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"Every wall is a door."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I like a certain level of familiarity when it comes to my choices of entertainment. On one hand, this can make things somewhat predictable or downright boring when I'm willing to watch the same movie or listen to the same song for the thousandth time. But on the other hand, I don't have to worry about any unexpected surprises, either. I am definitely not the person you want to take along skydiving, or out to watch the latest gore fest from the overpaid minds in Hollywood -- I'll take my excitement in other ways, thank you.
So how does this tie back into the subject of the fabled "fourth wall"? Well, first off, let's clarify exactly what the fourth wall is. The fourth wall itself is found more in comics (specifically humorous, strip-style comics), but it's found in some movies or cartoons, and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples as well. "Breaking the fourth wall" takes place when a character speaks directly to the viewing audience, thereby bringing you, the viewer, into their world, if only for a moment. The familiar things are placed by the unfamiliar and unexpected. It levels the playing field between imagination and reality, and when done well, breaking the fourth wall can offer more than the usual comedic hi-jinks.
As we progress from comic strips to video games, the fourth wall moves from the page to the screen, changing the focus. A gamer isn't just a passive audience anymore; they have active control over the characters on the screen. This changes my focus of the fourth wall as well, from an unexpected gag used by an artist or writer into an act that the player takes part in. In essence, as you take control, the choice of breaking that fourth wall should be up to you.
I've been jumping around a lot here, but permit the luxury of one more leap before you lose all patience with me. In essence, the original act of breaking the fourth wall is when a viewer or onlooker is invited into the world they've only watched before. They become a part of that world, if only for a split second, perhaps long enough to enjoy a good joke or learn a previously-unknown secret. So, how do we equate this when the fourth wall is broken through into an RPG? It should include the gamer as a part of that world, making them an active participant in what transpires therein.
How this could happen is just a matter of conjecture and theory at this point, I'm afraid. Either developers are too limited in the scope of their imaginations, or the ability to experiment with new ideas. Maybe technology just hasn't caught up enough to allow a gamer to actively participate in a game yet. All that seems possible at this point is watching and reading countless lines of text or hearing hour after hour of voiceovers, and then steering your party on to the next battle, cut-scene, or save point. Some bits and pieces of clever (or not-so-clever) dialogue might slip through a crack, but these are few and far between. One example that comes to mind is the "ESRB" joke offered by Klein in Atelier Iris -- obviously the Entertainment Safety Ratings Board is non-existant in the world of Atelier Iris, and thus, Klein breaks the fourth wall as he makes the joke. The question is: How can gamers break the wall themselves?
The first idea that leaps to my mind is that a player might become an actual character, albeit one not seen on the screen itself. An excellent example of this would be Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword (released simply as Fire Emblem in North America), where the player is brought into the game through the role of a tactician. As your job is to direct units to attack or defend as necessary, you are brought in the game itself, and other characters even "converse" with you after a fashion. The next logical step would be to somehow create a game where you not only are recognized by characters in the game, but you can converse with them as well, or direct them to attack in a certain fashion through orders and voice commands. Artificial Intelligence, to my knowledge, might not be up to the task of supporting conversation in games yet, and after such disappointing games supporting speech commands like Lifeline (which was reportedly so buggy that it was downright unplayable), it remains to be seen whether this feature is feasible anytime soon.
A second option would be involving movement to allow a player to interact with the environment of the game itself, rather than directing a character to do so. If a player has more than a pair of thumbsticks at their disposal, it might create more original styles of play. Perhaps a battle system involving a dance pad a la Dance Dance Revolution where following a series of rhythmic steps in a certain order sends your party into battle with a coordinated attack. A player might cast a difficult spell by "dancing" to a synchronized rhythm. Another idea involves Nintendo's lauded (or loathed) Revolution controller: a warrior might swing a sword on-screen to match the controller's movement, or a player might draw a quick diagram on the screen, similar to the spell system in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for the Nintendo DS. At the very least, any of these ideas forces a player to get out of their chair and either move or perform a certain action or actions to get a desired effect. These different modes could always be switched off in a game's menu for players either unable or unwilling to do them.
These are just a few suggestions of innovative ideas that could give traditional RPGs a new facet of gameplay, but I've only just scratched the smallest surface. Whether or not games today can support such features is irrelevant, because technology only grows more and more powerful with each coming season, and as technology evolves, games will have to evolve with them or be left behind. If roleplaying games can offer new ways of making traditional gameplay exciting and original, it will attract a new audience that might have normally stayed away.
Regardless of how soon that fourth wall can be broken, it's bound to happen eventually -- just think of the endless possibilities.
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