The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Are final fantasy games really role playing games?
GoldAgainstTheSoul
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm having a debate in the office about if FF is a RPG or not. A lot of people are ganging up on me and saying, "of course it is." This one fellow is saying that the combat system makes it a rpg because it allows you to customize your avatar? But by that definition, isn't a hack and slash an RPG? or a resident evil game?
Also, does clicking a potion in a scripted combat really make a game an RPG?
Do you really play a "role" when you have 4 scripted game types (damage dealer, healer, ranged mage, ect.) and you simply update their skill sat every step?
Basically, in FF games you just update the same spell over and over. You can't really play through the game with a completely different combat setup and still beat it. You have to upgrade and level up the main players that are best to beat the big bosses. The rest is just busy work to unlock a few odd spells.
Isn't final fantasy basically like playing a choose your adventure novel, or watching an interactive movie with a predetermined fate?
What makes it a role playing game?
What makes oblivion a role playing game?
Where is the role?
Also, does clicking a potion in a scripted combat really make a game an RPG?
Do you really play a "role" when you have 4 scripted game types (damage dealer, healer, ranged mage, ect.) and you simply update their skill sat every step?
Basically, in FF games you just update the same spell over and over. You can't really play through the game with a completely different combat setup and still beat it. You have to upgrade and level up the main players that are best to beat the big bosses. The rest is just busy work to unlock a few odd spells.
Isn't final fantasy basically like playing a choose your adventure novel, or watching an interactive movie with a predetermined fate?
What makes it a role playing game?
What makes oblivion a role playing game?
Where is the role?
GoldAgainstTheSoul on
0
Posts
is that a role?
As I said in another thread recently, it was like playing a Korean MMO offline. Tons of grinding, not much story.
Wouldn't every game be a role-playing game then?
you pretend you're kissing a fake girl and have a bad attitude.
do you act the game out or?
again, that's like watching a movie and pretending you a spartan in 300.
NOt an rpg.
Right, Second Life and MMOs. However in most MMOs, people choose not to exercise the ability to roleplay.
I'm not saying they don't exist. Fable is a role playing game.
I'm saying what we refer to as RPGs in the classic context (final fantasy) isn't.
Fable doesn't go nearly far enough to be considered one either.
I'm not really understanding. By this definition, what games are examples of RPGs? Every game I think of has fairly linear story but maybe a handful of endings. Except MMORPGs and sandbox games like the Sims.
SSB code- 0216-0856-6886 PM me so I can add you
Tabletop games and Final Fantasy have the following things in common: Power Levels, Experience Points, Vital Statistics (STR, DEX that sort of thing, as well as hit points, life), body slots for equipment, items, turn based combat, etc.
Some action RPGs like, say, The Legend of Zelda abstract these qualities a bit. A heart container stands in for an Experience Level and Hit Points, for instance.
Basically, things get classified as an RPG if they have more in common with traditional RPGs than with other genres.
But in WOW you play a role in a fight.
You play the healer in that you actively preform efficent healing.
that's a role - if it's not immersion story telling but that's ok.
in FF you play a party with different spell choices, a more complex version of a hack and slash. A party that has no chance to alter in any form.
To me, the modern "RPG" descriptor for a game suggests controlling one or more characters (which you may or may not create yourself) through a story which may or may not branch out, but is pretty much always going to be largely the same, with combat/gameplay that involves the slow advancement of skills/stats such that your own individual "skill" is less important than the "skill" of the character you are playing.
This is why I wouldn't consider something like Zelda an RPG. Since gameplay is largely dependant on you being good at the game, rather than Link being powerful.
One thing that should be clear is that no modern PC/console RPG shares more than a passing resemblance to actual role-playing, because the dynamic aspect that requires constant supervision (in the form of a DM or similar) simply is not present, so a large number of things will be set in stone from the beginning, which is the opposite of a good tabletop game.
edit: Gold, is English your first language? I have no intention of insulting you, but I'm having a hard time understanding some of your posts.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
But FF isn't.
I love FF, though.
That's what I use too.
That or: Do I gain exp/money from killing mobs? Do I use that to make myself stronger?
if you don't mind, i'd like to take the semantic a step further and call all my games "push buttons, make things happen" games.
SSB code- 0216-0856-6886 PM me so I can add you
Do i gain XP from killing things, to level up and gain stats increase, or just stats increase?
i.e. FF, WoW, ect.
zelda is more action adventure to me.
It's like watching a slow paced and repetitive cartoon with crappy animation. The main differences is that FF provides limited interactivity (or the illusion of it) for immersion.
I try not to object to things that are true, but that is a little wordy, don't you think?
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I agree with you 100 percent.
well, my Wii games are a little easier. they're "lol waggle" games.
SSB code- 0216-0856-6886 PM me so I can add you
I laughed.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
But then I wouldn't be playing the role. :P
Role-playing, in games and otherwise, would be were you yourself interpret a character and act accordingly. That's the core gameplay. Stats, character creation and combat are not essential to role playing games by this definition. It annoys me when games are said to have "RPG elements" because they have character levels.
FF would not be role playing games, because your avatar's actions are already decided without your input. Biowares RPGs come a lot closer, even though dialog options are limited to a handful in each situation.
Sorry, but this argument is irrelevant and always will be. The only necessary quality for a "Role-Playing Game" as relates to video game properties is that you have a character that grows statistically, via levels or skills/abilities, etc. etc.
This definition has existed since the early 1980s and has yet to be modified.
While I agree with the spirit of your argument, this whole thread is nonsense because people are just whining about an already-accepted genre definition. This thread is the equivalent of whining that tables should be called "fonjgwabbers" instead. It's an arbitrary genre definition.
Every FF I have played (5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12) I never use Ranged Mages. Nor do I use Healers. Nor do I use Summons.
I use the set-up of 4 Damage dealers, one of which might know a healing spell or two. Saying you can't beat the game with diffrent combat set-up's is ridiculous since I normally use about 1 summon the enitre time I'm playing the game. I don't like using my MP so I don't and the games are just as easy, if not easier, with only characters that attack and use items. About 80% of RPG's for me I pressing the attack button, the only RPG I've played that really forced me to use magic was Digital Devil Saga. And on the odd chance that I need to look up how/where to do something in the game online, walkthru's always say I should be about 10 levels higher then I am, but I still beat the parts with only attacking.
Magic that changes status effects/deals damage is NOT your friend in a FF game.
If you want to get technical, you do direct their actions, just not their dialogue. You decide when they go along in the party and what actions they take in combat. If you want to get into it, you could, for instance, refuse to use Magic for Terra in Final Fantasy VI until she comes to understand her powers and her past.
Console RPGs are typically RPGs in mechanics if not in story.