I am still standing by the fact that no rpg with "Final" in the title has had a good storyline. JRPGs are mostly like those old porn-games from the nineties where the player does stupid meaningless tasks to make another short cutscene of unimaginative wankery appear.
Final Fantasy XII has a great story. Political intrigue and whatnot, even.
Final Fantasy VI has an amazing story. You are a silly man.
You just don't know any better.
"What can change the nature of a man?" Ravel Puzzlewell.
I've played through Planescape: Torment about 10 times. It's definitely one of the best, if not THE best, CRPGs of all time. That doesn't mean FFVI doesn't have an amazing story.
Way to act like an elitist asshole, though, and everything.
Would you i rather i posted this as an example of Final Fantasy dialogue?
I am still standing by the fact that no rpg with "Final" in the title has had a good storyline. JRPGs are mostly like those old porn-games from the nineties where the player does stupid meaningless tasks to make another short cutscene of unimaginative wankery appear.
Final Fantasy XII has a great story. Political intrigue and whatnot, even.
Final Fantasy VI has an amazing story. You are a silly man.
You just don't know any better.
"What can change the nature of a man?" Ravel Puzzlewell.
I've played through Planescape: Torment about 10 times. It's definitely one of the best, if not THE best, CRPGs of all time. That doesn't mean FFVI doesn't have an amazing story.
Way to act like an elitist asshole, though, and everything.
Would you i rather i posted this as an example of Final Fantasy dialogue?
I am still standing by the fact that no rpg with "Final" in the title has had a good storyline. JRPGs are mostly like those old porn-games from the nineties where the player does stupid meaningless tasks to make another short cutscene of unimaginative wankery appear.
Final Fantasy XII has a great story. Political intrigue and whatnot, even.
Final Fantasy VI has an amazing story. You are a silly man.
You just don't know any better.
"What can change the nature of a man?" Ravel Puzzlewell.
I've played through Planescape: Torment about 10 times. It's definitely one of the best, if not THE best, CRPGs of all time. That doesn't mean FFVI doesn't have an amazing story.
Way to act like an elitist asshole, though, and everything.
Would you i rather i posted this as an example of Final Fantasy dialogue?
Wish I could, but, having played it about a year ago, I couldn't make it passed the first area. I'd rather have played Fallout 2 than that game in my opinion.
(FUUUCK I can't wait to be unjailed. Waiting 150 seconds per post is annoying as hell when you are trying to have two conversations at once!)
urahonky on
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
In a Western RPG, it is likely that if a character is screwed up, it will be explained if you put in the effort. In a JRPG, some random thing will happen and all the sudden this character will open up and magically flower into a normal human being after she (it usually is a she, isn't it?) reveals what happened to make her so weird... if you get any explanation at all.
That 'random thing' usually happens to be an integral plot point that connects with the character's past somehow.
For example, returning to Corel in pursuit of Sephiroth to find that the entire town hates Barret leads Barret to explain why they hate him and why he hates Shinra and joined AVALANCHE. This is not random, it makes sense. It also ties directly in to the main plot of the story.
There's pretty much an example like that for every character in 7. None of it is just them randomly sitting around and someone decides "oh hey, I will open up about my past". It's all triggered by a major story event, or visiting a place familiar to the character, or meeting up with someone from that character's past. I know it's pretty much the same in FFX, but I haven't played the game recently enough to remember specifics off the top of my head.
Whereas in KOTOR, as much as I like the game, you had to go back and make the rounds talking to everyone on the Ebon Hawk after you did each planet to progress in the 'learning about their past' conversation tree. It would have made more sense if instead of having to talk with Mission 6 times to trigger it, the story with her brother just happened as soon as you landed on the right planet. Or, you see her brother and then that prompts you to talk to her, or something. As it stands it's just you walking up to each party member and going "So! Tell me about your past!" How is that any 'deeper' than how character backstories are presented in FF6 or FF7?
Maybe it's just a BioWare thing, since it's basically the same in Mass Effect.
Have you ever gone to a place and then told anyone your complete life story because there is a tenuous connection between your current circumstance and your upbringing? Say you take a couple vacations in Hawaii. The second time, do you detail exactly everything that happened the first time? Why did you have to go to Corel in the first place? That's right - a plot device brought you there. In a movie, this same revelation in Corel would be called a few things. Melodramatic, hackneyed, Michael Bay's favorite method of characterization, etc.
