Impressions thread for positive impressions

[gummy]

So... the quite linear D&D games aren't RPGs either?

FF is a console game, its just not the same as a PC game. Most D&D computer games I'd admit were terrible, it failed to capture the freedom that D&D played on pencil and paper allowed.

What FO tried to accomplish was to use establish a system where you have character development with a more open ended story and mulitple ways to complete objectives. It captures the essence of what an RPG is.

FF(random console RPG) on the other hand is just ...walk around..fight some mobs.. gear up, level up, fight some bosses. Many feel this is what FO3 turned into, your basically ran around killing mobs until you felt like completing the main story.

The problem was fo3 was made for consoles and thus would never have lived up to the expectations of pc gamers who liked fo and fo2 so much. It was a business decision and quite frankly folks who wanted a real sequel will probably never get it.

I should probably add that as a console game FO3 stacks up very well and is probably one of the better made console games today.
I just happen to think console games are crap.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

FF(random console RPG) on the other hand is just ...walk around..fight some mobs.. gear up, level up, fight some bosses. Many feel this is what FO3 turned into, your basically ran around killing mobs until you felt like completing the main story.

You forget the most important part of any FF game - the story! It is probably what makes every good FF game, and ruins every bad one. The FF games are also actually pretty darn focused most of the time, you really have a choice of either power-leveling or proceeding with the story (which, unlike in FO3, is worthy of the effort to proceed with).

You also seem to be making a big mistake of grouping all console RPGs with FF. While it is true that many games are inspired by the FF system, not every JRPG is an FF clone. A lot of them are also PC-exclusive.

You also seem to be hauling XBOX and PS/Nintendo games into the same pile, which is just untrue. I believe the distinction should be East/West as well as PC/Console.

If you grew up thinking D&D is what an RPG is, then no, FF series cannot be considered RPG's because they are linear in every aspect of the game.

I grew up on D&D as well, but I am still playing the hell out of FF games. They are two different genres, but I do not believe them to be mutually exclusive. Just like I said above, it's just wrong to group RPG and JRPG together - they are two different animals. It's like saying "if you like racing games, you won't like FPS for sure".

 

[Eyenixon]

I don't consider many of them to be full-fledged RPGs but fall into a similar "sub-genre" as the Diablo series does, they tend not to fit into many aspects of what I consider a real RPG.
For example, exploration is typically linear and set to specific bodies of land, items and characters in the environment are fairly static and one dimensional, much like the Diablo series. Combat requires little thought beyond knowing what to use at a certain point, something that's applicable to many games that don't fall into the RPG genre, to compound that, there's little character customization in most Final Fantasy games, your statistics are automatically improved, characters typically begin with preset classes and a few minor alterable traits.

I haven't played any of the new Final Fantasies, I became sick of them after the first few (certainly never played any past the SNES era) mostly because they're like EA Sports games, a few installments released every now and then with minor alterations.
I'm also a firm believer that a good story cannot exist without good writing, and that was something entirely absent (at least with my standards) in the Final Fantasy series, dialog was very dry, exposition typical and generic.

One of my favorite jRPGs (Earthbound) falls into the same category, but at the least provides far more entertainment value than Final Fantasy every did for me.

 

[Crni Vuk]

If you grew up thinking D&D is what an RPG is, then no, FF series cannot be considered RPG's because they are linear in every aspect of the game.

So... the quite linear D&D games aren't RPGs either?

They can be. D&D mechanics inside a game do not automaticaly assure you that it is a RPG. As said. Important is for a RPG that you can shape the story thus REALY roleplay a character. A evil bastard or great peacemaker are here though only the extrem. A true RPG should allowe you as well to play the roles between this 2 sides. And its important that the story and world reflect this. That you get a difference if you go in either combat, diplomacy or other routes. And the results should be deep. You sould get acces to either new NPCs, or change NPCs and the process not just get a biger sword or "more" experience.

 

[Eyenixon]

If you grew up thinking D&D is what an RPG is, then no, FF series cannot be considered RPG's because they are linear in every aspect of the game.

So... the quite linear D&D games aren't RPGs either?

