Sakaguchi’s Last Story and Why Japanese RPGs Don’t Make it to America Anymore

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Do you remember the golden age of Japanese RPGs? I do. But what happened to it? Where did it go? And why is America starting to get JRPGs later than other English speaking countries if at all? It doesn’t make any sense! Fortunately though, it looks like us Wii gamers will be getting some new gems this year including Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story. But Europe and Australia are getting them first.

The Last Story (ラストストーリー) is an action JRPG for the Wii developed by Mistwalker and AQ Interactive. It was created by the father of Final Fantasy (now head of Mistwalker), Hironobu Sakaguchi and even has music by Nobuo Uematsu. Personally, I believe the Final Fantasy series took a nose dive after Sakaguchi and Uematsu left the team and Square merged with Enix. Not surprisingly, the last Final Fantasy I actually enjoyed was Final Fantasy X, the last numbered installment published under the Square name.

Since leaving Squeenix, Sakaguchi has released a few games with Mistwalker including Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey and I’ll admit, they were pretty good – but nothing close to the classic Final Fantasy games I fell in love with as a lad. The Last Story however seems like it could be much better than anything Mistwalker has released to date. Will it be as fantastic as I want it to be? Maybe. Will it come to America? Why yes, yes it will.

While I was in the process of writing this post I stumbled across an article over at Joystiq.com informing the world that The Last Story will be coming to America in the summer of 2012. It will be published by XSEED Games and everyone involved seems to be pretty stoked about the project. I’m pretty stoked too.

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The Last Story has already been released in Japan (January 27, 2011) and just came out in Europe and Australia last week. What I really find strange though is how Europe and Australia are getting these games sooner than we do in America.

Take Xenoblade Chronicles (another popular action JRPG) for example. Xenoblade came out in Japan in June of 2010, was later released in Europe in the summer of 2011, and now has a confirmed American release date of April 2012. Why do these RPGs take so long to make it over here? Two years behind Japan is one thing, but a year behind other English speaking countries? What’s the deal?

My best guess is that the demand for JRPGs is higher in those countries than it is in America, or maybe the licensing rights and all that is cheaper to do in those countries. I couldn’t find much data regarding this, but if anyone has any further insight as to why this happens, please share your knowledge with us down in the comments section. Some insight may be gleaned from this message board, but most of it just seems to be speculation.

Playing The Last Story

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I actually got my hands on a Japanese copy of the Last Story back when it came out, but unfortunately my Japanese just wasn’t quite up to snuff to really fully enjoy the story. As story is an integral part of most RPGs, I stopped playing the game. The amount I did play however was great. I really enjoyed playing the game and I was even thinking about working my way into getting a European version of the game before I made the discovery that it would actually see an American release.

For more information on The Last Story, you can check out some other trailers at Gametrailers.com, some great message board activity over at Gamefaqs.com, and the official site for the game over here.

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And like I said, the Japanese used in The Last Story is a little difficult, so for those of you looking to actually play games in Japanese for the learning experience, maybe you should check out my post on the Top 5 Nintendo DS Games for Learning Japanese. That’d be a much better place to start. Or for those of you who have your heart set on a Wii game, maybe you should check out the Japanese Wii version of Tales of Graces (which also happens to be coming to America for the PS3 on March 13, 2012).

The Japanese used in the beginning of Tales of Graces is surprisingly easy to understand (mostly because all of the main characters are children), but once the characters grow up, so does the language they use, and it becomes a bit more difficult to decipher. However, it is a great game, so definitely check it out if you’re looking for a good RPG for the Wii to play in Japanese.

But what really frustrates me is that I have to wait so long for these games to make it over to America for me to play. And then some of them end up not even making it over here at all! I remember the days when I was practically swimming in great JRPGs. What happened!?

Why JRPGs Don’t Make it to America Anymore

Most of the time there is a good reason for why certain Japanese games aren’t brought over to America. Some games are inspired by anime that no one in America really knows about. Some games just don’t do well in Japan in the first place so there is no reason to think it would do any better over in America. But these aren’t the only reasons Americans are missing out on some awesome Japanese RPGs.

We also have to keep in mind that localizing a Japanese game and releasing it at retail is an increasingly expensive undertaking. Platform owner licensing rules and rising distribution costs are another important factor. And it also seems like another one of the big reasons games like The Last Story aren’t brought over to America anymore is because of the sort of games America is interested in nowadays.

Today’s mainstream American gamer is mostly interested in first/third person shooters, online competitive gaming, and casual gaming. The market for traditional RPGs (Japanese ones especially) just isn’t what it used to be. Growing up with games, I still remember the golden age of JRPGs. From the time of Final Fantasy on the SNES to Final Fantasy X on the PS2, I always had a good JRPG to play and an even better one to look forward to. Some of my favorite JRPGs (and just games in general) came from the fantastic libraries of games on the Super Nintendo, Playstation, and Playstation 2.

