Are JRPGs Bound For Mainstream Success Again?

For years, JRPG fans have largely endured somewhat of a dark age. Sure, there’s been some diamonds in the rough with titles like Persona 4, Valkyrie Profile, and Ni No Kuni moving the genre in a positive direction, but there’s been no consistency, and for every decent game, there have been ten mediocre ones either side. Inklings, however, of a brighter and more positive JRPG scene – a future where the spirit of quality JRPGs might once again become the norm – seems to be a sentiment that is rapidly gaining traction. Hell, we’ve even got a new developer called Tokyo RPG Factory with a mission statement to match.

[TheHip14]

Big fan of what Tokyo RPG Factory has been doing lately.

[Idiedgoodbye]

JRPG's need to return to the old way's not go full GTA.

[madhouse02]

Persona 5 will be huge. Some people are even bold enough to claim it's going to outsell FFXV. I'm not so sure but it's probably going to be a better game..

[Loktai]

Yeah online it seems games like Persona have loud fans and then lots of people parroting how good the games are by word of mouth. the US ps2 release of Persona 4, and the vita release of Persona combined probably haven't sold half the number of copies as even one of the FF13 trilogy games... P4 is rare to find in people's collections but Goin by the internet you'd think it sold 5 mil easy in the west. it's a great series and Day 1 for me... but I don't think anybody should expect it to outsell final fantasy unless Sony advertises the game heavily which I would be shocked to see.

[ULTp0ltergeist]

Deluasional, Jrpgs isn't a thing anymore aside from FF. That's why Deus Ex would have a sure release compared to FF being delayed again. Fact is "western" RPGs have been too big of a success and on multiple successful titles for anyone to focus on what Persona has to offer or some title that has loud people online talk about it's potential success yet the majority of US has no clue the title even exists. That era died off with PS2.

[Movefasta1993]

How big is persona in japan?I have never played a persona game before,mainly because in the ps2 era,the only way id know about a game was by going to the local blockbuster and looking at the pictures of the box art and thinking 'hmm this looks cool' and obviously everyone knew about gta and other big games...Luckily i picked some classics,but i don't ever remember seeing a persona game in a london store. Hopefully they release a hd collection or something.Id like to buy a cheap vita to play 4 but 1 game isn't good enough for me.

[Adrian_v01]

The Persona 2 games and Persona 3 were incredible in both gameplay and story. While the gameplay of Persona 4 was very fun and addicting, the story was meh compared to prior titles. The same it seems will happen with Persona 5. While I'm sure the gameplay will be a blast, I'm not really sure about the story.

[Imalwaysright]

I don't think it will outsell FF15 but I have no doubt that I will enjoy it much more than FF15

[gamerpop]

I can't see it ever being like it was in the 90s.. just because back then we didnt have western rpgs and the fps genre wasnt big on consoles. That being said, the genre seems to be on the rise again to some extent. Looking forward to playing Persona 5 and seeing what Square have done to FFXV.

[NapalmSanctuary]

Don't see what WRPGs and FPSs have to do with it. As long as the games are good to great they will have a shot at main stream popularity.

[gamerpop]

They have everything to do with it.. consoles didn't have fps games in the 90s, now they do and they're the most popular genre.. so that has taken away interest in jrpgs. In the 90s jrpgs were mainstream, they were played by everyone.. but now kids run out to buy COD. WRPGs are easier for people to get along with.. much more approachable than menu heavy JRPGs, so they have also detracted attention and stolen some of the market share.

[Loktai]

unfortunately not always so. for one thing the western popularity coupled with eastern shunning of the XBOX has reduced the potential fan base for JRPGs, they do get JRPGs but far fewer than other consoles. that makes one factor... next it has to do with the Hollywood style push in games and popularity of certain genera overshadowing others. yes great games will be popular with their target audiences but people have limited mindspace, money, time, exposure. if there are three airhorns blasting on all frequencies, CALL OF DUTY, FALLOUT, ELDER SCROLLS, OVERWATCH, etc people don't notice things like trails of cold steel, setsuna, tales games, with the increased cost of game production a limited fanbase makes it less likely for a company to dump a ton of money and time into making fancier RPGS like final fantasy , Persona and etc and you'll see a lot more rpgs on the lower end of the spectrum. for a fan of JRPGs, this ga me being not that pretty or not having much voice acting or not having motion capture for movement doesn't make or break the game. .. but try to sell that game to a mass market on the shelf next to a game with a huge budget because they intend to sell 10 mil copies across all platforms and it looks flat and dated. it's a cycle that keeps becoming more severe as technology allows more detail and time needed to develop fancier games increases.

[ULTp0ltergeist]

That won't happen anymore and on top of that their own base in Japan has eroded since everyone is mobile there. Point is no one is into the whole weaboo rpg art style and heavy menu use anymore, if anything it's western RPG gamers who dictate the RPG market now, example Dark Souls a huge hit from Japan yet it's not JRPG in the sense of what we know a JRPG to be.

