I don't like western Rpg games

richymcdermott

Everything I am about to say is strictly my honest opinion on the subject and anything I am about to say about certain games is not to ridicule their quality in anyway shape or form but to show an example of where I am coming from. So here we go:

It has been thrown out alot that the quality of jrpg games this generation has not been as good as past generations and alot of gamers and journalists think Western rpg have overtaken Jrpg in quality, I on the other hand disagree and I think western rpg have gotten to the point that its so dumb down there is nothing role playing about it.

for examples with mass effect , having not played the first one , 2 and 3 are the example of a sole called rpg and suppose to have a heavy moral choice that you are suppose to choose the impact of the story while in fact the story plays out the same and no matter what moral choice you choose does now change the story whats so ever it leads to the same conclusion. The only difference you seem to have is if you want to bang a blue alien or a genetic mole of a clone.

Fallout 3, new vegas and skyrim fall into the same faith as mass effect, if the player is made to feel the choice they make will be huge to the story and in the end it offers little to no change then it destroys it , for me atleast.


My other complaint is with the combat , I find combat in the rpg that I have played to be so simple and dumb with no strategy involved its basically de-rating the players intelligence in their involvement with battles.

It does not have to be turn based but take the examples of Dragons dogma for example , you must be well prepared and equip for the bosses and enemies and strikes at their weakness , to manage your team well for the upcoming battle which is rewarding when you won.

the games I mentioned above you can breeze through with no effort at all.

What games do moral choices right are games like persona , where your actions and the time you spend with people matter

what games offer real awarding combat system like resonance of fate, xenoblade, demons/dark souls, etrian odyssey, Dragons dogma, Dragons Crown, Valkyria chronicles to name a few.

There is still alot of catch up to me for western to catch up to Japan. They are still great games but the gap as not narrowed or changed.

I will probably get alot of backlash for this thread but It is just something I needed to get off my chest

Magill

Western RPG's are like a differient genre when compared to JRPG's.

I quite enjoyed The Witcher games, dragon age (I didn't even think DA2 was that bad !), Mass effect was decent enough. Oblivion and skyrim were good for what they were and the fallout games were pretty solid..

Dark/Demon Souls is easily the best game that could loosely be described as an RPG for me this generation.

Saying this, i've never really been a fan of JRPG's, and haven't played any of the persona games and only a few of the other ones you've mentioned. Xenoblade looks really good tho.. shame its on the Wii.

danthefan

Playing through FFIX on the Vita at the moment. I'm in heaven.

2Mad2BeMad

Pushtrak

I love both and have a lot of time for RPGs broadly speaking as a genre. I don't really bother thinking which I prefer, Western or Japanese. I just enjoy the games I enjoy and leave it at that, really.

richymcdermott wrote: »

for examples with mass effect , having not played the first one , 2 and 3 are the example of a sole called rpg and suppose to have a heavy moral choice that you are suppose to choose the impact of the story while in fact the story plays out the same and no matter what morale choice you choose does now change the story whats so ever it leads to the same conclusion. The only difference you seem to have is if you want to bang a blue alien or a genetic mole of a clone.

Did you like The Walking Dead? It isn't an RPG, but that game, too presents choices to you and you have to make choices throughout. I think there is a lot more to choices in Mass Effect than you are indicating. A lot of the things in the first one carry over to 2, and 2 to 3, and even 1 to 3.

The Mass Effect franchise saw a weakening of the RPG elements as the trilogy continued, but the payoffs of things that were brought forward from the previous games was something I really enjoyed. There is a hell of a lot more than choosing who you are going to romantically pursue.

Fallout 3, new vegas and skyrim fall into the same faith as mass effect, if the player is made to feel the choice they make will be huge to the story and in the end it offers little to no change then it destroys it , for me atleast.

I preferred Morrowind in that if you so chose, you could kill any of the main mission characters if you so chose. I never got around to trying it, but the modding community do wonders for these games, and in the case of Morrowind, there was even a mod I heard great things about that allows you to actually join the side of the bad guys. Yes, it isn't really fair to gauge a game based on what isn't in the game, but it's stuff available to the end user, so it's something. I really should get a better graphics card and check out the mods on those other games you list though.