The BioWare way of doing it exists for a reason - just like with real people, you need to show an interest in them for them to open up at all. The post-mission bits were also some of my favorite parts of the whole game, coincidentally.
Believe it or not, some people (me) don't like the openness of Western RPGs. The whole "Do anything you want!!!one!" isn't very fun to me. I was bored out of my mind from Oblivion/Morrowind/any other example, but I was easily able to put in 80+ hours on Persona 3.
It's funny that people say that WRPGs have better stories, because I sure as hell didn't see one in the 10 hours I played through Oblivion.
You know, everyone uses this scene as an attack against the game/series/genre, but you do realize that it was intended to sound forced and painful, right? It's the two of them acting stupid to blow off steam. I'm not saying FFX is a Great Work of Literature but I'm curious if you could provide another instance of what you consider insipid dialogue from the game.
RPGs, like any genre of game or book or whatever, have terrible examples and wonderful examples. Here's a scene from Final Fantasy Tactics (the PSP version, which did wonderful things with its retranslation) that stuck out for me: (Midgame spoilers)
Personally, I play RPGs to find out what happens next, but that's how I treat all games.
The strength of the turn-based paradigm is its potential for a more cerebral challenge than you find in real-time. With a potentially unlimited amount of time to consider each move, the potential exists for the players to get more involved in each individual decision. Unfortunately, this potential hasn't been fully realized for the most part, in both WRPGs and JRPGs. Because of the reliance on the health count (an intuitive and justifiable mechanic), the goal in any given combat is always "deplete every opposing unit's health points". Typically, the shortest route to that goal is consistent direct attacks and healing, a condition I refer to as a "shouting match". What we need to see is fewer abilities in the form of "+20% arrow damage" and more in the form of "under condition X, causes effect Y". Much like a game of chess, an RPG battle ought to be a network of conditionals for the player to navigate. It might be outside the realm of this discussion, but I think Guild Wars got this right. Many of the abilities only caused an effect under a certain condition, meaning players had to make sure that all of their abilities worked well together, both on an individual basis and in the party.
I will admit, however, that many contemporary RPGs offer a form of this ideal, in that you can spend half your time setting up your party, selecting the right skill branches, and so on. My only real problem with this is when the game doesn't let you recant a decision-- it's a form of Lost Forever. You may find out that, thanks to a poor decision, you can't win the shouting match, meaning you either need to level grind, revert to an earlier save, or start over completely. This happened to me more time than I care to count in NeverWinter Nights, and Final Fantasy 8 is also prone to it (though somehow I managed to avoid it).
tl;dr RPGs need more strategy in the actual battles, right now most strategizing is done between them.
Kupi on
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
You know, everyone uses this scene as an attack against the game/series/genre, but you do realize that it was intended to sound forced and painful, right? It's the two of them acting stupid to blow off steam. I'm not saying FFX is a Great Work of Literature but I'm curious if you could provide another instance of what you consider insipid dialogue from the game.
I only made it to 41 seconds in, personally. Is this the weird laughing thing?
RPGs can have great stories. But experiencing the story can be like trying to watch a serious documentary via google vids and a 56K connection. Ideas and concepts are broken up with so much 'buffering' that it becomes impossible to focus and enjoy.
As far as RPG elements go, I love 'em... but only the configure-all-kind-of-shit-thing, not the spend-time-leveling-up. The systematic approach to a game, embedded in an organic world- that's the RPG way. The world feels like a place from a real world, or an epic story, and the RPG elements give control over the actors.
But the thing that I like most about RPGs is the style! Epic summons, swords clashin', that stuff, and everything's under control. If it's done well, the RPG merges with the world, and there you are, walking in circles so that a talking pumpkin pops up which you can offer diamonds, but you don't care, 'cause it's all in the game. :whistle:
So, yeah, escapism. But also apocalyptic dragons firing nukes on the enemies. That too.
You know, everyone uses this scene as an attack against the game/series/genre, but you do realize that it was intended to sound forced and painful, right? It's the two of them acting stupid to blow off steam. I'm not saying FFX is a Great Work of Literature but I'm curious if you could provide another instance of what you consider insipid dialogue from the game.
I only made it to 41 seconds in, personally. Is this the weird laughing thing?
Yeah. It sticks out for a lot of people and it's pretty damning when isolated. Even in context it's not all that awesome to watch, especially on repeated playthroughs , but it's a small part of the game and I thought other parts of the game were nice.
