what would be your "perfect" RPG?

[zombflux]

Life.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

What I meant by this was that if you were to make a RPG tailor by your tastes to mass produce and sell.

Things to think while you are posting:

1.*GAME PLAY: what game gave the best game play experience? and Why?
Oblivion-freedom of choice and motion. I can choose to do a mission or ignore it. I don't get plagued to hurry up and DO anything. If I want to fight I can fight, if I don't I can gather ingredients to sell or make potions. The problem with Black and White and Spore and Fable is that Peter seems to think his audience needs to be reminded how to play CONSTANTLY! I like that Oblivion has active quest and other quests that are unlocked and waiting and I can freely switch between. Please, NEVER take up 1/3 of the screen with messages during active game play unless it is actually a sub-menu activated by the player. (Oh, and don't let enemies continue to attack you while you are in sub menus. That sucks...except possibly in a horror game. But it does make it frustrating for the player.)

2.*IMMERSION: what game drew you in (the game and the experience) and made you care for the characters (if it actually made you) as well as made you relate to it for some reason?

The best immersive games I can name are Final Fantasy 3, Eternal Darkness, and Silent Hill (most of them). FF3 had a deep storyline and EVERY character played differently. I had to learn each one's style, which was frustrating at first with the fighting game play of one, but immensely satisfying once I did. Each character felt unique and many of them had hidden tragedies. Great story.

Eternal Darkness: You play both males and females in different settings unlocking the puzzling bits of history that lead up to the culmination of the main character's problem in the modern day. Epic-but not in the usual way. This body-switching time-travel method was fresh and fascinating. It is also one of the few games to successfully break the 4th wall. (It played tricks on YOU not just your character!)

Silent Hill-a great exercise in creepiness. I really wanted to find the man's daughter in the first one. And I appreciated that he could just walk away...but to save her he had to face hell. The phone call sequence was particularly creepy. The ability for the game to just switch from the normal world to the creepy one easily and subtly was magnificent.

Oh-and REAL RPG's have LOAD above NEW. Honestly, I thought the game designers had learned. You will start new games A LOT less than you will load them. Oh, and allow saves anywhere and before and after cut scenes. No matter how good, no one likes losing a battle and having to deal with the cut scene over and over. Autosaving-helpful as long as it is in its own slot. And let players name their saves. I hate trying to guess which number save has my vampire character vs. my regular one. And more than one character/game save on a profile at a time. I don't want to load 20 profiles to explore every nook and cranny of a game's experiences.

3.CHARACTERS: what game do you think offered the best in character: making, personality, tactical ability, and AI control?

The Smackdown WWE games actually have the BEST character generation system I've seen. And I tend to hate wrestling. But being able to make Gandolf and a Balrog fight in a ring and choose their entry moves as well as their intro music, etc. Priceless.

Oblivion is second. If you really want to do a game up right, have sliders, do NOT assign a gender, let the person pick at the end and possibly do a male, female, neither, or both option when the person is done. And let monsterous characters be monsterous. I hate how in City of Heroes, I have to select "male" to have a burly werewolf or good lizard/dragon options. And lizards don't have mammary glands! So allow those who want them on a character able to have them and those that don't have the freedom to remove them. If they want a scary, fat character let them! If they want a burly block-shaped female warrior, great, let them! People LOVE to see how outrageous they can get.

Soul Calibur...4? I think it was? Allowed you to tweak the vocal sounds so that the lines delivered could sound like they were from a little girl, a 12 year old boy, an old man, etc. That was fun too.

4.*STORYLINE: We all know that RPGs all offer a great storyline which one was it for you?

I'd love to see Mercedes Lackey's Black Gryphon series done into a good game. The main character isn't even humanoid. It is a griffin (or gryphon or griffon it's the only word where you can almost not misspell it since almost all versions are valid. Despite what this dictionary program may think!)

Playing a griffin or a dragon or a wolf...oh hey, Okami...that was NEVER HUMAN or even close would be INNOVATIVE! Even Yoshi, Sonic, and Tails are a bit suspect. Yes, there is Spyro, but I'm not looking for a kiddie game. Maybe a wyvern-they are underused as well-as a main character in a deep storyline that HAS other races. No riders on them please. That isn't dignified.

5.GRAPHICS and SCENERY: polygons used to be okay, but nowadays games (RPGs involved) are going up inside the over high-tech indulgence in the graphics department; So this one is a matter of personal opinion. High quality graphics over the top scenery, or should it be kept moderately simple with focus elsewhere?

