In many ways, the previous two Personagames exemplified what a good Japanese RPG should be. Even though some elements of the game play were standard, they were executed in such a way that it worked with the rest of the game, including its obviously non-standard story paths. To me, Persona 3 FES and Persona 4were infinitely better than any current generation RPG, both of the Japanese and Western variety. (All you shooter fanboys, don’t cry because I said a PS2 JRPG was better than Fallout 3, its embarrassing.)

I had always assumed that the next Persona game would be a PS3 game, it was the natural progression of things. Rumor has it, an announcement might be close. (Follow-up article here.)  Instead of talking about that in detail, let’s talk about the last two Persona games on a personal level for a moment. While I feel Persona 4 was the better of the two, Persona 3 FESwas what reignited my passion for playing and enjoying JRPGs. This generation of gaming was a bit of a disappointment, especially the PS3. I think part of the reason for that was because it came with such high expectations for niche RPG greatness, thanks to its predecessor. Since it didn’t deliver (and it really still hasn’t, but its getting better), I felt disappointed – disillusioned, even.

When Persona 3came out, I wasn’t really feeling in the mood for playing anything, but later on the FES version came out and I decided to give it a shot. That game single-handedly brought my attention back to the realm of RPGs and its only gotten stronger from there. Persona 3 FES was such a great game at the time – it did almost everything I would ever want a JRPG to do, even though it retained many traditional elements of the genre. The follow-up, Persona 4, did even more to refine that near-perfect formula. (As an aside, I get a kick out of all these critics and reviewers who usually complain that a JRPG has turn-based battles, but gave Persona 3/4rave reviews. Laff.)

Now, we have this formula that has worked very well in those two games, let’s hope Atlus can come into this generation of gaming by retaining that magic and, perhaps, making it even better, assuming these rumors are true, of course. If they are, Persona 5 will be my most anticipated game, with the exception of maybe Final Fantasy XIII. Here’s looking at you, Atlus.

When I first read the news, it sounded strange in my mind.  An RPG based on The Wizard of Oz?  No way!  Apparently, yes way.  XSEED is localizing what’s known in Japan as RIZ-ZOAWD (don’t ask), and retitling the game here as The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.  Apparently the title uses the characters, locations and basic plot, but with a typical JRPG twist, I’m sure.

Judging by some images released for the localized version, character control is likely through this trackball-like interface on the lower DS screen.  That sounds like a horrible, gut-wrenching way to control Dorothy, if you ask me.  But, I shall reserve judgement until I’m able to try out this quirky DS title.

Online multi-player has really been popular in recent gaming history.  Myself, I’m not a big online-gaming person, other than MMOs or testing out the multi-player for a review.  One genre that seems to be lacking in multi-player experiences, however, is the RPG.  I always dreamed of how awesome it would be if you could group up with a few friends and tromp through the world of Oblivion, or play local co-op during battles in Star Ocean: The Last Hope.  Too many times lately we’re limited in the games we can play with friends on the same sofa – limited to mostly shooter titles.  (As an aside, I’ve been greatly disappointed in racing games as of late not supporting local split-screen game play.)

All this originally stemmed from the great fun I had years ago playing Secret of Mana on the SNES.  That was an awesome game and you could play it with friends, because it supported three-person local co-op play.  Every so often you’ll find an RPG that attempts to do something similar, and its great.  I only wish more RPG developers would take advantage of some sort of co-op play, preferably support for both local and online varieties.

What would be the advantages?  You would be able to engage in co-op displays of bad-assery with your pimped out heroes, that’s what.  Tales of Vesperia, which I’ve been playing recently, has local co-op play during battles.  I haven’t yet tried it out, but if it works like I think it should work, it’ll be pretty cool.  I’m interested to find out how the camera operates and if its actually more or less chaotic than the battles are now.

