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 ©)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
i say go....
as long as i get a new not cheesy graphics legaia im all innn ^_^
Legaia FTW.
Never played it. There for it must not be very good.
Frank Black is a fool. The game is fairly decent. Although, not so much a 'fighting game' hybrid. Just an interesting move input sequence. It was never dependent on timing or spacing similar to most fighting games.
Proper hybrids would rule. Most games are taking on an RPG element to give them more depth. Ah, I'm all for games that know what they are doing.
Hell, Bloom is an Action-RTS-Adventure hybrid. :P
Best Action RPG? WRONGERS.
The true answer is:
MONSTER HUNTER FREEDOM 2!!
(see the two exclamations? oh yeah)
You Role Play a custom created hunter. AND YOU KILL MONSTERS using Action style gameplay.
Love it.
W&W is a third person / first person adventure puzzle game.
And yeah, it's not a true 'hybrid', it's just merging concepts.
I say go all the way though like you. Make a game that does TRULY encapsulate more than one genre in its entirety.
BTW, who are you to define what a fighting game is!? Orite, more than me I guess. But still, a fighting game might not always be dependy-like on timing and stuff. I need more sleep.
BACK TO THE POINT... Yeah, proper hybrids would rule. I'm kinda sad that you think games take on RPG elements just to give them depth. If they did it just for that reason then they wouldn't achieve that purpose.
Also, Ameen rides the Voltron, Jon is a neat guy (???) and Carl is a Frank(furter). DONE.
HEY, I would never say BEST anything anything because I haven't played everything. I just said Legend of Legaia was a good experiment and a good game because of that.
Even the Tales games can be beaten easily.
Games will always outdo games and fail to outdo games... But no game can ever be the best...
EXCEPT THE 'ULTIMAGAMES' (©)!!!!
So many !s !
THIS BLOG SUCKS!!! Aww, I hurt my feelings....
Aw it doesn't really hurt your feelings. You know you love it. I meant nothing about my post. :(
I just enjoy that game... severly...
~ADDICTED~
I like mix ok.
I agree that games are moving in this direction more and more as customization becomes such an expected feature within games.
However there are some boundries easier crossed than others. One example I've pleasantly encountered lately is the link between Dating Sim-RPG. Both are genres in themselves but almost exactly the same! Only now are we seeing RPGs incorporate this niche feature, if only we could pick between Tifa and Aeris. (Aerith? w/e)
lol Azlan. Awesome.
I'd choose Aeris but then I'd be a necrophiliac.
And I still wouldn't choose Tifa.
Done.
Post a Comment