Board 8 > Power rankings of current gen RPGs.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Dante if you come up we're playing FE10

Though I probably just convinced you not to come up. Did I say FE10? I meant uh

A fightan game. Or re5. Or something.

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Wanglicious posted...

3DS and Vita are "next gen." they're with the Wii U.
DS/PSP = 'current gen' with the PS3/360/Wii.

Thats my understanding of it though handhelds are always in between generations.

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Now with more bold! Less Italics due to bold

having your own genre doesn't escape you from a larger umbrella. fighters for example are also 'their own genre', but they also are action games and will fall under it as well. you can't actually separate it from any standpoint of an action game but just say it's a specialized kind of action game, making it a genre of its own. which, while fine, doesn't make the claim wrong. further up you go, more you'll cover. simulation covers a very wide range.

now, gta has sim-like elements to it, rpg-like elements to it, adventure game elements to it - that's what makes sandbox exactly what it is. having a wide variety of genres and subgenres (racing? shooter? action?) mixed into one to create something new. modern racing games... ALSO are simulation games half the time - it will depend on the game but extreme customization would count under this. the racing part itself, different half of the game. nonetheless, you'd be a fool to say that a lot aren't one part sim, one part something else, especially if it's deeply intergrated and not something like mario kart or something. hell, wrestling games are also under the umbrella of sports, under the umbrella of sim and makes no illusions of that fact. you know better than that.

also regarding RE, or any shooter for that matter, makes me think that you aren't understanding how difference of application matters. you're the one who pretended i said a definition in the first place, now you're acting as if anything with stats/numbers counts, and that doesn't make sense at all. everything has numbers to it because games and programs are essentially giant gobs of math. numbers and letters make up code and if you have one thing kill another obviously numbers have to come into play - all that should be obvious. if you get hardcore into fighting or shooters you can figure out the numbers associated, but that's not the way the presentation usually works (some shooters will, but they often will also be part rpg too). it's the way you use your stats/numbers that counts.

there's nothing wrong with rpg or sim-like elements. but for those genres data on your character/enemies is plainly in front of you and in your control. you manipulate your stats, you make changes, you usually even can see your enemy's down the road. the games are specifically designed with you in control of the numbers. simply incorporating that and it being a fundamental backbone of the game's system are different stories. if you lost control of the numbers, could that change the genre? sure. could there be a replacement that would be similar? sure, again.

but that goes for the other games too. you lose it in Diablo, you've got an action dungeon crawler. you lose it in KH, you have... Dynasty Warriors. you lose it in MMORPG, you have... an MMO action game i guess. now, if you wanted to replace some of these things with set powerups ala Metroid or Bioshock, you could do that and get a similar game in a different genre. that doesn't remove what the game currently is, it just says that we've evolved to a point where we can replicate another genre fairly well.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

the handhelds aren't really in between generations, just look at when they came out. THIS generation of consoles is simply taking forever, but the DS to the 360 is pretty similar to the 3DS and the Wii. the Vita and the Wii U are almost exactly the same as well - out in the same year (outside of Japan, a year apart otherwise). PSP and 360 came out in the same year. hard to be 'in between' generations like that. this one has just gone on forever and still has another year or two in the tank that they're gonna get out of sync, but otherwise it's been pretty steady for the past few gens.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

I think you missed what I meant with RE4. RE4 has upgradable weapons that have attack stats and rate of fire stats and such. That's not figuring out hidden stats-- you see it all there and can choose your gear accordingly. That puts stats at the core of the game in some way, and by what you're saying makes RE4 an RPG/Sim.

Now... I know RE4 and GTA3 and Madden and SFA3 and such should not be considered RPGs or Sims, but my point of listing "RPGs" was to show you that your criteria for determining what's a sufficient condition to be considered one of those things is faulty.

