FPS/TPS: shoot stuff Fighting: fight stuff in arenas Racing: race stuff Hack/Slash: rip apart organs with ease Open World: free roaming in game world
Each of these quickly describe exactly what the style of game. However, I never understood what "Role Playing Game" meant. In a strict sense, every game has you play a role. The only thing I can figure is it was a trope that caught on based on D&D conventions. What's more, there are many subgroups to this genre alone. WRPGs, JRPGs, Dungeon Crawlers, Anime Fantasy Adventures (my descriptor for JRPGs that are drenched in anime tropes like Mana Khemia, Persona, etc). What made this harder were mainstream titles that claimed to throw in "RPG elements."
Where does that leave RPGs? When did that category start and why does it persist today?
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"Should I slice off your tongue or break your countless bones? Either way, I get paid; you'll bleed to death and die alone." - Blood Money
1. What is your favorite RPG and why? 2. What subgenre is your favorite and why? 3. Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre? 4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else? 5. Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal?
I've went through #3&4, and I have been on record that JRPGs are my favorite. Of those, I've gravitated (as Japan seems to as well) more towards anime-based presentation. It effectively melds two media (anime and games) together. That said, calling them RPGs doesn't do them enough justice. Calling Persona 4 an RPG in the same sense as Fallout, Diablo, or Starcraft seems too broad. At least by calling it an "anime fantasy adventure," you get a better sense, a narrowed perspective.
The issue is that I wouldn't know how what to call Fallout other than a WRPG. Those terms are so prevalent that it might be difficult to reclassify. However, what were Sandbox games before Sandbox? "GTA Clones." What were FPS games before FPS? "Doom Clones. I think it can be done. It might narrow the market, but it at least gives a better reference than a vague descriptor.
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"Should I slice off your tongue or break your countless bones? Either way, I get paid; you'll bleed to death and die alone." - Blood Money
Ok, so let's say a Tony Hawk game is open world streaming (as the final few were). Is that now the same genre as Oblivion, or is that still..."the Tony Hawk genre", since most of the time you're still doing kickflips and grinds (very little has changed).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
I don't think open world is really a genre. It's a game design element that can apply across genres. So, for instance, you can have a highly linear RPG (FFX), or an open-world RPG (Oblivion). Or, to take mc's example, you can have a more linear Tony Hawk game or an open-world one. But if you just say that a game is open-world, it doesn't tell anything about the gameplay, which is what genres do.
-- You put your RESOLVE HAT back on, which conveniently is the same hat as your NORMAL HAT. {Drakeryn}
Well, the most strict definition of an RPG is something that takes root in classic D&D. That's where the phrase comes from, and how it all started. Back then, the main focus of D&D was the role playing, because your character interactions were every bit as important to the game's success as the Dungeon Master's.
As a video game genre, it has vastly strayed. It started off as dungeon crawlers. I'm sure you've seen the old games where you go through the vastly similar hallways one square at a time. However, due to the lack of technology, story was not very prevalent like it should be in a Role Playing setting. I'm sure games like Ultima allowed plenty of kids to imagine their own adventures, but the main focus of the game was exploration, which included often drawing your own maps, and a lot of tedious fighting. Most gamers of this generation will never go through the pain of thinking, "Oh god, what was the name of that really awesome fire spell again? Bloozankin? Blasterinin? F*** it, I'll just attack with my fists."
There's some debate over whether text adventures are the true RPG's, as a good one is the closest you can get to D&D, the base, but text adventures haven't been quite as prevalent in gaming.
Naturally, dungeon crawlers, which were the very first interpretation of trying to bring D&D to a game, did not really appeal to anything even near considered a casual gamer. That's when Japan came in with their wonderful creation of a game called Dragon Quest. That was the start of the JRPG series, which was much more popular. The popularity came from the simple story, the streamlined menus, the sense of purpose, and actual character interaction. Not much mind you, but more than had been seen before. But games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were directly made in order to counter the elitism needed to succeed in games like Ultima. In fact, a much more accurate term for JRPGs would be LRPG, standing for Light Role Playing Game. That's what it was, a D&D style adventure with a majority of the choice and customization cut out for the sake of experiencing a definite experience that everyone can enjoy.
So, for the majority of gamers, the choice between RPG and LRPG was easy to make. It was a much easier debate than the WRPG vs. JRPG debate we have currently, simply because the technical capacity meant all of the RPGs were f***ing difficult and only catered to people with time. As Japan, the basic monolith of gaming, kept producing, LRPGs were the main focus in the genre.
