Number 1 – Tetsuya Takahashi
Ah, Tetsuya Takahashi, how I wish things would have turned out different to him. His story is so ill-fated and downright unlucky, it almost bears the same traces of tragedy which his games revolve around… It’s a long winding narrative that would transform one of the most visionary storytellers of a stale, immature genre into an almost unknown figure. To this day, he only lead two projects – “Xenogears” and “Xenosaga Episode I”, and much to my dismay, neither of his titles were ever released in the old continent. Both were received with relative disregard, only establishing themselves as cult classics in a very strict niche of J-RPG lovers.
Takahashi’s career is small, but impressive. After several collaborations in art and graphics departments, of the best Square titles of the early nineties (“Final Fantasy IV”, “V”, “VI”, “Chrono Trigger”, etc.), Takahashi rose to the director’s chair in “Xenogears”. And it’s no accident that his first project is such a landmark in J-RPG history, so oft revered as one of the best games ever made in its genre. Comparisons with “Evangelion” abound, and with good reason, for besides featuring similar themes and aesthetic elements, they both represent strong signs of a mature intellectual discourse in what are otherwise immature means of expression. “Xenogears” clearly shows that for Takahashi, story is not a complement to game-design as much as it is the other way around. Which is not to say that his games’ RPG mechanics aren’t good, quite on the contrary, but the focus is ever the story. The infamous second CD of “Xenogears”, bearing almost no actual gameplay, is the ultimate proof of Takahashi’s commitment to telling stories. Though many attribute it’s existence to a lack of funds (a startling parallel to what happened to the ending episodes of “Evangelion”), I personally feel it was the right call for the game, as the gameplay-thin second CD is actually one of the most memorable parts of “Xenogears”.
The grand scale of the plot-line is “Xenogears” most powerful aspect, with hundreds of different threads weaving together into a fabric that touches so many different areas of human knowledge – philosophy, religion, science -, while maintaining classical narrative structures and themes – love, betrayal, death. It’s a testament to both Takahashi and his wife (co-author of his games), that in the end, all of it makes sense, with every storyline fitting perfectly into a sprawling network of events covering thousands of years, deep in meaning and subtext. In their games, every dialogue counts, and there’s always a new revelation hiding beneath each word. Add a flavour for the erudite, with constant references to Nietzsche, Wagner, Jung, Kubrick’s “2001″, “Soylent Green”, amongst many others – and you have the sort of work that is especially rewarding for those who appreciate deep ramblings [i.e.: me]. Sure, there’s always an element of adolescent pretentiousness in such writing madness, but it beats teenager mediocrity everyday.
But it’s not just the script, as its conveying that makes Takahashi’s stories so powerful. His cutscene direction gave a whole new meaning to the term operatic, with stylized framing of characters giving them a theatrical poise which transformed every line, movement and scene into a small piece of cinematic magic. And considering that in 1998 Takahashi already employed in-game cutscenes with such finesse, gives him all the more value [see an example below, and notice how, with such meager means and technology, the cutscene still manages to retain such a dynamic flow]. Yasonuri Mitsuda was critical in this aspect, as his compositions always added a great deal of dramatic effect, manipulating pathos through the delicious alternation between melancholic lullabies and heavy brass lines in pounding tempos, making you jump out of your seat in anticipation for the each upcoming twist.
Alas, a whim of lady luck would have Takahashi release his masterpiece less than a year in “Final Fantasy VII’s” wake, eventually casting his game in the shadow of the most beloved Japanese role playing game of all time. His game was never given a chance, despite being superior in many ways to Kitase’s own breakthrough. With a tighter budget, Takahashi not only delivered a far more profound narrative, but also a 3D world unlike anything at the time, much more lively and interactive than “VII’s” beautiful, yet static, pre-rendered backgrounds. But unlike “VII”, “Xenogears” lacked mind-blowing CGI, and wasn’t accessible to the younger audiences of Playstation, as its flair for the erudite, complex and operatic made it too obscure and obtuse for younger audiences.
Despite lacking George Lucas’ commercial success, Takahashi seemed to share similar delusions of grandeur – “Xenogears”, an epic game if I ever saw one, was actually the fifth tome of a grand saga of six episodes, a fact revealed in the last of the credits screen, and further dissected in the “Perfect Works” art-book. But despite positive reviews and moderate commercial success on part of “Xenogears”, Square never supported Takahashi to pursue his original creation and design the remaining 5 episodes of his saga. Surely feeling betrayed by the fact, he left Square with other dissidents to found a new company, “Monolith Software”, lead by Hirohide Sugiura, and funded by Namco.
