Saturday, January 7, 2012

RPG Standards and Subjectivity

I came across an article today by a  Desmond Gaban. It talked about the rise of the console RPG and some of the ludicrous statements gamers make about how X RPG sucks and why Z RPG is awesome that have nothing to do with the key element: The Game-play.

I've played a LOT of RPG's over the years. Every Final Fantasy, every Phantasy Star (yes even translated Game Gear Roms) The "Shining" Series of RPGS, both of the great Shadowrun RPGS... if I was to sit here and just name off all the RPG's I've played I think I'd run out of characters for this blog.

Im going to quote his paragraph here directly:

"By taking away standards for RPGs, you are left with subjectiveness. By playing "all in the eye of the beholder," an RPG fan could essentially make up ridiculous reasons for why RPG X rules or RPG Y sucks. Here are just some classic examples:
"Final Fantasy 6 is the worse Final Fantasy game because the world gets turned into crap and killing Kefka doesn't save the world."

"Super Mario RPG is a bad game because having a plumber as the main character is just a plain stupid idea."
If you were actually judging these two games by their real standards and not by this ridiculous biased subjectiveness, then you'd come to more solid and better criticisms of the games. Rather than say how you felt Mario was a dumb character, it would be more effective to point out how ridiculously easy Super Mario RPG was, how the 3 character party limited the game's variety, and how the limited items system was a step backwards. Just because you don't like something about a game's aesthetics doesn't make the game bad."

Sadly, this is kinda what RPG's have turned into, opinions ruling the virtual world. At a family holiday, I was talking to my kid sister about the PSOne classics on the PS3, and mentioned Parasite Eve was on there, and suggested she play it. Her response was basically, "No, I hear it's scary." (very paraphrased, the conversation was pretty lengthy) While yes, it is a Survial-horror-like RPG, it by no means is any scarier than... oh say... Batman: Arkham City. My point is, since she was told it was scary, she never gave the game a chance.

Know what a great game is that I still haven't finished (lazy) Lost Odyessy for the Xbox 360. Never heard any of it, and I'm glad. The game is beautiful, with complex character development (aside Jansen, but he's fucking awesome as a caster, so I keep him personally) the cut-scenes are done interestingly, having real time panels open over a scene, and the reading. HELL YES FOR LITERACY. It makes me nuts that everything went solely to voice acting. Yeah I get the whole "movie" like quality, but I'm glad they wrote Kaim's memories.

Back to my original point: Someone told me that Lost Odyessy was a "Complete waste of time, and didn't get why there was so much reading." I actually told him to the the fuck away from me. Of all the hair-brained reasons to NOT like a game... reading. (I personally didn't like the fact it was 4 discs and there was no secure way to keep them in place...)

Did you know there is actually a review called: "The MOST horrible RPG, aside from Earthbound, I've ever played." about Saga Frontier? The review didn't mention the phenomenal combat system, where you level up based on what you do and you learn skills by using them... or the fact that if your characters die too many times they stay down till LP is restored... (Think like in a coma) I will say i didn't enjoy the follow-ups as much as the first one, but I still find myself humming "Genocide Heart" (the Robot's final boss music)


Anyhow, I believe my point is, don't let people tell you X RPG is horrible or Y RPG is the bomb. Try them out for yourself. Think of it this way: Didn't Mario Kart 7 get a 4/10 or something for being "too repetitive and not changing enough" and Battlefield 3 got like a 9/10? Really?

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