As time went on though, the inclusion of MMORPGs and various WRPGs started expanding the focus again. Instead of having a strict streamlined approach so everyone can enjoy the same game, they decided to go back to the root and open it up so everyone has their own experiences. I think, looking at games like Elder Scrolls, that it is surprising to see just how much technical capacity can change the reception of a genre. WRPGs, which are strikingly closer to the actual definition of RPG than any other form, have been picking up a lot of steam as of late.
-- "I can already feel my Dumey Lust kicking in."-MistBiomeZ
The above part is copy paste from a post I've made elsewhere dealing with RPGs. Now to your topic specifics:
As for my favorite RPG, I have to actually hand it off to Golden Sun: TLA. While I'd rather nominate the two-part game as a whole, I guess I have to be specific. I know a lot of people rate the game highly, but not many place it at the top. The reason that I like it is because of how incredibly simple it is while still having tons of depth. The story isn't complex at all, yet it still has enough twists and turns that you can't predict it from the onset. The characters are a little dull, but they fit where they need to at all times. The battle system works very well, to the point where you can watch two people play with very different styles, and still have them work. From actually utilizing Djinn to stall and power yourself up, to summon rushing, to just straight up Attack/Magic style. You can spend hours trying to find a good set of classes with all the variety involved. Yet at the same time, you never have to even touch the class system to play through the game. It's perfectly acceptable to give Earth adepts Earth djinn, and so on and so forth. It's simple, yet still easy to pick up and really get into.
And with a shockingly smaller explanation, I'll go ahead and add in that Demon's Souls is my second favorite. Again, a very simple game with stellar gameplay and plenty of replay value. Yet if you look deeper, the amount of depth in the story is really astounding. But whatever.
Favorite sub-genre, I'll say that I typically stay with J(L!)RPGs. I've fully enjoyed games of every genre, but I'm a sucker for interactive stories, and don't mind being pulled down a somewhat linear path to hear it. I have no qualms against anime styled characters, and often find drawn art better than what can be generated in 3D, though that is quickly changing looking at games like Witcher and Skyrim.
I explained in full above what an RPG is, and I do think it still applies. It shouldn't be used as a defining quality (olol you play a role so it's a role playing game guize), but seeing as how where it comes from still applies, yeah. I do wish we could get people to stop defining as J or W, just because people in the West are fully capable of making LRPGs, and the same the other way.
And for the last question, I don't think there's a need. I mean, you can simply look at a game and see if it's an SRPG. Maybe they should put some kind of tag on game like Fallout saying that the main focus is roaming around? It's fine as is, though maybe I say that only because I make sure to actually know what games are before I buy them.
-- "I can already feel my Dumey Lust kicking in."-MistBiomeZ
I've actually never liked the term Hack-N-Slash. That's one that's pretty vague to me. Having played games forever I know what they are. There's really no good explanation for someone that hasn't played a game before when talking about a Hack-N-Slash.
Because you also have Action, Brawler, Beatem-up, and I might even add fighting in there. How do you explain the difference to someone who's never played a game? What qualifies as a Hack-N-Slash exactly? God of War? Or is that just an action game because it has actual combos? But technically every game is an action game.
-- GameFAQs isn't going to be merged in with GameSpot or any other site. We're not going to strip out the soul of the site. -CJayC
I get the sense that hack and slash refers to a gameplay style prevelent in God of War and Dynasty Warriors. The sense of button mashing like crazy or using repetitious combos (repetitive gameplay is another discussion all together) with literally minimal consequence. There's no sense of realism, because you can batter away at enemies and soak up damage but keep pounding till they die.
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"Should I slice off your tongue or break your countless bones? Either way, I get paid; you'll bleed to death and die alone." - Blood Money
My Favorite RPG (and game) is Morrowind because in my honest opinion it offers the definite RPG experience, it allows you to live in an interesting world populated by interesting people (I'm not talking about every single NPC, I'm talking about each races and their lore as a whole). I think it is one of the best game ever to role-play because of all of the possibilities the game offer. I also like it because it is really one of the rare modern games in which your personal skills have no say in the outcomes of your diverse actions because everything is decided by a dice-roll, from hitting a rat with a sword to casting a spell successfully (unless you abuse the AI bad pathfinding and stuff). It makes me pretty sad that modern RPGs seem to be scrapping the Role-play part completely, personally a RPG does not simply mean a game in which you take the role of a character, it is a game in which you take the role of a character that is entirely your creation. Let's take a game like Mass Effect, I really love this game but in my opinion it is not a RPG, it is a Third Person Shooter with RPG elements because see, you don't have that much to say in the game, for instance at the beginning (spoiler I guess) you have to save Tali from whatever I can't remember, it's good and all but it missed a crucial option : The option to not do **** about it and let her die. ME really prevents you from playing a bad guy, you can be either a good guy or a dick. Sure you can role-play and say you don't give a **** about saving the universe but you can't actually do it. The game is still good, but not as a RPG and it makes me really sad to see that this seem to become the standard for modern RPGs. Let's go back to Morrowind, the game doesn't have a quest-line for people who would want to join the bad guy and not care about the Nerevarine Prophecies, but you totally can role-play it. For instance you could go and kill Caius Cosades, the major quest giver for the main quest, breaking the questline in the process. Morrowind is well made though, and even if you kill all of the main-quest quest givers you can still finish the game because there is a back path, and even this back path isn't necessary, you can finish the game using nothing but sheer power. So yeah, Morrowind is my favorite game for the extreme freedom it gives you, while still having an interesting world.
