State of the RPG: GameCube - IGN (original) (raw)

The RPG label has become so vague and all encompassing that it no longer accurately describes anything. Think about what those three letters mean. Role-playing game. That term effectively explains just about every recent videogame on the market. Aren't you role-playing when you become a mercenary in a first-person shooter or catch a football in the latest Madden sequel? Go ahead. Take a minute and try to explain to your girlfriend why Game A is an RPG while Game B isn't and you'll likely be greeted by a dull, blank stare. And yet, for those of us who grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons or spent the better half of our afternoons exploring a world in Final Fantasy, there's a clear separation between a true RPG and every other genre. That's great. But how do you define it?

It's not always easy because with any subject open to interpretation, people come up with different definitions for the standard. It's a little easier to illuminate the boundaries when the genre is, say, action or, better yet, sports. But when defining what makes a role-playing game, whose very description encapsulates seemingly every genre, where do you draw your cut-offs? Perhaps you don't. For instance, do you know that Nintendo's famous figurehead Shigeru Miyamoto has openly referred to the Legend of Zelda titles as role-playing games? There are, on the other hand, fanatical PC owners and long-time RPG purists who would no doubt chuckle out loud at such a boast.

What Makes an RPG
The RPG moniker is a malfunctioned descriptor, but it still conjures instantaneous images of games like Dragon Quest, Oblivion, and Paper Mario for those schooled in the history of the genre, whose roots date back to the 1970s. RPGs today are oftentimes epic, story-driven affairs, but their humble beginnings lay on the dining room tables of players and not on their television screens. Once upon a time, the RPG came together with a pen, some paper, and a set of dice. It was from these comparatively archaic gatherings that the guidelines for today's RPGs were born -- namely, character development, stat management and, of course, story progression. A defining trait of many RPGs today also rests in the '70s, and this is the turn-based play style that naturally originated with the roll of the dice.

Bearing all of this in mind, the second Zelda game is a widely regarded as a legitimate RPG, but the new games in the series do not typify the accepted description of what qualifies the genre. Nintendo's heroic character Link is drawn forward by a storyline and players are challenged to find and use new weapons in his adventures. These are elements found in RPGs. But on the other hand, Link himself is not bound by a stats-based system, which has always been the backbone of the genre. In fact, apart from upgrading hearts, players cannot manipulate the character's stats at all because he doesn't have any. Nor do his enemies. There's very little management to be found -- the emphasis is on action and adventure -- and therefore the franchise can only loosely take shelter under the RPG umbrella, if at all.

Regardless, Nintendo has dabbled in the genre over the years and so has its partners. And the company's choices, both on the hardware and software front, have helped define the very nature of the RPGs on its various systems.

Square, Enix and Nintendo
Newcomers to the videogame industry undoubtedly associate massive, Japanese RPGs with Sony's PlayStation consoles. The company after all has a very tight relationship with Square Enix, whose Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games have for almost two generations graced PS1 and PS2 exclusively. But that wasn't always the case. Both franchises were born and raised on Nintendo systems.

A screenshot from the original Dragon Quest on NES In 1986, when Enix and Square were still two separate companies, the former released Dragon Quest for the Famicom. (The game was released for NES in the US under the Dragon Warrior brand in 1989.) Just as Japanese anime was influenced by Disney productions, the popular Ultima RPGs out of America inspired Dragon Quest's fundamentals. The game quickly became a gigantic hit in the homeland and single-handedly set in motion the wave of Eastern-style RPGs that dominate the genre even today.

Dragon Quest brought a new level of complexity to the table during an era when videogames where largely simplistic endeavors. The RPG boasted a storyline that revolved around an evil villain named Dragonlord who kidnapped the country Alefgard's princess along with the magical Orb of Light. Players were challenged to embark upon a quest to save the princess and retrieve the Orb. To do so, the hero of the game engaged in one-on-one combat, traveled to five towns and conquered five dungeons. The game was a hit.

The US box-art for the Final Fantasy on NES 1987, Enix released a sequel. By the time Dragon Quest 3 debuted for Famicom in 1988, Japanese newspapers reported that teenagers had robbed kids of their copies, and schools around the country showed widespread absentees. As a result, Japan established a new law, which stated that forthcoming Dragon Quest games could only be released on Sundays or holidays. Incidentally, the next three titles in the series, which shipped for Famicom and Super Famicom (Super NES, US) respectively, all debuted on national holidays.

