PixlBit

I always thought Rockford looked like an ant in the original.

A lot of the reason why so many Japanese companies skipped the HD generation is because the HD consoles failed to sell very well in Japan. The PS3 crawls along at a steady pace, while the 360, despite being a bigger Japanese success than the old Xbox, is all but dead. I guarantee you that if the PS3 had been as big of a hit in Japan as the PS1 and PS2 that Japanese companies would have been out in force in the HD generation.

That said, some Japanese companies did well in the HD generation. In particular, Namco has been very active this generation and, thanks to some strategic acquisitions, has grown into one of the world's largest game publishers. They did four console Tales games and a number of other HD RPGs, and published outside works like Ni no Kuni and Dark Souls. And From Software has risen from obscurity to stardom on the backs of the Souls games.

Where is this festival?

Have you ever seen a Baby Pac-Man machine there?

I think Pac-Man will almost certainly be in SSB, and Lloyd, being the star of the most popular Tales game of all time, will probably make it if Namco and Nintendo decide to use Namco characters in the game. I could see KOS-MOS making at least a cameo appearance, given that the game is between Namco and Nintendo.

I'd say Jin Kazama has a fair shot of making it into SSB as well.

I won't use the terms JRPG or WRPG. JRPG is usually used as a pejorative term by Westerners who look down on Japanese-made RPGs. 

After all, is The Witcher a PRPG? Is Mass Effect a CanRPG (since CRPG is usually meant to mean RPGs on PCs, or video RPGs in general).

EA has been losing money this entire generation despite buying up half of the video game industry and gouging its customers right and left, and this is a big reason why. Unless you're making a Halo or Call of Duty game, needing 5 million sales just to break even is setting yourself up for big-time failure. And for all that budget, EA's games are some of the absolute blandest shit I've ever seen.

If it has an EA logo on the box, I generally won't buy it.

Pascal was funny as hell in the Rockagong dungeon.

My first exposure to cel-shaded graphics came with Wind Waker. Like many others I was disappointed by the direction Nintendo chose for the Zelda franchise after the expectation of an ultra-realistic Zelda from Nintendo's E3 demo. When I saw it in action, though, it was incredible.

Dragon Quest VIII was one of the best-looking games of the PS2 generation. Had they chosen to go with a more traditional CG look for the game it would have looked like a lower-resolution version of Blue Dragon. And Okami looked absolutely amazing, and looks even better in HD on the PS3.

Besides Ni no Kuni, this generation also brought us Valkyria Chronicles, which sports its own Ghibli-esque look.

The Skillsaw gun looks pretty cool. I like guns like that in games, but oftentimes they're a bit impractical for the realities of the gameplay.

I started with Metal Gear on the NES myself. It was a great game for its time, and I enjoyed The Twin Snakes on Gamecube and the HD collection. I can respect your love for MGS, because it is the same love I hold for... Final Fantasy VII!

I'm in no hurry to get a PS4, what with stuff like Tales of Xillia coming down the pipeline still, but if they can bring some great RPGs to the PS4 I'm in!