What makes a good RPG game ?

[JMeganSnow]

Hmm. Most of the replies thus far seem kind of generic. I would list my requirements in order of importance, like so:

1. Story.
2. Aesthetic appeal. This includes everything from graphics to music to voice acting. I don't care if the graphics are cutting-edge as long as they look beautiful. Some of the older games I have (Gothic, Drakan) are STILL MORE BEAUTIFUL than newer games with better graphics.
3. Interesting challenges. This can come from fights or puzzles or what-have-you. Being *difficult* is not the same thing as being *interesting*. Variety is the spice of life. Ideally you want the game to constantly engage you in the process of trying to outsmart it (even if this isn't terribly hard) so you have a sense of accomplishment.
4. A sense of freedom. I like "open world" games for this reason. It can be rewarding just to have the ability to get out and wander around in an interesting environment. It also makes games where you can "break" quests by doing things "in the wrong order" (or similar problems) extremely painful to play.

I see gear and the character leveling system (assuming there is one) as a means to an end, not an end in themselves, so I can take or leave them.

Yatzhee actually mentioned something that I have been harping about for years. I'd like to see RPG's where the entire experience is integrated. That means, for instance, that the "game mechanics" are actually treated like the "physics" of the game and are taken into account. In an integrated game, you'd never be sitting with a scroll of resurrection while a party member dies dramatically a la NwN2. The "side quests" and "main plot" should also tie together in some way so that you're never doing some stupidly artificial thing like neglecting to save the world so that you can go fetch a dozen boopstickles for some helpless yahoo.

If you're looking to create an immersive world, the first thing you have to do is to hide the seams.

 

[SamLowry]

What makes a good RPG game? --> The R in it. Which gets neglected by default in any computer-based game and instead replaced with useless gathering of 'things', be it gold, exp, etc.

 

[poleboy]

I don't think a real RPG that has been released in a long, long time.
As much as I love JRPG's, they rarely even pretend that you, the player, has any relevance in the story. They are interactive novels, and Neo-Bahamut bless them for that. The world certainly needs more storytelling. But I don't think it has much to do with role-playing.
Western RPG's have had their moments. Baldur's Gate, KOTOR and other Blizzard or Bioware titles all give you some basic good/evil choices.

Neverwinter Nights (the first one) is somewhat unique in this aspect, in that it was as much a tool for roleplaying as it was a game. Some of the best roleplay I've been part of has taken place while playing custom-made, almost MMO-like games on private servers using the NWN client. In some ways, NWN has provided me with more role-playing experiences than any other game.
I think Fallout deserves an honorable mention as well. Even the first one lets the player impact the world in ways that the Elder scrolls series still struggles with in my opinion. Most of the larger quests in the game gave you some choices that were not always obvious, but which would affect how the world fared after you left it. And let's not forget the fact that you could beat the last boss with... dialogue. How's that for playing a role?

Finally we have Planescape: Torment, my personal favorite game evah!
If anything, Torment embodies the interactive novel concept more than any other game. You will spend at least twice as much time reading as fighting if you want to experience the full game. But choice is also abundant, and ultimately shapes your destiny in ways you can't even imagine the first time yoy play it. The influence you have over your companions also makes for some interesting... role-playing? Yes, I think it is. I'm not quite sure, though.

So what is my point? Well, in order for a game to qualify as an RPG in my eyes, it should feature at least some of the following:

1) player choice
2) consequence of choice
3) ability to permanently impact the world around you
4) compelling story/interesting plot

Notice that I did not include a leveling system. Mechanics has little to do with role-playing. While I do enjoy fiddling with stats and looting Awesome Swords of Bodily Harm +5, these are systems that relate to action, not choice or story.

 

[TomWhitbrook]

I think that far too often the simple mechanics of being a game are ignored when evaluating the quality of RPG's. People seem willing to ignore any number of gameplay flaws, especially in the "classics" in the name of telling a good story. The Fallout games are a case in point, with some of the worst combat around, as well as being quite intriguingly bug ridden and were at the time massive system hogs. The gameplay and the game experience has to be solid. No one cares if each vegetable in the game world has unique attributes for crispness and freshness, if the game crashes twice a minute and when you are playing it looks like a badly textured excel spreadsheet.

I think that one of the most important qualities a good RPG needs is immersion. You really have got to feel that you are this man, experiencing this story, this world, and to do that your world needs to feel internally consistent. Take World of Warcraft as an example; excellent gameplay thats well refined and doesn't weigh you down with useless abilities, let down by a world in which the chat channel is spammed by gold farmers every six seconds. Thats not even taking into account all the ridiculous sci fi references the developers whacked in, or that motorbike mount they've got coming in the expansion; when you see something you know doesn't make sense, you can't help being thrown outof the experience.

Choice and consequence is a big one on many hardcore RPGer's list's too, and it is important. But if the choice is going to be meaningful, it needs to occur within the gameplay. Fallout fell prey to this one, wherein choices you made didn't have any relevance beyond changing the end cinematic, putting it on the level of those survival horror games where you have to be carrying the rooster key and have walked no more than 15,972 steps but not less than 15,970 steps at the final boss to see the best ending. A player needs to see change within the timeframe of his gameplay experience to give it real meaning, and I think there are very few games that manage that, let alone in the sub genre of RPG's.

 

[poleboy]

I think that far too often the simple mechanics of being a game are ignored when evaluating the quality of RPG's. People seem willing to ignore any number of gameplay flaws, especially in the "classics" in the name of telling a good story. The Fallout games are a case in point, with some of the worst combat around, as well as being quite intriguingly bug ridden and were at the time massive system hogs.

I can't say I recognize any of those issues, but I admit that the games were not exactly brand new when I first played them. What exactly was wrong with the combat system? You could play reasonably well using any of the fighting styles, even unarmed. If you are refering to the fact that you tend to miss a lot in the beginning, that mostly depends on how you spend your stat/skill points. You can easily make an invincible tank character, but he will likely be stupid and less fun to play when not fighting.

Choice and consequence is a big one on many hardcore RPGer's list's too, and it is important. But if the choice is going to be meaningful, it needs to occur within the gameplay. Fallout fell prey to this one, wherein choices you made didn't have any relevance beyond changing the end cinematic, putting it on the level of those survival horror games where you have to be carrying the rooster key and have walked no more than 15,972 steps but not less than 15,970 steps at the final boss to see the best ending. A player needs to see change within the timeframe of his gameplay experience to give it real meaning, and I think there are very few games that manage that, let alone in the sub genre of RPG's.

Good point. Fallout does sort of save all the consequences for the end movie, which has less of an impact. I still think it is one of the better examples of real consequence of choice in a game, though.

Do you have any examples of games you think live up to your ideals?

 

[TomWhitbrook]

Lordy no, poleboy. There's never been a perfect one, although I find that little things can touch upon things that I like to. For example, the KOTOR series reflection of your personality in the warping effect the force has on a dark sider's body, and the fact that your companions actually comment on that, is a big deal to me, as the sum of your actions is reflected in the gradual changes to your character. However, the Lord giveth and He taketh away, as that game was also impressively buggy. Same true of the witcher, wherin choices have consequences for you in the game, again let down by shoddy coding and some truly awful dialogue, as well as some design choices that while faithful to the source material feel like they're catering to 12 year old boys. WOW goes the opposite route, by having exceptionally solid gameplay with no useless filler abilities combined with a chuck norris jokes every five minutes.

As for Fallout's combat, turn based combat where you can have twenty opponents who all get to go individually when you only have one guy and thus only one slot in the combat round just doesn't work. DnD, the real game I mean, gets around this by having similar monsters go at the same time, something that speeds up play quite impressively. If Fallout could manage that just move all of its rats and faceless bandit mooks in one go, or indeed, just goddamn faster, it would be a lot better. How about having one monster, the swarm of rats, a living tide of vermin flesh? And it was much, much worse back when it was first released. Plus, if you can aim for the eyes, theres no reason not to, as the slightly reduced chance to hit is insignificant compared to the massive additional effects. To be honest, the whole skill system and trait system needs a shake, whith some choices being incredibly useless and some so superior that everyone takes them, which means that it isn't really a proper choice at all. It makes up for it in that unmatchable sense of atmosphere, that immersive quality, an experience in which you can almost taste the ashes of humanity.

Edited for some truly shocking SPAG.

 

[ike_luv]

The point I'm getting at here is, character's need depth which is getting harder to find outside of the FF series (irony).



Also, enemies need to be more original than dragons,ogres and golems of lava.

I would agree with this on top of my coming point. The enemies do seem to overlap in the genre quite a bit! You can't have an RPG without a dragon nowadays, nor some blubber looking thing with a smile on its face! But for me personally if the RPG has a wank story, I'm not playing it. Simple. I don't care if it completely changes the way you play a game, or it looks like it was happening right in front of your very eyes, I would much rather get myself stuck into a bit of plot and depth!!

 

[Alex_P]

What makes a good RPG game? --> The R in it. Which gets neglected by default in any computer-based game and instead replaced with useless gathering of 'things', be it gold, exp, etc.

Meh. There's just as much "roleplaying" in a game like Mass Effect as there is in an average game of D&D. It's just done differently. More constrained, but also much better integrated with the story "railroad."

-- Alex

 

[Jhereg42]

Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats a solid table top game.

That being said, I grade my RPGs on two different scales. First, how close do they come to emulating a table top game. Second, is the story good enough that I could care less about the emulation.

KOTOR 2's influence system and character interaction made me feel like I was playing the game with other players at times. The story up to the rushed ending (go TSLRP project) was good enough to draw me in on top of that. As great as the original Kotor was, I felt that aspects of the second game really advanced the genre as a whole.

Torment's characters we the same way in how well writen they were. There were times I completely forgot that I was following a game script.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Alpha Protocol, the Alien's RPG, and Dragon Age look like. The designers at Obsidian (former Black Isle) and Bioware have a history of not just crafting an RPG, but pushing the bounds of what an RPG can be.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

RPG's as of late have become the most recent victims of this current generations videogame flaw: A lack of storytelling.

I am sorry, but when you are playing a character in a story that copies every mythological/religious/epic/byronic hero premise you are indebted to make a good story. Most people do not want to admit this and sadly even the greatness of the Final Fantasy series past part eight, though more particularly around FFX, has declined due to a lack of what I believe made the series initially good in the first place.

-Strange avant-garde characters
-Large worlds that brought all types of cultures into a unique environment
-Monsters of some acceptable and new design (This is currently kapoot, even with the current trend being to rip off the past)
-Good battle customization
-Great music.
-Sidequests galore. Do you remember how FUN just going around the world in FF7 was once you got the Highwind? That feeling can enver be duplicated again. Yes FF6 fanboys, the 3D feeling was better than a 2D map.
-Emotion...FFT. Teta's death, Delita coming to power by murdering [XXXX XXXXXXX], the revelation as to who the final villain is...
Let me see the modern J-Pop acne ridden geeks come up with that story.

I believe I have said it in full.

This is one of the first GOOD and FAIR criticisms I've seen of JRPG's... they REALLY need to grow up and having just seen/read IGN's review of Infinite Undiscovery it has never been more apparent.

 

[Tryzon]

Freedom, ability to kill any characters you hate, non-turn based combat, no random encounters, standard stuff like that. I still say that if one were to combine Morrowind and Oblivion, filter out the tripe, trim a few things and improve others, and it would be the ultimate single-player RPG experience.

 

[jamie5166]

I think that the best RPG i have ever played is Mass effect its not perfect and it has its flaws but the charcter customisation was pretty good i was impressed by the depth of detail of the game from the single little flashing light on your gun to the enviroments. one of the things i was most impressed by was the depth story and how your actions changes the way the game treats you. i could sit here all day and go on about the good things about it but the only way you will actually see what i am saying is true is if you get up and go play the game.

 

[DarthNader26]

Freedom, of course. RPGs should be about creating your OWN story. Roleplaying the way YOU want. Most JRPGs are WAY to linear, IMHO. There's no freedom. Sure, there are skill trees and story sets, but either way you end up at the same goal, no matter how good or evil you try to be. If you want to be an evil baker who laces all of his goodies with deadly toxins, then kills enemies by force-feeding them with a funnel, you should be able to do that. Shoot, even being able to choose between stealth, archery, melee, and magic can really allow for players with different tastes to enjoy it in their own way. Or once you finish you can go back and play again, with a different skills set, and get an entirely different experience. Good and evil choices are starting to become more prominent in WRPGs (I've stopped playing JRPGs, so I can't vouch for them) and they can really add a lot of entertainment and value to a game. Being able to play through once as a saint, then go back through and stomp on every child/kitten/puppy you can find can be immensely entertaining, and allow for a lot of depth.


Basically, freedom, choices, and openness.

 

[jamie5166]

Basically, freedom, choices, and openness.

sort of what mass effect is, but it is a bit linear

 

[DarthNader26]

Basically, freedom, choices, and openness.

sort of what mass effect is, but it is a bit linear

That's the reason I liked Oblivion/Morrowind so much. You don't want to follow the story? Alright, forget it. You can go around stealing all the green vases in the country, build up a reputation as a dangerous vase thief, then have the guards go ballistic every time they see you for the simple crime of swiping a vase. In most JRPGs, the vase is a pretty prop. Stealing it (if you can steal it) has little to no effect on the world. The guards won't react any differently, etc.etc.

 

[LewsTherin]

Again, D&D is king.

Blindly following the D&D formula is exactly what makes so many RPG video games (not to mention pen-and-paper RPGs) absolute crap.

-- Alex

Because videogames don't as of yet have the versatility of a good DM

 

[jamie5166]

Basically, freedom, choices, and openness.

sort of what mass effect is, but it is a bit linear

That's the reason I liked Oblivion/Morrowind so much. You don't want to follow the story? Alright, forget it. You can go around stealing all the green vases in the country, build up a reputation as a dangerous vase thief, then have the guards go ballistic every time they see you for the simple crime of swiping a vase. In most JRPGs, the vase is a pretty prop. Stealing it (if you can steal it) has little to no effect on the world. The guards won't react any differently, etc.etc.

im completely with you on that one

 

[ianuam]

Immersion, storyline etc are obviously important, but these need to fit together with something.. else, an emotional connection to the world, and to drive you on to see what happens.

 

[ianuam]

Oh and length, so the storyline has time to develop properly and a connection to the game world made, otherwise you're left feeling rushed.

 

[Proto Cloud]

What makes a good RPG?

-no stock character (both East and West have problems with this)
-inventive fantasy worlds
-story that is fresh and compelling (no more shit like kid that has his hometown destroyed/end of the world bosses/Overly used mythos)
-Good gameplay system that brings something new to the fold
-Great soundtrack

Example: Final Fantasy VI.

EDIT: Freedom is great as long as the they are worth it. I absolutely hated Elder Scrolls because the world was dull and uninspiring.

Example: Fallout series.