What I hate about the CRPG and DND crowd is they act like dialogue is gameplay, like choices are gameplay. This is a favourite argument of video essayists. Like no? Dialogue is not gameplay Choices are not gameplay, its just a flowchart of choices. I liked the way JRPGs did it cause they added a ton of numbers stuff to stats, items and weapons which isnt half assed chance based dice rolls. Builds in a CRPG are just dialogue set A vs B, Builds in a JRPG affect stuff like combat and traversal a lot more. Another video essayist argument is CRPGs are simulations cause CRPGs influenced Immersive sims. No, CRPGs are the furthest thing from a simulation because theyre just a bunch of dialogue trees. Immersive sims are a combination of Tycoon/life sims and CRPGs, not a derivative of CRPGs.
CRPGs 90 percent of the time are just the same game with different dressing. Can't say the same about say, Paper Mario, KOTOR, Mass Effect, or FF13. But CRPGs, if you know how to play DnD, you've pretty much beaten it already. Especially the turn-based ones that you can lazily push buttons for in combat. So long as you have the right values in combat, and the right skill number when you're doing things like lockpicking or persuading people, you've already won.
I don't know why people hold that era in high regard so much. Not only did their games fail to become mainstream, but like you said, it's just numbers, stats, and builds, while JRPGs valued traversal and combat way more, which felt more adventurous, since you're running around killing shit and experiencing the world. CRPGs have an acquired taste and aren't for everyone, unlike a game like Paper Mario or Final Fantasy which your average goon can pick up and play.
In a CRPG, you can give your character the right stats and pick the right choices, and you can lazy-boy your way to victory. Especially with how slow and methodical combat is. Can't say the same about a game like Super Mario Brothers 3, where by the end, you'll be jumping around like hell just to avoid getting shot.
The thing is, we should get both. Good graphics AND good gameplay. That is what used to constitute a AAA game.
Neither is combat really, it's just a flowchart of reactions. Neither is exploration, really, because you're just pressing a button and having your character walk while gawking at scenery.
I disagree. Combat in a good RPG forces you to strategize and will get you killed if you don't pay attention, while exploration is all about finding all the hidden goods in every nook and cranny. Hell, non-RPG games like Metroid Prime made exploration their bread and butter, and combat in different game genres like fighting, adventure, and FPS is a selling point. So even if you don't have dialogue trees, you can sell a game on exploration and combat alone. God knows the Metroidvania genre's been doing it for a while.
Videogames in general aren't even really games if you think about it.
So I suppose games in general aren't games, even board games, since it's just a flowchart of reactions from the other guy.
Seriously why does dialogue choice not constitute gameplay? You're interacting with a system, often with mechanical benefits attached, to get a reaction out of another system. That's fucking retarded logic.
Because it's talking, not killing shit or exploring. It's more like reading an interactive novel or watching an interactive movie. It practically is the latter, in many cases. Although if you widen your definition of gameplay, then perhaps it would constitute gameplay, if picking choices for an interactive movie is your definition of one. As for me, it's 50/50. It's still gameplay, but a smaller part of it, since the real meat of the game is exploring and killing shit.
Hell, look at how Bioware handles dialogue. They make it look as cinematic as possible, in games like Mass Effect, KOTOR, and Jade Empire. They know it's not gameplay in a conventional sense, but an interactive movie. Gameplay, in a conventional term, is when you slaughter a bunch of goons with your lightsaber/assault rifle/kung-fu skills. That's different from dialogue, which is entertaining in a film-sense, but most gamers just skip that part and get back to killing shit and exploring once they've seen it once.