Despite being unable to continue his saga directly, for Square remained adamant in upholding author rights over the original “Xenogears”, Takahashi was now granted the creative freedom to pursue his original work… or so he thought. He started working on “Xenosaga”, a six tome work very much like the one of which “Xenogears” was part of. It was a re-write of sorts, different enough only as to not be made the subject of a copyright’s quarrel between Monolith and Square. But once again, Takahashi suffered at the hands of fate, releasing “Episode I” a year after the big Square title of the time, Tsuchida and Toryama’s “Final Fantasy X”. Comparisons were drawn, and “Episode I” sit inevitably on the short end side of the stick: it lacked the mainstream appeal and, let’s be honest, the budget to be able to compete in the same league with “Final Fantasy”. Critics were dismissive, and it failed to sell. Personally, I find but one element that detracts from Takahashi’s work in “Xenosaga”, and that’s in the aesthetic department, with its super deformed anime aesthetic which made a serious work look seriously childish. As to the rest, I find it as clever and provocative as “Xenogears”, though few seem to agree with me.
Namco was not pleased with the results and decided to take charge of the project. As a result, “Episode II” wouldn’t be handled by Takahashi or his wife, Soraya Saga, as both were removed from any involvement with the project. With them, also left Yasunori Mitsuda, series composer and long time friend of Takahashi, and Kunihiko Tanaka, character designer. In an attempt to make the game commercially viable, Namco changed character design and voice-overs to become more western-friendly, and ordered a complete re-write of the script penned by Saga. The result was a plot-thin, fast-paced, action-heavy sequel to “Episode I”. Irony of ironies, Namco’s aggressive posture would get them no credit. Takahashi’s fans felt betrayed and were disappointed with the end-result, and new-comers wouldn’t be drawn in to the series. Sales were poor, critics remained unmoved. Curiously, by some random act of production policy, the second episode was actually released in Europe, with a cutscene filled DVD to make up for “Episode I”. This was obviously a huge disservice to Takahashi’s vision, and a commercial failure nonetheless.
“Episode II’s” failure convinced Namco that “Xenosaga” was beyond commercial success – it was too niche, too outside the box, too uncommercial for its own sake – and so, the following episode would be the last, the remaining three canned. An attempt at compromise between the teams from previous episodes was made for the final whisper in Takahashi’s grand opus, and he was re-instated as creative consultant. As a positive outcome, he tried to recover Saga’s original scripts, and in what must have been a gargantuan task, attempted to wrap up the saga by fitting all remaining episode plot-lines into one neat finale. Despite being a convoluted mess, it almost felt like a Takahashi game. Once again, his six-episode saga remained untold, only this time, it will likely remain so forever.
Eventually, Namco sold its share of Monolith to Nintendo, with whom the company had had good relationship regarding the “Baten Kaitos” series. It is doubtful that Nintendo, a very conservative company, will ever award a big enough budget and amount of creative freedom that would allow Takahashi to continue his works in the same line as before. From an economical perspective, his career is a total flop. And so, under Nintento, Takahashi limited himself at producing “Soma Bringer”, a DS RPG… only released in Japan. Meanwhile, the J-RPG genre continues to decay: increasingly generic, unwilling to break from its tropes and juvenile tone, and lacking commercial appeal to westerners, it is a genre slowly waiting to die. Simultaneously, a visionary remains unheard, a man who I am sure could have taken the J-RPG genre to a new level, with his (and his wife’s) superb writing and storytelling capabilities. If he already delivered one of the most mature and thought-provoking games of its genre, more than a decade ago, who knows what he would be able to come up with today, with different (dare I say, more mature?) audiences and advanced technology and storytelling mechanisms? I’ll keep on hoping that history will give him a chance, and prove me, and Takahashi, right. It is a vain hope, I’m afraid.
