Interesting character stories, interaction and development, interesting words and locations to immerse yourself in and explore, weapon/armor/spell/summon/etc management and battle systems and character stats, great musical scores, the feeling of progression, getting stronger and defeating enemies and monsters, not to mention all the silly and enjoyable RPG tropes we all know and love.
I'll add to this that meaningful dialogue choices that actually impact the story are always a plus in RPGs that add replay value. Also being able to customize your weapons and level them up can be cool sometimes. I'm partial to JRPGs so an anime influence is always welcome for me.
I'll add to this that meaningful dialogue choices that actually impact the story are always a plus in RPGs that add replay value. Also being able to customize your weapons and level them up can be cool sometimes. I'm partial to JRPGs so an anime influence is always welcome for me.
Developers are terrified of alienating players with what they view as being punished for choosing the wrong dialogue option. It's stupid, I agree, but you'd struggle to find a more entitled and whiny group of people than gamers.
The only character the influence modifying dialogue choices of which weren't obvious was Kreia from kotor2. She had a complex personality and the main goal of the game was just to understand her.
Developers are terrified of alienating players with what they view as being punished for choosing the wrong dialogue option. It's stupid, I agree, but you'd struggle to find a more entitled and whiny group of people than gamers.
Can't answer this really.
Just depends on developer's vision and how I feel they pulled that shit off. I'll try to compare some games that I feel have similar concepts to see if that expands on what I'm saying. Tired as hell though so maybe it'll be jibberish.
I liked Kingdoms of Amalur a decent amount. Story was kind of bland, game felt very MMO-ish. Combat had some charm to it though and so did the general character RPG elements. However, I hate Dragon's Dogma. Story was shit, game felt too large for its own good. Combat wasn't very fun to me, RPG elements felt really lacking, character creation was the only thing I really thought was neat.
I love Mass Effect 1 a lot. Roaming around space from planet to planet was fun because each story on the planets was pretty cool. Characters were really fun too. There's also little twists throughout the story that mostly work well. KotOR 1 is kind of the same deal though, but I really dislike it. Stories on each planet were boring with the exception of Korriban. I did not give a shit about any of the characters at all except for HK-47 who was charming because of his manner of speech and attitude. The twist in the main story was absolute trash and it's one of the worst parts about the writing.
Point is that combat, music, story, characters, choices, art, etc etc alone aren't essential alone for making a good RPG. Gotta have a good balance of that shit or a clear focus on certain elements that's well executed. I wanna play good games, I don't need a specific focus.
Some way to reward skill as well as knowledge is appreciated. I just finished Persona 3P and while I generally enjoyed it, being good at the game is almost 100% about game knowledge. Making the best persona's, making the best decisions during boss fights and getting the best items - anyone who knows how to google can do these things.
And that's kinda how I like it, because it still feels good to have something that the average player might not even know exists, even if you "cheated" to get it. But requiring a little bit of mechanical skill as well can make a game a lot more engaging, like Super Mario RPG's timed inputs.
To me, characters are way more important than story. I can't bring myself to give a shit about a lot of bombastic, needlessly complex RPG storylines when every character is a boring asshole and I don't mind straight-forwards, simple plots if the characters are interesting.
And I honestly enjoy grinding, as long as the rewards for it are spaced out evenly and you have an idea what you're working towards.
For example, the early parts of Disgaea's progression are a lot of fun when you're still unlocking new skills and classes and it's nice that the game gives you a lot of freedom if you're willing to sink a little more time into it. But the latter parts of the grind are pretty boring, because the time you need to invest becomes extremely high relative to the content that it unlocks.
Being able to put a few hours into griding is also a big factor in making RPGs immersive in my opinion. Playing the game becomes a routine, part of your daily life, which draws you more into it.
Fallout 4 being a notorious example of dialogue choices not affecting the plot in any meaningful way. Still enjoyed it though, but it could have been a lot better.
I don't mind grinding that much in RPGs. Of course, a random encounter every 4 steps is annoying, but I like incremental XP gain and such that you can work at and you control how hard or easy certain places in the future are by how long you grind. A game where you only battled like bosses (and middle bosses) would not trigger my reward system I guess. In games like Zelda or RE I don't really feel the need to kill any enemies and just avoid them as there really is no benefit in fighting them.
I do enjoy grinding much more in action RPGs as opposed to turn bases, however.
I agree with everyone else here, needs a minumum of a good story, and interesting world. Unique mechanics or a interesting battle system are huge, though I can give a pass since I love the first Final Fantasy (the remakes, anyway).
Personally, on a more technical level, I think progression is really important. Not huge progress, but the small, miniature goals. Gaining levels, finding and buying small armor/weapons upgrades Falls into small goals.No matter what, if you fight Goblins for 5 hours, it's boring, however, If you start a play session doing 10 damage to an Imp, and end doing 25, that feels like a big improvement, even though it's tiny in the span of a 100Hr game.
