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History of SquareSoft
thryllkill writes: "GameSpot currently has an excellent article posted about the history of SquareSoft. As most /.ers know Square is responsible for bringing console RPGs to the mainstream, and some claim brought the PlayStation the success it needed to dominate the late 90s video game market. The article is light on corporate info, but a great rundown of Square's contributions. The only error I noted was the omission of Final Fantasy SGI." And FFX is supposed to ship next week.
Most people will claim that Zelda isn't an RPG, just an arcade adventure game with some power-up elements.
If you want to look at doing RPGs with limited computer power, I'd pay more attention to the PCs of the time. Console RPGs in the Square tradition didn't really take off until the SNES/Genesis, at least when compared to what was available on the Apple II. (Yes, I know Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior started on the NES, and Phantasy Star started on the SMS, but the first incarnations weren't very original.)
I never "got" Square games. Sure, they were among the prettiest out there, but as games they were clunky and repetitive, and as stories they were just silly anime plots with almost no interactivity.
In every Square-style console RPG I tried, I'd hit a "wall"--there would be some point at which I just decided it wasn't fun anymore, either because the incessant combat was no longer interesting, because the story had crossed the line into nonsensical, or because the game was unbalanced and I didn't feel like "levelling up" to correct the designer's mistakes. I never got that in Planescape: Torment (though Curst came close) or in Fallout.