Agreed. My last favorite rpgs i played was fallout and lost odyssey. We need more rpgs and less shooters. We have a shooter for everything now.

There have been a ton. Maybe not on home consoles, but handhelds have seen a huge number of top-tier RPGs.

And who the hell thinks this Game of Thrones RPG will be anything more than vaguely mediocre? Even if the mechanics were well done, it'd still be too horridly constrained by the limited source material it covers for the story to have much meat to it.

lost odyssey
demon souls
dark souls
dragon age origins
mass effect 1/3
star ocean 4 ( may be solo here but i enjoyed it a lot )
the witcher 2

to name a few, im sure there are plenty more i havent played.

there may not be nearly as many as ps2 days no doubt, but there are still plenty and demon/dark souls are without question 2 of the best ever

Those extra 40 hours probably wont cover all sidequests anyway, not to mention all the extra monsters to go beat. Seriously its a fantastic game. Even designed so multiple playthroughs are a little more tempting. I hope it renews some faith in the JRPG for the US since the last good one was probably Lost Odyssey

I assume it was mentioned twice to make a point. And it doesnt matter when they come to north america........

other games missing are inazuma eleven 2 which is releasing in europe soon

and atelier arland 3

In terms of localizations with fire emblem, ninokuni, tales of xillia, pokemon black white 2, agarest 2, REXX, class of heroes 2, growlanser, legisticia, mugen souls, kingdom hearts, paper mario

all coming before the end of the year this is the best end of gen year for localizations ever

there was some that did, not so much anymore.

Western RPGs and JRPGs *are* two different genres. Similar in some fashions, yes, each with their own style, tropes, and audience.

Nothing wrong with either, it's just a strange example of two different regions coming up with their own ideas of a relatively similar concept.

Disagree, as jRPG's (the "RPG" in the title is deceptive) do not follow the rules laid down by Gary Gygax over a decade or several ago. They are semi-linear adventure games with a role already defined for you.

I believe there were other more insightful points made in that thread that point to Skyrim being a more "pure" form of RPG than Mass Effect or Final Fantasy games.

Role-playing just means changing one's behaviour to fill or adopt a role. That just means that the game needs to allow for the player to determine what that role may be as openly as possible and allow them to fill it immersively and successfully. Bethesda RPGs do this better than almost any other. You are NOT limited to one character class, race, play-style or story. You adopt the role of YOUR character as YOU see fit in a setting and loose guiding narrative forged by the story/dungeon master, just like the old pen and paper RPGs.

In essence, RPGs are generally like playing pretend, where at the start you say "I want to be a..." and just go for it.

The first Final Fantasy did this, but it was somewhat dropped as the series went on (until XII with its IZJS, which is why I maintain it's one of my favourite FF games despite the crying fanboys).

That's why COD and other such games aren't RPGs. You are a marine, you will shoot the terrorists and the story is set in stone. If COD were to be a true RPG, it would have to let you choose to be a marine, terrorist, engineer, spy, arms dealer etc.; let you talk your way or sneak your way out of confrontations, buy and sell goods, define your own skills and allow you to make various in-game story choices that affect the narrative in myriad ways.

RPGs DO NOT have to follow D&D rules to be considered RP. LaRPing existed long before D&D.

I actually agree completely, but they are far more akin to RPG's, in the sense that you get to define your character, than games such as Final Fantasy, where the role is already defined. The lack of meaningful choices is disappointing compared to games from the 1980's and early 90's, but it is the best we get nowadays, and at least allows some freedom of choice, both when roaming, and when stat-building, as well as the wonderful joys of dungeon crawling, a D&D specialty. jRPG's, on the other hand, while definitely a meaningful genre, define choices for you, and by definition, come across as some of the world's most technical screensavers.