They can be. D&D mechanics inside a game do not automaticaly assure you that it is a RPG. As said. Important is for a RPG that you can shape the story thus REALY roleplay a character. A evil bastard or great peacemaker are here though only the extrem. A true RPG should allowe you as well to play the roles between this 2 sides. And its important that the story and world reflect this. That you get a difference if you go in either combat, diplomacy or other routes. And the results should be deep. You sould get acces to either new NPCs, or change NPCs and the process not just get a biger sword or "more" experience.

That would be saying notable RPGs such as the Goldbox games or earlier Wizardry titles aren't truly RPGs. The modern RPG snob seems to think that choice and consequence, a world shaped by your actions, and intense "depth" in dialog and NPC interaction is what composes the core elements of an RPG.
An argument based upon those beliefs would last for an eternity, there are just too many broad definitions that could fit into any one of those descriptors.

The only way to truly explain what an RPG is through mechanics. In a shooter you shoot, a platformer you jump and explore, in an RPG you have many more complex elements than those simpler genres, just as the wargame genre or the strategy genre. But defining an RPG is still based on mechanics, and I explained the typical expressions of those common mechanics in an earlier post.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

^ FF games are certainly not the best of the JRPG world. They are most well-known in the West because they were produced by a big company who had the money to work on English localization.

I would not group them with Diablo, or any Western RPG at all, but if you want to compare, I think they are rather more like IWD games, or some western TBS games (see Disciples).

Combat requires little thought beyond knowing what to use at a certain point, something that's applicable to many games that don't fall into the RPG genre, to compound that, there's little character customization in most Final Fantasy games, your statistics are automatically improved, characters typically begin with preset classes and a few minor alterable traits.

This changes vastly from game to game. FFII and FFIX and the post-PSX games were the ones that really restricted player's leveling choice. As a tradeoff, they offered many characters to use, so the player had to find a good party combination for specific fights.

FFI offered you to choose your party at the beginning (much like in D&D games), and then you leveled the party you chose. You could have 4 warriors or 4 mages or any possible combination.

FFIII and FFV both had extensive job systems that allowed you to mold every character (all of them started with no class) into anything you wanted. Stats also depended on what class you leveled up as.

FFVII and FFVIII gave you basically "blank slate" characters which you could level-up in any way you want. The stats and abilities heavily depended on materia/junctions/GF, so you could not say it was "automatic". The player had to choose what to use. In FFVIII each character would get "attuned" to the summons and use the ones they leveled up more effectively.

I'm also a firm believer that a good story cannot exist without good writing, and that was something entirely absent (at least with my standards) in the Final Fantasy series, dialog was very dry, exposition typical and generic.

Early FF games (NES, SNES) did not focus heavily on writing, but instead on gameplay, just like most games of their age. A lot of early FF translations also sucked balls. On the other hand FFVI, FFVIII, FFIX, FFX all have well-written (if "cheesy) stories that keep you interested in the game.

All of that being said, I prefer "tactical" JRPGs that make full use of TB combat, like FFT, FFTA, BMW, Hoshigami, etc etc

 

[Eyenixon]

Those "tactical" games are just essentially jRPGs with the Goldbox series combat system. How many times have I mentioned those games in this thread?

 

[Ausdoerrt]

^ I'm a tad too young to have played any of the Goldbox games, but you are probably right. Regardless though, they are very much enjoyable, especially when the combat system is put together with the Job system in mind (FFT, FFTA).

There's also a score of jRPGs with battle and stat systems that are as bizarre as you can get. My fav. example - Seinarukana, an RPG game with mixed in TBS elements (http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-281723/SeiNarukana.html)

 

[Commiered]

Eyenixon is right, mechanics make an RPG. Modern ones can have more variety, different consequences etc. but stripped down they all have a particular style that is similar to the Goldbox games that I grew up on.

Shit Ausdoerrt, you make me feel old! Hell I bet many of the games I played were out before some of the guys here were born!

