On Role-Playing Games: How I Define "RPG" and What I Expect From RPGs

 

 The term "role-playing game" has become somewhat nebulous and unhelpful these days when it comes to categorizing video games, in large part because so many games have started implementing RPG elements in their gameplay designs, causing the line between "RPG" and "not-RPG" to blur. Sometimes the distinction is easy to make, if the RPG elements are obviously secondary to some greater gameplay emphasis, but the advent and popularity of hybrid games (like the Mass Effect series, for instance, which are equal parts RPG and action-shooter) have raised serious questions about how we should classify RPGs, since nearly every RPG these days now falls on a wide spectrum based on "how much an RPG" it actually is. When thinking of what games I'd put in a "Top 10 Favorite RPGs" list, for instance, I struggle with deciding whether certain games should even be on the list; for example, is Deus Ex actually an RPG? What about Dark Souls? In both cases, my gut says "no," but you could make an argument for both games, based on how you actually define what constitutes a role-playing game.

A key issue with this debate is that different people have different definitions; for some, the simple presence of a leveling system makes any game an RPG, while others insist that it's more about choice and consequences, while still more people would say that it's about being able to make a character (or an entire party) and explore a large open world, playing the game however you want. In truth, there are a lot of specific mechanisms and general concepts that go into making an RPG, but it's probably not appropriate to draw a hard line in the sand and declare that "if a game doesn't have have these specific elements, then it's not an RPG." As the folks at Extra Credits have pointed out, mechanics don't define genres; why we play them, or what we're looking to get out of them, does. And as the classic Potter Stewart quote goes, "[I can't define it], but I know it when I see it." Which is to say, there's an inherently subjective logic about how we perceive and classify these games, and it's not always easy to put into words. But I'm going to try.

What All is Wrong With Gothic 1's Back Cover

I was looking at a few games on my shelf recently and decided to grab a few and take a closer look at them. Upon closer inspection, I realized that a lot of what's printed on the back of the box for Gothic 1 is straight up wrong or subtly misleading. I'm not sure if this is due to basic ignorance, as if the person writing these blurbs on the back of the box had no first-hand experience with the game and was simply making stuff up based on general statements they'd been told by someone else, or if it's a deliberate marketing spin to try to sell the game. This has no bearing on the quality of the actual game, of course, and I don't think it even affects anyone anywhere anymore anyway anytime since anyone buying Gothic for the first time is likely buying it digitally based on word of mouth, not what's printed on the back of the box. Most people won't ever even see the back cover unless they own a physical copy or deliberately search for pictures of it. Anyway, since I found this so interesting, I figured I'd share these observations with you and give you a quick rundown on what all is wrong with the back cover.

The Problem With Open World Games, or "Why Open World Games Suck"

The joint release of Horizon Zero Dawn and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -- two of the biggest and most ambitious open-world games ever made -- within days of each other has spawned a lot of discussion about which game handles the open world formula better, and which represents the future of open world gaming. I've not played either one so I won't be commenting on that issue directly. Instead I'll be giving my thoughts on open world games in general, based on observations and trends I've noticed in the open world games I've played over the past 15 years.

As the title already states, I have some major issues with open world games. It's not that I don't like them, or that they're all bad across the board -- in fact, many of my all-time favorite games are open world, or at least semi-open world. There are a lot of good things to like about open world games, hence why they've become so popular lately, but I feel like very few developers do the open world concept justice. It seems like most of the mainstream AAA open world games that I play end up subtly or outright disappointing me, and consequently I've grown apprehensive of games that consider their big open worlds to be their main selling point.

Morrowind Sucks, aka, Morrowind is Overrated

Like everyone else, I have fond, nostalgic memories of playing Morrowind back in the early 2000s, but I was never able to get into it properly. Back then I only put about 10-20 hours into it before losing interest and giving up my playthrough. And yet, every time I've seen screenshots or heard its music over the past decade, I've felt a desire to reinstall the game and relive the glory days that everyone always harkens back to when discussing Oblivion or Skyrim. And then, whenever I do, I'm soon reminded of why I was never able to appreciate Morrowind, even back in its prime.

It's a shame, really, because I think Morrowind truly is the best of the modern Elder Scrolls games. It has the most interesting world to explore with its completely unique fauna, wildlife, and architecture, and it has the deepest, most complex stats-based RPG mechanics of any modern Elder Scrolls game. There's a reason, after all, that Morrowind was such a popular hit in 2002. For many young gamers, it was their first experience diving into such a deeply rich, complex open-world; for me, I'd already been spoiled by Gothic and Gothic 2, which made it painfully obvious how soulless and mediocre Morrowind really was. And now that I've finally finished a full 90+ hour playthrough with both expansions, I'm still not convinced that Morrowind is all that great.

