Neopets The Darkest Faerie PS1 Pre Release: Thoughts - Rant
Written by Mileena

In the past, I've thought that if correctly implemented, a Neopets game could do quite well and expand beyond the current online fan base. From what I see there, I'd have to say that this isn't going to live up to its potential. First and foremost, I know that I'm definitely going to at least give it a rent, and I know that many people will buy it solely because it's a Neopets product; there's nothing wrong with that.

However, there's just so many problems I can see from what little is said about it on E3.

It's slated for release on the dying PSOne console. That's the biggest problem I see right there. With all the next generation consoles to choose from, Game Cube, X-Box, PS2, and even the Gameboy Advance(SP), they chose one that will truly be dead if it isn't already now. Before anyone goes off telling me that there's tons of PSOnes/PSXs already in peoples homes, how many of them actually get any play time considering that many of those owners, including myself, have already bought a PS2?

The consequences of this can be seen in the screenshots. It's horribly ugly. Albeit for the PS0ne the graphics are quite passable, give me a break. It's 2003 and no one wants to fork out money for something that looks so bad compared to just about anything else out today. It's makes me cringe to think that this was the best they could do. What were they thinking? That hey, even if the graphics are awful, the console choice was awful, if we can crank something out really quickly we can bank on fans buying it no matter how much it sucks.

If they had just taken the time, just one second, to learn about the Gaming industry, they'd realize that they've dug their own graves with this one. If they had chosen Nintendo's Cube, or hell even the Gameboy, they could count on sales from Nintendo's generally younger market. The Cube's price will drop to $100 dollars soon, if it hasn't already, that coupled with the fact that the new Zelda is a total hit would help secure them a decent audience. The Gameboy would be a great choice too because they could keep it relatively simple and easily accessible and if they profited from it, they could release a more complete title on the Cube.

X-Box would probably be a worse choice than the PS0ne, I'll give them that. The X-Box market leans toward hard core adult gamers with money to burn on things like X-Box live and broadband connections. But why not the PS2. Although it's backwards compatible and will play any PSX/PS0ne game, why not make this a PS2 game? Outside of Neopets, how many Playstation gamers are even going to glance at what appears to be a kiddie game for an obsolete console? With the choice they've made, their tunneling themselves into a small and decreasing target audience. Not to mention that PS2 has been out for a couple years and there's already talk of PS3. If you want a game to do well you have to at the very least aim for a broad market with the latest technology.

The most obvious choice would have been to make it a PC game. Like duh? C'mon everyone who play Neopets *gasp* owns a PC. Why on earth no one thought of this is beyond me. They could have even made it available to buy off the site. There could have been a downloadable demo so that anyone with an internet connection could give it a go. Hell, the entire thing could be downloaded off the site and people given a username/password/access code after they've paid.