That’s why I’ve always found the process of how games are born so fascinating. Be it from a Kotaku interview, linked on Jeff Gerstmann’s Twitter or as part of a Eurogamer retrospective piece, I latch onto any tidbit of behind-the-scenes info I can find. I was elated to discover the old journals of Jordan Mechner recently on his website, detailing his youth in his early 20s. Jordan Mechner has lived a storied life as a game designer, but things certainly didn’t start out that way. While he achieved early success with the Apple II classic Karateka, he’s better known as the creator of the original Prince of Persia, one of the most influential action/platformer/puzzle hybrids of all time. Despite this, his initial goal was to become a screenwriter, drawing inspiration from his time in college as a film-buff.

The rotoscoped animation in Prince of Persia still looks fluid today. It's incredible to think it came from this!

What Mr. Mechner has done with these journals is unprecedented. By publishing these online for all to see, he has painted perhaps the most interesting – and certainly, the most brutally honest – picture of 1980s games development to be found anywhere. Often pessimistic, but never forgoing hope, practically every month of his life has an entry that needs to be highlighted. He moves 3,000 miles on the strength of a game concept he calls “Baghdad”, and uses his brother as a rotoscoping model to record footage that more than a couple of our readers will recognise. He muses over Tetris and the device he calls the “Nintendo Game Machine“. He moves from one office to the next, struggles with procrastination, but gets to hang out with George Lucas. On the suggestion of his friend Tomi, he implements a rival for the Prince known as “Shadow Man”, and discusses the back-and-forth of game risk/reward. His colleague’s kids become his first real beta-testers. Some things never change, as Microsoft Word crashes and then someone at Broderbund has a problem with, uh, cleavage. Jordan recounts a certain earthquake in 1989, and then Prince of Persia becomes the mega-hit he was hoping it would. Of course, he dreams beyond that, with a film that will finally be released this year.

These accounts of his time with Prince of Persia… they’re human. They’re emotional. They’re wry. They’re intelligent. They’re amusing. They’re bittersweet. They are, above all, inspirational. If you have any interest in the history of this medium and have a few hours to kill, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

The man himself.

“The little guy will be wiggling and jittering like a Ralph Bakshi rotoscope job… but he’ll be alive. He’ll be this little shimmering beacon of life in the static Apple-graphics Persian world I’ll build for him to run around in.” – Jordan Mechner

You see, if there is one practice on the retail high-street I hate, it’s breaking the seal on games and sticking the disc and manual in a drawer at the back of a store. I detest the practice. I loathe it. Of course, I understand that there are perfectly valid logistical reasons for it; not only does it free up storage space for games and consoles – something that is becoming increasingly valuable in an age of bi-annual plastic peripheral releases – but it also greatly deters the age-old issue of theft, preventing some cheap so-and-so from stuffing the latest gaming blockbuster into their coat pocket and slipping out the front door. This makes sense for the most part. What I take issue with is labeling these games as new when they can be in as good or bad condition as used titles.

Admittedly, finding space for these is part of the problem.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problems buying games in “as-new” condition… if they’re priced as such. But when I walk into an enthusiast store such as GAME or Gamestation and they try to charge me more for a title (often considerably so!) than both the independent game shop down the road and a supermarket giant like Tesco, I start to take issue with what I’m getting for my money.

Some of you reading this might think me incredibly pedantic, and that’s completely fair. After all, if the game disc isn’t scratched to all-heck and plays fine, what does it matter? Unfortunately, for better or worse, I grew up in an environment where piracy was the norm, and this has had the effect of somewhat evangelising the packaging on legitimate games. The beautiful, high-resolution art cover! The shiny plastic case, free from scratches and greasy fingerprints! The fresh-from-the-factory instruction manual, packed with colourful game illustrations and screenshots! A disc which has more than an illegible two-word title etched onto the surface in black-marker pen! And they’re all mine!

Delicious sealed games. I have no shame! Disclaimer: I have played most of these.

