What makes a great RPG?
Published: Wed 13 Jan, 2010 | 22 CommentsTags: role playing games, RPG
I still have fond memories of the good 'ol RPGs, such as Final Fantasy VII, Legend of Legaia, Vagrant Story, Tales of Symphonia etc, but sadly I can't say the same about the more recent titles. Most of them seem to disappear into the sidelines once completed and others are sadly sold or traded off. In fact, with the possible exception of Persona 3, I am hard pressed to think of a recent title that had me obsessively hooked enough to keep replaying. Of course this doesn't mean that there aren't any good RPG titles out there, as we have certainly had our fill of awesome goodies such as Dragons Age Origins, Demon's Souls, Persona 4 etc. In saying this though, I feel as though there is always something missing.
I began thinking about what it was that made those older titles so impossible to forget. Was it the story? The gameplay? Characters? Well these aspects are important but have been covered time and time again in forums and other blogs so I won't dwelve into them too much. What I would like to get into however, is my opinion on some other features that seem to be lacking in several recent RPG's these days.
Let me start off however by reiterating that graphics are not high up in the list for me in terms of priorities. A game could have sh*te graphics and I'd still play it. In fact, I would rather play an awesome game with bad graphics than a bad game with awesome graphics. In any case, a considerable number of JRPG's these days feature sprites or Japanese animation to portray the characters, which is fine with me. Similarly, I am quite happy for in game movies to be displayed as anime or sketches rather than CGI if it means that more money can be put towards making the the game more enjoyable.
Customisation
A crucial element of a good RPG as far as I'm concerned is the ability to progress and considerably develop a character (or characters). As such, it is important to have a wide variety of customisation in terms of attributes, skills, equipment, weapons etc. One of the best aspects of FFVII and FFVIII was the ability to customise the way you play. The materia system allowed you to pair materia such as "Final Attack" and "Phoenix" so that you could be revived in battle, whilst the junctioning system in FFVIII allowed you to junction "Drain" magic or anything else that appealled to you. Similarly, Star Ocean introduced us to the Item Creation system, where points are assigned towards skills such as Smithery, Crafting etc to amass a range of interesting and useful items. Most western RPGs such as the old but memorable Summoner game also allowed for the customisation of stats, attributes and skills. You could train your characters to be powerful mages or brutal melee tanks, regardless of what they started out as. This gives you full control as a player to determine how your characters develop. Compare this to games such as FFXII where the License Board restricted characters so much that halfway through the game, there was no scope to learn new skills or attributes. Once that small license board was mastered, it was finished, and so was your ability to customise or develop your characters further. One could argue that FFX had a similar restriction with the sphere grid but I the sheer size of the sphere grid and access to many other attribute spheres in the Monster Arena renders this comparison, invalid.
Random Encounters
Levelling up is pretty standard in RPGs and there should be nothing holding back a player from levelling up as much as they want to. At the end of the day, the quality of gameplay is determined by how much time and effort you put into the game and as such, the player should be rewarded by being able to level up as much as they possibly can. Obviously, this can be achieved through plenty of accessible dungeons with respawning enemies. However there are some games that seem to think its a good idea to take this choice away from the player. Dragons Age Origins is a prime example of this. Once a dungeon is cleared, there are no new enemies that respawn, leaving you unable to develop your characters even further. Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is yet another example. Random encounters are completely absent meaning that the main character has to follow a set path and will eventually only level up to a set level by the end of the game. In my opinion, there is nothing worse in an RPG than the inability to level up. In games like Champions of Norrath and Untold Legends, there is even a level cap, meaning that characters cannot level up beyond Level 45. Why any developer would even think this is a good idea is beyond my me.
In saying this however, there is something to be said about games that rely on overactive encounter rates. Nothing is more frustrating than running into a million random enemies whilst trying to solve a simple puzzle. As such RPGs are tasked with finding that perfect balance between having a normal or overactive encounter rate. SMT: Lucifers Call (which btw, is an awesome game) is a good example of how a player can be driven insane by running into numerous, and often lethal, enemies whilst trying to navigate a short distance. At one point, I was engaging in battle for every third step my character took. Whilst random encounters are an important part of RPGs, theres absolutely no need to make it a chore. Especially when you have to perform tasks or solve puzzles in between.
Sidequests
Sidequests are essentially optional areas or missions that can be accessed to enhance the overall RPG experience. Usually these sidequests provide important items, weapons or even recruitable characters but will require a certain amount of time, effort and commitment from the player. THese areas are usually not required to complete the main story line and may contain optional bosses or dungeons that will be much harder than the those in the normal areas. I believe that RPGs should not only be jam packed with sidequests, but should provide the player with appropriate rewards based on the difficulty of completing these missions. In Final Fantasy XII, there were several "Hunt" missions requiring the player to defeat difficult and often lethal bosses for a reward. HOw many of you who have played this game, have spent hours trying to reach and defeat one of these difficult marks only to be rewarded with a lame "potion" or "pebbles". Rewards such as these are essentially not worth the effort and will only aggravate and frustrate a player. Compare this to the "Hot and Cold" minigame in Final Fantasy IX or the Chocobo racing/breeding sidequest in Final Fantasy VII where the rewards reap powerful weapons, useful accessories and rare (useful) materia. In my opinion, good sidequests add value and quality to the overall experience of an RPG and should never be overlooked.
