Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The One True RPG...
I found myself playing three different RPGs tonight - Persona 3, Wizardry 8, and the indie RPG Laxius Force. Hmmm.... all sequels. I was sorely tempted to play a couple more, but my survival instinct took over. At some point, my head COULD explode. You never know. And I had a lot of work to do, including writing this blog entry. I did, at least, read over a couple of old reviews of Ultima VII, some new reviews of Fallout 3, and some preview information on Diablo III just to further twist my brain.
Laxius Force is a jRPG-style game that focuses on a really big world and a gigantic cast of characters. Wizardry 8 is an old-school, classic western RPG from seven years ago that emphasizes tactical combat and exploration of a pretty detailed world. And Persona 3 is sort of a dating-sim meets a twisted jRPG-style version of Rogue, with a fairly confined gaming world. I guess it might vaguely fit in the same category as Cute Knight.
Playing all three in the course of an evening was pretty intriguing experience. While I of course realized how starkly different they were from each other, playing them in such rapid succession presented a contrast of styles that was pretty impressive. They had some similarities - they all feature turn-based combat and let you control a party of characters in a more-or-less fantasy world (Persona 3's world resembles our modern world, mixed with the supernatural). But the differences were what got to me - flavor, style, mood, setting, strategy, level of polish, systems, open-endedness, plot, character, pacing, progression, and just overall feel.
These days, there's always some bitching and moaning going on in some RPG reviews about how stale RPGs are, how lame the "grind" and leveling treadmill can be. These are often accompanied by some pontification on how such-and-such a company is going to reinvigorate the genre with this new arcade-action game that looks like an RPG but without those boring stats and stuff which will totally cater to the mainstream instead of the geeks. Which I'm actually pretty cool with - I love a good action-RPG, too. Or even just an action-game with RPG trappings, like the Gauntlet series.
But the experience tonight just reminded me of just how much breadth there is to this genre / category / whatever that we try to pin the "Role-Playing Game" label to. There is no "one true RPG." It's a myth created by some marketing wonk. It wasn't Ultima IV or Final Fantasy VII. It isn't Fallout 3 or even World of Warcraft (which seems to own the entire world right now). It won't even be an indie RPG like Age of Decadence, Depths of Peril, or even our own Frayed Knights.
We've got a huge amount of territory to cover within the realm of computer and console RPGs, an area we've still only begun to explore. It seems silly to me that we should write off the vast range of possibilities and chalk it up to "evolution." Or that we should confine ourselves to one small field as players, unwilling to explore where those few brave (and often, twisted or weird) games dare to go - turning our preferences into cages. There's just too much awesome possibility and variety out there.
I can't wait to see what's next!
Labels: Roleplaying Games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:07 AM (Permalink)
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The whole RPG genre is going to get fuzzy sometime soon. I mean look at games like Castle Crashers, would you call it an RPG as it has RPG elements like hit points, experience, equipment management, level up stats, and the likes, but it does play more like Golden Axe than any RPG out there
There is one true RPG. Its the one you play sitting around a table with your friends rolling dice and crafting a story. No cRPG in the world can do what a pen and paper one can and thats why there are so many cRPG styles. They are all trying to capture aspects of a type of game that they can not ever truly 100% emulate.
# posted by 
: November 12, 2008 9:58 AM
: November 12, 2008 9:58 AM
I've played that one True RPG.
I was a researcher attempting to discover the secrets of a dark and moody small town overrun by horrible creatures.
No, wait, I was a vampire trying to rule the world. No. I was a werewolf trying to destroy hordes of beasties. No, I was an elven cleric-archer. No, I was a gunman shooting zombies. No, I was a noble in a strange land, but I didn't use dice. No, no, I was on a ship travelling across the 'verse, looking for crime.
No no, I remember - I was playing Cops n' Robbers.
I was a researcher attempting to discover the secrets of a dark and moody small town overrun by horrible creatures.
No, wait, I was a vampire trying to rule the world. No. I was a werewolf trying to destroy hordes of beasties. No, I was an elven cleric-archer. No, I was a gunman shooting zombies. No, I was a noble in a strange land, but I didn't use dice. No, no, I was on a ship travelling across the 'verse, looking for crime.
No no, I remember - I was playing Cops n' Robbers.
Good points! The current climate for RPGs (I'm speaking primarily about the PC scene here) is highly unfortunate in that it tends to produce narrow, one-dimensional definitions from everyone involved. The mainstream developers/gamers sees the current action RPG trend as simultaneously the best and only commercially feasible paradigm, while old school RPG fans react to their own marginalization by presenting an opposing but equally rigid definition. As with any insufficiently constructive conflict, the first causualty of this culture war is truth, diversity and the ability to keep an open mind...
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