/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5135134]

And before you say it: No, this isn't a Baldur's Gate thread because there's already one.

I'm trying to get into cRPG's as a big JRPGfag and I heard their gameplay systems tend to be more sophisticated than the simplistic nature of the JRPG's, while at the same time maintain a quality of story and characters.

Is this true? If so, where can I start? Obviously I want something retro as the newer entries to the genre are either bugged to shit (Pathfinder) or... idk what Divinity: Original Sin 2 is. I just want to start "from the beginning" and go through a few "must plays" of the genre.

I'm guessing pic related is a good start?

[Anonymous No.5135140]

RPG Codex's top 70 is a great list to go by:
https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9453

[Anonymous No.5135146]

>>5135140
Seconded, this one has the advantage of being from a community that for all its faults still plays those old RPGs. It's generally pretty well explained why you should play them, even the ones that look like they'd be too archaic to enjoy nowadays. I picked up Might & Magic series from that list.

[Anonymous No.5135180]

Baldurs Gate is a good place to start. Dragon Age origins is newer and also pretty good to start with.

[Anonymous No.5135213]

>>5135140
>Dark Souls
So, do I just pick whatever?

[Anonymous No.5135220]

>>5135213
entry-level RTwP: Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale
entry-level first-person turn-based dungeon crawler: Might & Magic 3-5
entry-leve first-person real-time dungeon crawler: Might & Magic 6-8
turn-based isometric/top-down: Fallout, Gold Box, Dark Sun
Western jRPG: Planescape: Torment
and you're set
also lurk moar

[Anonymous No.5135309]

This just misses the retro cutoff date because it's from 2001 but fuck it I'm gonna recommend it anyway. I think Arcanum is a really good starting point for CRPGs. The gameplay is very similar to Fallout or Baldur's Gate except it's a bit more refined and easier to get into. Plus it's just a great game with a unique setting.

[Anonymous No.5135437]

>>5135134
You can start with Baldur's Gate 2, sure. It isn't meant to be a beginner's game though. Its one of the few RPG series designed for advanced players. And it sure isn't "starting from the beginning", being released in 2000, 20 years into PC RPG gaming.

[Anonymous No.5136881]

>>5135134
I would say go for Fallout 1
it is the epitome of CRPG
but unlike most top rpg-codex picks is surprisingly beginner-friendly and can be finished rather quickly

[Anonymous No.5137175]

>>5136881
I love FO1 and 2 but I just couldn't get into BG, I suck at combat too much

[Anonymous No.5137197]

>>5135134
You can go REALLY retro with D&D games, e.g. the Gold Box series or Dark Sun. These have worse graphics but are easier to get started

The main drawback to Baldur's Gate is

#1 manually pausing in combat
#2 complicated if you aren't familiar with D&D, both character creation and interface

[Anonymous No.5137225]

>>5136881
Probably the game that made me (and everyone of my friends) into CRPG nerds back in the day.

[Anonymous No.5137336]

>>5135140
> Anachronox is the second best JRPG produced in the West (right after the timeless classic Planescape: Torment, of course).
'Seems worth reading', he said sarcastically.

[Anonymous No.5137574]

>>5135140
Yea play everygame on here.

>>5135134
Also im a CRPG fan trying to get into JRPGs but the slow burn info dumps and slow ass gameplay really kills me. These games feel artificially inflated and expected to needlessly grind with 60+hr game time

[Anonymous No.5137579]

>>5137175
>>5136881
Strange Fallout 1 and 2 is a huge pleb filter. Most people give up at the rats and the F2 opening test thing.

BG1 also filtets plebs with kobold arrows

But they're pretty easy if you know what you're doing and my favorite games.

[Anonymous No.5137586]

>>5137197
Weird how BG is easier than the gold box games. Old games like Lands of Lore/Bards Tale/Eye of the Beholder are punishing as fuck. Not for the feint of heart and people who dont know to use graph paper and or mapmods

[Anonymous No.5137606]

If you're already into JRPGs and would like to get into CRPGs, this might help bridge the gap for you

[Anonymous No.5137786]

>>5137606
No avoid this like the plague. Its boring as fuck

[Anonymous No.5137829]

>>5137786
This. It's really shitty, no FF is worth wasting your time.

