Disgaea DS

[DjinnAndTonic]

What it actually means is that you're overrating its effect on the industry. As I said, you're seeing the fact that N1 games actually got more attention and you're saying that the effect sprawls to an entire genre.

I guess that's possible, but honestly, I think that the effect -does- sprawl to the entire genre. Honestly, I haven't seen any sort of proof saying otherwise, so what makes my theory about this any less valid than yours?

-Djinn

[Talaysen]

I guess that's possible, but honestly, I think that the effect -does- sprawl to the entire genre. Honestly, I haven't seen any sort of proof saying otherwise, so what makes my theory about this any less valid than yours?

You're the one who's making a statement.  The burden of proof is on you.

[Dark Holy Elf]

After Disgaea, the deluge of SRPGs far outstripped the 6 titles listed in Elf's post.

This would be where you provide evidence. Show me these titles and argue that they would not have been ported if not for Disgaea.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Stella Deus, Growlanser Generations, Yggdra Union, and Suikoden Tactics all came out around the same time Disgaea did. Also, this was around the time Wild Arms added an SRPG-like quality to its battle system. Of course, all of N1's other releases La Pucelle, Phantom Brave, etc. As well as non-N1-developed, but N1-translated titles like Generation of Chaos, Spectral Souls, and Astonishia Story came out. Most of these titles did little to effect the SRPG genre as whole, or even sell well themselves. They most likely were not expected to be smash hits from what I can tell, but they seemed to be riding the Disgaea hype train at the time. Honestly, you can argue that each of these games may have come out without Disgaea and I really can't -prove- otherwise, but it certainly seemed like Disgaea was having an effect at the time. Newer handheld titles still feel like they are riding the Disgaea wave to me, but it could just as easily be the FFT wave, I suppose. *shrug* The thing is that I'm not an expert on the subject, but the other points raised in this topic seem to be just as much anecdotal evidence as this.

-Djinn

[Dark Holy Elf]

I already covered Suikoden Tactics. Stella Deus... wasn't it made by the same people as Hoshigami? So they'd already committed themselves to localisations. That leaves you with... a few games I admittedly know absolutely nothing about. Still, I was hoping to see something more than "They came out after Disgaea, therefore they came out because it came out!" Do they show clear hallmarks of Disgaea-type gameplay or something like that?

Because otherwise I'm left looking at the sales numbers, and noticing that it is Square Enix and Nintendo that did the heavy lifting. To give you an idea... Final Fantasy Tactics Advance alone most likely beats out the combined N1 repertoire for sales. To say Disgaea would motivate a game producer to finance/import a portable RPG more than FFTA, thus, strikes me as a deluded argument.

PSX FINAL FANTASY TACTICS 747,355
GBA FINAL FANTASY TACTICS ADV 646,684

GBA FIRE EMBLEM 390,350
GBA FIRE EMBLEM: THE SACRED STONES 308,414
NGC FIRE EMBLEM: PATH OF RADIANCE 173,858

PS2 DISGAEA:HOUR DARKNESS 70,321
PS2 DISGAEA 2: CURSED MEMORIES 70,572
PS2 PHANTOM BRAVE 50,997
Makai Kingdom (NIS America) 35,631

EDIT: Oh yes, and though we at the DL don't usually consider it an RPG, the Advance Wars series is also huge and is also credited for making strategy-type games happenin' on the portables.

[Monkeyfinger]

What it actually means is that you're overrating its effect on the industry. As I said, you're seeing the fact that N1 games actually got more attention and you're saying that the effect sprawls to an entire genre.

This post made me lol becuase the person Djinn is arguing with is Elfboy taking the side of FFT in an argument.

[DjinnAndTonic]

PSX FINAL FANTASY TACTICS 747,355
GBA FINAL FANTASY TACTICS ADV 646,684

GBA FIRE EMBLEM 390,350
GBA FIRE EMBLEM: THE SACRED STONES 308,414
NGC FIRE EMBLEM: PATH OF RADIANCE 173,858

PS2 DISGAEA:HOUR DARKNESS 70,321
PS2 DISGAEA 2: CURSED MEMORIES 70,572
PS2 PHANTOM BRAVE 50,997
PS2 Makai Kingdom (NIS America) 35,631

Well, no sense arguing with numbers, after all. I was wrong, you are right. Disgaea has had no effect on the SRPG niche whatsoever.

Out of curiosity, I have been looking for a place to lookup game sales for a while now. Can I ask where people generally find them?

-Djinn

[Niu]

Also, this was around the time Wild Arms added an SRPG-like quality to its battle system.

You can't imagine how wrong this statement actually is.

[Grefter]

Links to sources is generally pretty sexy in general as well.

SRPG in various forms is old anyway.  Warlords says hi and it is really only just the earliest I can think of.

