Why are old school RPGs held in such high esteem?

[Drewbacca]

... are you trying to say C is more windows friendly than C++? I'll assume I'm just misunderstanding you here. Incidently, Direct X is C++ library so any game using it would have to be coded in C++. When is the last time you've seen a PC game that didn't require direct x?

C is typically used for Windows Programming. Right now I'm programming amd making 2D games. You don't use that for the game, you use C.

epmode: I didn't say ANYTHING about pressing A.

If you choose Firega, you're doing it the same way in FF9 as you did in Final Fantasy 3 (which would probably have a different name). You don't 'press A to jump' in a Final Fantasy game unless the Dragoon command is *gasp* in the menu.

[epmode]

oh for god's sake. i'm done here. someone please dump this in fight club.

[Drewbacca]

oh for god's sake. i'm done here. someone please dump this in fight club.

I don't see why. I'm not insulting their mothers. This is a legitimate topic.

[RoleTroll]

Good question: do Sonic and Flicky have the same gameplay if both characters run and jump, using just the digital pad for direction and one button for jumping?

[Drewbacca]

Any game designer should agree that gameplay is the core of the game. Given an ideal world, designers would probably claim that gameplay should be put above all other considerations. And in a lot of cases, were it not for external pressures, these same game designers would attempt to treat the gameplay with the level of importance that it deserves. There's just one problem with this: There is no universally accepted definition of gameplay. Gameplay is an important, if nebulous, concept. Many times during discussions of games, we have heard comments such as, "This has great gameplay," followed by a detailed description of the particular aspect of the game. However, if instead you were to ask the question, "What is gameplay?", most answers would attempt to explain by example. Indeed, explanation by example can be helpful, but it requires that you infer a definition of gameplay by induction. Describing gameplay without using self-reference is similar to trying to explain the concept of red without reference to color. It is difficult to conceive, but not impossible.

There is a reason for this difficulty: The concept of gameplay is extremely difficult to define. Each designer has his or her own personal definition of gameplay, formed from exposure to many examples over the course of a career. Gameplay is so difficult to define because there is no single entity that we can point to and say, "There! That's the gameplay." Gameplay is the result of a large number of contributing elements. The presence, or lack thereof, of gameplay can be deduced by examining a particular game for indications and contraindications of these elements. (These terms are borrowed from medical terminology: An indication is a positive sign that implies the existence of gameplay, and a contraindication is a negative sign that implies that gameplay does not exist.)

***

[O]ur formal definition of gameplay:
One or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment.

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/des...rollingsadams/

Also, this is further magnified with the fact that all games from genre to genre would have different gameplay. Some games within the genre as well (in this case, Star Ocean, Xenogears (to some extent))

You can define it through something that's common in all the games. One question:

How do you control the game. Don't think in terms of controls. Think in terms of onscreen. If you want to attack the imp (in the example above which no one dared answer) you've got to select Fight from the menu, and your guy or girl will run out and bash it with their sword.

It isn't the bashing of the sword that is important to gameplay because that always changes. It's the choosing of this option from a set menu that is important and is what gameplay is in Final Fantasy. Add combo's, great. You still do them the same way. You find them on the menu and select them.

[RoleTroll]

[O]ur formal definition of gameplay:
One or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment.

Applying this to Sonic and Flicky, the two games have very different gameplay because they have very different challenges for the player to overcome.

[Drewbacca]

Good question: do Sonic and Flicky have the same gameplay if both characters run and jump, using just the digital pad for direction and one button for jumping?

I've never played them. But in this circumstance you're talking about a realtime engine, I suppose. You control the characters directly through an environment at a faster speed then you do a turn based RPG. This is what makes them different (the engine).

In Final Fantasy, you don't have that luxury because it's not real time.

This is also why people comparing Ninja Gaiden to Shinobi as an example is flawed. They're not the same kind of game as Final Fantasy 3 and X. Even in their real time environments (*cough*), Final Fantasy has a couple of buttons to do things throughout its lifespan. An action button for talking and searching, one for running and one to go in to the character screen.

[JM]

This thread makes my brain drool out of my ears, but I'm loving it all the same.

There is more entertainment in here than in the whole fight club board right now. And all of it has remained semi-civil. Awesome.

JM

[FuryFox]

Applying this to Sonic and Flicky, the two games have very different gameplay because they have very different challenges for the player to overcome.

I've never played them.

I'm probably totally wrong here, but it's my impression that "Flicky" was just a title to represent some "non-Sonic" generic platformer, with similar controls but inferior gameplay.

[JM]

No, I do believe Flicky is a real title.

JM