[Anonymous No.5137843]

>>5137606
Yes play this like its a cure for the plague. Its fun as fuck

[Anonymous No.5137847]

>>5137336
Torment was heavily inspired by FF7.

[Anonymous No.5137881]

>>5137579
>Strange Fallout 1 and 2 is a huge pleb filter.
u for real?
never saw a person that couldn't get at least to vault 15 in F 1

[Anonymous No.5137884]

>>5137586
>Lands of Lore
>use graph paper and or mapmods
LoL has an automap
beautiful game, but gameplay-wise it's shit tier

[Anonymous No.5137905]

Try Wizardry 8 at some point for sure. It doesn't have as much NPC interaction and choices and consequences as games like Fallout, Arcanum or Baldur's Gate, but I think it has the best party building and turn-based combat in the genre.

[Anonymous No.5137908]

>>5135134
That game has a 2. How a 2 of anything can be good to start? Start with 1.

[Anonymous No.5138003]

>>5137847
No it actually wasnt lol

[Anonymous No.5138006]

>>5137881
Are.....are you joking? Have you been to /v/ or anywhere that talks about Fallout. 3 and 4 fans who got the mininuke try out 1 and 2 and get raped and say bethesda did it better and interplay/black isle is trash lol.


>>5137884
Wasnt talking about automap with LoL i mean old games like Wizardry and Gold Box games

[Anonymous No.5138058]

Beamdog is guilty of a number of different crimes. Here are the major ones.

1. The Enhanced Editions are essentially a collection of free mods that had existed for nearly twenty years. Beamdog gathered them all up, slapped "Enhanced Edition" on it and resold it as a new product. There's very very little in the Enhanced Editions that wasn't already out there, and most of it is stuff you don't want (like obnoxious character outlines).

2. The games didn't sell so well and the originals were still far outselling them, even twenty years after their release, so Beamdog had EVERY digital distributor stop selling the originals and ONLY sell the Enhanced Edition. If you want to buy a digital copy of the originals now, they're "bundled" into the Enhanced Edition. Now these scumbags can claim sales from people just wanting to buy the originals as their own.

3. The infamous 600+ bugs on launch. The game is still riddled with bugs (as even a perfunctory glance over their forums show) but the fact that it took nearly two years for them to get a game that had been working fine for 20 years to reach playability after launch is telling of their wild incompetence.

4. This is where we get to the ones that really piss people off. Beamdog couldn't just remaster the game, they had to fuck with the content too. New dialogue for existing NPCs like Jaheira, Viconia, Safana, Kivan, et cetera was written in to make the characters more progressive and leftist friendly. Beamdog shills will argue that "adding content isn't changing content XDDD" but it is when the new content changes the core personalities of the existing characters. This is in addition to adding a slew of their own LGBT (hitherto there were none in Baldur's Gate) NPCs, all flooded with OP attributes and magic items to encourage people to play them despite their cancer.

5. Siege of motherfucking Dragonspear.

[Anonymous No.5138320]

>>5138006
I you can see F3 (4) > F1(2) threads from time to time, but I figure this is just your regular everyday bait thread. zoomers who can't stomach F1/2 era graphics and design just don't care enough about F1/2

>and get raped and say bethesda did it better
are you sure this is how it went for them? I mean, I can believe that a person may not reach vault 15 in F1 because he quits, but he quits not because he got raped by monsters.
I have a feeling you are making this part up.

[Anonymous No.5138358]

>>5137336
>> Anachronox is the second best JRPG produced in the West (right after the timeless classic Planescape: Torment, of course).
>'Seems worth reading', he said sarcastically.
what did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.5138380]

>>5135140
>Dark Souls is on the list
Ha ha, holy shit, why not Zelda 2 and Symphony of the Night while we're at it? They're also action/rpgs.

[Anonymous No.5138417]

>>5138320
Dude i have literally seen multiple posts about dying to Rats and giving up and people who cant get past the F2 trial

Now i think youre baiting because this is widely known if you ever watched Fallout threads.

[Anonymous No.5138419]

>>5138380
Because those games sucks. I dont think SOTN is an RPG but some do and if it were its definitely top 100 material.

Dragons Dogma too.

[Anonymous No.5138425]

I never could get into Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, the Witcher series, etc, but I love western RPGs if done right.

