Current Events > What to you, makes a good RPG/Adventure game town?

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Let's say you're playing a game, like Final Fantasy, or Zelda, and you get to a new major town. Besides the main story content, what kind of things do you hope/expect to see? What are some things that make exploring the town enjoyable. Or on the flip side, what kind of things detract from the experience?

One of the things I've noticed that I really like is feeling like there's a real "community" in an area. Idk how to articulate it, but stuff like Megaton in Fallout 3, or Clock Town in Majora's Mask. I'd argue that even something like FF7 manages to get this feeling down, in a few areas, like Midgar, despite not relying heavily on unique NPCs.

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A lot of things can do this. Alexandria in FFIX for example feels incredibly lived in and is rendered beautifully in the game. Its cozy and feels like a place you want to live

Another more recent game, Trails of Cold Steel, had a central campus and town you go to and while not visually very interesting the npcs in it are colorful and have dialogue and personalities that change all throughout the game and it makes it feel incredibly alive


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Fisherman's horizon/Balamb Garden

I want something aesthetically pleasing or interesting first and foremost. A decent size population is good too.

Mainly I just care if it looks cool.

But if I had to go deeper, then I guess each town in a game should have a noticeably different aesthetic, whether it's based on where it's located on the map (like a snowy town, a desert town, a port town, an underground town, a town in the sky, etc.) or by varying styles of architecture or level of technological development.

All of the NPCs should offer some sort of insight on how the town operates, how the people live, or what you need to do to progress the plot.

There shouldn't be any pointless areas or buildings you can enter. One thing I hate with Pokemon is how you can enter some houses and rooms and there's nothing in there to find or someone to talk to. If you're going to put a room in somewhere, don't make it pointless.

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A town/city could be very aesthetically pleasing and I wouldn't mind, but what elevates it for me is if it feels alive. Interactable NPCs, a handful of quests, relationships between NPCs, all that stuff.
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Better gear than the last town.

Flavor is everything. No two towns should feel the same and the NPCs should add to that flavor.

There doesn't always need to be a reason for you to visit the town but there should always be stuff to do there.

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Great music that reflects the town. No same music for all towns.

FFIX is a game with plenty of great towns like Lindblum, Border Village Dali and Treno.

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For me it has to be quantity over quality. Like recently I replayed DA:O and Recliffe really stuck with me as a good town. It wasn't the biggest town. It didn't have the best loot, it didn't have the most NPCs, but what it did have was the most depth.

As soon as you get there one of the militia practically begs you to help stave off the undead attacking. And then you can engage in a bunch of simple side quests to make the battle easier and unite people into accomplishing a common goal, ranging from paying mercenaries to help defend the village, convincing the cowardly, skeezy barkeep to fight in the battle. Promising the blacksmith that you will search for his missing daughter. Paying for a valuable sword you took. Convincing a spy to help a defend a town he doesn't even live in..etc.

Even if you had to bribe, intimidate or even deceive some people into helping, some of them realize that they did good and will continue to help the village grow.You can do all this or just leave the village to its own devices.You don't owe these people a thing. Most of the civilians will be slaughtered and it will impact the story and how characters react to you. It's good not just because there's lots of stuff to do, but because the stuff you do has real impact on the overarching story instead of just being ultimately meaningless go to X location and kill Y enemies filler quests.

One thing that bugs me is when they have towns that are fucking HUGE. Like they have a shit ton of homes and stores to explore, just because you know that some of them have to be hiding some goodies.

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Slayerblade11 posted...

For me it has to be quantity over quality. Like recently I replayed DA:O and Recliffe really stuck with me as a good town. It wasn't the biggest town. It didn't have the best loot, it didn't have the most NPCs, but what it did have was the most depth.

As soon as you get there one of the militia practically begs you to help stave off the undead attacking. And then you can engage in a bunch of simple side quests to make the battle easier and unite people into accomplishing a common goal, ranging from paying mercenaries to help defend the village, convincing the cowardly, skeezy barkeep to fight in the battle. Promising the blacksmith that you will search for his missing daughter. Paying for a valuable sword you took. Convincing a spy to help a defend a town he doesn't even live in..etc.

Even if you had to bribe, intimidate or even deceive some people into helping, some of them realize that they did good and will continue to help the village grow.You can do all this or just leave the village to its own devices.You don't owe these people a thing. Most of the civilians will be slaughtered and it will impact the story and how characters react to you. It's good not just because there's lots of stuff to do, but because the stuff you do has real impact on the overarching story instead of just being ultimately meaningless go to X location and kill Y enemies filler quests.

Fantastic example.

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