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What Are Wii Waiting For? Well, I'm waiting on another Wii RPG. Currently, there is Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Paper Mario with Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn coming out next week. But what else do we really have to look forward to? Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen & the Tower of Mirrors and Opoona are already out in Japan with Dragon Quest Swords already announced for North America in Q1. Still in the works are Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon ~Labyrinth Forgotten by Time~, Tales of Symphonia: Knights of Ratatosk, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, King Story, Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, and the WiiWare title Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Little King and the Promised Land. While that list isn't one to shake a stick at, most games on that list are either far away or lack the mainstream popularity of titles like the PlayStation 3's Final Fantasy XIII or the Xbox 360's Lost Odyssey.
While Nintendo as a first-party developer is busy with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit, they don't seem to be focusing on the area of RPGs. The DS is doing wonderful in the area of RPGs; not that Nintendo is really helping with that, leaving Square Enix to pick up much of the slack with remakes of Dragon Quest IV, V, VI, and Final Fantasy IV along with original titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, Dragon Quest IX, and Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. On Nintendo's end, only first-party development teams Intelligent Systems (Fire Emblem DS) and newly acquired Monolith Soft (Soma Bringer) are even working on DS RPGs, so it's not like their RPG focus is on the DS either.
So is it all up to Square Enix and their three Wii RPGs and one WiiWare title to carry the system? Can Namco Bandai's Tales of title make a big enough dent? Will Oboro Muramasa Youtouden break out or slide under the radar? Can King Story and its "dream team" of developers really help things? There are so many unanswered questions about the future of RPGs on the Nintendo Wii. The GameCube never really reached "successful" status in the realm of RPGs, but the Wii has done much better in appealing to a wider audience. The thing is, a wider audience doesn't generally include us as RPGamers. We've been working our way into the mainstream, but does anyone care? Everyone talks about how they'd "like to make games for the Wii," but will those games be RPGs? Will RPGamers be content with what we are being given on the Wii or will we just continue to wait? Tough to say, but for now my DS, PSP, and Xbox 360 are getting much more of a workout.
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