Why the future looks expensive for Super Robot Taisen and other Namco Bandai RPGs
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer.
It’s gone largely unnoticed here in the U.S., but Namco Bandai is in the middle of a grand experiment with its Super Robot Taisen strategy RPG series (which has seen life stateside in the past thanks to Atlus USA). And if you like Japanese RPGs – or anything that’s expensive to produce in general – you might want to pay attention, because this could be your future.
Namco Bandai’s licensed strategy game series — which teams mechs like Gundam with the likes of Voltron — has been around for 20 years now, and in that time it’s picked up a loyal audience. I know because I’m one of them. We were all excited because we wanted to see how the story would continue in the franchise’s latest arc, which kicked off on the PS2.
But Namco Bandai, of course, had a curveball. Like the last two Harry Potter films, the SRT sequel would be split into two parts. It even released a boxed set that came with the first of the two games, a story digest recapping the event of the storyline so far, and a slot for the second game. The total price for just one of the games at launch was 7300 yen (about $90).
The rising prices go hand-in-hand with the decline of anime and domestic gaming in Japan, and the rise of piracy. Put simply, making a Super Robot Taisen game doesn’t come cheap. The series has based its reputation on elaborate 2D animated sequences like this this one, which take time and money to create. And the robots touted in the title are all from well-known mecha series, which means ever higher licensing fees.Continue reading Why the future looks expensive for Super Robot Taisen and other Namco Bandai RPGsWhy the future looks expensive for Super Robot Taisen and other Namco Bandai RPGs originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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