The lull of RPGs

[Herbert_v1legacy]

What happened with RPGs? Are we going to sit and pretend that RPGs today are as good as BG, PST or deus ex?

Oh, we're talking about WRPGs.

I was confused, because last time I checked JRPGs are still running at full force.

And frankly, maybe it's just because I missed the scene, but I never knew WRPGs to be all that huge in the first place.

Most JRPGs are RPG in name only. If anything, most are just glorified action/adventure games. Most don't have roleplaying whatsoever or even any sort of choice other than in combat. If a game doesn't let you create your character (not just appearance), or at least give you a character that allows you meaningful choice in the story, it shouldn't be considered a ROLEPLAYING game period.

JRPGs are closer to the proto-CRPGs than WRPGs are though. Show someone who played CRPGs in the 80's a JRPG and that person will feel more at home with that than if you would show the same person a modern WRPG. Games like Wizardry, the early Ultimas, Might & Magic, Bard's Tale and so on were not about roleplaying, they were about killing monsters (with turnbased combat, usually somewhat close to that of Dragon Quest/Warrior) & leveling up. Roleplaying was... not there. At all. In fact if you look at most of the classic CRPGs, they don't offer much if any room for roleplaying. The only thing that binds them together as a shared trait is character progression. Thus I would argue that the definition of a CRPG is character progression, not being able to roleplay (and don't mix pen & paper games into it, that's an entirely different medium and they play nothing like their computer counterparts)




As for a lack of quality WRPGs, I would have to disagree. You'll obviously have to look beyond the AAA industry, and look at mid-budget & indie games. Games like Legend of Grimrock, Frayed Knights, Avadon, Driftmoon, Avernum, the upcoming Might & Magic X (in early access, so you can buy & play it), Inquisitor, Shadowrun & so on are recent, for the most part good & quite old school in their design.
You can also look at the recent re-releases, like System Shock 2, Wizardry 5-8, Thunderscape and plenty more [http://www.gog.com/games/rpg], if you still feel like playing games like those made in the days of old.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

Came in here to give my two cents about my favorite genre, but I see that a lot has already been said on the manner.

One thing I suppose I can add is that the idea of RPG-esque elements in a lot of other definitely seems to be messing with the idea of what an RPG is to a certain extent. RPGs, from my point of view anyway, have always been about characters that develop throught the game and a story that pushes the need to develop. But now with various genres of games allowing for development tiers in some form or another and more modern games needing to add some form of narrative whenever possible, the idea of a classic style RPG, whether you look at WRPG or JRPG, seems almost redundant in today's market. Add to that the rise of handheld gaming in the form of games that can be played on tablets and phones, most of which can give you a quick dose of gaming without having to sit down for a large chunk of time until you can reach a save point, and the demand for a good RPG just isn't there.

Personally, I could use some more good RPGs this generation. Granted, I'm looking forward to October 12th for two such titles (and if I have to tell you guys which ones, I am VERY dissapointed in you), but beyond that pickings have been slim.

 

[hermes]

I find it funny the amount of people that ignore huge sections of RPG like SRPG, JRPG, MMORPG, etc... when trying to say there are fewer games in the genre. If you are going to say games like X-Com, Shadowrun Returns, Ni No Kuni and Fantasy Star Online 2 are not RPG, then of course you will end up with a rather short list.

Almost as much funny as the amount of people that considers Dark Souls an RPG, but dismiss Mass Effect because its "a shooter with RPG elements". Get this... Dark Souls is as much an RPG as Mass Effect 2 and Deus Ex: HR. If you are going to include hack and slash/RPG hybrids into the bag, we can also include shooter/RPG hybrids.

 

[shrekfan246]

Yeah, that discussion isn't really going anywhere since people can't even decide what really constitutes an RPG.

Indeed.

Some of the random and arbitrary elements people say are "required" for something to be a "true" RPG really baffle me sometimes every time I see them.

You know what I like to get out of an RPG? Sculpting my character. Be it through gameplay (Final Fantasy XII), personality (Persona 4), or both (Mass Effect), chances are I'll be relatively satisfied with the end result if it's pulled off well. I don't need inventory management that makes Microsoft Excel look like Saints Row, I don't need to be prompted to add a few more attribute and skill points every time I level up, I don't even need millions of side-quests that make me forget what I was originally doing in the first place. So long as I feel like I have some impact on the character or characters that I'm controlling, that's generally good enough for me.

 

[deathzero021]

I'm a jRPG fan so I can't really suggest any wRPG's at all. Honestly i think wRPG's have it better than jRPG's do currently. Take a look at steam, there are a ton of lower-budget wRPG's ranging from single player to MMO. Way more western-styled games today than anime-styled. However, at the very least, there are still some indie jRPG's popping up every now and than, but we don't get any bigger productions anymore. Final Fantasy yeah but those games have become pure $hit. I wouldn't count FF13 as a jRPG, more like a slightly interactive movie.

