Top 10 JRPGs RUINED by Other JRPGs
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- These 10 JRPGs were released on the wrong date. Other major JRPGs were released around the same time too and they practically ruined what little chance they had to succeed.
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"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
@@dangelojohnson1744 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
@@dangelojohnson1744 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.
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.
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."
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''.
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
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.
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!
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.
Hey, Eric! Are you keeping up to date with the Destiny DC fan translation as well as the Tales of Abyss HD project?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Damn skies of acadia was a classic
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.
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.
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.
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
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
@@jahboidb It would, would love that so much
'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.
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
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.
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 ✌️
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.
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.
Shadow Hearts is such an amazing game series plus Shaodw Hearts 3 is such a silly game but cool with its weird mechanics
Wow this was a great video. I still will always be in shock how the Suikoden series wasn’t as popular in the west as It should’ve been ! 😤
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
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 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.
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
If they make a brushed up TX Definitive Edition and release it on Switch it would actually be so good.
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.
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...
This is such a creative idea for a top 10 list. Thanks for showing some love to Jeanne D'arc!
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.
Man, the 90s to 2000s must've been hell for JRPGs not made by Square Enix.
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.
it's funny, many of these I had on release and enjoyed them. Though I didn't get Shadow Hearts until much later, and I still haven't gotten the later Wild Arms games. Still lots of good memories about having so many games. I don't know how I managed to play so many. I look at my shelf now and wonder where the time goes lol
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Hey, you should make this a series, it was great fun and anger, 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)
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?
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.
I’m still waiting for at Arcadia to catch on and have games all along the time line.
Holy shit, these are some cursed releases.
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.
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.
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.
Unique title.
Ruined seems like the wrong word when it’s mostly about poorly timed western releases
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...
I actually finished Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ pretty recently. I really hope we get a second one!
Nice, I really liked it too on PC.
@3:16 I never knew you could recruit Futch and Humphrey before Jowy left the party. 😮
It can be matilda gate glitch or cheat
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.
Shadow Hearts ❤️
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 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.
Wikipedia's North America release date for Suikoden 2 is wrong. It likely came out about a month later. Still fairly close to FF8.
Thanks Erick 10/10 as always! Yea I beat Onimusha Tactics when it came out because I'm a total srpg mark. Fun game. Not great but really good I thought
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.
Most of those games I've never heard of because they weren't released in Germany back then and I quit consoles before they had those digital re-releases. And that is also true for some of the games that crushed the other games. Just never heard of most of the series until recently. But I do own the GC version of Skies of Arcadia. I remember I had just finished Wind Waker and FF Crystal Chronicles had been delayed and I was looking for another single player game to last me until it comes out. So I was in the game section of a local store looking through the games they had and thought, hey that looks kinda cool. So I bought it. Liked the sky pirate theme and that you had some boss battles that were fought with the ships. Haven't played it since I finished the story. Did buy Chrystal Chronicles later but never finished it, because it was lacking something, can't tell exactly what. But it disappointed me. Like most Square-Enix games since the fusion. Today I'd rather give any obscure game a chance before I buy another Squenix game.
Tokyo Xanadu eX+(PC version) was my first Falcom game, because all of their other games are part of a longer running series and I wasn't ready for that yet.
I enjoyed Tokyo Xanadu. I really hope they continue the series. Starting the Trials games is what got it on my radar.
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.
It really, REALLY bothered me that in the tales of destiny clip, Stahn name was changed to Rutee. I know this has nothing to do with the video, but I had to pause and see if I wanst going crazy. Interesting video 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.
It became the canon ending only AFTER the true ending of SH2. Where yuri goes back in time to make things right
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
Shadow Hearts was a CRIMINALLY underratted series. Man the first two games were amazing!!!!
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.
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.
thanks for sharing these games that i don't know. I appreciate it. and gladly to learn more about JRPG.
My wife really loved Shadow Hearts. She also played Covenant. I didn't get around to it. Was too busy with FFX.
/*starting to write down shadow hearts*
it's always nice to find hidden gems~ :3
but man it's really unfortunate how a few months earlier or later can almost kill a serie....
I personally love Skies of Arcadia much more than FF9. And I owned the Dreamcast version. It's still to this day a top contender for my all time favorite game. (Which will probably always be Legend of Dragoon with the best character, Lavitz!)
I really like hearing your comments on JRPGs. Keeps me interested! Working on Dragon Quest XI now.
I agree same genre on same console will effect each other sales but disagree for difference console.
