IGN - A History of RPGs @ IGN

IGN has penned a four page editorial about the history of RPGs, both Western and Japanese.
It seems to cover Zelda as well as some modern and semi-modern JRPGs, like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. Mass Effect also gets a short mention as does Ultima.
A snippet from the beginning:

It sure wasn't pretty in the beginning. The modern video-game RPG hardly resembles its ancestor, which was a poorly assembled mass of pixels attached to a hastily written fantasy adventure. The earliest RPGs took their cues from the pen-and-paper world of Dungeons & Dragons and crafted those game mechanics into rough but playable digital quests dominated by text scrawls. Most of these early titles, such as Ultima, Gateway to Apshai and Wizardry, were playable via personal computer or early consoles and adhered to a similar set of tenets.

More information.

Any article on the history of RPGs that only makes a 'short mention' of Ultima isn't worth the bandwidth.

IGN again? They've passed the point of me even clicking links to check out their crap.

Yeah unfortunately it is a history of console RPGs to such exclusivity that it does not mention Daggerfall, Baldur's Gate, or other CRPG watershed games at all. It's a shame that they exclude nearly all of the influence that CRPGs have had on western RPGs in general - including more modern multiplatform titles.

They also fail to mention even commercially successful multiplatform titles that are not either North American or Japanese in origin. As such there is no mention of The Witcher 2 let alone the first Witcher game. Obviously then games like the Gothic series, which have had a non-trivial impact on the Western RPG scene worldwide.

It is impressive that the author could write a four page article with such artificially narrow scope and perspective.

What is IGN? Idiots given notice? This used to be a decent site, now it's one of the lamest places on the Web.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
Yeah unfortunately it is a history of console RPGs [snip] They also fail to mention even commercially successful multiplatform titles that are not either North American or Japanese in origin.

Which is an indirect hint towards who their target audience is (at least with this article).

And, on the other hand, it also reflects the NA RPG market, I fear.

Edit : It even has the title of :

A History of Console RPGs

Was this changed ? Or was it there from the beginning on ?

They changed the title rofl

Originally Posted by bloodlover
They changed the title rofl

Yeah I hadn't realized the word "console" wasn't in the title from the beginning, but yeah it was definitely added. They deleted a lot of the early comments on their site attacking the article as insufficient in the scope of its discussion and perspective offered by the author but you can still see some of them where they were suggesting different titles as being more appropriate.

i forever will never understand while the most overrated franchise (zelda) ever gets the rpg tag associated with it—you to can level up with hearts

The early Zelda games were very good for their time. I agree they're not RPGs though. They're action-adventure games, imo.

The release meter on IGN is still pretty handy.

The release date lists on Gamefaqs is better then that one since it shows release dates by region but it looks like the IGN one goes a bit farther into the future.

EDIT: After looking through the release date list it looks like it isn't very accurate and many dates are not real unlike Gamefaqs where most are real dates.

The new title works out fairly well - it is a decent list of console RPGs. An article that takes PC RPGs into consideration should definitely look different though, as Might & Magic, Baldur's Gate and similar must be included.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
What is IGN? Idiots given notice? This used to be a decent site, now it's one of the lamest places on the Web.

So true. Where's a shovel?