Image created by Rob Howard for House Of Nintendo

If there is one genre lacking on Wii, it is the RPG. Of course, that's not surprising: The Wii, with its focus on ease of gameplay and being friendly to everyone, is probably not (for the time being) going to focus on stat heavy, cumbersome (but fun!) genres like role playing games.

In fact, in one full year of existence, the Wii boasts exactly zero RPGs. IGN lists some kiddie game as one, but when you click on the review you find that it isn't even an RPG- it was mistakenly tagged as one! Of course, you do have a few old school (very, very old school) RPGs via the virtual console.

Fortunately, we have a few RPGs coming down the pike in early 2008, as well as some major announcements regarding RPGs for the future beyond this year. So for the next few posts, we here at The House of Nintendo are going to focus on the role playing genre and how it is going to be represented on our little white box.


Image from IGN.com

Opoona, from Koei, features a story in which the main character, Opoona, must try to find his lost family. He will have to work odd jobs and interact with the society around him in order to earn licenses to travel to other worlds. This game sounds like it has some interesting sim elements, and perhaps a little bit of sandbox type gameplay. Also, it has a fascinating art style.

Here's IGN's Mark Bozon (in a preview article):

[Opoona] isn't your average RPG. In fact, it isn't your average Wii game, either. Published by KOEI (known best for the Dynasty Warriors franchise), Opoona is a Wii-exclusive traditional role-playing game that is light on the Wii motion, and heavy on classic design. We had a chance to sit down with the game recently, and while Opoona isn't what most gamers are going to expect, it's certainly a unique offering for the Wii crowd.

This game looks fascinating, but like Zak and Wiki I'm afraid the realism centric Western gaming community won't care. Well, I care, and I have March 25th circled on my calendar.

Read the IGN preview article.