Bethesda and Bioware are chalk and cheese in terms of RPGs though. Bethesda give you a huge world and factions and an enormity of side quests that is unmatched. You are a blank slate. The games start you out in a prison/incarcerated state in the case of The Elder Scrolls. You do what you want. You don't have to even go near the main story of the game if you choose not to. Bioware are really about a tightly controlled story. They really focus on their writing team, have a lot of staff doing the writing.

With Mass Effect, you are playing as someone who is part of a military command/ special agent. You have definite objectives to accomplish, so by necessity, you will have certain places you have to go, i.e the mission.

My other complaint is with the combat , I find combat in the rpg that I have played to be so simple and dumb with no strategy involved its basically de-rating the players intelligence in their involvement with battles.

That isn't what it is going for. In an RPG, though to be found in other games I guess... It isn't so much what you are able to do. It isn't about twich, fast reflex gameplay. It's about what your character can do. You get a to hit value.

It does not have to be turn based but take the examples of Dragons dogma for example , you must be well prepared and equip for the bosses and enemies and strikes at their weakness , to manage your team well for the upcoming battle which is rewarding when you won.

That's an action RPG, not a JRPG. Is your point you'd like to see more western games adopt its combat?

YouSavedMyLife

I used to love JRPG's then i grew up. :P The last two JRPG that i played where Resonance of Fate and Final Fantasy 13 and neither held my attention for very long. Dragons Crown and Dark Souls are two top quality titles, both of which i wouldn't call RPGs

Kiith

Mass Effect has far more 'choices' then any JRPG i've ever played (not played Persona so i can't comment on that). Yes, most of the overall plotline plays out pretty much the same (i.e Shepard fights Sovereign, Illusive Man is illusive, Reapers invade etc...), but there are hundreds of small things that happen during the games that are directly changed by your decisions. The third game would be very different if certain decisions hadn't been made, or specific characters weren't alive. Skyrim was never really about story choice, and even with the Imperial/Stormcloak choice at the start, it's more about choosing how you play.

As for the difficulty, just don't play on normal. In the vast majority of games nowadays, easy is idiotic / normal is easy / hard is normal. Both ME and Skyrim can be a challenge if you play on hard (and don't abuse the game...i.e blacksmithing in Skyrim).

I love both types of games btw.

Retr0gamer

I find both types very different from each other and hardly comparable. Western RPGs usually have fairly dire combat systems but what they are all about is the choices you make and how they affect the story. You are making up your own story as you go along. It lets you role play the character and you feel more in control of the story. Of course there's exceptions to those rules, Shin Megami Tensei/Persona has always been about the choices you make with big effects on the storyline.

I actually find the latest Bethesda games and Bioware games have really dumbed down player choice. For instance in Mass Effect you let an important character die they are replaced by different character and the storyline and missions you have to do aren't affected. Player choice really is only minor and only affects the side story you are in. If a bigger choice is made they worm their way out of it. It's a massive step back from the likes of Fallout and Planescape. I suppose it's hard to do in this age of massive budgets. Mass Effect got to the point were for me my choices didn't matter in the grand scheme of things and it might as well have been a linear CoD shooter. Two different players would pretty much have more or less the same playing experience no matter what choices they made.

Alpha Protocol was the best example of role playing and player choice this generation. Choices you made had a massive impact on not only the story but also on gameplay.

johnny_ultimate

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I actually find the latest Bethesda games and Bioware games have really dumbed down player choice. For instance in Mass Effect you let an important character die they are replaced by different character and the storyline and missions you have to do aren't affected. Player choice really is only minor and only affects the side story you are in.