What subgenre is your favorite and why?
FPS-RPG, the genre is extremely small (Stalker and Borderlands are the only games that come to mind) but I love it.
Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre?
Yes, numerous games branded RPGs do not deserved to be named so though.
If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else?
I wouldn't.
Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal?
No idea !
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
Final Fantasy VIII. Despite the flaws that it has, like not really wanting to use magic because you junction that stuff to your stats, I love the game. The futuristic environment, some of the best cut-scenes in a game, Squall (gets way more hate than he should, most of his dialogue are his own thoughts and not actually spoken until disc 3 game), Triple Triad is the most addicting game within a game I've ever played, dungeons are mostly not an annoyance to explore, the environments are well-made and different from each other, the story while flawed is very intriguing, the soundtrack is probably my favorite soundtrack ever, the scenes are all great, man, talking about it makes me want to play it again.
What subgenre is your favorite and why?
of RPG or game in general? The Devil May Cry series has my favorite type of gameplay, so that would be action. If we're talking about RPG uh....JRPG or Adventure RPG? I guess.
Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre?
In the past yes, though not as much these days.
If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else?
No.
Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal?
I think we get new subgenres as they come along. Helping categorize a certain type of game can't hurt the appeal.
-- GameFAQs isn't going to be merged in with GameSpot or any other site. We're not going to strip out the soul of the site. -CJayC
1. What is your favorite RPG and why? Final Fantasy 9. Easily the best video game story I've ever heard, some of the best characters ever (Zidane is one of my all time favorite video game characters), and an amazingly detailed world that juts oozes charm and detail. The only downside the game has is that the battle system is slow. 2. What subgenre is your favorite and why? Unsure, as I've played great games from all different varieties. Star Ocean 3 has my favorite battle system and the battles are in real time, but that's not enough to put it above all the other subgenres. I do wish there were more tactical RPGs though. 3. Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre? It used to back in the 90s, but now the genre is so diluted that being described as an RPG doesn't really give many specifics. 4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else? Possibly, but I can't think of anything good. 5. Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal? A little of both, probably. Casual gamers might be intimidated by the huge conglomerate of subgenres in a genre of games that already aren't the most popular among them. People who have been playing RPGs for years might could appreciate a more defined naming system, but most have one already.
This one's actually pretty good. So you know what? I'm saving this from oblivion, that's what.
1. What is your favorite RPG and why? Xenogears. It would be wholly inaccurate to describe this game as a "flawless masterpiece" -- even its biggest supporters (myself being one of them) rarely go that far. It has a very slaughtered second disc due to time and budget constraints, its gameplay is above-average but not stellar overall and there are frequent points in which the story turns quite confusing due to a high usage of cryptic terms and behind-the-scenes plotting by antagonists your party won't even bump into for a few dozen hours.
That said, what's not to love? The best plot seen in gaming, a fully fleshed-out cast each with their own strengths, weaknesses and plot arcs (although some definitely get a shorter end of the stick here than others), some of the most memorable villains in storytelling hands-down, a riveting musical score by fan favorite Yasunori Mitsuda, and hell, let's address those flaws I just mentioned...
The second disc remains mesmerizing for those who can appreciate it since the storyline really kicks into high gear during all that talking, the gameplay is given enough spice through dual battle systems, the ability to jump and more that it never gets terribly old and all those cryptic behind-the-scenes terms and scenes turn from "augh" to "amazing" on subsequent runs.
2. What subgenre is your favorite and why?
JRPG, I suppose. So many of my favorite games belong to this one. That said, so very few over the past several years have told stories intriguing and mature enough that I care. It's been a downward slope for the most part. End of the day? I'm okay with that, I guess.
3. Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre?
Yes, it does.
4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else?
Nah.
5. Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal?
I think this is the kind of thing that's going to happen naturally. It's fine as-is.
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
Well that was genius of me. Type a pointlessly long response, leave to grab something to eat, come back upstairs, close web browser. *facepalm*
1. What is your favorite RPG and why? Basically, I have a weird appreciation towards games with poor fan reception. Case in point, most of my favourite games tend to consist of "great" games like Rogue Galaxy, Shadow Hearts: From the New World, Pokemon Emerald, and the ever under-appreciated Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja 5. To be perfectly honest, that isn't anywhere near the worst of it, but I'd rather leave it at that than admit to thinking at any point in my life that Bomberman Kart was a contender for the best kart racing game of all time (dear god it wasn't).
