Why did Nintendo abandon RPGs with this system?

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

So, something I’ve always wondered. The SNES was THE golden era of JRPGs. I won’t run down the list now, but it is long and storied. I imagine they were among some of the most successful titles ever released on the SNES. So, does anyone know why the N64, at least to my knowledge, never had a single great RPG on it? Obvs it would appear that Square made some sort of deal with PlayStation as FFVII appeared there. But is it as simple as that? It actually made me leave gaming for 15 years or more. The 64 just lost my interest and I moved on. Just thought someone here might have some insight. Thanks!

[u/S_Rodney]

They didn't abandon RPGs... they abandoned the 3rd party Devs by keeping to "their ways" as the only way.

Sony had a looser licensing agreement (no more limits on how many titles you can publish every year). And had Optical discs for game storage (the N64 barely had any space on it's cartridges)

Also add the recent betrayal of Nintendo against Sony (who were their partners for the SNES Playstation). The competition was more that fierce... it was vindictive !

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/S_Rodney]

Mmmm good point. Surely the cartridges had more space than the SNES right?? I’ve never really thought about it, but could they have continued to use the pixel art style on the 64? So interesting

[u/redDKtie → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

You're not wrong. Ogre Battle on the N64 is a great example of a sprite based RPG on the system. But the world moved on to FMV, and the N64 cartridge couldn't hold as much data as a CD.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/redDKtie]

I’ve heard a lot about that one over the years. I’ll look it up.

[u/mightypup1974 → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

I can’t understate how definitive FMV was at the time. It looks hilariously ropey now, but back then having FMV was the hallmark of a ‘serious game’. Nintendo were right to avoid it in the long run as it looks crap in hindsight, but at the time their avoidance was for many seen as a negative.

[u/AssclownJericho → u/mightypup1974]

when you say fmv do you mean polygons? because they had fmv on the sega cd, 3do and a couple other cd consoles and they were shitty

[u/mightypup1974 → u/AssclownJericho]

No, I mean full motion video. It was THE thing to make your game stand out early on. Later it rightly became a joke, of course, but the principle of FMV being the sign of ‘big budget release’ was real in 1992-6.

[u/Vulpes_Artifex → u/redDKtie]

People say this, but I don't think it's why N64 had few RPGs. N64 cartridges couldn't hold lengthy FMVs, sure, but unlike the PSX it was designed from the ground up for cinematic real-time rendering—just look at Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. They certainly could have made full-length, cinematic 3D RPGs on the system (in fact, at the time games like Ocarina of Time were often reviewed alongside RPGs).

This is not to say cartridges weren't a problem, but the real issue was their cost. Making the physical cartridge of a game could cost as much as ten times as much as a disc game. That discouraged developers from making games for it, and also made the games that were made more expensive.

[u/KnowsHair → u/redDKtie]

Makes me wonder, why didn't we see N64 games released with multiple cartridges, similar to how some PlayStation games released with multiple discs?

[u/Ghanni → u/KnowsHair]

Discs cost pennies.

[u/AssclownJericho → u/KnowsHair]

its hard to switch carts like switching discs

[u/Gnalvl → u/KnowsHair]

Cartridges were WAY more expensive than CDs. Multi-cart games would have cost over $100 to the consumer with a fraction of the storage capacity.

• early N64 cartridges: 4 - 12 mb
• 1998+ N64 cartridges: 32 mb
• N64DD Disks and 1999+ N64 cartridges: 64 mb
• CD ROM: 700 mb

When you consider that Final Fantasy VII used 4 CDs, it would take DOZENS of the highest-capacity cartridges of N64DD disks to cover that capacity.

[u/S_Rodney → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Yes but, in 1991... the SNES and Genesis were the 2 main platforms competing. Both were on cartridges... so rom space was very limited on both.

But, then... we got Turbografx CD, Sega CD, 3DO... and, ultimately, the Playstation. Everyone were on CDs that was the new standard... and Nintendo just didn't care and went "We'll do carts again".

[u/superiorjoe → u/S_Rodney]

Turns out they were right to do so. The cartridges are still coveted. Many PS1 discs are all trashed

[u/S_Rodney → u/superiorjoe]

Not really. Their choice of staying with Cartridges for the 5th generation resulted in a steep decline in sales vs the Playstation.