High end, realistic preferred. NO endless piles of dirt and rubble please. I like greenery in my scenery.

Best examples: Morrowind, Sonic 2, Chrono Trigger. All of these games had very different landscapes. Visual differences are important to keep the brain from becoming bored. If you want low end that I would kill to play: Master of Monsters for Sega Genesis. That game is STILL great. But they botched the PS2 version by not simply porting it over directly. Fiddling with a good system is a bad idea. If the engine isn't broke don't fix it. Oh, a usable multi-player would be new and interesting.

6.*and my favorite THE BAD GUY or VILLAIN: TO me the villain always seals the deal in making a great RPG, my favorite all the up to this day has been Sephiroth. SO which game gave/offered you "the best villain, and why?

Sephiroth was very, very good. I can't help but wonder if he was based off of David Bowie in Labyrinth. Hmm. Actually, Jared from Labyrinth would be very cool. Of course, he was the bad guy tempting the female lead to go bad much like Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs. Make the goblins a bit scarier, and the reason for keeping the child more traditional (fairy beings don't reproduce easily but do very well when human bloodlines are mixed in) and there ya go.

7.*WEAPONS: I for one am ashamed of the travesty that Final Fantasy 12 was because of the weapon section.

Choices, choices, choices! Check out Left4Dead 2. You can change up weapons and they actually FEEL and PLAY differently! Although the other VITAL option is to be allowed to customize your look and pay to UPGRADE WHAT YOU HAVE! I loved Elder Scrolls 2 for letting me get black armor with gold trim and pay to keep buffing the level of it. Yes, the shiny silver armor might have a better plus right now, but giving your character a look you like watching for several hours? Priceless. (Well, actually, having it be of a reasonable cost would be nice. And don't have the stuff you find sell for half it's worth. Let a person buy up mercantile skills or whatever and keep pushing until it sells for 70-75% of its worth.) No weird wheels or gadgets for that process either please. I hate that.

8.TRANSPORTATION: I bet even you have notice this one the transportations are losing spotlight in some RPGs making the player walk from one end of the "world to the other" dinamic. Which can get annoying after a while. If you could put any vehicle, what would it be?, how would it move? and How long the characters could use it? Again Final Fantasy series and Oblivion come into play. When you are allowed a new transport item it should not be taken from you. Transport items should handle smoothly like real vehicles do. (Not like Halo. And not much like the horses in Oblivion-try turning around with one, awful!) It should be like walking but faster, possibly MORE responsive! And fast travel without having to sit through the long journey should be an option later in the game. Need to get to know the lay of the land early, but once you've been somewhere, you should be able to get there faster.

9.NPCs: There is noting more annoying than an NPC that would not tell you what you just want to hear, or make you do stupid quest to make an effort in extend the length of the game. This one again is a matter of opinion; would you regulate the interactions of NPCs with the main character or would you still keep allowing the to give you the annoying side quest? (NPCS are still pricks regardless of your answer in my opinion.)

See Oblivion again. It needed more voice actors and ones that stayed in character better but you could choose to accept a quest or not and generally, you could go back and take it up later if you wanted. Horrible writing, acting, and unrealistic motion or reactions jar the player. See Culdcept Saga for some of the WORST writing and voice acting you could ask for in a game. (I suspect the "but she's my niece I can't say "no" syndrome there.) And if the player is a god-like being. Please use some thunder and reverberation.

Oblivion has some of the best writing (both for NPC's AND books in game!) Knights of the Old Republic had excellent writing also.

NPC's should always be there. Otherwise the world becomes flat and lifeless. The difference between Prince of Persia and Oblivion is really the interaction with others. That is what the role-playing is all about. But you shouldn't HAVE to do much of anything (outside of a brief tutorial, but if done well, it blends seamlessly into the regular gameplay).

Oh-No long entry to main story please. Set us loose quickly into the main world. Replaying long intro's makes it undesirable to try making multiple characters. Which lowers the replay value.

SECONDARY and SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: ......

I like intelligent mounts and beasts. Hawks that can help snag prey, unicorns that can help attack opponents, all good stuff. But a lot of supporting characters are simpering creatures that harm your inventory levels rather than help with game play. Unless you are using a party like Final Fantasy series, mostly, let the player go it alone.

Please try to answer in number format so that we may all follow the issue you would address in your "perfect" RPG and just;

A REMAINDER the ones that have * (that symbol) are usually the ones we (players) complain the most and I WOULD LOVE TO SEE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THOSE IN ESPECIFIC?

THANK YOU AGAIN! Acidk44