Ahem. OCD-tendencies aside, I can’t help but think I have a serious point here. Would you pop into a WHSmith or HMV to buy a DVD box-set and expect the DVD seal to be broken? So why it is acceptable for games? At what point do we to start to separate the condition and value of new games versus used titles when they’re both treated equally? For years, we’ve heard retail chains cry foul of customers abandoning them for online shopping. Can you really blame them when they can get the same product cheaper, delivered right to their door and in an arguably better condition?

I’ve always been a proponent of supporting brilliant games and talented game developers. Despite what I’ve said about grabbing a bargain, I have no problem paying the full RRP when a game is worth it. But games are an expensive hobby, especially for those of us who don’t trade-in or sell our growing collections. For my money, a new game is a sealed game.

There are vocal opinions and valid points to be found on each side of the argument. FourZeroTwo, Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward and direct voice to the community, claims that the change is in the interest of the majority; that PC gaming is naturally shifting towards casual-friendly matchmaking systems and Infinity Ward is adapting. I can’t argue against making any system user-friendly, but I have to question how much difficulty the average PC gamer – an individual who has probably built their own gaming rig from scratch – has navigating through a list of servers. The ideas is that with IWNET, players will be effortlessly matched up with players of similar skill levels, in a manner not-unlike Xbox-Live. There are certainly benefits to streamlining the experience, but must it come at the cost of the inherent flexibility of the PC platform?

PC gamers say "NO" to IWNET

The reaction from the existing Modern Warfare PC community has been understandably bitter. The recent decision taken by Activision to increase the RRP of the game by a  cheeky £10 was not met warmly, but gamers begrudgingly accepted it for the sake of what is expected to be an amazing gaming experience. IWNET seems to be a step too far. With only partial control of private matches, gaming clans both casual and pro may run into ping problems because of the new matchmaking service, with professional gaming clans in particular fond of persistent dedicated servers; some are concerned that the matchmaking service won’t match players as well as human moderators, citing cases where Xbox Live has matched up players in different continents with high pings. The rule play-lists feature of IWNET does seem tailored towards clan matches, but whether it can really substitute a dedicated server remains to be seen.

Modern Warfare 2 is perhaps the most hyped release of the year. But will the removal of dedicated servers and custom content really put a dent in sales of the PC version?

The above points will be debated furiously until the game is released on the 10th of November, but I feel that there are two specific issues FourZeroTwo has neglected to mention regarding IWNET: piracy and downloadable content. Let’s not beat around the bush, here – piracy is a serious concern on the PC in particular, with tech-savvy PC gamers able to play the latest games for free with just a little bit of time and effort. By securing Modern Warfare 2 with a Battle.net-style authentication system, Infinity Ward is guaranteeing that anybody who wants to play the game online with more than a minority of players better have paid for a legal copy.

And with the system closed, these users can expect to continue paying for the game well after release. In an age where paid DLC is the standard on every other major online platform, I doubt it would be entirely unrealistic of me to suggest that Activision would want the same from PC players. After all, they control the online experience. With no free alternatives available from the community, what’s to stop them? FourZeroTwo comments that the removal of custom content is to deter potential hackers from abusing multiplayer, with the VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) system integrated into the game as standard along with IWNET. However, other games have packed in VAC without losing mod support, so I’m not sure this is entirely valid reasoning.

It may look primitive now, but Jedi Knight mod Saber Battle X pushed an engine from 1997 to its limits in both graphics and gameplay

This, I feel, is the biggest loss for PC gamers. With FPS controls improving on consoles and the Xbox 360 often acting as a core development platform for new titles, one of the best reasons to seek out the PC version of a game is modified content. Being able to extend the play-time of a favourite game with new maps or introduce a completely new way to play with mods adds an incredible value incentive that can rarely be matched elsewhere.  Not only that, new content development keeps the PC community together and coming back for more long after the core game has worn-out its welcome. Some of my fondest memories of PC gaming come from time spent with mods that pushed the boundaries of their respective development engines, such as Jedi Knight’s Saber Battle X or Half Life’s Sven Co-op. Can the contributions of such talented artists and coders in bringing new life to any game really be overestimated?