Basically where we disagree is you think RPG is a very broad genre like a sim is. I (and most genre classifiers) think it's a much more narrow genre. You need a certain amount of things to be it, otherwise you're more of some other genre than RPG and will be classified as such. Now there are the hybrids like "action RPG" but go too far off the beaten path like with Castlevania and you're not an Action RPG as much as an Action game that has some light RPG elements involved. And while you could technically call a game like Order of Ecclesia an RPG and not be totally wrong, you'd be very misleading in doing so. What you're doing here is basically like calling a banana split fruit instead of ice cream. You're technically right by some twisted definition of the word, but you're purposely ignoring genres it has much stronger ties to in order to fluff up the numbers.

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sure, re4 has that. like i said, some shooters will include rpg elements to 'em, that's perfectly fine. putting stat manipulation as part of your core game puts you in the camp of doing that, but RE doesn't really focus on that. look at Borderlands then look at RE - in one game guns are the focus over the rest, in the other it's the survival horror/story. that customization and stat manipulation as a result is very central to the game. or you can look at Deus Ex, where character is the customization point (which is more traditional - borderlands is the odd man out). stat manipuation and growth (usually character growth) are the two main hallmarks that ties the genre.

RPG is a broad term. it rather has to be to put together all the variations of it. and by the way, by most classifications, most reviewers, most places, and anything in between, you will find that most of the SoTN+ Castlevanias are considered as RPGs. you'll also find most have RPG as a broad term because you need to find something barebones that can satisfy the classification for covering Fire Emblem, old school Fallout, newer Fallout, Wizardry, Ultima, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Everquest, Diablo, etc. ultimately, it's the numbers/stats and the way it's handled. battle system? nope, battle system has shown that it can do everything from heavy in the action came like fighters or shooters and as light as puzzle. it's doable in damn near every system you could ask for. it's that barebones which keeps Metroid away from it, though it's got many elements.

it's really, really hard not to put it as action/rpg without removing every other action/rpg in the process. character growth? check. stat manipuation? check. weapons/equipment? can be modified. can you see your enemies' stats (not necessary but further proves that's the barebones base)? actually yes, check. you aren't locked in anywhere on your character, you aren't locked in on your weapons, there's growth and progress. you can't define a game that does all that as not an RPG. Ys is one of the longest running action/rpgs. initial games had you running into your enemies, but still an RPG for the exact same reasons above. same goes for the later versions, despite how it evolved. KH runs into the exact same camp of this (if you're going through the little menu you're doing it wrong). Diablo runs in the same camp of this. you could replace ANY of those with a slightly different system and be fine. but for what the main game is? they're all RPGs.

your argument, quite literally, is that because the game has an extra mode where you're running a different style, with different gameplay, and a character who controls completely differently (which somehow you're completely overlooking - Richter plays nothing like Alucard, Julius/Yoko/Alucard play nothing like Soma, etc) it magically should change the genre of the main game. that makes absolutely no sense. you can argue that mode isn't an RPG (and depending on the game go from questionably right to just wrong), but it has and serves no application to the main one. if you're looking for a 'majority consensus', next to none will agree with that absurdity.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

That's not my argument, no. That's evidence that said Castlevania games are so loosely related to RPGs that you have modes in game that remove all RPG elements from it and the game feels completely fine as a result.

The RPG stuff that SotN+ Castlevanias are missing that most other hybrid RPGs have in some form:

- Nonscripted interaction with NPCs
- Unimportant NPCs (ones that aren't used to advance the plot, sell you stuff, or enemies)
- Some use of menus in the combat
- An open world
- A party building dynamic of some sort
- Skill/character customization that exists independent of item drops
- Optional side quests/side areas
- Dialogue choices of some sort

Sure there are more that I'm not thinking of. Now whether you think this is important or not is up to you, but most games you listed have all of these. Most sources will have Castlevania games listed as action platformers, not RPGs, and there's a reason for that. In fact the funniest part of all of this is that the most RPGlike Castlevania game is Simon's Quest. That's really the only one I could even humor calling an RPG.

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...uh... i'm now wondering if you've even played any of the DS ones. half of that is... wrong.