I'll use "nice" because I'll admit I don't really play RPGs for the story, and I don't mind that a lot of RPG stories are very linear and presented very plainly in simple language. Kind of like what ProfMoriarty said earlier in the thread:
I used to believe wholly in the plot element of RPGs. I let myself believe that it was original stories that drew me in, but now that I'm older, I realize it wasn't ever the plot so much as the presentation. JRPGs have a certain storytelling aesthetic that appeal to me.
The RPGs that I like have an almost fairy tale/storybook quality to them. FFT is a pretty complex tale of political intrigue, but other games (like anything in the Tales series) are really rote and by-the-books, and if I'm in that kind of mood I gravitate toward RPGs. My gold standard of JRPGs is Dragon Quest IV, which is as formulaic plot-wise as you can get, but the simple sense of adventure and just roving from town to town to solve quests while slowly building up my characters is comforting and keeps me going back for more.
"Good story" is, IMO, a meaningless term. There is so much that goes into storytelling in games; everything from the initial concept and setting to the pacing, presentation, dialog and character development have to be considered and somehow integrated into a workable and fun game. Very few (if any) games manage to succeed at all of these elements completely, but most RPGs with "good stories" have at least a few areas where they excel.
RPGs can have great stories. But experiencing the story can be like trying to watch a serious documentary via google vids and a 56K connection. Ideas and concepts are broken up with so much 'buffering' that it becomes impossible to focus and enjoy.
That's a good point. Most RPGs have terrible pacing. I think that's why Chrono Trigger & Phantasy Star IV remain two of the best JRPGs even today; they were actually pretty fast paced with a minimal amount of filler.
I'm not sure about that. I like putting together the pieces of a larger story over time. I'm playing Planescape for the first time right now and I love each little incremental reveal of the Nameless One's past. I can't wait to find out what's really going on.
Thats not what I mean though. Thats a standard story telling technique. I've not played Planescape, but from what I've heard that game has few of the issues I'm talking about.
SMT games aren't anything special. Man those games do generate a rabid fanbase though.
Ever consider that maybe there's something there you just didn't get?
I've played SMT1-3, if, and Persona 1.
They're pretty good, but I think they are a bit overrated. The only thing I really like about it is the Dragon Quest Monster style demon fusion and the overall theme of choice and consequence that runs through the series.
I think the dye in the wool fans tend to overlook some of the problems with the games. Namely bland level design and poorly formed dungeons. They also tend to oversell the difficulty. None of them are much harder than your average DQ or FF game on normal, and usually hard just involves a few more cheap deaths early on.
SMT games aren't anything special. Man those games do generate a rabid fanbase though.
Ever consider that maybe there's something there you just didn't get?
I've played SMT1-3, if, and Persona 1.
They're pretty good, but I think they are a bit overrated. The only thing I really like about it is the Dragon Quest Monster style demon fusion and the overall theme of choice and consequence that runs through the series.
I think the dye in the wool fans tend to overlook some of the problems with the games. Namely bland level design and poorly formed dungeons. They also tend to oversell the difficulty. None of them are much harder than your average DQ or FF game on normal, and usually hard just involves a few more cheap deaths early on.
Well Persona 3 is harder than any of the FF games, honestly. I didn't find it too "hard", but I have a friend who's a die hard RPG fan, and gets his ass kicked in P3 all the time. It's probably one of the only RPG that he owns that he won't ever finish.
I don't get what he finds so hard about it, you just have to be careful on who you choose as your Persona.
I thought the consensus was that P3 is stupidly easy for an Atlus game.
Also I seem to understand how Atlus games work. I beat Nocturne on hard without ever dying, while I died a good ten times in FF IV DS.
I wouldn't call it stupidly easy, but I wouldn't call it hard either. It's just you have to actually prepare your team correctly in order to win.
In final fantasy you really don't have to. Your characters are generally set into a certain "class" and you're stuck with that. In P3 if you've got all weak to lightning personas and run into a lightning mob you're more than likely going to get fucked in the a.
Stuff like that can happen in FF VI-VIII where you have party set up for physical or magic and then you run into something immune or highly resistant to it. Big deal. :P
I do have a copy of FES lying around, I might give it a shot one of these days.