 

[Crni Vuk]

That would be saying notable RPGs such as the Goldbox games or earlier Wizardry titles aren't truly RPGs. The modern RPG snob seems to think that choice and consequence, a world shaped by your actions, and intense "depth" in dialog and NPC interaction is what composes the core elements of an RPG.
An argument based upon those beliefs would last for an eternity, there are just too many broad definitions that could fit into any one of those descriptors.

The only way to truly explain what an RPG is through mechanics. In a shooter you shoot, a platformer you jump and explore, in an RPG you have many more complex elements than those simpler genres, just as the wargame genre or the strategy genre. But defining an RPG is still based on mechanics, and I explained the typical expressions of those common mechanics in an earlier post.

I can not say that I really fully agree with this (but maybe I even got something wrong so). What do stats have for a meaning if they do not make for a difference in the outcome. And I mean story-wise in the way that the one or other decision based on your stats of course shape eventualy the world or even not.

As said. To have the skills of a thiev or playing one are 2 different things. Think about the "Cowboy" vs "indian" here. Its not enough to just look like a indian. You have to be perceived like a indian and in return ge the chance to act like a indian. Or the game would be dull [think about the child here that wanted to be a cowboy cause he loves the guns and thus starts to compromise your game cause he "doesnt act like a indian"]

Stats have the meaning to allow your self a "detachment" between your self in the real world and the character you created. I think real immersive gameplay is even contradicting to roleplaying. I dont want to be "realy" there. I want to Play someone who is there and see how "HE" would act. What would a EVIL thiev do? What would a insane monk do? Or a mad max type of lone stranger character. I think immersive gameplay limits roleplaying a lot (I mean the sense how they want you to BE the vault dweller instead of playing the vault dweller, or choosen one, you name it).

The stat mechanics are of course important. But they alone do not make automatically a good RPG

 

[Eyenixon]

You're still diving into the far more ideological aspect of RPGs, the pure grit of the matter is that RPGs use stats as mere representation, it's the desire to apply character to things beyond being mere pixels on the screen, numbers and interactivity give life to them.

What is more customizable than a host of different variables giving varied results while interacting with thousands of other numbers, triggers and possibilities? I never said that an RPG should not weigh results on these statistics. The old adage "It's the inside that counts," is most applicable to the RPG genre, a character model is a character model, modifiable or not, but numbers can change everything about him in a figurative sense, higher strength makes him stronger, and a good developer will provide ample opportunity for the character to flex that ability ingame.

Alignment is a derivative of that reasoning, it's entirely arbitrary in expressing the intent of the genre beyond a simple flavorful form. What's more important is being able to create a unique character, have him grow and improve, and present differences against any other. This can be broadened in many ways, a whole party, influencing events in a world, interaction with NPCs.
"Roleplaying" was always about creating your own persona, and as such it's not simply playing a "role", but rather playing a role you wish to play, and that role should be as unique as possible, with many variations in an ideal example. The best way to accomplish that? We come full-circle, stats. Stats allow us to pile as many specifics into a character as we wish, look at Fallout, several skills, several attributes, traits, perks, every little deviation of choice produces a different result.

We're speaking on a different level, you're trying to address far broader aspects of the genre, arguing that an RPG should present depth, I'm simply attempting to explain the basics of the genre, what an RPG is, not what it should be.

 

[Corvin]

I think my point regarding not everybody agreeing what an RPG is is well made at this point.

Also... no computer game comes close to matching tabletop or LARP.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

I think my point regarding not everybody agreeing what an RPG is is well made at this point.

Also... no computer game comes close to matching tabletop or LARP.

No way. Me and my friends like to get together to play this old discontinued Marvel roleplaying game every once and again. You get to make your own super hero and everything. It's a geeks wet dream.

 

[tomcullen]

I'll be brief and quiet, as I've seen a great deal of angry opinion and do not wish to contribute to THAT foolishness.

I'm thankful for this post. I have not yet finished Fallout 3 because I've been doing something I haven't done in ages: I'm taking my time. I've spent most of my time wandering the capital wasteland, taking in the sights, and trying to savor every metaphorical bite of this game. I understand I'm finally within spitting distance of the endgame, and you know what?

I don't want it to be over.