When Square saw how popular the first Dragon Quest game was, it decided to release a similarly styled RPG with a different theme. The title, Final Fantasy, debuted on Japan's Famicom in 1987 to critical and fiscal success. Final Fantasy's storyline, which dealt in mythological archetypes and confusing time loops, was deeper and more engaging than the one that powered the original Dragon Quest. Square's RPG also established left-against-right turn-based battle and magic systems that have been copied by competitors ever since. The game was a phenomenal success.

Over the years, Square released five more Final Fantasy games for Famicom and Super Famicom, all of them to commercial success. The sixth installment in the series, known as Final Fantasy III in America, is widely regarded as one of the best console RPGs ever made.
Perhaps inspired by the success of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, in 1987 Nintendo transitioned one of its biggest franchises from a strictly adventure affair to one that incorporated RPG elements. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link ignored the template popularized with the first game and attempted something entirely different. The game mixed top-down overworld exploration with side-scrolling action. Zelda II is widely remembered as a flawed sequel, but it did pioneer a number of firsts for the franchise. It was, for instance, the first Zelda game in which hero Link could explore towns, a staple of the series. It remains the only Zelda game with true RPG elements. In The Adventure of Link, gamers were challenged to build the hero's individual levels for such attributes as attack, magic and life, all of which started at level one and maxxed out at level eight. As Link gained experience throughout the quest, he could increase the power of his attributes, which would in turn reflect his added power in the game.

It was a bold move by Nintendo, but gamers preferred the original to the sequel. The first Zelda sold more than 6.9 million units and Zelda II only 4.3 million by comparison. A Zelda game has not featured traditional character building elements since.

In 1989, however, Nintendo hit upon an RPG formula that dazzled Japanese gamers. Famous Japanese designer Shigesato Itoi and team released the RPG Mother for the Famicom. Despite its relatively dated graphics, the game was a commercial hit in Japan. Mother's unique storyline proved to be a daring departure from the cliché themes found in other RPGs, which often dealt with wizards and magic. In the off-the-wall game, players assumed the role of Ness, a character who enjoyed the spotlight more recently in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Melee. The boy embarks upon a quest to save the world from an evil race of aliens bent on controlling the minds of the human race. During his journey, Ness gains friends who help him along the way.

A screenshot from the NES RPG, Mother Despite its popularity in Japan, the original Mother never saw a release in America. Rather, the sequel, which was more or less a remake of the original, debuted for the Super NES in the States as Earthbound in 1997. Although Nintendo promoted the game extensively, it failed to become a commercial success in America, likely because its visual presentation was not up to snuff with competing RPGs. Also, gamers were likely taken with next-generation games like Super Mario 64, which had already hit the market for the new console.

During these years, Square's RPGs continued to make big money on Nintendo's systems and the two companies developed a tight relationship. In 1996, Square teamed with Nintendo to release Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo. The game utilized many of the fundamentals set forth in other Square RPGs, such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy, but the mechanics were simplified in order to draw in Nintendo's dedicated audience of Mario fans. Players were challenged to collect star pieces in order to stop an extraterrestrial force from taking over Mario's world. The game also introduced several new Mushroom Kingdom characters. Naturally, it was a hit. But the partnership proved very short, due in large to the proprietary storage medium of the Big N's next console.

Choices and Changes
The Nintendo 64 launched in September of 1996 and Super Mario 64 blew gamers away. The 3D platformer revolutionized the series and drew in millions of gamers previously stricken by Sony's PlayStation console, which debuted much earlier. The N64 had its success stories, including everything from Rare's remarkable first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, an adventure still considered to be the greatest game ever made. But something also went terribly wrong with Nintendo's cartridge-based console. It signified the end of an era of support by some of the biggest RPG makers in the videogame industry and as a result, the huge RPG franchises so beloved on NES and S-NES are today associated with PlayStation and PlayStation 2. So what happened?

Perhaps it was Nintendo's arrogance. With only a couple of legitimate competitors, the company had grown incredibly large, almost to the point where it held a videogame monopoly over the industry. When Sony tried to strike a deal to make an add-on CD drive for a Nintendo system, the Big N entertained the idea and then pulled out at the last minute to go with a competitor instead. Sony wasn't happy about being burned and began working on its own videogame machine. But the news didn't phase Nintendo, whose riches were growing on a monthly basis.

