“War! that mad game the world so loves to play.” ~Jonathan Swift
We live in a world that is rife with war, conflict and utter discord. Everywhere we look we have escalated conflicts and issues spinning outta hand, innocents lives being snuffed out while the world leaders are pulling the strings. War has been tackled in video games dealing from war against sentient beings or depicting the violent edge of the World Wars in form of action games with emphasis on action on the battlefield. As such we have seen some brilliantly paced games from the likes Call of Duty to the Medal of Honor franchises where the player is dropped right in the middle of the action and quick reflexes and the run and guns tactics being the player best friend. As much as these games are high in the playability, you always feel there is a distinct lack of a cohesive storyline, engaging characters or a message of some sort and this is where I think action war games have lacked. The genre which has packed up a bit of the slack is the RPG genre.
RPGs tend to tell an epic tale of a band of heroes who are out and about trying to stop the evil tyrant from destroying the world, but once ever few moons a game company chomps the bit and bring about an RPG which deals with the issues of war. They make huge rosters of characters, an epic scale of the situations and of course an army. A rag tag team of characters are replaced by a huge army focusing on one goal while the story makes every battle, every skirmish deep with repercussions and undeniable tension.
In following paragraphs we have jotted down names of a few RPGs which revolves around wars and poignant stories about the people and soldiers involved in war.
For us at (xxxxxxxxx) we have always been a fan of the Suikoden series for its decidedly different approach to games story and flow along with tried and test RPG mechanics. What started out as a niche game franchise has exploded among RPG elites for the new features the series adds: for starters Suikoden games incorporates 108 stars from the Chinese scribes of Shui Hu Zhuan, which in terms comes down to recruiting characters for a common cause. What separates Suikoden recruitment designs from other RPGs is the staggering number of character which can be bought down under one banner i.e. 108 stars. Sure not all of them are playable but quite a of few of them act as NPCs or having significance to the story. And as such Suikoden stories have a lot of political wrangling, allies, treaties, POW situations that ties in together with the major story theme and that in turn leads to the game having the "war atmosphere".
Another feature that lends to the war ‘factor’ in the Suikoden series are the full scale battles which take place at sporadic times in the game. These are usually pretty simple take on the SRPG genre and are quite easy but when taken as a whole these battles really add to the war situation and really drive the theme home. The impending doom sort of situations or the fighting for survival are the themes which make these battles quite impressive in scope. And if you add in the base camps, eclectic cast of character in the players burgeoning army you end up with a pretty impressive war themed franchise.
War is a pretty complex theme to showcase in an RPG as the game developers have to carefully tread themes which are usually quite lofty to discuss in any case. Square Enix's Final Fantasy franchise often prides it selves on crafting impressive story lines, complex theme coupled with the supporting game play properties, but in the Final Fantasy cannon there have been two games which have directly presented a pretense and background of war. Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII have walked a path usually not reserved for a high end franchise (risk over bizness jargon), but as these games have ended up being really awesome, the risk was worthwhile. Final Fantasy Tactics was an ambitious game to start off with as this was a very different approach taken by the developers with its really strong narrative. The behind the scenes look at the politics, the ambiguity of allies and enemies, the deep background of history, a sordid and complex cast of characters and the epic main plot made Final Fantasy Tactics a stand out amongst its RPG peers and become a work of legend. Sure the level of depth found in the battle mechanics and job system coupled with its notoriously brutal difficulty and an awfully translated script has been talked about in full detail but it’s the game world’s history and the intellectual story that was the real standout.
In this regard Final Fantasy XII is an odd choice considering the character driven story but the whole atmosphere of war and invasion gave this iteration of the venerable series its distinct vibe. The world of Ivalice is steep in conflict and that hold true in Final Fantasy XII with the war between the mighty Arcadia and Rozarria and the small kingdom of Dalmasca. It’s this background that lays the ground work for the story which follows the exploits of a deposed princess. One of the basic theme of the story and the world of Ivalice was of alliance and that is how the main plot became much larger than the characters themselves. The epic nature of Final Fantasy XII politics and war really stood out on its own.
War themed RPG also has gotten a bit attention on the portable systems with notable entries of the Fire Emblem series on the GBA and DS or the remake of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP but one thing’s for sure, war on the go is a whole lotta fun. While one the subject there is one game series which technically isn’t an RPG but garners our attention due to the insane number of war mechanics in the game: The Advance War series. This military theme strategy series may not be a RPG but when dealing with so much detail in game play, one can only be impressed. The meat of the games are the battles which are filled with military terms and mechanics like Fog of War, troop placements, warring on different terrains or laying siege on a city or industrial compounds, it’s all there. The look of the game is really modern so expect to see units like submarines, APC, armored tanks, ground infantry or even fighter planes. This series showed how military themed games can easily be done a handheld, and if the game play is as addictive as Advance Wars, then you've got a killer combo.
If pointed out the aforementioned games have a few war angles but not the full war experience at it were, hence our last choice is Valkyria Chronicles. The game is the entire embodiment of the war machine with its reliance on an emotionally charged storyline rife with patriotic elements, back door politics and many fleshed out characters who have different reason to take up arms and of course military theme game play mechanics. This little gem was an easy choice for us as the amount love exhibited by Sega on this game is quite astounding. Let’s takes the story first: An fictional take on World War II; as the plot takes place on the continent of Europa where a massive war has broken out between the Imperial Alliance and the Atlantic Federation and caught in between is the small country of Galia. The story follows the exploits of not the army but of a local militia and it is this aspect which really is heart rending as the combatants mostly consists of regular people such as a baker, a bar maid, a farmer or a student. Some the exchanges of the main characters or how all the characters react differently to the conflict is quite inspiring as emotions are flying high and it all culminates into a moving narrative.
The war motif ventures much beyond the plot as the depth of the game play mechanics makes use of the said theme quite well. The players amass a large number of militiamen each having their own strengths and weakness, furthermore the solders are categorized into different of jobs ranging from infantrymen, elites foot soldiers to the snipers and engineers, hell the players even gets to use of a full size tank. There are terrain positions to think about, different strategy to partake in a given battle right down to requesting backup at the right time. Even during the non battle scenario there are recruitment centers to visit, training grounds for practice (i.e. used for leveling individual job category) and R&D facilities to go and perform upgrades on weapons and tanks.
Therefore Valkyria Chronicles become quite the odd beast as the whole game revolves around war: be it the story or the game mechanics. Personally Valkyria Chronicles has moved the RPG genre in the right as based on the game play but this game will linger in my mind for its plot, emotions and its characters. If Sega realizes the potential of this series it will surely give some of the big name RPG franchises a run for their money.
Tackling the issues of wars is a tough job at the best of times but some of the games mentioned in this rant do more than a commendable job in handling this sensitive matter. "War is Hell" as noted by the celebrated American Civil War hero William Sherman as it becomes a part of a nation psyche and party of a country difficult past. Most of the time RPGS tend to relies on a well worn track but if there are more bold developers who willing enough to explore the war business then most of us gamers will have a ball for sure.
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