Is the classic JRPG dead?

Having preordered RPG Maker MV recently, I would ask this board how they'd feel about the return of classic JRP Gs in the 16-bit era. Can the genre make a comeback if I decide to commercialize a game with it? Is there any modernization I should do it I want to create that feel on the RP Gs we've loved? I would like to hear your thoughts. By traditional RPG, think of Dragon Quest and classic Final Fantasy. The most recent example I can think of is Bravely Default.

I'm afraid it's alive and well on Gamejolt.

Mostly in the form of shitpost game.

Besides Bravely Default, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel and Legend of Legacy are pretty standard JRPGs that will be/have been (respectively) released recently.

edited 17th Oct '15 8:42:36 AM by Malco

I don't believe Eastern RPG is a genre, but what you're asking for isn't dead in the slightest.

The standard turn based JRPG with a decent budget is long dead. There hasn't been one on say consoles in like 3 years, low budget handheld crap is absurdly rare too with only like 2 recent entires that are not Pokemon.

The only thing on the horizon is Persona 5.

Personally, I'd remove random encounters and make random drops work on a percentage system. That is, let's say you kill an enemy with a 1% drop rate. Kill another and the drop rate rises by 1%. Killing 100 makes the drop guaranteed. And when it drops, the percentage returns to 1%.

That would save people so much frustration.

You do know that a lot of JRP Gs remove a lot of random drops right? Quite a few have their random drops be just loot that gets sold for money.

MM Os and Diablo Loot System clones like Destiny and Borderlands are the primary users of random drops now.

edited 17th Oct '15 9:22:32 AM by Memers

... I, uh, haven't really played a lot of games that have such a system. I don't actually play RP Gs that much. They're too long, man.

But I'm glad to know there are some out there saving us from the Random Number God.

World of Warcraft actually already does that, but for quest items only.

If you're making one with RPG Maker, it doesn't necessarily have to be turn based. We've had several successful games that are either overt classic JRPGs (the aforementioned Bravely subseries standing out as one that, at its core gameplay, anyway, is exceptionally polished and fun to play, while still providing enough modern trappings that it's no more tedious than the player wants it to be), or games masquerading as them (Undertale, which is almost its own organism) recently, that there's definitely a market for it in the west, still.

You'll really need to flex your creative muscles and do something worth taking a look at if you want anyone but a very niche audience to pay attention to your game, though.

Child of Light's initiative system. Yeah.

Undertale is... okay, I can't exactly call it traditional, but it works within and around the trappings of that era of RP Gs.

With the excepion of the shmup-style defense action, of course.

I know some modernization Is important but I don't want it to be something completely different either

The traditional JRPG is "dead," in the sense that you will not see an AAA-budget classic-style JRPG made for any series that is not Dragon Quest or Shin Megami Tensei (counting Persona) - Megami Tensei, ironically, started as a WRPG series made in Japan (a Wizardry clone, to be precise). Final Fantasy is now moving into the Action RPG business, Tales and Star Ocean were already that, and the proliferation of the genre we saw in the Nineties and early Noughties is over.

Eastern RPGs are becoming an RPG Maker thing done by indie producers, who (no question) push out quality results, but who don't really need or want the tremendous graphical or marketing budgets of the big boys. They're not trying to make the next Final Fantasy VII or Persona 3, they're trying to sell enough to make a decent profit and build up a fanbase for their next game.

So I'd say that the genre has metamorphosed a bit, but it's only "dead" if measured solely by five-star productions and by Square Enix.

It is sad that they're becoming a RPG Maker thing and not in the mainstream anymore but that's probably where we come in.