Good pacing is probably the most difficult to pull off in a game, simply because a developer/writer can't directly control what exactly the player is going to do next, as well the whole dungeon - plot point - dungeon - plot point syndrome that is almost unavoidable in RPGs. Persona 3 handled this in an interesting way in that no matter what you did the school year (and consequently the main plot) moved on at at the same steady pace no matter what you did. This left you free to explore around and develop the side plots (Social Links as well as just talking to random NPCs and your own party members, whose dialog seemed to change almost every night) at your own pace while still having the overall arching story hanging in the background. On the other hand, the slow but steady pace of the plot was a turn off to some people, and if the characters didn't grab you than the month long (in game time) time between major plot points was probably a game breaker. I'll link and quote from this P3 review that says it better than I can.
The slow pace of the game is not a killer, but it does highlight a kind of give and take - in exchange for a meaty, deep plot where you watch your team grow as people over the course of a year, through heartbreak, loss, and companionship, you get to experience every dang second of that year with the persistence and stubbornness of a Harvest Moon game.
Another interesting example is in Digital Devil Saga 2. The game employed the standard dungeon crawl followed by plot point that is so common in RPGs, but the entire game just felt so frantic (your characters are literally hunted by the entire world) and fast paced that this seemed completely natural and the only logical thing that your party could do.
Also, based on this thread and countless others I've seen, I really need to find a copy of Planescape: Torment.
EDIT:
I beat Nocturne on hard without ever dying, while I died a good ten times in FF IV DS.
This absolutely blows my mind. I beat Nocturne on normal without dying and am no newcomer to SMT, but Nocturne on hard still kicks my ass.
I like RPGs because they can blow up a tank and make the bigg wooshy sound when you shoot them. Also you can kill a Tyrant or any other Resdient Evil boss with one. And 1,000,000 monies gets you one that never needs reloading!
I like RPGs because they can blow up a tank and make the bigg wooshy sound when you shoot them. Also you can kill a Tyrant or any other Resdient Evil boss with one. And 1,000,000 monies gets you one that never needs reloading!
So what we've learned today is that different people like RPGs for different reasons, hence the reason why there is so much variety in the genre -- because we all have different wants, needs and desires when it comes to the sort of game we want to play -- and none of the reasons we like RPGs are wrong ... they're just different.
So what we've learned today is that different people like RPGs for different reasons, hence the reason why there is so much variety in the genre -- because we all have different wants, needs and desires when it comes to the sort of game we want to play -- and none of the reasons we like RPGs are wrong ... they're just different.
You people make me sick. You sound like lines from a self-help book!
What's not to like about rocket propelled grenades? I mean, it's a grenade right. Grenades are inherently cool in that they give one man the power to kill AND likely maim a large group of people without any assistance.
BUT: the grenade's PR people knew it was lacking something, and that something was a rocket engine. Toss a rocket onto the back of a grenade and you've got fun for the whole family. Remember those birds? So smug, just floating there taunting you with their immunity to your grenade mayhem. Well not anymore! You're down-feathered hind is MINE goose-boy! Who's honking now HUH?!?
Ahem, seriously though. The fundamental RPG: role playing game, is about suspending your disbelief and putting yourself in a role that is not your own. Why do people like watching TV? Why do people like to pretend they're someone they're not? Why do people read fiction?
*I* know why... But I'm not going to tell you because it allows me to control people and make money and I'm not giving the secret away. However, I feel your question in more in line with why do people like Final Fantasy games, or D&D/Fallout style games. But it's really hard to draw the line. Bioshock had stats and upgrades and character development, lots of talking and story, and even more than one ending! And yet, I'd assume the OP would not classify it as an RPG.
I think many people would classify an RPG as a story driven game. Whereas the point of the game is not seeing how many times you can spam two keys in 10 minutes or how many times you can shoot a rocket or sniper rifle at a moving target; the point is the story. I like story, so I like RPGs. But, just like literature and film, there are many MANY games that fail to tell good stories in an interesting manner.
Character development is a major part of any good story, as a result, many RPGs have characters develop withing the game mechanics (upgrades, levels, etc...). This often has an added benefit of helping a player customize a character so they may better identify with them. That said, there are many 'tactics' games that focus more on complex combat models that have developed from RPGs than the story.
In short:
People really and truly play true RPGs for an interesting story. However, many RPGs are played for their interesting game mechanics or progression systems. Basically, people play RPGs for all the same reasons as everyone else.
