I love RPG’s very much: in fact, I’d go so far as to say that I love them more than a good majority of the experiences that life is capable of offering.
While consuming a varied diet of video gaming goodness is essential for a healthy & balanced lifestyle, there is nothing quite like a good role playing game. The epic nature of your quest, the huge world full of secrets to discover, the satisfaction of witnessing your character(s) slowly become stronger – gaming just doesn’t get any better than that. As a child of the 80′s who has been hooked on the genre since the first time he fired up Dragon Warrior on the NES, it remains this author’s opinion that the best RPGs easily rank with the highest tier of entertainment in any medium. The quintets of Miles Davis, the novels of Haruki Murakami, the films of Stanley Kubrick, and great RPG’s: they all stand on the same pedestal in my world.
So, why is it that some RPG’s are fantastic, memorable experiences, and others can feel like a chore? First, it would help to back things up a bit: what type of game exactly are we talking about here?
For the sake of simplicity, the focus of this article will remain on single-player games that primarily embody the traditional characteristics of video role playing games: character abilities determined by statistics, character growth through leveling, focus on narrative and exploration, and menu-driven interfaces. Specific styles of RPG’s such as MMORPG’s (World of Warcraft), loot and level action RPG’s (Diablo III), and first person dungeon crawlers (Etrian Odyssey) will not fall into this discussion.
After nearly a quarter of a century spent playing these games, I have come to believe that there are certain guidelines that an RPG should follow in order to effectively deliver a substantial and meaningful experience. Likewise, if an RPG stumbles in more than a couple of these areas, the game more often than not will wear out its welcome long before the end credits roll. So with that said, here are… (**Summons Bahamut, who drops through clouds and delivers 2 stone tablets **) …the 10 Commandments that all video game RPG’s should follow!
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9 Comments
enjoyed reading, well-written music is essential to delivering all the elements to an RPG. Guild Wars 2 fear not this night… :)
Hey Tyler, thanks for reading and for leaving the comment!
A good half of my friends list on Steam plays Guild Wars 2 regularly. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the game, and how it’s really doing really cool, new things in the MMORPG space. One of these days, as soon as my single-player backlog is down, I’m going to take the plunge and see what the talk is all about. Cheers!
I love RPGs when they incorporated all the rules you mentioned correctly. It made me think how much it actually interferes with the gameplay when just one of the factors you mentioned aren’t there.
I mean the level sphere chart thingy in FFX? Sweet game but without the guidebook I would have never made it.
Hello Michael, thanks for reading my article! I agree with you about Final Fantasy X. The game has some very glaring flaws, but overall I still really like the game. I’m really looking forward to the day when the HD version of it finally surfaces.
I’m surprised beautiful women is not one of the commandments. XD
Since you’re going to spend so much time playing an RPG, having at least one nice looking female character in the party is always a must. There’s always the designated Brute of a party. So there’s also always a designated Pretty Lady of a party. Hell, even when the whole party is pretty ladies there’s a designated brute, such as Paine in Final Fantasy X-2.
Hmm, while on this topic, there’s an article idea for you. “Top 10 Hottest/Most Beautiful Women in RPGs”. 8D
Stopped reading at “Commander Shepard is so well-written and well-developed”
This may be one of the most well-written and enjoyable articles I have come across at this site. Thank you
Thank you, RazBerrey, for the compliment, and for taking the time to read. Cheers!
Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid was simple to understand if you were capable of comprehension. That’s a poor excuse for anybody who is a gamer that plays RPGs. Maybe for somebody 10 and under it’s hard to understand but I remember playing this and having no problems understand it or Blitzball.