Good RPGs

[Darkgold]

When it comes to leveling up a character how much control do you want to have over the process? 10 Being a game where you spend hours controling the growth of the character, or 1 where its completly taken care of all you need to do is beat enough guys to level up.

[Zachary]

I like less control. I think the modification to your character should be down to what you equip them with and their spells (although if what type of spell you learn is according to your level, then I would vote for more control).

[suhbataar]

less control

i mean, how much control do you really have over your own fate in real life?

[geezusfreeek]

For me, my reply would vary depending on how well the character development is integrated into the gameplay itself. If you have to consciously think about getting numbers up and the like, it detracts from the game. You should be able to, say perfect your skills, while still performing some feat necessary to finish the game. For this reason, I will vote for "less" because it should be less obviously apart from the rest of the game, but not necessarily less development at all.

[Jake]

I like lots of control, mabey thats because i LOVE math and used to play alot of paper/pencil RPGs

[AJ Infinity]

I like time consuming RPG's like the SNES one EarthBound. (In case you're wondering where the Ness character in Super Smash Bros. came from, he came from EarthBound and Harvest Moon, 2 SNES games.)

The 1996 RPG/adventure game Sapiens was cool, also. Anyone remember this? A sequel to it would be cool.

[DaFalcon]

At first I thought I'd like more control, but then I got to thinking about the RPGs that I personally found fun enough that I finished them :-) Those were Chronotrigger and MarioRPG; those gave you control over character development, but nothing complex. And that way I could go back to the action, which was what I guess I like in a game personally :-)

Right now I'm playing "Mega Man Battle Network 2" on GBA, and it is lots of fun, lots of action, and just enough control over selecting weapons and assigning powerups. I'm also playing Kingdom Hearts on PS2 and that also has rather limited control, while still presenting options. The best RPGs probably ALLOW a player to tweak things to their liking, but don't require it: by default the character will progress at a reasonable level.

[Feanor]

I voted 8/10 for more control. I'm playing Morrowind (Elder Scrolls 3) on X-Box, where you can not only improve your skills by practising them, but improve your stats (Intelligence, Strength etc) by improving the skills that utilize them. It's not perfect, and eventually your character becomes ridiculously powerful, but it means that you can concentrate on fighting skills for a while, then stealth, then magic, or all at the same time. The clincher is that you only level up when you make sufficient progress in your core skill set -- the skills related to your class. And you only improve your stats when you level. The good thing is that by practising an intelligence-related skill, even if that skill doesn't help you level, you will get bonuses on intelligence stat when you finally do level up.

So even though security skill improvement doesn't help my Monk character level up, if I improve that skill between two levels, I can use one of my stat improvement points and get two or three point improvements to intelligence, versus only one to, say, endurance (if I didn't improve any endurance-related skills).

The down-side of leveling up based on skill practise is that you can get practise sneaking up on or fighting hand-to-hand with the weakest monsters and gain levels as quickly late in the game as early, so sometimes "more control" means that there are more opportunities to beat the system. But then if someone wants to abandon role-playing in favour of system-beating, if it's fun for them why deny them?

[Skorche]

I really enjoyed Deus Ex, It took the shooter out of FPS, it had some character building elements like in a RPG. I'm not too familiar with how other RPG's let you build your character (I've really only played 2D Zeldas), but in Deus Ex you got skill points to use towards building your character. As you played you could put those points towards rifle skills, heavy weapons, pistols, explosives, computer, electronics, medical, lockpicks, and mele weapons. Obviously there wasn't enough to be good at everything, so you had to shape your character to the way that you played. You also got nanotech upgrades to give you extra abilities. Overall I found the RPG elements in the game to make it shine.

[macboy]

I voted 8/10 for more control because in real life, you can't decide your fate, but you can decide what you do with your life - what to learn, what to explore, etc.

Originally posted by AJ Infinity
(In case you're wondering where the Ness character in Super Smash Bros. came from, he came from EarthBound and Harvest Moon, 2 SNES games.)

Just a side note: There was an Earthbound for NES before SNES.

