The sad state of JRPG's in the US

(I'll try not to fangirl all over this rant. I promise. This is also not meant to sound
eloquent. This is a rant after-all.)

Something has been bugging me a lot in the last few months. In fact this has bugged me
ever since Blue Dragon came out last August (was it August?). I was listening to Major
Nelson's Podcast (this was in my stage where I listened to pretty much everything that was
gaming and a podcast) and while he always had glowing reviews of Microsoft's first party
games, he didn't have those same glowing remarks for Blue Dragon. He made some of
sort of comment that it was a special kind of game or some bullshit and that not everyone
would like it. He had little to say about it because he's not into those kinds of games. Well
jeez Major, you seem to be into every OTHER kind of game. Couldn't you devote a little
time out of your busy day getting agility orbs in Crackdown to actually fucking play Blue
Dragon?! Do people wonder why it sold like shit here?! If Microsoft isn't even going to
support it why should anyone else?

And the result? I found some reviews for some JRPG's on the 360 (for Blue Dragon and
Lost Odyssey) and decided to save a few of the beauties.



It's the same idea as above but the spelling is more lulz-worthy. People seem way too
interested and shooting or beating people up that they can't appreciate the idea of plotting
a battle with some thought. Is that all people want in the US (stupid question, stupider
answer)?

I know there are exceptions to the rule, of which many of them read Destructoid, so don't
get me wrong. I feel like Major's sentiments set a precedent. I don't subscribe to him
anymore, so I don't know how he felt about Lost Odyssey, but since he's so biased towards
everything else Microsoft, couldn't he be biased towards their JRPG's too and you know,
promote them a bit?

Blue Dragon has its faults (shitty level design for one) but it's not a bad game. Not as bad
as everyone has made it be that is (one day I will write an AU for Blue Dragon, but not
yet). I'm tired of the double standard!

I used Blue Dragon as an example but this could apply to a lot of other JRPG's. Yes some
of them are even too repetitive and archaic for me, like anything made by Gust and Idea
Factory. There are a lot of great ones that get ignored, which prompted me to write about
underrated games that I really enjoy. I wish more people in the gaming community as a
whole outside of Japan would back it up as more than just some strange niche genre.