One of the biggest cornerstones and draw of the JRPG genre is the story.  The gameplay may be fun and interesting, but I think that those who buy JRPGs are looking for a good story to be told in conjunction with building a strong party.

However, through the years there has been obvious problems that have shown in the genre.  As technology has increased, storytelling methods have given game developers more freedom to express their stories.  Where once the game designer was limited to telling a story in 2D top-down sprites, can now be replaced with interesting 3D camera angles, lens flares and particle effects more similar to a movie experience.

At first, new technology covered the storytelling flaws that would have been more obvious in other genres such as movies and television.  But as technology has advanced and become an expected norm, the novelty has worn off and we see the stories as they really are – poorly told over-dramatized fan-fictions with multi-million dollar production teams.

As Hironobu Sakaguchi has shown, even the best game designers of the industry are not necessarily the best directors and storytellers.  The box office failure known as “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” is testimony to this fact.  Once the novelty of seeing 3D cinematics and distracting gameplay is stripped away, the audience desires an edifying and ennobling story to be told.  This is where many modern JRPGs (and some non-JRPGs like MGS4) fall flat.

Most especially glaring are cultural differences.  To the Japanese, the emotional “girly-men” character designs is very popular in Japan, also because it makes the character seem more approachable to an emotionally restrictive and generally reserved culture.  But to Western audiences, it just looks whiny and pathetic.

Dialogue and translations also fall somewhat flat to Western ears.  Where it may sound awesome to hear someone shouting in Japanese when they pull off their special move, translating it to English and having someone calling out their special moves sounds awkward, and sometimes even embarassing.  Even in the “Final Fantasy: Advent Children” motorcycle battle scenes, it is very out of place to hear “Where’s Mother?” during the motorcycle battle scenes while it sounds perfectly normal to hear it in Japanese and read it in subtitles.

I am hoping that Final Fantasy XIII and the new Dragon Quest for the Wii will change my mind about the direction of the JRPG genre.  But in the meantime, it seems like the best stories are being told not by JRPGs but by tactical and strategic games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, Jeanne D’Arc, and most especially Valkyria Chronicles.

Perhaps it is time for a Western developer and storyteller to take a stab at the JRPG genre?