RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Two hundred and fifty-five; deux cents cinquante-cinq; nihyaku goju go; 255. This number will be familiar to most gamers. It seems to crop up quite a lot. In the original Zelda, it’s the maximum number of Rupees you could carry; it’s the max number for many of your stats in most Final Fantasy games; it’s the highest number of Effort Points in Pokemon. There’s a technical reason for this. You’ve heard of bytes, right? A byte is made up of eight smaller units called bits. The result is that the maximum number of values it can represent with these eight-digit units is 256 (255 numbers plus zero, I assume). Let me quote Wikipedia for a moment: 225 is “the maximum value representable by an eight-digit binary number, and therefore the maximum representable by an unsigned 8-bit byte.” (more…)

Super Smash Bros. Melee is not an RPG in any way, shape, or form. So why, you might ask, is it the subject of this week’s column? The answer can be summed up in one word: Marth. (more…)

I’m sure I’m not the only relic of the NES era, so let’s go down memory lane together for a few moments. Since it was bundled with the NES system (because back then a bundle inlcuding a game and two controllers was the norm — ah how times have changed!), just about everyone got to play Super Mario Bros. And for many of us, it was the game that first lead us down the path of gaming addiction, which in those days meant we all had very sore left thumbs until we grew a nice callus. This was not, however, Mario’s first appearance. In fact he’d been around for a few years prior, first appearing as “Jumpman” in Donkey Kong back in 1981 and then in the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. as Mario, the American-Italian plumber with his brother Luigi. Super Mario Bros. for the NES is what made him a star, though, and he was soon to ascend to the rank of Nintendo’s mascot. (more…)

The RPG world as we know it is composed of several sub-genres, mostly focused on the difference in battle systems: menu-driven or traditional, action, tactical, hack and slash, roguelikes. The first three are, by far the broadest and most common categories with action RPGs being the ones most en vogue at present, and menu-driven RPGs being the oldest. But what about tactical RPGs? Perhaps not everyone knows this, but they do indeed have a long lineage and an impressive pedigree, one dating back to the NES era. (more…)

There are only a few things in life that you can really count on. Mario will always trump Luigi; there is never anything “final” about Final Fantasy; and Dragon Quest will alway be a bastion of tradition in the RPG world. But in December 2006, Square Enix shook the very foundations of our RPG beliefs: they announced that Dragon Quest IX would slough off the shackles of menu-based fighting and embrace modernity by becoming… an action RPG. (more…)

For many gamers, their first experience of multiplayer gaming came in the form of Super Mario Bros. where one lucky player got to be Mario and whoever lost the coin toss got to be his green and white clone, Luigi. When Mario bit the dust at the hands of a hammer-tossing Hammer Brother or got knocked out by a rogue Koopa shell, player two got his chance to do the same thing while payer one got to watch. Thrilling stuff. (more…)

Those of us who remember the 1980s and the early days of console gaming can probably recall at one point or another being puzzled by the text we saw appearing in white block letters on the screen before us. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link had one of these classic moments. You, the hapless player, send Link into a house to gather information, and the NPC, with perfect aplomb, announces that, “I AM ERROR.” To which most players responded, “I am confused.” If you never got to experience this, one of the high points in the history of gaming localizations, I have procured for you a shiny screenshot. Behold! The fellow’s name would better have been romanized as “Errol.” But you see, the Japanese language doesn’t distinguish between “r” and “l” as we do and you can see for yourself the results of a poor translation. (more…)

These days it’s not altogether uncommon to see strange genre mashups. In 2007 Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords managed to successfully combine RPG elements and puzzle games in what is perhaps the most unusual combination out there. However, it was by no means the first. As early as the SNES era you could find games that defied genre boundaries, with Harvest Moon being not the earliest, but the most successful example. (more…)

Controversy, while usually reserved for more mainstream titles such as Grand Theft Auto, isn’t completely unknown to the RPG world. Recently Fallout 3 garnered some attention, of the negative sort of course, for in-game drug use, as did Mass Effect for its “sex scene.” However, by far the most controversial RPG out there is one most of us have probably never played, one created not by a big game company for profit but by an aspiring filmmaker using an RPG maker software for the sake of social commentary.