King’s Field IV – “Out of the Light and into the Darkness”
There’s a consensual, yet unspoken rule of modern game design which states that for a game to be enjoyable and entertaining, it can’t ever become hard or frustrating, lest players feel bad and lose interest. Surely, such lapallissade could only be a synonym of some obvious universal truth regarding game design, but the superficiality of such a crude assessment could only lead to a misconceived notion. The truth of the matter is, that in the realm of true games, for you to feel that warm sense of enjoyment and self-gratification, you need to overcome challenges. Challenges require skill, skill must be attained through training and trial and error, and trial and error is bound to lead to frustration, whenever the error part comes into place. The greater the challenge, the higher the sense of gratification. But big reward means big penalty, so difficult challenges come at great costs. The equation of “fun” is obviously more complex, but this small prelude should give you enough insight to understand that, while modern design may allow you a superficially more fulfilling experience, it will always lack the sense of accomplishment that difficult games can elicit. You simply can’t remove frustration from the equation without in the process removing part of the fun. Not all designers have forgotten this old truth of game design, and “King’s Field IV”, as its predecessors, comes exactly from such designers (Rintaro Yamada and Satoru Yanagi).
Playing “King’s Field” feels precisely like playing games from your childhood. You start the game without watching lengthy cut-scenes, or playing through tutorials that help understand the game. The minute you press the start button, the game starts in the proper sense, and in “King’s Field”, that means you’re bound to die from then on. In fact, that’s precisely what happened to me in the first ten seconds of the game, as I stepped on a piece of rock that caved into a pit of hot boiling lava, killing me in the process. No checkpoint nor extra lives; the cold dark game over screen loomed only with a load-game option which I could not use for not being able to reach a save point before my first death. The process repeated with a new game. On my second try though, I could see clearly where I had died, which meant that on my third attempt I knew which path to take to avoid certain death. This is the gist of “King’s Field” – you play, you die, you play again and avoid death till you die again, and slowly but steadily, you advance in the game. As you go by, you start to play the game almost as if you were actually in the game world, desperately clinging to your life, cautiously avoiding any suspicious looking room or enemy. The game’s pace helps immensely – your character trots and attacks very slowly, forcing you to plan every step very carefully. Loneliness, darkness and anxiety will be your only companions while the game lasts. For you will fear the game-space, because at any moment, you may die and have to repeat the long, extenuating track you took since your last save. Such hardships inevitably lead to moments of sheer despair when you die, but with a good deal of patience, you can mitigate such moments to mere interludes before the conquest of the next hard earned goal. In the end it all pays out, and you’ll feel as a true hero, one capable of conquering everything… till you die again, that is.
The game’s atrocious difficulty serves as the perfect gameplay metaphor for the story the designers are trying to convey. Fantasy stories tell of grand knights capable of epic feats of strength, agility and mind, yet modern role-playing videogames give us challenges that even a baby can overcome. That is why “King’s Field” clicks into place and you get to actually ‘play’ the part of the conquering knight – the game needs to be hard for you to feel like a hero. That being said, it never pulls your leg in cheap ways, it’s all panned out consistently in the game-world, and the game designers were even kind enough to give you sparsely placed save points (shifting the game away from rogue territory). Despite the retro appeal and a limiting budget, the game still manages to make use of modern technology. The aesthetic thoughtfully applies lighting and physics effects to establish the oppressive and gloomy dark fantasy environment, beautifully complementing the dread you feel faced with the dangerous surroundings. In a nutshell, “King’s Field IV” is precisely what it sounds like: a classic first person view dungeon crawler with a fresh coat of paint. Like the recent “Dark Spire”, it’s retro-gaming at its best, completely conscious of its appeal, inherent strengths and flaws, but with the added expressiveness that modern platforms’ technology allows. It’s tough as hell mind you, but as rewarding as only old games can be. Now, where can I get that “Demon Souls”?
Persona 4 – “Pop-tastic”
While the J-RPG genre continued its long winding spiral into mediocrity, last year’s “Persona 3” managed to turn the tables around, thanks to its ingenuous new take on its genre roots. A twisted hybrid between the hard-core dungeon crawling experience of the Megami Tensei cannon, and a Japanese social sim, “Persona 3” proved that the genre needed not be confined in its ever more claustrophobic tropes. Alas, with only one year separating “Persona 4″ from its predecessor, one could never hope that such a innovative trend would continue for the newest iteration. But that is by no means the same as saying that “Persona 4″ is just another derivative sequel.
Granted, structurally, “Persona 4″ is exactly the same as its predecessor, with only some minor adjustments and additions to the successful game design template. But for once, that comfortable familiarity with the game-design model actually allowed its designers to invest in the areas where “Persona 3” was lacking. Despite its brooding occult themes, the last “Persona” already attempted to re-envision its traditional Gothic aesthetic (from Kazuma Kaneko) with Shoeji Meguro’s more upbeat, pop art vibe. The result was thus transitional, being somewhat mixed and convoluted, not only on a purely aesthetic level, but also in terms of its narrative expression, with the overall plot featuring a darker tone than each of the social sim’s quirky slice of life meets Japanese existentialism mini-stories. This is where “Persona 4″ comes out as more mature and consistent work, with a more coherent body of aesthetic work, and a scenario (Yuichiro Tanaka and Akira Kawasaki) with themes that perfectly match the social sim structure and the pop aesthetic.
