Thanks for this video. You're soothing voice combined with very wise and insightful thoughts just have such a calming vibe. PS3 for me had some good ones like Tales of Grace's F and Eternal Sonata that were standouts. Mostly games like White Knight Chronicles my most disappointing game of all time we're just not very good. I loved Final Fantasy 13 very much. In truth, I played most of my JRPGs on my Vita and 3DS. All the great Dragon Quest games and SMT games. I did plat Trails to Cold Steel 1 on PS3. Again thanks. JRPGs are just so good today.
Sony’s console was more challenging to develop for especially early in PS3 generation. So Jrpg devs went for the handheld. Coupled with the arrival of western rpgs on consoles, as you accurately pointed out. As a die hard jrpg fan since the snes and not knowing a single thing about pc games at the time, seeing a game like skyrim for the first time was soul crushing (i have evolved since lol) Thank you for the words of appreciation for consistent players. We are all passionate!
As a mostly PC gamer since the 90s, the disconnect was real. We in the West got fewer than 20 JRPGs on PC between 1985-2010; consoles were "the" JRPG platforms by far; almost any console you can think of had more JRPGs on its own than PC did from 1985-2010 or so. Thanks to Recettear and some other games, things have changed significantly after 2010, but PC is still "not" the main platform for those kinds of games, simply because it's less popular in Japan... but now they port most games, since some markets (such as here, in most of Europe; or China) are big on PC gaming.
To me, what went wrong for JRPGs were due to a variety of factors. For starters, western titles such as Oblivion, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft were gaining a LOT of traction. And it's gone to the point where people started calling JRPGs dated, slow and restrictive. Please don't get me started on X-Play and how they treated Japanese games to the point where it became xenophobic. I hated that. And yes, you do make some good points especially since some games didn't come to the West. A perfect example would be Square-Enix and Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest had died in the West not once but twice. All we had gotten in the 2000s and 2010s were DQ7 & DQ8. Then in the 2010s we would get handheld remakes of the Xenithian trilogy. Japan got a lot more and it felt... it felt awful. It seriously felt awful. I'm thankful we did get Xenoblade Chronicles because Reggie Fils-Aime was an idiot for not seeing the demand for it. I can go on and on. Seriously. I'm happy that we have plenty of JRPGs now but it felt like a really bad time. Don't get me wrong. Some Western RPGs are fun to play like Fallout 3, ES4 Oblivion, Mass Effect, WoW, etc. I'm more towards JRPGs. They are my comfort food, and I want to make sure I share it with the entire world. Very well done with this video btw.
Wow, this discussion is so well done, thank you for this!! This time and general generation is one that I don't look back at fondly (I've created my own video to that affect), and the lull we experienced with jRPGs is definitely a reason why.
Yeah this was wild time in gaming, so many changes going on simultaneously. I remember when Halo hit the scene and FPS just exploded. JRPG took a hit especially in graphics because the studios couldnt decide adapt and create more realistic art or stick to the anime aesthetic, theres allot games from this era where even if they got nice looking characters, the backround and level design is very barebones and muddy because of it.
Great video! One big symptom of this era was the time when the American vice-president of Capcom left, I can't remember when he left but it should be around 2003-2005. An interview had him mention that Japan's gaming industry was at the top, but the industry was about to be hit hard. These days, JRPGs are recovering from a mix of nostalgia, anime became increasingly mainstream and Western reviewers are increasingly showing their ass which undermines their audience trust in them. Also Western studios lost a lot of talent. It's telling that Space Marine's creator Relic Studios didn't work on Space Marine 2.