16 Game Mechanics & Tropes That Need to Die

Video games are as much a science as they are an art; for every subjective opinion there also exists objective fact. Much of video game criticism stems from personal taste, with different individuals liking different games based on their past experiences and their own preferences. As with any art form, beauty ultimately lies in the eye of the beholder, but there are occasions when we can look at a certain aspect of a particular game and universally agree whether it's good or bad. If an advertised mechanic doesn't work the way it was intended, it's both fair and accurate to say that mechanic is broken and hurts the game's overall quality.

Over the years, a lot of mechanics have worked their way into the games we play. A lot of them are welcome innovations for the sake of convenience and have contributed positively to games as a whole. Some mechanics, on the other hand, show up with the best of intentions and ultimately prove disappointing and underwhelming. Some of these mechanics have stuck around and become so prevalent that their presence in games has started to annoy me, while certain other longstanding tropes have really begun to wear their welcome with me. The following are, in my opinion, 16 game mechanics and tropes that need to die.

On Video Game Difficulties

I don't consider myself a "hardcore" gamer -- I'm not the type of person who has to play every game on the hardest difficulty or hunt down every single achievement or trophy to get satisfaction from the games I play. When it comes to playing video games, it's not about proving how good I am to the rest of the world; it's just about having fun. For the longest time my philosophy was that whenever a game presented me with difficulty options, I would play the default, normal difficulty unless I knew in advance that the normal setting would be far too easy and therefore unsatisfying. And yet lately I've noticed myself consistently playing games on the "hard" setting, because it seems like in most mainstream games these days, "normal" has actually come to mean "easy."

It's no secret that games have been getting easier over time. Classic NES games were so difficult they even inspired their own trope. The idea at the time was to make less total content last longer and to cause arcade players to spend more money on the machines buying continues after reaching a game over. Those games were so hard that only the most dedicated players mastered the skills and know-how to reach the end. Nowadays, with advents like regenerating health and frequent checkpoints, the idea seems less about challenging the player and instead about ensuring that evern the lowest common denominator will be able to reach the end of the game.

I find myself playing on "hard" more often lately because I want to feel some sense of challenge, and most "normal" modes don't provide much real sense of accomplishment. I like that feeling of satisfaction that comes from developing my own mastery of the game, the realization that it was my own skill, wit, and determination that got me through to the end. That's what makes the experience unique and personal, because otherwise I'm having the exact same gameplay experience as everyone else, and I don't always get that feeling from playing games on the default, "normal" difficulty.

The Witcher vs The Witcher 2

The Witcher is one of my all-time favorite RPGs. When I played it in 2007, I was immediately engrossed by its incredibly complex quest design and was particularly impressed by how it handled moral choices. It felt a lot like an old-school RPG dressed up in a modern skin -- it was sort of the best of both worlds. So I had pretty high hopes and expectations for The Witcher 2, but it didn't wow me as much as the original did. There are some things about The Witcher 2 that are technically superior to the original, but the two are ultimately beasts of a slightly different nature.

Whereas The Witcher is predominantly an RPG designed for enthusiasts of classic, old-school RPGs, The Witcher 2 is more of a cinematic action-RPG designed to interest a more mainstream audience. There are things I like about each game, and they're each very fine games in their own right, but I definitely prefer the greater complexity of the first game. In this article I'll compare and contrast the two games on specific points like quests, story, exploration, combat, atmosphere, and so on, in an attempt to determine which game's execution works better.

I Miss Rareware Difficulties

Back in the 90s, Rareware was a juggernaut among game developers, rivaling and perhaps even surpassing the great and almighty Nintendo. Games like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Conker's Bad Fur Day were just as essential to the N64's library as any of Nintendo's flagship IPs. Without Rareware, the N64 would've only been half the console it was. When Microsoft bought Rare, it was an attack on Nintendo that's still felt to this day; Nintendo lost one of its best developers, and Rare has since developed barely anything of worth on the Xbox.

Rare's presence is sorely missed, but one thing I miss in particular is how they handled the difficulty in their games. When most game developers put different difficulty options into their games, they tend just to provide the same game experience with certain statistics on a slider. Enemies deal more damage and have higher hitpoints, resources are more scarce, there might be more or fewer checkpoints, and so on. What Rare did, by contrast, was provide a completely different gameplay experience for each difficulty.

