To each their own as i think there are still great jrpgs coming out. Have you checked out Persona 5, Octopath Traveler, Dragon Quest XI, or Bloodborne to name a few?! Gamers tastes can change.

Now i feel like there are so many different types of rpgs out there and different genres have taken elements from rpgs that make gaming so great.

Oh well, i will keep on gaming my way!!!

Its just the big boys like square that just dont make great jrpgs anymore. Many underrated/niche titles like trails, freedom wars, god eater. ys, neptunia, shin megami tensei, etc are amazing. Tons of great gems that people have missed on the 3ds, psp, and especially the vita. We've had great hits like persona 5, nier automota, dark souls, yakuza, ni no kuni, and so on and forth. Although I do admit that the jrpg genre is at an odd place nowadays.

sounds like he is sick of the grind. dragonquest 11. ill never get sick of jrpgs there are so many that i havent played. i dont care if it was made in 1930 im going back and playing it.

No genre of gaming stays your favorite forever and you should not expect it too.

I have not played an FPS seriously in 6 months apart from BF5 even though it is my second favorite genre. Did I "move on" from FPS? No. I just find the last 6 months of FPS games boring and they don't hold my attention. Maybe in the future a new Bioshock will come out and get me back into FPS but for right now... nope.

You have to cheat. Square Enix knew how badly designed FF games were for people with high standards who won't enjoy grinding because it is braindead and doesn't make you feel like you accomplished something. Emulate them at 2-4x speed or cheat.

there's still top quality jrpg's being made the author of the article just seems to have changed what they enjoyed taste wise.

I'm the total opposite. I love JRPG's.

I think Persona 5 is my all time favorite. Xenosaga trilogy is probably my second favorite now after the FF PS1 games. I really wish MS would remaster Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon.

JRPGs have stopped evolving as a genre. Back in the 80s and 90s, if you wanted a genre with great storytelling, you would turn to the JRPG genre. But nowadays, there are so many genres that do storytelling better than the average JRPG. Even action games nowadays (TLOU or Bioshock) have more believable characters than the average JRPG anime trope character.

There are still great JRPGs out there. Persona 5 is the most recent example I can think of. I agree that we’re out of the JRPG renaissance though. There just aren’t as many solid JRPGs that come to mind from the current gen as there were in gens past. But, they’re still around if you look hard enough.

I love JRPGs and I will never stop loving them. To me it is in the top 3 best genres in the industry right now.

I highly recommend Dragon Quest 11, you’ll change your mind I promise. I felt the same just like you and nearly gave up entirely on JRPGs but DQ11 restore my faith cause it felt good to play, and you actually want to beat it unlike the past few hundred games of the genre that feels too open and boring after a while.

Shining force is a great jrpg!

I love all rpg genres especially JRPGs and I have been playing them for over 30 years. Sure there is garbage out there but every genre has that. It would be nice if we went back to the golden age of Jrpgs and have more AAA stuff but we still get a Dragon Quest or Persona or something equivalent every year or so and lots of good smaller budget games . I mix in other genres during longer games to keep things from getting stale. It takes me a lot longer to finish games because of children and such but I don’t see myself ever quitting this genre or gaming until they don’t exist or my hands/eyes don’t function well enough

JRPGs was always there, but you have to understand that JRPG is the standard in Japan, just exactly how the FPS is standard in the west. Whether we got sick of JRPG or FPS games, it will be always produced, because it is somewhat the easy and safe way to develop games. In westren developer thinking, FPS help to have fast paced action + far more less self-character and provide more immersion moments with short campaigns. On the other hand, Japanese developers like to provide much longer story and more specialization in character, so they ain't interesting in fast paced gameplay because that wont help long stories.

Of course there are exception especially with current technology. One of very best game I ever tried is Persona 5 which is in top there with The Witcher 3.

Xenoblade Chonicles will re-ignite any love you had for the genre. The original that is. The second one, whilst still had me completely hooked and loving the world/story, had me hating the gameplay and grind.

I stop on consoles, I prefer taking them everywhere I go so they move to handheld for me

There's no doubt jrpgs are terrible compared to what they used to be. Most genres in gaming have gotten better over time but the jrpg is one of the few that never moved with the times.

last of the jrpg was during the ps360 era was a good few on wii also

I miss Valkyrie Profile; honestly what lead to the downfall of jrpgs was budget and 3d environments. They started to cut corners and visuals never really caught up unless it was a high budget. Japanese developers rarely instill enough budget into a game to make it great, even if the core is good. that's why the handhelds jrpgs were the last few good ones aside from some AAA ones.

I think ps2 was the limit of jrpgs. Ps3 era it trailed off.

modern jrpgs all suffer the same problem, so far there is no modern gameplay formular that is accepted by a majority of gamers as a fun replacement for the old round based formular.

If JRPG means turned based, then I have moved on toward ARPG. How could they evolve? I would say move away from the anime style and into heavier and more mature themes. I think some are trying in different ways like Celeste (haven't playing it though, so not entirely sure), but for the most part, to me, the anime Final Fantasy style (story and graphic) has gotten old.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole is the best classic RPG this gen imo. Some of you might not see it as a "serious" RPG, but it nails the story (unlike Kingdom Hearts 3 etc), the pacing, has one of the best turn-based combat systems ever (simple yet clever and not unnecessarily complex), Most of all it's heaps of fun to play.

JRPGs used to compete with high profile games and nothing more than that. They are still great games anyway.

I’m only taking about console gaming here.

I believe other game genres started to deliver the same experience and connection as at one time only JRPG’s delivered, and without the turn based mechanic. The competition started to take the market as their games were evolving at a quicker rate and became hugely popular, JRPG were no longer the market leaders for gaming entertainment and experience.

This article is kinda whack. Maybe the dude grew out of them period. I like many others still enjoy and prefer the old school jrpg. I prefer a traditional jrpg over some hack n slash action rpg. Ill take older ff over ff 15 any day. There are still some pretty cool jrpgs coming out. Earthlock was pretty dope and I just seen one on kickstarter called chained echos that looks cool so I plan on backing it for a physical copy on ps4.

Jrpgs never clicked with me

For me, it's because they tried to stop being JRPGs, and tried to copy western games. I'm in it for the Turn-Based. So, when a series tries to abandon that and go action, I'm out.

But, even with the series' that stayed Turn-Based, they only gave them a shoestring budget, which also pushed me away. I don't need AAA, but it needs to at LEAST be mid-tier. The games do it right are stuff like Persona 5, Dragon Quest 11, and Trails of Cold Steel.

No diversity?

That is a great article, very honest. I empathise with the notion of plodding along defeating wave after wave of nobodies. I am a huge RPG fan in general, J or otherwise, but if I am not gripped within the first few battles that lends itself to switching off quickly. The stories are very 'meh' for me, I do not play video games for engaging stories and it is very rare one will peak my interest. That being said stories are important to drive the 'reason' to play. I do enjoy the visual style of most JRPG's though and once in a while you get an awesome soundtrack, but if this is married with dull gameplay or move sets then that is redundant. The killer for me is usually a boring or obvious level up system that fails to deliver diversity to the character.