The JRPG is a venerable and well respected genre, having survived almost unchanged for decades and supported by a community of hardcore obsessives that drool over every statistic and sweeping, globe trotting storyline that comes their way. Japanese Role Playing Games were made famous by Square-Enix’s legendary Final Fantasy series, which made turn-based combat, leveling up and epic adventuring a backbone of gaming tradition.
A few weeks ago we gave you the ten golden rules of online gaming where you learned some of the most crucial aspects of broadband multiplayer. Now, we share with you some of the time honored secrets of Japanese Role Playing Games, those bastions of random battles, standard bearers of HP meters, and champions of monsters that carry money for no conceivable reason.
If you’re looking to develop your own JRPG, or are just one of the many devoted genre fans that want to know exactly how they’re made, hit the jump and learn the secrets the world wants to know — the ten golden rules of Japanese RPGs.
It’s been a while, but another episode of 1up’s podcast Retronauts that features Wired’s me is flowing through the tubes as we speak.
This week, me, Jeremy Parish, Jenn Frank, Ray Barnholt, and Andrew Fitch discuss the most important topic ever: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. No, I don’t know what that has to do with retro gaming. Deal with it.
Also spliced slap into the middle of the episode is an interview with the guy who ported Marathon: Durandal to Xbox Live Arcade. That’s more retro.
Retronauts Episode 37 [1up]
Peter Moore’s trying to shake things up over at EA Sports. Sure, they sell an imperial fuckton’s worth of Madden and FIFA every year, but they want to sell more. So Moore says they’re going to start thinking a little more globally:
We need to globalise, and we’re taking many steps to broaden the reach and appeal of our product portfolio. FIFA obviously has global appeal, but this is about more than just selling additional copies of FIFA — this is about truly delivering a global product portfolio.
Advice: new, better, current-gen versions of your creaky old Rugby Union and cricket titles would be a good place to start. After that…I’ve always felt curling has been grossly under-represented in sporting video games.
Peter Moore [MCV]
Yesterday we told you that Activision boss Bobby Kotick said that even one billion dollars in development for a new MMO couldn’t take over World of Warcraft. Now, Lars Buttler, formerly the VP of for Global Online at Electronic Arts and currently the CEO and co-founder of Trion World Network, would like Kotick to get his pinky out of his mouth.
“Nice try Mr. Kotick. We understand that Activision has to defend its merger and scare competition - but I have to call his bluff,” Buttler told GameDaily. We couldn’t be more impressed with what Blizzard has started but WoW is just the beginning; it’s pretty wild to suggest that there’s only one team that could ever realize the potential of the connected era - and that there’s no one out there that can deliver, no matter what the investment.”
Buttler’s feelings are right in line with many of Destructoid’s readers in yesterday’s post. Not surprising.
He continues, “They are truly a great team but there are other great teams out there who will make smart decisions, leverage the full advantage of connectivity and define the future of interactive entertainment.”
Even though Trion doesn’t have much to show at this time, Buttler has no problems calling ActiBlizzard and Kotick out: “Our message to developers and gamers alike is: there’s been a paradigm shift everyone; join the party! We would go so far as to say: if you disagree with Mr. Kotick, call us!”
Wouldn’t that be nifty if whatever Trion is working on turns out to be the WoW killer?
[Thanks, JB]
When Iron Lore Entertainment announced it was closing its doors, some readers found it hard to believe. After shipping two quality products, with another promising project underway, how did several unspecified “unrelated events” put Iron Lore out of commission? Michael Fitch, Director of Creative Management at THQ, publisher of both Titan Quest titles, helps to shed some light on part of the reason in a rant posted yesterday to the Quarter To Three forums.
His targets? Piracy on the PC platform and dealing with hardware vendors, two factors which make developing for the platform “an uphill slog”, are at least partially to blame.
Fitch says that Titan Quest actually did okay. But that’s about as positive as his venting gets.
“We didn’t lose money on it,” he says. “But if even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today.”
Fitch goes on to lament, “Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren’t so rampant on the PC. That’s a fact.” He also points to distressing data that “pegs the piracy rate at between 70-85% on PC in the US, 90%+ in Europe, off the charts in Asia.”
The whole thing is at parts depressing and enraging, but also worth the read if you didn’t catch the link to it in our comments section earlier.
Venting my frustrations with PC game-dev [Quarter To Three Forums]
Rock Band is about to get a lot more freeform. Next week, Harmonix will slap six master recordings from the Grateful Dead onto their already-ample list of downloadable tracks.
Prior to the game’s release, Harmonix promised that eighteen Dead songs would eventually land on the marketplace. Next week’s update, on March 4, will bring six of them:
- “China Cat Sunflower” (1969, Aoxomoxoa)
- “Casey Jones” (1970, Workingman’s Dead)
- “Sugar Magnolia” (1970, American Beauty)
- “Truckin’” (1970, American Beauty)
- “Franklin’s Tower” (1975, Blues For Allah)
- “I Need A Miracle” (1978, Shakedown Street)
Twelve more Dead tracks will become available “over the next several months,” says Harmonix.
