The Gamer's Quarter

[Lestrade]

I don't mean to be inflammatory, but it's true. I only spent a couple of hours with Dragon Quest VIII, and I love it. Wait, scratch that; I love how it looks, how it sounds – in both these areas the game really excels. I was ten minutes in before exclaiming to my wife matter-of-factly, "This game looks better than anything on the new Xbox!" It's true; finally, a game that dares to be stylistic, to eschew photorealism for something much more interesting. Similarly, the sound is delightful. "Oh, thank god," my wife said, "it's an RPG without bad techno." I'm sure, somewhere, her copy of Star Ocean 3 hid its head in shame. "I could actually listen to this all day," she said of the DQVIII's wonderful orchestral score.

Then I got to playing. It's not like I didn't know what was coming; I just was naïve enough to think it wouldn't matter. Random battles (strike one); the classic "start off with nothing and slowly claw your way to the point in the game where it's enjoyable" premise (strike two); the need to level-grind just to progress, even a little (strike three). I'm sure many of you will have no issue with any of this, and that's fine. But personally, I'd love to play a game as epic as DQVIII, but it doesn't want me to. I know this is obvious; I know the game wasn't made for people like me. It was made for Dragon Quest Fans, millions of whom wait in line every few years to play the same game they've been playing since 1986. That's my issue here, however. With all the talk lately of expanding the market, of making games for people who don't play games, or have become turned off of them, this feels like such a huge step backwards. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.

I really feel that RPGs as a genre need to die. They don't have to die and go away forever, but they do need to undergo a time-out of sorts. Almost everything involved in a traditional RPG is a contrivance; every gameplay element is a hold-over from 8-bit days, which in turn were hold-overs from pen-and-paper games. Just as we complain that Zelda games need to stop being Zelda games, and evolve, RPGs need to rethink what they are meant to acheive, and ask themselves: with all this next-gen, high-def, power, why are we still 8-bit games with pretty skins?

Anyway, I hope to play some more and find myself loving the game despite itself, but I don't know. When I play I get this itch like I just could be doing something, anything else. And that's not how a game should make you feel, is it?

[Sushi d]

[Mr. Mechanical]

It's only a grind if you're trying to get somewhere.

You're right about RPGs needing to die, though. That's been a long time coming. Dragon Quest still manages to get by with the way it is because, well, because it's Dragon Quest and it knows what it wants to be.

[Mister Toups]

I uh.

I mean, have you read Tim's review of it?
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[SuperWes]

[DonMarco]

Are we talking all RPGs, or just JRPGs?

I don't think I could go on living without my yearly Fallout session (the first one, although 2 is much better). Or System Shock/Dues Ex.

I don't remember grindig in a Final Fantasy until 5, then again in 7. Dragon Quest was solid up to 5. 5 was the shizzy, yo, for reals.
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Collector of over 1,538 strategy guides. That's weird, right?

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Persona-sama]

I've been enjoying playing Digital Devil Saga 2 more than Dragon Quest VIII. But yeah, JRPGs need to do something else with their overly formulaic structure.

And i will continue this thought later!
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[SuperWes]

I've been playing Final Fantasy IV. Now there's a game that knows what it wants to be. I started on Christmas Eve and I'm already at the underground dwarves' castle. I'm remembering why it was once one of my favorite games. Actually, I think this replay officially moves it back into the top five.

Final Fantasy IV is the game that convinced me that I like me RPGs in the first place and playing again is reminding me why I don't really play them anymore. It's so much better than anything anyone has done since that it just seems kind of pointless to keep bringing them out.

-Wes
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[Shapermc]

After the third "mission" (I guess you would call it a mission) I have not needed to level grind at all. I find that I am over leveled most of the time because of the ammount of exploring I end up doing. Anyways, it is not that bad, and I enjoy it quite a bit. I generally don't like RPGs much at all.

[Swimmy]

[SuperWes]

You've got to understand that my first time through took around 6 months. I've always got other stuff to do than play games. Yeah, so what if that usually boils down to playing other games

-Wes
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[Lestrade]

[Mister Toups]

[xvs07]

I'm with Lestrade on this one, heart and soul. Gameplay within various genres has seen advancements with better hardware, but (J)RPGs are still back in 198X. Because there is no solution. And they need to die and be cryo'd for twelve years.

