Japanese RPGs, and why they're failing.

STEP 2: Hire bad writers

This time, I'm going after Namco. Namco, the Xenosaga concept was a great idea. But what in the hell perversed you to go and screw up Xenogears? Why did you have to make it so childish, then switch the whole feeling of the game in the second rendition? WHY?

Namco had a great thing going. Grab a underrated but extremely popular license (Xenogears- basically, the Xeno prefix) and make some sequels or prequels or whatever. So, sound great, right? Except for the part where they seemed to have never played the game. Instead of giving the game the mature Anime style that felt like Ninja Scroll meets Gundam, it turned Xenosaga into some kind of childish Anime ripoff where everyone had that childish 12-year-old-with-DD-breasts look, and made the enemies and problems extremely boring. Look at the "Main Characters", as off their site:

Shion Uzuki (Bearing the Uzuki last name from Xenogears), who's a stereotypical strong girl.
KOS-MOS, the mysterious woman with red eyes, aka cliché #2,
Chaos, a young energetic boy, cliché #3,
Junior, who appears to be 13 years old yet FOUNDED A CORPORATION AND SAILS AROUND WITH A BLONDE GIRL WITH A SOUTHERN ACCENT,
Ziggy, stereotypical hardened marine or whatever he is,
Albedo, just like Dante from Devil May Cry and other action heroes, has an attitude, and
Momo, the quiet cute psuedo-heroine who is in about every RPG ever made in the Asia area.

I mean, I'm yawning already. Any of those charactes seem remotely interesting or even kind of fun? Nope. Oh, and they don't get real big boy weapons either, they all have unique weapons that seem so complex that you don't even want to mess with it. And don't even get me started with the boring "AGS" fights, or whatever they call them- the Mecha stuff.



There's a reason I'm not giving out hard facts and just guessing, it's because the game wasn't memorable. I played it. I got bored of it fast, but still played it. There was no payoff for putting up with it. There really was none for Final Fantasy X-2. The list goes on. No gamer likes to pay for a game and find out not only did he waste his time, he wasted his cash. I don't especially.


STEP 3: Whore out old stuff.

Really quickly on this one, because it's another slam against Square Enix: Square, stop trying to make money off old licenses. Just because you're doing poorly does not give you the right to mass market random things with the Final Fantasy license on them so you can continue living high on life. Make good games.

Yes, I liked Advent Children. But when I have to see not only that, but a Final Fantasy drink, a Final Fantasy DVD box set, a Final Fantasy clothing set, jewelry, toys, special controllers, special systems, new versions of old games including re-boxing or porting it to the PS2, cell phones, cell phone GAMES, stickers, magazines, books, and musical ensembles NOT done by Nobuo Uematsu, it makes me sad. Stop it. It's like as if Jim Henson came back and made a porno with the Muppets in it.

Oh, and don't think other companies don't do it too, especially Bandai and the .Hack// series. While they weren't as blatant, the popularity they made off the anime series and the games they produced from it wasn't out of the great quality, it was selling shitty merch for a somewhat OK series.

FINAL STEP: Don't do anything to fix it.

So, all of the RPG companies are sucking. Are they doing anything to fix this? No. Final Fantasy games are still pouring out in huge quantities and low quality. .Hack finished it's fourth edition of the PS2 series and now plans a fifth game, though unrelated. Grandia III just came out and reminds all of us how bad stories can be when a game is still good. And it's not stopping.

What could save the industry? I don't know. Honestly, there can be a lot said for completely stopping existing games and the companies re-thinking their strategies. I know they need money. But, let's face it, if they do not innovate, companies like Square-Enix, Bandai, Atlus, and Namco will die. The gaming industry demands new and original ideas, and unless these RPG companies can deliver, they will find themselves out on the street fast. Let's hope they don't.

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