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*What is this game? I've never seen anything like this before*
Of course some people, the more experienced of the gamers knew what it was about. It was another title in the long running and successful Square series, Final Fantasy, whose previous games could be found on the Nes and SNES. It was the return of one of the most successful franchises in gaming history and it's debut on a 32 bit system. Newer and older gamers alike were excited about this great game that was coming to their system and they couldn't wait. A huge marketing campaign followed and Final Fantasy 7 turned out to be one of the most successful games ever to be released on the PSX and some people still proclaim it to be the best PSX ever released. Of course alot of people returned it as well as they weren't used to the battle system and complicated plot but still this was the start of a whole barrage of RPG's to hit the system. Older SNES games got sequels on the PSX such as the Breath Of Fire series, Star Ocean and Dragon Warrior (the most successful RPG series in Japan) and also new series of RPG's were released such as Vandal Hearts, Suikoden (both of which were released before FF7 but only got noticed after FF7 came out) and Wild Arms. It seemed as if the western market, which was widely believed not to be interested in the RPG genre started to realise how good these sort of games were. Most games got sequels and the FF series regularly topped the top of the charts. However with the dawn of the PS2 things changed.
Now we arrive in the 21st century and the era of the next generation consoles, however in the transition from PSX to PS2 something seems to have been lost along the way, the RPG genre. Where exactly are all the games? So far all we've had is Ephemrial Fantasia, Legaia 2, FFX and Wild Arms 3 that can be classed fully as RPG's. (might be some more but can't think of them right now) I don't include games such as Kingdom Hearts as they aren't fully RPG's, they're more live action hack and slash games with RPG overtones. There's been news of games like Breath Of Fire 5 but they're taking their sweet time to come out and we all know about the fiasco that is Suikoden 3. Suddenly one of the most successful genres in the PSX era *doesn't make enough money to constitute a release in Europe* Have i missed something while playing my favourite genre's games? When was the time these games suddenly became unsuccessful? FFX made alot of money and arguably it wasn't even that good when compared to previous titles in the series so why aren't some of these games getting released over here in good old Europe?
It could be the same story of great games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears that never got released on the PSX and the reason that was given was that the games wouldn't make enough money at that time. However shortly after that the games started coming back with FF8 and Suikoden 2 to name just a couple. Is this just history repeating itself and in time we'll start to get a steady flow of RPG's again? Maybe Wild Arms 3 is the start of it who knows? but the only thing i want to know is - Where have all the RPG's gone? and if anyone finds them please contact me. Thank You
*What is this game? I've never seen anything like this before*
Of course some people, the more experienced of the gamers knew what it was about. It was another title in the long running and successful Square series, Final Fantasy, whose previous games could be found on the Nes and SNES. It was the return of one of the most successful franchises in gaming history and it's debut on a 32 bit system. Newer and older gamers alike were excited about this great game that was coming to their system and they couldn't wait. A huge marketing campaign followed and Final Fantasy 7 turned out to be one of the most successful games ever to be released on the PSX and some people still proclaim it to be the best PSX ever released. Of course alot of people returned it as well as they weren't used to the battle system and complicated plot but still this was the start of a whole barrage of RPG's to hit the system. Older SNES games got sequels on the PSX such as the Breath Of Fire series, Star Ocean and Dragon Warrior (the most successful RPG series in Japan) and also new series of RPG's were released such as Vandal Hearts, Suikoden (both of which were released before FF7 but only got noticed after FF7 came out) and Wild Arms. It seemed as if the western market, which was widely believed not to be interested in the RPG genre started to realise how good these sort of games were. Most games got sequels and the FF series regularly topped the top of the charts. However with the dawn of the PS2 things changed.
Now we arrive in the 21st century and the era of the next generation consoles, however in the transition from PSX to PS2 something seems to have been lost along the way, the RPG genre. Where exactly are all the games? So far all we've had is Ephemrial Fantasia, Legaia 2, FFX and Wild Arms 3 that can be classed fully as RPG's. (might be some more but can't think of them right now) I don't include games such as Kingdom Hearts as they aren't fully RPG's, they're more live action hack and slash games with RPG overtones. There's been news of games like Breath Of Fire 5 but they're taking their sweet time to come out and we all know about the fiasco that is Suikoden 3. Suddenly one of the most successful genres in the PSX era *doesn't make enough money to constitute a release in Europe* Have i missed something while playing my favourite genre's games? When was the time these games suddenly became unsuccessful? FFX made alot of money and arguably it wasn't even that good when compared to previous titles in the series so why aren't some of these games getting released over here in good old Europe?
It could be the same story of great games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears that never got released on the PSX and the reason that was given was that the games wouldn't make enough money at that time. However shortly after that the games started coming back with FF8 and Suikoden 2 to name just a couple. Is this just history repeating itself and in time we'll start to get a steady flow of RPG's again? Maybe Wild Arms 3 is the start of it who knows? but the only thing i want to know is - Where have all the RPG's gone? and if anyone finds them please contact me. Thank You
Breath of Fire 3 + 4
Star Ocean 2
Legend of Dragoon
Wild Arms
Vandal Hearts 1 + 2
Suikoden 1 + 2
Alundra 1 + 2
Azure Dreams
Blaze and Blade
Grandia
Legend Of Legaia
Koudelka
Legend Of Kartia
Granstream Saga
Eternal Eyes
I believe there to be 25 there.
> Don't forget Vagrant Story. :)
i wasn't sure whether to put that in but that is a very good game. Was quite hard getting those combos together
> I want Xenosaga, it's been a very, very long time in development now,
> lets just hope it sells well enough abroad to pick up a UK publisher
Yea. It's coming out very soon in America and i loved Xenogears so i definitly want this coming out.