Mass Effect isn't an RPG?!

[omega 616]

RPG is a highly debatable term these days. Japanese RPGs did most of the foundations in terms of video game RPGs, and they did so by involving player stats and highly customizable battle/equipment setups. However, now that Western RPGs have come onto the scene, we have people claiming that the key element of role-playing is the ability to indeed play a role, making decisions and driving the story and personality of the main character. So it's hard to really know what an RPG is in the first place.

I say any of these elements counts as "RPG elements," meaning that a game that incorporates them as a huge aspect of the game is an RPG. The first Mass Effect is absolutely an RPG. THe second is more debatable, but I would still call it an action RPG.

It's a sticky subject, but some people have gotten really picky about it. For that matter, often people will make up a new definition specifically to exclude some kind of RPG they don't like (I'm looking squarely at you, JRPG haters). You can't let it bother you; disagree, debate it if you want, but it's a typical occurrence.

I have nothing really bad to say about JRPG's other then that there title is wrong. The games themselves are sometimes quite good but a menu system does not mean you "have RPG elements".

One of my fav games, Deus Ex, is classed as a shooter with RPG element. Other then a menu system It shared almost no resemble to RPG's. Still an awesome. But it needs a new genre.

If that was the case with JRPGS needing a new genre, then there would need to a whole host of sub genres to call various games and each genre would only contain one game or franchise.

Tad silly in my book.

Just call them WRPG or JRPG and move on, there are bigger things to worry about.

 

[Knight Templar]

Roleplaying games are not solely about you creating a character and doing "choices". It's about putting yourself into the role of a character and living it out.

Which would involve a large amount of choices no? Unless being along for the ride is "living it out".

Would you say that in game where you play as a Knight of the Templar Order where you live the role of an Templar isn't Roleplaying if you are to "ride along" as you put it?

I have no idea what you mean, sorry.

 

[Amphoteric]

Mass Effect 1 and 2 aren't role playing games, they're role games where all you do is choose what you want your character to say in the vaguest of senses of and then "fight" aliens by pointing at them and making one of your squad mates throw them across the room.

Yeah, pretty much. That's all you do.

Choosing your class? Your backstory? Facial features? What weapons you specialize in? What skills and abilities? How your character interacts with his allies which then defines how they act and think around you? Your preference of squad? Your preference of weapons, armor, and upgrades? How you think, how you act in such pivotal situations that ultimately define and shape the people and galaxy around you? Nope, none of that's in there. None at all.

None of it feels like it makes the slightest differance in game though. The characters feel quite shallow to me. I prefer KotOR because the characters are actually interesting.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Mass Effect 1 and 2 aren't role playing games, they're role games where all you do is choose what you want your character to say in the vaguest of senses of and then "fight" aliens by pointing at them and making one of your squad mates throw them across the room.

Yeah, pretty much. That's all you do.

Choosing your class? Your backstory? Facial features? What weapons you specialize in? What skills and abilities? How your character interacts with his allies which then defines how they act and think around you? Your preference of squad? Your preference of weapons, armor, and upgrades? How you think, how you act in such pivotal situations that ultimately define and shape the people and galaxy around you? Nope, none of that's in there. None at all.

None of it feels like it makes the slightest differance in game though. The characters feel quite shallow to me. I prefer KotOR because the characters are actually interesting.

Now, that is a matter of opinion vs. what is and isn't. Yeah, the characters didn't quite do it for you, but it's there. The choices you make are there. The way you impact their lives are still there. And, to some people, we enjoyed the characters and the decisions we made for them.

 

[Chunko]

It's not an RPG it's just a shooter with RPG elements. A really really good shooter with RPG elements.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

EDIT: Sorry, browser fucked up and my post didn't show up.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

It's not an RPG it's just a shooter with RPG elements. A really really good shooter with RPG elements.

What part did you disagree with in my post?

 

[Shilkanni]

The ability to make and direct the decisions of your character is hardly the only feature of RPGs. Video game RPGs are based on tabletop RPGs, which had many different aspects to them. The actual playing of a character role is only one of those; the statistics, battle systems, and customization are others.

I agree with this, features of a pen & paper RPG like D&D usually include:
- Character customisation on creation: Class/Race/Gender/Stats
- Combat system based around dice rolls and Stats, Abilities, Items, Spells
- Improvement of character through levelling, increasing stats, increasing skills, acquiring items.
- Role-playing, acting out the role of your character in the story.
- Freedom, having choices and having your decisions make an impact on the world.

