What makes an enjoyable RPG?

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
Lexy Jenrex
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So what elements are most important to you to make a good RPG?
Battle Mechanics?
Characters?
Story?
Setting?

Generally what makes me get into an RPG are the battle mechanics and what makes me stay interested are the characters. But if the story isn't good I won't be replaying it most likely. So what about you guys?
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Characters, story, and setting. A well-developed setting can be really impressive, and is usually the foundation for the characters and story.

So long as gameplay isn't horrible (ie. not being able to do what should be normal actions, like running vs. walking or whatever, without penalties, things like that), it doesn't matter to me. I don't care if it's pretty generic, so long as I want to know what happens next (though, ideally it should have interesting gameplay). I hate most MMOs (and/or MMO-style gameplay) and sandbox RPGs. Being able to make a few choices that can change the course of the story is cool, but aside from things like that, stuff should be set like concrete. So for me, choose-your-own-adventure style is okay, but making the Sims and calling it an RPG is not. Otherwise I really feel like the storytelling and character development aspects will suffer from being spread too thin.
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The story for me. However I hate bland generic characters so if they have souls then that adds some nice spice. Nice graphics would also be a plus


However, I like battle mechanics to be fast paced if its turn based. I like how the dragon quest games have the option of speeding up the pace of battles. Little things like that make grinding alot less time consuming.
unknown
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Post  Posted:

Gameplay -> Characters -> Story -> Graphics

I'm open to either linear or open ended gameplay, but I despise literally straight-forward maps. And yeah, I « Snuggly Bunny » hate grinding, I prefer RPGs where I can use my brain to slaughter bosses, like the SMT games.

Also this

Image
The brazilian
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Post  Posted:

I agree with all, but....

"Events that are text only"
DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?

In HM its all right , but I like to hear voices in RPGs.
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Post  Posted:

No way, text-only is great.
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I'm not going to give values for specific aspects because the degree of complexity for each piece should be relative to every other piece of the puzzle. Every piece should affect each other, so how well the puzzle fits together is what I like, not the individual pieces.
unknown wrote:<picture removed>
Did a senile gamer create this? That was abrasive to read.
Lexy Jenrex
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Some scenes would not be near as funny with-out voice acting. -shakes head-
http://www.youtube.com/user/WishingTika ... 26e6D8dOD0
Read the first line muted and then listen to it. :p
(course anything with Melrose is awesome)
unknown
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Post  Posted:

I'm pretty sure Gintoki was just complaining about cutscenes, movies, and the like, when he went on that rant.

I don't think he has a preference on whether there's voice acting or not.
Vann Borakul wrote:
unknown wrote:<picture removed>
Did a senile gamer create this? That was abrasive to read.
I'd upload that particular episode scene to Youtube cause it's a lot funnier when you hear him say it, but I'm too lazy so I'm just using some screenshots someone compiled together >_>
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What the hell show is that screenshot from it speaks truth.

[edit] nvm found out on google. Anyway,

Hell yeah text only. Since I read fast it made the pacing a damn breeze. Now we have these long « Mr.Gourmet's hat » over dramatic cutscenes that make me hate playing RPGS.
I also hate people's constant whining of "WHERE ARE THE VOICES" can't you read?
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Actually I dislike voice acting in my games. I read a lot faster than voice actors speak and I don't like sitting around listening to a movie when I could be picking up monster drops.
That being said, I am guilty of X-button mashing during Cloud's repressed-memory scene in FFVII. That part of the game is still murky for me...

My favorite game of all time, bar none, is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. SO, I'd have to say, the most important parts of a good RPG are:

1. Freeform play with billions of options to interact with the world around you. I'm a sidequest and collection whore.
2. Level grinding kept to a minimum.
3. Generous healing and save options. There is nothing more annoying than playing for two hours just to get to a save point when you have something better to do.
4. Story
5. Lots of monsters, lots of battle options, but NOT like FFXIII (pushing twelve buttons at once to save myself from being killed).
6. Upgradable weaponry or item synthesis

bottom of the list...
--. Characters. I like em, I need em, but in Zelda they're basically space fillers. The gameplay is what's so fantastic.
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I love my old games just as much as the next person who grew up with a NES since age 3 with 35 games donated by his godfather, but you're fooling yourself if you think that there weren't CG cutscenes and voice acting in old games for any reason other than technological limitation.