Great video, and oddly enough for a topic that's referred to as the PS3/Xbox 360 being the "dark age" of Japanese games let alone JRPGs, which would be worth documenting and discussing as much as the Golden Age (SNES-PS2 era) or the next Golden/Silver Age (late PS4-Switch-current gen era). There's a surprising low amount of videos talking about this subject matter. And yeah there were a lot of attributing factors to this "early 2010" struggle among what you mentioned, like the PS3's hardware architecture was kinda alien to lots of Japanese devs to get around at first, hence why you see a couple come to Xbox 360 first and then PS3 later, and another is that some games aren't entirely lucky to get a western release, due to the Western market being more into FPS, Western RPGs etc, even some Japanese devs bent the knee and either accquired western studios or even made games "catering to Western fans" which well...backfired if Binary Domain and the infamous DMC reboot weren't any indication. And still a lot of the JRPGs released in the generation either A: were solid didn't move the needle a bit or B: were weirdly experimental and not in a good way (Time and Eternity is the worst offender). Among also other mention in the comments, the handheld market was starting to grow So yeah roughly around 2017 was what many point out was a "renaissance with JRPGs let alone with Japanese games, and while not everything was perfect" it was a start, and throughout this new decade we've seen a lot of JRPGs, among also Japanese games and do things to push and also remain fun. Heck, a tableturn from that decade to now is how the Western RPGs (with the exception of Baldurs Gate 3) and FPS, kinda in a weird uphill battle, whether it's rough long dev times with games showing CGI trailers, unpolishedness on launch or stagnation among filled with greediness and trend chasing with the flawed GAAS model and layoffs. Last year at TGA where a lot of the nominees for GOTY were Japanese games, which kinda said a lot
Mobile gaming is a 'big' point that Western journalists/players tend to overlook with regards to Asia. For example, China went mobile + PC gaming largely (consoles were banned for a long time there) and mobile gaming 'especially' brings in a lot of money. In Japan, the most popular platforms are mobile phones + Switch. However, because of that/high development costs, Japanese devs now 'have to' release the console RPGs in English to survive; Japan alone is usually no longer enough, unlike in the 80s/90s when the West - mostly just the US - was just a bonus (and a lot of games stayed in Japan).
I was there during those dark times (yeah I am old) . I remember shows like X play and magazines such as EGM, GamePro, and PSM, and websites such as Kotaku and IGN constantly bashing JRPGs. Even developers such as one of the founders of Bioware and CliffyB who created Gears of War and Unreal Tournament were bashing the genre claiming their games were superior. It was a bad time to be a jrpg fan but there were some bright points including the original release of Persona 3 and 4 on PS2, some of the Tales games which I thought were amazing. It also strengthen my loyalty to the genre because I knew most game critics were going to hate the games I loved anyway and I ended up not focusing on reviews anymore and just followed what I like instead of what a critic told me.
Idk for me, I've always played jrpgs and it never felt like they were missing or lacking (and I never thought western games were better), but I own every gaming system and PC, so that helps. The only major jrpg series that seriously declined in quiality imo is FF.
Great video! I have to agree with you that it was a dark age for JRPGS but man oh man the real saviors on the rise back up was the Tales series and the cult following Operation Rainfall had. Without those games I think it would have been a much longer wait to seeing some fresh ideas. You also had the issue of developers really struggling with the architecture of the PS3 which was unfortunate too. When you stick too close to old traditions it can have diminishing returns to your loyal fans and obviously it pushes away new ones so it was definitely a weird time for overseas game developers. MMOS, 3DS rpgs, and Western RPGs were really holding the genre together around that time.
Great discussion Feji! Ironically, so many DS/PSP JRPGs never got localized, yet most PS3/360 RPGs did. Those handhelds were extensions of the PS2 era for JRPGs, for better and worse. Speaking of localisations, the PS3 era is when companies began localising fanservicey RPGs for the first time (such as Neptunia, Agarest and Ar tonelico). This negatively affected how JRPGs were perceived outside of Japan. It paved the way for all the fanservice games companies localised on the Vita (and that subgenre's evantual decline altogether).
really great points in this video, but not exactly ones i resonate with since i still had a great time with games during this time. the jrpg market wasn’t saturated with games the way it is now ( don’t get me wrong, i love the sheer abundance of jrpgs these days!), but there was still a feeling of having time to enjoy your games and the idea of the backlog was non existent. i loved buying AND finishing games like ffxiii, star ocean 4, eternal sonata, blue dragon, lost odyssey and tales of vesperia.
