIII as my first games-- both were definitely special in my heart.
Alternative title: "Final Fantasy casually overshadowing other franchises like it's nobody's business" xD
Wikipedia's North America release date for Suikoden 2 is wrong. It likely came out about a month later. Still fairly close to FF8.
Shadow Hearts ❤️
The funny fact is - back in the day, i just came to the store, to buy myself "somenthing new with amazing story" - and i got myself
"Tales of destiny".
So Tales of destiny is one of my first PS1 games ever. And second JRPG in my life! (First was Lunar). And of course, one of my favourite games of all times.
I was able to buy Parasite Eve much later. And as for the Xenogears - i NEVER seen it in the stores, and so, i was able to play it after the end of PS1 Era - on PC, through emulator.
Me is interested about that cartoon draw of Suikoden 3 and I read the description they have kany characters and stories... So Im buy it.. so my favorite character is Chris Lightfellow and the mysterious girl Sarah.
You should put Neo on here too. Twewy sequel was requested by everyone but was overshadowed by Tales of Arise along with Story of Seasons PooT.
tfw you just got into Suikoden, started loving it, and the only thing you have to look forward to is a Spiritual Successor (Eiyuden Chronicle).
I'm surprised that tales of the abyss' PS2 NA release did not make the list. It was in all of bandai-namco's infinite wisdom set to october 10th, 2006 for it's release date, meaning it was sandwiched between two at the time hyped square-enix releases...valkyrie profile 2 on september 26th 2006 and more importantly final fantasy goddamn 12 on october 31st 2006. Another niche game that could have split attention from the crowd that normally buys these types of games was phantasy star universe, which released on october 24th, 2006. Despite being a damn good game, abyss' sales got dumped on so hard that the PS2 version never saw a release in EU. (Which means they had to wait for the 3DS release to even play it). Tales of abyss definitely deserved better, =(
I personally own Onimushia tactics, Shadow Hearts : Covent and Tokyo Xanadu, it's a bit sad to hear that they lost to other games in the past, I'm just glad I have these games now and there really fun to play ✌️
World of Final Fantasy by Final Fantasy 15 to some extent. Yes, World came out one month before it, but 15 was the way more known game of them. What Square the hell was thinking to release them together?
I'm happy to report I picked up both Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts covenant practically Day 1. The original charmed me with its amazing - for the time - cutscenes. By the time I found out the game was NOT fully voiced - something extremely important to me from 2000 to now - I was committed. THen I found out it was a sequel to Koudelka and that kept me going. Finding out Covenant was a great deal more voice acting I absolutely picked that up and was not disappointed. I did also pick up FInal Fantasy X and Kingdome Hearts 2.
Would have picked up Tokyo Xanidu too since I remembered loving YS games back in the day and it looked interesting. Then I found out it was Japanese only voice acting, which is always an immediate nope for me. ANd yes, I realize that criteria has made me miss out on some greats, and yes, that IS very disappointing.
I got the Langrisser 1&2 remaster but haven't played much because moving each unit individually is a chore when there's no way to just cycle through the units like in fire emblem.
Hey mate, would you mind listing the games in the comments or in the video description? I often listen to your videos while working, space out for a bit and miss the name of the game you are talking about and often cannot rewind right away. Having a written would be useful for these scenarios
I'm actually playing Tokyo Xanadu and, until now, this game is better than P5. The gameplay and soundrack of Tokyo Xanadu are awesome.
Skies of Arcadia is one of the few JRPG's I've fully completed. And I played both versions. It was one of the best I ever played.
Shadow Hearts 1 & 2 were also brilliant.
This is such a creative idea for a top 10 list. Thanks for showing some love to Jeanne D'arc!
1:40 I really liked Tales of Destiny and rented it a few times but if I knew how hard it would have been to get a physical copy (SINCE IT NEVER GETS RELEASED DIGITIALLY IN THE WEST FOR SOME GD REASON!) I would have begged my parents for it instead of waiting till it now sold for over $100...
Lol, all these games I bought ruined by all those games I didn't buy...
Its sad how the Wild Arms series has been abandoned. We don't even have ports of Wild Arms 4 and 5 on PS4, despite Wild Arms 3 being on there.