I've always considered a game to be in the RPG genre if it has exp and leveling. Then you get into subgenres such as JRPG, WRPG, SRPG, BSRPG, and so on. Then like a genre above RPG you'd have epic, which also has stuff like the Zelda games, where you don't have exp but still have gold and an inventory and whatnot. Of course at this point so many game of different genres have those things that epic is a fairly obsolete term, but I remember back in the day when Nintendo Power had their Epic games section.
Basically what I'm saying is that I don't think that saying you play a role in a game can anyway definite a game as an RPG because then pretty much every game ever could be considered and RPG and that's just silly.
Also, I remembered I played Oblivion and didn't like that at all either.
So what we've learned today is that different people like RPGs for different reasons, hence the reason why there is so much variety in the genre -- because we all have different wants, needs and desires when it comes to the sort of game we want to play -- and none of the reasons we like RPGs are wrong ... they're just different.
You people make me sick. You sound like lines from a self-help book!
I got more than I expected when I started this topic! Thanks to all those kind of enough to explain why they like RPGs; I've certainly learned a lot more about them.
AuburnTiger on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I thought the consensus was that P3 is stupidly easy for an Atlus game.
Also I seem to understand how Atlus games work. I beat Nocturne on hard without ever dying, while I died a good ten times in FF IV DS.
That's genuinely impressive. I've died maybe twice in FFIV so far, and I saw the angels leading the Demi-Fiend to the afterlife no shortage of twenty times during a normal run of Nocturne.
I think they're completely different kinds of games, though. Bosses in Final Fantasies tend to be pretty consistent. Take, say, Scarmiglione. He's weak against fire. Keep using fire, heal when he brings the pain, repeat.
Compare that to someone like the final boss from Digital Devil Saga 2. It has six different forms, so you have to constantly switch out the right players with their appropriate elemental weaknesses/strengths, and exploit the boss to kill it.
(Then again, there's also the Cerberus in DDS1, which is made of fire and has no weaknesses, which is basically just Atlus saying 'screw you'.)
FF is more traditional, SMT games are more strategic. Both can vary from case to case, but I think this is the main difference.
Anyway, to the OP, I think RPGs have types of stories that other games don't come close to presenting. The likes of Parasite Eve and Nocturne are about as unique as storylines get.
Of course, there's also western games that can be just as unique(Bloodlines, Dreamfall), but to completely ignore one style of game means you're only going to miss out when the special example comes along.
I really like solo RPGs. Having to manage my party members just annoys me(Baldur's Gate). So I really like games like Deus Ex, Bloodlines, Fallout (selling anyone stupid enough to join me to slavers), System Shock 2, you get the idea. On the Japanese front, Square-Enix makes some fine games that have simple enough party management that it doesn't bug me.
The main thing in RPGs is the ability to tackle obstacles from different ways, to customize your character(s) to your liking, and to gradually grow in power and abilities (thus increasing your options) until you finally face off with the antagonist.
Posts
They (mostly) have gorgeous graphics, wonderful music and a fantastic, colourful art style.
I don't have to worry about any bald space marines there.
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
Would you i rather i posted this as an example of Final Fantasy dialogue?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU8-e-C4Uy0
Yes, because as you can see, I clearly referenced Final Fantasy X in my post.
Here's one of the games I actually mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sfr2Q3eQLw
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I'm sure we could post a terrible part of any good book if you wanted us to.
(FUUUCK I can't wait to be unjailed. Waiting 150 seconds per post is annoying as hell when you are trying to have two conversations at once!)
RPGS: East vs. West
Exactly.
We defeated them in WW2 and we can do it again!
Have you ever gone to a place and then told anyone your complete life story because there is a tenuous connection between your current circumstance and your upbringing? Say you take a couple vacations in Hawaii. The second time, do you detail exactly everything that happened the first time? Why did you have to go to Corel in the first place? That's right - a plot device brought you there. In a movie, this same revelation in Corel would be called a few things. Melodramatic, hackneyed, Michael Bay's favorite method of characterization, etc.
The BioWare way of doing it exists for a reason - just like with real people, you need to show an interest in them for them to open up at all. The post-mission bits were also some of my favorite parts of the whole game, coincidentally.
It's funny that people say that WRPGs have better stories, because I sure as hell didn't see one in the 10 hours I played through Oblivion.
"Teh gatez are opening! Close them!"
"Okay."
"MOAR GAETS!!! HURRY YOU ARE R ONLY HOPE!!"
"Done."
"Some. MOAR. GATES!"