[Sta7ic]

More control. However, much like Deus Ex (or Halo and Splinter Cell, in parts), one of the nice things to see is that you aren't limited to cutting everything to ribbons with your sword -- there turn out to be other actions you can use beyond Shoot Everything That Moves. "Role-Playing" Games shouldn't be about sticking to the path and slicing through the opposition; having to kill everything between the beginning and the end gets a little depressing.
As for leveling, I think Morrowwind's got a pretty good setup, where you improve by doing things -- not by slaughtering monsters. Let the alchemists, hedge wizards, blacksmiths, etc. improve and level up without having to pick up a sword, axe, or mace. Rewarding work and risk seems to be a better option.

Hmm. Guess I should include the (/rant).

-"Sta7ic" Matt

[Steben]

Originally posted by macboy
Just a side note: There was an Earthbound for NES before SNES.

A further side note: Yes, but the main character of that game was "Ninten". I'll grant you he looked eerily like Ness however. Earthbound for NES (known as Earthbound Zero in the States) was released as "Mother" in Japan, but never made it to the US.

[Steben]

Concerning the topic, I like a little control to let you customize your characters, but not too much. Games like Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Cross made my hurt with all the Materia/Element arranging I had to do. I'm more interested in story progression than wasting ten minutes trying to figure out which level my AeroBlaster would be best suited for.

[DoG]

I would like to see a different approach to character development than levelling, which I find outmost boring. Of course, the advantage of levelling is that it allows the character to improve indefinitely and has simple metrics. To be honest, I can't think of a good scheme right now, but maybe somebody will, and that will mark the day of my return to playing RPGs.

- D.G

[Darkgold]

Originally posted by DoooG
I would like to see a different approach to character development than levelling, which I find outmost boring. Of course, the advantage of levelling is that it allows the character to improve indefinitely and has simple metrics. To be honest, I can't think of a good scheme right now, but maybe somebody will, and that will mark the day of my return to playing RPGs.

- D.G
Thats partly why I asked this. Cause the one thing I absolutly DO NOT WANT is another stero-typical RPG. Its going to be quite a challenge to develop a system that gives people the option of complete control over the character, but also allows for an automatic system (a one that works too.) But still keep it fun.

[Matt Brown]

Originally posted by AJ Infinity
I like time consuming RPG's like the SNES one EarthBound. (In case you're wondering where the Ness character in Super Smash Bros. came from, he came from EarthBound and Harvest Moon, 2 SNES games.)


Where the royal heck did you hear the Ness was in Harvest Moon? The main charecter does look kinda like him, but Harvest Moon is copyrighted Natsume, not Nintendo, (which owns EarthBound, or Ness wouldn't be in SSB) But to the best of my knowledge (and I'm an HM junkie) The main charecters name is either Jack or Pete. Ness is most certainly NOT in Harvest Moon.

Back OT: I think a player sould be able to channel growth, but paying too much attention to stats is distracting and takes away from the storylines. FF7 and FF8 are good examples of this. The junction system in FF8 almost entirely replaced the level up system. And I kinda liked it, even though I didn't finish FF8, or even start junctioning until halfway through disc 2. And the Materia in FF7 was pure genious. But when it got to the sphere grid in FF10, (which I only played for about an hour at my cousin's) I thought that was a bit far. Options are what make gameplay.

[AJ Infinity]

When I first played SSB at a friend's party, I asked who Ness was and everyone else playing the game said "He's a character from Harvest Moon" or "he's a character from EarthBound" Nintendo shouldn't use the same character in every game. It confuses people.

[Matt Brown]

Uh huh. But who ever said Ness was in HM was very wrong. Ever played any of the HM games? The PSX one is very good. The SNES one is good too. I assure you Ness is not in Harvest Moon.
Sorry if I'm being blunt, but EarthBound is quite possibly my favorite SNES RPG. And the Harvest Moon games all take up alot of my brain space, so mess ups like this are annoying to me.

[AJ Infinity]

Nintendo has character design problems. In Harvest Moon, the main character looks like the character from EB, yet they are (according to you) totally different. And, they both have the same kind of dog. Then in SSB, Nintendo (and hal laboratories) makes a character named Ness who looks like the character from EB and HM.:shock: Weird

[Sawtooth]

I think FF3/6 was the best game that displayed the optional/optimal player settings. I could just chose "best", and your character was decked out in the best equipment. You could still muck around with the artifacts, and you could make your character better suited for some situations if you wanted to. For instance, I wanted to keep the hp-increasing hats even after their armor rating had become outclassed, just because it gave more benefits. You could also choose different swords because they gave you extra water/fire/ice damage, rather than accepting the one with the highest attack power that the 'best' option gives you.