The answer, sadly, is that Activision probably already knows the value of the current community. Although accurate sources are hard to obtain, estimations peg the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as selling only 10-20% of the platform spread for the game. As a controlling party in the development of Modern Warfare 2, Activision will logically want to make as much money as possible out of their PC development time – and if that means locking-down the game to ensure legit play and DLC purchases, so be it. Traditional PC gamers, I fear, have become a casualty of a war that has outgrown them. But I hope I’m wrong.

Perhaps it’s a result of elitist thinking, but I’ve been confused by the need for printed guides for a long time. I’m sure they made a lot more sense in the early 90’s, when Internet access was restricted to which Compuserve and AOL keywords you could remember, but with the rise of GameFAQs (and video walkthroughs) they now seem completely redundant. Why pay for something that’s outdated the moment the print hits the presses, when you can get a versatile text guide for free that is regularly updated in response to demand and interest? There have no doubt been some great print guides in the past – David Cassady’s epic “Official” Final Fantasy VII International guide comes to mind, and it’s always handy to have a stat-filled Pokédex around – but the value proposition just doesn’t seem to be there when you’re already paying £20, £30 or even £40 for a game.

GameFAQs killed the strategy star.

Or at least, this was my attitude towards printed guides until quite recently. Browsing a local gaming store, I found a second-hand copy of an Official Metal Gear Solid 4 guide, priced at £2.99. Somewhat tatty, it had seen better days but was mostly intact, so I thought I’d take a chance on it. Reading through the book, I was frankly blown away by the quality of the content: a detailed, spoiler-free walkthrough of the game; useful information written in a witty-manner; clear, high-resolution game maps; and a entire post-game essay section, exploring the story of the Metal Gear universe… not to mention a foreword provided by Hideo Kojima. I was later delighted to discover that there is also a higher quality collector’s hardback of the book on sale, which includes a signed lithograph of Solid Snake and an exclusive art gallery of sketches and scribbles straight from the development team. Further investigation yielded guides of similar quality for other modern games.

High-quality hardback guides for some of my favourite games? I think I might be losing a lot of money in the future.

Has it always been like this? Not to sully the tireless effort from guide authors in the past, but I don’t think so. It seems that in reaction to free alternatives on the Internet, companies such as Piggyback and Prima have really stepped up the quality of stand-alone guides, offering merchandise and exclusive insider info that you might not find even on the web. I have since acquired hardback editions of not only the MGS4 strategy guide, but two Zelda guides and a Resident Evil 5 walkthrough, which includes a complete run-down of the then unreleased and controversial multiplayer DLC. Of particular note is the collector’s edition Twilight Princess guide, which features a detailed cloth map of Hyrule, golden-etched pages, and the same exceptional presentation and useful information found in the other books. Great stuff.

Looking forward then, in quite a stark contrast to before, it’s safe to say that I’ll probably be buying a lot more guides and using FAQs when I feel it necessary. After all, when the only detriment to fun is your own ego, sometimes you’ve just got to swallow your pride and enjoy yourself. That, and I like gaming merch as much as the next person!

I have 61 unfinished games in my collection. This cannot stand!

Since joining The Backloggery, I’ve become progressively more conscious of my game-buying habits; evaluating new releases as “must-haves” or just “wants” against the unbeaten quality games in my collection has become essential. Inevitably, during new-release peak-times such as the holiday season, my ratio of beat to unbeat shifts uncomfortably into the latter. In the battle against the backlog, it’s tempting to choose a game from your collection that can be picked up and put down in less than a weekend, but what do you do when the majority of your games consist of meaty JRPGs, retro-compilations and lengthy open-world adventures? FAQs are out of the question, Scott. Suddenly every hurdle which merely delays progress becomes a problematic game-stopper, as you strive to advance in something with your gaming time…

Classic adventure game Fate of Atlantis had multiple endings and I spent quite some time to get the best one.