I'm sure there's other stuff I've missed.

No Computer-RPG needs to do all of these things for us to call it an RPG. If it does a lot of these things we usually call it an RPG. If it does only a few of these things we might say it has 'RPG elements' especially if it plays more like another genre.

The way I look at it: Mass Effect is an RPG with shooter elements. Borderlands is a shooter with RPG elements. Final Fantasy might have no Freedom or character customisation... but everything it *does* leave in there (story focus, RPG-style combat) are traits of an RPG.

 

[Sronpop]

Truthfully I much prefer Mass Effects take on the RPG genre than other games who follow the genres more strict rules. A RPG does not need to be a glorified looting game with lots of stats and items to worry about, it should, at its core be about the character you are playing and how it relates to you and your experience.

The fact that people bash on ME2 for losing so called RPG elements is mind boggling, if anything it is more of an RPG than the first one since the narrative is so much deeper(although the morality in the first one was handled with just the right amount of care compared to the seconds which felt a little extreme at times).

A sincerely wish more 'RPG' games decide to follow the route of mass effect move away from the genres strict guidelines for what it should be.

 

[ChocoFace]

snip

soooo... every game ever created can be thought of as an RPG? alright.

And yes, Mass Effect is definitely an RPG. If you want to tag it with a sub-genre, it'd be shooter, as in RPG-shooter. Simple as that.

 

[oceanwavezero]

I'd like to point out FPS is hardly a genre, but a control scheme. There are games people just define as FPSes because they're action movie style and doesn't take gameplay beyond movement, such as Army of Two. And then multiplayer FPSes which are hardly anything other than the controls. As soon as there is some customization, statbuilding, true exploration, or well told story involved; it is no longer just an FPS, as it has become something more than the controls.

 

[Mutie]

I have stopped classing games as RPGs. Despite the fact that they are my favourite game, it is a moot term. You always play a role in any game, perhaps even LESS so in RPGs... (silent protagonists and such)

The only series I can comfortably call and RPG is the Fable series, but I know everyone in the world ever will disagree with me. Ever other game ever is just and Action Adventure. Judge a game by it's own qualities, not by it's supposed genre's... apart form, like, sports games and racing games.

 

[mad825]

I can't accept Mass Effect as an RPG because Shepard is already a defined character. What sets an RPG apart is the slot where you define your own character.

Then KOTOR isn't an RPG either because Revan is already a defined character.

I think that's nonsense. Only Shepard's name is already defined. You can choose Shepard's sex, talents, play style, love interest, personality, etc. That's enough for me to call it a role playing game.

perhaps you need to go play KOTOR again? you are playing as someone who has "amnesia", you may wish to "become" Revan again if you wish however but you are still technically a new person who has yet to predefine their (your) identity

again, you fail to see why they left the surname unchangeable, as you could see Bioware wanted the voice acting to relate to the user and the only way to do that was to have a predefine (sur)name.

 

[JackRyan64]

This is why we need new game genres. Seriously, who cares if it's an RPG?

Edit: Is it just me, or do people seem to think that if you label a certain game as an RPG it's inherently superior to other games just because it's an RPG? I think people really need to get their heads out of their asses and stop caring about what genres their games are. The Zelda games and Half-Life games aren't typically considered RPG's, but they're still WAY better than any of the tripe BioWare or any non-Fallout thing Bethesda puts out IMHO.

 

[ChocoFace]

Exactly.It isn't so much more complicated than that.

Oh. you thought i was agreeing with you. awkward. I actually think you have serious flaws in your arguments and that you're making less sense by the minute.

 

[dlawnro]

In my opinion, the classification "RPG" deals with the story, the ability to make a character the way you want it to be and actively choose how you want the character to act when the situation allows for more than one option.
Things like turn-based systems or first-person shooting deal with the combat. Because of that, the story itself and the ability to do the previously mentioned things are not affected by whether the game is a shooter or turn-based or what have you. They are two completely different elements of the game. An RPG can have turn-based or shooting combat, in the same way a linear game can have either of those systems.

Basically, whether a game is an RPG or not has nothing to do with the combat because combat and story are like an engine and a battery in a car; they're two completely separate things that rely on one another, but changing the battery doesn't make the engine any different.