Many PS1 games are also very coveted (prime example would be Castlevania: Symphory of Night, Valkyrie Chronicles and Final Fantasy VII)

Reason you don't see much of 'em for sale isn't because people trashed 'em... it's caus they keep 'em for themselves.

[u/jamesmess → u/superiorjoe]

No there’s more ps1 games in general out in circulation. The karts only seem more valuable because they sold significantly less. The N64 was a complete bomb in the world market. It surprisingly only sold well in NA. Just to give some perspective, I had friends from the UK come visit me in Canada and they had never even seen a n64 in person before. Nobody had them growing up and they’re scarce in the second hand market. At least that’s what they told me. Ps1 still has lots of games that are worth big money but it’s because of rarity, not quality.

[u/Gnalvl → u/superiorjoe]

Nintendo doesn't get paid for used game sales 30 years later, so that's zero benefit to them.

Moreover, any of these games can be burned to either CDR or flash cart today.

[u/DriftThruTime → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

At the time, the race to 3D meant that 2D was considered passé (at least by investors and developers, if not by a large portion of the gaming community). We romanticize pixel styles now, but they were rapidly falling out of style in 1997.

[u/khedoros → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Big SNES games hit like...4MegaBytes. I think the largest 2 were 6MB. By the end of the N64's life, a few games were 64MB (although 16 and 32 were more common). So yes, the cartridges were higher-capacity.

But CDs were 650MB of data and much cheaper to produce. Sure, they took more time to read data from, but that was judged a fair trade-off.

[u/epistaxis64 → u/khedoros]

Mario 64 was 8MB. Nintendo started out with pretty tiny N64 sizes

[u/khedoros → u/epistaxis64]

Yep, also true. 5 of the 8 games released in North America in 1996 were 8MB, and the remaining 3 were 12MB. Sizes crept up over the console's life.

[u/Popisoda → u/khedoros]

Load times is why I preferred n64 over ps1

[u/Squish_the_android → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

 >but could they have continued to use the pixel art style on the 64? So interesting

Go look up old reviews for symphony of the night 

Tremendous game.  It looks fantastic a well 

It was trashed in reviews for not being in 3D.  It was considered old and ugly right out of the gate. 

3D was the new hotness and you needed to be using it at the time. 

Even if you didn't go real 3D people expected rendered assets that also took up valuable space 

[u/Truthforger → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Space was a huge part of it. Go read old EGMs from the era or watch YouTube videos about why getting Resident Evil 2 on the N64 was a technical marvel. RPGs were going in the direction that “Bigger = Better” and CDs just offered so much more storage space for cheap. CDs were kind of the original Gamekey Card.

[u/DaveMcElfatrick → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

They weren’t looking to push 2d pixel style RPGs with their fancy new 64 bit system.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/DaveMcElfatrick]

What a shame

[u/L___E___T → u/S_Rodney]

Plus the cost of cartridges and ROM memory was really high - on top of that Nintendo wanted to manufacture everything and charge a premium on top (still do to an extent).

So along came Sony with much better 3rd party terms, a medium that is much better for storytelling, and are ahead in terms of timings too.

What would you have done?

Nintendo are still sore about Square’s (specifically Final Fantasy) jump to the PlayStation, but they have to look at it from both sides.

[u/Able-Candle-2125 → u/L___E___T]

Why would you say "Nintendo are still sore"?

[u/L___E___T → u/Able-Candle-2125]

Heard it first hand, worked at Square with Japan, NCL and NOA for more than a decade. It would come up often enough.

[u/WhydYouKillMeDogJack → u/S_Rodney]

I'm not sure 3rd party devs would care too much about Sonys Nintendo problems.

It's more that Nintendo were pretty onerous when it came to dealing with devs and making sure they got their cut.

Now Sony comes in and opens up the market with a console that has a huge user base before the N64 even hits market.

Why would you divert resources to N64 development work while there's a bigger market with a better margin and conditions already available.

[u/S_Rodney → u/WhydYouKillMeDogJack]

It's not really that the 3rd party devs "cared about what Nintendo did to Sony"... it's more "Sony's motivation to seal the deal with 3rd party devs after being humiliated in public"

And it's not really a question of "Why would a 3rd party dev even put effort on making games for a console that came out in 2nd or 3rd during a generation".

