It's hardly guaranteed that you'll agree, but in the eyes of a fair number of fans, the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Japanese role-playing game scene never shone brighter than it did throughout the 1990s and at least the mid-2000s. There was a veritable avalanche's worth of new games coming out every year, ꧟many of which quickly developed followings. Plenty of these games are still spoken of with high reverence todღay.

To be sure, there have been a good number of great JRPGs in the 2010s and the 2020s. There were even a few in the 1980s. But again - it's the '90s and the '00s on so many brains when we contemplate which era is best for JRPGs. Heꦿre's our take on it.

5 Volume

In terms of sheer volume, the 2000s bests the 1990s. To be sure, both🧔 decades had an utterly astounding number of Japanese role-playing games. The Super Nintendo and Sony PlayStation both produced so very💎 many of them. The Sega Saturn had its fair share. The Game Boy, the Nintendo 64 - plenty more.

The 2000s, however, had the Sony PlayStation 2. That console, on its own, was the publishing destination for hundreds of JRPGs. There's never been a console with more of t🗹hem, and it's incredibly unlikely that we'll ever see it b༺ested.

Toss in the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendoꦚ GameCube, and - especial𝓀ly - the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS, and it's plain to see the 2000s are the one time when even the '90s were left in the dust in this regard.

Winner: 2000s

4 Global Public Perception\

This is a weird one, but hear me out. There's a subset of the gaming population who will, clearly, always be turned off by JRPGs. As a lifelong diehard of the genre, it's a bit of a bummer, but then, I admittedly tend to tune out whenever I see a trailer with an FPS i🤪n it. Nothing's for everybody.

JRPGs get it a bit rough, though, seeing as their upper ceiling for potential sales is relatively low. Well, unless you're Pok💧emon, in any case! So, when overarching public perception is with them, JRPGs are in a better place, with a somewhat loftier ceiling than the norm. When it isn't, things can get tempes💫tuous.

In the mid-'90s, between the dawn of Pokemania and the arrival of Final Fantasy VII, much of the Western world fell into lock-step with the JRPG craze. For a few years there, JRPGs were in. They were eye-catchers, system-seller🌌s, the works.

By co🌸ntrast, the mid-late 2000s were something of a nadir for them in the West. Some expressed exhaustion; others seized the negative mom☂entum to get a bit mouthy over their dislike of the genre.

If you were there for it, you probably know what I mean; the Western press grew rather cold on the whole toward JRPGs, and there was such a drop in perceived demand, that even Xenoblade Chronicles almost never made it to Europe or North America. Think about it: Xenoblade Chronicles. It took a concerted fan campaign to make it happen. (Look up Operation Rainfal🤪l sometime, if you're not fa🦂miliar with their efforts. Amazing stuff.)

Winner: 1990s

3 Graphics

This one's not so cut-and-dry as it might first sound. Yes, the graphical capabilities of ඣth🌠e video games industry increased by leaps and bounds overall between the '90s and the '00s. That's just what happens, innit? But look a bit closer, and there are arguments to be made that, in hindsight, the former decade had a few edges on the latter.

Pixel art is all the rage again. It has been for well over a decade, actually. Indie developers have flocked to it for its (relative!) ease, and even some of the biggꦡer studios recognize its timelessness in ways that simply did not happen often in the 2000s, when the push for 3D began to mature, following the second half of the '90s - where it first blossomed to somewhat mixed results.

That's not to say the early '90s lacked any form of 3D gaming, but in the realm of the JRPG, it was exceedingly rare to encounter anything that wasn't 2D, or at least 2.5D. In the back half of the decade, with the aforementioned Final Fantasy VII and plenty of other titans, a gradual shift toward 3D emerged, and while some results were breathtaking, others were decidedly mixed. Blocky🍰 as heck.

What about the 2000s, then? If ever there were a post-'90s decade which didn't do much to return to that 2D JRPG look, it was (fittingly) the decade immediately following the height of that look. M🔯ost devs were interested in taking full advantage of the advancements in 3D rendering, and understandably so.

Again, however, in my opinion, it wasn't always for the best. For every captivating 3D landscape like Dragon Quest VIII and Final Fantasy XII, there was something far less polished, that made me yearn even 🍰then for the fantastic pixels of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI.

Dozens of gorgeous games ꦏcame from both eras, though, so ultimately, it's a wash.

...Or is it? Let's back up a little bit. What do JRPGs do best? Well, the answer is subjective, but in my view, they provide the springboard for epic adventure. And while in recent years, we've seen the scale and scope of these adventures in the 3D sphere truly rivaling the 2D heyday, when it was easier to achieve a depth of content and width of worldbuilding without the meticulousness required in manifesting a three-dimensional🌄 scape, the 2000s were often a big step back.

Final Fantasy X did not have a traditional world map, as the first nine entries did. The airship was a point-and-click mechanic. Why? Because modeling all of that would have bee🥂n nigh-impossible.

And the shift toward portable systems over console hardware, as development costs rose, and many Japanese publishers had a hard time with the transition to HD in the late 2000s, did lead to plenty of great games (sho𓄧utout to Radiant Historia, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, and so many more), but it, too, necessitates scope reduction.

This is not to disparage the 3D worlds of games like Star Ocean: 'Til the End of Time, Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy XII, Persona 4, and more. They excel at what they're given, and they do offer deeper dives in their own ways. But the graphical push of the 2000s nevertheless lowered that sense of scope for most games, so I'm going with....

Winner: 1990s

2 Music

It's arguably a bad idea to 🍎even begin to attempt t𝓀his comparison; JRPGs are one of gaming's most musically beloved genres, with composers bringing delightfully emotional soundtracks to so many titles.

The spirit of adventure, of epic quests, inherent in so many Japanese role-playing games lends opportunities for diverse greatness from industry legends such as Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Koichi Sugiyama, Yoko Shimomura, and Motoi Sakuraba... just to name a fᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚew.

How, then, can one truly compare the musical heights of these respective decades? I reckon there are two core approaches. Either I coulꦺd mull over every JRPG I can ever recall having played in the 1990s, do the same for the 2000s, and figure things out from there. In which case, my adoration for the soundtracks of Xenogears, the PlayStation-era Final Fantasy games, and more would win me over.

Or, I could look at this from pure technical capabilities. After all, while I've played at least a couple hundred Japanese role-playing games in my day, I've certainly not played them all. So, it may be behove me to think in terms of the advancements in audio hardwa𝓡re, and thus, the upper limits on what these esteemed composers could achieve.

Now, it's true that this approach also has its drawbacks. If you're reading this, and you have an unabashed love for chiptune soundtracks, then "advancements" might not satisfy your own perspective. But I think I'll roll with this, because I don't know that anybody is completely qualified to weigh every soundtrack bet🔴ween the decades, and frankly, there's just so much amazement to be heard in both here.

In which case...

Winner: 2000s

1 ꧋ ✨ The Winner

And there you have it. Whether you read every category, or you skipped to the end, you now have my answer: a tie. The 1990s and the 2000s were both crucial decades for Japanese role-playing games, and they delivered an almost-ridiculous number of them. No wonder the late 2000s showed some measure of e𝐆xhaustion with my favourite genre.

The 1980s set things in place, the 2010s and 2020s have had no shortage of winners in their own right, but the 1990s and 2000s were the decades. And while companies like Square and Atlus saw their respective heights at different points on the timeline, there was always something to look forward to, not just from them, but from so many studios - many of which no longer exist today. I love where JRPGs are in 2025, but there's no going back to how good we once📖 had it. Here's to the zenith, the era ofꦛ nonstop late-night good times.