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Gaming used to be a bastion for us anti-social recluses. Don’t have anyone to hang out with on a friday night? No problem, Cloud and the rest of the Final Fantasy 7 gang will quell your solace. Well no more I say! Okay, maybe I’m exaterating a bit here. I thought it was a really neat idea when I heard that Tales of Symphonia would have a multiplayer option.
Now five years later, with the new Dragon Quest IX supporting multiplayer also it makes me wonder if we’re going to be straying away from single player games in the future. Its obvious to anyone how much multiplayer games have evolved and grown exponentially these past couple years. Granted it seems to be just local multiplayer, but multiplayer of any form is normally a rarity in a jrpg.
Some of my most favorite gaming memories are from playing through single player rpgs. With that said I think the thought of adding multiplayer into more traditionally single player games is exciting. As long as the game doesn’t punish you for playing single player then I’m all for it. I’ve spent many a days watching friends play through games when I was younger. Even if its just a minor role in the game, having something for the other person to control is nice in any game.
I remember how cool I thought it was to control Tails in.. Sonic 2 I believe it was. Nintendo even added a bit of that to Mario Galaxy, allowing players to use a second wiimote to collect those star bit thingies. All in all I don’t see any real big change coming to the gaming scene in the next couple years. But small details such as controlling Tails in the earlier Sonic games is what makes nice gaming memories.