The Shrine

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>question, does anyone care for RPGs anymore? or do you all just care for crappy action games like resident evil and halo?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Ummmm, I still love RPGs, but don't be dissin my Resident Evil.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Because I've noticed a definite shift in my personal preferences over the past few years. I mean, I used to be a hardcore RPG lover - starting at the PSOne era, I played Wild ARMs, FFVII, Dragon Force, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, FFVIII, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Grandia, Legend of Legaia, FFIX, Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue I & II, FFX, Legend of Legaia 2, KotOR...and those were just the ones (that I can remember off the top of my head) that I finished. Here's the thing, though...with the exception of Shenmue II, FFX, LoL2, and KotOR, all of the other RPGs were ones that I played in college, where my schedule and living arrangements were such that I had both a) periods of six hours or so when I didn't have to do anything and b) a constant presence of other people around (roommates/friends who would hang out while I was playing).

Once I graduated and started working full-time, it came to be that I no longer had an abundance of time to devote to long periods of gaming and still maintain a healthy physical and social life. I found my preferences gravitating more towards the "20 hours and under" action/adventure genre that has sprung up recently - games like Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, Manhunt, Metal Gear Solid 2, Beyond Good & Evil, Prince of Persia, Viewtiful Joe, and the like - simply because on a typical day I only have two or so hours to game, and it's not necessarily like I can game every day, either. Thus, your normal 50+ hour RPG, which would have taken two to three weeks back in the day, now takes two to three months, and when you spread a game out like that it's much easier to forget parts of the story and/or lose interest in it completely (that happened to me with Suikoden III). Not to mention when you only spend your time on one game for three months, you miss a lot of what's been released in the meantime and it's hard to catch up.

As has been discussed several times over in Daily Stuph, the members of this board are getting older and the demographic shift is applying to the board as a whole - thus the shift in the majority of the discussions from RPGs to action/adventure games. (By the way, I just want to mention that generally, we here play <i>good</i> action games. If you were referring to the entire action genre as crappy then I'll give you that, but at least we know a good game in a "crappy" genre when we see it.)

Keep in mind that this is just my theory. You guys can feel free to debate it.

Regards,
<i>-57</i></div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I'm of the opinion that the classic RPG, as we have come to know it, is on the up and out. RPGs were created more or less as a way to circumvent limited technology and create deeper, more involved gameplay systems by taking the elements out of "real time", as it were, and making them discrete. Want to be able to control 4 players at once and handle an enormous list of skills and spells? We'll make the combat system turn-based and menu-based. Sick of 2-D side-scrollers that force you to move in a straight line? We'll give you a top down view that isn't as great for fast-paced action, but encourages exploration and freedom of movement in a limited 2-D environment. Then just simplify the sprites and the animations so that they can be subsituted by elaborate storylines and comprehensive, customizable character advancement systems, and we have ourselves a classic RPG.

Now that was all pure genius in 1994. The problem is that we're now getting to the point where the technology is no longer so limited. We're getting to the point where you <I>can</i> control 4 players and handle a huge list of skills in real-time while running and jumping around in a fully-rendered 3-D environment - no simplified sprites or animations necessary. So it's starting to seem to me like...what's the point? What the hell is the point of this ridiculously antiquated turn-by-turn gameplay in FF10? Did Square miss the memo that the 4th generation has arrived? Selecting a summon off a list and watching a 5 minute animation no longer looks impressive, it just looks like an anachronism. Looking at this beautiful 3-D world and not being able to interact with anything but a few treasure chests and save points...or even being able to jump...it just seems pointless to me. Have they gone through all this trouble just to wax "traditional" and turn all this cutting-edge technology into something that barely even goes beyond FF6?

RPGs essentially <I>are</i> just action games that exchange some gameplay functions for others for the sake of being able to run on a limited technology platform. Now that the technology is no longer limited in many of these respects, it's come time for some changes. In a few years I predict (or at least hope) there won't be much difference left between RPGs and "crappy" action games at all.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Recently played list, Tales of Symphonia, Star Ocean tteot, Fable... yeah I still play RPG's</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I basically concur. I've been pretty jaded with RPGs as of late, although I haven't given the recent crop a chance yet. (Maybe I'll try Shadow Hearts or The Third Age.)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Pretty much the same for me, but I stopped having time during college. The idea of committing to a 50 hour game now is just unfathomable. Over the summer, it took me four weeks to finish Metroid: Zero Mission, where I clocked in under seven hours.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard nothing buy great things about Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Ogre Battle 64
Wild Arms 3
Final Fantasy III (FF6j if you're Japanese)
Illusion of Gaia (Adventure, but still epic).