On the other hand, the thing about Secret of Mana that I haven’t seen any JRPG do since is allow the extra players to control their character on-screen outside of battles.  Its a mostly passive experience for those other players when they can only participate during battle sequences.  A typical RPG focuses a lot on story-telling through non-interactive cut scenes and include many other things besides battles.  Granted, the camera is an issue if you let four players go wandering around on their own, but you can set limitations to that.  Let each player talk to different NPCs on their own, as long as they’re within a certain distance from the main player’s character.  Let the camera zoom out a bit so things don’t feel too confined.  Let them buy stuff at a shop to upgrade their own equipment while the main character is talking to an NPC a few yards away.  Let the player characters talk to each other in a way that would expound the story, give clues as to where to go next and see how the characters interact with each other.  We do have that now, but its all controlled by one player.  There needs to be engaging interaction with possibly four humans playing local or online co-op.  Don’t limit the co-op to battles only.

There’s also the possibility of introducing co-op split-screen play in RPGs, with limitations, of course. Imagine playing with three other friends in a JRPG – you’re in a town trying to gather information on where to go next. One player can, as I mentioned earlier, be buying supplies at a shop, while another player is in the pub gathering info. None of the players can actually leave town by themselves (there’s the limitation). I don’t think you’d want a situation where a solo player can leave the group and go waltzing across the world without the other players.

The introduction of co-op challenges might be a direction to go, as well. If playing with more than one person, there could be parts of the story where they would have to split up for a short time to advance the story. You have to be careful here, though. You don’t want the game to require co-op play, so it would have to recognize when there was more than one human playing it and adjust difficulty and/or these challenges to accommodate that.

I would definitely like to see more RPGs take up the multi-player bandwagon.  We do have some limited multi-player here and there, such is the case with Tales of Vesperia, but to really be a breakthrough in design, I think you have to keep the extra players engaged more than just the time you’re facing down baddies in a battle setting.  Therein lies the challenge for developers.

We definitely see strides in the direction we want to go – it seems like developers are testing the waters to see if they want to commit to going all out with co-op play.  Now they must proceed carefully.  I wouldn’t want the single-player experience that we’re used to in RPGs to be compromised because they feel the need to tack on multi-player – this has happened in quite a few games recently.  The single-player experience in these RPGs should always be foremost in mind, otherwise they will likely alienate a large portion of their player base.

We haven’t heard a whole lot about the North American release of Dissidia: Final Fantasy.  Its a action/fighting/RPG title for the PSP that pits characters from many games in the Final Fantasy franchise against each other in a typical “good vs. evil” battle.  What interests me is that each of the “hero” characters have an individual storyline that in some way relates to the character in their original title.  So, its a fighting game of sorts, and is reported to take roughly 40 hours to complete?  This should be interesting.

Needless to say, I haven’t played the Japanese version, or seen anyone play it in videos, so I’m unsure how everything works, but it looks like we’ll get to find out next week (July 23) when the demo is expected to hit the North American PSN.  It could get delayed, of course, but who wants to be pessimistic like that?  You can bet I’ll give my impressions of the demo here very soon after the download is available.

[Via Joystiq.]

Due to its abysmal sales in North America, I’m surprised Sega is putting together a sequel to Valkyria Chronicles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m terribly glad they are – that title is probably the best RPG to grace the PS3 since the system hit the market. Its just a shame not many people got to experience it, since it was released last year during the holiday season when just about every other triple-A game of the year came out. Because of that, it didn’t get much attention from the typical gamer. I guess it’s a good thing Japanese companies don’t make or break a game by sales figures in other parts of the world. 

I’m glad they’re releasing a sequel on the PSP – the art style, game play and setting of the story holds so much potential it would be a shame not to attempt to expose more people to its grandeur. Looks like its aiming for a winter release in Japan, so we’ll likely see it on this side of the Pacific next year sometime.

Its been a while since Tales of Vesperia came out for the Xbox 360. In fact, that was one of the driving forces behind my purchase of the system last year. I figured if the Talesfranchise, of all things, is going to the 360, I need to buy one for fear I miss out on great JRPGs. Oddly enough, I haven’t played the silly game yet. However, I found it cheap on Amazon the other day, and it should be arriving in the mail any day now. It’ll give me something to do while my wife is out of town.

If I had never purchased my 360, I’d be glad for the day that the game hit the PS3, which it will be doing before too long. In fact, a demo of the PS3 version just went up on the Japanese PSN not long ago, new playable character and all. Wait, what? New playable character? That’s right, with the re-release on the PS3 comes many new additions and improvements. I’m not sure how I feel about this, honestly. Why does the PS3 get content that owners of the original Xbox 360 version not get? Will 360 owners ever get that content?

