Japanese RPG game making is dead. At one time, Japanese game developers were considered to be synonymous with great rpg titles. These were the folks who created Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. They brought us the Destiny of an Emperor and Chrono Trigger games. If you wanted a good rpg title, you need not even bother looking anywhere in the rest of the entire world. Japan had your hookup. That is not the case any longer. The golden age of Japanese RPG making is gone, perhaps forever. Finished. Stick a fork in it, because it is most assuredly done. But hey, don't take my word for it. Please look at this partial list of Japanese role playing games to come out since January 1, 2006, along with their gamespot scores, and make your own judgments. Phantasy Star Universe – 6.8 Enchanted Arms – 7.1
Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom – 6.0
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythologies – 6.0 Final Fantasy: Anniversary Addition – 6.5 Monster Hunter Freedom – 6.5 Valkyrie Profile: Lennoth – 7.5 Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light – 6.8 Valhalla Knights – 5.6 Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos – 6.1 Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code – 6.9 Ys: The Ark of Napishtim – 6.7 The Legend of Heroes II – 6.8 Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner – 6.3 The Legend of Heroes III – 5.8 Final Fantasy XII – 9.0 Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 – 8.5 Kingdom Hearts II – 8.7 Rogue Galaxy – 8.0 Odin Sphere – 7.6 Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria – 8.0 Tales of the Abyss – 7.9 Shining Force Exa – 5.3 Suikoden V – 8.1 Shadow Hearts: From the new World – 8.2 MS Saga: A New dawn – 6.5 Grandia III – 7.6 Tales of Legendia – 8.0 Wild Arms 4 – 7.8 Mage Knight Apocalypse – 4.4 Pokemon Diamond – 8.5 Pokemon Pearl – 8.5 Final Fantasy III – 7.9 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team – 5.2 Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales – 8.0 Inuyasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel - 3.9 Digimon World DS – 7.2 Children of Mana – 5.8 Dawn of Mana - 5.1 Pokemon Ranger – 7.5 Magical Starsign – 7.3 Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal – 6.1 Xenosaga Episode 3 - 8.0 Average Score: 7.0 I will pause for a moment to let the full magnitude of that long, disgustingly pathetic list of worthless games soak in. Yes, I admit that there are a couple of gems in the mix, but only a couple. For the most part, if it didn't come from Square-Enix, don't even bother. And I pity the fool who buys an rpg title from Namco-Bandai. That list is absolutely infested with terrible Namco-Bandai games.

The next time I hear a barely literate fan of shooter games complain that there aren't enough good shooter games to play, I think I'm going to print off about fifty copies of that list, soak the entire batch of copies in vinegar, and make him eat each and every one of them. Then he will understand how role playing game fans have felt these last couple of years. (Note: I am not saying that all shooter game fans are barely literate or somehow genetically flawed. This is my jealousy of their generous bounty over the last couple of years spilling over. I'm not biased against shooter game fans. Seriously. Some of my best friends are shooter game fans.)

Now, in the interest of full disclosure I must in good conscious admit that I have not played each and every game on that list. In fact, I've probably only played about one out of every ten. But just like I don't need to taste piss to know that it tastes bad, I can take the word of the generous gamespot editors who have tasted all this piss on my behalf.

Unfortunately, that list above is a symptom of a larger issue. That issue is that the entire rpg genre itself has stagnated. RPG makers in general, and Japanese ones in particular, are churning out the same recycled ideas that they have been using for the past twenty years. Here is the list of what can be considered the remaining quality RPG making developers and my opinion of them.

Tier 1 Bioware: Bioware is king. Bioware is god. Bioware is the only, single, top-tier roleplaying game maker in the world at this time. Bioware, for those of you unfamiliar with the name, brought the world such insignificant titles as Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, and Baldur's Gate. It is about to bring you Mass Effect. Worship ye ignorant mortals! Tier 2 Square-Enix: Ah, the grandpappy of rpg. This is the maker of both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior). It is too bad that it feels the need to inflict the world with innumerable spinoffs and remakes of older games rather than focusing on churning out solid new titles in its flagship franchise.

Obsidian: Obsidian is the game developer that companies go to when they get tired of Bioware insisting on finishing their games before releasing them. Obsidian is the creator of such half-finished offerings as Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2. Obsidian games have great characters and great storylines, if you don't vomit at the glitches, bugs and crashes that come with the game.

Tier 3 Bethesda: Bethesda games are as wide as an ocean and as shallow as a kiddie pool. They are as beautiful as the Mona Lisa, and contain characters that have approximately the same amount of personality and dimensions.

And that's it folks. You have one quality rpg maker, two semi-quality ones, and a maker of semi-rpg games in Bethesda. I would give my left testicle to have Bioware be making the upcoming Fallout 3 game rather than Bethesda, but alas that is not to be. Besides, these days rpg fans resemble a pack of starved beggars. Beggars cannot be choosers. We would riot, but we have no energy to do so. Now here is the part that I don't get, where are the companies looking to capitalize on this obvious gap in the industry? The market for rpg games is there. One needs only look at the sales figures for notable rpg games like Final Fantasy XII and Neverwinter Nights 2, or the preorder figures for Mass Effect, to know that the market is there. So why aren't more companies stepping in to fill the void?

The market is saturated with sports, action and shooter games. There are more games in those genres than a battalion of grandmas can shake their canes at. Heck, the action genre got so saturated that it spilled over into the rpg genre, creating the dubiously classified cross-over genre "action-roleplaying". So why don't a couple of companies go into obviously fertile fields with some more wide-open pastures? Fortunately, I am here to help. My next installment of this two-part series will feature my advice on what the existing rpg making companies need to do to improve (Hint: Not every gamer likes playing 14 year old main characters with anime style graphics), along with which companies I think would make great entrants into the rpg making field.

Edited for formatting and to add "Dawn of Mana" and "Xenosaga: Episode 3" for the PS2 to the list.

Per the request of several people commenting that one set of scores by Gamespot are not enough, I have gone and collected IGN's. Phantasy Star Universe - 6.4 Enchanted Arms - 6.5 Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom - 6.5 Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology - 7.5 Final Fantasy Anniversary Edition - 6.9 Monster Hunter Freedom - 7.7 Valkyrie Profile: Lennoth - 8.5 Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light - 6.5 Valhalla Knights Y- 5.3 Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos - 6.9 Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code - 6.9 Ys: The Ark of Napishtim - 5.6 The Legend of Heroes 2 - 6.1 The Legend of Heroes 3 - No Rating at IGN that I could find Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner - 7.1 Final Fantasy XII - 9.5 Persona 3 - 8.3 Kingdom Hearts 2 - 7.6 Rogue Galaxy - 8.7 Odin Sphere - 8.8 Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria - 8.5 Tales of the Abyss - 8.3 Shining Force Exa - 7.0 Suikoden V - 8.2 Shadow Hearts: From the New World - 7.8 MS Saga: A New Dawn - 6.2 Grandia 3 - 7.6 Tales of Legendia - 7.7 Wild Arms 4 - 7.8 Mage Knight Apocalypse - 5.4 Pokemon Diamond - 8.5 Pokemon Pearl - 8.5 Final Fantasy III - 7.8 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team - 6.5 Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales - 8.3 Inuyasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel - 4.0 Digimon World DS - 7.5 Children of Mana - 8.0 Dawn of Mana - 6.5 Pokemon Ranger - 7.1 Magical Starsign - 7.5 Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal - 4.0 Xenosaga Episode 3 - 8.0 Average = 7.2 As one might expect, with such a large sample size the actual variance between Gamespot and IGN is quite small.