@IceBorg:
Focus on gameplay instead of plot.
Some games that have good plots have mediocre or terrible gameplay so its no fun to play. Or some games have great gameplay but its full of plot and custcenes that are bad and that makes a game with great gameplay suffer.
What? NO.
NO goddamn NO. I will slog through a game with atrocious gameplay (like Nier, or the Drakengards) if the plot is truly stellar, interesting, or makes me think. But games with good gameplay but awful or mediocre plots are a dime a dozen, and they don't stick with you.
Obviously it would better for a game to have both (like, for example, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Odin Sphere, or the good Suikodens, Persona's 3 & 4, or Mass Effect 2, or Dragon Age: Origins), but look at the legion of atrocious XBOX rpgs where plot is an afterthought but the gameplay is good.
I guess it's just the writer in me rebelling but… another Star Ocean 4? Another Infinite Undiscovery? This is the CRIME of JRPGs. The stories all fall apart mid-way through because they were poorly put together, linear, and just not that damn interesting and the endings almost always suck donkey dong. Another game with aggressively bad dialogue and weak characterization full of loli archetypes and stupid animal characters and desu and feathered haired heroes with big swords? God, no.
Bring Plot to the Fore, Please.
And the reverse of the JRPG character type is almost as bad! The buff, stereotypical brown-haired, stubbled space marines or hollywood action heroes wannabes a-la the heroes in Alan Wake, Alone in the Dark, Assassin's Creed I & II, Bionic Commando, Bulletstorm, Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, Fracture, Gears of War 1~3, Heavy Rain, Infamous, Just Cause 1 & 2, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Red Dead Redemption, Resident Evil 5, Too Human, and Uncharted 1 & 2 - to name a quick list of some of the most popular videogames in this generation? (taken from this very insightful article: http://www.destructoid.com/brown-hair-and-stubble-the-new-face-of-modern-videogames-178442.phtml)
Give me a goddamn interesting looking main character. I'm sick of these Ben Affleck would-bes. Give me an old lady with a rocket leg, an Amaterasu, a Travis Touchdown, a Doughnut Drake. Give me a strong female lead like Chris from Suikoden III who isn't there to be fanservice for the slavering nerd horde. How about a black guy? A black woman? A chinese guy? A doctor who knows martial arts? A murderous boxing kangaroo named Kangaroo Jack The Ripper! Some of those characters on the list are actually very interesting and nuanced - but they certainly don't look it.
I Want to Play a Main Character Who Looks Different.