It seems that as graphics get better and games start to look more realistic, the mainstream focus moves more towards these fast paced action games and JRPGs get left in the dust. In this fast paced modern world where people can game on anything from their MP3 players to home consoles, casual gaming and games that offer instant gratification are much more popular than they used to be. The average gamer just isn’t willing to put 50+ hours into a great game like they used to be. Gone is the golden age of Japanese RPGs.

These days we still get the occasional awesome JRPG on modern consoles, but those games are few and far between. It seems like today’s gamers are more interested in headshots and leaderboards than they are in great stories and character driven adventures. And for those who are interested in those things, they turn to the likes of Western action RPGs like Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls. (Fun Fact: Skyrim was the only non-Japanese game to get a perfect score from Famitsu. Just goes to show that Western RPGs are starting to make a serious dent in the gaming market, even in Japan.)

Don’t get me wrong though, I love these sorts of games too and I can’t wait to get my hands on Mass Effect 3 – I just really, really miss the good ol’ traditional JRPGs I grew up with. Too bad more Americans don’t feel the same way I do, otherwise we might get more games like The Last Story arriving on our shores much sooner.

For those of you who want to learn more about the fall of JRPGs, you can check out this great post from 1UP.com detailing Why the Golden Age of JRPGs is Over. It’s a really great read and if you’re interested in hearing more specifics as to why there just aren’t as many JRPGs as there used to be, you should really check it out.

The JRPG Future

So what can be done to encourage more games to be brought over from Japan? All I can really think of is supporting the ones that do come over here and support online groups that do fan translations just to show that there really is a demand for these games. Some fan groups do actual fan translated releases and some groups just gather together to rally support to bring the official releases to their shores.

The latter includes fan groups like Operation Rainfall who I’m sure had some influence over getting Xenoblade and The Last Story to be released in America. They are also hoping to see an American release for Pandora’s Tower, but only time will tell if they will succeed there as well. As for supporting the releases that do make it over here, unfortunately a lot of them just aren’t all that much to get excited about such as FFXIII and FFXIII-2. Who knows – maybe one day Square-Enix will get Final Fantasy back on the right track. But then again, probably not.

So tell me, are you looking forward to Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story when they make it to America later this year? Or if you live in a country where they’re already out – how do you like them? Any other games you wish would get localized but you just don’t see it happening? Do you think there will ever be a return to the golden age of JRPGs? Let us know in the comments!

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  • Brandon Inoue

     And… FAIL! 
    More reviewers chimed in and it’s unanimous.  Too much Japanese style fanservice of the Lolita type. 

  • Jake Witchies

    It truly is a shame that JRPGs are so rare in America now. People forget that the Final Fantasy series, Breath of Fire series, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, among many others that I’m not listing, made the video game industry viable as a longterm artistic medium. They proved that you COULD capture the attention of gamers of all ages with story and bravado, as opposed to button mashing and platform oriented games. 

    And the great thing was, it wasn’t just mimicking American cinema. It was a storytelling format that was distinct, tailored to those nerdy kids who wanted a BIG payoff with their adventure. I mean these RPGs WENT places with the story; FFIV you went from a feudal society to the moon, Chrono Trigger spanned 65 million B.C. to the End of Time, Earthbound took you from quaint towns, to vast deserts, the deep darkness of the swamps, all the way to a desolate future with floating, barren landscapes suspended in a blindingly bright white environment.

    It seemed that back then, the purpose of the game designer was not just to give you an environment you’ve never seen before, but to make your journey through these environments as vast and majestic as possible, while retaining the humanity of the characters. The climax of FFVII made you well up inside, not just because of what was happening, but because of what you went through to get there!
     
    Anyways, I guess we have moved to a society geared towards instant gratification and cinematic storytelling. I’ll still keep playing the old games though, it’s not like they dont exist anymore!

  • a0145

    Very true. Perhaps that’s why I don’t play games as often as I used to.

    Seems like it’s all about the $$$. 

  • a0145

    I can understand that. I’ve found myself playing A Link to the Past, lately.

    Some of those classics will remain the greatest games of all time.

  • John

    Yeah I always find myself coming back to play a SNES RPG like every couple months or so.

  • John

    Oh nostalgia. The time of the Super Nintendo was a great one indeed.

  • http://mistersanity.blogspot.com Jonadab

    To really make it big in America these days, a game has to integrate well with Facebook.  This is a rather bizarre phenomenon to my way of thinking (WHY would anyone want…  you know what?  Nevermind: I don’t wanna understand it.)  C’est la vie.