Now that I've got that off my chest, my favourite RPG would probably be either Suikoden V or Nostalgia. Being the first DS game aside from Pokemon Pearl I completed, as well as having the best general balance of RPG elements I like out of any game I've played on the system (which admittedly isn't very many, unfortunately), Nostalgia was my favourite RPG on a system I acknowledged as having a great range of RPGs, earning my respect. Suikoden V, on the other hand, initially caught me by surprise. First playing it back in late '09, what I was expecting was a short, easy RPG I would've considered a secondary priority to FF12, which I was also playing for the first time back then. Instead I got an immersive story on a grand scale with an unhealthy amount of quirky (and annoying) characters. Yes, the controls were not exactly a strong point, but the same could be said of a lot of games, even undisputed classics like Chrono Trigger.
2. What subgenre is your favorite and why? Definitely JRPGs. To me, JRPGs have largely remained true to their roots over time; something WRPGs frankly haven't. I've had excessive exposure to the blatant features that are core to probably half of all RPGs (stats, party members, detailed battle systems, relative linearity (not in a bad way) and amazing plots). I can only be disappointed when I hear about RPG awards going out to some shooter of sorts that barely fit half of those features.
3. Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre? Definitely not if people remain as willing to label virtually every game in existence an RPG (seriously, you can make an argument for a lot of games nowadays being RPGs ranging from racing sims to puzzle games, and you'd still find others who'd take that seriously >.>)
4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else? Yes, it really isn't accurate any longer, but I think it's simply too well-known to be replaced without largely sacrificing the appeal of the genre. It's fine as it is.
5. Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal? I think it would help the appeal as long as it can help label off the many so-called RPG hybrids that just turn out to be your everyday FPS with a stat screen.
1. What is your favorite RPG and why? Fallout 3. Many fans of the first two disagree, but this game was just perfect to me. The immersion, the gameplay, the characters, the "dungeons"...I just love everything about it. If the Metal Gear series didn't exist, this would be my favorite game period.
2. What subgenre is your favorite and why? WRPG, I suppose. Again, I loved Fallout 3, New Vegas to a lesser but still great extent, Morrowind and Oblivion are both excellent games, the Mass Effect series is awesome...just a lot of great games to choose from in the genre. That isn't to say I don't like other kinds (The Pokemon games and Paper Mario series are also favorites of mine), but WRPG seems to be my choice here.
3. Does "RPG" do enough to describe a game in the genre? Well, considering RPG stands for "Role Playing Game", and whenever you play a game you assume the role of the character you're playing, I suppose not. Though in other genres the character is made for you, while in RPG's you get to make it, thus making you feel more involved. Like, whenever I play a Mario game and screw up, I feel like telling Mario himself "Hey man, we f***** up there", while when playing an RPG, the character IS me. Still, the title RPG alone probably doesn't tell enough about the genre, at least in comparison to "Platformer" or "First Person Shooter", so again, I'll have to say no.
4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else? Nah.
5. Would creating more defined subgenres help or hurt the appeal? Well, subsections to a point is OK, but we already have those. Getting too specific would I think cut the fanbases into too many pieces.
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Will not remove this line of my signature until the Seahawks, Jazz or Rockies win a title (Started 5-16-09) I know I'm not getting rid of this signature, BTW.
From: Jeff Zero | #023 4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else?
Nah.
From: Emporer_Kazbar | #025 4. If you had to chance, would you change the name to something else? Nah.
By the way, I didn't read any of the posts until after I posted my response. Good to see me and Jeff on the same wavelength.
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Will not remove this line of my signature until the Seahawks, Jazz or Rockies win a title (Started 5-16-09) I know I'm not getting rid of this signature, BTW.
Silvercross posted... One of the big draws of Dead Rising is the RPG element, yes. You could probably consider Dead Rising an Action RPG.
Err...I disagree with that specific word choice. ARPG is generally reserved for a subgenre of JRPG (Tales of, Star Ocean, etc).
In fact, strongly disagree with categorizing a game by its incentive system. It would be like calling FF7 and MGS and Phantasmagoria and Warcraft II "FMV games, because they have FMV." It's true that they do share that appeal, it was probably a big selling point of all four games, but that's not the genre of the game.
Game genres should be determined by gameplay; what you're actually doing. I could make an RPG where you don't level up, (say, mod a Dragon Quest game to not give exp...and scale monster stats appropriately) and everyone sensible would recognize it as an RPG.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision