How strange -- Scott Westerfeld wrote an wonderful young adult series called Midnighters with the same premise about time stopping but for a few kids and Lovecraftian monsters.
 

"Actually, with the exception of the really crappy Super Columbine Massacre RPG and a couple of others, too many indie RPGs seem absolutely mundane and conventional in comparison. And this is a shame. Why don't we indies have more weird, bizarre, funkalitious games like this? Or do we, and I have just missed them?"

Because they don't sell.

Proove me wrong, but you seem to go the humorous, but otherwise mundane (albeit crafty) way yourself with your own game. (Which I don't say to flame you - merely stating my impression)

With high-budget commercial games it's even worse! These budgets "force" the producers to generate one action-adventure after the other.
You can say many nice things about Oblivion and I liked to play it for many hours but it really isn't an RPG - it's more of "put everything in it but see to it that nothing overtrumps the rest". From what I've seen, Fallout 3 will be even more "consequent".
The other single-player RPG company BioWare first made Jade Empire, then Mass Effect and now - oh wonder - they announce a "real dark fantasy" RPG! We'll see how that turns out - now that it is owned by EA.
Meanwhile, Blizzard uses its full expertise and puts in some innovative colors into their next "Action-RPG" and probably will sell it until their accounts explode.

An estimated 90% of the market being firm in the Tolkienesian or StarWarsian ("space opera") tradition there should be room for other exciting scenarios but the truth is: They don't sell. Not in the western hemisphere.
See what happened to Troika as an example for what happens to a company that tries to bring you scenarios that are still fresh (Arcanum, Vampire).

So, no wild west, no WWII, no renaissance, no medieval worlds, no ancient history except as action-adventures without inventories but blood fountains everywhere.
And no, I don't really wonder why there aren't games that cover adolescence in a funky way.
IMHO, the only way to produce these games is by not expecting any money in return (or even be dependent on it).
 

Congrats on finding a copy, Coyote -- Atlus games are notorious for disappearing utterly from shelves in a very short span of time. Anyway, I hope you weren't planning anything important with 80-120 hours of your life ;)

And that's not counting the epilogue expansion, which I hear is another 30 or so.

(I haven't gotten to play yet, unfortunately. Still replaying through the core game thanks to dead system and data loss. Having all your game data stored on the console's drive has its downsides...)
 

Long time reader, first time commenter here.

I played the normal (Not FES, thus no groundhog day expansion and a few other small gameplay differences) Persona 3 and it was largely the best RPG-related surprise for me this year. I say surprise because I bought it largely on an impulse and it sat there collecting dust until I finally tried it out of curiosity and then obsessively played it to completion.

Definitely does some interesting stuff with the idea of the passage of time (through the whole school year) and I also like the fact that, like in the SMT series it is derived from, the use of elemental weaknesses, status effects (which tend to be largely useless in many console games) and buff/debuff spells can be utterly devastating at times, both for you and the enemy, notably since correctly exploiting weaknesses grants you extra turns.
 

Probably mainstream developers aren't the only ones who have a little of that "If it's too weird it won't sell good" fear. Except indies are maybe just influenced by it, instead of being ruled by it.
 

I admit - I'm influenced by it, too. I have a very different RPG that I started on about three years ago. I still plan on making it - it has taken on something of a "magnum opus" characteristic in my brain.

But I balked because it was simply too much for me to handle given my skill level, and because it was going to be very different and hard to market. I figured getting my feet wet with something more traditional like Frayed Knights would be a better path for both developing my own skills and for marketing purposes. I still believe that.

Since many indies don't have that many RPGs under their belt, I guess that same approach might be the problem. After all, Richard Garriott didn't start with Ultima IV...
 

>> Richard Garriott didn't start with Ultima IV...

That is probably what is truly missing from the market these days. A startup game that stands a chance of making it. This is the true delima graphics has imposed upon the industry. :)
 

Well, we can cross our fingers on the Eschalon series. And then there's Geneforge and Exile / Avernum. And we should be getting a third Aveyond game someday. So while perhaps not standing a chance of being huge break-away successes like those of the early days of the industry, we're getting a few.
 

Well, P3 did take a few steps to minimize its costs and make it less risky. A lot of the personas' artwork, 3D models and animations are lifted straight from one of their previous games (Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, which in fact provides models for most of their other PS2 creations), for one, plus the main dungeon is procedural (random, even), it also relies on relatively simple cutscenes outside of the anime bits and concentrates on a few key locations (though they can change with time). It's a rather economical design at times, though I think it benefits the game.
 

My wife was playing P3 a while back. One of the things I really give it credit for is the combination of traditional RPG (turn-based combat with a party) with some kind of bizarre modern twist (especially in terms of the music and setting).

All in all, it's a pretty solid game.