Last big jRPG to come out was Xenoblade and i haven't even gotten a copy of that yet due to the price! So the last console RPG i played was Star Ocean 4 on the Xbox 360.

Unless of course we want to talk Dark Souls... but i'm not really sure what type of RPG you would call that game, it's too unique to be lumped together with any others.

 

[hermes]

What happened with RPGs? Are we going to sit and pretend that RPGs today are as good as BG, PST or deus ex?

Oh, we're talking about WRPGs.

I was confused, because last time I checked JRPGs are still running at full force.

And frankly, maybe it's just because I missed the scene, but I never knew WRPGs to be all that huge in the first place.

Most JRPGs are RPG in name only. If anything, most are just glorified action/adventure games. Most don't have roleplaying whatsoever or even any sort of choice other than in combat. If a game doesn't let you create your character (not just appearance), or at least give you a character that allows you meaningful choice in the story, it shouldn't be considered a ROLEPLAYING game period.

The audience of role playing games is as wide and vague as the term itself. Not everyone plays them to express themselves.
Even in the pen & paper version, there are different people that play them and they like to focus on different things: there are people that like to explore the setting (Fallout), people that like to make their character grow stronger by fighting stuff (Diablo), people that like to be told a cool story (Final Fantasy), people that like to experiment with complex systems (Disgaea), and most of us, who like a bit of all those things.
If there are so many people with so many interests invested on a single game, how do you expect to round them up in a single, all-encompassing, genre?

 

[Silverfox99]

RPGs are not declining. I hate when gamers try to say things like this. The problem is that many gamers want the old experience of a RPG, but in many ways those games were crap. Not once in the last ten years did I think to my self 'hey ya know what I should play Pool of Radiance again',or 'Hell Ya Ultima for the nes let do that for a month.' Don't give the shinning classic examples of RPGs and then whine about the quality of RPGs. There were many crappy or only decent RPGs at the time BG was released. Games like PST don't happen very often. Instead of whining about how today is not yesterday why not try to enjoy today?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

As you can see, it greatly annoys me when people say Mass Effect is not an RPG and it's instead a Shooter with RPG elements or something of the sort. Literally.

its not that its not an rpg, its just a very shallow one compared to its predecessors.

An RPG doesn't need to have any complex mechanics in place, it just needs role-playing. Mass Effect has more role-playing than pretty much any video game RPG.

What determines a RPG is what you can do outside of combat, and fucking half of Mass Effect 2 is making choice after choice shaping your Shepard into his/her own character.

I'm going to say this is the part of your post I disagree with most. Shepard doesn't turn into a different character so much as you choose whether Shepard is currently a dick or not at various points.

Every dialog choice and decision on it's own isn't very character-making at all; however, the thousands of dialog decisions you make over the course of the 3 games shape your Shepard into a unique character and different from everyone else's Shepard.

If an RPG requires the players to constantly think about numbers and the combat mechanics, you're not roleplaying, you're simply playing a game. Not to say I don't enjoy that style of gameplay; I enjoy tactical combat and moving around my characters to fulfill different roles like in games such as DA:O. But when you put that in front of immersion, story telling and getting into your character, then it's not roleplaying.

Someone "gets" it.

Mass Effect 2 and 3 are more RPGs than 99.9% of RPGs out there, past or present.

If there is no negative penalty for making your character do things they are inherently NOT good at, then it's not a RPG. ME2-3 are action/shooters with RPG elements. Yes, you do "role play" Sheppard in your dialogue choices, but the gameplay is not that of a RPG.

Infiltrator Shepard can't use a shotgun in ME2, Vanguard Shepard can't use a sniper rifle, any Shepard is a bad Adept unless you pick the Adept class, etc. How is ME2-3 shooter with RPG elements when the fucking core of the game is fucking role-playing? ME2-3 has what many video game RPGs (that aren't actually RPGs) don't have one instance of. Final Fantasy is just an adventure game with a tacked-on combat system (usually a very bad one), there's no role-playing in any of the games. Lastly, how are ME2-3 shooters when you don't even have to shoot?

If an RPG requires the players to constantly think about numbers and the combat mechanics, you're not roleplaying, you're simply playing a game. Not to say I don't enjoy that style of gameplay; I enjoy tactical combat and moving around my characters to fulfill different roles like in games such as DA:O. But when you put that in front of immersion, story telling and getting into your character, then it's not roleplaying.

really? to me the main qualifier for an RPG is that character skill is more important than player skill. And that is what makes the genius of deep stat based games. You have soo many options to tweak a character in those games.

You're looking at it wrong. Many people think RPGs need everything based on stats because the genre basically came from pen and paper games. And, what is an inherent limitation of tabletop gaming? That's right, no player still is involved in any of them because that's a limitation of the medium. You can't bring a sword to a DnD session, awesomely swing it on your turn, and then tell the DM you just landed a critical hit because of how awesome you just swung your sword. The video game medium inherently lends itself to allowing for player skill to come into play so it's natural video game RPGs would allow for player skill as well. There's also live-action RPGs that involve player skill, which existed before pen and paper RPGs.