I play all sorts of games though, I don't like to limit myself to a single genre. By the way, who in the BLUE HELL are you?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Load times are almost non-existant in older ones, you get into a battle, do all your commands and the enemy is dead in seconds after possibly 7-8 exchanges on hits. In newer RPG's, everything has to be flashy, it takes a few seconds just for the battle screen to load up, summon spells take more than just a second or two to cast, magic, attacking, everything takes longer. It makes random battles much more annoying than they used to be. Nothing is as bad as FF7, that I can think of, but nothing is as good as the majority of games in the 16-bit era either; when it comes to encounters. As far epic adventure, RPG's, and strategy titles go, they are still 90-95% of what I play in single player.

I do find myself looking backwards to find enjoyable gameplay experiences though. RPG's just aren't of the same quality as they used to be. Higher production value, but lower fun factor. There are a few I do like though, Skies of Arcadia, Wild Arms 2, Xenosaga, FF10, and Tales of Symphonia I think I will love too, but there should be more for this generation which is about a year or two from being over. Still, I hope, in the SNES days, most of the best games came out in the last two years; I strongly believe that Final Fantasy 12 and Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time II (whatever they call it) will be the best games of this particular generation.

Gentz, you'd like Vagrant Story, that game really is a turn-based Epic Adventure title. The only one I can think of, and one of my favourite games ever.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Yet for me, asocial life isn't really an issue, almost everything I do can be considered part of my social life; I have visitors over here nearly all the time. Videogames are social, watching TV and movies are social, eating is social, etc.... About the only things that aren't are reading, serfing the net (which can be semi-social) and taking a dump. If by social life you mean getting out, I get out at the very least once a week, and normally 3-4 times a week. Even though work and school may take up an average of 8 hours a day (this includes weekends), I still have another 6-10 waking hours free to do other things.

I don't know, I just haven't really ever felt very short on time before. There have been a few occaisions in my life, but they are few and far between. Either way, I think if you really like to play videogames, it shouldn't be too difficult to fit in 5-20 hours per week.

If you ever follow my posts, it does take me a good 1-3 months to finish an RPG, but that's because I play a bunch of games at once. I still have found that the majority of RPG's aren't 50 hours, they're more around 30-35; I've only played 2-3 in my life that are over 50; Ogre Battle 64 will be one (even though I am not at that mark, I know I will be), Xenogears is two, and I am sure I'll think of a third somewhere.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Thank you for articulating something that's been wordlessly running around in my head for the past couple of years. (On another note, the transitional nature of KotOR is probably why I liked it so much.)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Long games require less substance because you can just throw a ton of filler in it. Short games, ironically, are usually more complex (at least the good ones).

Today's RPG have not yet evolved beyond the SNES age so far as battle engine is concerned, and everyone and their brother wants to reinvent the 'attack heal special item' system everytime which usually results in a system that's actually worse than the tried and true 4 command system. Graphically, I don't think today's RPG are able to talk advantage of the additional capabilities. Also, something like 95% of polygon characters can't act if their life depended on it (probably because the developers never thought about that) and it is noticeable, whereas back in SNES/PSX era you know you can't see facial expressions beyond a very rudimentary level (i.e. Chrono Trigger laugh) anyway so you can let it slide. I'm not a fan of the 'good old days' but today's RPG aren't even trying anymore, and Square is the only one that puts out graphics that are actually worthy for the PS2 generation consistently.

Though I hated FFX2, I think it does give some hope to the future, seeing it's basically a voice acting experiment, and some of the people in it are really good, like Shuyin.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It wasn't until about FF7 when people started getting concerned about the story, though that usually just becomes the "I want to be God" bandwagon.

If you want to talk about exploring, Skies of Arcadia is a much funner game to explore, even despite the stupidly lame random battles, compare to any game that came out in the PSX era or earlier. I do not believe there was anything inherently good about old RPGs, and that this current lack of good RPG is just temporary and a direct result of RPG working on the wrong directions (reinventing the wheel, plot twists that don't make sense, needlessly long games without any reason to be long).

The RPGs of the old are just as bad as today's, but thanks to the turbo mode that you can find in emulators, they at least wasted less time than today's RPG.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>16bit games don't have loadtime because they're on cartridges. Loading time wasn't a big issue until the later PSX era games.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>There are not many out now that I'd care to play. That'll change with KOTOR2 and Jade Empire.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>My favourite types of epic adventure/rpg games for the past year or so have been strategy based ones. Ever since I began playing Fire Emblem for Gameboy Advance SP I have been going back through a number of other strategy titles, the two Shining Forces on Genesis, Final Fantasy Tactics on PSX, and now Ogre Battle 64. They aren't for everyone, but I enjoy these types of titles quite a bit. As soon as I am done Ogre Battle 64, I will probably get that one that came out for PS2 a year ago with the French title.