Metroidvania ones are a single large dungeon. that is your world. single dungeon RPGs are doable just fine - look for the Rogue types for more details. further, OoE does have a relatively open world in that there's multiple areas to go to. either way, older RPGs didn't have these 'wide open worlds to explore', they had very centralized places to be. some still do (Baroque). for Metroidvanias, that 'open world' is the castle. it is your world for the game.

party building has never been necessary, at all. not sure why that's even stated there. again, Ys. there's quite a few RPGs out there that are solo characters just as there are some that aren't, even today (Baroque, again).

use of menus isn't something that's necessary for KH, Diablo, or Ys. we make hotkeys and shortcuts to AVOID menus in order to keep action on the screen more often. the fewer menus, the better. if however, you want to use it for say... a potion, you can. but that's not exclusive to the genre at all. in fact, there's also menu based combat that isn't an RPG, so that removes it from being a necessary component (simulation games, including those sports ones).

the Castlevanias... DO have optional side quests/side areas. in fact, that's literally what Metroidvania is all about. having dozens and dozens of side quests/side areas. PoR has a fetch quest ghost. OoE has you saving villagers - many of which are unimportant NPCs! -

i've no idea what you mean by 'nonscripted interaction with npcs.' all interaction is scripted, save for glitches i guess.

they... all have skill/character customizations that can be gotten without item drops. shops being the most obvious.

unimportant npcs... again, older games, rogues. beyond that the importance of npcs doesn't matter to the genre anyway - you'll find some in action, shooters, puzzle, and just about any genre of a game you want, there's probably one example. just like there's examples without 'em.

as for dialogue choices... that's... also a 'not really.' same reason behind exclusivity or something that differentiates it. and we've been through a billion linear rpgs with mute characters by now that DON'T have dialogue choices. that's one of the main complaints jrpgs get. it's a trademark of the wrpgs, but has proven for decades now to be irrelevant.


if you want an example of not an RPG, think Advance Wars. it's a strategy game. an SRPG? no, a strategy game. why? though you do see the number of units, it's for the most part fixed. there's no 'stat growth' involved, either for the units or the characters. there's a battle system in place which does have some form of growth (CO powers) but it's not exactly a central part of the rest of the game.

now look at Fire Emblem. stats galore. numbers galore. characters level up - growth. weapons can be changed - customization and stat manipulation. RPG. even the older ones, which didn't offer a lot of backtracking or anything, were like this.


going about it by "what defines an rpg" is best done by going backwards. take two games that are similar yet different. keep doing it until you get to a couple base, common factors. for rpg, with as many subgenres as it's tied with, that's a lot.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

I'd put Dark Souls somewhere in my top 10 for this gen.

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You can find plenty of exceptions for all of the points, but most of the things you said will have most-all of those. Finding the exception doesn't discount all of those as common themes from RPGs. And no the dungeon is not an open world it's a closed world. It's one giant area. Very contained.

As for the so called sidequests in the Castlevania games I don't call most of them optional-- most of them are needed to progress they're just not presented that way. Or they're optional but it's more hassle to not do them than to do them.

And I guess by non-scripted I meant non-mandatory for any quest or sidequest-- the script doesn't send you to them you talk to them yourself for the fun of it or for hints or whatever.

Anyway, I'm just saying that most sources Castlevania is not an RPG, but an action game or a platformer. There's too much different and not enough similar with CV and most RPGs.. like I said there are almost as many ties with CV as there are dozens of completely not RPGs. You arbitrarily say that leveling and stat manipulation/items make something an RPG. I can say a party building dynamic does and I probably end up with a lot less false positives than you do with not many false negatives. Thing with RPGs is you can't narrow it down to one or two important statistics cause all the defining characteristics are broad.

