79 replies to this topic

[Monkeydog]

Because back in the day, it was new for video games. Now it's old for video games. If you're adapting something from another medium to a new one, that's fine, it's original to the new medium. But when you keep reusing old ideas from the same medium, it's just boring. Which is why it's hard to find something highly regarded in movies, television, literature, etc... that is just reusing what has been done before. We've seen it before in those mediums, we've done it before in those mediums, no need to do it again unless you can do something absolutely fantastic with it.

And very rarely does that ever happen anymore.

And by your argument makes no sense when you seem to think there was nothing engaging about old RPGs.

[rekaru]

I don't really feel like responding to your entire argument, but I thought I would just point out a few things so that you may provide clarification.

I think they are getting stale, but they just need to be reborn.

In my opinion, plot-lines are only starting to explore where they should

JRPGs are getting stale yet the plotlines are only starting to explore where they should? According to you here,

All of art is recycling, and rerolling. You take something that people know, and give it a new spin, take it a new direction, try and send a new message. This is as true for game design as it is for visual arts, writing, music, and all of such.

video game stories use rehashed elements; combined with your previous statement, you're stating that JRPG's are stale and they reuse elements from previous games (presumably the two statements work in tandem), but are only starting to explore new areas with plots. How is this true? Enlighten me.

Turn based is hella arcane, I concede, but I don't think the genre itself is spent, by any means.

Next time you use a word, look up the definition.

[kspr]

if its going to be reborn, itll take some sort of think tank to dig the genre out from under all its cliches i think itll only happen when western rpgs like oblivion, gta, fallout, and borderlands get stale. the do anything go anywhere kill whathaveyou will get stale eventually. too much freedom is just as bad as none at all. i was playing final fantasy 8 for awhile, and i got to a point where i couldnt figure out where to go next, and i couldnt do anything without looking at a gamefaq. that type of linear lockage should just die. on the other hand, wandering around tamriel with my thumb up my butt because i cant remember where i dropped an important item, and am thusly stuck as a vampire is equally annoying. dragon age is an atrocious offender of being the archtype collector/dragon slayer. i got it because im worn out on fallout, and it's a fun distraction. im on my third playthrough atm, but there are still a few things i havent done.

[Stars]

on the other hand, wandering around tamriel with my thumb up my butt because i cant remember where i dropped an important item, and am thusly stuck as a vampire is equally annoying.

That's why you play the PC version so that you can just spawn items through the command console. =)
Also mods.

[Amethyst]

Because back in the day, it was new for video games. Now it's old for video games. If you're adapting something from another medium to a new one, that's fine, it's original to the new medium. But when you keep reusing old ideas from the same medium, it's just boring. Which is why it's hard to find something highly regarded in movies, television, literature, etc... that is just reusing what has been done before. We've seen it before in those mediums, we've done it before in those mediums, no need to do it again unless you can do something absolutely fantastic with it.

And very rarely does that ever happen anymore.

But it does happen- only we end up sifting through a lot of less impressive titles in the present age before we find the gems. That's the nature of the beast. Retrospectively, we're only focusing on the classic and time-tested already-tried games- the gems of that age. All the trash has been discarded and forgotten in the decade past. Therefore, within our own perceptions, the past holds a greater volume of good titles than the present. Yet, if we were to take each year individually, I would expect that the number of games one might find enjoyable would remain proportionate to the total number of releases anyway. While to actually test such a thing is totally impractical, the point is that it is necessary to look at it from the bigger picture- that it probably doesn't happen all that much less than it used to.

Furthermore, suppose games were released in the opposite order as we know them. So Pong hasn't been released yet, but Metal Gear Solid 13 is an old classic. Suppose you played Tales of Symphonia before the NES version of Tales of Phantasia. Would you really be inclined towards the later? It's only a simplified version of the same plot, same general outline for the story as used all the other Tales games that came after it. Worse graphics and music to boot. Why would you pick that? Especially since you've already seen it.
Your own present perception is interfering with the objective judgment of the games. Granted, it's difficult for almost anybody not to do this. But the games themselves are no worse or better just because of what you've seen before.

I think they are getting stale, but they just need to be reborn.

In my opinion, plot-lines are only starting to explore where they should

JRPGs are getting stale yet the plotlines are only starting to explore where they should? According to you here,

Ah, I should have been more clear. JRPGs as a whole are stale, and I say this mostly because of the continuing tedium of traditional battle systems. The plot-lines themselves do continue to evolve, however. Compare Baten Kaitos to Lunar Legend. The latter, is a traditional fantasy setting with very little to distinguish it from the others and 16-bit characters with no real explanations to their motivations. The former, however, has a much more unique environment, with quite noticably deeper characters whom generally come to be much more developed and explored through the story.

All of art is recycling, and rerolling. You take something that people know, and give it a new spin, take it a new direction, try and send a new message. This is as true for game design as it is for visual arts, writing, music, and all of such.

video game stories use rehashed elements; combined with your previous statement, you're stating that JRPG's are stale and they reuse elements from previous games (presumably the two statements work in tandem), but are only starting to explore new areas with plots. How is this true? Enlighten me.