“Persona 4″ has a very dense back-story, a sumptuous layered cake filled with twists, surprises and undertones. There’s a plot-twist heavy, occult crime mystery on top (in the vein of the popular “Death Note”); a reflection on human society’s unwillingness to face its true self, with each slice of life story providing lots and lots of nuances and variations on this same theme; and finally, under it all, there’s a deep philosophical reflection on the role that modern media (personified by the TV) plays in our lives, in the way that it shapes our perception of reality and ultimately, reality itself. Characters are funny and endearing, and since you get to spend so much time with them, you’ll establish an effective bound with them, just as you would while watching a small Anime TV series. There is still a lot of the old Anime J-RPG silliness, but it’s so in tune with the themes and style of the game, that it becomes thoroughly enjoyable (of course, the good localization job also helps the comedic lines to shine through).
But more than everything else, the most pleasurable addition to this new “Persona” is its wonderful ambiance, which attempts to faithfully portray living in a Japanese town for whole year. You get to listen to all the rumor brewing of rural towns’ inhabitants, attend to religious celebrations, explore traditional and modern commerce, with all the kinky items and eccentric oriental cuisine, etc. It’s a true delight to watch the scenery as the seasons slowly turn with Mount Fuji in the background: the changing sky tones, as weather oscillates from day to day, and sunlight’s hues blend differently with the setting according to each season, the ever present cherry blossom trees either reflecting the vivacious light of spring and summer, or the melancholic brown of autumn. Though the establishing of a coherent Japanese reality has come a long way from “Persona 3“, it’s not as consistent and well translated as in “Shenmue” or “Yakuza”. Nevertheless, it’s still very aesthetically refreshing when compared to its high fantasy peers. It’s for all these reasons that, despite being basically the exact same game as its forbear, “Persona 4″ is still an engrossing experience. In fact, it’s so intricate and unique in its visual and narrative expression, that you can’t help but think that “Persona 3” was just an experiment to pave way for the fourth iteration. But “Persona 4’s” success effectively sucks this game-design path dry, leaving the difficult task of reinventing the wheel (again) to its hypothetical successor.
score: 4/5
Final Fantasy XII – “Braving New Skies”
When Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square, he left an authorial void for the “Final Fantasy” series. Though he had relinquished his place as director many years before, he had assured a coherent evolution of the work through his mentoring as Executive Producer. When he left, his vision was naturally discontinued. While some might see this departure as the dire end of the “Final Fantasy” brand, it was a necessary evil for the series to move on. In the nineties, the name “Final Fantasy” was a synonym for new, audacious ventures and the enlightened exploration of the boundaries of both video-games in general, and role-playing games in specific, but since then, the series had become enthralled in its mentor’s vision. What was once a guiding beacon, had become a blinding beam of light. Change was needed. Enters Yasumi Matsuno [which I've already discussed briefly in this article], author behind “Final Fantasy Tactics” and “Vagrant Story”. Charged with the directing of “Final Fantasy XII”, Matsuno seems to have wanted to impose his unique take on the genre; the change that would ensue from his ego’s imposition on the series cannon, would lead to some dissent from the more fervorous fans. But change bares its prices, and one cannot explore new landscapes without leaving the common and familiar settings which we grew accustomed to.
The game’s backdrop is Ivalice; at first glance, it is not that much unlike the worlds from previous “Final Fantasies”: its blend of science-fiction and high fantasy is very similar to its predecessors and the aesthetic follows many traditional tropes for the series (moogles, chocobos, spunky haired heroes, flashy colors and wardrobe, etc). But when probed deeper, it reveals some staggering changes in tone. Visually, the influence from Hiroshi Minagawa’s (art director and co-director) style is prevalent, with his use of earthy tones and eastern motif’s dominating the landscape. All of the game’s art builds these cohesive images in your mind, from the Archade’s art-deco meets Babylon’s hanging gardens, to Dalmasca’s middle eastern vibe, with its crowded streets, bustling street markets, and sprawling deserts. Ivalice has that unique quality that good fantasy pieces tend to possess: its dreamy and magical, but it bares a cohesiveness and wealth of detail that we come to associate with the real world. Character design and soundtrack are also a departure for the series, following the style of Matsuno’s previous games: Akihiko Yoshida took Nomura’s place in translating Amano’s paintings into each character, and Uematsu’s intimate and delicate compositions were replaced by Hitoshi Sakimoto’s and Masaharu Iwata’s more orchestral, opulent music styles.