People can argue back and forth all they want about it, whether it's true to the series or whatever. I don't care. What I care about is that I have enjoyed this game, and I had just as much fun playing it as I had playing the first, the second, and Tactics.

After playing Fallout: BOS, I had lost hope in this series. It concerns me to see people attacking Fallout 3 with all the ferocity that I attacked THAT abomination. Say what you will about the changes, at least Fallout 3 is fun!

Isn't that the point of gaming?

I digress. I'm thankful for this, what I consider the newest addition to the Fallout family, and I'm thankful to hear that I'm not the only one who enjoyed it.

(Really no need to respond to this, it just bothers me when I see folks getting so passionate about opinions. >_< )

 

[Ausdoerrt]

^ You're the one being passionate here >___<

 

[Corvin]

I think Fallout 3 is definitely more rewarding to people who like exploration than people who like dialogue.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

.....Say what you will about the changes, at least Fallout 3 is fun!

Isn't that the point of gaming?

....

It is a large part. But for example if you take a chess game and remove every figure you don´t want to play, then you get a game that is fun FOR YOU!!! But for a lot of people that is not fun and most definitely it is not chess.

If you enjoy Fallout 3 then great. Have fun playing the game, but this doesn´t mean everyone else has to have the same opinion.

Another very important part of games for me is the duration within the games are fun to play. And no, 10 hours full of fun are not worth 50 Euros! Another important part: the price.

 

[Roflcore]

I think Fallout 3 is definitely more rewarding to people who like exploration than people who like dialogue.

If you like "exploring" in F3 than your standards are pretty low. Most of the time you just "explore" ways to grind more loot. Another 10000 caps, but no Military Base or something like that.

 

[Corvin]

Did you miss the military installations?

 

[Elandarex]

I think one way to define a baseline for what an RPG really is would be to look at their humble beginnings as an extension of the tabletop wargame. Gygax and Arneson took most of the tactical elements from those impersonally epic games and brought them down to a personal level with each player controlling a single character as opposed to one or more divisions of an army(ies). It did become more focused on storytelling, but that wasn't the most important part. Instead, the storytelling, in many ways, seemed incidental to the underlying mechanics of the game. Important, yes. The end all be all? No. This can be seen further ahead in time as DnD (and other) systems became more and more bloated and weighed down with rules. There was always the option of ignoring those rules if it helped the story, but it never (or rarely with some) devolved into full on LARPing which in some ways could be seen as a being the idealistic vision of RPGs that many have where there is choice and consequence (maybe) without any real mechanics to guide the laws of the game's world.

I'm actually quite comfortable with saying that RPGs are, at their heart, personal extensions of the strategy genre. Many of the classic RPGs share similarities (though in the case of some of the old first person RPGs like the early Ultimas these similarities were not as visually apparent) such as those games running on the Infinity engine, the later Ultima games, and, of course, the original Fallouts. In those games you were your character(s) but your control over them (except perhaps in dialogue) was anything but personal, much like playing a tabletop RPG. On the flip side, an RTS with hero characters such as Warcraft 3 is definitely not an RPG because you the player are most definitely the omnipresent, unseen general and not the hero(es) on the battlefield despite the similar level of control you may have in comparison to RPGs.

So, and I know many will disagree with this, I would say that an RPG is at its most basic level a strategy game where the player is focused on a personal journey and not an impersonal campaign. And naturally, one more factor to consider is that the statistical complexity of an RPG per unit is far greater than that of an RTS which spreads the complexity out over many more units. This complexity is what ultimately gives an RPG unit its character from an objective perspective because as soon as we start depending wholly on the players to define their characters with no underlying system to bring them into check with other potential residents of the world the RPG just breaks down into LARPing.

Again, I don't expect everyone (or even most) to agree with me on this, but it feels right to me, especially considering the precedent with D&D's genesis. Ultimately, it would allow me to define what is obviously an RPG (Fallout) with games that certainly feel like RPGs despite some "shortcomings" (Baldur's Gate with a noticeable lack of choice, consequence, and TB; the Final Fantasies for their outright linearity) while still being able to shoo away the ungodly number of games that try to attach the RPG descriptor to themselves (Legend of Zelda, etc.).