So, what's going on with the RPGs on this site?

[Couchpotato]

Anyway my problem with the bigger JRPGs lately is the insane game file sizes. Steam should offer the buyer options instead of downloading uncompressed videos and audio.

Those two files categories are almost half of those games.

Also the next Final Fantasy looks to be more of a western Game of Thrones. I read a recent interview were the developers talked about it, and what influenced the game.

So I recommend playing it as it will release next year for consoles first.

 

[JFarrell71]

Also the next Final Fantasy looks to be more of a western Game of Thrones. I read a recent interview were the developers talked about it, and what influenced the game.

So I recommend playing it as it will release next year for consoles first.

I'm avoiding getting my hopes up since I've hated all mainline FF releases since 12, but this one might buck the trend. We'll see. I did love the FF7 Remake, so they already broke the streak of crappy FF releases in general.

 

[JDR13]

Why spam 3 posts in a row that could have been 1 post? Just curious.

 

[JDR13]

I rarely played J-RPGs before 2011. I learned to like them with titles like The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Valkyria Chronicles, Ara Fell, Vestaria Saga and others. They often feature tactical combat as well so I have more than enough games to play right now.

It's the opposite for me. I played them a lot when I was younger because I didn't have access to a lot of Western RPGs. Once I transitioned away from console gaming I stopped playing JRPGs almost entirely.

 

[Couchpotato]

I'm avoiding getting my hopes up since I've hated all mainline FF releases since 12, but this one might buck the trend. We'll see. I did love the FF7 Remake, so they already broke the streak of crappy FF releases in general.

I understand as 12 was the last game in the series I enjoyed. I didn't like 13 and 14 was an MMO. 15 was a return to the core series but something just felt off about it.

Have you tried the latest Star Ocean it's not a bad game.

 

[Couchpotato]

Anyway to get back on topic Space Wreck might interest you @ Moorkh.

It's a smaller Fallout clone with neon 80's art and will soon launch on Early Access.

So that's one plus for classic CRPGs.

 

[JFarrell71]

Have you tried the latest Star Ocean it's not a bad game.

No. I've considered it and watched some videos, but I think I'll pass. I've never liked the series. The voice acting and story seem okay-ish, but I really hate the visual design. The character models are terrible, imo, as are the animations. I think it would bug me the whole time and I'm not sure the rest of the game is good enough to overcome that.

 

[Stingray]

Well, as of June, one of the most recent, quintessential traditional RPGs, Wrath of the Righteous, had only sold 250k copies.

This is wrong. The article you linked was written in June, but the 250K number they're citing is NOT sales as of June, it's the sales in the very first week after the initial release of WOTR in September 2021, and it says so in the article. In fact, SteamSpy's estimate of WOTR sales is between 1M and 2M which is actually quite amazing for an AA CRPG made in Russia.

As for the balance of news on RPGWatch, I'd noticed the same thing, hardly any news lately about the types of games I do care about, and an insane amount of news about JRPGs that I don't. I'd written it off as a combination of two factors, (1) there isn't actually much news lately about the type of games I care about, it's a remarkably dry period, (2) HiddenX having much more taste for JRPGs than any of the previous big RPGWatch newsposters (ie Silver, Couch, Dhruin, ...)

 

[Moorkh]

Anyway to get back on topic Space Wreck might interest you @ Moorkh.

It's a smaller Fallout clone with neon 80's art and will soon launch on Early Access.

So that's one plus for classic CRPGs.

Thanks!
Ooh, this has developed nicely! I've had this on my whishlist for a while but not gotten around to check in on. Still hate the sprites, but it's sure got style in a lot of other places. I'll still not play the demo before it's out, though, I never do that.

 

[Stingray]

I thought that looked interesting too, but their most recent update says it's only a 5-hour game? Which really turns me off.

 

[lackblogger]

TBH, although I only occasionally enjoy a JRPG, it seems to me that not only are there more of them, but quite a lot of fairly noteworthy examples. I've found that many of the more traditional cRPGs we see are horribly mediocre attempts at aping the past.

Wasteland 3: 28 Aug, 2020
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: 10 Nov, 2020
Cyberpunk 2077: 10 Dec, 2020
Solasta: Crown of the Magister: 27 May, 2021
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous: 2 Sep, 2021
AtomRPG: Trudograd: 13 Sep, 2021
Expeditions: Rome: 20 Jan, 2022
Elden Ring: 24 Feb, 2022
Elex 2: 1 Mar, 2022
Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness: 17 Mar, 2022
Knights of the Chalice 2: 25 Mar, 2022
King Artur: Knight's Tale: 26 Apr, 2022

Strikes me as a pretty normal to very good run of recent releases that would all sit comfortably in any western cRPG news schedule. All of which are quite different from each other, not at all really mediocre in selection. I'd say there's been quite a glut of backlog filling games in the 'recently' category.

And then you've got Jeff Vogel still doing his thing, Baldur's Gate 3 still in the nearby hype train, the fact that Realms Beyond got unfortunately cancelled, countless indy first timers, really countless, all before you get to roguelikes, arpgs and jrpgs.

The only area that's been quiet really is the triumvirate of Bioware, Bethesda and Obsidian. Considering they're the games that are usually more in the 'mediocre' spectrum, but happen to be the ones you open threads for mostly, I guess you've come to a conclusion that isn't really shared as globally as you might think.

There's been no time in cRPG history when the genre's produced enough content to warrant 5 new newsbits a day that doesn't simply follow every daily update of a (relatively) small group of games.