The game’s narrative themes also clash with “Final Fantasy” tradition, being more akin to a Shakespeare play than the typical high fantasy cliches that overrun the genre. Sakaguchi’s bed-time naivete is avoided, paving way for a medieval drama that deals with corruption, moral ambiguities, and the troubles of monarchic and autocratic states, with royal family intrigue, the constant back-stabbing of political figures and the waging of a war serving as the forefront for the action. However, despite the well penned background (by Miwa Shoda and Daisuke Watanabe) and the enticing narrative structure, there’s a constant influence from “Star Wars” in many of the story’s motifs. From the presence of a sky-pirate and his furry sidekick, to the main character being a princess whose kingdom was conquered by an evil empire, not to mention the operatic climax, a battle being waged with many “star-ships” and “battle cruisers” (directed in similar fashion to recent “Star Wars” episodes), the references are simply too prevalent to discard as coincidence. This influence is ill-fated, as it creeps its way into the aesthetic background, and doing so, breaks away the consistency of the world, which bares little relationship with Lucas’ universe.
The biggest change in “XII” however, comes from where it was most needed: game-play. Turn based battle systems were starting to accuse their age, and perhaps more importantly, their constant lack of innovation. Despite all the good that previous “Final Fantasies” had introduced to make action more dynamic, tactical and well paced, none comes close with the revolution brought about by this twelfth iteration. Firstly, its MMORPG inspired battle system is seamless, featuring no awkward transition from exploration to battle, in essence making the world feel less fragmented. And because battles apparently run in real time, it makes them swifter, more frantic and engaging. In all fairness, it is still a turn battle system running underneath: you can still pause the game at any time, giving orders for each ensuing turn, and characters only act when their ATB bar is filled. But the pacing is so fast, that actions really feel like they’re being executed in real time. More so, you can move your characters in real time, making the illusion more consistent and adding depth to tactical placement of characters.
However, the problem when moving turn based battle systems into real time, comes from the fact that battles become too fast paced to leave space for tactical thinking and strategy planning. And this is where the game strikes a chord of genius, by introducing a customizable AI system named Gambit. It’s basically an interface to control each character’s AI, based on an “If Event_A happens then do Action_B” kind of logic. In essence, it gives you the power to accurately determine each character’s behavior in combat, facing various situations and outcomes, thus allowing for a near infinite number of tactical choices. By combining speed with tactical thinking, the game gives you the perfect battle system – one that never feels old. Battles become fast and smooth, and grinding becomes fun instead of a chore. It’s simple, elegant and above all, incredibly entertaining; without a shadow of a doubt, the best “Final Fantasy” battle system since “VII”. In fact, game-play in “XII” is so good that its only flaw is that it becomes a huge driving focus of the game, over-shadowing narrative, which ultimately ends up developing slower than would be normal for a “Final Fantasy”.
“Final Fantasy XII” maintains all of the important qualities of the series, but in all of its expressive dimensions, there’s something new and fresh to it. It’s a game that tries to break free from the stylistic notions that ruled its predecessors, and that is, in my opinion, its greatest accomplishment. If anything, Matsuno’s greatest failing in “Final Fantasy XII” is that he was not able to completely cut away Sakaguchi’s legacy. At times, the game does feel contrived and bounded by certain classic “Final Fantasy” precepts, and whether that is due to Matsuno’s premature departure from the project (for health reasons), or for the known friction between the staff’s different teams, is unknown. Despite the fact, what we’re left with is an a new adventure that revolutionizes what the name “Final Fantasy” stands for. Matsuno took a huge risk to brave new skies, challenging the genre’s preconceptions, and venturing where few had dared to. And that is Final fantasy’s true spirit: to lead the RPG genre into new horizons. It just took Matsuno-san to break away from the past and actually do it.
score: 5/5
[Thanks to Rheinmetall for asking for this review. It's a bit more traditional than I usually come up with, but I hope you enjoy it.]
