Strange but true. Deus Ex creator Warren Spector, who’s currently working on Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, recently talked about how these games were, in fact, inspired by the famous Japanese RPG Suikoden.
In fact, it could ironically be the first example of something that the Western RPG gaming industry loves these days: Player choice.
Spector states, “Without going into too much geeky detail, there are two moments in Suikoden where you are confronted with a choice. You are in the game world, and then a little box shows up in the corner that gives you a Yes/No choice. It’s ‘Do you leave your friend here to die or do you help him?’ And then at the end there is a ‘Do you fight your father? Yes/No.’ And, the thing was, in both cases it was a false choice.
“But I remember how powerful it was. I remember playing Suikoden, putting the controller down and going ‘Holy Cow, this has nothing to do with what the character would do, or the story, it’s who am I as a human being? Me? If that was a real choice, it would be the most amazing moment in the history of videogames, and I said ‘I’m going to make a game that has the most amazing moment in the history of videogames!’”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Source: Siliconera