Persona does not offer any more wider narrative implications for player choice than Mass Effect. I say this as someone who would without a second thought cite Persona 4 as my favourite game, and I love the way the player's social choices in the game influence both the gameplay and your path through the game. But, aside from a handful of interchangeable scenes (like what girl you end up with or the encouraging words you receive before the final battles - exactly the same things Mass Effect 3 does, incidentally), said choices' effects on the core narrative are minimal at best. You get to explore subplots at your leisure, but the main story is very much a pre-set path with player-decided variations limited.

I still think Mass Effect 2 - specifically that one, as I think that's the only entry in the series Bioware truly succeeded with their ambitions - is one of the boldest, most successful examples of a player's decisions having a major effect on the final outcome of the game. The

suicide mission's

execution is wholly, convincingly based on how much effort the player has put in thus far, and if you look back at the thread here from when it was released you will see how many variable outcomes it actually has. Sure, Shepard 'wins' one way or the other, but every detail of that mission is dependent on what the player chose to do throughout - from subtle decisions to their more obvious efforts in building their 'relationships' with other characters. And all this ripples into the next game, albeit not as interestingly as I would have hoped.

I will defend Persona to the last, but you're assigning it more credit than it deserves in comparison to Mass Effect when it comes to player agency.

titan18

In the mid 2000s and up to probably Mass Effect 2, I'd have considered Western RPG as being better. The likes of KOTOR, Morrowind/Oblivion, Mass Effect 1/2, Vampire:The Masquerade, Fallout 3 etc were very good games. Since then, and not to get into a pc/console war, but the targeting of consoles and a wider demographic has led to safer games that are more geared towards cinematics and action. You get one or two exceptions but when you look at Mass Effect 3, Skyrim etc, I'd barely call them RPGs. They're good games (although I have problems with ME3), but they're a decline on what we had in the 2000s.

Fallout, despite it's crashing and bug issues.... is far and away better than any Japanese turned based combat crap.

You can play that game as you please, the trading and collecting is relevant for at least 40-50 hours.

I'd be a bit of a pessimist gamer but I'd find it hard to find any fault with Fallout 3+NV.... easily my fav games(bar your FIFA's, but sports games are different)

richymcdermott

I should Clarify I am strictly speaking in a matter of rpg aspects not the games itself.

I like fallout enjoyed mass effect 2 and somewhat 3 and sunk 56 hours into skyrim and 20 plus hours into oblivion.

I would be foolish to hate on the games entirely but I am speaking on the behalf of comparing the two genres in their role playing aspects

Retr0gamer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I will defend Persona to the last, but you're assigning it more credit than it deserves in comparison to Mass Effect when it comes to player agency.

There's more games in the Persona series than Persona 4. Persona 1 and 2 followed the standard Shin Megami Tensei template a lot closer and the choices you made in those games affected the storyline quite a bit.

Dave_The_Sheep

I am woefully ignorant of JRPGs. Something I'd like to change. Can someone recommend what would be a good quality one that is reflective of the genre. Just so I have something to compare the Western RPGs I've played to.

Retr0gamer

Persona 4. The vita version is great. Fire Emblem would be another good one.

Dave_The_Sheep

I should probably mention it's PC only options, as I don't own a console, nor handheld.

Retr0gamer

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I should probably mention it's PC only options, as I don't own a console, nor handheld.

You're boned then. You could try FFVII but it's aged quite a bit and certainly not indicative of the best the genre has to offer.

Dave_The_Sheep

Fair enough, thanks all the same. I think that settles the argument for me though.;)

megaten

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I should probably mention it's PC only options, as I don't own a console, nor handheld.

There's always *ahem* emulation with your legally acquired copies.

I have no idea what JRPG I'd suggest though. Maybe Mother 3.

The only WRPG's I can ever get into are Bethesda games and the earlier fallout games. What I like about Bethesda games is that it really feels like you can make your own story since there rarely ever pressure to go through the main quest line. Other stuff like Bioware games feel like the choice is there only for the sake of having choice and that there's still a path your supposed to go on.

Danonino.

