Esper - Esper in Games

Esper in Games

Espers have appeared sporadically in science-fiction games from fairly early on, more often given its actual name in these than in most other sci-fi sources. One especially remarkable case is the Avalon Hill board game (later adapted to computer systems) Star Command, in which characters formally called Espers are available as support troops in infantry squads, and have abilities more or less matching the parapsychological theories of what an esper would be capable of.

Since the first installment in 1987, Espers have been a recurring group in Sega's Phantasy Star series; Part 1, 2 and 4 all featured important, sometimes playable Esper characters; the most notable being the character Lutz.

The term is used differently in the English release of Square Co. Super Nintendo role-playing video game Final Fantasy VI (released as Final Fantasy III in North America), in which beings called "Espers" are essentially demigods who wield magical abilities, and can be killed to allow these abilities to be transferred to humans. In the original Japanese version of the game, these creatures were known as 幻獣, (げんじゅう, genjū) which translates roughly into English as "phantom beast." The English translator of the game, Ted Woolsey, sought to find a word which he felt conveyed the same meaning with as few letters as possible; the English text files for the game were essentially expanded versions of the Japanese text files, taking up far more memory space than was available. In the end, he chose the word Esper. For more information regarding Espers in Final Fantasy VI, see Summon Magic. Espers also appear in Final Fantasy XII as disgraced deities and seraphs, banished from the heavens due to acts of rebellion, corruption and the desire to destroy life. There are a total of thirteen Espers appearing in the game: one for each sign of the astrological zodiac, and the thirteenth; Serpentarius.

Although both The Final Fantasy Legend and Final Fantasy Legend II featured a character class known as "Mutant", in the original Japanese versions of the games (Makai Toushi Sa·Ga and Sa・Ga2: Hihō Densetsu, respectively), the character class was Esper. In both games, the class amounts to spellcasters.

The Psychic type of the Pokémon franchise is referred to as the "Esper type" in Japanese versions. The psychic form of Eevee is called Espeon; this is also a reference to ESP (Eon is the suffix for all of Eevee's evolutions). In the popular Pokémon games, the psychic type gym leader, Sabrina of Saffron city and Elite Four member Will are known to be espers.

Espers are also present in Yu-Gi-Oh! Following in the line of Cybers (Cyber Dragon representing the Chinese dragon, Cyber Phoenix representing the Fenghuang, and Cyber Kirin representing the Qilin), a monster named Cyber Esper exists that has a telepathic ability to see the opponent's cards whenever they're drawn. Esper Roba is a character in the Yu-Gi-Oh series.

In the Accolade game Star Control 2, there are events where crewmen with "high esper ratings" react in interesting ways.

The Xbox game Phantom Dust has a group of individuals that include the main protagonist called Espers, individuals that have lost their memories but in return gain control over psychic powers (which include moving objects at will and manipulating/producing fire, ice, telekinetic blades, wind, etc.)

Espers feature prominently in the EarthBound series. In Mother and Mother 3, two characters who use these abilities are playable, while in EarthBound, there are three.

The Japan-only Kunio-kun game Nekketsu! Street Basket: Ganbare Dunk Heroes features a Florida basketball team called the Florida Espers. One member of the team is capable of teleporting to wherever the ball is and sending it to his team's hoop.

Esper is the name of a plane, one of the Shards of Alara, in Magic: The Gathering.

S4 League, a third-person shooter game means "Stylish, eSper, Shooting, and Sports." eSper refers to skills that can be held by the characters.