While I understand your sentiment, considering the slime that was spewed out of that genre for the last 20 years, I respectfully beg to differ when it comes to Final Fantasy 5 and Chrono Trigger.
Final Fantasy 5's skill system is as deep as say, Baldur's Gate 1&2, or Might and Magic 6&7.
And Chrono Trigger needs no explanation. The only game I ever played that integrated time travel perfectly in the storyline and the gameplay as well... and made it fun and coherent.
I don't know, the last 20 years has been great, especially the last decade. We got Pillars of Eternity, Atom RPGs, Pathfinders, Divinity Original Sins and a few Indies like Space Wreck, Colony Ship, Encased etc.
Chrono Trigger and FF5 are good games, great even for some, just not Roleplaying Game proper. If you take out the "RPG elements" from these games, there will be 0 changes on how you navigate the story. And then, if you just have numbers floating and character stats but its sole purpose to determine how hard you hit the enemy it's just an "ARPG", which is also shouldn't be a thing.
RPG is not just about system, system alone doesn't made an RPG. Having numbers floating when you hit =/= RPG neither. But it's about how your stat dictate how your character experience and interact with the story, not the one made up by developer in order to experience the story.
If you like story, there are plenty non-RPG games with fantastic story. Because "great story" isn't exclusive to RPG games.
m curious, would you say that of
Lunatic Dawn?
I would say that it's closer to rogue like and dungeon crawler than proper cRPG.
I consider RPG as a Spectrum, the more RPG elements exist and dictate how your character interact with the environments *and* story, the more RPG it is.
Since Lunatic Dawn is probably the closest thing Japanese to a true RPG (in my definition) and it floped, I think it's telling that Japanese really doesn't interested in making real RPG.
But doesn't mean they can't make a great games, just not an RPG.
of course. rpg games are shit by definition, japanese rpg games are NOT shit.
Japanese Games. They never made an RPG games like I said.
Also i think Japanese video games industry in general are screwed, there aren't many studios and most of them prioritize what sells, and what sells doesn't necessarily good (i.e. Pachinko games), it's an unique perspective on how you would see an aspect of Japanese culture post-bubble, it's like kabukicho.