N1 has its niche and I would certainly say it has had  SOME influence, but it isn't nearly as huge as the internet hype train would have you believe.  Ultimately they get released because they are cheap and sell enough to turn a healthy profit (ie they are cheap enough to warrant a European release even).  And things people praise other games for doing like Disgaea are pretty much universally things that earlier series have done, so I wouldn't be giving it credit for being a clone that came out around the same time a few other SRPG spin offs did (you know I suspect the timing of them is more likely when taking into account for development cycle time to be more of a response to FFTA's success than Disgaea just coming out before them).

[Captain K.]

If you want to credit Disgaea with something, credit it with giving Atlus a big boost to their sales.  Remember when they were doing 5000-copy print runs?

Disgaea sold well enough that they reprinted it and earned some capital, so now they have reached the size where they can bring us lots of other niche titles that normally wouldn't make it across the shores.

[superaielman]

Yet, they had no influence on bringing more SRPGs overall to the States. Ogre Battle flopped hard enough for TO to not be bothered with localization-wise until the highly limited PSX rerelease, which was hilariously niche anyway (and its localization certainly wouldn't have happened without FFT, by the way). Langrisser was - and still is - a highly irrelevant release.

OB sold pretty well (See the lack of availability of SNES carts for it), it was just an Atlus release on the SNES. PSX was a limited edition run. Etc. It wasn't an FF7 success but it sold about as well as you could expect considering the print run.

disgaea stuff

FFT was the first SRPG that had a large print run and sold well. There are earlier ones (ShF, OB) but it was the first really mainstream SRPG hit. There were a *ton* of PSX RPG SRPG's. Are there more PS2 ones? Hell yes. Some of that is a credit to Disgaea, as the sales of it and the market it generated for N1 games along with what Captain K said.

Most of that credit goes to just how many more RPG's we got this generation compared to the last one. Hell, look at how many more SMT games we got on the PS2 compared to the PSX. DDS, Devil Summoner, the Personas, etc. It's more a reflection on how successful the PS2 was an RPG console than anything else.

Well, no sense arguing with numbers, after all. I was wrong, you are right. Disgaea has had no effect on the SRPG niche whatsoever.

*SNORT*

[Grefter]

FFT was the first SRPG that had a large print run and sold well. There are earlier ones (ShF, OB) but it was the first really mainstream SRPG hit. There were a *ton* of PSX RPG SRPG's. Are there more PS2 ones? Hell yes. Some of that is a credit to Disgaea, as the sales of it and the market it generated for N1 games along with what Captain K said.

Again, Warlords says hi and more modern Heroes of Might and Magic wants a chat with this big seller thing.  If you want to get more into the micro scale Squad Based Tactics twist on things rather than games which have an overt macro scale strategy thing, Jagged Alliance says a GIANT hello on both the RPG stats front and same on the Tactics elements.

Edit - Also to spin away from my massive PC bias, I thought Shining Force had fairly healthy market penetration for its era as well.

[Excal]

Shining Force might have, but the series had definatly died away, as seen in the fact that SF3 didn't make it out here.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Shining Force 3 made it to the US... well, one third of it.

[superaielman]

FFT was the first SRPG that had a large print run and sold well. There are earlier ones (ShF, OB) but it was the first really mainstream SRPG hit. There were a *ton* of PSX RPG SRPG's. Are there more PS2 ones? Hell yes. Some of that is a credit to Disgaea, as the sales of it and the market it generated for N1 games along with what Captain K said.

Again, Warlords says hi and more modern Heroes of Might and Magic wants a chat with this big seller thing.  If you want to get more into the micro scale Squad Based Tactics twist on things rather than games which have an overt macro scale strategy thing, Jagged Alliance says a GIANT hello on both the RPG stats front and same on the Tactics elements.

Edit - Also to spin away from my massive PC bias, I thought Shining Force had fairly healthy market penetration for its era as well.

PC and console bases are pretty radically different.   Shining Force sold well IIRC but was on the wrong consoles.

[Grefter]

You miss the point, each of the game I mention there share similarities with console SRPGs.  It is just another twist on a fairly ubiquitous genre since control scheme for it is rarely a huge defining factor when it is TB.  It is a genre that has pretty much always sold in acceptable quantities in its niche regardless of system.  Which goes back to my original point of Disgaea didn't really innovate much of anything, saying it brought anything to the genre isn't something I would credit it with outside of mindless grind and other pointless OCD fluff being deemed acceptable by a minority community in a niche genre..

[superaielman]

Oh yeah. Well I'm not defending Disgaea at all in that regard. My fault.

[Niu]

Shining Force might have, but the series had definatly died away, as seen in the fact that SF3 didn't make it out here.

If I have to say it, ShF's problem is more because of the politics.....

[Grefter]

Also there is the whole, you know, Saturn thing.