Anyways, I don't necessarilly think that todays RPG's are bad, I just feel that they have a lot more annoyances in them than they used to have, despite their much higher production value. That began on PSX, and companies haven't really done a whole lot to cut down on it. Skies of Arcadia actually has a much lower encounter rate than Final Fantasy 3, it's just that on average battles take about 8 seconds in FF3 from the time of encounter until you are back on the map, whereas they are more like 25-30 in Skies of Arcadia. The Gamecube version fixed the encounter rate quite a bit. It's an annoyance, but because I like the rest of the game so much, it is very much forgivable. I do like exploring, there's a lot of interesting locations (the towns are great, a lot of them remind me of the Kingdom of Zeal in Chrono Trigger which was a fun place even though I think my favourite period was the dark ages; it is hard to say actually, depends on my mood) and the character's personalities do make. I haven't played FF10-2 yet, so I won't comment on that game, I have heard mixed opinions, you hate it, another person I know thinks it's the best on the system. Then again, I really enjoyed Xenosaga as well, but it is not a game I would ever play again (a least in the next 10-15 years) simply based on the fact that it is one of the most linear RPG's in existance. I am very much looking forward to the second part of the game.

A friend of mine is playing Tales of Symphonia, I've sat in and watched a bit of it, it looks like a very fun game and I can't wait to play it myself. It looks like a very fun game; I'll probably play it during the winter break, assuming I am done the others I am playing.

Older RPG's though, they had a lot of focus on the types of things in games that I find very fun. Essentially they were more compact, smaller, much more quickly paced, look at what you accomplish in 6 hours of Final Fantasy III compared to 6 hours of Final Fantasy 9 or 10, for example. I did like Xenogears as well, quite a bit, but again, in 6 hours nothing is accomplished; in Final Fantasy III that's almost half the game. In Chrono Trigger that's almost half the game. As far as an actual story,I still do not think that many have come out with great stories yet, I feel that FF8 has a great one, Xenogears has a great one too, but I like it about 70% as much as FF8; On strategy/RPG titles, I feel that they generally have better stories, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Ogre Battle all had great stories to them, sure FFT had a lot of translation problems, but the story was still great regardless; it's like reading older pre-Cromwell/Commonwealth and pre-dictionary texts, the grammar and often spelling is horrible, but the story can still be very enjoyable. Even some great works in the 19th century texts have very bad grammar, and still are enjoyable reads. I do not feel that the plots of newer games are any more enjoyable than the older ones in general, but I do feel that there are more better plots in the newer games. I also feel that some plots drag on far too much; Xenogears can be argued to have done this, but so much goes on in the game that I didn't feel that it did, of course the plot doesn't even really begin until later on in the game, and only gradually is the player dropped into it.

Final Fantasy I has no plot at all, well it does, but no more plot than in your average Super Mario Brothers game; what makes it fun? I feel the freedom allowed in it makes it fun. Also it is not very linear, different things can be done in different orders, and certain things don't have to be done at all. It's a very short game, but that just means that there's no huge amount of pressure on the player to pick a perfect team, 3 blackbelts and a Red Mage, why not? How about 3 white mages and a fighter? Anything you want. It is a game that even us here at tows could probably develop. Alright, I kind of lost track of what I was saying here, so I'll stop.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I've been playing Tales of Symphonia off and on for about, oh, 6 months now... It never really holds my attention for very long.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Voice acting in general isn't that much but it is an intersting experiment. There are things they do in FFX and FFX2 that simply can't be done without voice-acting. The Shuyin fight in FFX2 comes to mind where the ability for the enemy to say things really makes the battle that much more immersive.

Of course on the opposite spectrum you get something like Xenosaga or MGS where people just ramble forever.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I kind of enjoyed sitting back with some popcorn and watching the scenes; Xenosaga is a different sort of game, it is like a TV series with gameplay in between.

