I dunno if anyone would be familiar with Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Everyone who is an RPG fan should though, it’s a really interesting game. I’ll do this quick summary of the pertinent bits though. Partway into the game, a percentage appears in the corner of the screen. It’s really small at first (going up by 0.01% occasionally as you walk around), but there are things you can do to make it go up faster. Incidentally, these “things” will also give you an advantage in the game. (avoiding spoilers in explaining this is a pain, but it’s not really a major spoiler.) You might ask yourself, “Hmmm, what happens when that counter reaches 100%?” The counter can never go down, it can only go up. Nothing is said explicitly about the counter, but you can imagine what it’s there for.

Dragon Quarter is a game that is obviously meant to be played many times. You always have the option of giving up and starting over. That’s a very weird thing to have in a modern RPG, because modern RPGs usually try their best not to make you start over, and to not die. They’re usually so long that a permanent end to the game would defeat the player to the point of not playing again. Fortuantely though, Dragon Quarter is not all that long (from what I’ve heard, I’m only 4 or 5 hours in). And when you do start over, you get to keep certain things. That’s an excellent idea. Ever since Chrono Trigger introduced to me the idea of the New Game+, I’ve wanted this feature in every RPG. It makes a second playthrough more exciting, and lets you explore more.

So, armed with this knowledge, I decided that I was at a point where I thought starting over would be fine. I decided to find out what happens at 100%. And it was pretty much what you’d expect. You die.

The pulsing wireframe cube that represents your heart gets more and more frantic and hot, putting off sparks.

As the counter hits 100, the graphic breaks, like a glass container under too much pressure.

Ryu, the main character, falls flat on his face.

You’re dead.

There is no continuing with your current quest, and trying to trick the game with different memory cards does not work. You’ve just died, and there’s no way around it. Somehow, this is the most signifigant videogame death I’ve ever experienced.

Other games have lives, or continues, or a Game Over screen, or a You Are Dead screen, and promptly spit you back out at a place you were at prior to being dead.

In DQ, you probably know that you can start over. I did. I even have a strategy guide, the only reason I bought it was that it was on sale for $0.99 when I bought the game. So, I knew that I had little to fear from this death, because I even get to keep my equipment in your next life. But still, the game handles the event solemnly and sparsely. You’re asked how you would like to start over. Then your old game is saved over, so there’s no going back. It’s amazingly mature.

BoF: DQ is just one of a handful of RPGs that are working to break free of the Japanese RPG mold. It’s become very clear during this generation that a lot of old RPG staples are just outdated, tedious, or nonsensical. Some games retain these and dress them in prettier graphics, which is fine if you’re willing to tolerate it, but some are working to evolve. In many ways, the RPG as we know it from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest stereotypes is on its way out, and what it’s becoming may be very different from the RPG that we’re used to. It used to be that every new RPG to come out had to have a new “system,” a gimmick to differentiate it from the rest. Now though, these gimmicks are being used to really affect gameplay, and truly change the core of the game.

Some people will resist this, some will embrace it. Some will give up on RPGs, and some might find a new interest in them. In other words, it could be an RPG renaissance, the gaming public would let that happen. I think I’ll do a little writing on some RPGs that have really altered the formula effectively for my next post.