I've come to appreciate Chrono Trigger an awful lot for being relatively short and sweet. If you fight most monsters you see just once, you'll be about the right level no matter what, zero grind.
For a better answer, play the first Dragon Quest for the NES and do the complete opposite of that.
But of course there are exceptions. Bravely Default is one of my favorites even though everything about the plot/characters is boring and predictable. The battle system was just interesting enough to keep me around despite the poor story.
I really didn't find it too annoying. The only thing that really grinded on my nerves was the English VAs (I turned it to Japanese it was so bad) and Agnes (the character was so irritating). Still one of the more fun recent turn based RPGs I can think of.
I've come to appreciate Chrono Trigger an awful lot for being relatively short and sweet. If you fight most monsters you see just once, you'll be about the right level no matter what, zero grind.
When I tried Chrono Trigger for the first time (it was about a decade ago), the optional parts with the myriad of battles annoyed me. (There was some airship with a lame bad guy before Magus's world with the white grass and chains.) By the time I got to the snowy mountain those egg-like enemies dealt too much damage, and rather then doing the "battle - climb back down to heal - climb back up" cycle, I just gave up.
The next time I felt like replaying it, I lost intrest more quickly due to some annoying things. Namely: every damn enemy counter-attacks, the ATB bar takes too long to charge, and there's random shit such as an enemy burning away all my MP right after I kill it.
To me, characters are way more important than story. I can't bring myself to give a shit about a lot of bombastic, needlessly complex RPG storylines when every character is a boring asshole and I don't mind straight-forwards, simple plots if the characters are interesting..
I very much agree with you on that in regards to the story. The overall setting and how it's executed plus the characters is more important to me than the overall story. And I generally find political or character-centric plots in RPGs more interesting than the idea of super fantastical elements being the major focus of the story. Don't get me wrong, I think there's a place for every setting but if you want to get me hooked into a setting, introduce well-written and acted characters and political strife instead of the plot relying on the more fantastical elements I can't relate to as easily.
In the order of importance in RPGs, this is usually how it goes for me : Setting and the atmosphere found within > Characters (interaction, writing, acting) > Story (includes both sidequests and the main quest).
I love both titles, but I don't really view either as "role playing games (although I hear STALKER has an unofficial pen&paper RPG so that's an exception) as much as Character Progression Games which means games where in you have traditional rpg mechanics (such as leveling up your character and gear) but the role-playing aspect itself is paper thin or non-existent (Mount & Blade also falls into this category for me).
I've got a question for you then. There are many wannabe RPGs created in RPG Maker that incorporate some of these ideas - mainly crafting, different elemental versions of the same skill and dungeons where you only fight monsters while there isn't any plot progression. Do you find these games fun as well?
I tend to not as they have such low production value and the stories are often cheap and a dime a dozen. The battle system is often the same across the board, very vanilla and boring. It might've been fun back in the SNES era, but now it's just old and dated (in terms of mechanics). Plus the default graphics are ugly.
I like all the typical RPGs you see talked about all the time, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG/Paper Mario, Pokemon, Earthbound etc etc
But has anyone here played Tales of Eternia? It's a re-release of a PS1 game called Tales of Destiny II. The PS1 version was released in 2000/2001 and the PSP version in 2005/2006 (depending on region of course).
I bought the game for my PSP when it was released back in 2006 and I was hooked, and I played it again a few years ago and enjoyed it just as much if not more.
It has a really good art style, detailed character sprites and really well rendered 2D backgrounds. It even has some decent voice acting! The battle system is fun, you can run back and forth on a 2D plane and you set buttons or button combinations to do certain attacks or spells you've learned, or select items/escape from a menu. I really like the plot and characters also, but it would take far too long to explain here.
I remember enjoying Jade Cocoon on the PS1 as well, the art style was done by Studio Ghibli from what I remember. I tried to play it a few years ago and I still enjoyed it although that may just be nostalgia, I'm not sure it'd hold up as well for newcomers but may be worth a shot.
Another obscure PS1 RPG I remember playing back then was Koudelka. I really liked the art style of this game, it's almost like a Resident Evil/Silent Hill Survival Horror mixed with an RPG. I really had high hopes initially but the battle system is so unfair, slow paced and difficult that it just made me give up a few hours into the game.
One of my favorite PS1 RPGs that I rarely see mentioned is the Arc the Lad series! Especially Arc the Lad II, the first one I played. Pure nostalgia for me. It's set in modern times and the English translation kept the Japanese voices in battle, which I love for some reason.
http://sneed.uvlist.net/l/y2006/7/12450.jpg
I could sperg about old RPGs all day but I think I'd better cut it off here. Other ones I have fond memories of are Star Ocean games, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Grandia II, Radiant Historia and Disgaea.
