Square Enix's Syuichi Kobayashi, the producer for the upcoming Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, shared his views on the decline of the classic JRPG genre in a private interview.
Over the past decade—some would say much sooner than that—this genre has tapered off in favor of MMORPGs, Western RPGs like Fallout and Mass Effect, and modern JRPGs like Shin Megami Tensei. Classic JRPGs as represented by Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Xenosaga, Suikoden, and numerous others, despite the occasional success, haven't received as much critical praise or emphasis by developers as they had in past console generations.
So I asked Kobayashi, through a translator, on what why he thinks that the classic JRPG genre has struggled in general:
Just the pure amount of content that needs to go in a JRPG is so big that it's difficult to do in the first place but what's making it harder is that in Japan mobile gaming has become so big that's it's been difficult to create games for the bigger consoles. How voluminous JRPGs are in general is not really made for mobile gaming; it just didn't really fit.But right now in Japan as well, the PS4 is getting more popular so I feel that the chance to be able to release on those kind of hardware is here again which made releasing Star Ocean on PS4 possible once again.
With the momentum behind Final Fantasy XV, Square Enix seems primed to revive the classic JRPG genre. Kobayashi believes that the genre will still "shrink," though we'll have to see how successful Final Fantasy XV and the next Kingdom Hearts will be.
So I asked him what he thinks the classic JRPG genre needs to do to become relevant and more popular again?
[After a long pause] Not only me, but Square Enix as a whole, we do have Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Star Ocean, we have a lot of RPGS in our lineup. Including other companies as well, think it's really hard to get the balance between the manpower that it takes and the cost that it takes, and then just the amount they could get in return is not really working out. And so I feel that it will continue to shrink, most likely. And the same time, I feel that it's a chance for us to create something really good to give to the audience.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness releases on June 28, 2016 exclusively for PS4 in North America. Its main highlight is its innovative six-member combat system and AI control through unlockable roles.
