The Slowly-Dying Death of RPG's.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

Most RPG plots really aren't that unique. Person with mysterious parentage is exiled from home village (or home village is destroyed) and he/she joins up with a rag-tag group of adventurers to stop someone bent on world domination. Every other SNES RPG has that formula for their story.

[Lightning Flik 0]

On the contrary, its easy to come up with unique plots and characters. Problem is letting them fall into twist back into the general plots and characters everyone has done.

[AndrewTS 0]

Unique plots and characters are overrated. You don't really need them with good writing.

[Lightning Flik 0]

^ that's true. Considering Tales of Symphonia is this generation's Chrono Trigger and the characters did fall into the steretypes that are widely known in RPG land.

 

Still was a damn fine game.

[AndrewTS 0]

I've yet to play it, but if it holds true, then yeah.

 

Shakespeare created masterpieces out of some of the most hackneyed and cliche elements around back in his day.

 

The most recent slap in the face was the release of the game Final Fantay X-2. This game was released for one reason and one reason only: to capitalize on the media buzz around the Charlie's Angels movies. Hundreds of thousands of horny, teeange boys rushed to the stores to purchse a cheap knock-off of a cheap knock-off of a 1970's television series. The game creators were no longer designing the games. The Suits were. The Suits, who ultimately, had nothing more on their minds than the dollars signs.

 

Ahem--back in its day, Charlie's Angels was very popular with females as well. For the time it was considered very "progressive" to have women in those roles, and at the same time they were attractive women. Shameless demographic straddling, indeed, but nowadays CA is much more transparent.

 

However, in Japan--not the case. Gender equality is so laughably far from coming to fruitition that sexy grrls fighting in an entertainment medium is about as far as "female empowerment" goes.

[Anya 0]

FFX-2 is pretty empowering. The girls are really awesome in that. I love Yuna and Paine. What's cool about it is that they're girly, but still strong. I hate how a lot of developers make these female characters who are supposed to be "badass femme fatales" who are no different than the guys except they have giant breasts. Some hardcore army chick with huge guns that blows stuff up doesn't do much for me. That's just lame. Square makes the best girls. Yuna & Rinoa are the best.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Dude, sorry to burst your bubble but that 'It factor' is NOSTALGIA.

*DING**DING**DING* We have a winner!

 

That whole post Crono made REEKED of smarkiness. Longing for things that seemed to have aged well with time, but at the time were just pretty good games amidst a ton of crap? I mean, there have been shitty RPGs and always will be, just like there's shitty wrestlers and always will be, and shitty movies, shitty cars, etc....

 

People will get nostalgic for how things were a few years back, but if they had the chance and got slingshotted back there in time, they'd hate it. Not to mention this notion is even more laughable with the group of 20-somethings we have here.

[Lightning Flik 0]

FFX-2 is pretty empowering.

Anya, Andrew was talking about Japan and not the game.

[Special K 0]

You know what I love? The same people who bust on FFX-2 for being too girly bust on FFVII for being too angsty. Which is hard to take seriously when FFVI is pretty much angst in a cartridge.

 

You know Lightning Flik, you're totally right about quality being more paramount than originality in RPG plots. Suikoden II wasn't anything too terribly original, but it kicked all types of ass with its story. Likewise, Chrono Trigger pretty much had a bunch of slightly-tweaked stereotypes for characters, and they were all great. A really good translation helps of course. I wish Working Designs did more stuff.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

Damn Crono. I'll let Morrowind slide, but STAR OCEAN: TILL THE END OF TIME?! You call that piece of shit a bright spot? You call a game that was built on two previous games of the same series that basically had written up a setting and universe of this game; that turns around and by the end makes both previous games POINTLESS a bright spot?!

[Rendclaw 0]

You know what I love? The same people who bust on FFX-2 for being too girly bust on FFVII for being too angsty. Which is hard to take seriously when FFVI is pretty much angst in a cartridge.

 

You know Lightning Flik, you're totally right about quality being more paramount than originality in RPG plots. Suikoden II wasn't anything too terribly original, but it kicked all types of ass with its story. Likewise, Chrono Trigger pretty much had a bunch of slightly-tweaked stereotypes for characters, and they were all great. A really good translation helps of course. I wish Working Designs did more stuff.

