Multi Why are good RPGs only released on PSP/DS?

[KezraPlanes]

I was having a debate with a friend of mine the other day about Square Enix sucking, Atlus being the new niche-JRPG developer to follow and that 360/PS3/Wii not getting RPG love like Xbox/PS2/GC.

That's when it hit us. There have been good RPGs this gen...... ON PORTABLE CONSOLES.

Just off the top of my head I will name some:

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Persona 1 Remake, Persona 3 Portable, Crimson Gem Saga, Hexyz Force, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, ect... = PSP

Dragon Quest IX, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, The World Ends with You, Dragon Quest V, Chrono Trigger, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, ect... = DS

Seriously, what am I missing? Why are portable consoles, that are supposedly casual gaming consoles, getting so much RPG love while 360/PS3 get as the only worthy games Mass Effect 2/Dragon Age/Demon's Souls/Star Ocean IV (don't get me started on FFXIII -.-)

So, thoughts?

 

[El Diablo]

FFXIII was great but I agree consoles have been shafted in getting good RPGs. I bought a flashcart for my brothers DS because of all of the great RPGs for it and have been loving it.

 

[KezraPlanes]

FFXIII was great but I agree consoles have been shafted in getting good RPGs. I bought a flashcart for my brothers DS because of all of the great RPGs for it and have been loving it.

Glad someone sees my point xD

But how is FFXIII great? It's a boring, incoherent mess that could have been so great but fails at all levels

 

[Abe Froeman]

Demon's Souls, Eternal Sonata, Enchanted Arms, Blue Dragon, Fable II, Fable III, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Oblivion, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Tales of Vesperia, White Knight Chronicals, Valkyria Chronicles

That should keep you busy for a year or so.

 

[KezraPlanes]

White Knight Chronicals

O.O Abe making a typing mistake? I believe Ragnarok is coming D: (no offense, I just had to say it )

From your list the only really good ones I forgot are Valkyria Chronicles and Oblivion. I mentioned the Mass Effect games (specifically 2, which is the only one from this gen, which is what I meant), Demon's Souls and Star Ocean. I don't play Fallout games as RPG since they're more of a shooter, White Knight Chronicles is another messy game that doesn't know if it wants to be a offline or online game. I've wanted to play Eternal Sonota but I can't get my hands on it for a decent price even though it's one of the first games of this gen, and Fable games have no appeal whatsoever (for me!) and I've been debating if I should get Blue Dragon or not.

But, you ended up proving my point anyway. Those are pretty much ALL the RPGs on home consoles. Whilst portable systems have a list of really good RPGs twice (maybe more) that big.

I'm just wondering what the hell is up with game dev/publishers nowadays to give more RPG love to portable consoles than home ones... It seems nowadays all you can find on home consoles is shooters and some adventure games =\

 

[Abe Froeman]

I'm on my phone typing from work nowadays, no need to point out typos.

It looks like you are just wanting to see more cookie-cutter, turn-based, anime styled characters who fit the same character archetypes that have been overused ad nauseum. If that's what you are looking for, then those have always been at home on handhelds and always will be.

 

[KezraPlanes]

I'm on my phone typing from work nowadays, no need to point out typos.

It looks like you are just wanting to see more cookie-cutter, turn-based, anime styled characters who fit the same character archetypes that have been overused ad nauseum. If that's what you are looking for, then those have always been at home on handhelds and always will be.

Didn't know. Sorry =\

It really depends on what you mean by "cookie-cutter, anime styled characters". I was referring to compelling stories and actual interesting characters of old games such as Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Cross, Chrono Cross, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate and others. Games in which you actually give a crap about the main character/where the main character is well defined, where your companions are not stupid cookie cutter placeholders, and where the villains have charisma enough to make them credible.

Nowadays most RPGs suffer from all the problems I above mentioned and only the games you and I have said seem to have gotten the formula right, but just barely. Nowadays RPGs are drifiting away from the "role-playing" formula per-se and focusing more and more on giving the player action with cookie cutter stories and villains that are getting more and more repetitive if not boring as fuck.

For example, Persona 3/4 might have "cookie-cutter anime styled characters" but that's not where the game shines at all (no idea why you would think that except for a wrong preconception of the games). Those games present you somewhat original stories (Persona 4 was really good actually) and have credible companions and world characters that actually make you want to play the game and not drop it (yes, Vanille, I'm looking at you), finding the villain(s) and defeating them is actually another place where the game really shines, because the plot is actually written in a way that makes you want to find out who they are and beat their asses to a pulp.

My point being, games (specially RPGs) have evolved from the old days to awesome and interesting narrative driven games (even older non-RPG games could have awesome/entertaining plots - Beyond Good & Evil, Castlevania: SotN, Monkey Island, the original Halo and so on), and this gen most games are bore, generic cookie cutter fests of stuff that we've seen over and over and that haven't really evolved in the past few years.

 

[Scorned]

Fabled's pretty interesting from what I've seen. And Fallout is an RPG, maybe a neo-RPG of sorts, but nonetheless it's a role playing game with some FPS mechanics.

 

[KezraPlanes]

Fabled's pretty interesting from what I've seen. And Fallout is an RPG, maybe a neo-RPG of sorts, but nonetheless it's a role playing game with some FPS mechanics.

It's more the other way around, a neo-FPS with RPG elements. And tbh, it's a pretty good path for FPS' to follow, makes them more interesting and compelling.

 

[Abe Froeman]

I don't know, I guess the statement that "there aren't as many RPG's on consoles than there are on handhelds" as silly as "there aren't as many shooters on handhelds than there are on consoles."

