RPG Roundtable #5, Part Two
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Also, the console RPG market is an interesting one. I'll go out on a limb and say that BioWare effectively dragged PC RPGers and PC-style RPGs into the console world. In overall style and presentation, Knights of the Old Republic is not like Final Fantasy X, Tales of Symphonia or the "typical" console RPG. The amount of player choice involved in many PC RPGs like Fallout and the Baldur's Gate games simply isn't found in a significant number of console titles. Before KotOR, I would have guessed that a PC-style RPG on console would crash and burn. Now, who knows what gamers might accept or even start to expect?
Simplification is not always bad, and explicit complexity is not always beneficial for a game. In my opinion, anything that engages a player and forces him or her to think and solve problems in the course of the game is great. You don't need 101+ keys to do this, and you certainly don't need 800x600 resolution. If we can keep what I believe is the heart of PC-style RPGs, player choice that has a meaningful effect on the state of the world, it shouldn't matter if the game is PC-only, Xbox-only, or ported to everything under the sun.
