Googleshng: Moving along to our next topic, there has recently been quite the rise in the popularity of serialized RPGs. We have Shenmue, we have .hack, and a case could be made for Xenosaga. What does everyone think of this concept?

Marshal: It depends: Epic or gimmick?

Chris: I love long involved plotlines, so I'm loving it.

Alex: I don't like it one bit. I'm a big story hound and I often feel inclined to finish games, even bad games, just to finish the story, once I've gotten far enough. I need closure!

Alex: So in cases where the first game in a series is good and the rest are awful, I might push myself.

David: I like a long involved story, but if I am putting down $50+ for a game, I want some form of resultion to the game.

Chris: Though it seems people feel .hack needs to have been shortened to one game.

Alex: with a little shred of hope, getting through part 2, part 3, etc.

Marshal: But if one chapter takes sixty hours to play through, and two years of development, and there are six chapters, why not serialize?

Brian: Book series have been around for long enough, so why not?

David: Not "Oh no we ran out of money, quick throw on an ending." ( read: Shenmue)

Googleshng: I'm all in favor of making sequels that add on to an existing story, provided you wait long enough to do it to come up with new gameplay concepts and other improvements. Intentional serialization is terrible.

Brian: Hell, look at how popular the Bible is.

Zack: I think that there are a lot more serial RPGs that never made it out of Japan, and for good reason. Nobody wants to pay $200 for four games that have the same amount of gameplay as one $50 game does.

David: and as long as ALL THE PARTS COME OUT. Damned Shining Force 3.

Marshal: On the other hand, most serialized games feel like one long RPG sliced into three parts.

Brian: Damn Shining Force 3 for not being remade/ported.

Googleshng: Shenmue seems to have the same problem there.

Chris: I feel that intentional long plotlines work a lot better than sequels.

Marshal: Chris: Agreed.

Alex: I think Arc The Lad was decently serialized, and it was especially good that I was able to buy it in a bundle.

Googleshng: Well yes.

Googleshng: Arc is an exception though.

Zack: Well . . . Decently serialized between one and two, 'cause three just sucked.

Chris: I'd like that to happen with .hack. . . .

Brian: .hack is obviously an attempt to squeeze as much money as possibly out of gamers . . . because Bandai knows it's decent/good/great. The Xeno-series is a bit different, though.

Alex: I haven't gotten to 3 just yet.

Googleshng: It was broken into two games because they were rushed on a deadline, but needed a few more years to refine their skills.

Marshal: What about sequels with continuity, such as Chrono games? Do they count as serialized?

Googleshng: No, those all work on their own, and have enough time to change gameplay and so forth.

Marshal: Or at least they should.

Googleshng: It's only the things like .hack and Shenmue that I have issue with here.

David: Xenosaga doesn't count as serialized. To me at least.

Marshal: Why not, Dave?

David: Because each game is being made separately, and seems to be written when the game is made, As opposed to being continuously made.

Marshal: It was a six-part series before Xenogears was even made.

Chris: I think they're on a slightly different six-part series now though.

Googleshng: Well, the Xenosaga games are being spaced out enough to do some tweaks, but Xenosaga has a cliffhanger ending that resolves absolutely squat.

Marshal: It's one long, six-part story.

Brian: Too bad I couldn't stand Shenmue's beginning. Too slow, plus bad dubbing . . . enough to make shoving a pencil into my temple feel erotic. Else I might have something more to say about it.

Googleshng: Come to think of it actually, there wasn't exactly a whole lot to resolve. The plot of Xenosaga is like the first episode of a TV series: Here's the characters, they'll do stuff later.

Zack: Shenmue suffered mainly because Sega pulled the plug on its successor in North America on the Dreamcast, and half the fun in playing the sequel would be importing your save file.

Googleshng: Well no. Shenmue suffered in that they thought the Dreamcast would be around long enough to finish.

Zack: That's where I was heading with that.

Brian: Half the fun of my experience of the original would have left me further in the negatives!