Really, honestly, aren't we at the point yet where we could have action-based epics just as epic as the better Final Fantasies? Could we take the Half-Life 2 engine and yoke it into service for a realtime, multipath roleplay? RPGs don't need to die so much as have their best bits incorporated into cross-genre and non-genre stuff. Big, sprawling environs teeming with life and discoveries in waiting should be the norm in any character-oriented game. If I'm going to need to grind, make it fun, make it part of the plot (not levelling, "training"), and make it require skill so that I can have a greater variance of risk and reward in accordance with my abilities. The Paper Marios did pretty good with the principle, but it could go further. Also, character development needs to happen whenever there's a character, 'cause otherwise I'll get bored and move on to something with personality. Like a book.

Mrr. Anyway. Guess I'd better keep studying the C++..

[dark steve]

But there's no point in making an RPG require 'skill', in the sense that you mean. That it doesn't is pretty much the whole idea.

[TOLLMASTER]

:required mention of how Nippon Ichi is infusing the genre with new life here:

[Persona-sama]

So in Digital Devil Saga 2, I just killed Michael.
As in the Archangel, God's right hand angel man.


I love Megaten games.
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[Ketch]

Lestrade: what I think you are looking for is an RPG-adventure title, with the emphasis on the adventure elements, solving puzzles, interacting in a well-thought out world, the feeling of having some influence in the gameworld. Lets be honest now, all these RPGs are adventure games with added random battles.

It seems to me that the ideas behind Shenmue are slowly evolving into something -great- among a variety of different games.http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2005/12/ryu_ga_gotoku_adult_situations_1.php

(p.s have you looked at Broken Sword: the Sleeping Dragon?)

[Shapermc]

[Mister Toups]

Another way to look at it: Dragon Quest wasn't really much of a videogame -- every other JRPG that followed it screwed up by trying to be a videogame.

So, if you expect Dragon Quest titles to be videogames in the way other RPG's try to be, you will be disappointed.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Lestrade]

[Mr. Mechanical]

I think what Toups was getting at, Lestrade, was that at the time Dragon Quest came out it wasn't really trying to be an RPG as we think of them today. It was trying to be a game that let you in on the experience of feeling yourself grow (in more sense than the obvious) enough to take on the real challenges at the end. All the random battles, the stat numbers, etc. were all just placeholders because we lacked the technology to really realize a vision like that in the most literal sense possible. That Dragon Quest became the "standard" for the genre really says more about the inclusive, incestuous nature of the videogame industry than the actual game itself, I think. Rather than build on those base elements it laid out most developers sought to just make things more complicated for the player. Give them more widgets to fiddle with, more stuff to do. More random battles, more stat numbers, etc.

Not to flog a dead horse but let's look at the Zelda series here. The first Zelda game was about trying to capture a single experience much like how the first Dragon Quest was, except in this case it was the experience of wandering about in the woods and exploring the world around you than making an epic journey involving personal growth. Barring a few exceptions like Link's Awakening and The Adventure of Link each new game in the series just tried to complicate matters by honing the arbitrary systems that were in place because of the weaker technology. That it finally took a game like Shadow of the Colossus to come out and make people think about these things says a lot about how we as gamers view our hobby. In this light it's not surprising that Colossus feels more like Zelda than most modern Zeldas do.

I guess what I'm saying is that Dragon Quest needs a game that does for it what Shadow of the Colossus did for Zelda.

That Dragon Quest games remain mostly unchanged in the gameplay department is either good or bad depending on how you want to look at it. On the one hand it's kind of annoying to see that random battles are still present in this day and age, but on the other it's interesting to see how refined everything has gotten. The arbitrary placeholder elements have been fine tuned to the point where they're really not that bothersome if you're a patient type of person. The games still instill that sense of exploration in me as I round hillsides searching for treasure chests or just to see what kind of monsters exist in that area. It still manages to restrict the player in a natural feeling way by keeping enemy stats constant throughout the game world. Sometimes it's just fun to see how far you can explore the countryside before you're forced to turn back and regroup at the nearest town. And when you've finally made enough to afford better weapons and equipment there really is a sense of accomplishment over your environment. Enemies that gave you trouble earlier are now pushovers, paving the way for more unexplored vistas and areas teeming with new people to meet, new things to see.

I'll agree that the placeholder systems (as I have now taken to calling them) such as the random battle element are what's really holding the genre as a whole back. Yet Dragon Quest manages to make it livable enough to give you a glimpse of what may someday be. I guess the best we can all do is cross our fingers and hope that the Fumito Ueda of RPGs is out there somewhere working on his vision of the distilled RPG experience.

Until then, well, there's always Dragon Quest.