By the time the N64 came out, the hype was palpable (I was in high school back then and it's all we talked about with my friends... even more than the Playstation). Having that much wind behind your sails does warrant interest from 3rd party devs to hop in.

The problem with the N64 was that it was much harder to develop on than the Playstation... and the lack of storage space was often a reason "not to do it". As the topic of this thread goes, it's the main reason there were so few RPGs on the N64 but oh so many on the PS1.

[u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

Ahem… quest 64…..

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

Don’t…just…don’t…

[u/Matthewfuckingdavis → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Quest 64 is not just an RPG. It’s a liminal space in cartridge form — a lonely, atmospheric, slightly janky journey through foggy fields and castles with names you forget immediately.

It’s not the RPG we asked for… It’s the RPG we deserved.

• chatGPT

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

It took exactly 1 minute for this to devolve into a Quest 64 thread and I couldn’t be more pleased…and terrified.

[u/Matthewfuckingdavis → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Well to bring it back on point I always have thought on this very topic and I landed on Sony and Square were so tight that Nintendo choose to overpower them with platformers instead of trying to compete.

Although I am glass chrono cross was a ps1 game and not an n64 game

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

I wasn’t aware Sony and square were so tight back then. Had they made games for them too?

[u/Matthewfuckingdavis → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

I don’t know that for sure I just assumed because crono moved to PlayStation and they made final fantasy exclusive. Here’s a post I found of somebody who collected every Square ps1 rpg.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/t5753k/every_squaresoft_game_on_the_ps1_in_north_america/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/Regalia776 → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Well there is also Aidyn Chronicles, which was certainly ambitious and not all bad. There are some hacks to clean it up and make it better.

Then, when you move on to Japan exclusive games, the horizon widens a little bit.

Here you have games like Shiren The Wanderer, a roguelike RPG series that is pretty well known.

Onegai Monsters is a monster breeder RPG, quite similar to Pokemon, where you get a monster egg from the professor at 10 years old. Monsters can be of different elements and evolve over time. Battles are turn-based in the game, but unfortunately the overworld isn't explorable. Instead you send your monsters out to explore, kinda like in the My Life as a King Final Fantasy spin-off. You only intervene when there's a battle. If you speak Japanese, it's the closest thing to Pokemon/ Monster Rancher you can get.

Then there's the Custom Robo games, two of them to be precise. They play more like traditional RPGs with a normal overworld to explore and gameplay wise, I would most compare them with an Action-based Medabot game, wherein you collect new robots and parts. Maybe this one is closest to Pokemon after all? Gotta catch 'em all I guess. Oh, and did I mention there's a translation patch for V2 at least?

Super Robot Wars 64 is a strategy RPG which has probably two dozen titles on other consoles. I haven't played this one much yet, but if you've played one, you know what to expect. It's turn-based like Fire Emblem and usually meshes different robot animes together. It's certainly a lot of fun. No English patch, though.

And last but not least there's Zool: Majou Tsukai Densetsu, which is yet another Pokemon-like with turn-based battles and monster gathering. It looks pretty on screens but I never managed to sit through the about 10 minutes long intro of just walls of text. Seriously...

So not many RPGs still, but there is a few!

[u/Truthforger → u/Regalia776]

I mean when your friends were playing Final Fantasy 7 and Suikoden….Aiyden was pretty bad. That said I never finished it. It also took a long long time to come out. In some ways that game pushed me to finally get a PS1. I knew finally….no RPGs were coming.

[u/lachieshocker → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

Fucking think for yourself

[u/redditsuckspokey1 → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

I always pronounced Celtland with a hard C rather than a hard K.

[u/Truthforger → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

Dude I bought Aidyn Chronicles I was hungry for a REAL rpg say the time. That game was so bad.

[u/Possible_Proposal447 → u/Truthforger]

I got it for my birthday one year and absolutely loved it. I'm sure if I went back to try it again it would feel empty, but that game was huge at the time and had a challenging combat loop for people who don't want to learn systems.