Final Fantasy VII Remake shouldn't even be counted as a downside since, if you look at all releases in 2020, you'll notice that major releases were avoiding being in January, the initial release month of FF7R. As the release schedule was exposed for several months at the end of 2019, January only really had two or three major releases, being FF7R, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. The problem came in the fact that FF7R got delayed again and again, essentially becoming this floating guillotine waiting to destroy any given month it landed in. It just so happened to land in April, which dealt a major blow to Sakura Wars and Langrisser I&II, but moreso for Sakura Wars. In fact, FF7R landing in April may have even damaged Square Enix, since they themselves had another major title coming out in April, Trials of Mana, which also got buried underneath FF7R's hype.
However, what you completely neglect to mention is there was multiple high profile games that could have killed Langrisser I&II. Persona 5 Strikers released on February 20th, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX on March 6th, and PC players finally got Trails of Cold Steel III on March 23rd. And as if that isn't bad enough, a non-RPG from Nintendo was the death knell later in March, when Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched alongside Doom Eternal on March 20th. Animal Crossing itself became a massive hit, as people needed something light hearted like it during the height of quarantine to bring a little joy into their lives. And Doom Eternal was the highly anticipated sequel to the truly sublime 2016 reboot, which some people might argue was one of the only things that kept Bethesda afloat since then.
Caught in between all of these major releases, Langrisser didn't stand a chance. Especially since, being honest, Langrisser lacks any form of western recognition. It's just not a high profile name in the west, while everything surrounding it were long running franchises with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fans.
So I bought Tokyo Xanadu EX+ for sale a while back while I was on a Falcom binge from Ys and Trails but only got around to it about a month ago
Definitely enjoyed it a lot which I guess was me being biased after finished their two more popular game series
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.
All I'm learning here is all these great RPG's that I'm probably never going to be able to get my hands on. It's a Miracle Shadow Hearts appeared in a used games store a month ago and I managed to nab it.
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.
Tokyo Xanadu is the game that single handedly got me into JRPGs again. Before, I was stuck on the mindset of "they're too long for me". But some day (feel free to judge me xD) I saw it on Steam while scrolling across, and... well... (again, feel free to judge me) I checked it out because I thought Asuka looked hekkin good. No, seriously tho, that's the sole reason I clicked on that game. I looked at the gameplay, thought it looked quite neat, but it was another JRPG that would probably be way too long for me. And, today I can say: Yes, it was just as long if not longer as I expected back then.
I didn't get it at first, but gave it a shot when it was on sale like half a year later. I played it, felt like it was way too clishée, and while I liked the gameplay, it didn't hook me enough and didn't play it for like... close to two years?
Then, some day I just randomly felt licke picking it up again. And went into it with a much more open mindset. And BOY was I hooked! That game was close to all I played for the next weeks. And it was the first time in ages I actually held off on finishing a game... just because I didn't want it to be over!
But I couldn't hold myself too long and finished it. Loved it. And I looked into the publisher to find other games of the same style. Which led me to discovering Ys VIII, which I like at least as much and which I am close to completing right now.
Long story short, it is an amazing game that I had never heard before, from a publisher I never played a game from before, and it totally reignited my love for JRPGs.
EDIT: Oh, and also, I WANT A FRICKIN SEQUEL. Ys is amazing and very close from it's gameplay, but not quite the same. The story of TX was closed off pretty well, but there was also nothing that would totally close the door to the labyrinths ever appearing again. And the organisations Asuka and Mitsuki were in also didn't get too much detail. While I'd adore getting a sequel where the cast returns, I'd totally also take a sequel with a new cast, in a new area, with a completely new story in the same world.
As a dreamcast owner, I am grateful I could enjoy Skies of Arcadia.
I still wish for a remaster sometimes.
All the games I wanna play come out at the same time, which really sucks for RPGs.
Alternative title: "Final Fantasy casually overshadowing other franchises like it's nobody's business" xD
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.
I loved Tokyo Xanadu ex+! I bought both the PS4 and Windows copy cause I loved it so much. It's a great game and more people should totally check it out! Now that I think about it considering the circumstances of each game in this list the title could be 'JRPS that got screwed over by other JPGS'.
The only Play Station console I own is the Vita, so I only have the Vita version of Tokyo Xanadu, both imported and localized, played both multiple times. Love the game.
I have to highly recommend both Tokyo Xanadu and the Langrisser 1 + 2 remakes. Tokyo Xanadu is a game made by Falcom that to me at least sort of combines two of their other IPs. It looks and feels like the Trails of Cold Steel series but plays a lot like Ys. Very fantastic. Now for Langrisser I never played any of the originals unfortunately so I can't properly compare them. What I can do however is give a perspective from someone who only discovered it less than a year ago. If you are a fan of classic Tactical RPGs like Vandal Hearts or just the Tactical RPG genre in general you will enjoy this game. The multiple pathways ( I heard those are new?) and variety of character builds keeps the game fresh and entertaining.