Why are old school RPGs held in such high esteem?

[rezo]

Thank you.

Tracer +10

bah. Robo's design was excellent.

[MechDeus]

First off: SonofdonCD, that was perfect.

I guess we just have to agree to disagree...I see games as works of art...a true classic game IS still a good game...just like how Metropolis is still a great movie, despite having no speech, being in black and white and having none of the sophisticated CG of modern movies...but the story is no less powerful than if it had been in color and having awesome CG...you can draw the same parallel between that and classic RPGs vs newer ones.

So what you're saying is that a game built on complexities that have been simplified so much as to remove the entire reason for the genre existing is on a similar scale as a good piece of art? RPGs exist for the story, something that Dragon Warrior doesn't have.

People don't watch classic movies like Metropolis or Citizen Kane or Charlie Chaplain much anymore, but you don't hear people claim that they are no longer good movies...

No, but you hear people claim that older games are no longer good games all the time. Movies and videogame sage very differently.

Sure, maybe in a modern RPG, your character is defined by 200 statistics and 100 item slots plus FMV cinemas, as opposed to 10 statistics, 5 items, and maybe a 16x16 sprite in an old RPG, but how is that an advancement in "role-playing"?

You're leaving out that modern RPGs actually have role-playing in them. That's the advancement. You're always a thick one about anything that isn't modern, Opa.

The basic mechanics of RPGs have not changed, they've just been embellished.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The basic mechanics of ideas behind some of the fighting systems haven't changed, and that's it. Development, story, customization, the ability to choose your own path, balance... all of these and more have been added and built on. To say that Xenogears has the same battle system as PS is just blind.

But then, perhaps the fact that you fail to grasp that the genre is based off a pencil-and-paper system in which people were supposed to create stories should really say something.

Even the developer themselves realized that traditional single player RPGs have hit a deadend in terms of evolution.

Uhhh... not hardly. It deals with Everquest being a hit and other companies trying to rack in cash in a similar manner.

Anyway, here's another analogy: maybe a modern epic RPG can be compared to an old 8bit RPG like how Lord of the Rings can be compared to the story of Rapunzel, or Little Red Riding Hood. Sure one is a lot longer, deeper, and elaborate, but aren't they all in a way, "classics"?

One is a beautifully written tale of an epic journey with numerous fleshed-out characters and fantastic landscapes, whereas the other is a children's bedtime story that people ignore once they age past ten.

...Maybe that is a good comparision after all.

[Gutsman]

And in that respect, every RPG released now is better than past games.

So why is it that I found "old" RPGs like Dragon Warrior or PS2 a lot more enjoyable than these super modern, epic, RPGs with incredible graphics like Skies of Arcadia or Grandia 2?....

[Jeremy]

How can anyone else know why you found one game better than another?

[Hero]

A perfect example is Xenosaga. The story seemed like it was going to be good, as far as rpgs go. But after I got about four hours into the game, and of the four hours I only was actually playing for about an hour, I just lost interest.

psst...between you and me, Xenosaga is like one chapter of a book dragged out over 800 pages. BLAH!

[SonofdonCD]

So why is it that I found "old" RPGs like Dragon Warrior or PS2 a lot more enjoyable than these super modern, epic, RPGs with incredible graphics like Skies of Arcadia or Grandia 2?....

Reread that quote. I never said that older RPGs can't be overall better than some new ones. BUT, outsive of subjective things, (like story) in every other respect they are better. I also never said that newer games were more fun, as that is a subjective thing as well.

But to claim PS2 as superior in any way to Skies or Grandia II outside of YOUR enjoyment in comparison is ludicrous. Even Skies, with its barely-there plot has a more well told story than what I remember of PS2. Having high concept storylines may be all well and good, but if it's not told in a comprehinsible way, it can negate the impact of the story altogether.

It's progress. It has to happen in order for things to improve. If everything truly was better in the past, then we should stop playing and making games of the present and play "Classics". Just accept this fact and move on.

Don't get me wrong here. I liked what I played of PS2. I played it after I saw my friend beat FFIII and witnessed the 30-min. long ending. That got me into playing RPGs, actually. My friend got PS2 used and we started playing. We got stuck, I'm not quite sure where (it's been years since then). Fun while it lasted, though.

