Gamasutra - Lessons From 2014 JRPGs

Robert Boyd has a new guest article on Gamasutra where he talks about the various lessons he learned from the various JRPG games in 2014,

I was asked to do another Game of the Year analysis this year, but I was having a hard time coming up with a Top Games of 2014 that was both accurate to my tastes & interesting to read. I mean, I enjoyed inFamous: Second Son & Mario Kart Wii U, but I’m pretty sure nobody cares that I thought that they looked pretty & were fun to play.

So instead, I’m going to take a look at some of the 2014 JRPGs I played this year and discuss some of things they did well and some of the things that they could have improved at. This article will be focused on gameplay mechanics and will largely ignore other aspects that a game may have done well or poorly on like story, characters, visuals, music, etc.