I never understood the people who said bad things about jrpgs around the 2010s. There are absolute bangers like Arc Rise Fantasia that came out then. :) Although now we all know the critics at websites like Kotaku are bought-and-paid shills. They'll tell you Concord is a 7/10 then tell you every jrpg is a 3/10. All the honest reviewers like Jeff Gertzman have gotten fired from sites like Gamespot for being honest. (The youtube channel MagicMush has a video covering this called "The Most Embarrassing Moments in Gaming Journalism.")
The xenophobia in response to Japan's rise can't be ignored. That was a problem outside of gaming since the '80s, but it became just as obvious in gaming after the success of games like FFVII, especially taking off during the years of the PS2, with examples still being seen today like the dismissive attitude some devs had toward Elden Ring. Also, calling FFXV some kind of comeback for the series is pretty funny when it not only started as a spinoff, but is inarguably one of the worst games in the franchise specifically for how it handled the aspects you mention.
Yes my least favorite generation, I honestly even dropped videogames for a few years only to go back in 2016 to now. Even the JRPGs that came out in that generation that people praised I didn't like them: Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Ni No Kuni, Blue Dragon.. these games weren't bad but weren't great either. The only RPG that truly was amazing was Xenoblade, most other good RPGs were on DS/PSP.
Just came across your channel randomly and subbed after this video!! love the cozy content here, I feel so cozy 🥰🥰
Thanks for this video. You're soothing voice combined with very wise and insightful thoughts just have such a calming vibe. PS3 for me had some good ones like Tales of Grace's F and Eternal Sonata that were standouts. Mostly games like White Knight Chronicles my most disappointing game of all time we're just not very good. I loved Final Fantasy 13 very much. In truth, I played most of my JRPGs on my Vita and 3DS. All the great Dragon Quest games and SMT games. I did plat Trails to Cold Steel 1 on PS3. Again thanks. JRPGs are just so good today.
Sony’s console was more challenging to develop for especially early in PS3 generation. So Jrpg devs went for the handheld.
Coupled with the arrival of western rpgs on consoles, as you accurately pointed out.
As a die hard jrpg fan since the snes and not knowing a single thing about pc games at the time, seeing a game like skyrim for the first time was soul crushing (i have evolved since lol)
Thank you for the words of appreciation for consistent players. We are all passionate!
As a mostly PC gamer since the 90s, the disconnect was real. We in the West got fewer than 20 JRPGs on PC between 1985-2010; consoles were "the" JRPG platforms by far; almost any console you can think of had more JRPGs on its own than PC did from 1985-2010 or so. Thanks to Recettear and some other games, things have changed significantly after 2010, but PC is still "not" the main platform for those kinds of games, simply because it's less popular in Japan... but now they port most games, since some markets (such as here, in most of Europe; or China) are big on PC gaming.
To me, what went wrong for JRPGs were due to a variety of factors.
For starters, western titles such as Oblivion, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft were gaining a LOT of traction. And it's gone to the point where people started calling JRPGs dated, slow and restrictive. Please don't get me started on X-Play and how they treated Japanese games to the point where it became xenophobic. I hated that.
And yes, you do make some good points especially since some games didn't come to the West. A perfect example would be Square-Enix and Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest had died in the West not once but twice. All we had gotten in the 2000s and 2010s were DQ7 & DQ8. Then in the 2010s we would get handheld remakes of the Xenithian trilogy. Japan got a lot more and it felt... it felt awful. It seriously felt awful.
I'm thankful we did get Xenoblade Chronicles because Reggie Fils-Aime was an idiot for not seeing the demand for it. I can go on and on. Seriously. I'm happy that we have plenty of JRPGs now but it felt like a really bad time. Don't get me wrong. Some Western RPGs are fun to play like Fallout 3, ES4 Oblivion, Mass Effect, WoW, etc. I'm more towards JRPGs. They are my comfort food, and I want to make sure I share it with the entire world.