The issue is made more complex with the confession that I am a bit of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to narrative resolution. Unlike my younger-self, I can no longer use the standard logical stipulation that you’ve beaten a game when the final boss curses you and the credits roll; I require the optimal outcome for our plucky protagonist, and often (with RPGs in particular, although it’s become a bit of a trend in all genres lately), that means fulfilling a specific-but-unclear set of criteria before setting off to face Doomsday.

Simon's Quest is a particularly infamous example of when a FAQ is flat-out required. The above hint should actually say: "Duck at Deborah Cliff for five seconds with the Red Crystal equipped". Wow.

So I say to myself, as a responsible adult: Scott, when you feel it’s necessary to progress, it’s okay to use a guide. It’s okay to pull up a walkthrough to find out that you need to combine the pepper and the snow-cone together, rather than try and mix every item in your inventory for over an hour. It’s okay to refer to a spoiler-free FAQ to attain the true paragon ending, and avoid repeating 40 hours of cut-scenes and gameplay because you didn’t make a backup save before Ilos. And it’s especially okay to reference a guide to get something new out of an old favourite, from a game that you’ve likely beaten before without any help at all! It is a necessary evil, but one that is absolutely justifiable now.

Join me next time, when I’ll be taking a look at stand-alone printed strategy guides, and evaluating their worth in a rapidly changing industry.

The collection this year was broad, with PCs of every size and shape included; from the pint-sized, Atom-based “Vibe” – literally about the size of a netbook on its side – to the monstrous, water-cooled gaming-rig “Mag”. It was also hard to miss “Hulk”, an entry which placed a PC motherboard in the hands of a statue of the titular Marvel hero. One of the more curious entries was “Atomic Cheeze”, a PC built inside a mock Leerdammer Caractère cheese wheel. The entry was totally played for laughs, but the modder clearly missed a trick by not ensuring that the accompanying plush mouse functioned as a input device. There’s always next year!

My personal pick of the bunch was a pristine condition Amiga 500 case, which had its guts taken out and replaced with a more modern platform. To complete the look, the PC power supply was migrated to the shell of an external power unit and the system was paired with a genuine Competition Pro joystick, first choice to many a Commodore kid in the ’80s. The modder took the effort a step further than simply imitating the hardware of the inspiration; to finalise the transformation from Intel-Inside to Amiga AGA, the PC was running a copy of legal emulation-suite Amiga Forever, allowing attendees to get a round of Worms or Superfrog in. Great stuff!

Perhaps my favourite piece of technology of the show was not based on everyday PC hardware. I was pleased to discover that GamePark Holdings, designer of open-source handheld systems over the last decade, had managed to set up a booth at Leipzig this year. Being familiar with their previous homebrew-hero, the GP32, I was eager to try its latest successor, the portable GPX2 Wiz. The GP32 was a jack-of-all-trades and the Wiz is no different; not only can it natively play most of the popular media formats out there from a SD card (including DivX/XviD), but the platform is fully open-source and Linux-based, supporting games and applications of every type. Despite its diminutive size, its technical specifications are nothing to sniff at: a 533MHz ARM processor, high-resolution 2.8″ touch screen (almost certainly included as a product of the DS’s success) and an OpenGL graphics chipset should deal with most things thrown at it.

The GP2X Wiz made an impressive software showing.

While Zoey stood by and tried to bag some Wiz promotional goodies, I spent some time working through a set of installed applications on the device, and was left impressed by its sheer versatility. From full-speed Quake ports, to personal Java projects, to emulation of other systems, there’s probably nothing else you’d want a handheld to run. Arguably, the place of the GPX2 in the marketplace has been made somewhat redundant by the more-popular PSP; ask anyone who has fiddled with the homebrew capabilities of that system and they’ll probably sing its praises. However, while Sony will (understandably) actively try to deter you from doing anything out-of-the-norm with their handheld, GamePark encourages it with the Wiz, and that’s what makes it so attractive.