 

[Oinodaemon]

isnt every game more or less a role playing game? In mario, i play the role of a plumber sucked into the mushroom kingdom, rescuing a princess. In Kotor, i play the role of an amnesiac Sith lord. In JRPG's, i play the role of an androgynous teen trying to save the world from some sort of evil thing.

i could go on and on....ANY game can fit into these confines, and EVERY game is a role playing game...

 

[Xanadu84]

The problem is that simply defining a Role playing game as a game where you take on the role of a character would mean that Half Life is a Role playing game. Red Alert would be a Roleplaying game. Katimary would be a Roleplaying game. And quite possibly, you could argue that Final Fantasy, Baulders Gate and Dragon Age ARN'T Roleplaying Games, because you control a number of characters instead of just one. So lets try to break it down a little more, and, Ill grant, purely from my perspective.

First of all, the idea of Role Playing is universal to nearly all games. When the game is meant to express a story of some sort, you take on the roles of the entities involved in order to make meaningful choices. Role playing is ubiquitous even outside of our defined RPG Genre. Thanks to the early P+P RPG systems, and the association between the idea of playing a role, and making a story, the RPG Genre came into being.

Some games are more RPG-ish then others: There is no discrete line. Its like lightening up the color red, and trying to say when it turns into pink. It is entirely subjective, and a sliding scale that people can legitimately disagree on, even though everyone can agree that as you get very light, it's universally seen as pink. You can agree on the directions, but not necessarily the lines. What traits add RPG Flavor? Well I think they are these.

1) Emphasis on choosing the physical actions of an individual, leading to an effect on the game state.
2) Emphasis on the ability to choose the abilities and characteristics of that individual.

A shooter or action game focuses less on the choosing of the physical action, and more on a simulation of the action itself. An RPG is more prone to letting you choose, and then observing the consequence. RPGs tend to allow customization to give the person more choice over the characters properties. Other games streamline the process, or give a set path. This definition seems to be surprisingly robust.

In my opinion, Mass Effect was an RPG with heavy action elements. Mass Effect 2 is an action game with heavy RPG elements. To argue over if it is a shooter or RPG is like agreeing that a person is 6 foot 1, but arguing over if that means that he is, "Tall".

 

[UBERfionn]

Your 100% right in my book.

It's about making and ROLE PLAYING your character.
JRPG's are not RPG's for that reason.

The same goes for you too.

RPG's are about role playing. Menu systems and exp help in the role playing but it's just one part of it. the core is the role playing.

I'm sure there are some JRPG's that do have proper role playing in them but mmost don't and are still labeled as RPG's.

JRPG's can be awesome but just because you have exp and menu's does not make you an RPG.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I mean, what defines an Role Playing Game? I know a lot of people here would disagree with this, but both me and my friend agree that the proof is in the title. Role Playing. You're character is your own. The games story bends and twists at your actions. The exact type of thing that KotOR does. And that's my argument.

And that's where you are wrong.
Roleplaying implies putting yourself into the role of a character and acting how that character would act.
Roleplaying does NOT imply you creating yourself in a game and doing the choices YOU would make.

That's something that Bioware didn't understand when they choose to bash Final Fantasy.

I'll put it like this;
Roleplaying is a very broad perspective. Any game where you are thrust into a character and ordered to act as that one can be dubbed Roleplaying. Because RPG does not need to involve stats nor choices nor a fantasy world even though that's what we've come to get used to with the term.

In general, Roleplaying games are easily spotted and yes, Mass Effect is an RPG/TPS hybrid - but is that a bad thing? Neverwinter Nights is a RPG/ThirdPerson game also. Oblivion is a RPG/FP/TP and so is Morrowind.

But if we're going to get alteast one thing straight, it's this;

[HEADING=1]Roleplaying games are not solely about you creating a character and doing "choices". It's about putting yourself into the role of a character and living it out. If anyone refuse to accept that term, then you simply don't understand it and are free to ego-roleplay as much as you'd want.[/HEADING]​

And herein lies the main problem with this entire dumb argument; there is no concrete definition for what the term role-playing actually encompasses. That term means many different things for different people. Some people view it the way you do, others have the opposite viewpoint. But neither side is correct. God never came down from Heaven and proclaimed one definition to be superior to the other. So your definition of role playing game isn't correct. Neither is anyone elses. Hence leading to this pointless argument in which both sides fiercely bicker over a pointless label, when neither side has any proof that they are actually correct. It's one of the most absurd arguments I've ever heard, and I have no idea why so many people participate in it when it is only about classification, and nothing more.