It must be hard to be a console RPG player who doesn't like JRPGs. Prior to the Xbox/PS2, there were almost no Western style RPGs for console systems.
Things were very thin, in the Xbox years. RPGs dropped at the rate of about 1 per year. Unless I'm forgetting something, over the 5 years of the console's lifecycle, there were only 4 WRPGs: Morrowind, Arx Fatalis, KOTOR, and Jade Empire. At the time, I didn't think of myself as an RPG lover. If I had, I probably would've gone nuts. Can you imagine waiting a year between RPGs? Actually, what would've happened is that I would've ended up gaming on the PC, like you guys. But I did not think of myself as primarily an RPG gamer at the time; that only came relatively recently.
2010 looks fantastic, though. We have 8 WRPGs scheduled on the 360, plus the DA expansion, plus the granddaddy of all JRPGs (FF), plus an also-ran JRPG or two. So we've gone from 1 RPG per
year to just about 1 RPG per
month. Famine to feast. Now it's more a matter of trying to figure out how I'll find the time to play all these RPGs …
[…] Anderson, if you haven't you should definitely give Persona 4 and Rogue Galaxy on the PS2 a try, they're excellent games. Also picked up Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2 for the PS2 recently and that is also a good game (so far).
I'll keep those RPGs in mind, Relayer, if I get another PS2. I never did try them. Chances are I wasn't in a very receptive frame of mind, though, so even if I did, I probably would've blown them off. I remember trying out some of the more famous JRPGs on the system — a couple FF titles, Dragon Quest 8, Dark Cloud 1 and 2, a Suikodin, and Kingdom Hearts. I was pretty new to gaming at the time, and I had played only a few WRPGs (see above), and my initial reaction was "What is this kiddy crap?" I didn't like the turn-based combat, random encounters, the childish characters, and the awkward dialog. I wasn't able to look past that stuff until many years later, when I tried (and enjoyed) Lost Odyssey.
I only played about 3/4 of the way through LO, though. A number of factors there. The story started to deteriorate at that point. I like games that allow me to Save anywhere, but in some cases, LO's Save points were an hour apart or more. Things started to feel kind of repetitive, and I heard that things were about to get difficult (not as in "challenging," but as in "lots of backtracking and time-consuming searching ahead"). So at the start of disc 4, I stopped. But I did enjoy the game quite a bit, for most of the time prior.
I liked the combat. I liked most of the characters. I appreciated that the main character was a grumpy malcontent, not a "tough" but effeminate teenager. I liked the somber themes, e.g., immortals who felt cursed to be that way. Although I skipped through some of the written stories, that was a nice artistic touch.
I am hoping they announce a sequel.