Very well done with this video btw.
Microsoft seriously need to get off their ass and remaster Lost Odyssey
I really want to play that game! I hope they make it multi platform
and Blue Dragon.
Wow, this discussion is so well done, thank you for this!! This time and general generation is one that I don't look back at fondly (I've created my own video to that affect), and the lull we experienced with jRPGs is definitely a reason why.
Yeah this was wild time in gaming, so many changes going on simultaneously. I remember when Halo hit the scene and FPS just exploded. JRPG took a hit especially in graphics because the studios couldnt decide adapt and create more realistic art or stick to the anime aesthetic, theres allot games from this era where even if they got nice looking characters, the backround and level design is very barebones and muddy because of it.
Great video! One big symptom of this era was the time when the American vice-president of Capcom left, I can't remember when he left but it should be around 2003-2005. An interview had him mention that Japan's gaming industry was at the top, but the industry was about to be hit hard.
These days, JRPGs are recovering from a mix of nostalgia, anime became increasingly mainstream and Western reviewers are increasingly showing their ass which undermines their audience trust in them. Also Western studios lost a lot of talent. It's telling that Space Marine's creator Relic Studios didn't work on Space Marine 2.
Astute analysis! This was cool.
Great video, and oddly enough for a topic that's referred to as the PS3/Xbox 360 being the "dark age" of Japanese games let alone JRPGs, which would be worth documenting and discussing as much as the Golden Age (SNES-PS2 era) or the next Golden/Silver Age (late PS4-Switch-current gen era). There's a surprising low amount of videos talking about this subject matter.
And yeah there were a lot of attributing factors to this "early 2010" struggle among what you mentioned, like the PS3's hardware architecture was kinda alien to lots of Japanese devs to get around at first, hence why you see a couple come to Xbox 360 first and then PS3 later, and another is that some games aren't entirely lucky to get a western release, due to the Western market being more into FPS, Western RPGs etc, even some Japanese devs bent the knee and either accquired western studios or even made games "catering to Western fans" which well...backfired if Binary Domain and the infamous DMC reboot weren't any indication. And still a lot of the JRPGs released in the generation either A: were solid didn't move the needle a bit or B: were weirdly experimental and not in a good way (Time and Eternity is the worst offender). Among also other mention in the comments, the handheld market was starting to grow
So yeah roughly around 2017 was what many point out was a "renaissance with JRPGs let alone with Japanese games, and while not everything was perfect" it was a start, and throughout this new decade we've seen a lot of JRPGs, among also Japanese games and do things to push and also remain fun. Heck, a tableturn from that decade to now is how the Western RPGs (with the exception of Baldurs Gate 3) and FPS, kinda in a weird uphill battle, whether it's rough long dev times with games showing CGI trailers, unpolishedness on launch or stagnation among filled with greediness and trend chasing with the flawed GAAS model and layoffs. Last year at TGA where a lot of the nominees for GOTY were Japanese games, which kinda said a lot
I see the foundation of a great channel, you are doing great.
@@AJGameDevLog Couldn't agree more. Appreciate all the research and hard work.
Mobile gaming is a 'big' point that Western journalists/players tend to overlook with regards to Asia. For example, China went mobile + PC gaming largely (consoles were banned for a long time there) and mobile gaming 'especially' brings in a lot of money. In Japan, the most popular platforms are mobile phones + Switch. However, because of that/high development costs, Japanese devs now 'have to' release the console RPGs in English to survive; Japan alone is usually no longer enough, unlike in the 80s/90s when the West - mostly just the US - was just a bonus (and a lot of games stayed in Japan).