Here’s what should happen – any changes to the story, game play or mechanics (like bug fixes or whatever) – should be patched into the 360 version free of charge. I will compromise on the next part and say that any new characters and outfits given for “free” when you buy the game on the PS3 should be put up as cheaply-priced DLC for the 360 version. Truth be told, that DLC should be free since 360 owners usually paid just as much as the PS3 owners for the game, but I’ll concede that there can be a slight charge to the DLC. Anyone who is madly in love with the game would buy the DLC without much thought anyway.

I’m not a fan of the practice of giving one system different or exclusive content compared to another system – especially between the PS3 and the 360. I hated what they did with Soul Calibur IV, and I dislike re-releases of “exclusive” titles a year later with “bonus” content like Bioshock and, now, Tales of Vesperia. Its great that they’re adding more value for your buck to the game – that’s not the problem. The problem is giving one system content that the other one doesn’t get, for no particular reason. Perhaps they think that since the Xbox 360 players got the game a year earlier, the PS3 players should get something for the time they waited. Sure, if Square-Enix adds loads of exclusive content to the 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII to make up for the past fifteen years of Sony exclusivity, then I might let it slide. But, that’s not exactly going to happen.

I’m not a “fanboy” of one system over another – if anything I’ve become more accepting of the various systems in the last few years. I just think it’s a crappy move on the part of whoever is behind this to offer content on one system and not another, especially a year after the original release. Who knows, it may very well be announced that all this stuff will be provided as DLC for the 360 version. That would be cool, but I won’t hold my breath.

The PlayStation Portable seems to be doing very well lately.  It, along with its counterpart the Nintendo DS, seems to be a haven for quirky RPGs of all sorts coming out of Japan.  If you like music and like RPGs, perhaps the latest JRPG announcement for the PSP might pique your interest.

NIS recently announced that Princess Antiphona’s Hymn: Angel’s Score Op.A will hit the hand-held in Japan in October.  Unfortunately, I have not played similar music-RPG fusion titles, like the PS1 and DS game Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (published by Atlus, unsurprisingly), but the more I read about it, the more interesting it sounds.  A lot of people might find a game that has musical numbers in its cut scenes a bit…off.  And it is, for American gamers.  But, not in Japan, where previous musical RPGs have garnered a huge following.

I’m reminded of the musical numbers in various episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  I thought they were odd at first, but it didn’t take long and I realized how well they fit into the idiosyncratic nature of the series overall.  Then, I think of something like that in an anime-style RPG and a smile spread across my face.

Here’s hoping Nippon Ichi intends to localize Princess Antiphona (for short) for a North American release sometime in the future.

I haven’t really seen a lot of desktop wallpaper around for Final Fantasy XIV yet, and that’s a shame because there’s a piece of large, gorgeous concept art out there that is just ripe for the picking.  That being said, I took that piece of art and broke it down into three separate wallpaper images, each including the FFXIV logo.  I’m not a genius with Photoshop, so they’re very simple.  I’m sure other people can do better.  But I like them…I’ve always been one for simplicity.

Feel free to use them on your desktop if you’d like.  There’s three in a standard resolution (1280×1024) and three in a middle-of-the-road widescreen resolution (1440×900).  Enjoy!

1440×900 (Widescreen)

1280×1024 (Standard)

I’ve always loved Atlus, their localization team has always been great. Nothing impresses that more into my mind than Crimson Gem Saga. At its heart, it’s a very traditional JRPG and the sequel to the game Astonishia Story. (Basically, its Astonishia Story 2, but with a new title both in Japan and North America.) Although it’s a sequel, you don’t need to have played the original title to figure out what’s going on – its laid out very clearly in the opening acts of the game.

