Have strategy and RPG games ever really progressed beyond the simple circular concept that rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper and paper beat rock? At the heart of things, no, they have not. Why is it so appealing?

This easy to understand concept has been at the core of video game RPG's since the very early days of Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star on the NES. Sword is quicker than Axe, Axe does more damage than Spear, Spear has more range than Sword. It's trouble-free and fairly undemanding of the player. It doesn't really get much more complicated than that.

The use of elements, like Fire or Water is just a substitute for paper or scissors, sauce for the goose as it were. It does not matter how many elements or affiliations that you add, certain elements are weak to others and stronger against certain types. There is often garnish in the form of one element doing say, half damage, or doing damage and a half instead of double. But boil it down to the basic gameplay, and it's still the same.

Gotta beat 'em all...

There are certain newer ideas that are coming into play in strategy and RPG games that are proving to be something of a twist on the method. For example, an Earth attack on an Earth-aligned character or monster heals instead of doing damage. This means that characters without specific healing capabilities can restore their comrades to a fighting fit state without need to reposition your medic. Of course, instead of making this a stalemate when two similarly aligned characters fight, they just end up healing each other. These new ideas are only as successful as the games that use them, and as some quirkier ideas fall by the wayside, other ideas get taken up and used by titles across development teams.

Pokémon is very much guilty of the simple approach: any trainer worth his Pokédex knows that psychic attacks have no effect on ghost-type Pokémon and using Rock Throw will down bird-types in mere seconds. Why is it that this simple game based on a centuries-old design sells in buckets when released? The answer is padding. The game that surrounds the game is what matters.

There is no doubt that Pokémon is one of the most successful franchises ever to hit video game consoles, and the reason for that is because it combines two of the most important aspects of geek culture: collecting stuff and knocking the living daylights out of other people and the stuff they have collected. Combine with that the need for an encyclopaedic knowledge of the monsters, their types, their possible and probable move sets and you have a recipe for hours of game playing and endless nerd-gasms.

Final Fantasy is a similar premise; at its heart is this basic gameplay element that has remained unchanged. But this time the padding around that is an epic story and characters that you feel strongly about � love them or hate them, these overblown Japanese-style personalities at the very least will elicit some kind of emotion from you. The stories themselves are ripped straight from the pages of every and any cheap Manga novel you can read: silent and heroic men with their hidden pain, a loving and faithful woman unrecognised by the hero. Surround these protagonists with fun and quirky supporting characters and beautiful graphics, sweeping orchestral scores and you have a sure-fire hit.

Fire Emblem... or just a new form of chess?

All right, you'll have to excuse the generalisations about the Final Fantasy character types, but you have to accept that there is something quintessentially melodramatic about the storylines and characters. Nonetheless, these games are strongly scripted and work hard to suck you into the world you play in. There are certainly similarities between Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem, not only in the characters, but also the involvement that they demand from the player. We are only just really getting to grips with the Fire Emblem franchise here in the West, and it's a great shame that we have not seen them earlier in their lifespan.

Advance Wars is a game often compared to Chess, and at a more advanced level it's an accurate description. However, the game boils down at its roots to � you guessed it, Paper, Scissors, Stone. Every unit has an opposing unit with a corresponding weakness or strength that can be brought into play as appropriate. Once you get beyond this element, you get to Chess. Some units can only move in particular ways, the strategy of the ancient game comes into play when you move your units on the offensive and defensive. Sure, your Mega Tank can mow down all opposition in its path, but your infantry unit is the only one that can capture buildings, so you may have to relegate your best unit to drawing fire for a much weaker albeit more important unit.

There is no real reason to complain about the lack of change in this basic element of gaming, but what we should be looking at is the way that the games based around this system are built. Paper, Scissors, Stone is not a game to keep one's attention for long, so how is it that video games will keep us interested? How will they continue to evolve to maintain our interest? The answer is in the hands of the developers, and in some respects gamers themselves. Whatever new ideas we reward with good sales are the ideas that will be implemented in the next generation of software on out beloved consoles.

So support your favourite titles by seeding interest amongst your friends and colleagues. Spread the word on new ideas, otherwise it will really be a case of Paper, Scissors, Groan�

Iun Hockley
- N-Europe Staff Writer