EXA is good, but don't go into it with the expectation of playing Shining Force IV, the SRPG. It's more of a Zelda-style game. That said, it is the best of the three Shining Force games available for the PS2.
What I liked about the Genesis/Saturn Shining Force series was the fact that, unlike other SRPGs, you could explore the world when not in battle, just like in a regular RPG. In other SRPGs, everything outside of battle is navigated by point-and-click menus and such.
What I'd love to see, although it'll never happen, is a Shining Force for PS3 or PS4 done using Valkyria Chronicles' Canvas engine.
I have Shining Force III on the Saturn (and the European version of Panzer Dragoon Saga!). I really enjoyed that game and I wish the second and third parts had been localized. Of course, we were lucky any of it got localized at all, what with the Saturn circling the drain at the time and Bernie Stolar's militant anti-RPG attitude. I'd bet that if he'd stayed with Sony we'd have never seen Final Fantasy VII in the US.
I was introduced to the RPG genre at the age of 9, and simultaneously to both Eastern (Dragon Warrior) and Western (Ultima, Alternate Reality) RPGs. Since I had a PC at the time and had to go to friends' houses to play NES, I was more acquainted with Ultima and Wizardry than with Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. That changed somewhat with the SNES, the first home console I ever owned, which had The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VI. I also drooled over Working Designs' ads for Lunar, but I didn't get to play those games until their PS1 remakes came out since I didn't have a Sega CD. The Lunar games remain among my most prized gaming treasures.
FFVI was a great game, but it was FFVII, still my favorite video game of all time, that really ignited my current love for RPGs, and hence I don't think I mind Japanese RPG tropes as much as other people do. I bought every RPG I could find from Square, Enix, Capcom, and Namco on the PS1, along with another perennial favorite o (I didn't get into Konami's Suikoden series until only a year ago, surprisingly). I still own almost all of them. The PS2 didn't have quite as many incredible RPGs as the PS1 did, although the PS2 is still perhaps the finest console ever made, but Final Fantasy XII inspired nearly the same amount of awe and wonder in me that Final Fantasy VII did.
I've actually been buying more Japanese-made RPGs (I hate the term "JRPG", it's all too often a pejorative term, as far as I'm concerned, Japan's RPGs are as legitimate to the genre as those from Bioware, Bethesda, or CD Projekt) the past couple of years than at any time since the RPG glory days of the PS1. And no, I don't mean buying stuff like Time and Eternity because I'm starved for RPGs. My favorite game this generation is Valkyria Chronicles, which is a magnificent evolution of the tactical RPG. I think Square's stumbles have unfairly colored the genre. Namco's Tales series, for instance, has been better than ever, and they're one of the few RPG makers in Japan that still heavily supports consoles as opposed to handhelds, which is something I appreciate - I like handhelds, but honestly I'd rather play on a big TV screen any day. Tales of Xillia has surpassed Symphonia as my favorite from that series, and it's actually a surprisingly dark, mature story compared to people's stereotypes of anime and RPGs. There's also Ni no Kuni, which I thought was amazing inside and out, as well as the Project Rainfall RPGs.
I also think that part of the reason Japan's RPG makers haven't been as prominent on the PS3/360/Wii generation is pure economics. None of the 7th generation consoles were big sellers in Japan. If the PS3 had the same sales numbers as the PS1 and PS2 in Japan, I believe that Square Enix would be devoting more resources and manpower to the PS3, and that companies like Capcom and Konami that have abandoned RPGs would likely still be making RPGs for consoles.
If you get out of the Navy, make sure you put your Montgomery GI Bill to good use. That is all. :)
Izumicon is held in Oklahoma City (well, Midwest City) every November. The OU Animation Society also used to hold Ronincon every year at Dale Hall on the OU campus in Norman, but I think that disbanded a few years ago.
I went to Tokyo in Tulsa on Saturday. I played some games, looked at all the cosplayers, attended a couple of panels, and I picked up a stuffed moogle and the second season of Ah! My Goddess from the vendor area. The DVDs were actually pretty decently priced and I got a 20% discount.
Downloading. I'm interested to see what you've been doing.
I'm against review scores, too. They're just there to feed two different beasts: 1) the publisher, who may or may not be financially backing the site through advertising revenue and who may retaliate if their game doesn't get a good score, a la Ubisoft on 1UP or Eidos on Gamespot. Screw all the smaller publishers, those are the ones who get "brutal honesty" from reviewers since they don't pay for the site, and 2) Metacritic, which I feel to be a blight on gaming. Any less than perfect score badly skews a game's aggregate, and some obscure little shithole website based in Eastern Europe can tank a game that's getting solid reviews from everyone else.
When I get more spare time, I'm going to work on my own game. Thanks for letting me know about the RPG Maker Network site or whatever it is.
On Kickstarter, I don't know if I could do it myself. If I were going to go on Kickstarter I'd make damned sure I could fulfill everything I promised. There's nothing worse than looking like an online grifter, which I'm sure a lot of KS projects are. Even at that, I see all the problems that a famous developer like Double Fine is having getting its much-vaunted KS game off the ground, largely because they promised more than they could deliver and didn't have oversight.
