|
The Multiplayer Console RPG (MCRPG)
I've always really liked the idea of a shared console RPG experience. The idea of a band of adventurers working together to solve puzzles, fight monsters and help troubled townships seems so much more appealing to me if my band of adventurers were real, individual people. Indeed, I'm lucky enough to have at least four like-minded friends but we've never yet had the multiplayer RPG adventure that we've dreamed of. That is, a plot driven console RPG in which we each pick one of four characters to play and events help to shape our characters both as a group and individually.
Yes, I am aware of the MMORPG phenomenon and indeed when I see people playing WoW or Final Fantasy XI I think to myself that they look like endless fun but of course, that's the problem – they are endless. As such they may well be enjoyable but they simply do not provide for what a lot of us rpgamers are after, specifically a story with a beginning, a middle and most importantly, an end. We have seen some brave attempts at multiplayer console RPGs, dating all the way back to the NES era, but some of the more notable attempts include Secret of Mana, Four Swords and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. None of these games have yet provided the multiplayer console RPG experience that I had hoped for. Indeed, it seems the more geared towards multiplayer the game is, the less of an RPG it becomes but this need not necessarily be the case. Certainly the technology required to make the MCRPG workable has not always been readily available but I believe that this could change very soon.
The History of the MCRPG (and why there hasn't yet been one)
The main limitation of the Multiplayer Console RPG (Which I will henceforth refer to as the MCRPG) is that all players share the one TV screen so there is very little freedom for individual players to explore areas at their will and extensive menu tinkering is pretty much out as well. This limitation left games like Secret of Mana feeling very much like the single player RPGs that they truly were, with the second player really just watching the main character do all the fun RPG things like exploring, talking to characters, puzzle solving and generally playing the game.
It was, of course, the Game boy that changed everything. Using the Game boy link cable, Pokemon allowed players to battle each other. Thus Nintendo began toying with the idea that one could participate in a single player adventure with a view to playing with friends, albeit competitively and only in a fairly limited way as one-off battles. The insane success of Pokemon suggests that if there's one thing people like more than developing characters, it's developing characters in order to compete or compare them with friends'.
Connecting the GBA to the Gamecube was a stroke of genius. Admittedly it was the most disappointingly executed stroke of genius that videogames have ever seen but it helped to pave the way for what might, some day soon, be. The GBA provided a private screen for each player, which helped to make MCRPGs feasible. When the GBA connectivity was announced for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures I got very excited. It seemed like a great opportunity for a decent MCRPG. Indeed, so excited was I that my girlfriend of the time (bless her) bought me a Gamecube for Christmas so that I'd be on my way to collecting all the necessary hardware. Of course, amassing four GBA's, four link cables as well as the relevant games was no mean feat for a student so I still had a long way to go. Indeed, the expense is what put a lot of people off and rightly so; not only did we need all of these Nintendo products to play but we also needed to spend over the cost of a link cable on batteries for the GBA's, which can not even charge while connected to the Gamecube and this every time we wanted a play session. In Four Swords if, God forbid, a GBA cuts out, the game immediately exits to the main menu without saving, which is obviously an idiotic thing to do when all the controllers are running off cheap AA batteries. The GBA screens were so dim that we had to strategically place lamps around the room to provide exactly enough light (not too much or you get unbearable glare). Both Crystal Chronicles and Four Swords probably could have done with a controller with more buttons on it, but you sacrifice buttons for a screen, albeit a small, unbelievably dim one. It was not just the hardware costs and design flaws that ultimately let down these games but the games themselves both felt rushed and carelessly put together. As MCRPG's they simply failed to deliver an experience that even vaguely resembled a good console RPG. Were they multiplayer? Yes, they were certainly both horrible in their single player incarnations. Were they RPG's? Not really, arguably they had both been stripped down of so many elements that they ceased to be fun.
In four swords the GBA screen could be used to explore areas solo while the party did something else. Another nice use of the personal screens was the private voting on how much of a help or a hindrance the other players had been. Despite some nice touches, the game had no real story to speak of and absolutely no individuation of characters, aside from their coloured clothes. There was no character progression as all equipment was reset at the start of each new area and since each Link could only carry one piece of equipment at a time, the general strategy was always to try to spread a variety between the players. Story, character progression and individual characters that each player can personally connect to, that is Role-playing, is a pretty key element of what differentiates an MCRPG from an multiplayer action game. The single player Zelda games do include character progression but Legend of Zelda: Four Swords failed in this regard, marking it as something less than what most gamers expect when looking for an MCRPG. The experience was akin to one of the old 4-player arcade hack 'n' slash games like Gauntlet. The absence of personal stats or equipment bags was especially irritating because during most of the playtime the GBA screen was just telling you to look at the TV when it could have been a menu or at least a map.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles arguably made better use of the GBA to Gamecube connectivity, giving players' private menus as well as a choice of characters with their own races, families and abilities. The battles were fairly fun and required some co-operation; unfortunately the battles were more or less all there was to it. It offered next to nothing in the way of exploration, puzzle solving, or story. Perhaps the lack of plot progression was a symptom of the fact that the players generated their characters at the start of the game, making it hard to write a story for them. Surely though, if people wanted to generate their characters and play a game with no plot they would play an MMORPG with far superior, deeper gameplay. Gamers playing on a console RPG made by Square-Enix expect a plot, which was not provided. The whole thing seemed aimless and repetitive and although three friends and I spent a pretty solid weekend playing through it, the only really memorable part of the game was the squabbling for items which had a bit more meaning to than in four swords it because at least your characters' stats developed.
