RPGs, well actually JRPGs to be specific, were once lavished with praise by the gaming press. Magazines and websites, including the revered EGM praised JRPGs during the Playstation-era for their artistic and gameplay achievements. Games like Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Cross nearly received platinum scores, because these games outshined many other games of the era. Both games had incredible artwork, beautiful music, interesting stories, and excellent battle systems. Since then, RPGs have arguably become somewhat stagnant. Some people said the same thing after the SNES era, so really, it all depends on whether or not you appreciate the changes that were made.

Final Fantasy X was one of the last games almost unanimously appreciated by the gaming press. After Final Fantasy X, an event occurred that would alter the future of RPGs. Hironobu Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy movie bombed, and as a result, he was pressured to resign. Unlike the heroes of Chrono Trigger, Hironobu Sakaguchi was forced to accept his fate. Square soon decided to merge with Enix, which would affect RPGs for years to come. Many of Square's key employees left (or were fired) after the merger, so Square-Enix was virtually a brand new company.

I noticed significant changes after the merger between the two RPG titans: Square and Enix. Before the merger, they had healthy competition going that kept future products innovative. Afterwards, Square-Enix did to RPGs what EA did to football--they became complacent and neglected to focus on quality and innovation. Instead of making new games, Square-Enix decided to create sequels and spinoffs to Final Fantasy games starting with FFX. When they discovered that they were profiting off a well-received RPG, Square-Enix decided to create a series of FFVII spinoffs, a triumvirate of FFXIII games, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy remakes, and the list goes on. As you can see, Square-Enix decided to spend most of their efforts milking their two biggest franchises. They occasionally released new titles, but the fact that they whored out their franchises became well known.

Squenix's milking of franchises affected the entire RPG genre. Without the competition of many new top-notch RPGs from Square, many RPG developers were no longer forced to innovate. Instead of innovating and taking advantage of Square-Enix's complacency, some RPG developers decided to create generic RPGs of their own. As a result, the gaming press and general public started to feel that all RPGs were generic and backwards, and instead looked to emerging Western RPGs and open-world games. This is unfortunate, because even though Square-Enix began producing less innovative games, other emerging developers published titles that were often dismissed because they weren't from a famous company.

RPGs like Lost Odyssey went under the radar mostly because they weren't produced by a well-known company, but also because they were immediately dismissed for being "too traditional" and "linear." The interesting thing is that many of these reviewers who considered Lost Odyssey "too traditional" praised Dragon Quest for the same thing, and Dragon Quest is about as traditional as an RPG can get. Lost Odyssey actually innovated in multiple ways: the way in which its story was told--Kaim's thousand years worth of life experiences are well-written, and do an incredible job of conveying his life experiences in ways in which almost any human-being can relate to; a realistic and diverse cast of characters (personality-wise and racially); a battle system that expanded upon previous games of the FF series; and it was one of the first RPGs to have realistic character models in High Definition.

What I mentioned about Lost Odyssey doesn't necessarily make it a great game in everyone's eyes, but it should illustrate that Lost Odyssey expanded the RPG genre in a significant way. If this game had the title Final Fantasy and was produced by Squaresoft, I'm confident that it would have sold over a million copies. It still managed to sell over 600,000 copies via word-of-mouth, despite the mediocre reviews. Certain sites such as IGN made erroneous claims that the game featured three minute load times and had frequent massive slowdowns. They reviewed an incomplete version of the game, but unfortunately they didn't make the public aware of this fact.

Besides being "too traditional," JRPGs are often criticized for being "too linear." Some game journalists act like linearity makes a game bad, while open worlds make a game good. IGN even wrote an article criticizing RPG developers for their lackluster efforts, and one of their points was that RPGs were "too linear. " What is interesting is, these same editors give games like Gears of War 2 a 9.5, and they never mention the fact that those games are linear. In Gears of War 2, you are on a straight path the majority of the time. Occasionally, there are two paths for short durations, but for the most part you're on a train track. These reviewers act like linear games are outdated and bad, but they fail to realize that some gamers appreciate linear titles. Personally, I enjoy both linear and non-linear games. I often prefer a linear game, because they typically have better storylines, and you don't spend countless hours wandering aimlessly. My time to play games is precious, so I don't like wasting a few hours trying to discover where I'm supposed to go to advance the story. I know that some other people feel the same way, so JRPGs shouldn't be criticized just because most of them are linear.

One of the other things RPGs are often derided for are their "generic characters." I have to agree that in many cases this is true. Many JRPGs of today feature an androgynous main character, and this characteristic of JRPGs is attacked relentlessly in the press. I appreciate a good joke about Vaan as much as anybody, but the problem is, many positive aspects of RPGs are ignored in the process. Just because you can't tell the main character's gender and are playing a "save the world adventure" doesn't mean that every aspect of the game is generic. If someone is going to strictly attack these two parts of JRPGs, they shouldn't fail to mention that many other games of various genres feature these same clichés.

In most Action, Adventure, and RPG games, you're saving something--whether it is a world or a person. In both Halo 3 and Gears of War 2, you're saving humanity. Those games also feature generic characters: space marines and aliens. Journalists often criticize RPGs for having feminine males, yet they neglect pointing out that many FPS characters look like 350 pound linebackers. Sure, most males don't look like Vaan, so an occasional joke is harmless, but when you think about it, not many of us are 350 pound linebackers either. And if you're a female gamer, chances are that you don't relate to either of those types of characters. The point is, a character is a character. You're experiencing someone else's world, so does it really matter that your character doesn't look like you? I mean, I wasn't even able to make a character that looked like me in a game like Mass Effect that featured character creation tools. I could make him a similar build, but the facial characteristics were never exactly the same, so I didn't see Commander Shepard as a virtual representation of me.

Even though RPGs often feature some generic characters and a "save the world plot," there is usually much more lurking within these grand creations. For example, Kaim may appear similar to Cloud at first glance personality-wise, because of his quietness, but if you play on, you'll begin to realize that he's experienced more than any other human ever will in his lifetime. Quiet people are often misjudged in real life, and this game shows that they often have quite a bit going on in their minds--even if they aren't immortals like Kaim. I also didn't consider Jansen to be a generic character. I know a friend that is similar--he's a womanizer and mischievous, but he also has a good heart. Where Jansen differs from my friend however, is that Jansen isn't adventurous. If he was following a strict character archetype, Jansen probably would have been adventurous, but he was melded into something unique in Lost Odyssey. I could go on and on describing characters that are unique in some form or another, but I'll spare you the laundry list.

Before closing, I'd like to mention that RPG stories often aren't as generic as they appear to be. In Eternal Sonata for example, you're on a quest to save the world from a tyrant who's increasing taxes and using aggressive tactics with other nations, but there is so much more underneath the surface. You're living in a dream world, that connects to many events in Chopin's life that influenced his music. Through the story in the game, you can see the parallels to events such as the occupation of Poland by Russia. There are also many environmentalist and philosophical ideas presented over the course of the story, but your average gamer that is unaware of these types of things may not pick it up.

Lost Odyssey also has a bad guy you're supposed to save the world from, but much more important than that is Kaim's experiences as an immortal. Without a significant amount of thinking, most people would imagine that being immortal is a blessing, when in reality, it is both a blessing and a curse. You get to live forever, but you have to experience pain over and over again witnessing the people who are close to you die. It's also torturous endlessly seeking your purpose on this Earth. There are so many nuances in Lost Odyssey that only people with backgrounds in history and world religions might pick up on, but the experiences told in the short stories should be relatable to most people on this Earth. Many of them are told from multiple vantage points, so you begin to realize that some of these issues that are often displayed as black and white in politics are actually much more complex.

I only had space to discuss a couple recent RPGs here, but my point is that one shouldn't judge a game by initial appearances. Just because a game has a couple feminine males and a world to save doesn't make a game bad, or any less deserving of respect than games of other genres. Games of every genre have their faults; I have yet to play a perfect game in my twenty years playing video games. Instead of just picking apart an RPG because of its outward appearance or linearity, game journalists should also look at what the game is doing right. Of course what is right varies, but they can at least do a better job discussing aspects of games that people who aren't shallow care about. Gamers are not a homogenous group, so it is important to discuss various aspects of a game to provide a complete picture of the product. Integrity and being fair is an important part of journalism, so it'd be great to see Bitmob taking this new approach like the EGM of old.