Was 2024 the best year ever for JRPGs? –

It’s obviously a very broad brushstroke to claim that the heyday of Japanese role-playing games ended around the time The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was released for Xbox and Western RPGs became more common – but it wouldn’t be entirely wrong. After amazing decades, the Japanese gaming industry was left behind as role-players were drawn to series such as the Elder Scrolls, as well as Diablo, Fable, Fallout, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and The Witcher.

I’m certainly not saying that Japanese role-playing games aren’t coming anymore. On the contrary, they are still being released, but Final Fantasy went into a sort of slump with Final Fantasy XIII and series like Megami Tensei, Persona, Star Ocean, Suikoden, the Tales series, Xenoblade and others – certainly delivered quality, but felt a bit niche and low-budget.

To continue its broad brushstrokes, perhaps five or six years ago the Japanese game industry began a new journey back with increasingly lavish games that fully matched what the West had to offer. And at the same time, we also noticed that Japanese role-playing games seemed to be making a comeback. Kickstarter campaigns were booming, the Persona series was getting the recognition it deserved, Final Fantasy was starting to revive, and the Yakuza series was moving from action to role-playing games.

Looking back at 2024, I think we’ve just experienced gaming history. I’ve read Wikipedia pages and Metacritic to try to poke holes in my theory, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a gaming year with so many Japanese role-playing games that were also of such an incredibly high standard. Here at Gamereactor this year, we have reviewed no less than 20 Japanese role-playing games (or major expansions) that received a rating of seven or higher – two of which received the maximum rating, and I personally was close to making sure it was another one. And they’re not sitting on a clump either, but are spread out over 2024.

I won’t try to make a comprehensive list, but some highlights include the release of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the sequel to one of my most beloved games. I thoroughly enjoyed my way through the adventure that kept me busy for over 150 glorious hours. Just a week later came the Persona 3 Reload remake, which gave more people a chance to explore this wonderful series in anticipation of Persona 6. Just three weeks later came the first full-potter of the year in the form of the magnificent Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, which set a completely new standard for remakes.

Jump ahead another week and we find Granblue Fantasy: Relink, which was also a real stunner, and another week later came Vanillaware’s incomparable Unicorn Overlord. Here (in March) we are already dealing with Japanese role-playing magic that alone would have made 2024 a gaming year to remember, but it just kept flowing – because two weeks later it was time for Dragon’s Dogma 2, Capcom’s top game. Incidentally, Rise of the Ronin also came out on the same day.

April obviously could not have been worse, and like clockwork the Final Fantasy XVI expansion The Rising Tide, the spiritual Suikoden sequel Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes and Sand Land were released, making even this normally sleepy month of gaming truly memorable. Then summer began to approach, but Nintendo managed to release the remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door in May, while FromSoftware pounded away in June with Shadow of the Erdtree (the Elden Ring expansion). July was also not without some great Japanese role-playing games, with Capcom’s very unique Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (seriously, try this if you like Japanese mythology), before rounding out the summer with Visions of Mana in August.

September was really the only month of the year that didn’t have much memorable to offer in the genre, but on the other hand no one really needed more after the avalanche of quality that had been – and soon it was October.

And. October delivered. There were two great releases from Atlus, Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven Heroes – but also Metaphor: ReFantazio. The latter also received our highest rating and was even praised by players. It’s not every day that we get the chance to be part of a brand new adventure with Atlus, and people were clearly very excited about it.

In the normally AAA-heavy November, Japanese role-playing games continued to do well with the releases of Mario & Luigi: Brothership and Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, with the latter in particular becoming immensely popular. Finally, December saw the release of Fantasian Neo Dimension, which had the honor of rounding out the 2024 JRPG gaming year.

After years of being grateful for Japanese role-playing games and hacking my way through games that I might have given a six or seven, often with a clear sense of budget, I (and everyone else) am completely drowning in lavish quality in 2024. That next year – or even any other year – would be this good again actually feels doubtful, and that’s fine. This insane amount of Japanese role-playing games, which actually take time to play, is almost unmanageable, and I still have five games left on my own list of what I want to accomplish for 2025.

But not only have a lot of good games been released, they’ve sold a lot, which hopefully means more publishers are daring to invest in the game type. So chances are we’re going to see more and more and bigger productions in the future, and I think it’s only a matter of time before classics like Final Fantasy V and VI are released as HD-2D Remakes.

Something that has helped the game type further is that the West is largely stuck in the live service swamp, which has led to “our” role-playing games losing popularity and not being released as often (live service games take up an extreme amount of resources). Many people also complain loudly that they find West’s big productions a bit too heavily focused, group-tested and political.

So I believe we are now entering a new era for Japanese role-playing games, in which we will also see Western developers increasingly following the model, as in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Enjoy it, because these things always go in waves, and no matter how well we fans of the genre have been able to eat in 2024, we may never be able to do it again, but we undoubtedly have some really good years ahead of us.