FFVII had the right amount of angst. FFVIII had WAY too much.

 

Quality has been an issue pretty much since Chrono Trigger in my view. Chrono Trigger had a great plot if a little convoluted, for example.

 

More RPGs like Tales of Symphonia need to be out there. Not the best-looking game, but certainly one of the deeper ones.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I see no problem with the so-called 'oversatuation' of the merket. I'm not in the business, I'm a fan. If you are too lazy to sift through the crap to find the good stuff, then that is your problem.

 

That said, I don't think the current generation of RPGs have been as good as the last two, for primarily two main reasons.

 

1) Crappy voice-acting. This plagues pretty much any recent RPG from FFX to Suikoden IV to Star Ocean III. The only one that sorta gets it right is the Xenosaga games and even there, there are cringe-inducing voices (MOMO, second KOS-MOS) mingled in with the good ones (Albedo, Jr). If you aren't going to do it properly, then I would prefer they just leave the text in or do like Star Ocean and give you the option to turn them off. I've seen better acting in a 24 Hour Kevin Costner marathon than in most RPGs. Metal Gear has no problem with the acting, why should Final Fantasy be any different?

 

2) They simply don't seem as big as they used to be. Not necessarily in terms of length, but in terms of the content. RPGs used to be truly epic in scope (like with Suikoden II or Xenogears) featuring many, many dungeons, boss fights and a great deal of exploration. Xenogears is longer than both Xenosaga games put together, and that was with a second disk that was raped due to budget cuts. Dungeons have been increased in sized, but the number of them have been drastically reduced. Just compare the size of FFVII to FFX. Doesn't X seem to contain much less content, regardless of the actual length of the game?

 

I actually liked X-2 than X. X-2 gives you more freedom to actually play the game, rather than the extremely linear hold-you-by-the-hand approach of X. Also, X contains possibly the most annoying main character in videogame history in more than just the minor role of X-2. I'd rather have KOTORIII starring the tag team of Jar Jar Binks and Wicket the Ewok than put up with Tidus again. At least I didn't have to listen to Squall talk.

[Rendclaw 0]

I've seen better acting in a 24 Hour Kevin Costner marathon than in most RPGs.

 

Um, ouch.

 

Also, X contains possibly the most annoying main character in videogame history in more than just the minor role of X-2. I'd rather have KOTORIII starring the tag team of Jar Jar Binks and Wicket the Ewok than put up with Tidus again. At least I didn't have to listen to Squall talk.

 

Umm, double ouch.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Also, X contains possibly the most annoying main character in videogame history in more than just the minor role of X-2. I'd rather have KOTORIII starring the tag team of Jar Jar Binks and Wicket the Ewok than put up with Tidus again. At least I didn't have to listen to Squall talk.

 

Umm, double ouch.

He makes a terribly great point, though. I hated Yuna, too.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Also, X contains possibly the most annoying main character in videogame history in more than just the minor role of X-2. I'd rather have KOTORIII starring the tag team of Jar Jar Binks and Wicket the Ewok than put up with Tidus again. At least I didn't have to listen to Squall talk.

 

Umm, double ouch.

He makes a terribly great point, though. I hated Yuna, too.

Me too. And Rikku for that matter. There seems to be less chatting from them in X-2 though.

 

Seymour sucked too. He was probably the lamest main villain in the entire series, aside from those like Ultimecia & Chaos that only show up at the end.

[chirs3 0]

I guess I'm one of the few people who didn't hate Tidus, then.

 

I wouldn't put him on my Top 10 Characters list or anything, but I didn't find his presence painful like I did some other Final Fantasy heroes (the entire cast of FFVIII).

 

And how could you hate Rikku? She was adorable!

 

No argument with Seymour, though. He was terrible.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Yeah Rikku was hot..

 

 

 

.....what?

[LaParkaMarka 0]

I didn't mind Tidus. The guy looked like a tool, but I thought his character was fine. He had a decent little story arc.

 

I couldn't stand Yuna is X, but X-2 actually made me like her. She had a nice little story arc as well, taken over the course of both games.

