[corimaith]

We aren't getting good games past 2015 or so because the industry has become incredibly risk-averse and realized there's more profit to be made releasing sequels and remakes than producing something innovative. That being said, that's not a sustainable strategy and we are seeing the limits of that.

>It's not so much a P5R problem as a general problem in the industry. In my current playthrough status ailments, buffs, debuffs and such just don't matter. That's the case for most turn-based games, just as the weapons triangle ceased to matter in Fire Emblem games a long time ago.

I think that's more a function of the games you are playing, in Kiseki or Xenoblade or (some) Final Fantasy there is alot more strategy involved than in Persona, whose primairly appeal I believe is more of a social life simulator than a deep rpg experience. Even with music, it's just a different style where P4 is pop while P5 is jazz, but other games draw from instrumentals or ecelectic mixes like Ar Tonelico. To say one is better/worse isn't a good term because they aren't easily comparable.

>Fictional VR games like Sword Art Online and Shangri-La Frontier have NPCs you can just talk to, I'd love to see that in real games.

Well that's just a MMORPG or a RPG or ImSim. And the MMORPG is probably closer to needing a fresh start than being anywhere close to a solved genre. But as the riskiest and most expensive genre, nobody is going to funding something that really pushes the line due to the sheer risk involved.

[bccdee]

My favourite game of all time, Outer Wilds, was released in 2019.

I agree that AAA dev is too risk-averse and that there's a dearth of mid-budget games, but the indie sphere is still very rich.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>We aren't getting good games past 2015 or so because the industry has become incredibly risk-averse

Slay the Spire was released in 2017. Are you accounting for indie games?

[corimaith]

There will always be exceptions to any trends, but I wouldn't say the deluge of generic roguelike platformers with 16 bit art has been paticularly flattering to the indie industry. Have things really progressed in 2024 since 2012 in the same way that 2012 was abjectly different from 2002? Not really, you could release Slay the Spire in 2012 or 2024 and it wouldn't look out of place.

[akarlsten]

They mostly seem interested in JRPG anime slop, and even then Expedition 33 was released just this year and is probably the best example of that genre from the last 20 years? That's also by a relatively small studio though..

I would agree that big AAA studios are basically entirely creatively bankrupt at this point, but that's not exclusive to games, the same trend is apparent with movies (remakes of Disney movies, Star Wars sequels, etc.).

Another end-of-ZIRP casualty?

[PaulHoule]

I got stuck 1/3 of the way through Xenoblade on my New 3DS, I oughta figure out how and finish it!