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As the console hardware manufacturers have battled one another for market
dominance, they have catered to certain classes of gamers. The main categories
have been the RPgamer, the Sports/Racing gamer, the Action-Adventure gamer and
the Fighters gamer. Similarly, there have been niche markets, such as shooters
or simulations as well as many sub-categories and overlapping between the 4 main
types of gamers. Now many of you already might be oiling up the pitchfork,
ready to shout out “racing games and sports games are totally different!” “Sims
isn’t a niche category!!” or “you’ve overlooked strategy games!!!” To which I
reply, put down your magic wand of criticism and write your own damn editorial.
Furthermore, you are already distracting yourself so deeply as to miss the
point: that by balancing the games between these different groups, each company
hopes to attract the largest user base.
To avoid confusion, I will use a broad definition for the RPGamer, with games
ranging from Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest to Pokemon and Zelda or
tactical RPGs like Ogre Battle. I am not interested in laying down exactly what
fits the category, so it may be more helpful to imagine a Venn diagram structure
in which some games fit into multiple categories and the grades between each can
blur back and forth.
The Genesis owed much of its popularity in the US by appealing to the sports
gamer. Most people held firm to the belief that sports (especially the EA line)
played better, faster and more responsive than on the SNES. The SNES, though,
appealed to an RPG gamer. Sega’s black box did have a few decent RPGs but
nowhere near the deluge of quantity and quality of its rival. Even now, the
16-bit age of SNES RPGs is fondly remembered (almost too much so as it has a
stranglehold on the GBA). With the arrival of the Playstation, the crown of RPG
machines slipped from Nintendo’s grasp. Since this time, which can be
attributed almost solely to Square and their decision to bring FFVII to Sony*,
Playstation has dominated both the video game industry as well as retained the
mantle of RPgaming console.
I am of the opinion that if you attract the RPG gamer, you have won the
generation. Each system that has been dominant in its era (from NES to SNES to
PS up to PS2) has been supported by a strong lineup of RPGs. And again, yes,
other factors are at play, but try to see the forest through the trees. The
failure of the Nintendo 64 was largely due to its reliance on Zelda as its only
quasi-rpgish game. The laughably dismal Quest 64 and Aidyn Chronicles are
textbook cases for how not to make an RPG while Ogre Battle 64 was simply too
little, too late. Similarly the Sega Saturn and later the Dreamcast were also
barren, cruel lands for an RPG gamer, with no more than half a dozen memorable
RPGs (and impossibly, some of the great games like Panzer Dragoon Saga barely
made it out of Japan). No, if you needed your fix, then it had to be Sony’s
way. Which brings us to E3 present…
The RPgamer remains a large demographic in video games, and Sony’s PS2 is still
the console of choice for such games. Fortunately, most, if not all of the great
RPGs make it out of Japan. FFVII woke up Japanese developers to the idea that
Western RPgamers were out there, lots of them. Certainly other RPGs prior to FF
VII advanced the penetration of the genre in the American market (and arguably
even better Final fantasy games). Yet FFVII happened to arrive at the right
time on a system that was ready for the RPgamer. Today, localizations have
largely become a question of when not if. From what I have gleaned from the
filtered information at E3, Square-Enix had a large following and Nintendo’s
presentation of an adult Link caused tremendous excitement. The console
industry remains aware of this demographic and understands the need for its
support, but is the focus shifting?
DS? PSP? Anybody home?
On the portable front, the GBA is flooded with RPGs: good, bad and great, many
16 bit ports or homages to the SNES and this has helped its popularity. But the
exciting games initially announced for the DS and PSP were not RPGs. Now S-E
did announce a UMD movie of FFVII Advent, and a Namco Tales RPG and I am sure a
Pokemon and Zelda game will make there ways onto the DS and of course it is
still VERY early. But it is slightly disheartening to see that the initial buzz
about these new machines did not really have the RPgamer in mind. On the PSP,
the graphically intensive games along the lines of Gran Turismo took center
stage and on the DS side the Mario games and Metroid were shown off. Surely
there are tremendous possibilities for future RPGs, all the more so if those
games are built from the ground up to take advantage of the new machines instead
of being tweaked ports. While the PSP may do a better job in translating
current console RPGs onto a portable format, I find the dual screen of the DS to
be potentially more innovative. For example, a second screen might redefine
inventory management. No more pausing, or being tied down by a limited number
of hotkeys. And in combination with the touchscreen, I can easily imagine a
good developer further streamlining the use of items and spells or the retrieval
of party statistics and information.
So why was the initial excitement to play the next generation of portable RPGs
so subdued? Has the influence of the RPgamer begun to wane? Have games like
the GTA series, Metal Gear or Splinter Cell taken a slice from the audience?
After all, most people would agree that GTA 3 and Vice City played a bigger part
in guaranteeing the PS2’s success than the Final Fantasy games. I see portable
gaming as a perfect medium for RPGs provided they are designed to take advantage
of the stop/start, pick up and play environment. But these two new entrants
seemed less interested in being portable as being portable entertainment
machines, albeit more so the PSP than the DS. Is a focus on graphics and
multimedia really the key to taking creating great RPGs in the future? Are
gamers stuck in the golden age of 16bit RPGs on their GBA because that’s what
they want, or because they are waiting for a system that can handle more? I
feel that if portable games try too hard to match their console siblings, they
lose that which makes them worth playing in the first place: portability.
*The installed based prior to Square’s decision to bring FFVII was virtually
even for the Saturn and PS. Once Square (shockingly) decided to move its series
to Sony the balance irreversibly tilted towards the PS.
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