History of Eastern role-playing video games
[1][4] In the 1980s, Japanese developers produced a diverse array of creative, experimental computer RPGs, prior to mainstream titles such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy eventually cementing genre tropes by the 1990s.
[10] Also in 1982,[11] Koei released another early Japanese RPG, Danchizuma no Yuwaku[12][13] (Seduction of the Condominium Wife),[11] a PC-8001 title that also featured adventure game elements in addition to eroge adult content.
The game's desert island overworld also featured a day-night cycle, non-player characters the player could attack or converse with, and the need to survive by finding and consuming rations to restore hit points lost with each normal action.
In WiBArm, the player controls a transformable mecha robot, switching between a 2D side-scrolling view during outdoor exploration to a fully 3D polygonal third-person perspective inside buildings, while bosses are fought in an arena-style 2D shoot 'em up battle.
[53] Hydlide 3: The Space Memories, released for the MSX in 1987 and for the Mega Drive as Super Hydlide in 1989, adopted the morality meter of its predecessor, expanded on its time option with the introduction of an in-game clock setting day-night cycles and a need to sleep and eat, and made other improvements such as cut scenes for the opening and ending, a combat system closer to The Legend of Zelda, the choice between four distinct character classes, a wider variety of equipment and spells, and a weight system affecting the player's movement depending on the overall weight of the equipment carried.
[61] Another 1988 release, Last Armageddon, produced for the PC-8801 and later ported to the PC Engine CD and NES consoles in 1990, featured a unique post-apocalyptic storyline set in a desolate future where humanity has become extinct and the protagonists are demon monsters waging war against an alien species.
[67] The gameplay of Exile included both overhead exploration and side-scrolling combat, featured a heart monitor to represent the player's Attack Power and Armour Class statistics, and another controversial aspect of the game involved taking drugs (instead of potions) that increase/decrease attributes but with side-effects such as affecting the heart-rate or causing death.
[87] Bokosuka Wars, originally released for the Sharp X1 computer in 1983,[88] was ported to the NES console in 1985, and was a commercial success in Japan, where it laid the foundations for the tactical role-playing game subgenre.
[96] The game also placed a greater emphasis on storytelling and emotional involvement,[101] building on Horii's previous work The Portopia Serial Murder Case, but this time introducing a coming of age tale for Dragon Quest that audiences could relate to, making use of the RPG level-building gameplay as a way to represent this.
Dragon Quest instead gave the player some extra hit points at the start and a level progression where the effective rate of character growth decelerates over time, similar to how the more recent editions of D&D have balanced the gameplay.
[133] Final Fantasy II also featured open-ended exploration,[133] and had a dialogue system where keywords or phrases can be memorized and mentioned during conversations with NPCs,[137] the theme of an evil empire against a small band of rebels (similar to Star Wars), and the iconic chocobo, a fictional creature inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
[138] In 1989, Phantasy Star II for the Genesis established many conventions of the genre, including an epic, dramatic, character-driven storyline dealing with serious themes and subject matter, and a strategy-based battle system.
[163] Several early RPGs set in a post-apocalyptic future were also released that year, including Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II, and Crystalis,[169] which was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
[169] The most important RPG that year, however, was Final Fantasy IV, one of the first role-playing games to feature a complex, involving plot,[172] placing a much greater emphasis on character development, personal relationships, and dramatic storytelling.
[177] That same year, Crea-Tech's Metal Max was an early non-linear, open-ended, post-apocalyptic, vehicle combat RPG that lacked a predetermined story path and instead allowed the player to choose which missions to follow in whatever order while being able to visit any place in the game world.
[134] Unlike other RPGs at the time, Romancing SaGa also required characters to pay mentors to teach them abilities, whether it was using certain weapons or certain proficiencies like opening a chest or dismantling a trap.
[204][206] That same year also saw the release of Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium, which introduced the use of pre-programmable combat manoeuvers called 'macros', a means of setting up the player's party AI to deliver custom attack combos.
[216] That same year saw the release of the 3DO console port of the 1991 PC RPG Knights of Xentar,[217] which had introduced a unique pausable real-time battle system,[218] where characters automatically attack based on a list of different AI scripts chosen by the player.
In addition, the game is known for its difficulty and unconventional structure, and would go on to influence FromSoftware's future RPG titles including Shadow Tower[219] and Demon's Souls, the latter described by its staff as a spiritual successor to King's Field.
[241] The success of Sakura Wars led to a wave of games that combine the RPG and dating sim genres, including Thousand Arms in 1998, Riviera: The Promised Land in 2002, and Luminous Arc in 2007.
[258] LandStalker's 1997 spiritual successor Alundra[259] is considered "one of the finest examples of action/RPG gaming", combining platforming elements and challenging puzzles with an innovative storyline revolving around entering people's dreams and dealing with mature themes.
[260] In 1998, Square's Xenogears was acclaimed for the ambitious scope of its storyline, which spanned millennia and explored themes rarely dealt with in video games, including topics such as religion and the origin of mankind,[261] and social commentary dealing with racism, poverty, war, and human psychology, along with narrative references to the philosophies of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nocturne "carved out a toehold for the series in America with its post-apocalyptic adventure set in a bombed-out Japan" where instead of "trying to stop the apocalypse", the "demonic main character's end goal is to assert his will on the new world".
[299] In the early 2010s, new intellectual properties such as Xenoblade Chronicles from Monolith Soft and The Last Story from Mistwalker found a home on Nintendo's Wii console late in its lifespan, gaining unanimously solid reviews.
In response, a widespread internet campaign known as "Operation Rainfall" petitioned the release of Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower in America, with participants flooding Nintendo's official Facebook page with requests and sending mail to NOA's headquarters.
On handhelds, the 2010 Atlus title Radiant Historia introduced a unique take on the concept of non-linear branching storylines that gives the player the freedom to alter the course of history through time travel across two parallel timelines.
[302] Imageepoch's 2011 title Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari (Final Promise Story) for the PSP has a strategic command-based battle system where enemies learn from previous skirmishes and where characters can die permanently during gameplay which in turn affects the game's storyline.
[304] In 2012 and onwards, a surge in new JRPGs such as Xenoblade Chronicles, Persona 4 Golden, Fire Emblem Awakening, Shin Megami Tensei 4, Tales of Graces, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and Tales of Xillia are generally well received by fans of the genre and some critics while a number of popular WRPGs such as Mass Effect 3 and the PC version of Diablo III suffered from poor feedback by non-critic reviewers, especially on Metacritic.
[321] 2017 was considered a strong year for Japanese RPGs, with other notable releases including Dragon Quest VIII on the Nintendo 3DS, Tales of Berseria, Valkyria Revolution, Ever Oasis, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, Ys VIII, Etrian Odyssey V, Dragon Quest Heroes II, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, and Tokyo Xanadu.
As of the first half of 2005, Lineage II counted over 2.25 million subscribers worldwide, with servers in Japan, China, North America, Taiwan, and Europe, once the popularity of the game had surged in the West.
