Elden Ring exists, I understand is far from a traditional JRPG but you don’t sell a lot by being a traditional JRPG. The most successful JRPG are quite different to what most consider JRPGs (RFA,MH,Pokemon and Souls)
If you want a traditional JRPG to have anything close to CP2077 ambition you will need to wait for Nintendo EPD or Capcom to make big AAA JRPGs which really I don’t see happening or Nintendo giving BOTW budget to Monolith which will only happen if they make games that sell pre-BOTW Zelda numbers. (I’m saying this because you seem to dislike SE AAA design so I ignored it because it will probably never change lol)
For the sake of this discussion, I'll ignore that you're mentioning Elden Ring in a debate about jrpgs ;>
When we're talking about hopes for ambitious jrpgs from Japanese developers, I think we need to acknowledge two things first:
- the pool developers is extremely limited. As you say, there's Square Enix, Nintendo, possibly Capcom (I think there's insane potential in a proper MonHun-jrpg not targeted at children) and maybe Atlus (we need to see how Project Re:Fantasy turns out). Oh, and Bandai Namco, sure, although I fear we're in for at least a decade of Arise-tier jrpgs from them before they make another jump in quality).
- "ambitious jrpgs" really means leaving behind some aspects of traditional jrpg design and embracing gameplay features usually found in WRPGs. This is what Xenoblade Wii did when it went with mmo-like combat, a vast open world and lots of customization and off-the-rails world exploration. But that was 2010 and XB3, while great, is not an ambitious game in terms of gameplay anymore.
Another big issue is that the industry as a whole needs to see a paradigm shift in terms of development tools. As great as a game like CP2077 is, it only features one city. We are so far away from a rpg on that level that features an entire world with several cities and landscapes. Final Fantasy 7 Remake needed to be split up into at least 3 parts. GTA6 and Elder Scrolls 6 are taking 10+ years of massive development investment. Nobody expects a Xenogears-remake anymore because fans know it'd be even more demanding than FF7R. Dev tools need to reach a new level where giant game worlds can be created in a fraction of the current dev time, otherwise games with big worlds and epic stories are stuck where they are. At that point you almost can't blame SH2's dungeon design anymore, because there's no way a project like that would ever receive the budget necessary to portray something that could be considered "ambitious". It's more busines-sound to craft a derivative dungeon crawler with attractive character designs and well-tested SMT-combat and make some money with that.
We see the recurring, unproven (and imo wrong) argument that Xenoblade-sales are hindered by certain aesthetics. I think, pertaining to the second point above, that an inherent issue with jrgs is its archaic gameplay design. Hence why Elden Ring, a WRPG made in Japan, is breaking sales-records: Because it doesn't play anything like a jrpg. It feels and looks like a western rpg, active combat, lots of customization, non-linear progression, focus on awe and wonder over a hand-holding narrative based on fancy cutscenes. This is where genres stop mattering, it's about what's inherent attractive to customers and sales data we recently got from Elden Ring clearly prove this to some degree. I mentioned Xenoblade Wii in this regard, too, because it followed some western game design conventions, too, albeit to much lesser degree than Elden Ring. But this is the direction to take if you want significantly increased sales. FF16 is doing exactly that, taking a lot of clues from Witcher 3, improving on it and adding the superior art design of the FF DNA. Despite our dooming discussion in terms of Japan, I think FF16 will become the best selling FF ever worldwide, and not just because more people play video games. It's also why I was so hopeful for Monolith Soft's medieval fantasy-ip that supposedly would use action-combat over the usual indirect jrpg-combat. Tales of Arise also went for more direct action-y combat compared to past Tales of-titles. You can quote me on that, but I'm sure the upcoming wave of JRPGs starting with FF16 will be significantly closer to WRPGs that many would have expected (or wanted). But it's what sells.
PS: As for "disliking SE", it's not that I dislike their game design approach, but the pretentious nature of their writing and advertising. Basically, they're overselling their own skills in certain areas and that i can't stand. That began when they did those cringe Latin titles, "Fabula Nova Crystalis", ugh. I'm actually looking forward to FF16, because it'll probably the closest we'll get to the supposedly cancelled medieval ip of Monolith Soft.
PPS: Wall of text, sorry ^^
Disciple
