So I was talking with a friend the other day and we were talking about the big RPGs coming up this year (oh it's a good year for RPG gamers!) and we got to talking about how of all the genres, RPGs seem to cover the most ground style-wise.
First off you have the spiritual descendants of the Wizardry's and Planescape: Torments of the world. Wide-open chargen (often with disturbingly many ways to make a useless character), lots of dialogue, a focus on quests and many quest resolutions that never involve picking up a sword/gun/spell. I'd also add that the modern descendants of this genre are probably games like Oblivion, the upcoming Skyrim and to a somewhat lesser extent the Zenimax Fallout outings (FO3 and FO:NV).
Then there's the action RPG, the spiritual descendant of Legend of Zelda or Secret of Mana later on. They focus on fighting, and most quests involve, at some point, you killing something, or maybe fedex quests interspersed with the fighting. The point is the action, though the stories may be epic, there may be dialogue, but there's no bones about the fact a lot of the game is swordplay or gunplay. I'd add that the most recent example is probably the Mass Effect series, moreso the second than the first.
Then of course you have the JRPG, typified by the early products from Square, now the perennial product of Square/Enix/ect. though some other strong contenders have put out great JRPGs at various points.
And of course, the MMO, maybe not a traditional RPG in the same sense because cooperating with hundreds of thousands of other people takes focus off the storyline but an RPG none-the-less.
So what do you dig most?
My vote goes for the hardcore RPG, though I have a soft spot for all categories I consider Planescape the pinnacle of computer gaming and I have already put aside the money for Skyrim.
First off you have the spiritual descendants of the Wizardry's and Planescape: Torments of the world. Wide-open chargen (often with disturbingly many ways to make a useless character), lots of dialogue, a focus on quests and many quest resolutions that never involve picking up a sword/gun/spell. I'd also add that the modern descendants of this genre are probably games like Oblivion, the upcoming Skyrim and to a somewhat lesser extent the Zenimax Fallout outings (FO3 and FO:NV).
Then there's the action RPG, the spiritual descendant of Legend of Zelda or Secret of Mana later on. They focus on fighting, and most quests involve, at some point, you killing something, or maybe fedex quests interspersed with the fighting. The point is the action, though the stories may be epic, there may be dialogue, but there's no bones about the fact a lot of the game is swordplay or gunplay. I'd add that the most recent example is probably the Mass Effect series, moreso the second than the first.
Then of course you have the JRPG, typified by the early products from Square, now the perennial product of Square/Enix/ect. though some other strong contenders have put out great JRPGs at various points.
And of course, the MMO, maybe not a traditional RPG in the same sense because cooperating with hundreds of thousands of other people takes focus off the storyline but an RPG none-the-less.
So what do you dig most?
My vote goes for the hardcore RPG, though I have a soft spot for all categories I consider Planescape the pinnacle of computer gaming and I have already put aside the money for Skyrim.