As I said, my remark about them growing stale was mostly in regards to the gameplay, as when they fail to expand upon what they've recycled.
But yes, they are only starting to take plots in new directions. They are beginning to contain themselves to better-established environments that can be further-developed on, rather than take on a world that could house any number of typical Dungeons and Dragons scenes just through its sheer traditionalism. Most JRPGs try to include a forest, an ice dungeon, a volcano, etc, just because they feel they have to meet all the standards. It then kills any sense of uniqueness.
We are far too deep in this paradigm, when we could be exploring fresh environments that don't have the ubiquitous mountain range in the farthest-north part of the map. Persona 4 stays within a single town. The World Ends With You is a very refreshing JRPG that manages not to leave the streets of a single shopping district. Even Pikmin 2 places on a planet that constantly has us questioning just how familiar it really is to us, and it works.
This is not to say that a plot's value is dependent upon its environment. I would hardly call the storyline of Pikmin even noteworthy (although it does serve its purpose for the game). Characters themselves are continuing to evolve. Let us take for example, the White Mage. Twenty years ago (roughly?) you selected "White Mage" at a character creation screen and gave it a name. Ten years ago, the game's story found you a white mage in some town who joined because she wanted to help your party bring peace to the world. These days, we have a white mage who joins you because she wants to pacify the world, as what she thinks of as peace was the ideal she dreamed of as a kid, but knew she could never have, as her chaotic family background destroyed any chance of her ever knowing what the words "emotional stability" meant.
Old elements, new directions. You tell me which you find more interesting.

Turn based is hella arcane, I concede, but I don't think the genre itself is spent, by any means.

Next time you use a word, look up the definition.

Archaic. An oversight.

[Monkeydog]

That argument doesn't work, because why in the world would I want to play the game? I already don't want to play the present games, which I've already have. The new games fail because things existed before it. The old games would fail if older games existed before them too, but there isn't, so why even think about it? If the new games existed first, yeah I'd probably like them more, because they would have been new for when I played them, and new for the time they were in. The games of today are NOT new for the time they're in, and not new for me. They're all cliched and tired. And there's no reasons for them to be other than the laziness of people who make them.

Most of the games I've played in the past two generations (and trust me, I played almost every JRPG in the past two decades, at least popular ones) have just been more annoying than the older games too. They all have worse, whiney, stereotypical characters, who are now completely cliched. With just annoying plots with very little improvement over old ones, despite having the capacity to tell a better story. Symphonia has practically nothing better to it than Phantasia, I'd argue it even has worse graphics because its 3D doesn't even look that great (and 3D has a horrible problem with looking dated). And Symphonia's characters annoy me far more than Phantasia's did. And I can just see how unoriginal the game is considering most of what Symphonia is has already been done in its past games and stuff like Chrono Cross. Which is not a good thing.

I'll be honest, despite everything I hate about JRPGs, I still play them, a lot, even boring turn based games, because I have a problem and enjoy playing them a lot. Buuuuut come on, you can't say modern JRPGs are anything special when compared to older games. There's a far greater lack of originality now, since the ideas they use already have happened. I mean JRPGs will never, and have never, been good at stories or gameplay, ever. But there's not just a lack of anything original in them. There's no cool time travel like in Chrono Trigger, or wacky worlds like in Earthbound, or awesome slightly sandbox sky pirating like in Skies of Arcadia. It's just all your basic standard affair in almost everything now. And it's lame and boring. The last original games I've ever played were Kingdom Hearts and .hack, and neither were any good, but at least they tried to do something new with the genre.

And no, I don't want my characters to be "more developed" like they are in current JRPGs. I want them to shut the fuck up. Crono and Ness had far more personality to them by keeping their mouths shut than I have seen in most characters that are allowed to talk nowadays.

[rekaru]

Archaic. An oversight.

No, it doesn't mean that at all. Arcane means obscure or esoteric or known by few.

known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric

In fact here's the etymology of the word which confirms my definiton:

arcane
1547, from L. arcanus "secret, hidden," from arcere "close up," from arca "chest, box," from PIE *ark- "to hold, contain, guard" (cf. Gk. arkos "defense," Arm. argel "obstacle," Lith. raktas "key," rakinti "to shut, lock"). Arcana "hidden things" (1599) is a direct adoptation of the L. plural of arcanum, neut. of arcanus.

I don't know where you are getting "archaic" or even "oversight" from.

[kspr]

omgwateverstoppit

[Stars]

Archaic. An oversight.

No, it doesn't mean that at all. Arcane means obscure or esoteric or known by few.
[stuff]
I don't know where you are getting "archaic" or even "oversight" from.

He's saying that he meant to put "archaic" and that his use of the word "arcane" instead was an oversight on his part.

Lrn 2 grammar nazi better.

[rekaru]

Ah, that makes much more sense.

[kspr]

so is anybody actually working on anything right now? i need some ideas for maps and i dont want to go to another forum to find them. everybody else is a map nazi on every other website.

