JP: You talked about how the game's heroes have personalities. Are these randomized, so that they'll be different every time you play through, or are there certain set conditions within the game, especially in regards to the characters?

FS: There's a little bit of both. The names of the characters go through a little bit of randomization, but in some direct and some indirect ways, we let you steer them a little bit so that you can kind of customize them. The second or third time, you could import and continue from your previous game.

BS: I'm assuming not, but is it a persistent world that's always going, or is it just when you have the console on.

FS: It's just when you have the console on.

BS: Have either of you played Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida, by Acquire?

FS: Yeah. He's played that one.

BS: That's also kind of an RPG inversion, because you've got a dungeon, and there's a hero going through it, and you choose a path and the monsters try and get him and stuff. It's interesting that there are two games like that that will be out within a year. Do you think that there's a trend toward trying to play with conventions right now?

TT: For game creators, I think we've saved up a lot of frustrations. We feel like we've been waiting for a chance to change conventions, I think. That's maybe showing up around that.

Sony/Acquire's Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida.

BS: Do you think conventional RPGs are coming to a limit of what they can do, in terms of advancing games?

TT: I don't think that. RPGs are still a genre, so there's still ways to keep them fun. The problem isn't so much as that the genre has reached a limit as it is the risk of making one game is so high that it's sometimes prohibitive, in terms of being creative or taking chances.

JP: So you see WiiWare as the antidote to that?

TT: Yeah. I personally think the command [menu] type RPGs might be approaching a limit, because of all these expressive technologies. We may be reaching a limit.

BS: That's interesting. To me, it seems like traditional RPGs and first-person shooters and a couple of really established genres are all sharing this problem, where it's been established for a while, and now because they have to be so much bigger and better and reach such a scale that expectations have to be managed so much that it's harder to take a risk.

FS: Do you think that's the case in other genres too?

BS: Yeah, like sports genres, FPS...

JP: Platformers. Platformers have been pretty DOA for a while. Fighting games.

TT: I think it's all a matter of risk. It doesn't matter what the genre is. If the cost becomes expensive, they just can't take risks anymore. With a platform like WiiWare, maybe we can take on some risks and try some new things out.