Should Dark Souls II Have an Easy Mode?

When it was announced that Hidetaka Miyazaki -- director of both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls -- would be stepping down as director for the new Dark Souls II, his successor, Tomohiro Shibuya, expressed an interest in making Dark Souls II "more straightforward and understandable." With news of a new director who said he wanted to make the sequel more accessible for gamers inexperienced with the series, fans immediately began to speculate that the difficulty of Dark Souls II might be "dumbed-down" in order to appeal to a wider audience.

The argument, as these fans proposed, goes that the challenging difficulty is one of the core, fundamental elements that made those games great, and that making the difficulty easier would ruin the experience of Dark Souls. This brouhaha got me thinking: would the inclusion of an "easy mode," or having a more accessible start to the game actually ruin the Souls experience? After some consideration, I don't think it would be such a big deal, and I think a lot of people are just overreacting.

The Top 10 From 2012: Editorials

With 2012 now a distant memory, it's time to reflect on the year's greatest achievements and rank them in order of their success. Since I hardly ever play new releases, I can't compile a list of the top ten releases from 2012. Instead, I'll be highlighting some of my best articles from 2012. Shameless self-promotion with an opportunity to get some of my favorite pieces on the front page again. Huzzah.

This time I'll be ranking some of my favorite editorials, those opinion pieces where I talk about some aspect of gaming and compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of a few games. Continue reading for the full list.

Gearbox: Why You Nerf "The Bee" Shield?

A few days ago, Gearbox released a hefty patch for the PC version of Borderlands 2. Among the various bug fixes, they slipped in a controversial tweak to the already-controversial Bee shield, significantly nerfing the capabilities of The Bee and all other amp shields. Before the patch, The Bee was insanely over-powered, especially in conjunction with high pellet-count, rapid fire weapons like the Conference Call, because the extra amp damage of the shield was applied to every pellet. If a Conference Call shotgun normally did 5,000x20 (100,000) damage, a Bee shield would add 50,000x20 (1,000,000) extra damage, essentially multiplying the total damage by a factor of 10. It was able to kill epic raid bosses in mere seconds. 

The new patch changes the behavior of amp shields so that the extra amp damage is now divided among all the pellets; instead of dealing 50,000x20 damage per shot, it's a flat 50,000 damage per shot. The Bee itself now also has about a 50% longer recharge delay, maybe a 20% slower recharge rate, and deals about 15% less damage (these are just estimates based on memory). Even with all of these changes, The Bee still offers the best offensive damage-per-second in the game, compared to any other shield, but the nerf feels like Gearbox just gave us the middle finger in what may be the biggest "fuck you" from a game developer in my recent memory. Why do I say this? Well, for a lot of reasons.

How the Community Ruins the Day Z Experience

Day Z is the sort of game that's really fun and interesting for a while, but then quickly loses its appeal. I played consistently for about a week and then lost interest, largely because I started to realize there was no real point to anything; it was just a never-ending cycle of spawn, scavenge loot, get killed, do it all over again. The whole point of the game is to survive long enough to assemble some ultimate set of equipment, but even once you accomplish that, there's not much to do with that equipment besides killing other players because there's just not enough actual content.

The longer Day Z has gone on, the more it's turned from an innovative survival game full of uniquely challenging and rewarding gameplay ideas, to a stupidly boring and pointless PVP deathmatch shooter. Don't get me wrong, the open PVP system is a crucial, integral element in making Day Z such a compelling experience, and I would never suggest scrapping it -- but it's gotten to a ridiculous point where people only play to grief other players. In the end, the survival mechanics create a vicious cycle where grief begets grief, to the point that even honest, honorable players end up devolving to a "shoot on sight" mentality which ultimately ruins the game experience.

New Vegas is a Better RPG Than Skyrim

When I played Skyrim, it was obvious to me that it was a pretty shallow, mediocre RPG with a lot of problems. I had a whole bunch of criticisms to lay against it, and I still don't understand how people consider it such a great, phenomenal game. Replaying Fallout: New Vegas made it painfully clear that Bethesda really has no idea what they're doing when it comes to implementing RPG mechanics and designing sophisticated, compelling gameplay. New Vegas is a better RPG than Skyrim, and here's why.