Zack: And jumping a serialized game from one platform to another doesn't work.

Googleshng: Indeed.

Brian: It doesn't work when the sequel was already announced originally for the same system, at least.

Zack: If they released Shenmue for the Xbox, as well, then it would be a different story.

Googleshng: Here's another problem with this concept. If you serialize a novel, you can keep up with it at a dollar a pop. .hack installments go for what? $40?

Marshal: Is the Ogre Battle / Tactics Ogre series considered to be serialized? Because I thought there was one large, over-arching story to that one.

Alex: Which goes back to my point.

Marshal: Which amounts to one $120+ game.

Zack: My original point from way up top.

Alex: Once I start, I don't want to stop.

Googleshng: Marshal: Not really, no. That again is an instance of having an over-arching story, but each game in the series is fine on its own.

Alex: And here I go, spending money for games I probably won't enjoy.

Chris: Yes if you're going to release them all as quickly as .hack, give us a price break.

Brian: .hack also comes with anime.

Zack: 4 games + $200 /= 1 game + $50.

Brian: But as I said, we all know Bandai is milking the series . . . and we're helping them with that, too.

Googleshng: I honestly haven't played .hack myself. Is there really any difference in terms of gameplay or plot between them?

Zack: None that I've seen.

Brian: Gameplay between the first two is almost identical. Besides the "Grunty Race" feature that isn't anything special.

Marshal: So to define a serialized RPG, it must not stand on its own.

Chris: I haven't started yet either, I'm waiting for price breaks and for them all to be out so I don't have to wait. I have plenty of stuff to play in the meantime.

Brian: Chris: You'll be waiting for a while!

Googleshng: Not really.

Googleshng: I mean, there's what? Half a year between installments? A year from now it should be cheap.

Brian: No, three months between, supposedly . . . unless that changed with volume III.

Zack: Dollars to donuts says .hack is rereleased after part four is released either in a box set, or on one DVD for $100.

Chris: But it'll be a special edition with more story or something. :)

Brian: I had hoped that Bandai would implement new systems and gameplay into the .hack games through "version upgrades" in the storyline, but I have yet to see such.

Chris: And since it's all out in Japan we should know that there won't be, no?

Marshal: .hack has always come off to me as a way to sponge up money from a crowd slightly older than the ones playing Pokémon; most likely the kids who were playing Pokémon three years ago.

Googleshng: So, we all seem to be on the same page here that serializing games is a cheap means of getting people to pay four times as much as normal for a game, and usually ends up disappointing the player, particularly when the project is cancelled partway through. Would anyone like to play a little Devil's Advocate before we move on?

Marshal: Yes.

Chris: I think it could work great. It just hasn't been done yet.

Marshal: I think that a serialized RPG can be worthwhile in the case of Xenosaga when the story is so huge that it must be divided into chapters consisting of full-length games.

Alex: I think the game designers want it to work great. I don't think they are mostly money hungry.

David: Serialized RPGs would work, if they'd cut the cost. Like a shareware RPG.

Googleshng: There you go.

Brian: Just the fact that I think the Xeno-series is being well handled, I agree with the complaints about the other series.

David: Now that I think of it, didn't someone do that before?

Marshal: Like Neverwinter Nights' modules.

Googleshng: Expansions to Blizzard games work on a similar note in that sense.

Zack: Exactly.

Marshal: The problem with taking one game and expanding it is technology.

Googleshng: Of course, Blizzard has the good sense to wait long enough for feedback, so they can update the gameplay too.

Brian: . . . except Blizzard games have definite ending, then they add on, usually.

Zack: Frozen Throne's bonus campaign is being released a map at a time over a period of months.

Marshal: Each chapter of the Xeno- series looks better and has a different battle system.

Marshal: I believe this latter approach is more beneficial.

Brian: And a battle system that makes me cry with utter joy, at that.

Marshal: To the players at least.

Marshal: It's a story that grows and seems to live, and yet has a definitive direction and ending.