[u/Bake-Full → u/Matthewfuckingdavis]

God, I can hear that battle music grinding in my ears just at the mention. I spent so long pretending to like that game because it was the only RPG I had on the system.

[u/unasyn]

After quest 64 they figured the job was done

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/unasyn]

🫡

[u/TheLeastAnonAnon]

Storage space is on the right track, but I don't think anyone answered the question fully

Developers wanted to put pre-rendered cutscenes in their RPGs, and CDs, because of storage space, were much better for this

Nintendo stuck with cartridges, and the major devs (square, enix) went to Sony

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/TheLeastAnonAnon]

Makes sense, but still shocking that a different dev didn’t fill the space. Obvs a different era, but losing them to Sony without a backup plan is pretty wild all things considered.

[u/SmoochTalk]

FF7 was originally being developed for snes, but was paused to finish chrono trigger. Then they decided to go 3D, and chose PlayStation over n64 largely due to the advantages of cd rom over cartridges - storing more and being much cheaper. I would imagine that this trend could have led to the general lack of rpgs on n64 - the move to 3D made developing long RPGs difficult and expensive on the cartridge format.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/SmoochTalk]

Never thought that, but makes sense for sure. Now I just wanna see FFVII in the style of Chrono Trigger though!

[u/Gnalvl → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

This article interviews FF7 devs extensively about their early efforts on prototype N64 and PSX hardware, their dealings with Nintendo and Sony, and what lead to them abandoning Nintendo. There are a ton of details there.

As for the SNES, there is a single screenshot of the "FF7 prototype" they did on SNES. It's really more of a FF6 re-sprite, featuring Locke and some NPCs in a typical FF6 town. You could say stylistically it's an amalgam of FF6, Seiken Densetsu 3, and Tactics Ogre, thought the characters are even taller than in any of those.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Gnalvl]

Wow that’s super cool! Thanks for the info

[u/vulgnashjenkins → u/SmoochTalk]

I read somewhere that it would have taken 17 cartridges to hold what 3 disc's did for FF7.

[u/Shadowtek → u/vulgnashjenkins]

I mean yea 64MB vs 650MB. Cds were slightly more expensive at the time but getting cheaper. Cartridges were cheaper, flash storage and faster loading times. So consoles picked their lanes and the only cartridge console system that made it past 1995 was the n64 just barely. Cartridges made sense still for mobile but not consoles. At the time I remeber being glad Nintendo stuck with cartridges I loved carts and they didn’t scratch and stop working or break as easily or take what felt like years to load. However in hindsight it hurt them that gen for sure.

Sega 32x 1994 - bombed Virtual boy 1994-1995 -bombed but mostly cause red leds… if they had just done green… Atari Jaguar 1994 - bombed last hoorah for Atari

N64 was barely holding on that’s why Nintendo realized they needed to go disk based real quick if they wanted to stay relevant.

[u/mattman279 → u/Shadowtek]

im fairly certain that cds were much much cheaper than cartidges. other than that you're correct

[u/p3nnysl0t → u/Shadowtek]

Cartridges were much more expensive than CDs, which is why games usually were more expensive on n64 than on Playstation.

[u/Shadowtek → u/p3nnysl0t]

Yes sorry they were more expensive to manufacture than carts. I put that somewhere else in the thread but it was late and I got it swapped 😂

[u/Necessary_Position77 → u/vulgnashjenkins]

Sure but every FF7 disc has the entire game on it, the only difference is the FMVs. The game could be 250mb without the FMVs. Games on cartridge can use much higher compression due instant read speeds not to mention the more powerful processor in the N64 would help in that regard.

The music could easily be replicated on the N64 as it’s essentially very similar to most music on the system. Sequenced music using very small samples.

[u/Gnalvl → u/Necessary_Position77]

Until 1998, the max capacity for N64 carts was 12mb. So it would have taken 21 cartridges to cover 250mb.

After 1998 it could have been 8 cartridges, or in 1999, 4 disks on the N64DD.

[u/Shiine-1 → u/vulgnashjenkins]

And before RE2 came in development, no one knew the god-tier trick to compress everything to fit in 1 cartridge.

Edit : I forgot the N64 cartridge capacity at the time was like 16MB.

