Earth Seeker (Wii - JRPG)

[Zonned87]

If ever a 4th game deserved to be added to the Wii trio of RPG's Earth Seeker would be the most deserving.

http://i41.tinypic.com/de0dxd.jpg

Story:
Earth Seeker takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, in which humanity's last remnants amass onto a spaceship and crash land onto a mysterious planet. A machine that controls planetary climates aboard the spaceship then malfunctions, causing problems for the crashed humans as well as the planet's native inhabitants.

http://i42.tinypic.com/330fhc3.jpg

Fans rally to the cause on facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seek-For-The-Earth-Earth-Seeker-Support/310996312280577

[Fabrizo]

http://xseedgames.com/forums/showthread.php?403-Earth-Seeker-amp-Sky-Knight-Rodea-for-Nintendo-Wii

"If Kadokawa asks us to publish it then we will consider it, but we will not aggressively pursue it from our side." -XSeed

[Zonned87]

Thats sadning, fans may have to bug other publishers then.

[Shizuka]

That only means you have to bother Kadokawa instead, but even so, the 5k release week in Japan shows that the game might not even be that good.

[Lumina]

I wanted to like this game when I first heard about it, but it certainly doesn't look very good to me personally. The constant pausing of the action in order to open menus and give battle commands is a very silly design choice in my opinion. Why even bother making a real time battle system if that's how you have to battle?

Even the Tales series which has been known to keep to a pretty standard formula over the years, and used to be plagued by a similar feature back in the day, mostly did away with this in the PS2 era by way of giving the player quick shortcuts to tell party members to complete actions even when you're not directly controlling them. I mean I know it's not the same 4 member party system, but I'm sure they could have figured out something like this to keep the action fast and frantic.

[Rydux]

What a shame, it looked like a fun game to get.

[Philfish]

Bring it to the U.S. market; please XSEED!

[Philfish]

The Japanese are just not into the RPGs as much as they used to be; especially since the home console wave of hatred started. Seems as though the U.S. likes JRPGs more than the Japanese these days.

[PringlesXD]

I looked at a few videos, and it looked very boring... ):

[Zonned87]

The Japanese are just not into the RPGs as much as they used to be; especially since the home console wave of hatred started. Seems as though the U.S. likes JRPGs more than the Japanese these days.Oddly most JRPGs sell more stateside than in Japan.



I looked at a few videos, and it looked very boring... ):I like the artistic style.

[Chaosblade]

I wish JRPGs sold more in the states than in Japan, then we wouldn't have so many games with localization questions. The only games that really come close are really big name things like Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts, and maybe a handful of other titles that do relatively poorly in Japan but find a western audience (Demon's Souls may fall under this, I'm not sure it did too well in Japan, but it was a huge success for Atlus).

Those are definitely the exceptions and not the rule. If Trails in the Sky sold better here than recent Kiseki games in Japan, XSEED would probably be able to make SC a priority ;)

(And for the record, made-up VGChartz numbers don't count. Japanese sales can be semi-accurate thanks to some public sales figures, but their North American numbers are total guesses that are frequently waaaaaay off the mark).

[Zonned87]

I wish JRPGs sold more in the states than in Japan, then we wouldn't have so many games with localization questions. The only games that really come close are really big name things like Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts, and maybe a handful of other titles that do relatively poorly in Japan but find a western audience (Demon's Souls may fall under this, I'm not sure it did too well in Japan, but it was a huge success for Atlus).

Those are definitely the exceptions and not the rule. If Trails in the Sky sold better here than recent Kiseki games in Japan, XSEED would probably be able to make SC a priority ;)

(And for the record, made-up VGChartz numbers don't count. Japanese sales can be semi-accurate thanks to some public sales figures, but their North American numbers are total guesses that are frequently waaaaaay off the mark).I suppose I was judging more by games I play, mostly in the realm of Harvest Moon, Rune Factory and other niche games. According to operation rainfall anyway they sold better stateside than in Japan or Europe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvVq9lfMq4#t=1m15s

I can't really be a judge for titles outside the Wii since I am mostly a Nintendo gamer.

[Chaosblade]

Those numbers came from VGChartz unfortunately. There was another otherwise good video that also used those numbers too. Looks like VGChartz has actually made some adjustments since then though and some amounts have actually been decreased (negative sales? whaaat?).

Generally sales figures can't be trusted unless it's coming from NPD or a source that will obviously know, like the publisher themselves in self-congratulatory press release.

Edit: And I looked at their figures for Falcom releases. Says all of them did better in North America than Japan. Tom, why don't we have SC yet?!?! ;)

[Shizuka]

Oddly most JRPGs sell more stateside than in Japan.

That used to be true, but it isn't the cause for quite some time now.

[PringlesXD]

That used to be true, but it isn't the cause for quite some time now.

Well, Hyperdimension Neptunia begs to differ.

[Shizuka]

Well, Hyperdimension Neptunia begs to differ.

One game doesn't make that statement 100% fact.

[Chaosblade]

The keyword is "most." Some JRPGs sell better in the west. Not sure about Neptunia, but I'm pretty sure Demon's Souls did. I'm sure some western oriented games have failed to find the audience the developer was hoping for in North America/Europe, but ended up finding a larger one that expected in Japan.

[Ryos]

Yeah, primarily the only "JRPGs" that do better here than in Japan are the games that are more traditionally aligned with WRPG development philosophies. Even then it's typically a case of the sales being so anemic in Japan rather than so strong here. Alas.

[Fabrizo]

These days western rpgs sell better in the west, Japanese rpgs sell better in japan, simple as that. Most people that buy j-rpgs do so because they were exposed to them around the mid to late 90s, when they were at the height of their western popularity. Almost any franchise which wasn't established around that time is considered risky to release over here.

There's still plenty of money to be made off them by smaller publishers like XSeed, but most of them wouldn't/don't pull in the kind of numbers that larger publishers would need to turn a worthwhile profit anymore.

Niche and smaller publishers rely on word-of-mouth to sell there games sense they don't have huge marketing budget, so the games need to be good that they choose. Earth Seeker reviewed poorly, sold poorly, is not part of an established franchise, and is on a dying system which was known even in its glory days to have poor sales for 3rd party titles, thus the game is not viable.

[Shizuka]

These days western rpgs sell better in the west, Japanese rpgs sell better in japan, simple as that. Most people that buy j-rpgs do so because they were exposed to them around the mid to late 90s, when they were at the height of their western popularity. Almost any franchise which wasn't established around that time is considered risky to release over here.

You took the words right out of my fingers. Well said, sir.