About the picture of Aki in a bathing suit, I think that we knew it was coming sooner or later. Here's an excerpt of what I sent in to Drew in the 9/21/00 column,

"I know that Square is already richer than God, but with the technology they have, they could get much, much richer. They've got the best CG people in the industry working on their stuff...they can make lifelike CG. Now, videogames are one of the biggest facets of the entertainment industry. What's another? PORN. Think of how much money they could make with CG porn.

Keep this in mind. When they have to retire Final Fantasy, this is where they shall turn.... "

Looks like it came about sooner than I thought! Well, after your company loses money for the first time ever, where else can you turn but porn? (Even the GIA had Playtex ads...maybe you should bring those back to increase traffic.)

--The Steve

Yeah, I'd like to see an RPG that took up the old classic genre of 1940s detective, where you play a hard boiled gum shoe tracking down clues to a murder for some dish in a red dress, something noir and sexy. Ahhh, I can just hear the saxophone now as I slide into my pin-striped jacket and wide-brimmed fedora, check to make sure I'm not being tailed while I hail a cab and head on down to the local jazz club. The smokey joints' really swingin' tonight. They've even got a new crooner up on stage, a real looker, too. She sings slow, and low, and she never looks back, even after leaving a smoking cigarette in the ash tray, or a smoking hole in your chest. Yeah, I may have this case wrapped up by breakfast, something I usually leave till two in the afternoon. Of course, my meal might consist of either a slug from Jack Daniels, or a slug from Colt. Colt 45, that is, and right between the eyes. There ain't no room for amateurs in this game, pal, that's for sure. It's either play by the rules, make up your own, or find yourself wrapped up in a see-ment overcoat and sleepin' with the fishies. Yeah, I can see it all now....

Um.

And I like westerns, too.

-Banjax, the hooker with a heart of gold.

Well, in response to your topic, HIstoric has been done already. Overdone in my opinon, but as strategy. Not necessarily one hundred per cent true to life, but still done. Look at all the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms games, and all the other Nobonuga-era Strategy games. Not as many anymore, but back in the golden days of NES there were a LOT of them.

As for other genres, horror and Sci-fi being put aside, I am skeptical as to what could be done and done well to make an interesting game. You could go bond-ish like MGS, but that's been done also. But one avenue that might be interesting to explore, in lieu of Shadowrun (great game by the way), is cyberspace. Sure it's still fairly sci-fi-ish, but that has a lot of potential to be a game that would be interesting and very unique, unless there is one out there I do not know of. Or a similar game in which you are a hacker would be nice.

But, I doubt we'll see much if any it, especially in the states. Lets face it... when we play RPGs we want Wizards, Warrios, Dungeons, Dragons, Might and Magic in a Medieval setting (sorry had to plug the old school games). That is why most of us got into this in the first place right? And know its what attracted me.

Efrate, reminiscing over the pre-final fantasy and DW/DQ days...

And who wouldn't want to play as a dragon or a bandersnatch? I'd take a man-eating wolf over Quina any day.

Negative Creep

In regards to the question you posed yesterday about the cheesecake photo of Aki, it hasn't destroyed my anticipation for the movie. Like you said, its just a harmless marketing gimmick. I think the problem begins when such gimmicks reflect the entirety of an ad campaign. If all that the company shows is scantily clad women, they might give people the wrong impression about the content. One could argue that the DOA2 (boasting wonderful control and incredible animation) and Fear Effect 2 (survival horror with an interesting story and a unique art style) are at the top of their genres, but that their marketing campaigns gave people the wrong ideas about them. Casual gamers buy the games, find out they aren't all about T&A, and are disappointed. Real gamers dismiss the games, thinking that they are are about T&A, and never find out different. Once again, I don't have a big problem with the odd cheesecake photo, but I feel the bulk of advertising should reflect a game's content.

P.S. - A plausible counterargument is that gamers' intense franchise loyalty limits the sucess of newcomers to the genre regardless of the quality of their ad campaigns (how else does one explain the fact that FF9 outsold Chrono Cross?).

