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Picture it if you will: Our hero rushes into the castle to save the fair maiden. Or maybe he/she is charging a horde of enemy troops. Or facing down a massive dragon. Or a giant robot. So many different things can happen to a lead in an RPG but there's ONE thing that always seems consistent.
They will be carrying some kind of sword. Often large, sometimes small, on many occasions twice their own size.
Why? What's so special about swords? This is one of those things I've most wondered about. If you ask anyone who actually uses these sorts of toys, they'll tell you 9 times out of 10 someone with a polearm could easily beat a sword wielder. Yet in games, movies, television, etc, it all comes back to swords. Even myths and legends lean towards the blade. Arthur didn't swing a pickaxe, Musashi isn't a legend for fighting with a naginata, and Roland sure wasn't known for his holy bill-guisarme. So once again, I ask what reason there could be that such a simple weapon could capture fans the world around to become arguably the most well-loved melee weapon category in the world.
I would love, more then anything, to see a RPG hero using a halberd. Or a gun. (Squall doesn't count, nor does the unnamed FFXIII heroine.) Or even a quarterstaff! Offhand I can really only think of two RPG lead heroes who didn't use swords: Tales of Legendia's Senel (Martial artist, which was pretty cool), and FFIX's Zidane (daggers, or polearms made from merging two daggers). One might argue about some of the characters in FFVI as well..but then that gets us into the whole argument of exactly who is FFVI's lead, and I think that's been debated enough.
In short, What's the sword got that other weapons don't? Style, panache, big endorsement contracts? I don't know, but I sure think it would be a nice change of pace to see something different in the next lead's hands in my next game.
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