>>12042035
You don't need to "dissuade rentals" for an RPG, the game is already long enough that one wouldn't want to rent it, especially if the saves are internal to the cartridge. Besides rentals were only detrimental to the big publishers, anything with a low print run rentals were benificial because that meant thousands of guaranteed sales from the rental shops.
The average age of a JRPG player in the US was older than in Japan.
Western reviewers and players complained when games were too easy. In Japan they complained that the JRPGs were too hard.
"Challenge" was a big part of video game marketing in the west, even for RPGs. There is a 1991 press release from Square that uses the word "challenge" 6 times.