We have Similar tastes! I almost want to recommend Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen over Kingdoms Of Amular but depending on the kind of person you are there is a possibility you might enjoy Amular more.
I'd also like to continue my Shin Megami Tensei exposure but alas, I don't have a nintendo 3DS!
I'm charmed by self aware parodies as well. lol. A lot of that goes on in Shadowhearts covenant. (Yet it's sad and melancholy in places too.)
I agree with your "dark" sentiment. Dark doesn't have to mean finding cannibalized half eaten corpses. Sometimes it can be simply using dimmer color tones and using subtle atmospheric effects such as imposing shadows spreading across the wall when the lightning temporarily illuminates a mansion hallway.
"Going extreme" isn't always the right answer.
I likewise would like to see more diversified art styles featured in Japanese rpgs as well as the inclusion of more choices.
Yuri and Kaim are great examples,Tami. Like you I don't know why modern Jrpgs have tried so ardently to phase out turn based systems. Granted I've "liked" certain Jrpgs with action combat but then again I have equally liked games such as Dragon Warrior 8, Persona 4, and Shadowhearts.
Torally Julian. If you compare the diversity of protagonists from say FF6 and compare it to FF 13 there's a huge descrepency. I really like the "older grizzled characters" too and would like to see more of that. Barret, Cid,Cyan, and Auron were the shit! Cloud was "aight" but he had competition from a guy who looked like Mr. T and who had a friggin gun arm. Guess who I thought was "cooler"? 
I think Japan really needs to get pass this whole "Be ashamed of games" phase. It's so out of place how they revere game design as high-art yet then shun gamers if they keep gaming as adults. It's trifling and I can't comprehend it.
And it's not as if Japan can't make edgy, deeply sophisticated, and mature games. We know they can. They just seem to go through long lulls when they don't.
Regardless, I'm hoping they're realizing there are many proud adult gamers out there and as such they don't have to push all their games only at impressionable White & Asian teenagers. It would help leaps and bounds if they stepped up the diversity. They're capable of great things. They just need to take more risks. How bad could it be? I mean Dark Souls & Demon souls were risks and look just how quickly those games flew off shelves! Not saying all Jrpgs should be like the souls franchise but I am saying the demographic for gamers is varied when it comes to age,gender, and ethnicity. Japan needs this epiphany!
I think we all do,Cary. Missing the old school era in rpgs I mean!
Yeah, it's a weird double standard,Aaron. For example there will be game composers performing with an orchestra and they're totally revered yet if someone is a Japanese gamer in his/her late 20's other people will think something is wrong with him/her. I mean,wtf? Revere games as art yet shit on the adults who enjoy them? Oh,Japan! You so crazy!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Also, I'm partial to Bishops Of Hexen!
Or maybe there's a secret skill in presenting rpg/anime cliches in a likable way,Chris. lol. For example, I still love the Y's series and have a difficult time justifying why I do. If I were to guess it's probably because X-seed is good at taking "predictable stories" and mixing them with likable characters. That seems oh so simple to do but it's really not.
I wouldn't mind more grim-dark. That's how we got Dark-souls and Dragon's dogma. If they were able to take that same "grim-dark" and put it in a modern day Japanese setting that would be really neat. The Persona series does that a little bit but I've sort of noticed the later games have "lost the dark" & "lost the grit" in some ways.
Don't misunderstand me. I love Persona 3 and Persona 4 but they don't seem quite as intense & foreboding as the previous entries. Aka, they need to put more Mega-Ten in the mix again!
Well, he did spend around 5 months in jail before he got bailed out and I think that did the trick. 5 months in jail may not sound too bad but as someone who has never been in jail myself I'd be uneasy over the possibility of being in jail even a single month.
Sorry, but 8 "years" of jail time over something said in bad taste is too steep. There are criminals who have done harsher crimes that get much lighter sentences.