You just unlocked why I don't like voice acting in games 🤯
Great retrospective.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! 😊
I was there during those dark times (yeah I am old) . I remember shows like X play and magazines such as EGM, GamePro, and PSM, and websites such as Kotaku and IGN constantly bashing JRPGs. Even developers such as one of the founders of Bioware and CliffyB who created Gears of War and Unreal Tournament were bashing the genre claiming their games were superior. It was a bad time to be a jrpg fan but there were some bright points including the original release of Persona 3 and 4 on PS2, some of the Tales games which I thought were amazing. It also strengthen my loyalty to the genre because I knew most game critics were going to hate the games I loved anyway and I ended up not focusing on reviews anymore and just followed what I like instead of what a critic told me.
as a jrgp girlie i'm so happy I found your channel.
oh what's the name of the intro song? it sounds familiar.
Idk for me, I've always played jrpgs and it never felt like they were missing or lacking (and I never thought western games were better), but I own every gaming system and PC, so that helps. The only major jrpg series that seriously declined in quiality imo is FF.
Unpopular opinion, they startedgoing downhill in the PS2 era.
I loved this retrospective. I think jrpgs have really come a long way and I'm so glad they were able to evolve and keep up in the modern era
Great video! I have to agree with you that it was a dark age for JRPGS but man oh man the real saviors on the rise back up was the Tales series and the cult following Operation Rainfall had. Without those games I think it would have been a much longer wait to seeing some fresh ideas. You also had the issue of developers really struggling with the architecture of the PS3 which was unfortunate too. When you stick too close to old traditions it can have diminishing returns to your loyal fans and obviously it pushes away new ones so it was definitely a weird time for overseas game developers. MMOS, 3DS rpgs, and Western RPGs were really holding the genre together around that time.
Great discussion Feji! Ironically, so many DS/PSP JRPGs never got localized, yet most PS3/360 RPGs did. Those handhelds were extensions of the PS2 era for JRPGs, for better and worse. Speaking of localisations, the PS3 era is when companies began localising fanservicey RPGs for the first time (such as Neptunia, Agarest and Ar tonelico). This negatively affected how JRPGs were perceived outside of Japan. It paved the way for all the fanservice games companies localised on the Vita (and that subgenre's evantual decline altogether).
Glad I didn't really play video games from like 2010 to 2020. RPG fans were down bad for a while there.
We’re still down bad in a way. It’s great but Far far from SNES- PS1-PS2 level of excellence.
really great points in this video, but not exactly ones i resonate with since i still had a great time with games during this time. the jrpg market wasn’t saturated with games the way it is now ( don’t get me wrong, i love the sheer abundance of jrpgs these days!), but there was still a feeling of having time to enjoy your games and the idea of the backlog was non existent. i loved buying AND finishing games like ffxiii, star ocean 4, eternal sonata, blue dragon, lost odyssey and tales of vesperia.
So good
I never understood the people who said bad things about jrpgs around the 2010s. There are absolute bangers like Arc Rise Fantasia that came out then. :)
Although now we all know the critics at websites like Kotaku are bought-and-paid shills. They'll tell you Concord is a 7/10 then tell you every jrpg is a 3/10. All the honest reviewers like Jeff Gertzman have gotten fired from sites like Gamespot for being honest. (The youtube channel MagicMush has a video covering this called "The Most Embarrassing Moments in Gaming Journalism.")
The xenophobia in response to Japan's rise can't be ignored. That was a problem outside of gaming since the '80s, but it became just as obvious in gaming after the success of games like FFVII, especially taking off during the years of the PS2, with examples still being seen today like the dismissive attitude some devs had toward Elden Ring.
Also, calling FFXV some kind of comeback for the series is pretty funny when it not only started as a spinoff, but is inarguably one of the worst games in the franchise specifically for how it handled the aspects you mention.
Yes my least favorite generation, I honestly even dropped videogames for a few years only to go back in 2016 to now. Even the JRPGs that came out in that generation that people praised I didn't like them: Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Ni No Kuni, Blue Dragon.. these games weren't bad but weren't great either. The only RPG that truly was amazing was Xenoblade, most other good RPGs were on DS/PSP.