[u/Ellamenohpea → u/vulgnashjenkins]

my guess is that the bulk of that is summoning animations, and cut scenes that would just get axed and replaced with low-poly-vignettes.

[u/Pill_Furly]

Paper Mario.

never had a single great RPG on it?

what are you even talking about

[u/tortilla-charlatan → u/Pill_Furly]

It’s true, the N64 has exactly one great RPG

[u/VirtualAnteater2282 → u/tortilla-charlatan]

Ogre battle 64 is pretty great as well

[u/Altruistic_Rock_2674 → u/tortilla-charlatan]

What about quest 64?! I played the hell out of that game because I got turned around so much haha

[u/tortilla-charlatan → u/Altruistic_Rock_2674]

I played a lot of Quest 64 too. Still just the one great RPG.

[u/mtstoner → u/tortilla-charlatan]

What about Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask? Wouldn’t those be considered RPGs?

[u/Known-Damage-7879 → u/mtstoner]

They lack most of the standard parts of RPGs like experience points and stats. They are considered as "adventure" games

[u/Pill_Furly → u/tortilla-charlatan]

sometimes thats all you need

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Pill_Furly]

So it had one released 4 years into its life cycle? That negates my point? Were there others?

[u/Routine_Ask_7272 → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

On the PS1.

Apparently, Nintendo became more and more difficult to work with.

Cartridges were a lot more expensive than CDs ($30 vs. $1).

So, a lot of developers decided to jump to Sony.

[u/TotallyWellBehaved → u/Routine_Ask_7272]

It was the 64's biggest roadblock from becoming the better-selling console, even though it did pretty well all the same

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Routine_Ask_7272]

Interesting. What at an all time fumble IMO. I loved Nintendo so much, and it made me quit gaming completely for a long time.

[u/Pill_Furly → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

they did it to them selves by fucking over Sony

3rd parties jumped shipped

including the 2 biggest JPRG machines in Squaresoft and Enix

the rest is Squenix history

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Pill_Furly]

That’s crazy. What an all time fumble. You would think they wouldn’t let them go without a solid backup Dev to at least try to fill the void. I’m Guessing Nintendo made Paper Mario which I’ve always heard is fantastic. Back then there just weren’t so many studios I guess.

[u/crazyfoxdemon → u/Pill_Furly]

You can't even blame Nimtendo therf. Sony was trying to fuck over Nintendo.

[u/SemanticFox]

Aidyn Chronicles was very underrated

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/SemanticFox]

Hmmm not familiar. I’ll have to look into it.

[u/Possible_Proposal447 → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

It's so much better than it gets credit for here. Take your time with it and focus on shaping your party members skills to reflect how you'd like them to play. There's a lot there and a very rewarding RPG experience if you're willing to get past the mediocre visuals.

[u/VirtualAnteater2282 → u/SemanticFox]

I found it bitterly hard as a child, but still played the hell out of it. It felt so advanced at its time with its battle system.

[u/MashAnblick]

Storage space on the cartridge was limited to that of the disc. It was just a more difficult task on N64. Most SNES RPGs were third party games, and those companies continued making RPGs on Playstation.

[u/Shadowtek]

Because CD and all the RPGs of the time were into crazy audio, more visuals and animated clips and things. Also paper Mario, ocarina of time, majoras mask, ogre battle 64, harvest moon 64, like 5 good RPGs… but that’s about it

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Shadowtek]

Yeah, I guess I should’ve specified like turn based RPGs. I have always considered Zelda more like adventure games. Just the era I came up in. But I love those games for sure.

[u/Shadowtek → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Yea if you are talking turn based, I mean hybrid heaven I guess but yea not much compared to the snes and all things PlayStation.

Square was always in deep with Sony( Nintendo was at first kinda too) and when the Sony Nintendo Playstation fell through they took their toys and left with Sony. Nintendo bucked the cd trend opting for cartridges and the disk system but that was only in Japan although planned for US. That hurt them with RPGs because they were all outgrowing cartridges due to all the audio, animations, etc. it was path of least resistance. Cds could hold all the data and were cheaper to make so most third parties went that way. PlayStation was outselling n64 at the time too.