It’s only appropriate that we end our coverage of Leipzig by talking about action-MMO hybrid Last Online. A bit of surprise, the game can be best described in layman’s terms as Devil May Cry meets World of Warcraft. Like the former, it features frantic hack ‘n blast action and like the latter is a massively multi-player online game. I managed to pick up the game partway through a quest, exploring a Gothic castle filled with shambling zombies, led by a towering, flaming overlord. I made it all the way to the boss without dying, but he made quick work of me despite some impressive assaults from my Dante-like avatar’s end. Undeterred, I also took part in an enemy raid mission out in the green-fields of the main world, which was surprisingly epic in size and scope; the huge draw distance and depth-of-field blurring effects really blend together to form something special.

Last Online combines two game genres in an interesting new way...

You’d think a game so reliant on timing would require a game-pad for precise control, but Last Online successfully makes use of a keyboard setup, utilising WASD for movement and an arrowed numpad arrangement for attacks. There’s a full array of attacks on offer too; slashes, lunges, spin-attacks, grab-attacks and good old pistol blasts, which – crucially – can all be layered together to form new attack combos and styles. Of course, with a game this early in development, there are problems – the camera is a bit wonky and collision-detection is off. It’s still a shame that the game is currently in a closed Korean beta, because what we checked out was definitely promising.

... of course, Zoey had fun just being in front of the camera!

This concludes our main coverage of the Leipzig Games Convention Online. Zoey and I would like to thank Kirsten for her help with the photos, the nice German man at our hotel for dealing with our endless requests, McDonalds for the McRib (don’t ask) and of course, all of you for reading!

Believe it or not, this wasn't the strangest thing at the show!

We started the show by exploring “Fantasy Hall” – one of the two gigantic main halls booked for the event – and within the first hour, we not only encountered six MMOs we’d never heard of (more on that next week), but several booth babes, a giant dog and an inflatable canoe as well. Indeed, with seemingly no restrictions on the type of promotions that publishers could utilise, the show floor had some bizarre stuff going on; go-karting and games of American football were common sights. I think my personal favourite was the human bowling ball event, where participants enter a giant copper wire frame and attempt to knock down over-sized bowling-pins. Zoey, on the other hand, was probably more impressed by the lines of German cheerleaders dancing nearby!

We also spent a considerable amount of time over the three days exploring the waters of casual gaming. I often had a hard time pulling Zoey out of the Online4Family booth, which pulled together free, family-friendly online games from all over the ‘net, such as Demolition City and Taz Dance Fever. Meanwhile, I spoke to a representative from GameTwist about their titles, which include card games, board games and others of the same ilk. One game which impressed me was Final Blow, an addictive old-school shooter which shakes things up by switching the play perspective from horizontal to vertical and back again on the fly. Needless to say, the show floor was a heaven for these smaller publishers and developers.

I honestly think Zoey enjoyed the female company more than I did.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t any presence from the larger companies in the industry. Acer turned up in spades; not only did they provide a horde of gaming-class PCs for the World Cyber Games competition, but they also hosted the always-busy public gaming area, where attendees could sit down to a game of Track Mania Forever or Warcraft III. Samsung had a booth with the intention of showing off new handsets, but most – myself included – were drawn to the massive mobile-phone laid across the show floor. Samsung had set up a novel competition for attendees: the fastest time for entering “World Cyber Games” on the multi-tap T9-keypad would win a bunch of goodies. I tried my luck but frankly kind of sucked, much to Zoey’s amusement (in my defense, I normally use a Blackberry with a full keyboard).

When the crowds of the show became too much and we needed a break from our coverage, the Leipziger Messe provided perhaps the greatest rest area ever conceived for a convention: an artificial beach! That’s right, for whatever mad-cap reason (and hey, we’re not complaining!), the organisers behind Leipzig GC decided to place several hundred kilograms of sand, two-dozen deck-chairs and multiple hammocks outside the rear entrance to the event halls. Over the course of the three days we spent there, Zoey became quite enamored with the beach, suggesting we retire there at any opportunity. I, on the other-hand, being a fair-skinned Scottish lad, had great difficulty surviving in the German summer heat. The reasonably-priced bratwurst stall and the freebies being handed out by Speedlink certainly helped, however!