[Monkeydog]

I CAN MAKE MAPS RANDOMLY. THAT IS ALWAYS WHAT I WAS BEST AT ANYWAYS.

[Amethyst]

Stars is correct. Thank you.

I would like to say I'm working on something now, but -poof- with the computer. This one's screen is too small for VX or XP to run. I may just focus on designing the whole thing anyway. Since that's all I really care about anyway. Screw it if it never materializes.

Talk to me on AIM about your maps. Maybe I can help, although, I'm kind of a map nazi myself.

[Stars]

I may just focus on designing the whole thing anyway. Since that's all I really care about anyway. Screw it if it never materializes.

This is about where I'm at since I've finally decided which of my ideas I would most want to work on if I ever get to that point.

[rekaru]

I have a couple stories fully fleshed out, but because I get quickly unsatisfied with my writing I've been changing things around little by little. Right now, I may even have a third story with all the changes I've made. I don't know if I will ever release something in the form of a video game, but at the very least I could write a novel (that will probably never get published, hah). Unfortunately, since I decided to no longer dual boot Windows and Linux, I am unable to run RPG Maker even if I wanted to.

[IndigoFenix]

The thing is, there isn't really any reason why a JRPG couldn't be exactly as deep as any movie or novel could be (if not deeper - the ability to actually make choices should add a new layer of depth to the story). When you think about it, the genre basically evolved from tabletop RPGs, which itself was an early form of interactive story set within certain limitations. Of course, the more possible choices you leave for the player, the harder it is to write a good story that encompasses all of the possible branches, but even if you railroad it, you can technically turn just about any story into a game.

I don't think there is any real difference between novels and games in that regard. Go to a library - how many books do you see that genuinely develop a new concept, as compared to those that are basically slightly altered copies of tried-and-true storylines? True novelties will always be rare gems among the copycats, no matter the medium.

Even so, there has been a notable decline, relatively speaking, in the originality of game stories, probably because so much investment goes into creating a game nowadays, with the graphics and physics and huge teams of developers, that most big designers simply aren't willing to take the risk involved in creating a truly original idea. New ideas are always risky - they can either become classics or bomb terribly, and there's just too much money involved in the gaming industry to risk bombing. That's not to say there won't be exceptions, but they'll always be few and far between, and if the video game industry continues to grow bigger, originality in them are likely to decrease, since "necessity is the mother of invention."

Because this trend is likely to continue among the big names in the industry, I think that the future of innovation in game stories lies not with them, but with independent developers that use the massive number of tools available to us nowadays to create simpler projects (i.e. us). Even if the majority are sub-par, when enough people are trying, there's bound to be at least a few classics that come out of the mix.

[Nanaki]

Wow... well... I was going to talk about my project, buuut...

It's funny, I've gotten tired of JRPGs for a completely different reason, and I'm not sure that I can 100% put my finger on it. But I really do think it's just me. I picked up FFX and FFX-2 again this Christmas, and I could help but think... man, this dialogue is embarrassing. But people love it. FFX, at least. People always talk about how the plot is so complex and developed... okay, maybe. But I find the characters aggravating, the writing (or translation?) dull, and the voice acting awful. Is this just the American version? Maybe so, since Japan apparently voted it "best game ever" in numerous polls. But why is it that I'm starting to feel the same way about Suikoden? Wild Arms? Is it really just that there's that much "lost in translation"?

[Monkeydog]

It's really that people who think that a plot like FFX is complex and deep hasn't even seen/understood something as complex and deep as Lost in Translation.

[kspr]

Wow... well... I was going to talk about my project, buuut...

It's funny, I've gotten tired of JRPGs for a completely different reason, and I'm not sure that I can 100% put my finger on it. But I really do think it's just me. I picked up FFX and FFX-2 again this Christmas, and I could help but think... man, this dialogue is embarrassing. But people love it. FFX, at least. People always talk about how the plot is so complex and developed... okay, maybe. But I find the characters aggravating, the writing (or translation?) dull, and the voice acting awful. Is this just the American version? Maybe so, since Japan apparently voted it "best game ever" in numerous polls. But why is it that I'm starting to feel the same way about Suikoden? Wild Arms? Is it really just that there's that much "lost in translation"?

WHEN I GET STRESSED OUT I STAND OUT ON A CLIFF AND LAUGH. HA. HA. HA. HA.

[don't hit meee!] i loved playing blitzball. i even tried to fanagle a dry land version of it with my friends, but it just turned out to be rugby.

i've decided that i just can't make my game in rmxp, not for lack of trying, or that it makes the virtual console run terrible on windows 7, but there are just so many custom things i want to put in it, and i would need someone to do the programming for me.

[Amethyst]

i've decided that i just can't make my game in rmxp, not for lack of trying, or that it makes the virtual console run terrible on windows 7, but there are just so many custom things i want to put in it, and i would need someone to do the programming for me.

This, but for VX for me. I still have every interest in actualizing it beside this.

I feel like there's another entire conversation here, but, Nanaki, tell us about your projects!