A pre-rendered backdrop and game scene from Final Fantasy 7 on PlayStation In 1995, PlayStation hit the market using the CD format that Sony proposed to Nintendo and it made a splash, both in Japan and in America. Publishers liked the idea of releasing games on the cheaper storage medium, even if it meant fewer sales of games than might be possible on a Nintendo system. As a result, more and more publishers signed on for Sony's new system, which in turn meant more and more games released for the console. Gamers eventually caught on and the system began to sell.

Nintendo, meanwhile, stuck to its guns. It said that the cartridge format, though more expensive to develop for, yielded faster access times than CDs. It barred certain studios from developing for Nintendo 64 and instead assembled a Dream Team of the world's so-called best software houses. It promised 3D graphics like none seen before.

The Big N teamed with Silicon Graphics Inc., or SGI, to develop the guts of Nintendo 64. Using similar arcade technology, Rare and Midway released Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA respectively and promised that console versions would be made available on the then-codenamed Ultra 64. These arcade titles definitely got gamers excited. But even more thrilling was news that Square was working on a new 3D Final Fantasy game on an SGI workstation. The developer showed a running demo of the title, which fans quickly assumed would be for Nintendo 64 due to the company's relationship with the Big N and its decision to work on an SGI workstation.

But in a move that shocked Nintendo fans around the world, Square later announced that Final Fantasy 7, the official title of the new RPG, would be a PlayStation exclusive. The developer indicated that due to the massive size of the RPG and the storage-sucking nature of pre-rendered graphics and full-motion video, Nintendo 64's tiny cartridge format could not compete with the more robust CD medium offered on Sony's platform. And just like that, Square and Final Fantasy were gone.
Some critics believe that Square's departure from Nintendo's console systems is due to deep negotiation issues and not any technical limitations. Pundits speculate that the two companies had a major falling out when Nintendo failed to offer further incentives for the developer after the impressive worldwide success of Final Fantasy III on S-NES. Allegedly, former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi never forgave Square for jumping over to Sony's PlayStation.

In 2001, after Square expressed interest in working on future Nintendo platforms, Yamauchi told Bloomberg Japan that Nintendo would not allow that to happen. "There is no contract with Square, and that matter is not open to further discussion," Yamauchi told the financial news service. "[Square] can say whatever they want, but we have no intention of signing a contract, and there's little chance of one being signed in the future."

It's ironic that Nintendo may have kick-started the design of PlayStation after it refused to work with Sony on a CD add-on for the S-NES. But even more ironic is that it may have also fueled the success of PlayStation by sticking with the cartridge format on N64, as it forced Square to develop system-selling Final Fantasy games for Sony's platform.

Politics gone badly may have led one-time supporter Namco to abandon Nintendo 64, too, and as a result the console saw none of the critically acclaimed Tales RPGs that eventually graced Sony's system.

By the time Nintendo 64 reached the middle of its five-year life cycle, Square's Final Fantasy 7 had sold 2.7 million units and Final Fantasy 8 another 2.0 million on PlayStation in the US alone. Meanwhile, Enix's Dragon Quest series, now exclusively on PlayStation for the very same reasons, continued to do amazingly well in the homeland.

Sony had done the improbable and successfully marketed Square's RPGs to the masses in America, gamers who historically avoided the genre. The title's flashy cut-scenes looked outstanding in commercials and the promise of deep storylines hooked players. Nintendo, meanwhile, having broken ties with both Enix and Square, didn't have any partner to turn to for something similar on N64, and so it did the only thing it could: it started work on its own RPGs.

The company turned to designer Shigesato Itoi to make the long anticipated Mother 3, known as Earthbound 64 in America. But it faced some inherent problems with the Nintendo 64 hardware. The limited storage on the cartridge medium didn't allow for the gorgeous pre-rendered cut-scenes found in Square's PlayStation Final Fantasy games. But beyond that, Itoi wanted to do something different with the RPG to make it both more unique and interactive. Nintendo decided that perhaps the RPG was best suited for its forthcoming 64DD add-on, a device that served as a hard drive for Nintendo 64 and enabled both more storage and new levels of interactivity.

