RPG Optimism

by Arpad Korossy

As I read editorials and letters on various RPG sites, one thing which constantly depresses me is the rampant pessimism about the state of RPGs and where they are headed. Perhaps it is only my personality, but I see things much more optimistically.

On July of 1990, Final Fantasy was released, and the future of role-playing games was changed forever. Final Fantasy had a surprisingly good storyline beneath the surface, with ancient races and long lost technology, a time loop, and even a fake ending with Garland which only turns out to be the beginning of your quest. Final Fantasy was a true gem in its time. It was met with great success in Japan, but only did OK in the US. The failure of Final Fantasy as well as other RPGs in America led most companies to decide not to take the time to translate and distribute games overseas. As a result, early RPGamers had to wait months for another good RPG to be released.

Now it is 1999, almost a decade later. Final Fantasy VII has broken into the American market, and spread awareness of the RPG genre, causing a huge amount of RPGs to flood into the US. A common complaint is that no one has enough money to keep up with the releases. But has quality suffered from quantity? Absolutely not. The depth of storyline featured in some of today’s RPGs is simply incredible. Games like Xenogears show that the industry has risen from super cliched plots of LIGHT WARRIORS and magical ORBS to games which are truly novel material. Giants like Square have vast financial resources to play with, and can afford to make art instead of simple popular entertainment. Technology has also increased many times over, as we move from simple sprite characters to fully immersive 3D environments. Music has progressed from wretched NES sound synthesizers to redbook audio with actual vocals and with pieces performed by real orchestras. The modern RPG blows away the RPGs of eight or nine years ago, and there are more of them too.

Even the rest of the world is coming to realize the need for plot and story. As gameplay grows more and more stale and innovative ideas for games become more and more scarce, developers of all sorts of games are starting to focus on characters and story. The phenomenal success of Half-Life is an excellent example. It succeeded not only because of superb gameplay but because of an actual story that could manipulate your emotions. This trend will occur more and more as developers realize that gameplay is not enough. PC Gamer says this to say about Blood II, one of the newer 1st person shooters:

"For the most part, Blood II is a fine, by the numbers shooter and not an unwelcome addition to the 3D action scene, although games like Half-Life have demonstrated that the genre has already moved on from this kind of formulaic carnage."

Things like this will result in more games like MGS which blur the line between RPG and everything else, as other genres begin to add plot which until now was unheard of.. In the future we will move beyond the divisions of RPG and action RPG, to traditional RPG, 1st person shooter RPG, strategy RPG, fighting RPG, and more. In another ten years, everything except for SimCity 6000 will probably look like an RPG, with at least a somewhat developed story. Thor Antrim might even get his pro wrestling RPG. As for the technology, in another ten years we will scoff at the FMV of Final Fantasy VIII as worse than the graphics of normal gameplay. Hard as it is to believe, we look at the games we play now as we now look at Final Fantasy I: games of our childhood which are far inferior in both graphics and storyline to the games we have now. We have much to look forward to, and much to be excited about. Let’s never lose sight of that.