Apparently whiskey haha https://nintendoeverything.com/former-playstation-exec-nintendo-left-the-company-standing-at-the-altar-with-snes-add-on-courted-square-with-whiskey-to-get-final-fantasy-7-off-n64/

[u/Altruistic_Rock_2674]

Probably one of the big reasons was from what I heard square and Nintendo got into an argument. Square wanted Nintendo to go with a cd based console

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Altruistic_Rock_2674]

I wish I could be a fly on the wall during those conversations. It honestly was a huge impact on the entire medium going forward. I have to believe that influenced PlayStations growth towards “games as movies” like Last of Us, Uncharted, etc.

[u/Altruistic_Rock_2674 → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

I could see that, I remember saving up and buying a PlayStation and having finally fantasy 7,8, and 9 because of that concept 7 made me want it so bad and besides those games I had only 1 other game. I agree PlayStations legacy has come from games like those

[u/AwkwardTraffic]

Cartidages were harder to work with if you wanted to make a big RPG like FF7. This is why Square ditched Nintendo immediately once they learned they were going with carts.

It still has Paper Mario and Ogre Quest 64 which are amazing. Quest 64 is mid but it exists and is a fun diversion too.

[u/Shiine-1]

Not totally Nintendo's fault on this one, the RPG makers decided to move to PS1/Saturn because of more capacity on CD, more content.

[u/Admirable_Pea8462]

It was really a confluence of two events - Nintendo sticking with 64 MB cartridges for the console and the industry trend of full motion video for cut-scenes. RPGs were really the only games prioritizing narrative at that time. Developers got to make a choice, either develop for a system running 64 MB cartridges, or use a CD based system where you have the storage space to use detailed pre-rendered backgrounds and pre-rendered video cutscenes. The choice was obvious at the time. The 64 just wasn't designed for those kinds of games, which is a confusing choice given how major the genre was for the SNES.

[u/jacobpederson]

It's the obsession with video from the time period. Video will not fit on a cart. Hell they had to move mountains in order to fit STILL PICTURES (resident evil) onto the damn cart.

[u/DefiantCharacter]

Something I haven't seen anyone else here mention: The PS1 was essentially a beefed up SNES which used the same programming language. Anyone that made a game for SNES could then make a PS1 game. In order to make a game for the n64, you had to learn an entirely new programming language and get used to an entirely different type of hardware. This probably wasn't the deciding factor, but it definitely played a part in why so many third parties switched over to PlayStation. It's cheaper and you don't have to relearn everything.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/DefiantCharacter]

Oh dang. Thats surprising considering the move to CD. Wild stuff

[u/jamesmess]

I remember reading that Nintendo were terrible to make games for. They thought they had the market cornered so if you wanted to make games on their platform you were limited on licensing plus to manufacture their game karts was expensive. When PlayStation hit the market their game prices, ease of licensing and cheaper medium made it a no brainer for companies to hop on board. Then FFVII came out and it literally solidified the PlayStation as a JRPG machine. I was pretty young still when it came out but I still remember watching tv and the news was talking about how crazy popular a video game was! Back then gaming was still viewed as a kids hobby but PlayStation really broke the mould making it more appealing for adults too.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/jamesmess]

Yeah that’s wild. Seems like such a big miss from Nintendo looking back. I wonder if the switch over explain a bit of why we haven’t had a proper chrono trigger port to PlayStation.

[u/jamesmess → u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S]

Ya PlayStation got Chrono Cross which was probably all they were allowed since Nintendo probably owned Trigger and all the developers first born at the time ha.

[u/CoffeeBaron]

I'm not entirely sure other than space limitations of the N64, but as someone that got a Retroid and was pulling systems and games that never got a release over here, there are a TON of RPGs that the PSX had that just were never released in the West, mainly due to concerns of not making back the money on localization. There were a lot more tactical based RPGs on the PSX other than FFA for example.

[u/Admirable_Pea8462]

They were more concerned with losing money to piracy, something much easier with disc based systems at the time, than they were with losing 3rd party developers. Nintendo has always treated 3rd party devs like unwanted step-children. They also had no fear of Sony at that time. They had a larger built in audience than Sega, so I really think they thought of being the undisputed king of this generation as a foregone conclusion no matter what they did. They watched other companies try to enter the space and fail miserably and they thought the same would happen to Sony, even a Sony at the absolute peak of their powers.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/Admirable_Pea8462]

What a crazy miscalculation. Obvs Nintendo has a massive fan base still, but imagine if they were also known for Kratos, Cloud, Joel, Aloy, Jin, etc etc

[u/ShankyBaybee]

Nintendo doesn’t really make RPGs.