A screenshot of the cancelled N64 RPG, Earthbound 64 The Earthbound team started developing the game, and kept at it... and kept at it some more. The title was eventually shown in playable form at Space World 99 in Japan. Gamers assumed the role of a Clint Eastwood-like cowboy named Flint and explored an odd futuristic world with Western themes. Before Itoi and crew could take the game much further, they ran into more development troubles. The 64DD was not poised to sell well in Japan and the device would not be released in America. The team decided to switch Earthbound 64 over to Nintendo 64 and later release a 64DD expansion dubbed simply "Mother 3.5." In 2000, the game was cancelled altogether due to more development issues. Fans have waited for a true sequel ever since.

Nintendo enlisted Intelligent Systems to develop a spiritual sequel to Square's Super Mario RPG. The game, initially dubbed Super Mario RPG 2 in Japan, later received a new name more befitting of its unique visual style: Paper Mario. The title successfully merged side-scrolling gameplay mechanics with 2D style storybook art; Mario looked like a paper cutout as he traveled through hand-drawn locales and mingled with flattened characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. The RPG was a success and sold moderately well, both in Japan and in America. It also proved that Nintendo's brands still had the power to transition genres without losing audiences. Paper Mario even brought a few new mechanics to the table, including a more interactive turn-based fighting system that actually enabled gamers some level of control during fights.

Still, Paper Mario was not enough to lure RPG players away from PlayStation, which was being bombed by a steady wealth of more complex and more beautiful RPGs thanks to the success of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Even American software houses decided that PlayStation was the safer platform to debut their new RPGs on. As a result, Nintendo 64 was more or less a wasteland for the genre, with fewer than five RPGs released for the system in America during its entire life cycle. And of the handful of RPGs that actually did grace the system, almost all of them were average to poor, with examples ranging from Quest 64 to Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage and Hybrid Heaven. In one generation, Nintendo had effectively misplaced the RPG genre.

GameCube's Japanese Influence
In 2001 with the release of GameCube, Nintendo finally took a step to appease long-overlooked RPG fans. The system was not only powerful enough to compete with Sony's next-generation PlayStation 2 console, but it also finally used a disc-based medium, which enabled it to store and display pre-rendered videos and backgrounds without running out of space.

Nintendo, whose elitist Dream Team on N64 excluded certain software houses from making games for the system, developed an entirely new, more humbled approach to GameCube. The system was open to everybody and also cheaper to work on. Nintendo designed the console to be balanced and powerful, and so that software houses could intuitively design games for it.

Just as importantly, Nintendo figureheads like Shigeru Miyamoto allegedly met with the heads of certain Japanese studios, including Namco and Sega, in an attempt to repair broken relationships. These meetings resulted in some major RPGs for the new system. In some cases, a general lack of follow through on Nintendo's part yielded unwanted results.

An image from Sega's online RPG, PSO Episodes I & II, for GameCube For instance, shortly into GameCube's life cycle, Sega released Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II, a compilation that featured upgraded and enhanced versions of the Dreamcast titles of the same name, for the system. The game, which enabled players to create their own character from three classes and then team up with three friends for cooperative online matches, sold through more than 200,000 copies in the US. A substantial figure, especially considering that it was one of the only games to make use of the GameCube's modem or broadband adapter. Subsequent sequels sold fewer copies.

Unfortunately, Nintendo's decision to provide Sega with virtually no online support, or to follow through with online-ready games of its own, ultimately led to the developer's decision to drop the online-ready franchise from the console. Phantasy Star Universe, the next installment in the popular series, will debut exclusively on PlayStation 2.
Regardless, though, GameCube has seen many more RPGs than Nintendo 64 and in stark contrast to the selection on Xbox, most of them come from Japanese developers. Sega also released Skies of Arcadia Legends for the platform to critical acclaim. And to say that Nintendo has repaired its once-lagging relationship with Namco would be an understatement. Not only have a good chunk of Namco's bigger games appeared on GameCube, but the developer has exclusively released some of its biggest RPGs for the system. Both Tales of Symphonia and Baiten Kaitos boast traditional style RPGs with Eastern-inspired storylines and character types. Tales of Symphonia performed surprisingly well on Nintendo's console, toppling sales of 260,000 units in the US alone. Baiten Kaitos included a card-based battle system common in other Japanese-style RPGs, including the Lost Kingdom series, which also debuted on GameCube.

Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi may not have been fond of working with Square again, but he was well aware that Square-style RPGs sell. It was no doubt with this in mind that he started the Q Fund, a Nintendo-financed institution designed solely to provide money and support for upstart studios, with the understanding that their games come to Nintendo platforms. The first company to make a title under the Q Fund, Game Designer's Studio, just so happened to be a break-off of the newly formed uber-developer Square-Enix. Working closely with Nintendo and Square-Enix, Game Designer's Studio developed Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, a wholly unique Final Fantasy RPG for GameCube. The title, like Phantasy Star Online, made use of Nintendo's four controller ports to enable a multiplayer-ready RPG experience. The title took the experience one step further, linking up to four Game Boy Advance handhelds that were used as controllers. Players could access menu items on their GBAs without the need to pause the action on-screen. Crystal Chronicles was a gorgeous looking RPG, but its reliance on GBA functionality ultimately proved detrimental to the gameplay experience.

A screenshot from the GCN RPG, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Despite some valiant attempts by Nintendo to make GameCube a place for new and unique RPGs from the Western world, the genre's biggest games have come from Japanese developers. And some of them don't fit the traditional mold of what makes an RPG. For instance, in mid-2005, Capcom released Killer 7 for GameCube. The surreal title was billed as a psychological thriller, but in actuality it boasted some tried-and-true RPG mechanics. Using a stat-based system common to most RPGs, players could upgrade the individual skills of each of the seven deadly assassins in the game, and with their skills enhanced, the killers could more easily dispose of enemies or advance through levels.

Two more traditional Western-created RPGs from American and Canadian studios respectively were highly anticipated, but never materialized for GameCube. The first, Raven Blade from Retro Studios, was set to the backdrop of a medieval world with floating cities. After the Texas-based studio failed to meet its deadlines, Nintendo canned the project and fired the development team. Meanwhile, former second party Silicon Knights was underway with a highly stylized futuristic action-RPG called Too Human for GameCube. Early GCN screenshots even leaked on the Internet. However, in 2004 Nintendo and Silicon Knights ended their exclusive second party relationship. In 2005, Silicon Knights announced that Too Human would be an epic, online-ready action-adventure designed exclusively for Microsoft's forthcoming Xbox 360 console.

Retro Studios' canned RPG, Raven Blade, for GameCube Nintendo, however, has stepped up to deliver a couple more RPGs from its internal studios. In 2004, the developer released Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, a sequel to the N64 hit that sold more than 500,000 copies. The Thousand-Year Door expanded upon the style and mechanics of its predecessor, offering more paper-based puzzles and expanded turn-based mechanics, as well as a humorous storyline that enveloped players in the Mushroom Kingdom. The sequel sold nearly 350,000 copies in America. Before the end of the year, Nintendo will publish two more giant-sized RPGs for GameCube, both showing their Japanese influence. The first, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, is a true sequel to the strategy-RPG of the same franchise. The title, which features 3D overhead strategy planning and polygonal fights, boasts an intriguing storyline that is spotlighted through gorgeous FMV sequences -- a rarity for a Nintendo-developed game. The second game, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, continues Nintendo's Colosseum-style games with expanded RPG elements.

The Future
The RPG genre has not exactly blown up on GameCube. And yet, compared to the available selection of RPGs on Nintendo 64, the Big N has made strides. If anything, this generation has been about repaired relationships. Nintendo is working again with Square, Namco, Capcom and Sega, and it's for these reasons that the RPGs on GameCube show a recognizable Japanese influence.

Looking toward the future, RPGs are likely to be more commonplace than ever on Nintendo's systems. The company has already announced that a Square-Enix-run sequel to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is in development for its next-generation console, codenamed Revolution. Developer Camelot Software Planning, meanwhile, has publicly stated that it is working on a Revolution-bound RPG that may or may not be a direct sequel to its popular Golden Sun handheld RPGs. And of course there is the almighty Pokemon, whose fans have been clamoring for a true, GBA-style franchise RPG for years. Nintendo has announced that a Revolution sequel is coming. Might it finally make use of the online component for a truly interactive world?

Revolution RPGs are undoubtedly in development and we may even see one or two when the console debuts in late 2006. We don't know much about them yet. But gamers can expect two certainties: they're going to be interactive, likely making use of the machine's online functionality, which Nintendo is really pushing. And they're going to be different, thanks to a radically changed controller whose functionality has yet to be revealed.

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