Both Four Swords and Crystal Chronicles were hollow experiences primarily because there was so little incentive to progress either individually or as part of the group. None of us were invested in what our characters were doing because every level (both games break up the game play into what is more accurately be described as a level than as a location) felt like the last and my character was never doing anything that was not a part of the collective will of the group. Sure, I could run ahead and open a chest before the others got to it but it would have been nice to be going to a dungeon specifically because my character wanted to go; a fairly obvious way of doing the MCRPG would be to spend at least one dungeon/area exploring one of the four characters, giving a chance for the players to learn about the character they are playing as and maybe even make personal decisions which affect the development of one character, either through the story or in more gameplay related terms. This would keep players interested and may even provoke players to really play their role. Especially so if the party were given certain decisions, which were put to the vote – provoking real argument and debate about what to do at certain junctures. In this way, the MCRPG should be using the fact that there is more than one decision-making mind involved in playing the game to enrich the story elements of the RPG rather than as an excuse to strip the thing down to a shell of a story. The console RPG has evolved into quite a different beast from its pen and paper ancestors. One of the most appealing parts of the pen and paper role-play experience is the fact that while the adventures you are undertaking are not real, the relations between the adventurers is real because everyone involved is a real person with real private interests. Bringing back the human interaction element to the console RPG experience can help to capture the fun elements of D&D without having to include tedious dice roles and verbal descriptions. It seems these games have squandered the potential for putting the role-play back into the RPG.
The Potential MCRPG and the Potential of the MCRPG
The next (or new) generation of consoles could see the birth of the true MCRPG, facilitated by the DS/Wii connectivity of which the GBA-Gamecube was obviously a forerunner. For starters, the connection will be wireless so there will be no need to buy a cable and the DS's can charge while playing. It seems to me that only now has the technology begun to catch up the ideas that were being floated in the GBA-Gamecube era. However, it was not only technical limitations that made Four Swords and Crystal Chronicles so thoroughly missable. Careful thought needs to be given to the implementation of the new resources so that the experience really is comparable to a proper console RPG.
As well as the communal TV screen, players will have two screens to themselves, one of which is a touch screen so could be used to quickly select attacks, spells, techniques etc. from a menu. A touch screen allows many more instantly accessible menus in an infinite amount of different configurations and in this way the DS as a controller could add levels of depth to the battle system that have previously been impossible in action RPGs. The top screen could be used for personal exploration in a similar fashion to the use of the GBA in four swords while the touch screen could include menu options. The three screens would provide a greater potential for players to really do whatever they want in a town or dungeon without having to wait for their companions – The main screen could be a lush 3D overview of the town with the top DS screen serving as a close up on your character as he enters shops etc that aren't visible from the main screen while the touch screen could serve as a menu for the actual decisions made in such places, such as speaking to people or deciding how many potions you want.
It has long been popular in RPGs to include a variety of different replies to what NPCs tell or ask of the hero. This has usually played very little role in either story or gameplay as characters rarely hold it against the hero if he says “No I won't help you” because the game usually won't actually let that be your final answer. This does not need to be the case in an MCRPG – each player could choose their own reply, allowing some of the team to explore less heroic options and for the game to remember that they had done so. These replies could permanently affect how the NPC views your character; it would stimulate players to get into the roles of their characters- one character could be good cop, another bad, a third could choose the humorous response. Alternatively the party could choose to act in a single-minded fashion, and could be collectively rewarded for that.
The DS has already proved that it can handle download play, which provides all kinds of mini-game potential. Imagine a plot sequence that either forces or gives the option of the party being split in two a la Final Fantasy VI. The Party currently playing their half of the story could use the TV and their DS's as normal while the other half of the party, waiting for it to be their turn to play through their "meanwhile…' scene could be playing a mini-game that either gives the gold, items or boosts stats. Because the DS connection is wireless to a fairly decent range, there could even occasionally be prompts for some characters to leave the room to play their mini-games. In these segments the remaining party members could be given private character/plot revelations, which they could decide for themselves to share or keep secret.
It seems to me that the best multiplayer ending would be for one of the characters to turn evil at the end and have the final battle be fought between the players. Perhaps one of the group could steal the "power crystal" (or equivalent plot device) at the last minute and so become more powerful to provide a fair fight against the other three heroes. Which character it is that turns evil could be dependent on various player decisions in the game – greed, how they voted, how they interacted with NPCs or alternatively it could be a genuine decision that the player makes at the time. It would be a satisfying final boss fight because it could be as challenging as anything someone could program, different every time and it would have added emotion because the ultimate evil would be sitting right next to you! The final fight would have great replay value and there could be a variety of different endings depending on who, if anyone, takes the crystal and who wins the fight.
Exploration of a world, character development and engrossing plots are the crucial elements of a console RPG and we have simply never seen all these elements in a multiplayer RPG. If the technology has not been available in the past, it will be with the new generation of consoles. I would like to see developers making use of the multiplayer element in MCRPG's to make better, original RPG's as there is clearly untapped potential here. Instead we have seen developers hiding behind multiplayer as an excuse for making a half-arsed RPG. If there's one thing Square-Enix know how to do, it's write a compelling RPG plot, but in the original Crystal Chronicles there was no sign of this, nor was the world we were given to explore even remotely inspiring. I am unsure how close to my vision of the potential MCRPG the Wii or DS Crystal Chronicles games will be but hopefully the superior technology this time round will inspire Square-Enix to put the effort in to give a more rounded character and plot driven RPG experience. We have the technology now, all we are waiting for is a developer to put it into practice and give us a real multiplayer console RPG.
|
RSS feed
iTunes