I know FF7 and 8 can be finished in 30 hours, 9 is longer, it's about 40-50 (though I didn't finish it last time I played) also a hell of a lot less interesting. FF7 and 9 do have fairly similar structures though, the player begins in a very interesting area (Midgar or Alexandria/Lindblum), and then ends up on a world tour chasing a demi-god who is incredibly vain but at the same time refuses to cut his weird looking girly hair until you kill him at the end of the game. The only really major difference in the plot structure is that FF9 takes 45 hours to accomplish in what FF7 does in 30.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I agree though. RPG development has gone very far, but pretty much entirely in the wrong directions. I think it was around FF6 that developers realized the potential for RPGs to serve as a kind of missing-link between video games and film, and so RPG development became focused on how to make the games more "movie-like." They began to concentrate on things like flashier graphics/animations, elaborate cut-scenes, voice-acting, longer and more "epic" storylines, etc., and all the while the actual gameplay continued to stagnate.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, lack of X-Box kept me from playing KotOR, but it did seem pretty cool.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>My friend is loving it. The story and concept seem really cool from what I've seen, but the gameplay is pretty typical.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I wish they'd do something about the lack of emotion on character's faces in games like Xenosaga & Star Ocean. FFX is the only game where the games character's actually act with the voices.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>That's one thing they took into consideration for part 2. Personally, I don't really give a crap, but it could make things funnier.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You're correct, 1994 is the year when things all began to change with RPG's. The next year we had Chrono Trigger; and consequently, after that, the creation of the Shrine.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Man, you are really pushing Vagrant Story lately. I remember it coming out but I never got around to playing it. From what I've read it sounds cool though.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt "copperplate gothic light"; text-align: left; '>I have been playing Star Oean, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Phantom Brave, and several others. I would say that RPG's are still about 90% of what I play</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm basically the same, I gravitate more towards games that are about 10 hours or so or the ones that you can have fun with for just an hour or so (music games, for instance). I still think 30-40 hours is ideal length for an RPG, even less. And you didn't play the SNES RPGs? So sad...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>FF9 was a good 25-35 hours as well (29 for me, if I remember). That's a great length. You flush out the story, have lots of additional stuff, but you don't get bogged down in battle after endless battle</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Not really worth it for them to pay ANYTHING extra for voice actors, it doesn't affect the sales at all. Look at how unbelievable awful the voice acting was in MMX7, one of the worse games based on a long-running franchise EVER</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Which is why MMX7 is regarded as the worst game in Megaman history(Save MM Soccer) along with is pitiful gameplay. I was referring to the character's movements and facial expressions during dialog btw obviously not something a voice actor can fix but a programmer can.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FF6's plot was not complex or even confusing (trademark of FF7+ games) by any stretch of imagination.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I think I did it in well under 30, but I also ran away from like every random battle for the last half of the game because your character isn't defined by levels anyway.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Actually, it is even worse when you're reading a part that the voice actor is trying to sound dramatic but the character is still in the same old 'swaying' pose that all RPG characters are always in. I rather have people who don't sound right on the parts they should (Grandia 1 comes to mind) but their onscreen personna portrays the right emotion, as opposed to the character sounding like what they should but the onscreen personna not doing anything that'd match it.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Case in point at the beginning of Star Ocean "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! I HAVE TO SAVE MY PARENTS!" Meanwhile the character is making like no effort whatsoever to move past the 3 foot girl in his way. heh.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I think the worst is when the character is in a loop doing a motion that's supposed to emphasize what they're saying, but the time for doing that motion has passed. Happens a few times in FFX.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>That occured with the PSX and FF7, when the graphics went from being cartoony to realistic. That's when they started to think they could blur the lines. The SNES days they discovered the more elaborate storylines</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Exactly. Being able to run away from useless random battles is key. There's just too many of them anyways. The whole concept is outdated</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm the opposite. I can deal with the fact that the on-screen isn't quite an animate as it should be as long as there's great voice acting.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Whoa, whoa, whoa, looks like I didn't make myself clear. My SNES days were back when I was in junior high and high school and I had tons of time, I just didn't mention them. I mean, I currently OWN copies of CT, FFII/III, and SoM.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Ok, coo. Just making sure you didn't miss out :-)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Of the FF games, only FF8 had a complex plot, it was mutli-threaded whereas all the others are single threaded. The others had some strange things in them, but they didn't really become very complex.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FF8 was the first FF game with realistic graphics, and FF10 was the second. We already got into this =P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I wouldn't say outdated, I just feel that they put too much emphasis on making battles flashy that they forget to focus on speed.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Heh, I don't like voice acting of any sort. Mainly because I feel I can act out the voices better anyways, and more to my preference.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>No no, you'te the only one who believes that. We're not getting into this again.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And the FMV's aren't realistic either, they are anime style. They more closely resemble characters from Tenchi Muyo.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm not gonna argue further, but I disagree</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Final Fantasy 7:

Realistic people do not have larger heads than bodies, Final Fantasy 7 characters do. Even Chrono Trigger anime looks more realistic, and that's SD style.

<a href="http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/gra ... ing.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/gra ... ne2.jpg</a>

Final Fantasy 8:

This is what realistic characters look like

<a href="http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff8/scr ... ll1.gif</a>
<a href="http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff8/scr ... g</a></div>