Persona 4 Arena - The first region locked PS3 game?

Are there any JRPGs that aren't cheesy?

 

A lot of JRPGs are cheesy, but some have a much more tolerable level of cheese. FF6 had a fair amount of that crap, yet it remains my favorite Final Fantasy, and one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. Interesting enough, FF6 had a very diverse age group among the characters, minimal melodrama, and absolutely NO anime crap centered around a group of high schoolers.

WRPGs are guilty of being cheesy as well, but again, it's a much more tolerable level of cheese. Those stupid as hell romances that plagued BioWare games, even back when the company was still good, were cringe worthy and unnecessary. But at least when I play a WRPG I'm not watching some whiny 16 year old douche take a break from saving the world by crying about how his daddy didn't love him enough and how he'll never get any pussy, despite the fact that he's traveling with 2,3, sometimes 4 girls that are clearly interested in him for whatever reason. Granted, usually at least one of those girls is or looks underage, but that's a whole separate can of worms I'd rather not open at the moment.

I just don't have a very high tolerance for the tropes that plague Japanese media. I did when I was younger, but not anymore.

EDIT: I'd like to correct something I typed above. The average 16 year old JRPG protagonist wouldn't cry about not getting women, because he's usually far too busy brooding about something that happened in his past to care about the sexualized females he's traveling with. If he does care, prepare to watch an extremely awkward romance sub-plot involving long pauses, ellipsis, and other painfully cliched crap.

Anyway, think I've derailed this topic two times too many. After all, this isn't about my hatred for Sony and common Japanese tropes, this is about region locking a game that shouldn't be region locked in the first place.

I went ahead and popped in my (region free) US copy of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger to see what language options are available. English and Japanese audio, that's to be expected in fighting games. However, not only do I have English and Japanese text options, I also have Chinese and Korean as well. Funny, I don't remember Arc System Works or Aksys trying to combat reverse importation like Atlus is...

 

How many people actually import games?

 

More than you can imagine.

 

Another fighter I'm boycotting and I don't even have a PS3 I support anything that is region free as all people should be allowed to play all games and get the game from any part of the world they want. Atlus made this call not sony so Atlus won't be getting any money from me. Like UMVC3 I will buy this for $14 used down the line

 

Cheesy JRPGs aren't as grating as "Hollywood British" movie accents or however you'd call it. Turn OFF Harry Potter, thank you very much.

 

Had to bump this topic after reading this:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/05/persona-4-arena-isnt-taking-the-stage-in-europe-this-year/

"This further delay only adds to scrutiny over the decision to enforce the game's region lock, a decision Atlus claims it took to prevent the North American version 'cannibalizing' its Japanese counterpart. Maybe Atlus should've consulted Murphy's law before making Arena the first PS3 game to have such a constraint."

Well done Atlus. lol.

 

It was only a matter of time before these things start to backfire. Atlus' decision to support US for 20 years running with barely any sign of even the most fleeting intent (that I know of) to explore mere feasibility of PAL expansion, has to have left more than a few fans bewildered.