Handhelds are a platform that has always, and will always breed RPG's. I just don't see your point.

Edit - I also find it hypocritical that you deem Mass Effect 2 an RPG and Fallout 3 not one.

 

[Scorned]

It could go either way, but regardless it was still made by
a company known for it's RPGs (they made
oblivion too right?) so I would go so far as to say it's still an RPG at the core.

 

[KezraPlanes]

I don't know, I guess the statement that "there aren't as many RPG's on consoles than there are on handhelds" as silly as "there aren't as many shooters on handhelds than there are on consoles."

Handhelds are a platform that has always, and will always breed RPG's. I just don't see your point.

Not really true. NES, SNES, PSOne, PS2 and others (home consoles) have always been the flag bearer for great/awesome RPG games but nowadays that trend seems to have been turned around. Great/Awesome RPGs can only be found on portable consoles whilst the home consoles are being kinda shafted in that respect. I owned the original GB for years and years and besides Pok

 

[El Diablo]

I don't really know what is so great about XIII, I just thought it was a good game and enjoyed playing it. I didn't think it was boring, I thought it was quite fun actually. I liked the story, I liked the combat system after it grew on me, and despite it being linear for the first half or so of the game once it opens up there's tons to do. I just thought it was a good game and not the bastard child of Final Fantasy a lot of people say it is. Then again I also liked X which apparently is another big steaming pile of shit to a lot of people so who knows.

But I do agree with you that the older consoles were usually the ones you saw big RPGs on. Like Kezra said I don't think there was a whole lot of RPGs on the GB days of handhelds, I can really only think of Golden Sun and Pokemon. Of course there were the ports of some older Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, usually the consoles were the big systems to see new great RPGs on and while there are still some that come out for consoles obviously (Dragon Age, Fable, ME, Fallout) it seems that the majority of new, quality RPGs worth playing are coming out on handhelds with the occasional one on a console.

Also I personally like the cookie cutter type RPG. I like the basic 3 or so party system with your melee guys, spell casters and maybe a guy who can take a lot of damage with some variation of the turn based attack system. They've just always felt like real RPGs to me. I still love the Mass Effect series and think they are amazing RPGs, I've just always preferred that cookie cutter type RPG and rely on the storyline and characters to really make the game shine and stand out from others like them.

 

[Abe Froeman]

I'm not sure if you noticed this, but handhelds took a major leap forward technology wise recently. They also lack a second analog stick for movement. I wonder what genre of game would fit the hardware limitations of something like that best?

Don't even get me started on Pokemon. Those games were built for kids, and have never had any appeal to someone from my generation. They make me want to vomit at how hokey and lame they are.

The point I'm trying to make is that the industry is not a stagnant thing, which is what you aren't getting past. It has evolved and throughout that process, more RPG's have been developed for the handheld market. I wonder if the millions of handheld owners in Japan had something to do with that as well?

 

[KezraPlanes]

I'm not sure if you noticed this, but handhelds took a major leap forward technology wise recently. They also lack a second analog stick for movement. I wonder what genre of game would fit the hardware limitations of something like that best?

Don't even get me started on Pokemon. Those games were built for kids, and have never had any appeal to someone from my generation. They make me want to vomit at how hokey and lame they are.

The point I'm trying to make is that the industry is not a stagnant thing, which is what you aren't getting past. It has evolved and throughout that process, more RPG's have been developed for the handheld market. I wonder if the millions of handheld owners in Japan had something to do with that as well?

Hey I said I owned an original GB for years and years so guess what, I was a kid back then and enjoyed the games xD

What you're saying does make sense, yes. And I'm not criticizing the industry for giving portable consoles awesome RPGs, which I think is an awesome idea (and I'll make good use of it ), but I just disagree with the fact of not giving home console owners many RPGs to choose from, and with this continuing trend, I might not just get a home console next gen.

I think I got my point across wrong, because I don't mean to say that the industry is stagnant or doesn't evolve. To say that would be to deny awesome new franchises (ex: Puzzle Quest, Portal) that struggle to innovate the industry. But I am also of the believe that lots and lots of games do cookie cut most of their elements from other, more successful games.

And yes, I utterly agree with you on the Japan/Portable Consoles thing, and wonder why I hadn't thought of that

 

[Abe Froeman]

So if I were to make a thread about the lack of good shooters on handhelds, how would you take it? My bet is that you would find it a bit tongue-in-cheek.

 

[KezraPlanes]

So if I were to make a thread about the lack of good shooters on handhelds, how would you take it? My bet is that you would find it a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Actually I think I might be a little too dumb/naive to take it "tongue-in-cheek" as you say. I would most likely debate with you with examples and try to find a way to make them kind of work, since it's almost impossible to make shooters work on a portable consoles but I don't think it's truly impossible.

 

[ultimakillz]

seems to me the turning point was when the gba was released and they started remaking the final fantasy games for gba. once that started there seemed to be many more rpgs, especially remakes, for handheld systems. as for why there arent more traditional rpgs on "home consoles", im really not sure.

to me, the success of action rpgs like mass effect and fallout (and the failure of many traditional rpgs) have shown that the market leans more towards action rpgs, which would make developers second think developing a traditional rpg when action rpgs are much more successful.

but that would only explain the decline of traditional japanese rpgs and not rpgs in general

 

[Bran]

I agree with Abe 100% on this one. I would however love to see a story driven Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale style game on the consoles.

 

[Tarret]

I would think that this is because we tend to more focus on the FPS genre when it comes to consoles? As a result most RPGs like Tales of Vesperia and Fable tend to be placed aside. Especially considering that the FPS games are more "multiplayer compatible".