Lastly, "More fun" and "Better" aren't exactly one and the same. Mario 64 may be the "Better" game, but I enjoyed Sonic more, and so forth.

[Drewbacca]

Correction: A game is a classic because it was a good game, not nessecarily because it still is. Megaman is a classic, but Capcom has made far better versions so hardly anyone ever plays it.

Why would it not be a good game anymore? An older Mega man game is just as fun to play. Especially since Mega man has stayed the same for the better part of its series life span. (by and large) Same thing with a Final Fantasy. But with every Final Fantasy the story runs the show (the gameplay stays the same, aside from one or two characters) so nothing but the graphics are overhauled.

If a character is developed right and effectively, it doesn't matter if they're pixellated or not.

[rezo]

No, but you hear people claim that older games are no longer good games all the time. Movies and videogame sage very differently.

Laurel and Hardy are worthless for comedy now. However you're right. Cinema from the 40s and 50s is directly comparable to what we have now, save for special effects.(then again, I say Gene Kelly dancing with his ghost was cool as hell. Much cooler than say. . .Micheal Keaton talking to himself in whatever film he did that in -_o)


I don't believe RPGs were all made with telling the story as a primary main goal. They all had stories, so that you would have something to play through, but they were superfluous. I can't imagine final fantasy was developed because they really really wanted to tell the story of four random guys that collect 4 items from 4 demons. Likewise, something like Robotrek gets by purely and the creativity of the scenarios. Flashing the lights to frighten a guard out of a room? Its going to be a while before that becomes cliche. However, games that got by solely because people were satisfied with the mere concept of wandering around a world and visiting cities, will seem old hat today, as that part of RPGs has been developed greatly. Battles, puzzles etc, they've always had a sort of sporadic set of innovators, but presentation and story telling is the only way the genre has been moved forward, and the former is given.


aside: Regarding games and books. All of the prose and technical ability that goes into it is entirely lost in games, save for dialogue. The descriptions become an issue of art direction, and so you get to have the fun of saying Tolkien described a forest better than someone actually created one. The scenarios in books, while more focused than RPGs, are directly comparable to scenarios in adventure games. Bilbo's tussle with a spider is not terribly greater than the end scenario of Grim Fandango, if at all. And in the end, it isn't a matter of skill so much as it is the manner in which the scenario is presented. A problem with many RPGs is that the story telling is broken, just as it is with a game like Ninja Gaiden. While reading about some people wandering through a cave in a book is just as interesting as reading about their fight with the monster at the end, there's a definite detachment from the story when you're wandering through a cave in an RPG. The solution to this is to simply integrate the story into the gameplay as is done with adventure games. Like Magus's castle(or the fat Green fellow's castle in the same game) in Chrono Trigger. Console RPGs are set up like the adventure games anyways(with combat taking the place of puzzle solving as the "gameplay"). They need to borrow more from that genre.

[Tracer]

PPS. - Xenogears/saga and Morrowind at least deserve enough credit to say they have a better story than a "churned out sci-fi/fantasy novel". Heck, Morrowind contains hundreds of books that pretty much all have better writing than any fantasy novel I've read...

I will grant that yes, they have better plot lines than some churned out series of Fantasy novels, to a degree, but not better than any I have read. In Morrowind, in a Vampire den, there was a book that was pretty lenthy called "Trap" and it was indeed very good (as a short story) and given the nature of Morrowind the story in the game could be woven however you chose to. THIS is an example of a great RPG. Xenosaga/gears I thought was preachy and overly heavy-handed and delivered more of that than ever it delivered what I would consider an enjoyable game. That goes back to what this thread was about, I see it as still useing the same conventions as a game made 10 years ago with little added to its mechanics to make it better. That's only my opinion - I can see that people enjoy that. I just think that's stale personally.

PaCrappa is never wrong, and if any one tells you otherwise they're lying BTW.

[Omni]

Same thing with a Final Fantasy. But with every Final Fantasy the story runs the show (the gameplay stays the same, aside from one or two characters) so nothing but the graphics are overhauled.

That's not true at all.

Anyone who's played more than one Final Fantasy knows that they change everything up with each new installment. They're all completely different games.