“The Year of …………” pt2 – Japanese RPG
Unlike their western counterpart, Japanese RPG’s seem to be completely adrift in the vast sea of videogame genres… and with no clear bearing on their future. For the past ten years, there’s been a complete stagnation of the genre’s aesthetic, increasingly reduced to shallow cliches; whether it’s the Japanimation visual style or the traditional turn-based battle systems, it’s rare to see J-RPG’s forfeiting these conventions in favor of new approaches. And like the classic adventure genre in the mid-90’s, the Japanese current of RPG’s has become so entrenched its own design formalities that its audience has grown downright claustrophobic, fearing even the mildest form of innovation. Games like “Infinite Undiscovery” or “Last Remnant” show how even Square Enix, the giant RPG conglomerate, is desperate to find some sort of working formula for its new games, in the process going as far as copying elements from both Western-RPG’s and MMORPG’s.
However, despite all that, JRPG’s remain strong in Japan, with many titles being released every year: from “Valkyria Chronicles” to “Yakuza 2″, there are titles for all tastes. Maybe because of this fact, of all the categories I established in this exercise, this is one of the least disappointing. The following are two of the best examples of how the genre still survives to this day.
“Lost Odyssey” – Sakaguchi’s unyielding classic approach to roleplaying is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most heartfelt love letters to a videogame genre in recent memory. The idea that the designer that practically defined the genre 20 years before, can return to it, and subtly reinvent it, with an unflinching faith in his personal ideas and style, is one of the few thoughts that makes me have some faith in the videogame industry. “Lost Odyssey“, like the best “Final Fantasy’s”, is touching on an emotional level as few games can be, and that is something no other 2008 game can reclaim. That it boasts an elegant simplicity to its dramatic power only serves to show that even a game design model that’s two decades old can be used to tell the most heart warming stories… something which eludes even the most popular of game genres.
“Persona 3” – Even though it is one of the less charismatic and unique entries in the “Shin Megami Tensei” series, “Persona 3” still manages to be a thoroughly fresh and original J-RPG – a rare compliment in such a monolithic genre. Its unique merging of Japanese adventure games with traditional J-RPG combat ends up delivering a near perfect mix of the bizarre, virtuous aesthetic that the series has became known for, with a pop-art feast of incredibly enjoyable gameplay. That delicate mix is what eventually saves the game from the limitations of the genre where it’s foundations lie, in the process defining a new, stylized RPG model that manages to resonate with both eastern and western audiences.
Biggest Letdown – “Odin Sphere” – “Odin Sphere”, the spiritual successor to “Princess Crown”, is a game of profound beauty and charm… yet, it’s one that never translates it to its interactive dimension. A strange hybrid of side-scrolling brawlers and role playing, the game ends up neither presenting interesting avenues for an action game, nor showing a refined version of the RPG mechanics it implements. As a matter of fact, it gets the worst of both worlds: a simplistic action-game that neither shows the entertainment immediacy associated with good arcade games, nor the long term enjoyment guaranteed by tactical nuances and character development associated with RPG’s. And the absurd, unnatural length of the game, which clashes deeply with its action’s arcade roots, makes it even more unbearable and repetitive than most RPG’s – it turns an exquisite work of art feel like a boring grind. The potential of the game, both in its aesthetic and narrative work, is just squandered, only to be appreciated by those who are willing to traverse the same scenarios for dozens of hours, in order to enjoy some of the finest 2D sprites and scenery ever to grace a PS2 game…
Despite the numerous quality RPG’s to have been released in the past year, I do not believe any of them present a solution to the conundrum faced by RPG designers. Sakaguchi’s old-school approach failed to connect with audiences, probably because of its platform, the lack of a franchise name to back it up, and above all, because what sets it apart from every other RPG isn’t immediately visible. The subtle nuances that made “1000 Years of Dreams” a memorable storytelling vehicle were clearly not understood, being mostly dismissed by both players and critics. It saddens me to say that if Sakaguchi (once a fan-favorite designer) maintains his re-rendering of traditional RPG semantics, he will be forced to develop his games on a smaller scale, with modest production levels – a path which Mistwalker’s DS outings, “ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat”, “Away Shuffle Dungeon” and “Blue Dragon Plus” hint at.
On the other hand, “Persona 3″ does show the reforming verve that the genre desperately needs. However, its spike of creativity already seems to have been misplaced in the upcoming “Persona 4″, which replicates the exact same design model. The fact that they released the fourth title one year after the first (despite the big hiatus between previous entries), begs the question: how many yearly “Persona’s” can Atlus come up with before the formula wears out? It seems the companies still don’t understand that what’s killing the genre, and by extent, their business, is the constant rehashing of the same game…. which doesn’t leave a pretty picture for 2009.