 

Seymour was lame.

[Anya 0]

Tidus is a great hero. He looks like Meg Ryan though.

[Special K 0]

Well, there is one thing that has gone downhill pretty clearly. Uematsu probably won't ever make a soundtrack like he did for FFIV, VI or VII again. Those games has GREAT music. FFVI has the best soundtrack of all time, in all its SNESy glory.

They should try to get Yoko Kanno to write a score for a game.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

Who did the soundtrack for Crono Trigger? That was great, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Uematsu.

 

I thought the soundtrack for X-2 was brilliant. Very upbeat and so very different from the grandiose-till-you-puke Uematsu stuff.

[Lightning Flik 0]

Well, there is one thing that has gone downhill pretty clearly. Uematsu probably won't ever make a soundtrack like he did for FFIV, VI or VII again. Those games has GREAT music. FFVI has the best soundtrack of all time, in all its SNESy glory.

They should try to get Yoko Kanno to write a score for a game.

There are other games that rival FFVI in terms of soundtracks from the SNES era. We just didn't see those games.

 

Who did the soundtrack for Crono Trigger? That was great, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Uematsu.

Yasunori Mitsuda did the soundtrack for Chrono Trigger.

[Guest OSIcon]

I love the VI soundtrack. It is the only video game soundtrack I have ever even considered buying. I just go around to buying the CD that has like 10-12 tracks performed on piano. Makes for really good studying music....

[AndrewTS 0]

Yasunori Mitsuda did the soundtrack for Chrono Trigger.

 

Nobuo worked on it as well, though.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Nobuo's music is the best thing to come out of Japan, music-wise. Sure as hell isn't J-Pop, you stinkin' creeps.

[Lightning Flik 0]

Yasunori Mitsuda did the soundtrack for Chrono Trigger.

 

Nobuo worked on it as well, though.

Actually only on Chrono Trigger's main theme and the "Sad" Theme (also Marle's theme, I think) did Nobuo help Mistuda. Otherwise, it was all Mitsuda.

[chaosrage 0]

I guess I'm one of the few people who didn't hate Tidus, then.

 

I wouldn't put him on my Top 10 Characters list or anything, but I didn't find his presence painful like I did some other Final Fantasy heroes (the entire cast of FFVIII).

I actually probably would put him on a list of top ten main characters.

 

What makes Tidus so great is he's so unlike Cloud and Squall. For all the reasons that those two were shitty characters, he's exactly the opposite. While Cloud and Squall are angsty, depressing, mopey, and boring, making it mind boggling that a bunch of people would choose to be around them, Tidus is energetic, a generally happy guy, and seems like he'd be fun to be around. Cloud and Squall seem like assholes, but Tidus is nice to everybody he meets.

 

And despite having a lot of problems of his own (such as his father being Sin, never being able to go home again, not even existing, etc..), he's always more concerned about everyone else than himself. He's only mopey one single time in the game, when he finds out his dad is Sin, and he's immediately broken out of it by Yuna. You won't catch him saying "I don't care about the planet." or "Tell it to a wall." He's a real hero. Also like Yuna, he's always trying to stay positive, no matter what, and by being positive keeps everyone else positive in a world where everything revolves around death. He's optimistic and thinks everything will work out even though it looks like there's no possible way it could work out, such as being sure that he would find a way to kill Sin without Yuna dying and promising her that he would, just because he was determined to find it. I don't see why anyone wouldn't like him. Or Yuna. They were a breath of fresh air for RPGs.

 

I don't have a problem with the voice acting either. It added a lot to the game.

[chaosrage 0]

I actually liked X-2 than X.  X-2 gives you more freedom to actually play the game, rather than the extremely linear hold-you-by-the-hand approach of X.

You must really hate Xenogears and FF6 WOB then.

[Black Lushus 0]

cahosrage, to add to what you're saying about Tidus, i actually found myself saddened by the ending...I couldn't tolerate him the whole game, but by the end when I realized he's going to officially die, it was like whoa this kinda sucks!

[Star Ocean 3 0]

Nobuo's music is the best thing to come out of Japan, music-wise. Sure as hell isn't J-Pop, you stinkin' creeps.

hahahahaha