JRPGs losing their flavor maybe. I've got a Dragon's Age, Oblivion, Skyrim, a few Fallouts and Mass Effects and a Witcher that would seem to indicate the RPGs where you actually, y'know, play a ROLE, are doing fine.

Personally I was glad to see Final Fantasy try something new. Wish it coulda been more of a slam dunk, but not many studios are willing to experiment with the formula after THAT many installations.

JRPG's are doing fine. SMT is as good as ever, and Xenoblade Chronicles is apparently just phenomenal.

It's just Final Fantasy that is just doing terribly. Though to be fair, 8, 10, and 12 were all vast changes from the typical style of the game. So they've shown they could change up the gameplay and still deliver a good game.

Agreed, Square proved they can still retain what made Final Fantasy good while mixing it up, though I think it doesn't hurt for them to go back to what made them famous and tweak it from there. Would be nice to see Final Fantasy take place in another setting like in the Tactics series or Final Fantasy 6.

Ivalice, the setting of Tactics, has been used a couple times. It was also the setting of FFXII.

This goes back to the root of my fears even back when it switched over to the PS2, that the increased workload required to generate art assets that take advantage of the hardware would mean shrinking the games. Back on say FF8 high detailed assets only had to be generated once and prerendered for city and dungeon interiors. Now the amount of work put into one of those backgrounds has to go into a single real-time character model. I was always afraid that these realities would mean a serious reduction in scope for JRPGs across the board, and it appears I was right even then. I can't remember the last time I saw an overworld map, for instance, but a flipside of that has been developers have been forced to come up with new conventions that if we did see a return of the overworld-type map with random encounters, it would just feel obsolete.

Hear, hear. I guess by "classic RPGs" he means JRPGs, in which case it has been a very painful generation. Western RPGs are in a little bit of a golden age right now, so JRPGs are going to look even worse in comparison.

Yo, Square really killed the Final Fantasy series for me, Not because of any particular story element but because of one essential thing that they in my opinion really ****ed up the last 3 games. THE COMBAT!

I want old school turn based combat back. Sure the new combat may "look" more visually active and apealing but its not what I expect out of a final fantasy. Final Fantasy XII also had a combat system you could literally automate most of the battles to play by themselves.

Except you still had to, you know, move your characters from point A to B and you couldn't let the game literally fight for you at every turn since something unexpected could happen and you had to pull the reigns back in control. Plus there was that option to turn the gambits off so it could be like a "true" turn based combat.

My apologies I must have missed that option.

I get this argument often with FF12, and as wildmario said you can turn them off (which I did). I found it more exciting and enjoyable, though the blue flashlight and aggro system were still strange. And if you're searching for story and character, this game had it.

That said, I would welcome another turn based RPG. It's like strategy games; just because RTS is out there doesn't mean Civilization should abandon their model to 'compete' with them (thankfully this didn't happen).

I seriously hope that more game developers play and learn from Xenoblade Chronicles. It's got the sense of pacing, freedom and fun that the jRPG seems to have lost over the years.

Also props for headlining this article with one of my favorite opening shots in video games.