I've talked about JRPGs and RPGs a lot over the years. I grew up playing games on the NES and SNES, like Dragon Warrior, Ultima III: Exodus, Final Fantasy I/II/III, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger. Dr, Potts and Dellanos we in a similar camp. Granted I didn't play or was excited about every RPG that came out as I didn't play any of the Dragon Warrior sequels or any of the AD&D (Forgotten Realms) games on the NES, or any of the Breath of Fire, Lufia, or Romancing SaGa series on the SNES. In the mid-90s, being a kid with no income apart from my weekly allowance for doing chores beyond what I was regularly expected to do, I could really only afford one or two NES games ($19.99 - $39.99) or one SNES game ($39.99 - $74.99) a year, apart from the game I might get for my birthday or Christmas. So it's really only natural that we had significantly fewer games than what we have access to these days and the games we had we replayed a lot.
I played through both Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy on the NES multiple times, so when the SNES was released and then there were articles in Nintendo Power about the release of Final Fantasy II later that month in the US, I remember us being really excited about this new standalone installment. That was probably the most expensive SNES game I bought, being $74.99 at KB Toys, although I don't think I bought it until sometime in late 1993 after the SNES dropped in price to $99; I don't recall if Dr. Potts had already gotten the game at that point or not. I know that he bought Chrono Trigger and I borrowed it to play it, and I remember watching him play Final Fantasy III before I got my own copy sometime in 1994. I can't tell you how many times I beat Final Fantasy II & III over the years, but I wouldn't be surprised if that number was in the double digits.
I bring all of this long-winded context up because I am always in shock whenever I read about the history of JRPGs in the US, or say, watch a video from The Gaming Historian about Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and see how generally unpopular JRPGs were until Final Fantasy VII was released in 1997. I feel like I knew that JRPGs were less popular in the US to some degree, but seeing this reflected as a fact in subjective numbers is just mind-boggling to me. It's strange seeing the US sales for Final Fantasy II on the SNES being only 15.8% of the total number of units sold (250,000 : 1,330,000) in Japan. Because in my little world, which I felt was only accepted and reinforced by both Dellanos and Dr. Potts, was that RPGs were where you found quality stories set in a high fantasy setting that wasn't specifically "The Hobbit" or "Lord of the Rings." They were also where you could spend so much more time, with games taking 30+ hours to beat and requiring a save file whereas most games expected you to beat them in a single sitting.
I think that's all I really had to say today. Just frequently surprised (over and over again) whenever I hear how poorly JRPGs sold overall in the US during the first two generations of consoles.
You can go back about your lives.
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