I'm a huge RPG fan. Roleplaying games have been a part of life since I had just started middle school so...1996. The first RPG I ever played was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. I remember my mom took the family to Blockbuster and we picked up that and ClayFighter.
 |
| Baaaaaaad Mr. Frosty (Gameplay via BlackPantherJ1) |
I've never been good at fighting games. I'm what you'd call a scrub or a tomato can in that genre but RPGs? Like Fallout's slogan "War never changes," RPGs never change. Sure, they get new features, settings, and battle mechanics but the goal of beefing up your party to fight increasingly difficult enemies only evolved with time.
With the early Dragon Warrior series on Nintendo, you had a very straightforward but still stat heavy character screen. Then Final Fantasy—which came out after Dragon Warrior, mind you—had a similar screen with more stuff to observe. Players who really about their shit learned what all the stats meant and how to best optimize this party.
 |
| That sweet, sweet Toriyama artwork. |
Close to ten years later when Super Mario RPG came, the RPG stats screen was simplified. You only had what you really needed to know. Both Square and Enix were rounding out the edges and making titles you could jump right in.
Then you had some shit like Paladin's Quest or Lennus from Asmik Ace. It's one of my favorite old school RPGs and actually had a simplified stats screen and linear character growth but that was adult's RPG. It was pre-Mode 7 but not in that Lufia or Secret of the Stars way (two of my brother's favorites). Oh no, this game was unforgiving and lulled you into thinking you were doing well, that you were making strides.
 |
| Paladin's Quest, known for gnarly random encounters. The Wrecking Crew of SNES RPGs. |
Now, what about this RPGs being the most influential gaming genre business? I've always said RPGs first and foremost then you have fighting games and MOBAs. Fighting games are what they are. They've changed some over two or so decades with all kinds of technical adjustments and balancing to these characters but outside of a few fighters that changed everything about the game.
Just look at the first Virtua Fighter stepping away from 2D, Tekken doing the same and adding a concrete, continuing storyline and cinematic element, the be quick or be dead element of Bushido Blade, or Super Smash Bros and platform fighting.
Even rinky-dink tier fighters like Flying Dragons on Nintendo 64, Bloody Roar, or Tobal No. 1 spiced up a stagnant genre that had been ruled by Capcom, Midway, and SNK's 2D offerings for a couple of years up until that point.
The thing with fighting games is that they made competition a big fucking deal in a way that sports games couldn't. We're talking yearly tournaments and people making a living off money from tournaments. This isn't...gambling your allowance on a makeshift tournament at school because you brought your Genesis and Justice League Task Force.
 |
| Fake Batman is one hero Bonnie Tyler won't be holding out for (Gameplay via NintendoComplete) |
That was a bad fighting game, Lorenzo. It was bad form to bring it on the last day of Camp Birmingham. Scrub.
Anyway, MOBAs are the same as fighting games: big money, big fucking deals. People will watch competitions on them, purchase the extra cosmetic shit for these games, and watch livestreams for hours with a player sometimes engaging the chatroom and other times staring semi-silently in the glow of their monitors...and pay them. It's amazing, really.
So...the influence of RPGs? It all goes back to those glorious stats. If you remember playing any non-RPG in the early to mid 1990s, most of them were devoid of actual stats. The most popular genre to benefit from stats? Sports games. Those...games where they could only release a new title every other year and just update the rosters but never mind that shit, people will still pay $60 for it even though the actual sport hasn't made Mutant League or Blood Bowl-level leaps in rules and presentation?
 |
| Wake me when the NFL gets mutants |
Yeah, those games. The early Madden games didn't have defined stats. You had "Offense" and "Defense" and that was it. That's what it remained throughout the game. Oh you had stuff like snow and wind but that was it. I would know. My dad took us to the local video store where we could get two games and one was always Tecmo-fucking-Super Bowl for Genesis.
We could've had two cool games but instead, we had Ren & Stimpy and Tecmo Super Bowl II or Altered Beast and Tecmo Super Bowl II. Why? Because...
Anyway, that was the case until 2K started dropping games on Dreamcast and had players with defined stats that contributed to the overall stat of the team. 2K also brought some other modes and features that warmed me up to sports games but it was all reliant on having actual stats for the players.
Without them, who needed a Franchise, Career, or Be A Player mode? Create A Player? Why? There's no stats. You'd just be making another player who looks like every other player from a distance on the field and can be played anyway with nothing making them excel at anything or suck or something.
And this was pre-Online Play being worth playing. Before that you had Exhibition, Season, and some sort of tournament play. When Franchise Mode and stats came along you could invest in the game for a long period.
Stats also made their way from RPGs to every other genre.
FPS had health and armor indicators. In some you can have skill trees and stats indicating how powerful you are even without stuff like Attack, Defense, Intelligence, etc. Action games? All of the stats and skill trees for that ass.
 |
| The statssssss... |
What? The game doesn't have defined stats? That game most likely has you racking up experience points of some sort. Other genres didn't have you bothering with XP and levels outside of RPGs. Other genres didn't actually believe building up a character and progression in that way. It was "Did you finish the stage?" "Did you beat this boss?" "Did you beat this team?" Good, advance to the next thing.
So, the next time you play WWE 2K18 or Medalfield of Duty: Vietnam II, put some respekt on RPGs' name because you still be linear games in this vein...
 |
| Disclaimer: Duke Nukem is boss... |
M. Swift is a long time wrestling fan, old school anime head and host of the true crime podcast That Murder & Mystery Show. When he's not writing about wrestling, Black history, or talking about murders in the South, he is often working on his fantasy book, listening to heavy metal, and playing RPGs. Follow @metalswift