There Is Such a Thing as Too Much Content

A common complaint with video games is that they're sometimes too short, or just generally lacking in content; I don't think I've ever heard a professional reviewer claim a game had too much content. With video games, it seems almost universal that the bigger it is, and the more stuff there is to do, the better the game turns out. Well, I'm beginning to think that there is such a thing as too much content. The acceptable length of a movie, for example, is anywhere from 90 minutes to three hours -- much longer than that and the film can become a burden to continue watching. Likewise, I feel that certain games can outstay their welcome by being too long or simply having too much content to experience.

There are obviously major differences in the way we consume video games and movies, however. Like novels, video games are meant to be experienced over multiple sessions, so when you get tired of playing the game, you can just stop and come back to it later, and you can often pick and choose what content to experience in a video game -- something you can't really do with a movie or novel. These two elements are what make the acceptable length of video games range anywhere from five hours to 100 hours. Generally speaking, longer games are more "epic" and "grandiose," but some games are at their best when they're short and sweet. Because some games are too long for their own good.

Things I Hate About Console Games

It's no secret that I'm an ardent PC gamer -- they're measurably superior to consoles in most regards -- but I don't harbor any resentment towards consoles or console gamers. Consoles are fine for what they are, but I prefer the wider versatility of a PC, and the style of PC-exclusives are generally more appealing to me. Despite this, I recently bought a PS3 in order to play a number of console-exclusive games that had somehow managed to elude the almighty PC. I was genuinely looking forward to these experiences and have enjoyed my time with the ones I've played so far.

However, there are a number of things about console games that really annoy me -- problems that generally don't exist in PC games, unless it's a bad console port. For the most part, these things don't ruin the experience, but they do get under my skin a little bit and just go to remind me of how limited the current consoles really are in comparison to a modern PC. So if you're still reading and haven't disregarded me as a snobby PC elitist, I have a list of five things that I hate about console games, in the full article.

Buying New Releases: It's Better to Wait

I don't understand the appeal of buying new releases as they come out. I guess there's something appealing about being at the forefront of a cultural gaming experience, being one of the first people to play the newest, hottest game, and discovering things while they're still truly undiscovered. That element can be pretty exciting, but the more rational side of me feels that it's better to wait a year or more until after release before buying a game.

New releases cost $50-60, a pretty significant chunk of money, especially if you're buying multiple releases per month. By waiting a year, you can buy games while they're still fairly new at a much more reasonable price, sometimes in the $20-30 range. Sometimes games launch with problems that don't get patched out until later; if you bought the game on day one, you can be left playing a less-than-perfect version, possibly even finishing it before the patch even arrives. Developers are also getting into the habit of releasing new content after release, either as free updates or as paid DLC. By waiting, you can have all of the updates available for a single playthrough in one complete package.

It's been many, many years since I pre-ordered any games because it was just more economical to wait. I broke this trend with Risen 2, and I almost regret that decision because I ended up playing the entire game in a flawed state. When they released the next bit of DLC, I thought maybe that would give me an incentive to replay the game with the new patch updates, but by that point I was finished and ready to move on. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was another that I'd considered pre-ordering, but by waiting a year I was able to buy it for $30 and skip right to the mega patch for the Enhanced Edition, the definitive version of the game. 

Part of me wonders whether I'll be missing out on the Enhanced Edition experience by not having played the original version to be able to appreciate all of the changes it made. I suppose that's a minor drawback, but in the grand scheme of things it seems like the better deal. 

Metacritic: A Blight on the Industry

The recent release of Risen 2: Dark Waters was met with mixed reviews from fans and critics alike. I never expected Risen 2 to do well among mainstream gamers (whose definition of a good RPG consists of Skyrim and Mass Effect), so it's no surprise to me that its metascore is currently sitting at a mediocre 69. Honestly, I would've given it a similar score myself when I first played it. Seemingly broken combat, graphical glitches galore, watered-down gameplay elements, and other issues with design and presentation left me feeling very conflicted about a sequel that should have only improved on the success of the first game.

Less than two weeks after its release, however, Piranha Bytes released a patch which addressed nearly every major complaint I (or anyone else) had with the game. They added roll-dodging and the ability to block monster attacks, which greatly improved the feeling of combat, they adjusted some really distracting graphical issues like low draw distance and growing/shrinking foliage, they fixed a few quest bugs and other glitches, they improved enemy and companion AI a little bit. It's still not a perfect game, but it became instantly more enjoyable with just a single patch.

