RPG Genre: Inherently Flawed?
Do the basic components of an RPG render it a design cop-out? Is the notion of role-playing in an already fictional world redundant? Do RPG soap opera/cliff-hanging storylines and the promise of leveling up create an addictive experience out of shallow and always repetitive gameplay? I say YES!!
When I was younger I got into an argument with my older brother while trying to explain different video game genres. The problem was the concept of a role-playing game. Colin tried to say that I was being stupid, that all games were RPG's because you play as a character; in other words, when you play any game you're role playing. Looking at it Colin's way, a Super Mario game would be the same as any Final Fantasy game.
Obviously that's wrong because the RPG is a well-defined genre with common basic elements such as stats, overworlds, battle scenes, a plethora of items and characters, parties, magic abilities, long involved storylines, blah blah blah. We know what that's all about. But Colin is also right, because video games really are all RPG's. The RPG genre is simply redundant, and that's not it's only problem.
My sister's boyfriend and one of my best friends, Luke, is a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons: the mother of role playing games. Every time they're home from school, Luke and some of my other friends get together in a small building adjacent to his house and act out their various characters and storylines. The need for Dungeons and Dragons in the real world is just that: the fact that this is the real world, and they must create their fictional one. In order to make sure everything makes sense and stays as believable as possible, they keep track of your typical RPG stats like experience points, and I can assume they have such things as hit points, and limited stats of various powers as well (I do not play D&D). This all makes sense, like I said, because it is make-believe, and in order for it all to make sense these stats must exist.
But what about video games? Why use these devices in a video game when the world has actually been created for you? Why can't we expect more immersion out of our video games than a storybook/board game played out on our tv?
I'm a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda, which is usually classified as an "action adventure rpg". Action is a key word because it changes it all drastically. My criticism here is not leveled at any type of "action" video game; it's the action games that have it right. Zelda is very much an rpg in several ways; it has the basic components:
stats:
HP: Your heart containers
FP/PP/etc: Magic meter
Experience: Aha! The person playing becomes experienced themselves as they become used to the very deep gameplay of a Zelda game, but beyond that experience is built through the learning of new techniques and more powerful weapons. You do not gain experience points, but are awarded with improved "stats" for your accomplishments and progression; why do we even need the experience points, then?
overworld:
Hyrule Field, for the most part, though it extends typically into Death Mountain and various other locales.
Party:
Link alone.
Why can a Zelda game acquire the "action" moniker and bypass the convoluted statistical mess that plagues other rpg's? The "action" subgenre should be recognized as a true feat in the field of video games.
So what's my problem with stats and overworlds anyway? RPG's depend a lot on story, too much if I do say so, and stats and rpg overworlds completely destroy any suspension of disbelief.
First of all, stats: why do I need experience points and an ever-increasing amount of hit points to tell me my training has paid off and my character is more powerful? This is never believable in a video game. I just read a thread on Gamespot's forums the other day about what video game characters are overpowered. The typical answer was "almost any rpg protagonist". In a typical rpg, your character no matter how small or humble can grow to be ubelievably powerful, almost inexplicably save for their steady acquisition of stats, hit points, and experience.
Second, the overworld: rpg overworlds, ugh! Am I the only one who ever thinks this? RPG over worlds are typically an uninteractive map that you can move your character around and bump into enemies. Once you bump into an enemy, it cuts to an entirely new screen and you realize, "hey! that wasn't what the overworld actually looked like! It's much bigger than that!"
And then there's actual battling: turn based rpg's are the worst for this. Instead of mapping all attacks to buttons or combos that you can pull off in real time, everything in rpg's are usually relegated to menus. In an action game, the overworld is the overworld as is: what you see is what you get, in battle: what you see is what you get, stats: what you see is what you get.
The biggest problem with rpg's is this failure to suspend disbelief and the redundancy of stats in a fictional created world. What you see is never what you get.
The gameplay is repetitive and shallow compared to action, real time games. Game length is artificially dragged out by the need to level up. Usually the main draw is to find out more of the excessive amount of storyline, basically "We'll tell you this story, but you must work for it". And friends: that work is not fun.
I'm sure some of you have played more RPG's than I have. Do you agree with this? Where have I gone horribly wrong, or are rpg's truly just a bad drug?
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