Seeing as I’ve played just about every (localized) RPG made during the 16, 32, 64 and 128-bit eras, I guess you could call me a role-playing aficionado. Sure, I enjoy a round of Ghost Recon over Xbox Live every now and then, but nothing drains away the hours like an engrossing romp through a faraway land. I must admit, however, that I do believe the genre ran into a debilitating roadblock near the end of the last generation of consoles. The creativity and novel gameplay mechanics that initially brought RPGs to the attention of the North American public dried up as the demands of this new audience changed.