Bioware: FF13 is not an RPG

[Gasaraki]

Final Fantasy XIII is definitely not an rpg, even the developers likened it to a shooter and i thought it rather like a long cgi movie full of emoness.
I mean seriously, try comparing FF13 to a brilliant jrpg like Chrono trigger.
I picked up CT on ds a week ago and i thought to myself: Holy shit, compared to this ff13 isn't even a game.

 

[Sephychu]

Meh. Doesn't have to fit into the parameters of an RPG to be fun. It is fun.

 

[Project_Omega]

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/8006/bioware-you-can-put-a-j-in-front-of-it-but-final-fantasy-13-isnt-an-rpg

Bioware's Daniel Erickson:
Well, before I address the main point I just want to take a slightly more controversial route: You can put a 'J' in front of it, but it's not an RPG. You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character... I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe? But they're not RPG's."

I tend to agree but that's my opinion.

Wasn't it the Japanese who came UP with the first RPG's? (video game wise)

EDIT: Okay....thanks to everyone for clearing that up for me

Japanese crap never made sense, and Bioware, Blizzard and Black Isle, now these are the best RPG makers you can get. Rpg is making a character and becoming that character, evolving that character however you want and the more realistic it is the more you feel LIKE the character and therefore it is better! I dont feel like the character when I play an underage japanese big eye boy holding a buster 10ft tall moofafoking sword. Also they are very boring, especially the turn taking and they lack of a good environment and a sensible story. Thank you, thats all I got to say!

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/8006/bioware-you-can-put-a-j-in-front-of-it-but-final-fantasy-13-isnt-an-rpg

Bioware's Daniel Erickson:
Well, before I address the main point I just want to take a slightly more controversial route: You can put a 'J' in front of it, but it's not an RPG. You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character... I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe? But they're not RPG's."

I tend to agree but that's my opinion.

... That was pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Roleplaying game does not meant "Create your own character and live it out".
A good roleplayer can put him/herself into any character ROLE and PLAY it out.

I knew it.
Bioware is going to hell. It was only a matter of time.

Bu that doesn't happen in FF 13. A good roleplayer can roleplay any character, but that's entirely different from watching any character does his own thing. In Mass Effect (honestly, this is the only example I can think of, not because it's a Bioware game) you get given a role. You are Commander Shepard, human commando. You then get to make choices restrained by your role as a guy fighting for humanity, but they are still your choices based on how you want to work with this role. Is Shepard the ultimate altruist, trying to save anyone and everyone, or a ruthless pragmatist, willing to go to any lengths to complete his goals? It's not the same when you just watch over a character's shoulder while you make no choices.

Roleplaying isn't about making choices.
It's about putting yourself in the role of a character.
Yes, there are RPG's with choices, but what Bioware is trying to do here is to change the definition. Which apperently is working....

Watching a character undertake the same actions they will always take is putting yourself in the role of the character? By the same logic you are 'roleplaying' when you watch a film that follows a single characters persepctive, so long as you try hard enough. For a start, you're not even playing the role, you are merely imagining yourself doing so. You could say you are empathising with the character. Growing an attachment to the character. But in no way are you roleplaying as him when absolutely no input is required on your part.

Because you are not playing the role. The guy who decided how the character should act is.

 

[ElegantSwordsman]

Just because you don't make up the character yourself doesn't mean you aren't playing a role, so it still is an RPG. Next thing you'll be hearing is Bioware doesn't consider Shakespearean actors to be playing a role unless they wrote the character up themselves by rolling d20's. The whole thing reeks of bigotry if you ask me.

 

[tycho0042]

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/8006/bioware-you-can-put-a-j-in-front-of-it-but-final-fantasy-13-isnt-an-rpg

Bioware's Daniel Erickson:
Well, before I address the main point I just want to take a slightly more controversial route: You can put a 'J' in front of it, but it's not an RPG. You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character... I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe? But they're not RPG's."

I tend to agree but that's my opinion.

... That was pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Roleplaying game does not meant "Create your own character and live it out".
A good roleplayer can put him/herself into any character ROLE and PLAY it out.

I knew it.
Bioware is going to hell. It was only a matter of time.

Wow, someone else gets it!

Wow, someone else shares the same delusions as you!

Boy, I'm sorry, but if that's how you define 'RPG' then you epic fail at life. Is God of War an RPG? Resident Evil? Silent Hill? Assassin's Creed? Do you see where your theory starts to sound like hippy artistic BS?
You PLAY a ROLE. In particular, YOUR role. One you create/change yourself. Clicking 'A' or 'X' to cycle through pre-written dialogue, unable to influence the game through what you think YOUR CHARACTER would do,is no more 'Role-Playing' than reading a book.

Have fun with your disillusioned version of reality

Rude comments aside the tabletop RPG games I've played the writers even say that the point of role playing is to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Role playing is about not what I think "I" would do but what I think my character would do. I never said that playing any role makes it an RPG but you're too stuck in your jackassery to see that

 

[Shilkanni]

I love Bioware and their games, but they need to accept that the term RPG is used differently to how they would use it. Diablo, Wow, Dragon Age, and Final Fantasy are all RPGs. It's more about continuity of character, levelling and stats than choices. Fighting the definitions already in use for over a decade isn't going to get you far, I think it makes more sense to more clearly split them with terms like JRPG/MMORPG/ActionRPG

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Ever heard of the expression "the journey is more important than the destination"? A game might have a fixed destination, but in an RPG's case the more freedom you have on your journey to that destination, the better. Otherwise, you're just watching a movie intersected by interactive combat bits. Being free to make your own choices is one of the main things that define an RPG. Even a tabletop RPG is typically considered a horrible game if the GM forces all the characters down one linear road on the way to their objective.

