Have jrpgs deteriorated? Or have our standards risen?

I think it is a fact that gamers today scrutenize games more thoroughly than they did back in the day. If we look back in the past, during the NES days, all games back then are technically shovelware by today's standards. Fast forward to the ps2 days, games like Dynasty Warriors were considered fun. Devil May Cry gameplay was phenomenal. FFX and FFXII were successes (relatively) back then. If assuming we had no knowledge of those games, developers will never get away with releasing games of the same standard today. Dynasty Warriors will be (as in btw) mind numbing. Devil May Cry will be 'repetitive hack & slash'. FFX will be considered 'linear corridor rpg'.

It seems that nowadays, the only way a game can be considered good is if it delivered blockbuster quality for all aspects of a game. In other words, story, gameplay, character development, graphics & atmosphere must be 'hollywood' standard, ie. costing millions & millions of dollars. If the devs don't try to tackle all of these aspects and ensure that they put sufficient time and money into it, the probability of the game scoring AAA drops by almost 70%. So is this really the problem with japanese devs? That they can't seem to keep up with rising demands of gamers in terms of game quality criteria?

Both.

There hasn't been a single non-Atlus JRPG released in the last six years that can compare with even the most mediocre of JRPGs from the golden age (SNES>PS1)

Also, WRPGs coming to consoles has shown consolers what a real RPG is. JRPGs cannot compare.

Both unfortunately. The only good JRPGS I know of are from Atlus, and Wii JRPGs

Both Japan has used the same formula for their RPGS over the years while adding a different setting. ie . you assemble a underdog team to take on an impossible task while travelling all over the place.

Meanwhile on the western front, devs have chosen to implement a choice system that makes it feel more like your own story with choices and consequences.

Both, the fighting even the fighting genre has evolved more then it and become more unique.

I was going to say both, but i don't think that's the case, while our stadards have indeed risen, JRPGs aren't deteriorated, is just that, they are stale in the 90's formula, you know, choosen one, form a group of friends and stop the evil empire, while i still enjoy some of those stories (Eternal Sonata) i think is time for a more drastic change.

everyone is making big deal out of all this, i notice when one person says Jrpg's are not good then EVERYONE says it and the most people complaining about the genre don't even play rpg's. jeez

Bayonetta is of the same standard as DMC and no one says that it is repetition, I know what you mean, but DMC is in that action subgenre where its skill over repetition. In general, I'm not entirely sure on your point, but JRPGs have pretty much been non-existant on consoles this gen compared to last-gen, most are on handhelds, and are reviewed to a lower standard. A couple of the best RPGs this gen ARE on handhelds, not to say that they are worse, but during the PS2 era, I loved so many RPGs, I could practically pick up a random one and enjoy it, on the DS there is still a very large amount of crap jRPGs. 110million

Anyway the answer is both. Expectations have risen, and the genre has either become stagnant in areas(like TriAce RPGs) or gone backwards(Square Enix).

everyone is making big deal out of all this, i notice when one person says Jrpg's are not good then EVERYONE says it and the most people complaining about the genre don't even play rpg's. jeez

Chris_Williams

Well, JRPGs are really time consuming, so most people don't play them that often, at least in my case, however that doesn't mean i'm not a JRPG fan.

WRPGs have stagnated more than JRPG.