Death of the RPG

[Fuu]

yeah tell me about that! Is the dungeon crawler/school sim i'm thinking it is?

[Kancho Assassin]

The forever retold "Mr Dumbfuck gets his extremely uninteresting personal shit together and in the end, with the power of love & justice, kills Satan-God threathing the land of swords and magic and spaceships" is killing JRPGs to me more than anything else.

Hmmmmm... you've got a point but I have to wonder if non Japanese RPG's provide any novelty in their stories either. I honestly don't think I've ever played an non-JRPG - does anyone know of any that escape the plot trap nevadash mentions?

After playing games such as Diablo, Baldur's Gate, and WoW, I can safely say, non-JRPG's seem to have more interesting gameplay and character evolution is NOT tied to the plot. JRPG's tend to have a quests that merely just move the plot, they are not optional and you can't refuse them in many cases.

In Diablo, the story is bare bones and just serves enough to get you slay monsters and the like. Your character has no backstory and if want your character to have one, just make one up.

[Apathy Wind]

rpg fanatics who like to complete rpgs 100% ALWAYS think it's a big deal.

This is true. But my point is that you have to essentially chose one character over another so it's not as bad as, say, missing Shadow in FFVI's World of Ruin.

Still, I don't have the time to replay the game over, although now I know who the hidden boss is, I'm just on the verge.... oooh decisions decisions

If you plan on replaying DDS1 you can 'remake' your choices to correspond to that end. Replaying the actual game doesn't take too much time since you have all your abilities - you can pretty much slaughter every encounter with a single Ragnarok.

Of course if you plan on facing the hidden boss be prepared to spend alot of time prepping (way more than just reaching level 99). And you might wanna peek at a FAQ to prepare for stat realottment. The battle itself is freakin hellish but it nets you a nice item in DDS2.

After DDS2, I'll be onto the newest Devil Summoner, the army of whatsisname. Anyone tried it?

I've heard it's more of an action RPG - I don't know how to take that. I have a back log of RPG's to play so I think I'm going to wait for a price drop on this and Disgaea 2 (so sense playing full price for something I might never play).

Persona 3 bitches! Persona 3!

Can't wait for the local release - it's my main videogame interest these days. Screw next gen, just release P3 already!

[Gunsmith]

Persona 3 bitches! Persona 3!

spring 2007 for those who don't read japanese
and for everyone outside of north america... hmmm

[SonicTempest]

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 9&from=rss

Interesting Slashdot discussion that's somewhat related to the topic of this thread.

On a related note, I've been watching my roommate play FFXII recently, and I must say that game takes farming to a whole new (retarded) level. Because the monsters don't drop money, my roommate had to farm skeletons for 2 hours just to be able to afford new equipment at the store. This is just the regular stuff that you buy for your party at each new town, and he had trouble affording it. Er, right.

And the way you obtain some of the uber weapons in the game is just ridiculous - for one weapon you need to specifically avoid opening 4 chests at the start of the game, then somewhere in the middle you come across 16 chests in an area, one of which contains the weapon (provided you didn't screw up). And of course the game doesn't even hint to you that opening a random chest might cost you a powerful weapon at all.

[Cascade]

The only instance of an RPG I've played that practically required the use of an FAQ in my recent memory is probably Suikoden V. The requirements for recruiting all 108 Stars and time limits on some characters made it very hard to get all 108 stars in one playthrough, and to really do it without FAQs, you would have to check everything and backtrack to every town to talk to each person after each event, or you would miss one character or possibly more. Of course Suikoden V was an excellent game, so I could excuse this.

KK: Eat shit and die. All J-RPGs feel generic? Most W-RPGs are MORPGs, then they all feel the same and have no real emphasis on plot, thus trivializing the experience and making it an exercise in munchkinism. But you go ahead and keep thinking that, since you've clearly got it all figured out.
Obviously you're just playing the wrong games.

Now, on the subject of FFXII, it was made by the Vagrant Story developers and YAZZ, probably the only real genius in Squarsoft. The fact that you can't just pick up money from monsters makes way more sense to me, honestly. The farming might be annoying, but the games made by that design team simply demand a level of patience and dedication that modern gamers do not posess. It's the same way with modern media: the attention span of the average person has degraded too much for them to see the value in something that takes a long time and a lot of hard work. That's why VS sold so poorly, when it was IMO clearly superior to all 3d RPGs on the Playstation up until that point, in all aspects. (Graphics, storyline, writing, localization, gameplay, combat system, cinematic quality and mood-setting.)