[Matt Brown]

Originally posted by AJ Infinity
Nintendo has character design problems. In Harvest Moon, the main character looks like the character from EB, yet they are (according to you) totally different. And, they both have the same kind of dog. Then in SSB, Nintendo (and hal laboratories) makes a character named Ness who looks like the character from EB and HM.:shock: Weird

HM isn't a nintendo game. There are over 10 Harvest Moon games, and while most of them are for Nintendo consoles, there are 3 for PSX and PS2. Now we all know that Nintendo would never let another company release their games for a non-nintendo console. It's only happend once to my knowledge, and that was a illegal Mario port to the Sega Genesis. Do a little home work on it. But this is getting very OT and I'm tired of arguing. Please just check it out.
GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com) is a good site, and any search engine will yield good results.
The dogs look different in almost all HM games. And Ness and the HM guy don't look that much alike. They both have a baseball cap in. The similarities really do end there. Just look it up. Please.

[AJ Infinity]

Anyway, Ness isn't the same character in HM as in SSB, I admit I'm wrong (heck, am I perfect?).

Back to good RPG's, my favorites,

Zelda games
FFVII - FFX
MegaMan Battle Network 2 (playing it now; like DaFalcon said, it's a good game)
EarthBound

[skyhawk]

Some of my favorite RPGs in chronological order that I played them
Shining Force 2
Phantasy Star 4
Shining Force
FF8
Chrono Trigger (you'll notice that the order I play them isn't always the order they come out)
Mario RPG

[Matt Brown]

AJ, no one's perfect. Not even me.

Ok, my fave RPGs,

Shining Force 2
Phantasy Star 2 and 4
Final Fantasy 5, 6, 7, and 8. (Haven't played 9)
Harvest Moon SNES, GB3, and Back to Nature
ChronoTrigger
Legend of Dragoon(it's just as good as FF7)
Metal Gear Solid. (It's almost an RPG)

[w_reade]

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, so:

Fallout.

Also, the usual suspects:

Secret of Mana;
Chrono Trigger;
Breath of Fire;
Final Fantasies;
Zeldas...

[AJ Infinity]

Phantasy Star. (awesome game!)
The Legend of The Dragoon (I remember this!)

[eekaydee]

About the original question, how about increasing attributes after every fight, depending on which skills/abilities you use.

And yikes, I didn't realize how old this thread is!

[EvolPenguin]

Originally posted by Jake
I like lots of control, mabey thats because i LOVE math and used to play alot of paper/pencil RPGs

I agree. Paper/Pencil rpgs are fun.:D

[Bachus]

Check out Knights of the Old Republic. The best RPG released in a long time. Imagine the D20 system, combined with Deus Ex's skills system. It also has a newbie-friendly auto-character-generator and auto-level-up if you don't want to control every facet of your character yourself.

[EvolPenguin]

Originally posted by AJ Infinity
Then in SSB, Nintendo (and hal laboratories) makes a character named Ness who looks like the character from EB and HM.:shock: Weird

The reason in super smash bros was that they wanted characters from a whole bunch of video games. It was on purpose.

[EvolPenguin]

Where do you get knights of the old republic? I have never heard of it.

[Bachus]

It's only available for the X-Box at the moment. A PC version will be released later this year. I doubt there will ever be a Mac version.

Homepage: http://www.bioware.com/games/knights_old_republic/

[EvolPenguin]

Oh well. Maybe I'll get xbox one day. Who knows. THanks for the info.

[Baldock]

I made a mistake about half a week ago. I got Gothic 2 for my PC. I'm now only getting 4 to 5 hours sleep a night. It has a wonderful plot and I'm enjoying doing the side quests. The maps are massive and there is only a little bit of loading between different maps. I spent about an hour running around just one map. The character skills are controlled by level, each level you get some points. You can increase weapons etc by using points, but you can also learn hunting skills, like removing fur etc from dead animals, learn how to pick pocket, pick locks etc. Also there seems to be a lot of different ways to do a quest. And a nice feature I noticed is monsters,animals and NPCs will use their AI. Like if I kill one creature and lure another towards the dead one and run away, the creature will snack on the dead one. Or if I lure a monster towards a NPC who is agressive they might duke it out so I can pick off the one who is left. All in all I would say at the moment this is the most enjoyable RPG I've played in the last 5 years.

