The funniest thing for me with the genre is this. You’ll always have a friend, or maybe even a number of your mates look at you and say something quite close to the following:

“I don’t know how you can play those things. I don’t have the time or patience.”

When you look at it, I can’t think of a better genre in the age of gaming that we’re at now which gives the player as much value for the money. You may well have the online stalwarts like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and what have you, but RPG’s give you anything from 40 hours and upwards of gameplay without the need to get your mates involved quite as often, unless it’s World of Warcraft, but then it’s not so much a game as it is, to some people, a way of life. With proper Japanese style role playing, you don’t need online subscriptions or a bunch of cheeky teenagers saying they can glitch or tea bag at will. It’s a nice, simple way of letting your imagination be taken away with a beautiful story and usually some equally stunning FMV sequences.

The best thing though is; these games have probably evolved the least from the bygone era and have only really changed through their graphics, which is a testament to their enjoyment by their fans. There’s always been a story, random battles, characters you meet up and part company with throughout and some nice, quirky soundtracks to keep your head in a peaceful state of mind (usually after all the random battles to be honest).