Roleplaying was... not there. At all. In fact if you look at most of the classic CRPGs, they don't offer much if any room for roleplaying.

Then, they aren't RPGs, the one requirement for an RPG is role-playing. Catherine is more of an RPG than any of those games you're talking about.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Almost as much funny as the amount of people that considers Dark Souls an RPG, but dismiss Mass Effect because its "a shooter with RPG elements". Get this... Dark Souls is as much an RPG as Mass Effect 2 and Deus Ex: HR. If you are going to include hack and slash/RPG hybrids into the bag, we can also include shooter/RPG hybrids.

I think people include Dark Souls because it has a less static protagonist. There's plenty of opportunities for role-playing in Dark Souls, it's just based on actions instead of dialogue choices. What covenant do you join, do you bretray that covenant, do you kill this NPC or not, do you help this NPC, ect ect. There's some damn good world building going on and plenty of choices to be made based on that. Most people will just play doing what they want and not think about their character beyond stats, but that's true of most RPGs.

 

[shrekfan246]

To me a RPG is a game where I can create or assume the role of a character and make choices that I and the character would have made.

I don't disagree with that.

Just seems like a lot of people have some rather hilarious presumptions for what actually makes an RPG an "RPG", which most of the time get hung up on aspects of gameplay. Things like leveling up or managing equipment should've never been dubbed as "RPG elements" in the first place, and I imagine the only reason it happened was because the primary forebear of classic WRPGs, Dungeons & Dragons, has loads of it.

Of course, it brings us to the point that a lot of games classified as RPGs don't really let you make significant changes or decisions with the main character, which is why I'm a bit more lenient with how I'll define an RPG.

 

[BarkBarker]

Just my two cents, Voice Acting should only be used to bring out the character more than the story and actions do, because a bad VA can ruin a experience the same way a great one can enrich it, and this is why people can make or break a buy of,say, the next Tales game because the voices are always there...always heard..always grating....always unnecessary, I hate how people don't seem to recognise players find massive issue with annoying sounds in their ear every time a character speaks...and gets hit....and kills a enemy....and calls his attacks SHUT UP ASBEL SHUT THE FUCK UP!

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

The fuck is an RPG?

No seriously, the fuck is an RPG?

In this forum people are talking about Mass Effect, Skyrim, Deus Ex, and New Vegas like they have more than some basic details in common.

Let's think about what RPG means. Role Playing Game... That could be any game ever made, so there must be something more.
Is an RPG defined by it's leveling system? It's story? It's characters?

The fuck is an RPG?

 

[infinity_turtles]

What determines a RPG is what you can do outside of combat, and fucking half of Mass Effect 2 is making choice after choice shaping your Shepard into his/her own character.

I'm going to say this is the part of your post I disagree with most. Shepard doesn't turn into a different character so much as you choose whether Shepard is currently a dick or not at various points.

Every dialog choice and decision on it's own isn't very character-making at all; however, the thousands of dialog decisions you make over the course of the 3 games shape your Shepard into a unique character and different from everyone else's Shepard.

I think you'll notice most people are calling out specific games in the series. Those individual moments that have even small impacts on the character became fewer in each one. Most of the character building I'd say happened in ME1, with some in ME2, and damn near none in 3. And given how little previous character stuff was acknowledged across games and how much they changed I'd say it's fair to judge them individually on just how much of an rpg they were. ME3 you're pretty much limited to Paragon and Renegade choices, and the misleading dialogue wheel got worse. Not really fair to compare that to the other two really, since if you stayed neutral more often in them you were basically forced to break character.

Captcha: no brainer. Stop sucking up Captcha. I know this is all debateable and just my opinion.

 

[hermes]

Almost as much funny as the amount of people that considers Dark Souls an RPG, but dismiss Mass Effect because its "a shooter with RPG elements". Get this... Dark Souls is as much an RPG as Mass Effect 2 and Deus Ex: HR. If you are going to include hack and slash/RPG hybrids into the bag, we can also include shooter/RPG hybrids.

I think people include Dark Souls because it has a less static protagonist. There's plenty of opportunities for role-playing in Dark Souls, it's just based on actions instead of dialogue choices. What covenant do you join, do you bretray that covenant, do you kill this NPC or not, do you help this NPC, ect ect. There's some damn good world building going on and plenty of choices to be made based on that. Most people will just play doing what they want and not think about their character beyond stats, but that's true of most RPGs.

I have no problem with that definition. Even when its not my cup of tea, I can appreciate what the game is trying to be, and the people that try to roleplay through the game. However, I do find it funny that people would count Dark Souls as an RPG despite the fact its gameplay is that of an action hack & slash game, but deny that category to games like Deus Ex because it has first person perspective and guns. They both differ from the "traditional" genre definition in being hybrids with other genres, other than that, they have almost all the same elements (skill trees, stat based progression, sidequests, a world to explore). What's good for the goose...