[AJ Infinity]

You missed what I said. I'm sure everyone knows that in SSB/SSBM that Nintendo wanted characters from a whole bunch of their video games. Basically, at the time of this thread I did not want to admit I was wrong and Matt was right. I made a mistake about connecting Harvest Moon with Earthbound and Mother. And would people stop reawakening threads THIS old.

Anyway, back on topic. has anyone here played FF2? Remember it's leveling system? You'd gain exp with each weapon you had instead of the whole character gaining exp.

[CarbonX]

By far I think that the Fallout series is the best damn RPG ever to hit the mac platform. I like to have total control while playing a game.

[gatti]

I've started to come to the realization that traditional "leveling-up" RPG-based games have wore out their welcome on me. There's way too much time involved around doing the same redundant thing. Most of the older generation who grew up playing Secret of Mana, Crono Trigger, and Final Fantasy don't have that much time on their hands anymore. We have full-time jobs, wifes, children and other responsibilities which eat our time.

Games like Zelda and Metal Gear Solid, take a unique approach for leveling up the character. It's not based on how many bad guys you kill. It's based on who you kill, completing some mini-quest, or extended exploration.

Perhaps RPGs need to embrace a new approach for getting new armor, increasing health stats, making more money and so on which isn't as redundant as fighting bad guys...and more bad guys...and yet..more bad guys.
Armor should either be purchased or won. However, the same armor purchased should not be won through battle and so on. This makes the armor more special or unique.

All enemies should drop money, while mini-games should be played to quickly win money.

And finally, increasing health should be based on winning some kind of item through a quest. RPGs should have long (30+) play times based on the quality of the story and the unique quests that take the player for a ride, not from 20+ hours of killing enemies just to level up.

[PuppyHelmet]

I agree that an alternative to D&D style leveling up would be a good thing. Problem is coming up with an idea that works as easily.

A system I've really come to appreciate is the one in Xenosaga Episode I. You build up three kinds of points: skill, ether (magic), and tech. Skill points and ether points let you learn new support skills (like stat bonuses) and spells. Tech points can be used to improve your attacks, or to bring your stats up by a point at a time. Also, ether points can be spent to give "copies" of spells you've already lerned to other characters that ordinarily wouldn't get them.

EDIT: Forgot to mention: your stats go up when you level up like any other RPG, so you don't even have to meddle in spending tech points on stats if you don't feel like it.

The end result is that at the end of the game your party is customized to your liking, and probably very different from other people's, yet the process is remarkably painless. You could just spend points on whatever's available when you have enough, and end up with a reasonably strong party. For crazy min-maxers like myself, though, it's a torturous dilemma to figure out the fastest way of turning my characters into gods. Tech points in particular burn a hole in your pocket; save them up to make your attack better... or spend them now to boost your vitality? It keeps me awake at night.

It's easy enough for casual RPGers, and deep enough for obsessive-compulsive RPGers. The combat system adds another layer of strategy to it, since if you time your kills right you get bonus points.

Of course, you have to be able to survive through 20 minute plus cutscenes to see any of this. It's even more plot-heavy than Xenogears was, although the quality of the exposition is much higher (since they weren't forced to ship with half the game practically missing).

[Achenar]

I really liked the system in PS's Chrono Cross because It was totally related to the battle system. The more you progress in the game, the bigger amount of magic attacks you could carry in a battle (considering you could only use each magic you carry once per battle). It was really fun and involved you in the story without taking much time in developing characters, though you had to choose your equipment and magic attacks strategically.

My fave RPGs are (the ones I remember):

Chrono Trigger
Chrono Cross
Zelda Ocarina of Time
Zelda a Link to the Past
Harvest Moon (and no, Ness isn't the guy in it)
Parasite Eve (battle system grew boring, but watching Aya kept me playing :P)
Final Fantasy V (not sure of the no.... a SNES one)
Mario RPG

those are the ones I can remember...

[eekaydee]

No one mentioned Dragon Warrior for NES?
You actually have to try hard to get enough money to buy a 800 gold Iron shield that gives you 8 defense or something...
nowadays all the RPGs go into the hundreds and even thousands for stats, while dragon warrior never leaves the tens.

And Earthbound.