Here’s the best part: They’re $2 each, but only $10 for the whole package. That’s a savings of something like two dollars!
The Consumerist has a truly disgusting news item about a certain “Rent-To-Own” store where you can “lease” a Nintendo Wii for only $79 per month… for 12 months. Yeah, you done the math right… it’s ridiculous amount.
$79 x 12 months = $948.00
According to the site…
This $250 Wii console can be yours for only $79 a month, and after 12 months, it’s yours to keep. By that time, you will have paid $948 for it. By comparison, if you charged it to a credit card with 18% interest, you could pay $23 a month and have it paid off after 12 months. Kelly’s offer will cost you $673 more than paying with the credit card.
Just keep this in mind, for the utterly stupid price of $948 you could almost buy 4 Nintendo Wiis at the retail price of $250.
Discuss how lame this is over in the New WiiSpin forum.
(Via The Consumerist)
From gamasutra.com:
[QUOTE]
On the Friday of GDC, Gamasutra got a chance to talk to Microsoft’s Jeremy Wacksman, global marketing manager of Xbox Live marketing.
* People are starting to bump up against the size limit again. It was raised once, and that was really beneficial, but I’ve been hearing more reports from developers as they try to get a little more ambitious as the service gets more mature that they are sort of banging against that size limit wall. What do you think about that?
* JW: We haven’t heard that too much. We raised it when we did because of the ecosystem and the development community, but we have no plans to change that right now.
It ensures small, pick-up-and-play games, and I think people are finding… look at Undertow that just came out. Unreal Engine 3, single and multiplayer, with cutscenes in audio, under 50 [megs]. Not even under 150 megabytes. Developers are finding incredible ways to fit into our platform, and that’s part of why I say that.
* Do you think it matters that the PlayStation 3 does not have a size limit? Some developers, if they’re going to do a multiplatform download game, the way they’re planning, or the issue of what they have to work with becomes more complex for them.
* JW: It’s always case-by-case. I think we granted a one-time exception for Street Fighter [HD Remix], because it’s such a good game with so much put into it, but in general, Live Arcade is all about pick-up-and-play games and accessible games.
That’s part of that guideline. And like I said, look at the games that we have coming. Look at Castle Crashers. 20 levels, 4-player co-op, hand-drawn HD art… that’s a game that fits well with the model.
[/QUOTE]
Full Story: gamasutra.com
Tonight on X-Play, you’ll get a glimpse into the glamorous life of the Game|Life staff as you get the chance to watch the Game Developers Choice Awards show we all attended while at GDC last week in San Francisco.
Now, through the miracle of television, you too can sip watery drinks while placing bets on what games will take home top honors. (Pro tip: The safe bets are on BioShock or Portal.)
All kidding aside, even if you don’t care which AAA-list games earned the most accolades, the awards are worth watching for the Independent Games Festival Awards segment, which honors independent games like Fez, World of Goo, and Audiosurf.
Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are all paying close attention to the
rise of indie games, and you should, too. Besides providing a respite
from the sameness we so often feel plagues the gaming industry (I count
WWII-themed first person shooters when I’m having trouble falling
asleep), indie games sometimes also give us a glimpse of greatness to
come. Remember Narbacular Drop? It was a student-created game that you now know and love for lying about cake.
The GDC Awards episode of X-Play airs tonight on the G4 network at 8 pm
EST. If you can’t catch it or TiVo it then, you can check the X-Play episode guide for one of the many times it will re-air over the next few days.
You know Japan, I’ve been thinking, and realized I kind of hope you die some days. You get every freaking game I want while I sit over here in the US festering in my hopes that even one of these titles will get imported, and they never do, and I played Phantasy Star games faithfully as a child but what do I get, a get an INCOMPLETE COLLECTION ON THE GAMEBOY ADVANCE THAT DOES NOT CONTAIN PHANTASY STAR VI, WHAT KIND OF CRAP IS THAT?
*deep breath*
Yeah, anyway, Japan gets Phantasy Star Collection for the PS2 on March 27th. I think there’s more information, but I’m not sure what it is, exactly. From a translated Famitsu page:
Some no-claims bonus will be with the report/ratio like the possibility of accelerating the speed of play (displacements, texts, etc.) and the access to modes of difficulty a little easier than at the time.
I definitely don’t read moonspeak, but looking at the screenshots (see gallery) you will see there is an option to set the game’s difficulty to “very easy.” So basically, what Sega has done here is take one of the most beautifully challenging RPG series of all time and given you an option to play it without challenge. Person at Sega who thought up this brilliant plan, I hope you die in a house fire.
Also interesting to note, a few of the screens look like the fabled text adventure Phantasy Stars that we talked about in last week’s RFGO, so I can’t help but wonder if those have been added into this version of the game too. You know, to add insult to injury that this game will never come out in America. Did I mention Phantasy Star Collection will retail for about $15? That price had better be wrong.
I hate you, Japan.
[Via Famitsu - thanks, Justin]