I found a copy of Tales of Destiny in the dirt, all scratched, in the early 2000`s. That`s how my love for the series started.
I for one did my part for Tokyo Xanadu and Langrisser. I got the LEs for each, which means twice for Xanadu. Admittedly I got the PS4 version years later for $50 but I still got it.
Though what also did Xanadu in was the absolute stupidity in releasing only the base version of it on vita (WITH NO UPDATE DLC) while PS4/ PC got the updated games.
The tales series is awesome. The first one I played was tales of phantasia on the emulator, so I was excited about tales of destiny and destiny 2.
The wild arms series is one of my favorite. I think they went downhill after wild arms 3. The games got too linear with wild arms 4 and the grid like battle system was boring. I will say the music in all the games were good though.
I’m still waiting for at Arcadia to catch on and have games all along the time line.
Ah Shadow hearts 1&2 my favorite JRPGs of all time. I bought part 1 merely out of curiosity and at the time it was dirt cheap. I fell in love and bought part 2 right away. The games were also pretty dam hard jrpgs since you had to time things just right for combat. Part 1 also caught me off guard since the ending you really had to work for did not end up being the canon ending which was a pretty big blow to me lol. As for Tokyo Xanadu and Sakura Wars it also didn't help they were sub only games which decreased their reach as well.
It became the canon ending only AFTER the true ending of SH2. Where yuri goes back in time to make things right
Final Fantasy is the ultimate JRPG killer.
Swear to god
not really they just need to space out the releases better and not come out so close to bigger titles. if a bigger JRPG comes out, just wait a month and half at least b4 releasing yours
Yup, but if Square went bankrupt before they released final fantasy 1, FF series, Chrono series, parasite Eve...etc, wouldn't exist
I'm not sure if this is worth mentioning but I feel like The Last Story goes unmentioned from I have seen. It's one of my favourite games aesthetically speaking and it's a pretty good game with a simply fantastic OST. I never see it mentioned anywhere bar like 2 people with one actually playing it. I think it deserves a re-release on the switch or whatever nintendo console it will come out on.
Too bad that Shadow Hearts was overshadowed by Final Fantasy X, even if Shadow Hearts is a way better game. Same with Shadow Hearts Covenant. Considering Langrisser I&II, there was also the Trials Of Mana remake, which was released later.
I love shadow hearts but it’s no where near as good as ffx imo. Too each their own though!
Agreed. Loved my time with Shadow Hearts, but I couldn't stand FF10.
At the time nothing could stand next to FFX, not only other JRPGs but only few games were better or the same as FFX at the time...
Playing FFX in 2002 was an experience...
I still think FFX is an good game. But yeah. I haven't played Shadow Hearts. Is it better than FF10?
@@jaretco6423 For me it was way better than FFX. But it's easy to say for me, because I didn't really like FFX.
Tokyo Xanadu was a great experience
Suikoden 2 and 3 were my favorite suikodens.
Man Suikoden II...I got it on greatest hits and the only reason I bought it was because I happened to have extra money and recalled someone mentioning that Suikoden had a unique battle system
Growing up in the 90s and buying the majority of these titles day one (only to put them on the back burner :P) the nostalgia was real for me in this one. Also a lot of bad memories of early SCEA's scorn for 2D/sprite based titles, RPGs in particular... it still kills me to this day that we got all 4 Toshinden games in america somehow.
Did Nocturne really mess up Shadow Hearts 2? I though that was the first non Persona SMT game on the west
Well, Jack Bros for the Virtual Boy was the first Megami Tensei released on the West. Nocturne as Eric mentioned didn't mess up Shadow Hearts 2, but Nocturne for a while also got extremely rare and expensive at the time.
Jack Bross Virtual Boy and Revelations Demon Slayer was first SMT games released in West.
Tokyo Xanadu EX+ really started selling during covid from psn sales to physical. It’s one of my favorite jrpgs. Strongly recommend for rpg fans.
2001 & 2004 were so stacked it's not surprising Shadow Hearts I & II wouldn't garner much attention unfortunately. Those were two of the most game changing years for video games of the last 20 years.
I played Tales of Destiny back when it came out. It was really fun and a long adventure. It was the first Tales game I ever played and remains my favorite.