Love and Hate: RPGs

Since I've gotten RPGMaker I've been thinking a lot about things I really like and don't like about the genre. Also me and my brother in law talked a bit last night about it so I thought it might be fun to talk about it here.


Hate

1. Forced random battles.

There is nothing worse than being forced every few seconds into trivial random battles. This is compounded by the fact that most of them are thoughtless. You just use your strongest attacks over and over again.

One thing I liked about Metal Saga was that it kept random battles but accounted for their annoying absurdity by having a speed button to power through it. It was like a little wink from the developers, "yes, we know this is stupid too ;)"

2. contrived plots or paint by numbers story telling

Once upon a time, I really enjoy the stereotypical rpg plot. Evil god is doing bad stuff. You try to stop him. You meet a band of people on the way. You fight bosses to get the magic sword and armor that will let you fight the evil god. Fight evil God, win, whatever.

How many times do we need that story? Has anyone done it better than the 16 bit stuff?





Love

1. Exploring

One of my favorite things about gaming is exploring and getting to go to places I can't go IRL. This is something most rpgs do wonderfully. There is nothing better than playing a game that attempts something new and exploring the new world within.


2. Unique and well made battle systems

I really like it when someone does something new. I still think Panzer Dragoon Saga is need because of what they did with the battle system.

Is there any reason why you couldn't have posted this in your thread about JRPGs?

edit: sorry, I meant Ramon's JRPG thread.

I thought I'd be considerate. He gets upset when I dominate his topics.

(And I didn't want to talk only about jrpgs)

Hate: RPGs which take way too goddamn long for no good reason. Xenoblade is huge because there is a lot to do. FF XIII is huge because lol your time in unimportant.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GohanX

Hate: RPGs which take way too goddamn long for no good reason. Xenoblade is huge because there is a lot to do. FF XIII is huge because lol your time in unimportant.

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I don't think that really follows. FFXIII being huge isn't for any nonsense reasons due to the game railroading you right from story piece to story piece, so it's literally almost impossible to not do something important towards the plot until near the end. Xenoblade, on the other hand, takes forever because there's a million pointless sidequests that are almost all just about really lazy NPCs that want you to go grab something for them or clear out some angry fantasy geese.

But if you took out the suck FF would be like an hour and a half!

Hate: When they don't write a main character because it's supposed to be "me." Fuck you, I'm not a medieval warrior, tell me a story about a real character who's interesting. See also: Silent protagonist.

Silent protagonists are the worst. I hate when they just sit there and people talk to them and you're supposed to assume that they've responded in some manner, and then everyone carries on about their stuff with weird gaping holes in the conversation that don't really make any sense.

Marle: "Crono, I'm so happy you're back from the dead! We all missed you and went through hell to bring you back!" *sob*

Crono: "..."

In non-roster-based RPGs, I don't like being forced to choose a class at the beginning of a game, unless it's mostly superfluous and any class can do anything without much penalty. RPGs are about decisions, and they make you make your single most important decision before you have any understanding of the game. This in turn has led to what I see as class stagnation: very few games deviate from warrior (tank), rogue (DPS), mage (buff/damage), and cleric (healing). Developers aren't willing to create unique and interesting classes because players aren't going to choose them, because they don't know what they are or how they fit into the game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Hate: When they don't write a main character because it's supposed to be "me." Fuck you, I'm not a medieval warrior, tell me a story about a real character who's interesting. See also: Silent protagonist.

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I think this can work in a few very limited situations. Ultima works because the Avatar is supposed to be you, transported from your comfortable home on Earth to Britannia.