Are JRPGs making a comeback?

[Last_Dragoon]

If you watched the game awards you may have noticed that all but one of the games nominated were JRPGs, a genre that seemed to be on a decline for a while. Games such as Dragon Quest XI, Monster Hunter Worlds (I know some don't like calling it an RPG), Ni No Kuni II, and Octopath Traveler taking the world by storm last year, I think it is safe to say that JRPG games are making a comeback like they did in the 90's. I am wondering if anyone else believes so. If you believe so, is there any lessons that Western RPG developers can learn since the only companies that did anything major were Obsidian, who looks like they are on their way to making a better Fallout game than Bethesda can, and CD Projekt Red, who are on their way to making a major title after just finishing Witcher 3 and its expansions.

[Aerrae]

If switch gets Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4 I'd buy it instantly even if it puts me in the black funds wise.

[wariodude128]

Not published on a Sony system. They angered a bunch of Japanese developers awhile back, so the Switch will most likely be an RPG powerhouse soon.

[Hovad]

I´d say jrpg has been a quite stable market. Just a shift on what hardware they get published on. Happy to see that many titles does remain intact. For the future I see a bright light on the market.
What I hope for is that small devhouses in japan shine brighter.

[wariodude128]

I don't think they really went anywhere. It's just that the companies that made them suddenly decided that their fans didn't like those kinds of games anymore. Take Square Enix, for instance. They brought over Bravely Default as well as the sequel Bravely Second and were seemingly surprised at how well it did. It happened again with Octopath Traveller. A company that used to make those kinds of RPGs were flabbergasted when games that played like the kinds of games they used to make became successful. True story.

[DGCae]

Well personally I haven't noticed any difference. I pretty much exclusively play JRPGs and have been for nearly a decade now and I still have plenty of quality options to choose from each year. It would be nice to see more though so if there's a comeback to be made then I certainly won't complain.

[Pantsu Hunter]

To come back they would need to be gone in a first place. Every year there is a lot of jRPGs comming out some are shit, but a lot of them is great. Here are just a few games worth mentioning From last 2 years. Ni No kuni 2, Persona 5, Star Ocean, Octopath Traveler, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Final Fantasy XV, Dragon Quest, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Tales of Berseria and the list goes on.

[Jokerthefoolio]

The switch's world wide success will probably put a spotlight on more Japanese games and a lot of those happen to be JRPGs. MHW was a game that I never played but it's streamlining of the formula made it easy for newcomers to get into it. Octopath had the visual style and the backing of Square for it to go big. Persona 5 sold over 2 million and Joker is in smash so I think JRPGs are more relevant to the west than ever before at least in this century

[Thomas_JCG]

They were never gone, but recently the major publishers have been making a bigger push into western markets, specially Steam.

[DarkFlice]

I don't think they ever really left; I have been playing almost exclusively JRPGs, with some VNs and fighting games thrown in, since the release of The Legend of Dragoon. I think AAA publishers have just been screwing up a lot recently and it's just making JRPGs look pretty good by comparison lol

[Errant_Error]

truth right here, i gave up on suikoden after 3. I never played BoF dragon quarter but seeing that mobile thing that BoF6 is bums me out

[Errant_Error]

I dunno if JRPGs ever really left i think they just moved to the 3ds. I loved JRPGs in the snes/ps1/ps2 era and they seemed to disappear around the ps3. I can think of many series that flourished on handhelds I always wanted to play but didn't because it was on a ds/3ds and i dont find them comfortable to use for any extended length of time. I only recently bought a grip case for my 2ds xl to remedy that and its been better playing dragon quest but not console good.

[Musou Tensei]

I never felt they were gone, every gen had amazing JRPGs.

[TheY2AProblem]

I haven't played anything new since Persona 5. The last RPG I played I went back and played Soul Blazer of the SNES. There's like nothing out there that interests me anymore.

[TheDorkyDane]

Well, I think like many other game genres. It is becoming more and more popular in the west.

JRPG's has always done well in Japan... which makes sense... As they by definition are Japanese games.
There are actually a ton of JRPG's that are insanely popular in Japan that never even made it to the west because marketing concluded there just isn't an audience.

And it is not for the lack of trying back in the day, they tried to push JRPGS back in the 2000's, but they just didn't sell, so we had a long dry spell in the west, though recently the demand for JRPGS has obviously risen in the west and the marked has followed up on demand.

There was no demand for Dragon Quest in the west in the 2000's, that is why we didn't get them. They tried to push Dragon Quest 9 when it first came out, making be advertisement campaigns for it, but still no body bought it. So they just stopped translating and releasing these games in the west.
How ever, forward ten years, a fan letter campaign wished for a translation of the remake of Dragon Quest VII and they finally replied, and it sold surprisingly well so well..... Demand actually dictates what they are going to translate.

If it wasn't because those remakes for the 3DS had sold so well, I don't think they would have bothered translating DQ XI.

The Tales franchise as well, while having a decent following in the vest never truly became huge here, so it has always been kind of up to chance if they bothered to translate it or not, but their games has obviously risen in popularity lately which is good. If not for this rise, I don't see why they would bother translating this new PS4 remake of Tales to vesperia, they didn't with the PS3 one.
And I have wanted to play this game for so long, so I am very happy indeed!

It is nice to see smaller titles from smaller companies that are not "Square enix." being shared around as well. I mean Square Enix is still the king of J-RPGS, closely followed by Bandai Namco who makes most of the license anime games, also the tales series I just spoke of.
I think "Atlus." is the most experimental one whom is sort of mainstream, again a company that didn't usde to translate all of their games, but due to fan demand rising has finally given in and translated their smaller games as well.
Of the bigs we of course also have Nintendo, though RPG's has never really been their main thing, just some side projects ones in a while in form of the paper mario games and the Xenoblade stuff.

So yeah, we are absolutely seeing a rise in demand in later years, and due to the rise of demand there is a greater want to translate these games at all.

Again, I am happy about that. I am happy I finally get to play Vesperia, and I was SUPER stocked when I was finally allowed to play Dragon Quest VII back in the day, I mean man. That one was annoying.
Everyone kept telling me it was the BEST Dragon Quest game and... It was not available to me, because I live in Europe. Before the remake, not only would I need a NES copy which are super expensive, I would need to find an AMERICAN Nes consol to play it on, and somehow ship it to Denmark.
.... Yeah no..... No-no-no. I don't have that kind of cash.
So yeah, finally getting the blasted remake! THANK YOU!