Can you blame me for trying to get some shut-eye in the sun?

Did Leipzig turn out to be different than I had expected? Absolutely. Do I regret travelling a dozen hours to get there and spending countless euros on over-priced convention mineral water? Not a chance. Although we never got hands-on time with the next Call of Duty or Final Fantasy, we did get to experience a convention unlike anything we had attended before, and discover some indie gems at the same time to boot. We’ll have more detailed impressions of the show for you over the next week, including our time with online rhythm game Krazy Rain, what happens when you stick a high-end PC inside an Amiga 500 case and how we dealt with a massive crowd of odd but decidedly awesome cos-players. For now, we’re just trying to recover from it all!

It's probably one of the best freeware games you'll ever play

Of course, independent gaming had been alive and well before Cave Story was even a twinkle in Pixel’s eye (as the countless communities built around Clickteam’s Klik & Create and Mark Overmars’ Game Maker will attest) but many have attempted to replicate its immense success. Perhaps the most controversial of these efforts is The Underside from Insignificant Studios, a game self-described as “inspired” by Metroid and Cave Story and admittedly, it does look, sound and play an awful lot like its inspirations. The Underside tries to shake things up with generous amounts of quirky self-referential humour, but playing it, you can’t help but think the author’s talents could be better directed towards an entirely different effort.

Hey, cool! A Cave Story level pac- wait a second

So it seems that, rather unsurprisingly, directly emulating Cave Story is not the way towards the next big indie hit. However, The Underside may have been on the right track after all… enter my current gaming addiction: Spelunky, by Derek Yu. Part-roguelike, part-platformer, part-Digger T. Rock, Spelunky stars a nameless “Dr. Jones”-style protagonist, as he searches for boatloads of treasure deep underground. Players guide the adventurer through dank randomly-generated caves, fending off snakes, bats and the occasional deity with his trusty whip. Pretty standard stuff, then.

Throw me the flare, and I'll throw you the whip. No time to argue!

Except that it’s not. You see, more than any other indie game I’ve played, Spelunky exhibits that certain something that made Cave Story so special. Its soundtrack and visuals feel like they dropped directly out of 1991, but still stand out against today’s standards. It has buckets of charm; both pixelated friend and foe alike act almost alive in surprising ways. It can be uncompromisingly difficult, but it’s never unfair, enticing players to try once more to progress further. It rewards experimentation, offering new or secret items to those who think outside of the box (just try stealing from a shopkeeper!). And it’s a game players of all ages can enjoy, even though it has a rather black sense of humour. Yet despite all of these similarities, it’s a starkly different game, with a personality all its own. While it might retain many elements of the style of Cave Story, Spelunky succeeds because it is its own beast – and that’s where The Underside failed.

The new art-style retains elements of all four prior MI games

In what is almost certainly my biggest news of E3, Telltale Games – developers of the hugely successful episodic Sam and Max and Wallace and Gromit seasons – have announced that, starting this July, gamers will be returning to the Tri-Island area for classic point ‘n’ click adventure gaming with a 3D twist in Tales of Monkey Island. The five-part monthly adventure sees protagonist Guybrush Threepwood dealing with his greatest trial yet: a voodoo plague which threatens to wipe out the entire caribbean! To make things right, Guybrush will need to consult the mysterious Voodoo lady, expert in curses and hexes; rescue his wife, governor Elaine Marley; and face his eternal nemesis, the demon pirate LeChuck. Just as in the previous games, this involves guiding Guybrush through a mix of puzzle-solving gameplay and hilarious dialogue events, including insult-swapping matchups and never-ending pirate songs.

Well, she did mention a five-game contract before...