- Mark

-AK

*goes to wash out her brain*

*comes back*

That had better be someone's idea of a (rather tasteless) twisted joke... Just when I thought Square was starting to learn that they didn't need girls in skimpy outfits to sell Final Fantasy related projects, they go and prove me wrong... Whether Aki is likely to don a swimsuit in the movie or not, the whole thing just turns me off to the movie, since I'll be now be imagining that every other guy in the theater is picturing her in a triangle top (thanks for that image, too >_<)...

Waaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

I'd go on about it more, but I need to calm down first. If I even collect my thought on this, expect a hand bound volume touching on the industry's enduring sexist pig behavior, entitled "Why didn't they have Grey in a speedo?"... To be delivered by courier mail... In a few weeks...

Princess "Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little han...uhm... brain... Oh, oh, oh!" Jemmy

Anyways, I think Harvest Moon (though, shamefully, I have never played a game in the series) has sort of proven that RPGs can be made which make pretty much any activity interesting, and even do so without the need for fighting. At the same time, games like Vagrant Story and Metal Gear Solid (close enough to an RPG in the context of this discussion) prove that the level of professionallity to make a convincing RPG in other genres is there.

The major problem is, as you said, the major thrust of the story doesn't change much with a change in an RPG's setting. Even setting aside the "a large force is about to enslave/destroy the world" plotlines, other details of the game world remain identical despite a change in genre. Final Fantasy 7 was fantasy, Metal Gear Solid was science fiction/espionage drama. In Final Fantasy 7, SOLDIERS were made more powerful than other fighters by injections of Mako. In Metal Gear Solid, Genome Soldiers were made more poweful by genetic engineering. Even in minor details, the genre change leaves us with what is essentially a fantasy story despite changes in setting and genre.

Personally, I think the shortening of gameplay length discussed in past columns is the best change RPGs have of breaking away from fantasy settings and conventions. Two of the few games that have handled fairly non-standard setting and concepts for RPGs, SaGa Frontier and LiveALive had to make a series of 5-10 hour quests to deal with the expectation that an RPG contain at least 30 hour of gameplay. If developers have to cut down gameplay time to deal with the fact that players don't have enough time for 50 hour quests, they are free to make a game which has a more focused plot. Since a stanard, say, western plot is more likely to fit in a 10-15 hour game, this makes it easier for a scenario writer to write a story in that style.

Personally, though, I think all it takes is the proper creative mind behind a project. Starting at least the in the PSX generation, games have had the potential to do stuff along the lines of The Usual Suspects; The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly; Cowboy Bebop; or whatever else you want to play. All we need it someone in Square or Konami to decide that a milleu like one of these would make a good game.

-Davon

Now with that stint of idol-worship out of the way, on to the topic. Of course RPGs are capable of a lot. We've collectively travelled to some of the grandest places over the years, haven't we? The potential for where they can lead us seems almost unlimited, right? But here's the sticky wicket. Comics is a medium. Console Games is a medium. But the world of RPGs is already a genre in itself. There are already certain rules which we use to determine if a game is an RPG, and those rules are pretty narrow. It's a whole different story from McCloud's definition of comics, which is extremely broad, and therefore open to much more differentiation.

Think of it this way. Suppose you wanted to make a "real-life" drama RPG, based on our modern world. The character's dialogue is well-scripted and believable. The visuals are just right to provide the perfect backdrop for your story. The music fits the setting, amplifying the mood you've envisioned. Okay, sweet. Now where's the game? What is there for the player to do? Make them do fetch quests to the grocery store? ("Less see, a loav'o bread, a cotton'o milk, an'a stick'a butta...") Will they have to fight against gang members or loose dogs? Suddenly, it sounds all very contrived and stupid.

RPGs are probably my favorite genre overall, but from a creative standpoint, they're crippled by the fact that they can not exist without some kind of conflict or something to fight. That's why they tend to be set in fantasy worlds (plenty of monsters to kill), in the future (plenty of aliens and robots to kill), or resort to some other means of monster generation like Persona (plenty of demons and homicidal maniacs... well, you get the idea.)

El Cactuar

"According to Bloomberg Japan, Square, Namco, and Enix are exchanging 5% shares in each other's companies."

Do you think that Square and Namco have already worked something out?

-Futonbrain