  • John

    lol

  • http://twitter.com/Ialys Ialy Alves

    The main reason I learnt english was to play RPG’s. I’m learning japanese now, because english don’t have the most awesome RPG that Japan release. Jesus, what languages will I have to learn more? A gamer can’t have a peacefull life rsrs. Seriously, this is becoming ridiculous, just when mastered english, they started with the FPS thing. Shame on USA.

  • DurkL

    I’d rather play Skyrim than Tales of Grace.

  • John

    While TES and the Tales series are both great franchises in their own right, I for one would much rather be playing a Tales game :)

  • John

    Haha, that’s rough. Best of luck with the language learning!

  • coldcaption

    I’m in the middle of Crisis Core and I like it a lot. Now, what’s really hard is being a fan of good music games. DDR was the only one Konami took half-seriously here. Even when we were getting good home releases they still weren’t as good (missing songs/etc) as the Japanese ones. Things fell apart when they released DDR Extreme on PS2 in Japan with 100+ songs and gave us a game with a completely different UI, a broken-up unlock system (one song was unlocked with a Burger King promo), small and boring songlist, etc. They also contracted Betson to make miserable arcade machines, which is why their latest version won’t see American release. The Japanese machines were great as always, but for some reason they never did a thing about Betson’s corner-cutting, which left us with brand new, expensive machines that fell apart after a few years (DDR SuperNOVA) or were unusable upon delivery (DDR X). The DDR X machine even shared identical marquee parts with Guitar Hero. Next time you see them both at the same arcade, look at the lights and speakers. Yuck.
    Then there were their other games. Beatmania IIDX saw one American release. It used the engine from the 9th game when the newest one was the 12th, they uglied up the UI, and had a broken, seemingly-random selection of songs. It so happened that the weird selection gave the game a tougher learning curve than most of the Japanese releases had, so it earned a few bad reviews and they never did a home release again. At one point they came very close to releasing it in arcades, and that didn’t go though either.A bunch of their other games got small-time releases here and there; Drummania, beatmania, and Guitar Freaks were in arcades early on, but they never pushed them very hard. Pop’n Music had some weird release on the Wii, but that was never released in pure glory either. They also don’t make home versions anymore for any of their games, so unless you really got around in the American community for these games then there’s no way to enjoy them anymore. Konami hates us.

  • John

    Yeah I miss the glory days of DDR, haha. The Japanese releases always had much better song lists.

  • coldcaption

    Whoooa, I got a reply from John? Cool!
    It was the best when you could find a good machine and meet other players and be instant friends. I miss that! I’ve been trying to bring it back again; I even lugged my Cobalt Flux and DDR Extreme JP to the lounge at school yesterday. Did you ever get very into it?

  • John

    Yeah I got really into it with one of my friends one summer in high school. I play every once in a while now, but definitely not as much as I did when I was in high school. It doesn’t help that most of the DDRs that come out now have pretty lousy song lists (at least the American versions anyway).

  • Ultimakai

    I love JRPGS but theres not enough of them :(

  • Kincaid42

    Well japan might be losing the RPG market, but what about the fighting games?

    The only poplar american fighting game i know of is mortal kombat

  • http://twitter.com/Neyska Nikki McCormack

    I can’t wait to get The Last Story. I do wish there was a bigger market for JRPGs over here. Fortunately, in another year my Japanese should be good enough for me to play them in Japanese. :)

  • Theangryvideogamebadass

    128BITIGOR Kid your full of shit ff seres went down the crapper after ff 10 so stop trying to make those games sound like gold. There crap and forever will be crap. The next maybe 2 years enix will shut down. So go fuck yourself and shove those games up your ass..

  • http://www.facebook.com/YummDiddy Daryl Pruitt

    i lost most of my interest in jrpg’s after the turn based mechanic was replaced with live action in FF XII. I just dont care to worry about all this bull goin on at one time when im trying to enjoy an amazing story. and then then you have XIII and that terrible game. litterally walking in a line for 40 hours straight and i never quite knew what the hell was going on in the confusing story. and the game mechanic was absolutely horrible.

  • Adrian

    13-2 was WAYYY better than 13. The story was just much better, and the lack of linearity and better hunts made it actually a good game.

  • Adrian

    I don’t know about the second one. But the first one was one of the worst RPG games I’ve ever played.

  • Adrian

    FF12 was fine….but nothing amazing. And FF is my favorite franchise. I played through FF12 like 5 times without finishing…because I always got bored and stopped. I finally played through and finished about 2 years after getting it, and I STILL don’t really remember the story. FF is about telling a beautiful story and 12 failed miserably on that. Plus the characters were not loveable. Especially the main character (worst main character ever.
    The battle system was OK. I don’t like the gambit nonsense, or the license board especially, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. Just storywise and chracterwise FFXII was a shame on the series.

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