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[BillAdama]

RPGs lately have pretty much turned into interactive movies.  With a focus on impressive graphics and whatever plot they've written, which is usually very mainstream anime style.  (Or in the case of western RPGs, you've either got basic D&D-like modules or scifi war genre stuff.)

The combat itself has taken a back seat.  The combat tends to be mostly about throwing cool looking spells at the enemy and doing damage, and healing up when you get low.  Maybe you occasionally cast a protective spell that lasts way too short to really be that useful.  And the difficulty of the enemies scales up at the same rate that you level up, so the fights are pretty much all the same difficulty the entire game.

Especially Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, and Kingdom Hearts seem to take this approach.

Sometimes I feel alone in this feeling about newer RPGs.  Does anybody else wish RPGs would focus more on combat and strategy like the Shin Megami Tensei, Valkryie Profile, and Disgaea games do?  Or would you all rather RPGs be mostly interactive movies with anime styled plots and occasionally unstrategic combat?

[JJMitchell]

I like both types of RPGs that you mention although the games like Disgaea are really more strategy than RPG.  They are all about number crunching where generally you can number crunch in an RPG but don't need to.

[TheFuriousWombat]

Does anyone else wish most console RPGs were actually RPGs? As in: games that allowed ROLE PLAYING and didn't pre-assign a character with fixed attributes and very limited customizability and then plunk the player down in a world that is not only static but also features almost entierly predetermined, scripted, linear plotlines and quests. like, you know, an RPG that really lets you role play.

[Storm Rider]

Your question seems sort of loaded to me. I think you might just be jaded.

Personally, I am very tired of the turn-based thing. I want an RPG to either have a strategic element, like Disgaea, or action-based gameplay like Rogue Galaxy or Shadow Hearts. Just something that mixes it up a bit, I'm tired of hitting the 'Fight' command over and over again. I actually enjoyed Final Fantasy XII quite a bit for the changes it made to the standard formula. I think it struck a very nice balance between plot and action.

I also like character customization, but to an extent it's sometimes taken too far. I'm going to use Final Fantasy XII as an example again, I wasn't a huge fan of the license board. It was a neat concept in general, but the basic fact that you could make any character exactly like any other sort of destroyed the point of choosing your party for me. You're telling me that a trained warrior like Basch has no more innate specialty with weaponry than Penelo? Basically, I think more games should offer you characters that are distinctly different so that they're not interchangeable, but customizable enough so that you have the freedom to make what you want out of them.

[I Am Not Amused]

See, I'm of the almost exact opposite viewpoint.

While I appreciate games that consider tactics, etc. and games that are - yes - actually more like roleplaying, I am a HUGE fan of a good story. I'll play a game with a great story, even if it has substandard gameplay, because I enjoy the story element of games so much. Whereas a Nippon Ichi game like Makai Kingdom, I became almost instantly bored with because it didn't put its great gameplay elements to the use of a story of any kind of competence.

To summarize, I can see the point you are making, but wish that the elements you enjoy could be added to or used in conjunction with the story elements I enjoy. This just seems to be kind of a foreign idea, I suppose.

[ScrambledGregs]

If you can look me in the face and say Final Fantasy games are just interactive movies having played FFXII I will become visibly angry. This game has fucktons of gameplay. Also:

The combat tends to be mostly about throwing cool looking spells at the enemy and doing damage, and healing up when you get low.  Maybe you occasionally cast a protective spell that lasts way too short to really be that useful.  And the difficulty of the enemies scales up at the same rate that you level up, so the fights are pretty much all the same difficulty the entire game.

This has always been true of console RPGs. Seriously.

[Scytale]

Vampire the Masquerade : Bloodlines is probably the best modern RPG I've played. It has a good story line and fair bit of re-playability as well as really good graphics (Half Life 2 Engine).

It's not terribly combat oriented until the end of the game, up till then it's mainly dialogue and diplomacy (the other D&D ). In a lot of the quests you get more experience points if you take the diplomatic / stealth route rather then trying to kill everything.

In fact I prefer my computer RPG's to be more thinking and less combat. One of my favorite RPG's ever is Zork Nemesis, has a really incredible dark atmosphere and the puzzles can be quite challenging. The storyline is really good as well. I wish this genre wasn't really dead now.

[The extra letter]

Give me Fallout 3 (a sequel befitting the name, that is) or give me death.

[TheFuriousWombat]

Vampire the Masquerade : Bloodlines is probably the best modern RPG I've played. It has a good story line and fair bit of re-playability as well as really good graphics (Half Life 2 Engine).

yes! thank you. this game has found a great balance. in fact, all troika games had that. it's so sad that they are gone b/c what a great developer they were. i mean, they made arcanum people. and i absolutely love arcanum (possibly my favorite game ever). all their games had a fantastic story but also a huge level on replayability, a fantastic open ended world, and some of the deepest character customization i have ever seen in a game, if not the deepest. these are the kind of games i wish were released a lot more often b/c, frankly, they all trump games like FF in pretty much every way. they have the great stories but they managed to incorporate those stories into a game that has what can truly be called role playing.

[the_tard]

Oblivion is pretty good. It's definitely got replay value and the story line was good I thought. I especially liked Mankar Cammoran's paradise, even though those infinite dinosaur things kind of pissed me off after a while. PS does anyone here have the expansion and is it worth buying? Probably won't because I'm waiting on STALKER but just curious.

