Merging Game Genres: Yay or nay?

Games today are bridging genres more than ever before. Whether you're stuck in action traction or lost in eons of story, you might notice that the game industry's definition of a 'genre' is evolving in new ways with each new title released.

One of the first cross-genre games that truly amazed me was Legend of Legaia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Legaia) Bridging the gap between RPGs (Role-Playing Games) and fighters, Legend of Legaia had a classic RPG fighting system with mixed martial arts and special abilities controlled and discovered by the user. Each attack by each character in the game consisted of creating a combo by pressing the triangle, square, circle and x buttons in unique combinations to create techniques. The player started with only several hits per attack in battle (and therefore only several possible combo techniques) and eventually, by the end of the game, was able to unlock more hits to create enormous combos consisting of smaller combos which would culminate in explosive finishers.

Legend of Legaia was an impressive story-driven experience with tons of fun mini-games, unique mechanics, difficult boss battles and interesting locations. Though graphics weren't the best and at times concepts seemed ill-conceived and a bit contrived, the overall experience was impressive beyond belief. Never before had I played a RPG and enjoyed the battles so thoroughly.

Since Legend of Legaia, several games have imitated and developed upon its base idea of fighter RPGs. To keep the example simple, one may look to the Tales games, such as Tales of Symphonia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_symphonia) and Tales of the Abyss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_abyss) as further merging the two diametrically opposed genres together.

Now for the question of the day... Will this trend of mixing game genres continue until the industry creates true multi-genre titles that appeal to a wide audience but alienate purists, or will sports games never meet dating simulation games?

It is up to us, the consumers and game designers of the future, to decide.

(I vote for merging and making 'ultimagames'. Coined and ©)