Iwata: Japanese RPGs make excessive use of conventions

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has suggested that Japanese RPGs need to change and evolve significantly to gain widespread success in the current Western games market in the latest Q&A on the Nintendo website.

Chatting to Xenoblade Director Tetsuya Takahashi and The Last Story Director Hironobu Sakaguchi about their new Wii RPGs and the days when the pair both worked back at Square Enix, the three discuss a number of topics important to the RPG genre, including the production of games like Final Fantasy I through to Final Fantasy VII and plans for the future of the RPG genre in Japan.

Notably, Iwata muses on why Japanese RPGs have struggled to gain success in the West in recent years, suggesting that most Japanese RPGs make excessive use of the same tropes, crutches and conventions from game to game, making many of them appear superficially similar. Sakaguchi chimed in agreeing, stating that he believes Japanese RPG creators need to look at how to further change the genre.

It wasn't all negative, though - Sakaguchi goes on to explain that he thinks that Japanese RPGs are particularly good at conveying a feeling and providing a deep level of detail. Takahashi doesn't comment much on the issue of JRPGs in the West much at all - but Sakaguchi certainly has the experience to speak with a little more authority - he's lived in Hawaii for some time and also produced several high-profile RPGs for the Western-focused Xbox 360 in Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

There's a bit more detail on the development of Final Fantasy II and III and how the two directors took different approaches to the 3D shift in the PS1 era for those who can read Japanese over on the Nintendo website.