I think it's pretty safe to say that the Dreamcast's library isn't exactly bursting with legendary role playing games. Naturally, there are some well regarded titles like Skies of Arcadia, Time Stalkers and Grandia II but in the grand scheme of major console releases, the Dreamcast's meagre selection pales in comparison to contemporary systems like the PlayStation; and even more so when pitched against the might of the Super Nintendo. To be brutally honest, this doesn't
really bother me because my affinity with RPGs is negligible. I'm not overly enamoured with the genre and much prefer to spend my game time playing racers, shooters and the occasional soccer game.
In recent times though, the vast majority of my free time has been spent guiding one Geralt of Rivia through the trials and tribulations of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, and so my hard and fast opinion of role players has softened somewhat. And while I realise that The Witcher III is probably more of an action RPG than a hardcore, turn-based affair, I think it is testament to the quality of CD Projekt Red's game that someone who doesn't generally dabble in that type of experience has become fully absorbed in the adventure. Also, according to
this Eurogamer article, the voice of Geralt lives just up the road from me so the experience is now extra special. I must also stress at this juncture, that the rumours of me camping outside his house and digging through his bins for discarded banana peels and samples of hair and/or skin are wholly unsubstantiated.
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| "Get away from my bins!" |
So yeah, the point I'm failing to make here is that the Dreamcast doesn't have many traditional RPGs. The ones I have mentioned are considered as the cream of the crop, and then there's Shenmue...but is that really an RPG? I guess it does have all the hallmarks of an RPG, and I'd personally be inclined to class it as such but I already get enough grief about these articles from the folk who just see the titles on social media, let alone the ones who actually take the time to click through and read the shite I write; so I'm just going to hold my hands up and say that I both agree and disagree that Shenmue is an RPG. It's both. It neither is nor isn't an RPG, at the same time. It's Shroedingermue. There's also Record of Lodoss War...which is alright I guess. But I've played that one for about 20 minutes in total and that was back in 2006 if memory serves, so I'm hardly qualified to say just how shit it is. Come at me, internet pettifoggers.
Let's get back on track though. You came here because you saw some bollocks on Twitter or Facebook about Silver, and that is what I'm going to give you. Silver, is an action-RPG developed by Spiral House and published by Infogrames in both Europe and the United States (but not Japan) which represents something of an oddity on the Dreamcast; what with its real-time combat and profanity-ridden script. Not that that's a bad thing when coupled with the glorious accents and intonation of northern England - a sacred part of the world from which the author of this piece hails. A land of milk and honey, a rich tapestry of dialects, patchwork fields and dark satanic mills that would put Tolkien's image of Middle Earth to shame. And by 'milk and honey' I mean 'late trains and broken gas mains,' by the way. Oh, and wider social decay and misery than has ever been described in a George Orwell penned, semi-biographical tome...but you get the idea.