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oh, and for your "most sources" bit:

rpgamer - sotn+ and simon's quest has 'em.
rpgfan - counts 'em.
konami - they've called castlevania games action/adventure as well as action/rpgs. hell, they called the iphone castlevania a puzzle/rpg.
g4 - rpg since sotn.
destructoid - rpg. calls it so in the OoE review that ever since SoTN it took that twist.

too lazy to check gamestop, ign, etc. but am pretty sure it's the same thing because that's what it is, and as a whole the gaming community agrees with that. you're the odd man out here.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

The problem with using that as evidence is that sites like that overclassify everything because they want to catch misinformed people like you. I'm sure they also have it listed as action, platformer, adventure, and a handful of other things that only tangentially make sense.

If you force a source to commit to one category, they won't put them in RPGs 9/10 times. Guaranteed.

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well, seeing how the rpg specific sites don't include stuff like advance wars, seems like they know the difference too!

if they were forced to put it in a single category they'd prob split it 50/50, at worst 70/30, between rpg and action, one or the other.

you wouldn't see platformer though, that's for sure.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

From: __Smurf__ | #037

Skyrim confirmed for jrpg

oh one game fantastic for you

The rpg sites might not have Advance Wars but they have stuff from the Phoenix Wright series and the Yakuza series, so yeah they do have some pretty questionable stuff regardless

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also you uh, do realize when i list the other review sites it's the reviews themselves putting it as action/rpg.
as in, the writer states it. not that the site has a category of it - i'm not even sure if half those sites do that anymore.

accept your role as the wrongful minority lopen!

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

It's just a case of the reviewer being wrong vs the person who made categories being wrong. I don't see how that lends credibility either way. (also Yakuza was called a "sandbox RPG" in one of these reviews so yeah as I said-- not the best for nailing down categories)

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No problem!
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as for yakuza uh...
it can be very rpgish. rpgamer got into a discussion n it over the years and eventually agreed that they should be covering it. that one's a pretty weird and divided one, action/adventure on one corner and action/adventure/rpg on the other basically. so that one being listed doesn't really seem wrong at all.


and if every reviewer is making the same claim, it's because that's how most people see it. now, either most people are wrong and your bizarre method is right or they're right and you're wrong (you are). either way, you don't get to call foul on an rpg list when it's called an rpg as that's how the majority of gaming sees it as.

so yeah, OoE - best rpg on the DS.
EO3 is 2nd.
RH is 3rd.

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"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

Except it's not "every reviewer"

Just look at this site with its like 40 reviews. Half of the reviews don't mention OoE as an RPG (and none that I looked at called it an RPG without the "action" qualifier included) and hell some of em even liken it to platformers (that one you said no one would call it) with no mention of calling it an RPG.

So uh, yeah.

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Also yeah I like whatev's explanation of the conundrum, personally. That wheel pretty much sums it up (and why CV games aren't really RPGs while stuff like Kingdom Hearts is for that matter)

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_283/8400-Introducing-The-Escapists-Genre-Wheel

I quite like thinking that the action vs strategy continuum is an important distinguisher of what makes a "true" RPG. Basically, action calls for the direct control of the character, while strategy requires some level of abstraction between your input and what the character does. There is some direct control of playable characters in "true" RPGs, such as in towns, but I don't think many people would consider town exploration to be a key component of RPG gameplay. As more and more of the time is spent directly controlling the character, the game slides along the continuum to the Action Adventure genre.

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FFXIII-2 and Crisis Core are nice choices, but don't really agree with the rest. Missing the best one, too!

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I think most games have OHK for RPGs so they're about equal.

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Xenoblade too low

where's Ys Seven

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Xenoblade a couple of places too low

Super Paper Mario too low

Nier and Radiant Historia too nonexistent

Only played 4 games on the list, but those 4 are all good.

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football manager best rpg

who would have thought you could make a well balanced rpg with an 11 character party

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From: __Smurf__ | #001

900000001. Super Paper Mario

super paper mario was awesome

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SantaRPG posted...

From: NioraptH | #019
Also lacks Riviera

The top 10 is so... mainstream

that was last gen

It was never released in Europe on the GBA (or wonderswan >_>), it was on the PSP so I would count it as current gen had I actually played it.

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