Comments on: Chaos Rings: The Classic RPG is Dead to Me

By: Tamashii

Tamashii — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 02:56:56 +0000

I have this game on my iPhone. I cannot play it for more than 5 minutes. It’s irritating.

By: Shadowmage

Shadowmage — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 06:34:14 +0000

@Kylaran

I don’t necessarily dislike straightforward RPGs, but ten hours in, I start to ask myself whether I’m truly having fun or not. Yes, I get addicted to a game because it’s fun, but eventually I realize that I’m simply just addicted. I find that if I stop playing, I’m not any less happy than if I had continued to grind.

As for social media being integrated with games in Japan… I can see this coming to Facebook real soon. RPGs are such a low amount of focus that I think it is feasible to multitask and still have a complete grasp of everything around you.

By: Kylaran

Kylaran — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:54:48 +0000

I personally dislike open sandbox RPGs (Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout 3), and, despite the fact that I was raised on Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights (the former being a genuinely brilliant game, the latter simply being a guilty pleasure), I tend to favor linear RPGs.

Why? Who the hell says there needs to be something challenging to make a game fun? I like the linearity because I can predict what happens at the end of the game. I get over being a little whiny bastard, save the princess, and it’s happily ever after. Seriously. I love it.

In fact, in my many years of playing games, I’ve only very rarely played any evil characters (a few times in Baldur’s Gate/other DnD-influenced games), and I just don’t enjoy playing those sorts of characters.

It’s really hard to compare Western and Japanese RPGs, primarily because what the gamers expect is so different. Here in Japan, while you mash the x button, you can chat with friends, surf 2ch, and do a lot of stuff at the same time. And stat crunching is fun (this is coming from someone that did regular mathcrafting on Elitist Jerks during his WoW days though).

As a side note, I did a bit of research into this subject about a year ago. The famous series Record of Lodoss War was originally created in story format as the successor of a failed attempt to import Western-style fantasy games (for example, DnD) into Japan. Companies found that instead of open roleplay, the Japanese tended to prefer these books that published stories set in particular campaigns, rather than making their own characters and playing themselves. This trend carries onto even modern day linear Japanese RPGs, which continue to be fun for those who simply *prefer* those kinds of games.

And finally, I love collecting the useless and random items in games (HNNNGGGHHHH VESPERIA!!!), and I think Japanese RPGs do a great job of that.

By: Shadowmage

Shadowmage — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:26:44 +0000

@zzeroparticle
Final Fantasy Tactics was interesting in that it was the only FF game I felt had any real strategic depth to it if only because it forced you to position your units in the most efficient way possible.

As for action RPGs, I find that several of these games are just as uninteresting as turn based RPGs unless they have a full combat system like Castelvania or Kingdom Hearts where timing attacks and dodges is an issue.

@Sorrow-kun
Ah, the good old MMORPG curse where it takes the time and effort of around 3 PhDs to get to build up a maxed character.

@jpmeyer
I agree. I think that future RPGs will go down the path of Fable III where there are a countless number of quests and sidequests a player can take part in throughout the game. It’s an aspect of MMPORGs I think can port over to standard single player RPGs easily and fluidly… However, I hope that the combat is not dumbed down quite as much as in Fable III.

@kadian1364
I think that menu scrolling would be acceptable if there were genuine strategic elements to the spells or if you were controlling more than one character, but otherwise, yeah, it should be obsolete.

@Mystlord
I honestly think that by today’s standards, nearly all the old RPGs will be considered bad. They are probably unplayable to anyone who has grown up with Mass Effect and Fallout 3. I don’t just mean graphically, but in terms of gameplay as well.

As for Square Enix not innovating… that is why they are facing the end of a long barrel.

By: Mystlord

Mystlord — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:06:10 +0000

I suppose it’s just a generational thing. The Final Fantasy games were fun and all, but those games are mostly a fantasy story book as an RPG, or at least that’s how I view them. The more recent brand of RPGs like Fallout 3 or Oblivion focus far more on the player experience than any real storyline. I mean the storyline for both those games in and of themselves is pretty weak.

Then you have the other types of RPGs that provide a mix of storytelling and gameplay, two of which are KotOR and Mass Effect. Kotor tends to lean towards the FF model, while ME leans more towards the user experience type of thing.

It’s mostly a matter of what you end up appreciating more in an RPG. Square Enix is one of those companies that’s stuck to their tried and true formula through the ages. I wouldn’t look to them for innovation on this front haha.

By: kadian1364

kadian1364 — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:04:29 +0000

I like the way the Tales games handle combat. It makes battles fun because the characters actually have styles and you can plug in a second player.

I played some of FFXIV and I couldn’t believe how utter garbage the gameplay was. Menu scrolling battle systems as old as the dinosaurs should stay dead and buried.

By: jpmeyer

jpmeyer — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:19:17 +0000

You know, I think the combat in the vast majority of RPGs is pretty empty, whether they’re Japanese or Western, or turn-based or real-time (or a hybrid). It almost seems like at this point that the companies should just focus more on giving it the illusion of being interesting, giving as many non-combat options as possible, or simply make the game scale better as you progress (can be automatically strengthening/weakening enemies based on level, can be giving out far more experience for major storyline events than someone can get from grinding).

I think the last time I played an RPG where I had to do some kind of thinking through my combat (beyond simple things like looking for cover in a game like Fallout 3) were in some of the major battles against enemies like dragons or bosses in Baldur’s Gate 2, which was 10 years ago.

By: Sorrow-kun

Sorrow-kun — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:26:28 +0000

I’ve been playing Monster Hunter Tri a crapload lately, which I guess you’d call an action RPG. So, there’s little in the way of attack spamming, but there’s still an unfortunate amount of grinding… not to level up, which has no relevance to your stats, but to get good equipment. In order to upgrade your stats you need to make better kit, and to do this, you need rewards from the monsters you kill. When the necessary rewards to make the next important armour or weapon have drop rates as low as 2%, it can be incredibly frustrating. Sure, it’s hella rewarding once you get it, but 2% drop rates are ridiculous for something that takes 15 minutes to kill… and that’s if you’re good (and you have good teammates).

By: zzeroparticle

zzeroparticle — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 06:04:42 +0000

I’d say strategy RPGs do a pretty solid job of making it challenging though I would have to caution against the gimmicky (but enjoyable in its own way) Disgaea franchise. Given that I too prefer something more meaningful beyond the hit X over and over, grind up to hellacious levels, and pummel bosses into oblivion, games like Final Fantasy Tactics (you’ll want the original one for the PSX or the PSP remake titled War of the Lions), Tactics Ogre (actually, the Ogre Battle franchise has yet to disappoint), and Stella Deus to be more my cup of tea. Action RPGs like Vagrant Story have been good too, as well as the obtuse (but fun) Unlimited Saga.

Sadly, I haven’t had a chance to try out any others since time has been woefully short as of late, so I can’t tell you how next-gen RPGs have gone down (Valkyria Chronicles was fun what little I played of it).