I counter that with my own: "Your mileage may vary." Some of us hold preference to games that tell a story as though you were reading a novel, other fancy a sense of freedom. This is not instantaneously discredit JRPGs as RPGs simply because they use a different avenue to accomplish the identical result. Furthermore, the aspect of choice, even in games such as Mass Effect, is an illusion. You can establish Shepard as the honorable soldier, the jerk or something in between however your decisions ultimately have no basis on the plot, nor how the game will progress. I can punch the reporter in the Presidium in one file and politely nod the next, the game is in no way altered, Shepard is not loathed by reporters for years to come. It is simply implicated for amusement.

Another more serious example, kill Wrex or not. The game does not change with any significance if you decide to do this and in Mass Effect 2, he is regulated to a pathetic cameo, further diminishing any potential development of choice it could have possessed.

You may be allotted choice and therefore availability to scenes you would not otherwise have access to, however the journey is still ultimately following a predetermine course. I will cede for the average gamer, Mass Effect has significantly higher replay value because of choice than a Final Fantasy game. That, however does not alter either as a Role-playing game. You still play a role, you still develop your character(s), you have a preset purpose, you discover the story through progression, you interact with your party. It all amounts to the same, albeit with a different route.

In ME, I can romance Ashley or Liara as a male Shepard, however the romance is weak. In FFX, I have Tidus and Yuna, however the romance is focused upon heavily and developed thoroughly. Perhaps choice is not always a benefit, however this is strictly opinion based on my part.

 

[Jesus Phish]

He raises a very good point.

JPG would be better.

Also there's plenty of role play in Mass Effect to though that say there isn't. To say theyre just about stats? Football games have stats. Are football games now RPGs?

 

[Tony2077]

wrppg or jrpg doesn't matter there still rpgs

 

[Rayansaki]

Saying FFXIII isn't an RPG because it lacks one of the popular features in RECENT RPG's is like saying Mass Effect is an interactive graphic novel because it features one of the genre's defining features. Good going Erickson.

it laks any form of role playing. you play as a pesific character and have no input in what happen

You put so much effort into your argument after all the discussion that it overwhelms me.

 

[Sovvolf]

Just because you don't make up the character yourself doesn't mean you aren't playing a role, so it still is an RPG.

No, by that logic, any game you play would be an RPG. With an RPG you make your own role, you create your own character, you name him/her and you make his or her destiny unfold. No game yet as been able to fully emulate the true RPG experience as no computer is advanced enough to be able read your mind lol.

What's giving me a headache is the amount of comparing between Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect... Mass Effect isn't the prime example of a roleplaying game, why not compare with Neverwinter nights? or Boulders Gate?. Better yet, how about with stop with the fanboy happy slapping and start getting down to what defines an RPG rather then trying to insult one another's games like a bunch of 5 year old children.

See, I agree FFXIII isn't an RPG... not in the true sense anyway, nor are the Bioware games every one seems to be bashing. Though the Bioware games are the closest to a real RPG out there at the moment. FFXIII is more of an experience then an RPG, sure it has RPG elements in the game such as levelling up, however so does The Godfather games and GTA: San Andreas, that doesn't make them role playing games. Though frightening as it is to believe but San Andreas is pretty close to an RPG game than most people think.

EDIT:

Actually I think I better qualify my statement a little better here. Here I'm just going to play out two different scenarios to show what I mean by why FFXIII (along with plenty of other JRPG's) aren't (in the traditional sense) RPGS.

Scenario 1:
John, Jack and Jill want to play a little game of "YTSRPGF". "Okay then" we say, we go into the room, sit down with a couple scraps of paper and get started.
We build our self a little back story and our little world, we place a little setting down and call that our world, then we inhabit it with imaginary people who will serve to give us quests or we can have conversations with.

Then we get started with out Characters, Jack desides he's going to be a Human Wizard named Pu'ya Cockin , the wizard has as a short black beard with long black hair, dressed in typical wizard garments while armed with a wooden stick for now. This Wizard was well trained in sorcery from an early age by the evil Enchantress Kilde Mor'lester.

John wants to be a misunderstood Orc Warrior named Rock Sooka, this ork is green with your typical big fangs, though he has a scar on his face which is a result from a battle of his past that he is yet to reveal to his friends.

Jill decides to be a lovable Rogue named Car,Un Net'Tun, from a tribe of warrior women, but didn't quite fit in with the tribe due to her lack of muscles and not being about 6.5 .

Pu'ya Cockin, Rock Sooka and Car,Un Net'Tun decide to go out for an adventure, meeting new friends, slaying dragons, preforming quests and getting strong as they go.

Scenario 2:

John, Jack and Jill decide they want to play a game of "YTJRPGF" "okay again we say". So we pull out a script and we tell Jack "your going to be Zeal, he's a strong silent type with a disturbing past" then we tell John "Your Xavier, he's the quirky type, never shuts up, obnoxious and full of him self... but a good and capable man when it comes down to it". Now we tell Jill "Your Lissa, the calm and gentle women who knows Kickboxing and will be the love interest of Zeal but doesn't know it yet". Okay let's play. Then they pretty much move from the script until the end.

Conclusion
Now that was a pretty ruff telling of it but that's pretty much it. With a true RPG your not tied down to much, you mostly make it all up as you go while playing through scenarios that you decide. Now because computers aren't advanced enough yet in order for you to create scenarios on the fly, the computer make such scenarios for you, which is why I stated that no Computer RPG is quite like the real thing yet. However with JRPG's your pretty much in a play, your given the characters, the plot and most of the deciding is done for you, there's not many ways in which you can shape this world around you because of the lack of choice.

Don't get me wrong, I love both RPG's and JRPG's but I agree with Bioware on this one, in the traditional sense... most JRPG's aren't really RPG's.