[RandomGuy]

personnally, I think rpg's should either be very strategic like FFX with turn based action so you can plan your next 5 turns in advance OR fully interactive like kindom hearts except perhaps slightly free-er controls, like dynasty warriors 3. It musy have a good storyline or I get bored and a playability that allows simple play with some expert level to it aswell...If that makes any sense!...

[Catfish_Man]

RPGs got lost when the adventure genre died. Back in the day (Quest for Glory, King's Quest, etc...) they really almost felt like role playing games.

Fundamentally though, RPGs are an AI-hard problem. If you allow freeform playing styles, you can't have a strong storyline unless it's written on the fly. If you don't allow freeform playing styles, there's no freedom to get into the role of the player; it's just an interactive movie.

[TheBoredOne]

My favorite RPGs are Fable and City of Heroes.
I'm all about the costumization ability.

[Dimmukane]

Oblivion is pretty good. It's definitely got replay value and the story line was good I thought. I especially liked Mankar Cammoran's paradise, even though those infinite dinosaur things kind of pissed me off after a while. PS does anyone here have the expansion and is it worth buying? Probably won't because I'm waiting on STALKER but just curious.

Knights of the Nine?  The Shivering Isles doesn't come out for a little bit.  Knights of the Nine (which costs 20$ and comes with the old stuff) was a fun mod, yeah.  For twenty bucks, getting two fairly long quests (Knights of the Nine and Mehrune's Razor) and a Wizard's Tower sold me on it.

[Scytale]

RPGs got lost when the adventure genre died. Back in the day (Quest for Glory, King's Quest, etc...) they really almost felt like role playing games.

Fundamentally though, RPGs are an AI-hard problem. If you allow freeform playing styles, you can't have a strong storyline unless it's written on the fly. If you don't allow freeform playing styles, there's no freedom to get into the role of the player; it's just an interactive movie.

Yeah I agree completely with this, I usually like to rollplay 'evil' characters or at least morally ambigous characters, like thiefs and rogues, a lot of the computer RPG's like Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Fallout etc make virtually no distinction between a persons alignment and the storyline, aside from the way a few minor characters interact.

This is somewhere that online rpg's win over the more scripted RPG's. Only problem with online RPG's is you get an awful lot of tools and power gamers that 'cheat' to reach an insane level or spawn camping or whatever, thats what really killed Ultima Online for me, that was a really good system, which gave you a lot of freedom to do basically whatever but too many people abused it.

[Johnny C]

I am kind of surprised that you guys haven't managed to play RPGs that have, you know, multiple endings. Or create characters and worlds where you feel that every action you take, scripted or no, optional or no, is still vital and important and as much of a choice as "oh should I be chaotic good or lawful evil." Because they exist. I'm just sayin'.

[Vanilla Gorilla]

is the first deus ex considered an RPG?

[TheBoredOne]

Or create characters and worlds where you feel that every action you take, scripted or no, optional or no, is still vital and important and as much of a choice as "oh should I be chaotic good or lawful evil."

I think Fable is like that.. Or Knights of the Old Republic.

[Johnny C]

So, oddly enough, is Chrono Trigger.

[Vanilla Gorilla]

i enjoyed fable, it was a little short. never played chrono trigger or kotor though

[Will]

Is there a game out for PS2 that is comparable to KOTOR? I'd like to check such a game out if one exists. 

[Vanilla Gorilla]

Is there a game out for PS2 that is comparable to KOTOR? I'd like to check such a game out if one exists. 

yeah i agree with this guy

[TheFuriousWombat]

Or create characters and worlds where you feel that every action you take, scripted or no, optional or no, is still vital and important and as much of a choice as "oh should I be chaotic good or lawful evil."

I think Fable is like that.. Or Knights of the Old Republic.

they are but they are definetly an exception. games like that (and there are some others) are excedingly rare on any console.

[Johnny C]

Actually there are a whole lot of games like that on older consoles, RPG or otherwise. Hell, I found myself getting emotionally attached to Harvest Moon, just through how much fun the gameplay was.

If you want to know what the real problem is, it's that, for the most part, modern gamers could care less about a decent script, fleshed-out characters or truly engaging stories. That's why so many of the best games of late that aren't franchise games fall flat on their faces. It's a trend that is slowly starting to reverse itself as gaming starts to mature, but if you really want games which start breaking boundaries, they're out there so start buying them. Tell the industry what you want by spending your money that way.

[TheBoredOne]

I think you guys will enjoy Mass Effect when it comes out
Also, Fable 2 is coming.

Gamespy.com - Mass Effect

[ScrambledGregs]

Query: has there been a decent non-online computer RPG in the last year or two that wasn't Oblivion??

[Nutsaur]

One of my friends had major beef with Knights of the Old Republic because he's a very neutral person. Occasionally he'd slay an innocent and other times he'd save a dying tribe and thus he received no bonus to his good or evil force powers. You could argue that his advantage is that he can use both good and evil powers averagely but he complained their was no neutral benefits. He was also annoyed that there were two endings, good or evil. I didn't mind because i'm more extreme in the way that I either go sickeningly good or disgustingly evil.

[JJMitchell]

SG:  Not that I know of but NWN2 might fit that although I haven't heard much about it.

Oblivion makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

[Scytale]

NWN2 was good but had no re-playability.

By good I mean storyline was nice, difficulty was about right had lots of cool features but it started to drag at the end, suffered from the: "goto point A wade through hordes of bad guys, retrieve item, goto point B, wade through more hordes, drop off item, goto point C get another item etc...".

Up until then it was pretty good, party interaction was nice, more like BG2 then the first NWN.