10 Golden Commandments All RPG Games Should Follow

1. Give The Game Great Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWHkMEgXBI8 An excellent score or soundtrack on top of an epic RPG is icing on the cake. While this quality may not be as critical as the previous nine points I've listed here, great music in a RPG in a way feels like glue that binds everything together. It's one of the things you remember the most clearly when you reflect back on the game years after you played it, like a song from your youth that brings back fond memories. The best soundtracks capture the emotional arcs of games, giving individual characters, places, and/or events memorable themes that are impossible to separate from the game elements themselves. One of the supreme masters of the genre, Nobuo Uematsu, has blessed us with some of gaming's most definitive examples of musical works that are every bit as much a part of a game's foundation as the mechanics. His works on the classic Final Fantasy games from the Super Famicom and Playstation eras are among the finest examples of RPG musical composition, as is his most recent work on The Last Story for the Nintendo Wii. Other recent WRPG's have taken a more cinematic approach to music composition, using music in a more event-specific manner to enhance the individual moods of certain occurrences as opposed to having variations on similar themes like older RPG's would. While this method may sometimes result in music that is more in-the-moment as opposed to something that will last, it often results in powerfully effective work that enhances the game experience in significant ways (Skyrim comes to mind). And lastly, there is the use of preexisting works in RPG's. I've returned to Fallout 3 a multitude of times throughout this list, and I shall one more time here, as Fallout 3 gave us perhaps the finest example in all of RPG gaming of using preexisting licensed work to perfectly with the game content. Eternal Sonata's use of Chopin's beautiful piano music is another sterling example of this that comes to mind. Regardless of whether the music is created specifically for the game, or is taken from existing works, most of the best RPG's in gaming's history have a fantastic music to accompany the long journey taken by the character and the player controlling him/her. This should never change. RPG's are complex, multifaceted, deep video games that are capable of delivering experiences unlike anything else out there. Developers should always keep in mind these 10 commandments as they set out on the journey to create these amazing worlds that we so love to live in. As we approach the next generation of hardware, the possibilities available to RPG's is staggering to think about, but the core foundation of what has made these games great for decades will remain the same. Happy questing!