"I'm leaving."
You know, everyone uses this scene as an attack against the game/series/genre, but you do realize that it was intended to sound forced and painful, right? It's the two of them acting stupid to blow off steam. I'm not saying FFX is a Great Work of Literature but I'm curious if you could provide another instance of what you consider insipid dialogue from the game.
RPGs, like any genre of game or book or whatever, have terrible examples and wonderful examples. Here's a scene from Final Fantasy Tactics (the PSP version, which did wonderful things with its retranslation) that stuck out for me: (Midgame spoilers)
Delita and Ovelia
The strength of the turn-based paradigm is its potential for a more cerebral challenge than you find in real-time. With a potentially unlimited amount of time to consider each move, the potential exists for the players to get more involved in each individual decision. Unfortunately, this potential hasn't been fully realized for the most part, in both WRPGs and JRPGs. Because of the reliance on the health count (an intuitive and justifiable mechanic), the goal in any given combat is always "deplete every opposing unit's health points". Typically, the shortest route to that goal is consistent direct attacks and healing, a condition I refer to as a "shouting match". What we need to see is fewer abilities in the form of "+20% arrow damage" and more in the form of "under condition X, causes effect Y". Much like a game of chess, an RPG battle ought to be a network of conditionals for the player to navigate. It might be outside the realm of this discussion, but I think Guild Wars got this right. Many of the abilities only caused an effect under a certain condition, meaning players had to make sure that all of their abilities worked well together, both on an individual basis and in the party.
I will admit, however, that many contemporary RPGs offer a form of this ideal, in that you can spend half your time setting up your party, selecting the right skill branches, and so on. My only real problem with this is when the game doesn't let you recant a decision-- it's a form of Lost Forever. You may find out that, thanks to a poor decision, you can't win the shouting match, meaning you either need to level grind, revert to an earlier save, or start over completely. This happened to me more time than I care to count in NeverWinter Nights, and Final Fantasy 8 is also prone to it (though somehow I managed to avoid it).
tl;dr RPGs need more strategy in the actual battles, right now most strategizing is done between them.
I only made it to 41 seconds in, personally. Is this the weird laughing thing?
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
But the thing that I like most about RPGs is the style! Epic summons, swords clashin', that stuff, and everything's under control. If it's done well, the RPG merges with the world, and there you are, walking in circles so that a talking pumpkin pops up which you can offer diamonds, but you don't care, 'cause it's all in the game. :whistle:
So, yeah, escapism. But also apocalyptic dragons firing nukes on the enemies. That too.
Yeah. It sticks out for a lot of people and it's pretty damning when isolated. Even in context it's not all that awesome to watch, especially on repeated playthroughs
I'll use "nice" because I'll admit I don't really play RPGs for the story, and I don't mind that a lot of RPG stories are very linear and presented very plainly in simple language. Kind of like what ProfMoriarty said earlier in the thread:
The RPGs that I like have an almost fairy tale/storybook quality to them. FFT is a pretty complex tale of political intrigue, but other games (like anything in the Tales series) are really rote and by-the-books, and if I'm in that kind of mood I gravitate toward RPGs. My gold standard of JRPGs is Dragon Quest IV, which is as formulaic plot-wise as you can get, but the simple sense of adventure and just roving from town to town to solve quests while slowly building up my characters is comforting and keeps me going back for more.
That's a good point. Most RPGs have terrible pacing. I think that's why Chrono Trigger & Phantasy Star IV remain two of the best JRPGs even today; they were actually pretty fast paced with a minimal amount of filler.
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I'ld go on, but I've got to go.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
I've played SMT1-3, if, and Persona 1.
They're pretty good, but I think they are a bit overrated. The only thing I really like about it is the Dragon Quest Monster style demon fusion and the overall theme of choice and consequence that runs through the series.
I think the dye in the wool fans tend to overlook some of the problems with the games. Namely bland level design and poorly formed dungeons. They also tend to oversell the difficulty. None of them are much harder than your average DQ or FF game on normal, and usually hard just involves a few more cheap deaths early on.
Well Persona 3 is harder than any of the FF games, honestly. I didn't find it too "hard", but I have a friend who's a die hard RPG fan, and gets his ass kicked in P3 all the time. It's probably one of the only RPG that he owns that he won't ever finish.
I don't get what he finds so hard about it, you just have to be careful on who you choose as your Persona.
