Death of the RPG

by **Fuu** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 06:44

About SMT3, yeah nobody tells you 'ehi dood if you enter the Kagutsuchi tower you can't complete the kalpas!', but i believe it makes sense. Entering the Kagutsuchi tower(before completing the kalpa) means you have a reason, hence you are not following anymore the old guy advices/guidance. Hence he doesn't need/want to let you through his dungeons anymore. Infact the true demon ending is what i got the first time around!

And i was going to post something about secrets and Mortal Kombat, but nahh i tend to agree with the general sentiment.

by **nevadash** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 13:17

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.

by **Apathy Wind** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 19:21

nevadash wrote: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?

by **Sheba** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 19:26

nevadash wrote: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.

Statement of the year!

by **SonicTempest** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 19:41

Apathy Wind wrote:
nevadash wrote: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?

First thing that comes to mind is the original Diablo game. It definitely didn't end on a happy note...

by **-4n'Dant3-** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 13:13

Apathy Wind wrote:
nevadash wrote: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?

Killing mo-fuckin huge monsters at the end of every game is what defines the RPG genre. What else would you suggest? Plus, the Mr Dumbfuck is usually the main character, whose personal problems are always married with the plot. So to answer your question, I seriously doubt that's ever going to change. However, Vandal Hearts, FF Tactics and the SaGa series for it's incredible detachedness are probably as close as you're going to get to non-mentally fucked main characters.

These days, I reckon that the only thing that'll differentiate one RPG from another is its delivery and presentation. Real Time battle systems ftw.

But seriously, don't play the SaGa series. It'll hurt your brain. Maybe permanently.

by **Sheba** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 21:02

ShadowSonic wrote:
Apathy Wind wrote:
nevadash wrote: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?

First thing that comes to mind is the original Diablo game. It definitely didn't end on a happy note...

Legacy of Kain left us to choose between being Jesus and sacrifice ourself to save the world or being a big motherfucker and rule the world instead.

Soul Reaver assumed we chose the latter.

by **Fuu** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:51

Anyone played the Amiga rpg Perihelion(which had awesome presentation btw)?
The ending was like, yeah even though the airship moved away very fast from the site of the explosion, the radiations will kill our heroes in a few days anyway.

Website · by **0style** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 05:23

Gunsmith wrote:Unless I'm wrong of course.

There was a time when you could play an RPG and enjoy discovering things all on your own. Clues led to secrets.

These days it seems to me that clues are pretty much evaporated, replaced by the necessity to buy a guide book/read a FAQ.

The FAQ :also known as a walkthrough.

The problem with FAQs is that quite a few of them are written with spoilers all over the place.

Is that how you play an RPG now?

Read the guide first, learn everything beforehand, then just walk around, following instructions to the letter? That's not playing a game. Not in my opinion.

I write this after playing Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, after realising that after spending 100+ hours, that I've been denied completing my demon collection (stuck at 98%) and the opportunity to fight the bonus boss because I didn't do something. The game gave me NO INDICATION, CLUE or even SUBTLE HINT that this would happen, at all. There are quite a few things in the game that you would just not figure out, IMO, without having read the guide/FAQ first- which brings me back to my point about spoilers- even the FAQ can't avoid spoiling things, otherwise it wouldn't be coherent.

I don't expect FF7DOC to be free of this problem which only annoys me further. Am I supposed to play RPGs twice over? Once for the actual enjoyment of discovering things on your own then the second time to walk maps to all the secrets? Does anyone really have 200+ hours to spare on one game? I've noticed friends stopped playing RPGs for this reason- why spend so many hours on one game when you could play several? The reduced attention span of players today would also explain why RPGs are probably a dying breed- I don't even see many RPGs on the horizon- perhaps game companies believe they aren't as profitable as driving, dance or quiz games.

Grrrr - someone show me I'm totally paranoid pls!

OH HEY

i totally had the same thoughts as u, a few weeks ago, about faqs and missing shit in games. RPGs are just too time consuming for me now so i just buy the ones that look interesting to me now and will probably play them when im 65 years old. this will be a long looking post.

by **Gunsmith** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 19:10

after spending a zillion hours on smt dds and being told that it was safe to play up to a certain point I have just gotten stuck and read a faq, of course the eyes noticed something about

MAKE SURE YOU ANSWER THE DIALOGUE CORRECTLY OTHERWISE YOU WONT GET SECRET CHARACTER IN DDS2

*rages*

that's it, have to read FAQs from now on.

by **Fuu** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 20:00

Ah ah don't worry Gun it's not a character you're really going to use anyway.

by **Apathy Wind** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 22:56

Fuu is right, the secret character in DDS2 is almost completely irrelevant. If you didn't response 'correctly' in DDS1 you'll end up with another character that has pretty much the same gameplay and story relevance. Either way you'd be missing out on one of the characters so it's really not that big a deal.

by **Gunsmith** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 10:29

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

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

by **Fuu** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 15:57

I've yet to play that, but from what i gathered beside having the usual care in design and atmosphere, the real time gameplay is pretty repetitive. There is something interesting regarding investigation though, but i don't remember what.

by **Persona** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 16:27

Persona 3 bitches! Persona 3!

Death of the RPG

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