In 2005 an indie game with the controversial (and to many, offensive) title of Super Columbine Massacre RPG! caused a media frenzy. It was condemned by some as a sick joke and money-making scheme, and by others, lauded as a serious attempt to use the video game medium to engange with social issues. It also resurrected the debate about whether violent video games and music can cause real-world violence, a debate which had been at the centre of the aftermath of the Columbine shootings six years earlier. (more…)

Final Fantasy is the biggest-selling RPG franchise so it’s a foregone conclusion that when it branched out into other mediums it would be a huge success, right? Well I think we all remember one of its first attempts, the computer animated movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001. It bombed at the box office, leaving Square (at the time) with a net loss of some 94 million dollars. Yeah… oops. It wasn’t that it was a terrible movie. I wouldn’t say that it was great either, but it wasn’t horrible; however Square failed spectacularly in two ways: a) they didn’t realize the limited appeal of the movie to the general population, and b) they made the movie different enough from the Final Fantasy games that it also had limited appeal to the core audience of the games. It might be fair to say that it tried to be all things to all people and in doing so managed to satisfy none. But what Square failed to do with The Sprits Within, .hack would manage one year later and thus become king of financially viable tie-ins. (more…)

Did you ever have the chance to play Dragon Quest I (aka Dragon Warrior) for the NES? We’re talking back in 1989 for us North Americans. If not, or in case you need a refresher, I’ll give you a little run down of the plot. You are the descendant of the hero Erdrick who, in times past, defeated the Dragon Lord. Now that the Dragon Lord has returned, you must track down  the scattered pieces of Erdrick’s arms and armour and defeat the Dragon Lord anew. That’s it. No really, that’s the whole thing. Well okay, you do rescue a princess along the way and you do have to collect some relics that will allow you to reach the Dragon Lord’s isle, but basically I’ve spoiled the entire plot for you. As you may have noticed, it’s a bit sparse.

Then came Final Fantasy I. (more…)

I’ve heard tell that in the days of the NES and SNES era, when a new Dragon Quest game was coming out in Japan, it would be like a national holiday as people lined up to get their copy. RPGs have never reached such lofty heights of popularity here in North America. Final Fantasy VII managed to popularize the genre certainly. The series and the genre itself have become much more well known since — and seen an increase in sales as well. And while no RPG has had the worldwide acclaim sales, and following that Final Fantasy VII did, Fallout 3 deserves a special mention for its breakthrough performance in the North American market in particular. (more…)

Final Fantasy VII, the legend, the phenomenon. Classic? Overrated? Whatever you may think of the game now, nearly a dozen years later, its impact on the RPG world is undeniable. More than any other game in the history of the genre, it brought RPGs into the spotlight and gave them a mainstream appeal never before seen (and only occasionally duplicated since).

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Sequel. A word both thrilling and terrifying. How many times have you heard someone say about a movie that the sequel wasn’t nearly as good as the original? But unlike the movie business, the video game industry lives on not just sequels and prequels, but franchises. The biggest-selling RPGs these days are nearly all part of established franchises.

But sequels can go wrong. Very very wrong. Case in point: Chrono Cross. (more…)

E3 may be over, but there’s lots of media for you to feast your eyes on today including the first piece of concept art for the upcoming (and still unnamed) Zelda game for the Wii. You’ll also find Spectrobes Origins, Golden Sun DS, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky, Muramasa,  Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. (more…)

Some screens and art from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. (more…)

We have some Atlus goodies for you today with screens from Demon’s Souls, Persona PSP, and Devil Survivor. Enjoy! (more…)

Not to be left out of the E3 excitement, Atlus made a couple of announcements today as well. Shiren the Wanderer for the Nintendo Wii will be coming for North America in spring 2010. (more…)

A first look at some E3 goodies. To start out we’ve got a trio of Final Fantasy XIII screens and some Mass Effect 2.

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The year is 1987. The Nintendo Entertainment System is quickly becoming a household name. Most players have hopped and warped their way through Super Mario Bros., killed entire flocks of ducks in Duck Hunt, and probably taken more than a few potshots at that infernal dog that had a good laugh at you whenever you missed — man’s best friend indeed! Most NES-playing children were, by this point, pestering parents for new challenges. And for those who’d cut their teeth on the side-scrolling Super Mario, nothing could be more different than The Legend of Zelda. (more…)