Also I seem to understand how Atlus games work. I beat Nocturne on hard without ever dying, while I died a good ten times in FF IV DS.
I wouldn't call it stupidly easy, but I wouldn't call it hard either. It's just you have to actually prepare your team correctly in order to win.
In final fantasy you really don't have to. Your characters are generally set into a certain "class" and you're stuck with that. In P3 if you've got all weak to lightning personas and run into a lightning mob you're more than likely going to get fucked in the a.
I do have a copy of FES lying around, I might give it a shot one of these days.
Another interesting example is in Digital Devil Saga 2. The game employed the standard dungeon crawl followed by plot point that is so common in RPGs, but the entire game just felt so frantic (your characters are literally hunted by the entire world) and fast paced that this seemed completely natural and the only logical thing that your party could do.
Also, based on this thread and countless others I've seen, I really need to find a copy of Planescape: Torment.
EDIT: This absolutely blows my mind. I beat Nocturne on normal without dying and am no newcomer to SMT, but Nocturne on hard still kicks my ass.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
We have a winner!
You people make me sick. You sound like lines from a self-help book!
BUT: the grenade's PR people knew it was lacking something, and that something was a rocket engine. Toss a rocket onto the back of a grenade and you've got fun for the whole family. Remember those birds? So smug, just floating there taunting you with their immunity to your grenade mayhem. Well not anymore! You're down-feathered hind is MINE goose-boy! Who's honking now HUH?!?
Ahem, seriously though. The fundamental RPG: role playing game, is about suspending your disbelief and putting yourself in a role that is not your own. Why do people like watching TV? Why do people like to pretend they're someone they're not? Why do people read fiction?
*I* know why... But I'm not going to tell you because it allows me to control people and make money and I'm not giving the secret away. However, I feel your question in more in line with why do people like Final Fantasy games, or D&D/Fallout style games. But it's really hard to draw the line. Bioshock had stats and upgrades and character development, lots of talking and story, and even more than one ending! And yet, I'd assume the OP would not classify it as an RPG.
I think many people would classify an RPG as a story driven game. Whereas the point of the game is not seeing how many times you can spam two keys in 10 minutes or how many times you can shoot a rocket or sniper rifle at a moving target; the point is the story. I like story, so I like RPGs. But, just like literature and film, there are many MANY games that fail to tell good stories in an interesting manner.
Character development is a major part of any good story, as a result, many RPGs have characters develop withing the game mechanics (upgrades, levels, etc...). This often has an added benefit of helping a player customize a character so they may better identify with them. That said, there are many 'tactics' games that focus more on complex combat models that have developed from RPGs than the story.
In short:
People really and truly play true RPGs for an interesting story. However, many RPGs are played for their interesting game mechanics or progression systems. Basically, people play RPGs for all the same reasons as everyone else.
Origin: Viycktor
Basically what I'm saying is that I don't think that saying you play a role in a game can anyway definite a game as an RPG because then pretty much every game ever could be considered and RPG and that's just silly.
Also, I remembered I played Oblivion and didn't like that at all either.
Hey man, I'm okay.
And I guess you're okay, too. Kinda.
That's genuinely impressive. I've died maybe twice in FFIV so far, and I saw the angels leading the Demi-Fiend to the afterlife no shortage of twenty times during a normal run of Nocturne.
I think they're completely different kinds of games, though. Bosses in Final Fantasies tend to be pretty consistent. Take, say, Scarmiglione. He's weak against fire. Keep using fire, heal when he brings the pain, repeat.
Compare that to someone like the final boss from Digital Devil Saga 2. It has six different forms, so you have to constantly switch out the right players with their appropriate elemental weaknesses/strengths, and exploit the boss to kill it.
(Then again, there's also the Cerberus in DDS1, which is made of fire and has no weaknesses, which is basically just Atlus saying 'screw you'.)
FF is more traditional, SMT games are more strategic. Both can vary from case to case, but I think this is the main difference.
Anyway, to the OP, I think RPGs have types of stories that other games don't come close to presenting. The likes of Parasite Eve and Nocturne are about as unique as storylines get.
Of course, there's also western games that can be just as unique(Bloodlines, Dreamfall), but to completely ignore one style of game means you're only going to miss out when the special example comes along.
The main thing in RPGs is the ability to tackle obstacles from different ways, to customize your character(s) to your liking, and to gradually grow in power and abilities (thus increasing your options) until you finally face off with the antagonist.