I haven’t been spending as much time as I should with my PS3. Sure I’ve enjoyed the games I’ve got and I certainly have quite a few that I’ve had fun with. But despite the best efforts of Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted, or Mirror’s Edge nothing I have played has made me stick there for the entire night playing until I cried.

There is a simple reason why this is: There are virtually no RPGs.

I mean JRPGs now, not Oblivion or Fallout (both are good games and, Seriously? He looks like a drag queen Jack Black.to be fair, Oblivion is a port and their characters are hideous), but RPGs with grinding and turns and the stereotypical characters, and, you know what I mean. Sure there’s Disgaea 3 but that is really a strategy game and that’s not what I’m looking for. And both Eternal Sonata and Cross Edge have been less than well received.

Every time I try to sit down with my PS3 I feel the tugging of my DS --which has awesome RPGs like Dragon Quest 5 or The World Ends With You-- and inevitably I’m drawn back to it, having more fun than I did before. If my PS2 were still working, this would undoubtedly be the same and I have no doubts that if there was a decent RPG for PSP that I haven’t played, I would play that instead.

Here is what I really don’t understand: the PS2 was a mother load of fantastic RPGs, too numerous to name. With gems such as Final Fantasy X and XII; Persona 3 and 4; and the Kingdom Hearts games, the PS2 was the undisputed king of RPGs for over half a decade. So why then, I ask you, does the PS3, this late in its life, have almost no real, next-gen, role-playing games? There are almost no recently released RPGs, and the future is looking barren. Yes, yes, Final Fantasy XIII and White Knight Chronicles are coming up next year and yes, Final Fantasy XIII Versus and XIV are coming one day, and of course I know that good RPGs take time, but we’re, what, almost three years into the PS3’s run? What gives?

To be honest, you’d think in the few years we’d have had a solid RPG would come along that appeals to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest fans like myself. Seriously now, I’m hunting for PS1 RPGs to play because my PS3 is so barren! I would think that developers and publishers would see this as a golden time to make RPGs: The system has powerful hardware, great storage, and is the heir to the PS2. Why wouldn’t someone want to make an epic adventure?

Again, I wish to remind you, I am excluding Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Disgaea, so please, no hate.

So why could this be? Certainly, Square seems to be taking its time, focusing on the long-term development for the PS3 and other games for the DS. Atlus hasn’t tried to make a solid leap to the next generation. NIS has only made two forays, in the forms of Disgaea 3 and the less-than-stellar Cross Edge. It’s the same with Namco Bandai with only one entry: Eternal Sonata.

Maybe I’m being unfair. Eternal Sonata wasn’t bad, but then again, it wasn’t what we wanted or needed for one of the first PlayStation 3 RPGs. I guess we’ll all just have to wait until next year for our RPG onrush to arrive.