[Lestrade]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[SuperWes]

Not to change the topic, but while reading this stuff I decided that Shadow of the Colossus rewards us with the intangible (usually seeing a new piece of architecture, ponderings on what the secret is, etc.), where almost all other games attempt to reward us with the tangible (Bigger numbers, unlockables, plot twists). Intangible reward is what really sets the good games apart from the average ones.

Dragon Quest leans highly toward the tangible, but there's a certain amount of intangible there, such as "is there a tresure chest over that hill?" "How does the shopkeeper get into their shop? Oh, there it is." etc.

Another good example would be SSX On Tour vs. SSX 3.

SSX 3 was very free roaming. You would start at the top of the hill and go down to the bottom, hitting various events on the way down. You got rewarded for winning any of the events you hit, but if you didn't win any of the events you would still continue on down the hill only to be given the intangible reward of planning which route you were going to take the next time down the hill.

SSX On Tour takes away the free roaming aspect. You choose an event, do the event, get rewarded or don't, and start the process over again. The only intangible reward is that of getting better if you happened to lose an event the first time and beat it after subsequent tries.

Then again, this could also be me trying to find meaning where none existed, which is possible. It's late and I'm thirsty. Someone try to sort this out for me.

-Wes
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[Sushi d]

[Ketch]

How about a game that rewards 'wisdom' ie. the better you are at the game, the less random battles you get into because you learn how to avoid being detected by monsters, and so you only fight the real baddies, and even then the better way is to use brains (puzzles) or words rather than fight.

Ie.(If at the end of the game) You have fought a thousand monsters you are a rat-slayer.Fight only Hundred and you are a brawler. Fight ten and you are a hero (assassin?). Persuade the key-characters to change their minds and stop fighting and you are a Wiseman (Gandalf?).

This would be a game where it would pay to do some research rather than just rush into battle (fools rush in!), and where you could use your knowledge to play it better each time.

[dark steve]

Dude, that's Metal Gear.

[Persona-sama]

That's Sketchpanik's RPG with no saves too!
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[Shapermc]

[Lestrade]

[SuperWes]

[Ketch]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Ketch]

What are your main complaints? The use of innumerable, and often repetitive random battle systems.
Well, how about a "Shadow of the Colossus" type DQ, where instead of thousands of minor enemies you get several major "boss/dungeon" enemies, But where each battle poses a very different challenge?*
(I can't quite imagine how this would play).

Or one where all the increases that you get in stats / equipment are visible rather than numbers (Zelda?). Ie. You pick up the enemies weapons and use them as your own?
blah....

[Ketch]

Maybe the answer would be to distill the essence of the RPG down to the basics, instead of having (visibile numerical) Stats for Stamina, constitution etc, they would be "intuitable" you would see their effects in how your character moved and fought. (Kind of like GTA:SA).

You would need a different type of health system, maybe one like in King-Kong / Siren.
Constitution would be measured by how many consecutive hits you could take before passing out. Defence would be shown by how good you were at dodging (weak) attacks automatically.

Maybe what would be needed is to have it so that instead of direct control over the character you would have indirect control over tactics, and just see how well they fight (as you do now).* yes, I know that that is sort of what we already have in the "turn-based" games like Final Fantasy but what if instead of seeing numbers you saw the characters sparring and hitting / missing instead. The better your character's stats, the "cooler" the fighting style they would be able to use* and the more attacks they could string together into combos.

*The problem with most videogames at the moment is that they are about teenage visions of coolness.

[simplicio]

[Lestrade]

EDIT: Holy fucking shit, I FINALLY got this post to... well, post! I actually had to use Internet Explorer 5.2 on OS X, which is like touching your naked grandmother when she's dead. But at least it worked. Please keep in mind that this response was written on January 2nd.

This is all very exciting.

Though I always prefer direct control to indirect (to me, moving a character feels like activity; using menus feels like management), I think all these ideas are valid.

Instead of the same rags-to-riches scenario, where you start the game as a lowly beggar/captive/teenager/slave and must spend at least three hours before the game becomes remotely interesting or fun (another rant), why not remove this initial learning curve by removing the money system (and coming up with an original plot, while we're at it)? While this sounds like a thinly veiled plea for communism, what I mean is: buying items shouldn't be the primary method of increasing your armament.