Initial E3 demos of the game seem to suggest that Telltale have the balance just right but if you have concerns over whether the company will be able to re-capture that legendary monkey magic, fear not. Many of Telltale’s employees have signficant history with the franchise; Dave Grossman, founder of the company, was a co-writer and programmer on the original game and music-guru Michael Land will once-again be composing the game soundtrack. I was particularly pleased to hear that Dominic Armato, the voice of Guybrush Threepwood in previous titles and a noted Monkey Island fan, will also be reprising his role as the central character: in my mind he is Guybrush. Perhaps most significantly, series-creator Ron Gilbert has revealed on his blog that during the initial Tales of Monkey Island development process, he spent some time over at Telltale games, laying out key story and puzzle-elements. He even pitched some jokes!

Tales of Monkey Island will premiere on PC and WiiWare with “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal” on July 7th 2009. You can pre-order the entire season online for PC download on the day of release, and pre-ordering will also net you an exclusive DVD slipcase painted by famed comic artist Steve Purcell (among other bonuses) at the conclusion of the series. Despite Guybrush’s own assertion that we should “never pay more than 20 bucks for an adventure game”, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist!

Arrr, pre-order me game today, ya bunch of geekwoods!

Personally, while I wouldn’t play a game based solely on dating, I think there’s a lot of potential for relationship building in other genres, particularly role-playing games. My first encounter with these elements in a RPG came about a decade ago, in SNES cult favourite Harvest Moon. The game – which taxed players with the task of maintaining a successful farm in a small town – was addictive for its unique micromanagement game play, forcing players to be careful with their time in the game world.

A landmark moment in romantic subplots

However, what stood out to me more was the interaction with NPC characters, particularly the female cast. Rather than offer one static piece of information, repeat interactions with these characters rewarded the player with new dialogue. Eventually, these conversations evolved into a short romantic subplot, and potentially marriage. While who you decide to court is ultimately a superficial choice, it’s a powerful personal one nonetheless. The ways that players formed relationships with town residents was further explored in countless sequels, and would become a core part of the series.

Of course, Harvest Moon isn’t the only RPG series to emphasise a romantic subplot, or relationships in general. The best example I can think of is my current gaming addiction, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. Released late last year in the USA to critical acclaim, the title quickly built a dedicated fan-base due to its novel approach to dungeon crawling. The story sounds fairly simple off the bat: You’re a transfer starting at a new school in the sleepy suburb of Inaba, the town where nothing interesting ever happens. However, when a series of bizarre murders occur, it’s up to you and your new friends to stop the killer picking off your classmates. This involves (in typical Japanese RPG style) travelling to an alternate version of reality, and fighting your way through dungeons in order to rescue victims before it’s too late.

Chie here is one of the (many) girls you can hang out with in Persona 4

At the same time, you must balance your social life, building relationships with not only your party members (“Go Team Investigation Team!”), but other residents of Inaba as well. The sheer quantity of social events available is staggering, but what is perhaps more impressive is that nearly every event is engaging, thanks to a superb English localisation effort. You’ll build up genuine affection for these characters, and you’ll have to pick and choose between favourites because of the limited time you have to socialise. And yes – you can even date a potential lover, to unlock further conversations and events.

While all of this is fun, Persona’s real masterstroke is the combat utilisation of “social links”. The game uses a Pokémon-like collection system wherein players create summons (the titular personas) with unique skill-sets through a process called “fusion”. Each character you meet in the game is tied to a particular “arcana” (similar to an element), and as you strengthen your relationship with them, you rank up the social link connected to that arcana. So, when you decide to fuse together two personas, the resulting persona is granted significant experience points, skill and strength bonuses based on how strong the associated arcana social link is. The combat advantage this can give you is immense (as efficient players can create personas at a much higher level than they need), and it greatly reduces the volume of grinding you need to do in dungeons to defeat a boss.

Attending soccer or basketball practice boosts your “Strength” personas

There’s so much more to the game than what I’ve described here, but I’ll leave it at that for the moment. If you have a couple of hours to kill and enjoy Japanese RPGs, I’d highly recommend heading over to Giant Bomb.com and watching their Persona 4 “Endurance Run” (now at part 66), where the staff writers are attempting to play the game from start to finish. Although the first couple of hours are slow, the rewarding game play that follows is more than worth it – and it’s all because of relationships.