Japanese developers were at the forefront of this movement. Westerners were having their heyday on the PC at the time with RPGs like Ultima, Fallout, and Baldur’s Gate, but that’s subject matter for other columns. Developers from Enix and Square came to represent this enterprising spirit – these were the guys that had a vision for games. They had all these ideas and pushed whatever technology they had as far as it would go just to share a piece of that vision.
Man, how awesome would this city look if the NES had more than four colors?
Back in those days, I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of game I could experience if those limitations weren’t there at all. If it was possible to remove constraints and allow artists to fully express their settings, stories, and characters, what sort of game would emerge? This wild and fantastic question is still alive and kicking in the west. Developers on this side of the ocean are still pushing the envelope within the confines of current technology with games like Bioshock, Mirror’s Edge, and Rock Band. So what do we get in the East, the once-king of imagination and forward-thinking? We get exactly what we got last generation.
Does that mean they’re finished? Was Star Ocean: Till the End of Time the perfect representation of their artistic vision? Did it capture their expression so thoroughly that only minor changes needed to be made for Star Ocean: The Last Hope? If so, then I feel sad, because that means the development world has truly left the East (or Tri-Ace at least) behind.