For my first article after my return, I wanted to do another "state of" article about my favorite genre: the RPG. Because this genre is so broad and is not dominated by a few specific titles, I'm going to go about this in a different way. RPG fans: read on!
RPGs are one of the better selling genres overall. Players enjoy the ability to immerse themselves in a game world and play their character the way THEY want to play it. While this idea is much more prevalent in the open-world Western-style RPGs, Japanese RPGs still offer the same sort of escape from reality. Everyone wants to be the unlikely hero that saves the world, and RPGs play on this to great effect. The funny thing about the genre is that we're seeing elements of it everywhere. Call of Duty brought RPG elements to shooters with their multiplayer level-up/customization system. The Gran Turismo series has been bringing RPG concepts to gear-heads and racer fans for years with its in-depth vehicle customization options. Castlevania has been bringing RPG tropes to platformers since the early days of gaming, and Action/Adventure titles like Zelda and God of War have tons of obvious examples of RPG systems as well. In fact, most modern games in almost any genre have at least some form of RPG elements in them. The reason for this is because the genre is the primary founder of character customization and player choice. These two concepts are universally desired among gamers, which has led to their inclusion in so many other genres. Because these traits are so desired, the RPG genre continues to be one of the most popular genres overall.
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| What I imagine a corporate meeting to be like. |
Let's take a look at all the different RPG series that are still going strong (just off the top of my head):
NOTE: I am NOT including MMORPGs, as they are part of a whole different animal.
Fallout: One of my personal favorites, the recent Fallout games have successfully melded the RPG with the shooter. While not the only series to do so, I'd have to say that Fallout is my favorite "hybrid" game, because the emphasis is put on the RPG, and not the shooter. The series also offers an incredible amount of customization, a well-crafted world, fantastic writing, and (most importantly) great gameplay. The games are known for having crazy amounts of bugs, but that hasn't stopped them from selling like hotcakes. If you'd like to know more about Fallout, I wrote an entire post about it.
Elder Scrolls: The penultimate Western-style RPG series of its time, and universally hated among the girlfriends of gamers everywhere. The Elder Scrolls games have been popular for quite some time, but when Morrowind hit the shelves, the series took off. Oblivion sold extremely well, and Skyrim brought the series to critical mass. Each installment served to bring Elder Scrolls to even more people who hadn't played any of the series' predecessors. Skyrim was actually my first adventure into the Elder Scrolls universe, and I was pretty impressed. It was obvious that Bethesda put a ton of work into the game itself, and I genuinely enjoyed playing it. There isn't really anything that I can say about this game that hasn't already been said. Score another one for Bethesda.
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| Skyrim widows. |
Mass Effect: Many consider this to be more of a shooter than an RPG (especially Mass Effect 2), but I'm still going to put it in the RPG category. I have never personally played the series, which is a little embarassing, admittedly. It never truly appealed to me, but I can't leave it out of the list. Bioware is one of the best at creating compelling characters, interesting stories, and amazing dialogue. In fact, Bioware's reputation is nearly Blizzard-like, to the point where gamers will purchase a title simply because Bioware developed it. I personally feel like the Mass Effect games have a little bit too much Gears of War thrown into their combat, a series that I have played through and did not particularly enjoy (the solution to every problem is: find cover and shoot from behind it). However, I am quite obviously not the majority opinion on the subject, because the franchise has been overwhelmingly successful. I suspect that this is due to Bioware's ability to craft amazing stories.
Demon Souls/Dark Souls: Widely considered to be one of the hardest RPGs in existence. In fact, Pachbel wrote an entire article about it. While I don't necessarily find the game to be that hard anymore, I do find it to be quite unforgiving - if you mess up, you're punished with death 99% of the time. The series' variety of paths/options and interesting take on multiplayer have guaranteed its spot among the top RPGs, and deservedly so. Dark Souls (but not Demon Souls) is also a rare example of an open-world Japanese RPG. While the differences between the Western RPG and Japanese RPG are becoming more blurred by the minute, Dark Souls is one of the first "mainstream" Japanese RPGs to use a Western-style world in-game. The big difference between the Dark Souls open-world and the open world of a traditional Western RPG is that Dark Souls does no hand-holding. They throw you straight into the fire without any direction whatsoever, and only after soaking you in kerosine. They don't even tell you the story behind the game, the player has to figure it out themselves from the vague introductory cutscene and the game's item descriptions. You have to really want it when you're playing games in this series. Judging from the franchise's success, a lot of people want it bad.
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| This might as well be the title screen, to prepare you for what's coming. |
Pokemon: The series that never seems to end. Pokémon is one of the most lucrative franchises of all time. In fact, only the Mario franchise has made more money than Pokémon. The game itself follows the traditional Pokémon model of urging the player to "catch 'em all" as they proceed along their quest to become a pokéchampion (or whatever it's called). Every few games, the list of pokémon increases, and a new region is available for exploration. The games appear to be open-world, but are designed in such a way that they're actually quite linear. I have not played a Pokémon title since the first ones (Red and Blue), but I have fond memories. As far as RPGs go, this is one of the easier series to get into and play without having to do too much thought. The single-player experiences are always fairly easy, but that's to help ensure that the franchise continues to appeal to the broadest demographic possible.
Final Fantasy: The series that started it all (depending on who you talk to), and the only series on this list that's older than Pokemon and Diablo. Final Fantasy has been going strong since 1987, which is before most modern gamers were even born. In my opinion, however, Square's (now Square Enix) best works are behind them. I see the recent Final Fantasy games more as cash-ins than quality titles. The games are always top-notch in terms of graphics and music, but their stories are impenetrable at times, their mechanics are getting more and more gimmicky, and the progression within the games themselves is usually fairly linear. Fortunately for Square, the current generation of gamers was not privy to the gems that were pre-FF7. Don't get me wrong, Final Fantasy 7 is a great game in its own right, but the only reason that it received the hype it did was because it was many-a-gamer's first foray into the Final Fantasy series and RPGs as a whole. I could probably write a separate post on the evolution of the series, so I won't go into anything else here.
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| No caption needed. |
Diablo: With the upcoming release of Diablo (one of the most anticipated modern games), this series is stronger than ever. The founders of the hack-and-slash dungeon-crawler, Blizzard, have done such a fantastic job with the series that it is widely considered to be one of best of all-time by many gamers. Blizzard is also famous for having some fairly rabid fans, so take any "best of" statements with a grain of salt. Personally, I love the series, and I can't wait for Diablo 3 to finally be released (May 15th, 2012). Do I think it's one of the best series of all time? I don't really care, as long as I have fun playing it.
In Conclusion: The genre is seemingly evolving with every new release, sprouting new sub-genres and innovative mechanics all the time. I actually like the direction that RPGs are headed, and I don't fear for their future the same way I do for shooters. However, RPGs have an inherent advantage in terms of not getting stale, simply because of the nature of the genre. The genre itself has virtually no limits on creativity, with the only limiting factor being the constraints of the technology available. My only concern is the evolution of the hybrid RPG games. While some incredible games have come out of hybridization, if developers buy into that notion too heavily, the genre could become polluted with borrowed mechanics. Fortunately, there are tons of top-notch developers to ensure that the future of RPGs remains bright.
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