The Citizen Kanes of Video Games

Games Radar attempts to debunk some analysts’ claims that there has never been a video game with as much impact on its medium as Citizen Kane was for the movie industry. Some of the games they point to as fulfilling such a role are Ultima III, Final Fantasy VII, EverQuest, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic…

Ultima III: Exodus

Pioneered: Free-range, turn-based, Dungeons & Dragons-inspired RPGs with multiple onscreen player characters.

Influenced: Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and nearly every JRPG ever made.

Why it qualifies: The great irony of JRPGs is that while most western gamers now see them as iconically, inflexibly Japanese they have their roots in American PC RPGs from the early ‘˜80s. The ultra-hardcore Wizardry series, for example, was hugely popular in Japan (despite never growing beyond niche status in the US) and was a driving force in the development of the earliest Japanese RPGs. But if you want to see the RPG that really set the template for JRPGs, look no further than Ultima. Specifically Ultima III: Exodus.

All the classic RPG hallmarks were cemented here: the top-down, semi-open world, parties made up of multiple characters with diverse classes, multiple onscreen player-controlled characters, turn-based battles and a coherent quest to herd players from one town or dungeon to the next. It’s also been cited as a heavy influence on the landmark Dragon Quest series, which in turn makes it a significant influence on nearly every single Japanese RPG ever made and the genesis of console RPGs as we know them.

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Pioneered: Semi-open-ended Western RPGs disguised as fully 3D quasi-action games.

Influenced: Mass Effect, InFamous, Fable, Fallout 3, nearly every post-2003 game to feature game-altering moral choices.

Why it qualifies: While some might credit KOTOR as birthing the idea of moral choices in games, the truth is that it wasn’t even close to being the first. In fact, everything it did was an evolution of earlier games by BioWare and Black Isle, including Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, the Fallout series and Planescape: Torment. The difference is that KOTOR was able to couch its gameplay and plot-twisting decisions in an appealing 3D package, give its turn-based combat an action feel and wrap the whole experience up in what’s probably the best-loved take on Star Wars in the last 10 years.

So while its less-flashy PC predecessors might have already blazed the trail for KOTOR, it did what they couldn’t: achieve mainstream popularity, thereby ensuring scores of imitators and the mention of its name every time a game tries to inject good/evil decisions into its gameplay. Like Ocarina of Time, it didn’t so much break new ground as it combined things that had already been done into something smart and sprawling and new. Add one of the best game-story plot twists ever, and its status as an influential classic is undeniable.