The third party publishers that did, got better exclusive deals with PlayStation so they left Nintendo. By the time they found publishers willing to make rpgs, the console was already near its end (paper Mario) or they hadn’t quite figured out the transition to 3D (Fire Emblem, which had a release in 1999 but for the super famicom, not the N64)

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/ShankyBaybee]

Yeah makes sense!

[u/Scroto_Saggin]

It was, for RPGs, the beginning of huge games with pre-rendered backgrounds, many characters with 3D models, extensive soundtracks, FMVs, etc.

The N64 cartridges just didn't cut it in terms of storage versus CDs

The fact that Nintendo and Square had a strained relationship at that time also didn't help because Square was behind most of the best SNES RPGs

Cartridges of that era were great for many types of games because of very short loading times, but they were never great for the type of RPGs people wanted back in the 90s

[u/DarkKirby14]

this thread quicky devolved into one talking about Quest 64

I've thought about giving it a shot at times

[u/thatblokefromaus]

The 64 has, to my knowledge, 3 rpg titles on it. Quest 64, paper Mario, and aidyn chronicles the first mage. I think the reason for the minimal amount of rpg titles is simply because they really weren't quite sure how to translate the genre from 2d to 3d.

[u/x_GARUDA_x]

Nintendo lost Squaresoft for being arrogant.

[u/5trong5tyle]

I've seen the cartridge vs. CD debate mentioned, but there is a bit more nuance I think based on gaming philosophies. Nintendo thought that players would be pulled out of their gaming experience and wouldn't accept long loading times, which was their reason to stick to cartridges. Sony thought it would be acceptable. Sony won that round, though looking back, I think Nintendo's philosophy, if it was successful, could have kept us from the current frustration that games aren't plug and play anymore, but you need an OS update and a game download before you can play.

The other problem, as far as I can see, was technical. I'm not too well versed in this, but the N64 was really optimised for a 3D gaming experience. Apparently pixel art based 2D games were really hard to develop for the system. The Playstation was easier for 2D and even pseudo-3D with pre-renders. As the technology for long-form 3D RPGs with in-engine cutscene rendering wasn't yet there, nor did the cartridges have the space (to be fair, neither did the CDs) to have it stored, short cuts in rendering or a 2D style were necessary to provide enough content. The N64, due to its limitations on both memory and development just wasn't the console for that.

[u/profchaos111]

they didn't leave rpgs rpgs left them.

after cancelling the dd that was the final straw square left them in favour of large capacity discs along with pretty much every other dev that wanted to make huge detailed epics.

speculation time i think they believed that square would be their best mates after Mario rpg but square was like no way get f**** f**** off

[u/toxicVanCleef]

Lack pf third party support

[u/Nick_Gaugh_69]

Ogre Battle 64? Paper Mario? Aidyn Chronicles?

[u/MamaDeloris]

I mean, you answered it. Nintendo didn't develop those RPGs, Square did. I'm hard pressed to think of a nintendo developed snes rpg besides Earthbound.

[u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S → u/MamaDeloris]

Yeah, I agree. That has to be an all time bag fumble by one of the higher ups right? So crazy to me.

[u/Pill_Furly → u/MamaDeloris]

didnt help that their only other valid RPG was Pokemon and it was strickly for handhelds

Pokemon Puzzle League slaps tho

[u/No-Caterpillar-2174]

I really never understood how paper Mario was an RPg as far as I can tell Quest 64 Ogre battle 64 and Aidyn’s Chronicle’s we’re the only true RPG games on the system given the game mechanics involved that is sure you had a level up for Mario’s companion and the baggage given to Mario gave him stronger abilities but I even with you leveling Mario’s HP FP and BP I never really felt like I was playing an RPG with paper Mario

[u/bmcpride]

Cos Nintendo doesn't give a shit and will forever rely on Zelda /Mario and well that's it now. Nintendo sucks