You play as Killian von Rochoff, who, at the beginning of the story, graduates from Green Hill Academy in the hopes of becoming a chevalier. His dreams do end up becoming a reality, although not in the way he hoped. He’s swept into the secret search for the Wicked Stone, formerly known as the Crimson Gem. Along the way, of course, you pick up various party members with other skills to round out your band of warriors. I can’t say the story and characters aren’t cliché, but the dialog is so amazing you won’t even care. Atlus did an excellent job of localizing this title. That’s all I can really say. They did an awesome, awesome job. Many of the little quips the characters make made me laugh out loud.

The voice acting isn’t top notch, but its not horrible, either. The voices fit the characters pretty well, but still fall prey to being overly dramatic and sometimes tiresome when the same phrase is repeated over and over again in battle. The music fits the mood that the characters find themselves in, as well, but there’s nothing that really stands out. Overall, the audio is well done, but not amazing.

The visuals are stunning on that little PSP screen and the character sprites are well animated and enjoyable to watch. Keep an eye on Spinel on the battle screen right after a fight, as they’re doing their little victory dance – perhaps her sprite is a bit too animated, if you know what I mean.

For a battle system, you have typical turn-based fare, with a couple improvements to liven things up a bit. This isn’t a new mechanic, by any means, but requiring you to “tag” the enemies (which are seen on screen, no random encounters here) so you at least start on equal footing will keep you on your toes. If you manage to sneak up on an enemy, your party gains a fairly sizable advantage in battle. If the enemy sees you first, you have a few seconds to reach it, but if you wait too long, it will come after you with a vengeance and gain an advantage for itself.

Combos with the different characters during battle also spice things up, the only downside is that both the characters have to learn the combo skill before you can use this. This gets me in to a lukewarm part of the game mechanics – the skill system. As you battle, you gain skill points, and these are put into a pool that any of your party members can draw from. Each character has their own skill tree that is geared toward the type of attacks they’re designed to use – magic, physical assault, healing, a combination, etc. The problem isn’t that set up, but it’s the fact that to just uncover a skill and see what it is it costs you skill points. Then, you have to spend even more points to actually learn the skill. This strikes me as overly problematic because it will (at least for me) lead to mandatory grinding in mid- to late-game.

It would have alleviated the problem somewhat if each character had their own pool of skill points or, better yet, just have the entire skill tree exposed from the start of the game so you can at least plan in what order you wish to learn the abilities. This is really my only major gripe with the game. And, truth be told, if you enjoy a major grind-fest, it might not bother you so much.

One other small issue I have to comment on is the lack of being able to move my character at a 45 degree angle on the field screen. The movement always seems slightly off. Its hard to describe, really. Its also not that big of an issue, but probably the one thing that always got me saying, “What is up with these controls?!” every time I picked up the game to play.

Crimson Gem Saga is exquisite in so many ways that even the one major issue I have with the game pales in comparison to how great the title is overall. Its definitely one of the best RPGs for the PSP. It might be too old-school or grindy for some people, but if you enjoy those types of games, you can’t miss this title.

Score: 8.5 (out of 10)

The word “niche”, used as an adjective, conveys the idea of having specific appeal, only certain people are going to like things that are a “niche” product or service. This can be a large group of people or a small group of people, but usually when referring to niche gaming, you think about quirky titles out of countries like Japan and Korea.

These titles usually – but not always – have an anime- or manga-inspired art style and over-the-top dialog that is unlikely to be surpassed by anything else. Typically you think of some type of RPG when considering niche gaming. These days it seems like the only RPG franchise out of Japan I wouldn’t consider niche is Final Fantasy, and even at that, a lot less people are into Japanese RPGs than there used to be 10 to 15 years ago. It seems the Western RPG has taken over with blockbuster titles like the Elder Scrolls franchise, Mass Effect and Fable, just to name a few.

Part of the reason niche games only do well in their own little world is, quite possibly, the fact that they aren’t promoted well enough. No one knows about them, besides gamers who follow them. I dread to see how many gamers have never played a Persona title or experienced the connection between Ico and Yorda. You never know how much more popular those critically acclaimed games would be if a wider audience knew about them. That’s the reason you’ll likely see quite a few reviews, previews and just general posts about niche RPGs on my site – I feel if word can get out about some of them (especially the better ones), everyone would be all the better for it. (Although, that doesn’t mean I won’t be talking about and reviewing mainstream titles when I get the urge.)