Fire Emblem isn't really a JRPG though. is it? I could be wrong but I always thought it was more of a tactical battle game, like advance wars or Tactics Ogre and the like. They take out the world trekking parts and skip the collection missions to just focus on the battles and strategy. If they are considered JRPGS then awesome :pac:

The Fire Emblem games are beyond fantastic, so are Demons/Dark souls. God I love those games. This thread has me counting the JRPGS I never got around to starting/finishing and now I'm looking at the shelf ashamed.

RobbingBandit

I still love my JRPGs, don't like the seriousness of games like Mass Effect or Fallout, give me a colourful nonsensical romp through a realm of dungeons,dark forests or castles filled with monsters and a touch of magic and I am happy to pump hours into it.

nesf

richymcdermott wrote: »

Everything I am about to say is strictly my honest opinion on the subject and anything I am about to say about certain games is not to ridicule their quality in anyway shape or form but to show an example of where I am coming from. So here we go:

It has been thrown out alot that the quality of jrpg games this generation has not been as good as past generations and alot of gamers and journalists think Western rpg have overtaken Jrpg in quality, I on the other hand disagree and I think western rpg have gotten to the point that its so dumb down there is nothing role playing about it.

for examples with mass effect , having not played the first one , 2 and 3 are the example of a sole called rpg and suppose to have a heavy moral choice that you are suppose to choose the impact of the story while in fact the story plays out the same and no matter what moral choice you choose does now change the story whats so ever it leads to the same conclusion. The only difference you seem to have is if you want to bang a blue alien or a genetic mole of a clone.

Fallout 3, new vegas and skyrim fall into the same faith as mass effect, if the player is made to feel the choice they make will be huge to the story and in the end it offers little to no change then it destroys it , for me atleast.


My other complaint is with the combat , I find combat in the rpg that I have played to be so simple and dumb with no strategy involved its basically de-rating the players intelligence in their involvement with battles.

It does not have to be turn based but take the examples of Dragons dogma for example , you must be well prepared and equip for the bosses and enemies and strikes at their weakness , to manage your team well for the upcoming battle which is rewarding when you won.

the games I mentioned above you can breeze through with no effort at all.

What games do moral choices right are games like persona , where your actions and the time you spend with people matter

what games offer real awarding combat system like resonance of fate, xenoblade, demons/dark souls, etrian odyssey, Dragons dogma, Dragons Crown, Valkyria chronicles to name a few.

There is still alot of catch up to me for western to catch up to Japan. They are still great games but the gap as not narrowed or changed.

I will probably get alot of backlash for this thread but It is just something I needed to get off my chest

To be honest with you, whilst most of the games you listed were marketed as RPGs here, they really don't fall neatly into "Western RPG archetype." Maybe Dragon Age Origins from Bioware recently but Bethesda have jumped off a cliff into numpty land and simplified their games into something closer to CoD Quest: Fantasy Edition than Morrowind. This isn't a bad thing long term, as genres need to be mixed up and experimented with in order to grow and develop but it does mean some sucky games and perhaps a move away from the roots of the genre in tabletop gaming (which DA:O was a move back towards and DA 2 was a sprint away from respectively. :P)


If you want to understand Western RPGs, go onto GoG.com and grab copies of Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment to see the old D&D origins (Actually Pool of Radiance or similar would be properly far back but good luck getting your hands on a copy). Deus Ex would show you the beginnings of RPG/FPS elements being combined. Diablo to see one of the earliest Action RPGs (there were also quite a few imitators that were quite good but I forget their names). Something like Gothic 1 would show you non-D&D attempts at the genre. Fallout 1 is definitely worth a play at some point, it's masterfully done.


Then you could look into the hybrids proper with games like Heroes of Might and Magic V, or hex wargames with rank up elements like Fantasy General (impossible to buy due to the SSI (publisher) meltdown) or its 1C spiritual sequels Fantasy Wars, Elven Legacy and so on.



You've barely scratched the surface of the genre. You've picked out games that annoyed me quite a lot as someone who enjoys RPG games, because, well, they're not very good as RPGs (though I did enjoy the ME series as a shooter :P).