I would like opportunities to find items or earn them in other ways (just as I would like battles to be more interesting than constant, random encounters): through challenges, or through more sophisticated experience-based means. Say that somebody tells you about weapons dealers that are constantly seen sneaking their wares through the woods to avoid tariffs and whatnot. Perhaps they only do this at night. Since you have a vague idea of previous sightings, you could go out at night and hope to waylay them. Maybe the game's scripted to let the dealers rest at some point during their smuggle, and you can use that opportunity to Metal-Gear your way onto their cart. If you haven't been spotted, there is a small selection of weapons from which you can choose one (see below). If you're spotted while fishing around (while in the cart), you get a random weapon since you don't have time to choose before taking off. Only when you're in the clear does the game tell you what you stole.

Along with this, I think more RPGs should have limited inventories in the vein of either Halo or Resident Evil (Halo is obviously the more strict). Health items would not even exist, perhaps, because to heal, all you need is time.

In SoTC, you have to rest (crouch) to heal slowly, but you can do that whenever you like. Maybe in this game (Alternate Dimension Dragon Quest), there would be a similarly-time-lapsed period wherein you would heal. If you rest for several seconds, you'll grow strong enough to cure most light wounds. If you're very badly injured, you'd have to find a safe place to hide/rest. Perhaps you could hit a "heal" button, which would initiate an animation of you patching yourself up, and a meter that fills to demonstrate your progress.

I guess the point is to remove the need to fish through menus for healing potions, to fight myriad random battles for the sake of buying potions so you can finally attempt the next dungeon. To remove tedium.

With this in mind, I'd like to be restricted to carrying only two weapons at a time (or only one if it's large, like a halberd). As in SotC and Halo, you're forced to work with what you have, and customization comes not through, say, fitting weapons with Materia (although something of the sort might add some interest), but in how you adapt to your limited arsenal.

Similar to what Ketch wrote, if there are hordes of roaming baddies, I think they should all exist as sort of mini-mini-boss encounters of some kind. Who wants to fight thirty meaningless random battles an hour, when you could have two or three really good skirmishes? Overtake a hill and you see a small encampment; sneak past if you want, but without honing your skills in battle, you won't do so well in direct combat against the boss creatures because your (hidden) agility, strength, and constitution stats won't improve.

If you decide to fight (essentially you're raiding, which evokes some interesting moral threads), your limited arsenal becomes important. Do you charge in with your sword? Pick off the sleeping ones with a bow?

In a way, this forced limitation makes you give yourself a "class" of sorts, as you discover tactics that you like best. It allows customization — not in the abstract, menu-driven way of classic JPRGs, but through actual play. Just as people find new ways to play GTA (or Geometry Wars, or Mario, etc.), so you could carve a name for yourself here.

Even deeper: if you are constantly fighting, word gets out that you're the above-mentioned teenage pinnacle of "coolness." So you get attacked more. If you remain passive, or only attack enemies when they're alone, you can act more like a classic rogue and avoid encounters while completing your tasks. You'd have to find different ways to beat the big guys, though; perhaps with myriad (subtle) environmental dangers or artefacts.

The goal in such a game is to completely remove, or attempt to remove, the age-old abstractions and placeholders in RPGs, and replace them with a much more natural world that you can inhabit and manipulate, as one might manipulate the particular physics and trick systems of, say, a Tony Hawk game.

[Ketch]

[Persona-sama]

[dessgeega]

[Persona-sama]

Yeah, Slalin, Pierre, and Puckle are waiting for me to go and lay that last slash on the final boss.


But... I just somehow can't find the heart to end it all.
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[Lestrade]

[Swimmy]

Lestrade, your ideas sound absolutely wonderful.

None of them belong in a Dragon Quest game.

I think DQVIII's biggest mistake is failing to conform to tradition. The flashy battle animations always end up adding a few seconds longer than are needed, and I had all kinds of trouble going into a(n overly detailed) menu that was not mapped to the X button. Tradition is the focus of DQ games. Final Fantasy may have its odd traditions, but FFVI would be the same game if Cid were named anything else. They're clearly just there for fluff, to give the player something familiar; they've proven that they can do away with any of them at any time. Dragon Quest, though, is a series about the effects of familiarity. (DQV is the best example of this, I think, as it gets the player feeling nostalgic for things that happened mere hours before.)

Were an RPG revolution to happen, I'd prefer it out there in the Final Fantasy realm, where it will likely have more of an impression on an American audience and be more influential. I like my Dragon Quest the way it is because it's best for exploring the realm of nostalgia.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Lestrade]

[Persona-sama]

[simplicio]

[Persona-sama]

Yes, very much so.

I am inside the sun in Digital Devil Saga 2!
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[Lestrade]