As time moves on. The progression of RPGs

by Brian Thorpe

I have played RPGs since I discovered them in the mid - 80's. Ultima III was my first exposure. I couldn't believe there was a way to play video games like D&D where I could make my own characters(As incredible as Adventure(Atari 2600) was it didn't capture any of the "Feel" of a pencil and paper RPG like D&D.) I played through anything of its nature I could find. Including many horrible games that tried but failed to capture that feeling (I am not going to name any games here, good or bad, as the actual games are a moot point.) But this was a learning process and the games progressed in capability. And then, Final fantasy was released. I was amazed at the extent of this game (Dragon Warrior was good but linear and short) and would be forever spoiled on this style of game.

Now Final Fantasy is what brings me to my original thought in this editorial. As a novelty sort of concept I dug out my old nintendo the other day and popped in the original Final Fantasy. I figured that this game was gonna hold my attention for maybe 5 minutes before I decided to turn on the Playstation. With the beauty and scope of so many RPGs today, how could this old 8-bit relic hold up? I was wrong. Dead wrong. Even though I knew the fairly straightforward and graphically dull story I couldn't help but continue in my quest to improve my characters. You see, they were truly MY characters. I had a stake in them. I had created them, given them a name and a life. I did not simply paste a name of my own over some programmer's creation(something i cannot resist doing in current RPGs). The character's background and "self" came only from myself.

This is what I truly miss from today's RPGs (and perhaps what subconciously made me drag out the old 8-bit machine). Don't get me wrong. I love many of the games released today, and have spent countless entertaining hours playing them. But in the end they leave me with a feeling of watching a story, not really participating. This is totally different from paper and pencil RPGs (even though many of them try to "implant" character's with the use of conveniences like templates) which spawned this whole wonderful genre we all so fully enjoy.

In the beginning D&D was 3 thin books with not much more than guidelines on how to play. So much of the game was in the players, you didn't need end on end piles of rules and details for every little circumstance. Now by the very nature of video games a happy medium has to be reached. A game without a storyline is like a movie without a plot. But at what point do we all surrender our creativity to the programmer's??

I know that if this happy medium can be reached in the PC based RPGs such as Might and Magic and Wizardry then why can't these amazing programmer's of today's console RPGs do the same? I would like to think that Square (which has a history of innovating the RPG genre) or any other company could accomplish this. And quite well probably.

Soon we will all be given Final Fantasy VIII to devour. It will likely be an incredible story that will suck us in and not let go. But why spend 40+ hours to play a game/story when you could spend 2-4 hours watching an amazing movie (like Record of lodoss Wars)? I just can't seem to generate the excitement and anticipation for FFVIII that I did for FFVII. I just can't see it as being all that different of a "game". It seems to me to be More like a game expansion or a movie sequel.