We are beholden to whoever posts news and what their schedules, searches and tastes dictate. No matter who posts 5 newsbits a day, they'll eventually channel a bias that other people will notice.

The hard part is trying to offer constructive criticism without implying negativity towards the newsposter who is sacrificing their time in a thankless task.

My suggestion might be to split the news section in two. One titled "higher profile game news articles" and one titled "lesser known game news articles" or something similar, and then allow games that are of higher profile or interest on RPGWatch, but not necessarily globally, be in the first section.

This would help reduce the swamping effect and also be a practically useful way to more quickly filter the kind of news one likes reading. And the five new newsbits a day would be more like 1-3 in each section.

 

[Silver]

I've hardly posted news of late, and for that I apologise. It is also true that I'm struggling to find games which I am interested in posting about period. I do prefer CRPGs and tactical games like XCOM, as others have noticed, and they have been thin on the ground as of late. At least in terms of a quality worth posting about. It doesn't help that the games I might be interested in covering have a virtual news black out either. I have a feeling that will change in 2023.

 

[HiddenX]

@lackblogger
I'll not cluster newsbits, because I don't want an ongoing discussion what is important for RPGWatch and what's not important.
(Always keep in mind that the biggest usergroup of RPGWatch is not commenting on newsbits at all and just reads or skip it.)

The other reason is that we have a real flexible and easy to use filter system already in place:

Just filter away the games, organisations and sub-genres you don't like:

Examples with screenshots:
Hide the organisation - Turn Based Lovers
Hide the game Genshin Impact
Show the sub-genres MMOs and J-RPGs

Everybody can easily hide the things they are not interested in.

 

[Stingray]

I've known about that feature, but never bothered to set it up until just now. Seems nice, it might actually get me to read the front news page more often.

 

[lackblogger]

Yes, that's a system that could work for some.

However, it doesn't really help people who are interested in the latest Final Fantasy, but not really interested in Cat Come Zoomey: Phantom Deliberations. Or are interested in hearing about King Arthur but not necessarily Action Force: Tactics. And there's no way you know whether to bother hiding a game without taking the time to read the first article on it, which, in many cases, might be it's last article anyway.

 

[Moorkh]

@lackblogger
I'll not cluster newsbits, because I don't want an ongoing discussion what is important for RPGWatch and what's not important.
(Always keep in mind that the biggest usergroup of RPGWatch is not commenting on newsbits at all and just reads or skip it.)

The other reason is that we have a real flexible and easy to use filter system already in place:

Just filter away the games, organisations and sub-genres you don't like:

Examples with screenshots:
Hide the organisation - Turn Based Lovers
Hide the game Genshin Impact
Show the sub-genres MMOs and J-RPGs

Everybody can easily hide the things they are not interested in.

I wasn't aware of this, thanks! I just hid Genshin Impact forever, and I'm the gladder for it. (Alas, I fear this might only have done it for me and me alone. Pity.)

I wouldn't like the news to be divided up into sections. There is not that much going on as it is, and I do like to hear about obscure new games, even from the genres I don't personally have a taste for. Also, I keep track of what's happening here and a lot of other sites I peruse through an RSS reader, and this is getting more difficult by the month as it is.

What I could imagine, instead, is that we'd only get informed about a new title once or twice (at announcement and at release, maybe?) unless we subscribed to it, thus in fact "unhiding" all further newsbits on that title. That way, the newsfeed wouldn't be kidnapped by whatever game had just released with a dozen reviews or others that appear to sport weekly updates, bringing front and center what's really new.

 

[Moorkh]

I've hardly posted news of late, and for that I apologise. It is also true that I'm struggling to find games which I am interested in posting about period. I do prefer CRPGs and tactical games like XCOM, as others have noticed, and they have been thin on the ground as of late. At least in terms of a quality worth posting about. It doesn't help that the games I might be interested in covering have a virtual news black out either. I have a feeling that will change in 2023.

Hey, that's all good, no worries.

As stated, newsposting is both totally at the heart of this community and pretty thankless most of the time.

So just let me say THANK YOU (and you, Hidden!) for once. Keep up the good work.

I rely on you guys for much of my CRPG fix, these days, and I quite trust your judgments on what to post. Bias is natural, and not always a bad thing, either. I might not always agree, but I don't expect you to pander to my personal tastes (any more than you already do). In fact, I would've missed a lot if your different biases didn't keep offering distinct perspectives to add to my own.

 

[HiddenX]

Just another hint:
New games always show up automatically in the thread

Game Reviews & Comments​

because we news posters have to create a database entry for it before posting the first newsbit.

 

[Morrandir]

Nice thread.

I don't have anything substantial to add, but I just want to tell that the past 9 months have been a total RPG void for me. I haven't played an RPGish game since, because none of the released games make me feel excited. I'm a fan of story-heavy western cRPGs. And there just don't seem to be any these days.

So back to topic: At least for me it's not that the Watch mostly posts news about uninteresting games, but that there are no (or very little) interesting games.

Btw. I don't use the filters, because I'd like to be (or pretend to be?) open-minded, and keep the option to try a game I normally wouldn't, if reactions from fellow Watchers are very positive.

 

[Pladio]

I think newsposters can only do what they do so I applaud them. It's a lot of work. It's normal for not everyone to like everything. In some ways the main negative is that it potentially stops some conversations from happening. At the same time, if you find any news, you can Contact Us on the main page and submit it.

It's almost always actions by the news team.