Rewarding Gameplay
What I mean by 'rewarding gameplay' is again, the ability to reward players for how much time and effort they invest in a game. For example, in Tales of Symphonia, each battle reaps "Grade Points" which can then be used to purchase rare items within the same game or to purchase experience and skills in a new game plus.The more battles the characters fight, the more grade points they receive. The player is therefore rewarded by putting in the effort. Levelling up and dungeon crawling as mentioned earlier is a must in solid RPGs so why not reward the experience by throwing in a few treats. As mentioned earlier however, rewards should mean something. Throwing in a few skanky costumes for female characters or even fan-fest costumes are not enough to 'sweeten the deal' if those costumes simply exist for gawking at. Take Final Fantasy Dissidia, where you unlock numerous costumes such as Cloud's SOLDIER uniform or Squall's SEED uniform which apart from looking nice, offer no attribute changes or anything remotely resembling a reward. In Cross Edge however, costumes are that are unlocked don't necessarily look as nice but dramatically change the attributes of a character. Most of them increase character stats considerably. This is by comparison, more useful than something pretty to look at.
Rewarding gameplay can also take the form of New Game+ where skills, levels, items etc are carried over from one playthrough to the next. One of the things I loved about Vagrant Story was the fact that you could revisit the whole experience with your levels, items etc intact. In addition to this, you were given a certain item in your new game that could unlock previously unlocked doors which hold more secret bosses and awesome items. Similarly, in Breath of Fire 4, you could purchase levels and skills in order to play the game over and over again in order to improve your ranking so that you can unlock more story scenes.
In conclusion then, the recipe for a great RPG, as I believe it, includes character/weapon customisations, uncapped levelling-up, a side order of sidequests, rewarding game play and of course New Game+. It is important to note however, that none of these on their own would constitute a solid experience. The major aspects of good story telling, likeable characters and challenging gameplay of course must be added to the mix however again, on their own they wouldn't amount to much. If anything, square Enix has proven this to us time and time again by releasing games with top notch graphics, interesting stories, questionable gameplay and only one or two of the features I have explained above.
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COMMENTS (22)
DA:O filled this expectation but like you said it has its flaws which reduces replayability.
However I agree with the rest you said, especially on random encounters.
Also I started playing Star Ocean: Second Story again on my psx...god that was an awesome game
To me a decent RPG must have a highly immersive story with likeable and unique characters.
DA:O filled this expectation but like you said it has its flaws which reduces replayability.
However I agree with the rest you said, especially on random encounters.
Also I started playing Star Ocean: Second Story again on my psx...god that was an awesome game
Speaking of Star Ocean, I'm playing the 4th one on XBOX and the first one on PSP. I love that series :)
Agreed about the highly immersive story and likeable characters. I kept them out of this blog to make it a good length to read. I am planning on writing another one though, which will incorporate things like characters, story, gameplay etc.
Speaking of Star Ocean, I'm playing the 4th one on XBOX and the first one on PSP. I love that series :)
And yea, if that was any longer it would have been a rough read :3
For me, though, an RPG needs not story, or characters, or even a large world to explore. What it needs is to let me play a role. It's in the name, after all. I think that's why so many people place emphasis on "likeable characters". In so many RPGs, especially Japanese ones, we are not playing a role buy merely watching a glorified movie. So when the character does something we wouldn't do ourselves in that situation, we get upset about it.
But yeah, I'm not a fan of random encounters.
If it wasn't for the Hsiss spawn point I would have said that the second was worse than the first.
I like RPGs with massive maps that i can explore for ages on end, of course between saves.
Customizable characters are something I really enjoy, personalizing my adventure in a way.
That is whay Oblivion and Fallout (and in a way DragonAge) appeal to me so much.
Oh yeah LOOOOOVE random encounters to, they need to bring that back.
For example, in the awesomeness of FF7, we, and certainly I, accepted random enemy encounters. Nowadays though, I hate the bastard things, and refuse to play rpgs with random battles.
Having played stuff like Oblivion and Fallout 3 has drastically changed what I expect from a good rpg - Jap rpgs rarely seem to cut it for me these days, because I'm far too in love with, for example, Bethsoft's amazing open world exploration, and level of customisation. They make most other developers' attempts at rpgs look amateurish in comparison, and reading around forums, I know many others feel the same way.
Very nice blog. One thing I don't think I saw in the random encounters section was games that level monsters as you level (enter Oblivion). To troll around trying to level up and make your character an awesome all-powerful god (which, lets face it, is half why anyone plays) only to have the monsters still owning you really REALLY bugs me.
The main point of contention I see here are the random encounters. I still think that all RPGs need a good way to 'level-up' and progress the characters and I rarely get bored with them.
And Kegzz, yeah i know what you mean about the enemies levelling up with you. On one hand, its good that you're always challenged but on the other hand, its nice to be able to kick back and relax every now and then instead of forever fighting for your life lol.
In terms of linear games vs open games like Oblivion etc, I like the premise of having a game where you can do what you want, but in reality, I hardly ever get to finish those types of games. Thats just me personally. I still haven't finished Oblivion as I'm constantly just wandering around trying to discover new stuff. Thats the awesome part of open games like that... But when it comes to finishing an RPG, I need some path to follow or I'll just dawdle and lose interest.
Thanks for the comments guys :)
Another is big boring random dunegon at the end with no story. (Wild Arms 3)
Another is you have to play through twice to get some of the story (Eterna Sonata)
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