April Edition Live Magazine - April 2014 Issue. | Page 22

Western RPG - ‘Ultima I: The First Age of
Darkness’ (1981, California Pacific Computer Company,

feature

Retro Games that Spawned Gaming Genres

Fighting game - ‘Street Fighter II: The World
Warrior’ (1991, Capcom)
The original Street Fighter game
received positive reviews, but did
not invent a genre of gaming like its
highly-refined sequel, Street Fighter II. It introduced the world to Ryu,
Sagat and other fighters, as well
as the series’ iconic special moves
(such as the Hadouken), but it
proved to be a rather boring game
with no lasting appeal. Enter Street
Fighter II: The World Warrior, which
contained multiple playable characters - each with their own fighting
style - as well as a much improved
engine over the first game.
The real strength of Street Fighter
II lies with its brilliantly designed
characters. Every character is an
equal match to each other in terms
of strength and advantages/disadvantages. It’s up to the player to
learn these advantages and disadvantages, as well as develop their
own tactics for defeating each rival
with their chosen character. Each
character also has their own arena and music to accompany them,
some of these became immensely
popular and have remained some
of the most popular music written

for video games, and even gave
birth to popular internet memes
(Guile’s Theme Goes With Everything).
Another important feature of Street
Fighter II was that it allowed players to fight each other, instead of
the standard pre-determined fight
patterns of computer-controlled opponents. While the original Street
Fighter contained a versus mode,
players were locked to using Ken
and Ryu, whereas Street Fighter II
allowed for far greater variety in local versus match-ups.
Street Fighter II almost singlehandedly revitalized the arcade
scene in the 1990s, as it was the
most popular arcade cabinet since
Pac-Man. Selling over 60,000 original arcade cabinets (not the expanded versions of the game that
came later), arcade owners could
not keep up with the demand for
multiple cabinets.
The Super Nintendo (SNES) port
of Street Fighter II was Capcom’s
highest-selling video game of all

time until 2009, when it was surpassed by Resident Evil 5.
The Street Fighter franchise has
seen a staggering amount of revamps, sequels and spin-offs, and
has seen a steady flow of releases
available in arcades and on home
consoles. It has had all manner
of licensed properties based on it
created, from a Hollywood action
movie starring Jean-Claude Van
Damme and Raul Julia, to comic
books, manga and an anime series
called Street Fighter II V (a personal favourite of mine). With Ultra
Street Fighter IV set to release this
July, the granddaddy of all fighting
games shows no signs of slowing
down any time soon.
The Fighting Game Legacy: The
Tekken series (1994-current), Soul
Calibur (1998-current), the Mortal
Kombat series (1992-current), Virtua Fighter (1993-2012) and the
Dead or Alive series (1996-2013).

Origin Systems)
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (which is often referred to as
simply Ultima I) revolves around a
quest to find and destroy the Gem
of Immortality, which is being used
by the evil wizard Mondain to enslave the lands of Sosaria. With
the gem in his possession, he cannot be killed, and his minions roam
and terrorize the countryside. The
player takes on the role of ‘The
Stranger’, an individual summoned
from another world to end the rule
of Mondain. The game follows the
endeavors of the stranger in this
task, which involves progressing
through many aspects of game
play, including dungeon crawling
and space travel.

The game was one of the first
definitive commercial computer
RPGs, and is considered an important and influential turning point
for the development of the genre
throughout years to come. It established many standard features
of the RPG genre (at least, many
of the beginning features) such
as first-person dungeon exploration, an overworld (a traversible
map which represents the game
world), experience points, and an
extensive character creation and
progression system, which included various races, classes and
stat points. Ultima I also features
hit points, experience points and a
currency system, which are staples
of the RPG genre.

Ultima I has been ported and remade countless times, as it was
in high demand for years after its
release. There are 9 games in the
main Ultima series in total, and it
has also seen numerous spinoffs,
including an MMORPG. Ultima is
easily one of the most influential
video games of all time.
The (Western) RPG Legacy: The
Elder Scrolls series (1994-current), the Might and Magic series
(1986-current), the Fallout series
(1997-2010), and many more.