And yet virtually every single review was published before the patch was even released. Surely these review scores would have been more favorable, maybe averaging in the 75-80 range, had they reviewed it with the patch. To be fair, the game should never have launched without these basic components, and PB / Deep Silver deserve to take the flack for its launch status. At the same time, however, shouldn't they be cut a little slack for addressing all of the major issues in a timely manner? Either way, as far as Metacritic is concerned (and any casual consumer consulting it), Risen 2 is just another mediocre game not worth your time or money. 

So I have a few bones to pick with Metacritic. In the full article, expect a fair bit of ranting about what's wrong with Metacritic and how it's destroying the industry, with other examples besides just Risen 2.

Demon's Souls is Not That Hard

When Demon's Souls was first released in October 2009, everyone was quick to propogate the hype that it was a brutally hard, soul-crushingly challenging game. After all, it had once been advertised by the publisher, Atlus, as "a game that enjoys the taste of your tears." There are numerous bosses and enemies that can kill you in one hit, and you're expected to be slaughtered to death before even finishing the opening tutorial sequence. When you die, you lose all of the souls you collected (your currency and experience points), you get sent back to the beginning of the level, all of the enemies respawn, and you suffer a penalty to your maximum health.

For a new player unfamiliar with the ropes, this means repeatedly finding yourself back at the start of the level with all of your progress undone, and with no souls to spend buying extra healing items, ammunition, upgrading your stats, or repairing your armor until you can get back to your bloodstain to reacquire your lost souls. Dying once is bad enough, but fighting your way through the level can be even harder the second time around, especially if you used all of your healing items trying to survive in the first place. And if you die enough times in body form, your game's world tendency will shift to black, populating the level with even tougher enemies.

Whereas most games help you get back on your feet after death, Demon's Souls punishes you hard for dying. And yet it's not an unfair game, and actually becomes incredibly easy once you know what you're doing. While virtually every press release has touted the game's challenging difficulty, and many gamers have accused it of being exceedingly cheap, tedious, and frustrating, the simple fact of the matter is that Demon's Souls is not that hard, as long as you approach it intelligently.

Exploration and Self-Discovery

One of my greatest joys in gaming is the feeling of discovery one gets from exploring a finely-crafted world. When a world is designed properly, it can really suck you into its setting, and when you have the unrestricted freedom to explore its boundaries, you get a strong sense of place in the environment. It's not merely the sightseeing that makes exploration compelling -- it's the rewards you receive for your discoveries, whether they be little treats left by the developers or just the psychological gratification you get for finding a more efficient path.

Some of the real fun, however, comes from discovering tricks that the developers neither intended nor anticipated, like backflipping into an exploding bomb to reach a high ledge in Ocarina of Time, or planting mines on a wall and climbing up them in Deus Ex. These discoveries are more fascinating to me because they're completely unscripted. As rewarding as it can be to bomb a cracked wall in The Legend of Zelda and find a wealth of hidden goodies inside, it's really just a scripted sequence designed to happen in a precise way. There are obvious clues telling you what to do, which make these discoveries a little less personal and a little less dramatic.

Exploration plays a prominent role in non-linear, open-world, free-roaming sandbox games. Much of the appeal stems from the player's freedom to go off and search for adventure in his own way, but some games promote and reward exploration much better than others. Playing Risen 2, I've noticed that the exploration is at times very creative and satisfying, and other times it's rote and boring, which got me thinking about the broader picture on how games can design worlds that beckon for a deeper, more personal level of exploration and discovery.

Please Get Off the Life Support

I've been seeing Resident Evil 6 advertisements lately, and knowing very little about it besides what's been mentioned in marketing, I can't help but feel like the series is desperately crying out for attention. After the lackluster fan response to Resident Evil 5, it seems like they're carefully backpedaling into Resident Evil 4 territory, as if to catch people's attention with "Look! It's Leon! The guy from the one you guys really liked! Please buy this game!" Other forced elements, like the inclusion of Albert Wesker as the main villain again (wasn't he killed off at the end of RE5?) make me even more skeptical.

It seems to me like a lot of these established, long-running series are going onto life support, with the developers making surgically precise tweaks (sometimes read as "manipulations") to try to draw audiences back with promises of returning to the series' prior glory. More often than not, these attempts prove to be uninspired, derivative rehashes that neither capture the original magic of the series, nor provide anything new or exciting. This bothers me. I'd really prefer for these companies to push their series into bold new directions, or perhaps even try their hand at some new IPs. More commentary after the jump.