[EvolPenguin]

Originally posted by Darkgold
Thats partly why I asked this. Cause the one thing I absolutly DO NOT WANT is another stero-typical RPG. Its going to be quite a challenge to develop a system that gives people the option of complete control over the character, but also allows for an automatic system (a one that works too.) But still keep it fun.

How about training? You have to go to a certain place to learn things, and different teachers have different prices and knowledge. That's just my two cents.

Alex

[Darkgold]

Wow, I'm gone for about 5 months, come back, and one of my threads is still up. I guess I should be proud.

But anyways, I've decided to take the game in this direction: As Gatti pointed out, most people people don't have the time for another redundant RPG, so I have decided beating the actual game doesn't require hours and hours of fighting bad guys. Instead the player gets more experince per bad guy. That way your ability to defeat that "huge boss" comes down to your ability to customize your character so that he has an actual strategy. However, for the people who do have the time to spend hours fighting bad guys to level up, there will be an online feature to the game so people can fight other people with a huge amount of time on their hands. (Fighting people online would give you experince.) Or they can go back through the game at a higher level if they want to see the story again and also want to add to the experince of one of their characters.

Oh and yes, I realize that adding an online feature is a huge task, but I have managed to integrate my programming into school. So for the next two years I will be able to work on this and get school credit for it.

[Baldock]

Originally posted by Darkgold
Oh and yes, I realize that adding an online feature is a huge task, but I have managed to integrate my programming into school. So for the next two years I will be able to work on this and get school credit for it.

Now that is a smart thing to do.

[Hoggle]

You guys are missing one of the most infinitly controllable RPG's ever made. Dungeons and Dragons for the Intellevision! Why you had the option of going to blue cave, purple cave, red cave, or gray cave! think of the possibilities! and lets not forget the system of clicks to let you know how many arrows you had left.. sheer genius!!

Seriously though, I like games that allow limited control in the development and growth of the character, but allow open-endedness as far as goals. You have to allow just enough control so they feel they are somewhat involved in the creation of the charater so it is their own, but not so much where you leave the player thinking "ugg.. what attribute is going to help me the most? i hope i didnt mess up! He has enough mana to power a small space-station yet im taken down by an enchanted ladybug carrying a pointy stick!"

No one mentioned Realmz or Escape Velocity.. (though Escape Velocity is in space, its very much an RPG.) They are both infinitly replayable(not just talking about plug-ins, but thats really a cool feature). They have really lose goals that you accomplish at your leisure while still giving you a general direction to go in.

I grow so weary of games where you need to find the wizard so you can get the medicine, so you can heal the boy, so he can give you the key, so you can unlock the trunk, so you can find the map, that will lead you to the bird, so you can use the bird to catch the spider.. use the spider to catch the fly, i dont know whyyy she swallowed the fly.. i guess she'll dieee... oops! kinda got sidetracked there.

anyhoo.. thats my 2 cents.. give or take a cent..

-Hoggle

[ss2cire]

I think it all comes down to the over all style of the RPG

For example:


Chrono Trigger for the SNES/PSX (arguably one of the best RPGs of all time) allowed some control but not much
while

one of the (if not the best) best series of RPGs are the final fantasy games, here's my comments on a couple of the games:

Final Fantasy 3/6 for the SNES/PSX allowed for about a medium amount of control (eg: which characters learned magic ect)

Final Fantasy 5 (SNES on emulators) PSX, on the other hand gave LOTS of control where you were able to change the characters class at anytime (after a certain point in the game) and level those up independant of the other classes

Final Fantasy 7, PSX, gave less control than FF5 but had a very engaging story line and the materia allowed a some what advance player to comize the characters even more

The avernum series by Spiderweb Software
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com
gives most of the control to the player and makes it really ingaging for the player but isn't for the adverage player as the player NEEDS to be ingaged to play it

All in all, I think it's really up to the developer on how they want to make the character develop, but if you really want an opinion from me, middle amount of control, allow the player to controll some, but don't make it completely dependant on the player as some players don't want to be THAT into it.

Just my Opinion on the whole thing :)

[sam]

Something interesting is in both Seiken Densetsu 3 (2 is Secret of Mana.)
It is Action RPG type thing, Very linear.

I call it Growth through Weapons. It featured a normal "spirit = 19 defense = 20" system. Plus as you went from town to town to Giant cat, The weapons would get better. It also forced choices between super expensive armor or super expensive weapons.

This really only works with Linear games.