What that picture/clip says to me is that the creator lacks differentiation between preference and quality and is imposing their preference as quality.

There are severe limitations on game quality for pixeltext games and there's a lot more to modern conventions than simply what you see or hear. For instance, a library scene such as what Lexy posted is an example of how voices can carry much more than text alone. Text is very unflexable since it can't portray tone, mood, atmosphere (not without help from other areas; i.e. Earthbound), help create an emotional connection to the player, and various other things - at least not without a novelization of every aspect, which still can't capture a scene better than fully realistic conventions, but then you'd be reading a book and not playing a game, which seems to contradict the original intentions behind this pixeltext uproar.

That's not to say that realistic conventions are always high quality; that's certainly not true. Voice acting and cinematography won't always be better, they just have much greater potential to be better. On another hand, if I don't like something, that doesn't mean it's bad, or that I think it's bad. This brings back the matter of differentiating between preference and quality; how much you like something and how good it is completely regardless of how much you like it.
Moeru wrote: 3. Generous healing and save options. There is nothing more annoying than playing for two hours just to get to a save point when you have something better to do.
A "suspend" option should be mandatory in all games. A temporary save that is deleted when it is loaded.

Years ago I was grounded for 2 weeks because I played 45 minutes over my limit trying to find a save spot in Doel's Castle in Legend of Dragoon -_-
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No, what he saying IS quality. You don't need to be gorgeous and have the ability to have movie scenes to be a great game because that « Cow Poopoo » doesn't matter
We had fun with the whole game because they were not only like interactive story books that helped us read at lightning speed the more we played them, they went by fast enough to keep the gameplay in motion as well as let us imagine a lot of things.
What made the games was gameplay, characters, and our own sense of experience whether it was lego graphics or with stubby pixels, or in the Mario rpgs case; silent main character who we still imagined doing something else or other.

We had goddamn imagination as well as a game to play and it was fun.

all you ever see people do now is "Where are the voices? Where are the cutscenes?" and they're also slow as hell readers when i give them something to read ages 10-17.

One of Mario sunshine's biggest complaint was the cutscenes and voice acting

There hasn't been a voice acted rpg I liked besides Persona 4 and I believe that's because it wasn't 100% acted or had annoyingly long cutscenes either. You also had huge influences on what happened as well as the strategic battle system to play. Also, the graphics were PS1 era at best.

Then you got games like FF13 that are so cutscene heavy the director literally said, in his own words, gameplay was the last thought on his mind. And all he wanted you to see was a bad story with characters you had no influence on in a ~grapically advanced~ movie you had no control over. I.E "The game played you" which is why the screen shot in the rant shows Final fantasy characters. Hell, the characters level up for you and it picks your party, for you! Pick other wise (At the end) and you're guaranteed to lose if its not Lightning/Fang/Hope.
this is literally the game's dungeons
I also find it funny how you mention EB when Mother 3 displayed HUGE heart breaking emotion despite being text only. Why? Charming characters that pull you in as well as with wonderfully composed music to suck you into the mood. Again, you don't need huge voice work or CG cutscenes to do it, and Mother 3 is very famous for it
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Final Fantasy has always been about making the game more of a freaking movie since like... 8. o_O And it's never been enjoyable. Even when it was just text.
unknown
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Curimuch wrote:We had goddamn imagination as well as a game to play and it was fun.
Image
LexyJenrex wrote:Final Fantasy has always been about making the game more of a freaking movie since like... 8. o_O And it's never been enjoyable. Even when it was just text.
Heavy Rain is a movie. FFXIII is a movie. Xenosaga I to an extent is a movie.

While they do have CG cutscenes spread throughout the story, IX, X, XI, XII, aren't movies.
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