From a quality perspective, it's a good thing they've got Dragon Quest. I've been waiting on Final Fantasy to return to form since 2000.
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Who has been Square's biggest rival in the RPG game throughout the years?
- Thread starter Squarehard
- Start date
It probably depends on how you what specifically you mean rivaling them in, but I'd say the top 3 are probably
1. Pokemon (sadly) is probably the only other series that rivals it in budget/marketing/name recognition and...yeah, very sadly
2. SMT/Persona is probably the next level down
3. Dragon Quest was the next huge JRPG franchise, but it's kind of fallen in mainstream prominence, although DQ11 was still a solidly made game
3. Xenoblade is not nearly at their level, but I feel like within the JRPG community it's building up a following and Nintendo is giving them the backing they need
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n. Tales is...somewhere
1. Pokemon (sadly) is probably the only other series that rivals it in budget/marketing/name recognition and...yeah, very sadly
2. SMT/Persona is probably the next level down
3. Dragon Quest was the next huge JRPG franchise, but it's kind of fallen in mainstream prominence, although DQ11 was still a solidly made game
3. Xenoblade is not nearly at their level, but I feel like within the JRPG community it's building up a following and Nintendo is giving them the backing they need
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n. Tales is...somewhere
This is an extremely loaded question. "RPG" is a very broad (and borderline useless) genre descriptor but this thread is mostly ignoring anything that isn't anime-styled or anime-adjacent like some fairly obvious picks such as From's Souls games, Witcher by CDPR, Elder Scrolls and Fallout by Bethesda or Mass Effect and Dragon Age by BioWare respectively. Assassin's Creed I'd say also fits, so do several of Sony's recent games (God of War, Horizon, Ghost). I could also see someone make a case for Monster Hunter and Breath of the Wild.
However, "rival" suggests that you're looking for someone who makes similar games which then leads to more questions: Similar to what, in what way and how much? In terms of gameplay I'd say that Final Fantasy XV is much closer to some of the aforementioned games. Dragon Quest, however, I'd put in a group with Pokémon, Persona/SMT, Atelier and Trails. Neither is really a perfect fit. People are barely acknowledging Pokémon as a JRPG. Also, which game by another company is the most similar to Kingdom Hearts 3 or Final Fantasy VII Remake? Are SRPGs like Fire Emblem "like" Square-Enix' RPGs?
Basically, you can answer this question any way you like depending on what criteria you look at. In terms of production values, I don't think any of the anime-styled RPGs of the last two generations come anywhere close to SE's stuff. Quality is a different question altogether and I think SE has seen much better days...
However, "rival" suggests that you're looking for someone who makes similar games which then leads to more questions: Similar to what, in what way and how much? In terms of gameplay I'd say that Final Fantasy XV is much closer to some of the aforementioned games. Dragon Quest, however, I'd put in a group with Pokémon, Persona/SMT, Atelier and Trails. Neither is really a perfect fit. People are barely acknowledging Pokémon as a JRPG. Also, which game by another company is the most similar to Kingdom Hearts 3 or Final Fantasy VII Remake? Are SRPGs like Fire Emblem "like" Square-Enix' RPGs?
Basically, you can answer this question any way you like depending on what criteria you look at. In terms of production values, I don't think any of the anime-styled RPGs of the last two generations come anywhere close to SE's stuff. Quality is a different question altogether and I think SE has seen much better days...
Their biggest rival is their own legacy. SE still hasn't released a title that further establishes their legacy and needs to strengthen trust in their releases anew. I loved VIIR, but it's revisiting the past, not an all-new title that can make you go "well, they've still got it!" Shadowbringers is great, but it's one part of a whole and it took tremendous work and buildup to get there. It also just gets us close to the great moments of the past while relying on good storylines from previous FF titles.
Pokemon is ahead of FF in terms of recognition, success and fanbase loyalty. Tales had an opportunity to get to that level it couldn't seize because of the way the series clings to tropes and conventions it would do good to undo.
ATLUS could be their rival if they can have storylines that match the quality of their gameplay, but Persona's offerings (and SMTIV Apocalypse) prove that they've actually been regressing narratively speaking.
Pokemon is ahead of FF in terms of recognition, success and fanbase loyalty. Tales had an opportunity to get to that level it couldn't seize because of the way the series clings to tropes and conventions it would do good to undo.
ATLUS could be their rival if they can have storylines that match the quality of their gameplay, but Persona's offerings (and SMTIV Apocalypse) prove that they've actually been regressing narratively speaking.
It used to be sega that made big rpg (phantasy star, shining force, skies of arcadia...) too bad they forgot how to.
Good that they bought Atlus and that yakuza is now an rpg.
Good that they bought Atlus and that yakuza is now an rpg.
I mean, now that Square Enix basically owns most of the currently and formerly relevant "big" JRPG IPs (Final Fantasy and its derivatives, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean, Front Mission), there's nothing left to compete with it in terms of breadth, scale, and competition within the same market (so not Pokemon or Xeno). Within the same ecosystem, there's really only Tales and Megami Tensei/Persona, but of these, Persona is the only one that sells in the multi-millions internationally, and even then only one title every several years.
After that, there's a smattering of minor players, like Bandai's Digimon games, Sega with Shining Resonance (or Valkyria Chronicles if you consider that an SRPG). After that you'd have to go even smaller to Experience (various dungeon-crawlers) or FuRyu (Caligula). These all pale in comparison in terms of sales to the others, though.
The death of Capcom's' Breath of Fire, and Konami's Suikoden and Vandal Hearts, as well as Sony's collab projects like Wild Arms or Arc the Lad have really hollowed out the market outside of Nintendo's ecosystem.
After that, there's a smattering of minor players, like Bandai's Digimon games, Sega with Shining Resonance (or Valkyria Chronicles if you consider that an SRPG). After that you'd have to go even smaller to Experience (various dungeon-crawlers) or FuRyu (Caligula). These all pale in comparison in terms of sales to the others, though.
The death of Capcom's' Breath of Fire, and Konami's Suikoden and Vandal Hearts, as well as Sony's collab projects like Wild Arms or Arc the Lad have really hollowed out the market outside of Nintendo's ecosystem.
This just drags it back to semantics. Or yet another WRPG vs JRPG debate. Is that what you want?
Way back?
Enix.
Now?
Bandai-Namco with the Tales of Series ( for me at less ).
But seriously nothing can rival them anyway, they are the mighty empire of the JRPG genre.
Enix.
Now?
Bandai-Namco with the Tales of Series ( for me at less ).
But seriously nothing can rival them anyway, they are the mighty empire of the JRPG genre.
Until they were absorbed by Enix? It was Enix.
Since they became S-E? It's Nintendo (Namco used to be a threat until they lost Monolith and the Tales series faded into obscurity though).
Fun Fact: Even without Pokémon, Nintendo is the biggest and most successful JRPG publisher in the world.
Since they became S-E? It's Nintendo (Namco used to be a threat until they lost Monolith and the Tales series faded into obscurity though).
Fun Fact: Even without Pokémon, Nintendo is the biggest and most successful JRPG publisher in the world.
From Software. Atlus is still kind of niche (as much as I LOVE Persona and SMT, it's still a BIT niche) but Dark Souls? This is everywhere.
Right now their main competition in this space would be Atlus, the fact that Persona 5 got a nomination at the GotY in the Game Awards while Final Fantasy XV did not says a lot about how one franchise kept going down while the other kept going up.
Of course I am talking about critical success, not commercial. Square-Enix is still far above the rest, and the fact that Atlus still can't figure out worldwide releases shows how far backwards they are in this regard.
You can also see that Atlus is now a trend-setter with the amount of games that are inspired by Persona (Fire Emblem Three Houses being a prime example) while FF or KH has not inspired lots of people since the early 2000s.
Of course I am talking about critical success, not commercial. Square-Enix is still far above the rest, and the fact that Atlus still can't figure out worldwide releases shows how far backwards they are in this regard.
You can also see that Atlus is now a trend-setter with the amount of games that are inspired by Persona (Fire Emblem Three Houses being a prime example) while FF or KH has not inspired lots of people since the early 2000s.
Final Fantasy XV had trouble getting to 9 million units.
9 million units for a Pokemon game is considered bad.
There are levels to this shit and Final Fantasy isnt in the same level as Pokemon.
This thread should be about who has been Nintendos biggest rival in the RPG space and SquareEnix can beg to be put at the table so it can try and fight.
I'd say it's a combination of long time staff exodus and the super conservative "No more mid-level budget projects, focus entirely on FF" Yoichi Wada is heavily contributed to SE's problems transition from the PS2 to PS3 era. Once Wada became CEO, you no longer saw odd projects along the lines of Tobal No. 1 / No. 2, Bushido Blade, Einhander, and the likes. Also long time RPG series SaGa and Mana / Seiken Densetsu were pushed by the wayside under Wada's tenure.
I mean Sakaguchi leaving didn't help, but they also lost Masato Kato (Chrono and Xeno), Tetsuya Takahashi (Chrono and Xeno), Koichi Ishii (Mana series creator), and Yasumi Matsuno (Ivalice / FFT / Tactics Ogre / Ogre Battle), and I'm sure there are other notable staff that left due to mismanagement.
JRPGs? They haven't had real competition since they swallowed Enix. Lots of other fish in that sea, but they clearly have far more of the market share just on output alone.
RPGs in general? BioWare was out there for a bit, but they've fallen off hard. I guess Bethesda? Probably the only company that can compare pound-for-pound on raw RPG sales over the a given period of time.
RPGs in general? BioWare was out there for a bit, but they've fallen off hard. I guess Bethesda? Probably the only company that can compare pound-for-pound on raw RPG sales over the a given period of time.
People really seem to underestimate how big of a presence Nintendo has when it comes to JRPGs. They're not rivals to Square Enix though, the most obvious reason being that they collaborate a lot which also shows how big Nintendo is in the genre; SE defers to Nintendo when it comes to handling their RPGs outside of Japan.
For all the crap that get throws at Wada that one is 100% not true. Under Wada Square Enix was putting all kind of quirky, innovative games on the DS, PSP and Wii.
Matsuda's tenure has seen significantly less investment in those smaller games.
For all the crap that get throws at Wada that one is 100% not true. Under Wada Square Enix was putting all kind of quirky, innovative games on the DS, PSP and Wii.
Matsuda's tenure has seen significantly less investment in those smaller games.
I know it's not the same, but Bethesda's RPGs filled the void of nice world to explore left by the older FFs.
Persona has growing clout and sales but compared to FF, the budget and production values will always be considered less. And Atlus for me has been disappointing for the past few years, since their output has dropped, probably due to game development needing more manpower. I feel like they will never hit their PS2/DS era again.
Who knows when is RE Fantasy coming out? Has there been any news of its progress?
Yes I do think Nintendo is a good contender. And SE sure is keeping it safe, probably to steer and not rock the boat. I do hope they have more adventurous games in the near future.
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I actually don't feel that the recent history of JRPGs is very well described as having rivalries. Not many of the major players are both similar in size and similar in target audience, so it's hard to think of them as rivals. For example Pokemon may be big, but I wouldn't call it an FF rival, it has too different of a focus.
Also JRPG history has been pretty tumultuous, so I don't know if there have been steady rivalries 'throughout the years'. Like SE's own output varied significantly from the PS2 to PS3 to PS4 eras. And some of the popular JRPGs today like Persona/Fire Emblem/Xenoblade only became big recently.
Also JRPG history has been pretty tumultuous, so I don't know if there have been steady rivalries 'throughout the years'. Like SE's own output varied significantly from the PS2 to PS3 to PS4 eras. And some of the popular JRPGs today like Persona/Fire Emblem/Xenoblade only became big recently.
Eh, Wada isn't entirely to blame for the FF focus. The shift actually started with his predecessor, Square CEO Hisashi Suzuki:
RPGamer said:
Wada was actually the one who pushed for "polymorphic content" (new multi-media franchises), but most of them bombed hard (World of Mana, Extreme Edges, Code Age which never left Japan, etc.).
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Atlus was eating everyone's lunch with Etrian Odyssey and SMT and their one-off RPGs. SE tried tho with Bravely Default 1 and Second and Octopath and they're great but they got stinkers like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy
Etrian Odyssey, while a much-loved dungeon crawler, wasn't contributing to 'eating everyone's lunch'. It's niche but relatively consistent (EO II/III didn't even get an EU release), and capped out at under 2m sales over the entire series (so far) of 8 games over 12 years. That it's got a really good turn-based battle engine and thus has a lot of fans here (including me) that are happy to talk it up as a reliable series for fans of turn-based rpgs doesn't mean it was ever helping to bother FF.
Same goes for Falcom. Great games, great battle engines, highly regarded in dedicated JRPG discussion and consistent in regular output, but not exactly troubling the big leagues in terms of sales when they all sell to the same couple of hundred thousand people every time. P5 is a bit of an elephant in the room in terms of a breakout hit, but I've probably got a dozen Atlus portable JRPGs on my shelf and I doubt all their sales combined have ever approached that of a mainline FF.
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I'd bet all FF fans still enjoy Pokemon. You're right, JRPGs don't compete anymore. FF is the highest budget, but that isn't a dominating force so much as a capstone. I feel like each IP out in the space has its own nook, their survival is more on how many people still enjoy JRPGs rather than which is the 'best'.
Extreme Edges still exists. It's basically the Japan/Asia localization team for SE Europe fare like Tomb Raider or Avengers but they also occasionally produce games like those digital Spelunker titles with Tozai.
You are skipping over a ton of SE games (including 2 mainline FF in XIV and VIIR that were released since XV) You start to include other AAA efforts though in KH and AA games like Automata and it's still not even close
As much as I love From.... no Dark Souls is mainstream but From is only 2 teams and they only released 3 games last gen(unless you want to count DS2, but that was a PS3 game that was later ported)
Sekiro also wasn't an RPG(and it also wasn't very good, but that's more about taste I suppose)
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I wouldn't say that FF-style JRPGs cater to a completely different audience than WRPGs, but Pokemon sure does
Not a totally different audience, but FF is definitely heavily anime inspired vs the tabletop inspired WRPGs
Depends on the Final Fantasy game, but generally that's true
Although FF is definitely more palatable to a fan of WRPGs than something like Persona
Nobody is spending as much money on production of AAA JRPGs as Square Enix, so in that sense they don't really have a "rival" in that space. They're alone. Namco and Atlus each have one successful series that cost and sell a fraction of what Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, or even Dragon Quest do. And in Namco's case, their one hit is wildly inconsistent in both quality and sales.
But the closest in terms of market impact and cultural relevance is obviously the one with the most multi-million selling, consistent 80+ MC rated JRPG franchises in the world. Nintendo.
But the closest in terms of market impact and cultural relevance is obviously the one with the most multi-million selling, consistent 80+ MC rated JRPG franchises in the world. Nintendo.
RFA will soon pass the original Kingdom Hearts in sales, which would make it the most successful new JRPG IP since... Pokemon? Jesus.
Nintendo made the most successful new JRPG IP in a very, very long time.
People underestimate how many RPGs Nintendo have, alot of them successful and not even counting pokrmon
Yeah. I think they have 5 JRPG franchises (Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Paper Mario, Ring Fit Adventure) now with at least one 2m+ selling entry. Also three of these have at least one 90+ Metacritic game and all of them are above 80 average. The only JRPG series I can think of outside of SE and Nintendo to achieve that kind of consistent acclaim and commercial success is Persona.
Quality wise no one defeats Atlus but there is no denying that they are niche as hell compared to SE.
So Nintendo I guess.
So Nintendo I guess.
They even have a few in the back pocket like goldensun and the earthbound series.
Now if only they use them...
Were they ever seen as a JRPG company? What did they have besides Breath of Fire?