[NapalmSanctuary]

@gamerpop there were a bunch of FPSs on ps1. Some really good ones too like Medal of Honor and MoH:Underground, not to mention Doom, Quake etc.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

The problem is that there weren't many good JRPGs during the ps3 era like there was during the ps1/ps2 days. If they start pumping out some high quality JRPGs we will be back there again. Buying from one genre doesn't preclude the player buying from other genres.

[rainslacker]

The media decided that JRPG's in general weren't innovative enough compared to WRPG and FPS games, and they were panned pretty heavily all of last gen. Some of them deserved to be panned, but many just got no notice, or downrated due to being what they were supposed to be. Now, the mantra is criticizing the overly objectifying ones, and making it seem like that's what most of what the genre has to offer, instead of just taking each IP as it's own thing. Some stand outs like FF, Persona, and more recently Ni No Kuni, stand out and don't get this stigma, but in general, the idea of cute anime-ish characters is not looked fondly on anymore as graphics have moved to be more realistic.

I wouldn't say there weren't very may good JRPG's during the PS3 days, but it was certainly nowhere near the proliferation that we saw during the PS1 and definitely nowhere near as many as we saw during the PS2 days, and during the PS3 days, there was a larger increase in the more objectifying lower budget types which made up the bulk of the JRPG library that ever made it west, namely due to companies like Atlus and NISA, as the other publishing studios tended to shy away from bringing over the larger, more competent JRPG's.

[basilboxer]

They certainly are at the end of this year.. the delay for FFXV probably will help the game given that Persona 5 would have stolen sales in Japan anyway.

[DrierofLeaves]

Did this article ignore the success of RPGs like Fire Emblem and Xenoblade?

[Kalebninja]

Xenoblade is niche, X hasnt even broken a million sales and chronicles only managed to after it re-released on 3ds, and it may have only sold the copies it did on 3ds because it was the only noteworthy new 3ds exclusive. Only two Fire Emblem games could be considered successful but only one has cracked 2 million copies which cant be considered mainstream. When games like Persona 5, Final Fantasy XV, and Kingdom Hearts 3 are coming with the potential to sell 5+ million copies each, that's mainstream.

[Darkwatchman]

Ummm those are far from mainstream, man. Ask a random casual consumer on the street about either of those and they'll look at you funny.

[andibandit]

*crickets chirping*

[PaleMoonDeath]

Ni No Kuni won my wee heart, sequel cometh.

[zcmilano]

It's going to be a big 12 months for JRPGs. I'm confident they are going to be appreciated by a larger volume of western gamers after FFXV and Persona 5 get people talking.

[joab777]

It depends...are any of them ever going to release? P5 and FF15 will launch the genre back to the forefront, giving other games more prominence, but they must first actually be available for purchase

[BlaqMagiq1]

I don't really care if they don't get mainstream success. As long as they satisfy the fanbase it's aiming at that's what the companies should be worried about. A lot of JRPGs have been satisfying me as of late.

[Relientk77]

Mainstream or not I'm still playing them. Can't wait for Trails of Cold Steel 2 in a couple weeks and Final Fantasy 15 in the holiday season

[j15reed]

They will always gimp there sales by not releasing to Xbox, I can understand the small studio thing but when you have 40 Jrpg games releasing only on Playstation 75% of them are going to get lost in the sauce.

[rainslacker]

To date, there have been no high profile, high budget JRPG's released on the PS4. Best we've had so far is a remaster of Valkyria Chronicles and FFX. FFXV and P5 are the first real high profile high budget games, with Ni No Kuni coming in later. Even after that, there isn't a lot that's been announced. The rest are low-mid budget JRPG's, mostly in the niche categories outside a few standout titles like Legend of Heroes or Ys.

For the most part, the JRPG's that release, are successful, mostly because they aren't big budget, and sell enough to warrant their production.

Releasing them on Xbox would be a thing, but since the games themselves don't sell great on the Xbox brand, it became a thing where it wasn't worth doing anymore. In Japan there's no point, since there is such a small install base, and for the most part, I don't see very many Xbox fans excited to play any of the JRPG's that are announced, or rumored. Even outside the anecdotal though, the history of JRPG sales on the console show the publishers what they need to know.

Steam has actually become a better place to release a lot of these games than the XBox ever was....so that's kind of telling considering I've never seen PC gamers go on about JRPG's either.

[thepatientgamer]

I feel it in the air. This electricity. This J R P G

[FallenAngel1984]

There have been plenty JRPGs in the past recent years that the mainstream has been interested in. I don't see how two games could further change people's experience with the subventions as a whole

[gamertk421]

I hope not.

[Fist4achin]

Only certain ones will. There are so many that don't get the marketing or love that these gaming sites push.