Fable and Sudeki have been in development for years, which of course, speaks for itself. However, they are both new RPGs with no history that I know of, so I don’t know what to expect.
Now that we know Game Arts is developing a Grandia and Lunar game for the Xbox, we only need to wait and see what shape both games take. Will they be remakes – newer incarnations of older games – or will they be sequels basking in the light of their own reflective surfaces, which reinvent themselves for new and old audiences alike? Sooner or later, time will tell.
I know some of you will be looking forward to Final Fantasy [insert number here]. Will you be singing the praises of Square, claiming their latest game is yet another masterpiece created by the company that can only be described as the god of modern day RPGs?
If anyone has a monopoly on great RPGs, it’s BioWare, the creators of the undeniably awesome Baldur’s Gate series for the PC, Neverwinter Nights, and Knights of the Old Republic. BioWare’s friends at Obsidian are rumoured to be working on KOTOR 2 but I don’t believe it, even if the company staffed by former Black Isle Studios employees (none recent former employees) hasn’t sought to put those rumours to rest. I don’t know what to make of Jade Empire but with BioWare’s track record and a secret PC project in the works, we can only expect great things from them in the future.
Sega has remade the original Shining Force game for the Game Boy Advance, which could be a sign of things to come. Shining Force 3 Scenario 3 was released in 1998 and marked the end of Camelot’s once strong ties with Sega. Although Sega is more than capable of continuing the series, perhaps without the creators the series is best left dead and buried. I doubt the recent remake of Shining Force is a herald of things to come, but rather an easy way for Sega to bring home the revenue it deserves. However, I’d love to see a Shining Force 4 within my lifetime. In truth, all I have ever wanted from Camelot/Sega was the complete Shining Force 3 in English.
I really liked Lunar: The Silver Star but Eternal Blue was kind of lame (I still haven’t beaten the epolouge). I haven’t played the PSX/Saturn versions of either.
I should try to beat the rest of Eternal Blue and Magical School soon.
I heard Ultima X is in development and it will be online (but not MMO) and not have the avatar. It sounds weird but I have faith that Lord British won’t let me down.
As an Xbox owner, I’m looking forward to Fable. The game looks very promising.
I’m not so sure about Sudeki. From what I’ve heard it’s not the same Climax who created Landstalker, but a company located in the UK who are creating a Japanese style RPG for Microsoft (after all, there basically are none on the console). climax.co.uk/media/media.aspx?ArticleID=66
It could well turn out to be a good game, but I think I’ll take a wait and see approach.
Sudeki indeed smells good.I don’t care about gameplay much as long as they develop a good plot.From what I’ve seen so far Il definately buy it.
Fable looks good too but it ha sone big flaw : NON LINEAR RPG.That puts aside the possibility of it having a great plot.Gameplay wise however it will sure be fun.
Jade Empire : if it’s anything like KOTOR (and it looks even better cause it’s based on Chinese mythology) I’ll buy it even tho the story might be abit of a dissappointment.I’m still curious about the combat system.
I’m waiting for E3 for something good.I’m expecting a new linear RPG saga.
I thought Sudeki was being made by a different branch of the same company. However, if I’d researched into this sooner, I would have disovered that Sudeki isn’t being developed by Climax Entertainment.
I’ll move my previous statement about the Climax I know here: I haven’t played a truly awesome RPG from Climax since Landstalker. Landstalker is more than a decade old, and yet is one of the greatest Action/RPGs the 16 bit era has ever known.
BioWare should be working on the sequel to Knights of the Old Republic now, especially now that they’ve finished developing the second Neverwinter Nights expansion.
Sudeki is being done by a British company named Climax. They developed Moto GP for Xbox, and I believe the original Diablo (could be wrong). They also did Sim Theme Park.
Solid developers, but I’m not sure what is so appealing about Sudeki. I don’t like the character design, and it looks, to me at least, pretty much like a prettified PSO.
Care to enlighten me about what makes it so appealing?
Not to mention it’s an Xbox game, so how could it possibly fall short of being anything other than awesome!
Seriously, Sudeki has been in development for a long time now. Maybe it won’t turn out to be what I expected but I doubt it will amount to very little after so much time has been spent developing it. I suppose the relative lack of RPGs available for the Xbox draws attention to it as something starved RPG fans can sink their teeth into.
But, I’m interested in hearing what about it makes it appealing, particularly to someone like you, Geoffrey. Considering how you seem to detest action-RPGs of the console variety, I find it interesting that you’d be so interested in Sudeki.
IMO what draws me to Sudeki is (like Geoff said before) the fact that there aren’t many XBox RPG’s and the act that it is a linear RPG unlike KOTOR or Fable.
I admit tho that I’m not very found of the character designs (oh and Abadd : those character designs are FREAKY;just an exmaple for you to understand my interpretation of the word ) but hopefully the plot will make it a good game.
I don’t detest Action/RPGs, but I certainly don’t want them to become the sole definition of a modern RPG.
Sudeki doesn’t seem that bad to me in the visuals department. Graphically, it should outshine the competition. The real time combat is supposed to be more complex than Dark Alliance (i.e. pushing one button over and over again won’t win your battles for you). However, I’ll need to compare the games myself before giving my verdict. The best Action/RPG I’ve played is Landstalker which involved plenty of platform hopping and logic puzzles. All that seems to have become secondary to combat in many Action/RPGs today (I wouldn’t be surprised if Sudeki suffers from the same shortcomings).
Ah, I guess I just took your previous comments to mean that you didn’t like action RPGs at all. I understand
Actually, I just played a few minutes of Dark Alliance 2, and while I thought the graphical quality dropped a notch, the gameplay was actually rather fun
As for Sudeki… personally, the character designs just turn me off completely. They lack character. The gameplay, from what I saw at last E3 (granted, this was nearly a year ago), it was a bit awkward. But, that might stem from the fact that the game reminded me so much of PSO and I was trying to play it as such.
I looked at some of screenshots of Sudeki a few months ago. It looks alright, but I didn’t like the way the female characters were so over exposed. In a battle situation they would be wearing more. Still, it might play well and have a good story - and if that’s the case then I’d be willing to overlook the parts I didn’t like about the design.
I just thought of another RPG i’m patiently waiting for: Front Mission 4. I was introduced to the series with FM3 and i thought it was a decent turn based strategy (but i felt it didn’t compare to stuff like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics). The combat system and mech upgrades were fun and i hope they expand on it in FM4 (more weapons please). I hope it has a better story as well, the story in FM3 was decidedly lame. I didn’t really feel for the characters at all.
) but hopefully the plot will make it a good game.