Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 75)

Trigger Happy
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Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (the latter is now
head of videogame publishers Eidos) in the 1980s.
Modern, complex RPGs owe their shared
paradigms to one game series in particular: Final
Fantasy, the first game of which was released in 1987.
It had detailed, colorful two-dimensional graphics, and
a traditional story line involving an ancient evil once
again on the loose, with rapacious pirates on the oceans
and demons in the bowels of the earth; the player was
required to choose four people to make up a team of
Light Warriors to save the world. The systems of magic
and fighting grew more and more complex with each
sequel, until Final Fantasy VII (1997) not only offered
sumptuous movieistic scenes to advance the plot, but
updated the milieu to one of magic futurism. Yet it is
still based on a remarkably old-hat “turn-based” system
of combat, with roots clearly in the dice-throwing game
played by unsocialized boys.
In essence, however, an RPG need not inhabit
exclusively such puerile, sub-Tolkien milieus. The
basis of any RPG is that the player “becomes” a
character in the fictional world. On a basic level, nearly
every videogame ever made is a role-playing game.
You play the role of a missile turret defending Earth
from the space invaders; you play the role of a