RPG Corner

Some people never get into RPGs these days and it’s a truly sad thing since RPGs represent a very important part of the gaming industry and the genre contains some of the most immersive titles that have ever existed. The genre has gone through some pretty serious changes over the years and is almost unrecognizable. Games like Fallout 3 and the Elder Scrolls series pass as “adventure” games which are basically our RPGs now when more traditional RPGs like Final Fantasy, the Tales games, the several “Legends” games, and the .Hack// series are pretty much long gone. The elements that made these games what they were had nothing to do with the gameplay it was more centered around the epic story, the deep character development and relationships, the trials that they overcome in their journey, the tragedies, the joys, and the teamwork. Games like the old RPGs are now quite rare which is a sad thing since a lot of those old RPGs were some of the best games of their time. Now don’t get me wrong the newer kinds of RPGs have made a new space for themselves but the games that resemble traditional RPGs don’t live up to the standards or the legacy that the older games created. This article calls attention back to those old games that generated such love and adoration from their fans.

I figured I would start with the game that was my favorite while I was a young teenager, The Legend of Dragoon. This is a four disc classic Playstation game developed by SCEI and it was released in the year 2000. Its an odd thing to think about, the genre has changed so much in the past 10 years and games like Dragoon basically don’t exist anymore. Anyway the reasons that Dragoon had such an impact on me were the same ones I listed above but I’ll give you a little more insight into what made the game so good. First of all any good RPG needs a top notch story, and this is something that people struggle with nowadays but Dragoon had one of the most epic stories I had ever experienced. There were numerous twists and turns that you don’t expect that flow so smoothly together and finally after the long journey is over you see everything come together as it should in a good story.

The story starts by giving you control of a young man named Dart, a sword wielding warrior in red armor. Now already you can notice some central old school RPG elements. First of which is the main character being a strong young man wielding a sword, your typical leader. Also the color of his armor is red, associated with fire as well as combat; all of these little details help flesh out the character more than most people care to notice. Now one of the first scenes you witness is Dart coming back from the forest near his village and he is attacked by a dragon which he escapes from thanks to some help from a mysterious lady. Now Dart heads back to his village since he noticed smoke coming from that area and when he arrives it turns out that the empire had attacked the village so of course you encounter remnants of the empire’s forces and engage them in battle. A whole lot is happening very quickly and the villain is established and Dart’s prowess in combat is demonstrated when he dispatches several soldiers with relative ease. These things again help flesh out the situation in the game by giving you a clear picture of the situation while leaving out the key details that they leave for later on. After the first battle the reason behind the raid becomes a bit clearer, the soldiers kidnapped Dart’s childhood friend, Shana. Infuriated, Dart quickly sets off to Hellena Prison (Sounds like Hell in a Prison) to find his captured friend. After sneaking into the prison Dart encounters a soldier from a neighboring kingdom that is at war with the empire that was taken captive during a battle, Dart quickly rushes to his aid and together they fend off the prison guards. The two quickly become friends and the first real connection is established in the game. After fighting their way through the prison Dart and Lavitz (the soldier) find Shana and make their escape, but before they do they encounter the warden and you experience the first real boss fight of the game. It is a relatively easy fight since you now have three characters and all you need to do is eliminate the warden’s elite guards and then the warden himself. But the game does such a good job with continuity that you don’t just kill him then and there, he becomes a recurring boss character later on in the game as the story continues to develop. These kinds of boss battles are always nice since you have spent time away from them training and they have done the same, making the new boss battle a challenge and an opportunity to face an old foe. Most games nowadays don’t really have many recurring bosses, you beat them once and that’s it, it is quite fun to face down the same adversary you encountered early in the game and see the changes that they have gone through. All of these things are what make the game and the story amazing, back before we had the capability to design massive worlds and realistic wartime scenarios all the developers could do was develop their story and I feel that the industry is now lacking in good stories.

The gameplay in Dragoon was also pretty unique at the time it was a battle system that was turn based but still required your input to successfully execute combos. Games like Final Fantasy generally have you select which attack you wanted to do and then the character just does it. In Dragoon on the other hand if you select a combo you have to time your button presses perfectly to properly execute whatever combo you are doing and some of them can be quite lengthy. It was nice to see how Dragoon set itself apart from the other great games that had come out in the same general time period (FF7 for example) with the active input for combos as well as the Dragoon system. Transforming into a Dragoon is obviously a key element in this game as the title suggests but it adds even more tactics to the combat. Choosing when to transform is key since you only have a certain number of turns you can stay transformed and you take less damage and are given access to special skills. The combos that you use as a Dragoon are much stronger than normal ones but are even harder to pull off since the system changes a bit and speeds up a lot. You also get the Dragoon skills that you can utilize by using MP (which is quite limited by the way); these skills are generally very strong and have a high cost so using them at ideal times is necessary.

The point I am trying to make with this article is that we need to remember where the games of today have come from and attempt to incorporate some of the elements that made these games so great into the games that come out now. So after reading this I hope you go out and pick up one of your old favorite RPGs and remind yourself of what the gaming industry used to be before we all got addicted to war games and MMOs. Sit down and enjoy a story that you love and pray for the day that the industry realizes that stories sell.