It's true, however, that game developers should not make such punishing puzzles. There should be a clue of some kind, regarding that sort of "ultimate weapon" treasure chest puzzle. I'm playing Valkyrie Profile 2; right now I haven't really even used the FAQs, but the game still sort of forced me to figure out how to make the Rune combinations work. Of course, since i actually have a modicum of patience, amazingly enough considering my personality, I figured it out quickly and on my own. But there are explanations on how to manage them in-game, just not immediately at the beginning, which is a little bit scary at first. It seems to take its time explaining various things regarding the gameplay.

What I really liked about Vagrant Story is that most weapons could be either found or made by refining from other equipment combinations. So even if you did miss that uber weapon, with the exception of the few ultimate blades you had to find or pick up from monsters, you could just make it yourself; and in fact, it would possibly be stronger than the dropped one because it came with affinities attached. There is one downfall of this system that makes people rely on FAQs: Since you don't know what will come of combining your blades beyond the first result, (I.e. you combine a wakizashi with an executioner sword and you see that it becomes some other blade in the result box. But you don't see what that weapon can make later, and you might end up cornering yourself with a powerful weapon that nevertheless cannot become something more powerful.) some people turn to FAQs to see the "recipes" for weapon combining.

But usually, I only turn to an FAQ if there is a segment I can't get past. Then later, on my second playthrough of an RPG, I may use them to attain 100% completion.

[Apathy Wind]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVES ....and rescue my daughter

anyway

I just read an interesting article on the state of the Final Fantasy series and I have to say that I agree with alot of the authors points. And since these arguments can be equally applied to any modern JRPG I thought it'd be worth discussing here.

So what are your thoughts? Have today's RPGs merely extended the effort required to obtain essentially the same rewards?? Does having (requiring?) a 770 page FAQ make an RPG good or bad????

Discuss

[Foxhole]

That's exactly what it is. RPGs are being made for an aging generation of gamers who no longer have the constitution to put up with the same bullshit they could half a decade to a decade before. At the same time, younger gamers just want the instant gratification of chainsawing something to death.

Though, that's just me, and probably the guy who wrote the article. I'm sure most people will go out and buy the game making it a massive success, then stop playing it half way through.

[Demon_Mexican]

Play through it once without a guide, then read a guide to see what you missed and determine if that's worth playing the game again or not.

Contrary to how it may seem, FAQs are not changing the way RPGs are constucted. Linear RPGs have always had that flaw of not being able to go back to a certain point and get a certain thing from whatever. Anyone with experience in the genre should know that going into the game. It comes down to tactical saving, and how much time you're willing to spend gathering resources in a place you'll probably never come back to.

What FAQs HAVE changed is that "gamers" are turning into pussies when it comes to figuring out things themselves. I remember one perfect example on the RE: Outbreak boards: a guy made a post asking for the password to a certain terminal, to which there are clearly clues given on documents scattered through the level, and people just gave him the password. And when someone asked how they figured out that password, guess how? They read it off a FAQ or asked someone else what it was. It's so ridiculous to think that the only real gamer among them was the one guy, the source, that figured out the password all by himself.

Knowing this, you think developers pander to those guys? Would you? Honestly.

Hahaha so true

[Tiamat]

The problem RPGs have nowadays is that people don't want to read

No, the problem with JRPGs (because I'm sensing this thread will be more focused on the japanese games) nowadays is they all feel too generic and unoriginal.

A lot of them seem to be following the same damned formula: Add a gay / stupid / angsty main character and let him join other gay / stupid / angsty characters, while following an apocaliptic / tv-novel / dorama story... OH! and don't forget the romance scenes!

yes =[

I for one could do without the "evil thing is going to be revived and we must prevent it at all costs > crap it got revived > oh wait high school kids killed it the world is saved" plot device which runs rampant through JRPGs

[SonicTempest]

IGN pours oil on the fire, and then 2ch responds by adding thermite:
http://kotaku.com/5450647/japans-2ch-re ... complaints

That aside, personally I think the only piece worth reading about 'RPGs' in the context of video games is this one. And of course its followup here.

[Gunsmith]

This should be posted on the main blog. ST, why not do a little write up of your own opinion and link to our thread here and the others you pointed out.

[SonicTempest]

I can certainly do that, although I wasn't aware you wanted stuff not related to SNK/KOF on the front page...

[Gunsmith]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2789

The audience said, "Fighting games" - RPGs involve fighting, so why not!

You'll need to register an account at the main blog, I'll upgrade it so you can post.

[SonicTempest]

The audience said, "Fighting games" - RPGs involve fighting, so why not!

By that token, almost everything is a fighting game :p

(Not to mention that RPGs don't need to involve fighting, but whatever)

To be honest I think the article I linked explains the topic of RPGs better than I ever could. I sat down to write something last night and realised that I'd just be regurgitating that article, pretty much.