My favorites are Planescape Torment, Fallout 1, Wasteland, KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, Ass Effect 1/2 (shit story), and other games like that.

I think you shouldn't worry too much about what to play, rather than playing what you want to play within the genre.
Everyone loves Morrowind, but why should I waste my precious time playing it when I hate every second of it, and can play something I actually want to play instead?

[Anonymous No.5138982]

Man, I really want to play DoS 1/2, or pathfinder, but damn are these games unoptimized to hell. I can run fallout 4 fairly well with almost no loading times on my w520, but dos 1 or pathfinder, have like 20' loading screens just to get to the main menu, and this for games of similar size to fo4, that are glorified dice-throwing simulators. People dont' want a story, or cut scene, they want a good dungeon, replayability.

I redownloaded BG2 EE, however, the story is so boring and annoying, as well as the 0 replayability within areas- can't redo quest, can't rekill enemies, extremely linear.

[Anonymous No.5138990]

>>5138982
>as well as the 0 replayability within areas- can't redo quest, can't rekill enemies, extremely linear.
...you actually want Radiant quests from Skyrim?

[Anonymous No.5139008]

>>5135134
Fallout 1 is the start of the cRPG Renaissance, immediately followed by BG1.

BG1 is relatively character light, and story-light, but is useful for establishing context (and min-maxing a character import) for the GOAT BG2. Planescape: Torment is up next. Icewind Dale is optional - great game, but not BG2-tier. Fallout 2 rounds things out nicely.

Barely anyone remembers pre-Fallout cRPG's, save for Japan's obsession with Wizardry. Some have crunchy gameplay but most are forgettable though the Ultima series has some very devoted adherents (Treat them like Ys fans who never got modern remakes). Old crpg's weren't awful, but everything after Fallout was just so much better. Better visuals, better aesthetics, more intuitive design, more processing power to expand the complexity of the simulation and add in QoL features... the bar was raised.

[Anonymous No.5139016]

>>5138990
No, but the ability to re-kill a boss-type creature would be nice, you can't even rekill a graveyard skeleton. If you're planing on dual classing, you have to meticulously plan out where to get the necessary leveling experience for you second class.
Radiant quests is the other extreme- eventually boring loot with recycled buffed versions of the mobs you fight as bosses.
Skyrim imo suffers from replayability issues as well, but mostly because every build ends up in the same place and nothing matters. In baldur's gate you have the story and you can't do anything else outside of it, can't kill anything outside of it, it's linear.

[Anonymous No.5139141]

>>5138419
What? Not that guy, but Zelda 2 was a better game than Dark Souls.

[Anonymous No.5139624]

>>5135180
BG1, play as a mage level 1. Die from a single hit from enemies. Even a Fighter level 1 with 18 Constitution could die from a single spell from the assassin in front of Friendly Arms Inn.

[Anonymous No.5139625]

>>5135220
No Wizardry and Ultima games?

[Anonymous No.5139628]

>>5135134
I still need to play Saerileth mod before I die.

[Anonymous No.5139629]

>>5139625
I'd admit Ultima 7 as a quintessential storyfag experience, but completely new people will find earlier titles hard to access. Wizardry's only accessible title is 8, which, while very good, is not retro. Might & Magic 3-5 mostly scratch the Wizardry itch without the difficulty.

It's not like I don't like them, I'm just wary of presenting Wizardry to someone who is completely new because attention spans are at premium.

[Anonymous No.5139632]

>>5138982
I was enjoying Kingmaker, but I eventually got tired of the constant loading and just went back to playing BG again. The loading is insane, and the framerate low, for a game that looks as it does. It was fun though.

[Anonymous No.5139885]

>>5139632
There medium and high options in the graphics menu, and only a few can be turned off- what the fuck? If I want to play in grayscale with only polygons, I should be able to. I don't want a pretty game, I want a good game and runs. As longs I can discern what I'm looking at, unlike a ascii roguelike, it'll be enough.
I'm still angry.

[Anonymous No.5139889]

>>5138320
>I you can see F3 (4) > F1(2) threads from time to time, but I figure this is just your regular everyday bait thread.

Maybe they don't even care about F1-2 but there's a vast majority of people that preffers 3-4 over New Vegas, and considers the later a "rip-off" of Bethesda work. So that pretty much says everything.

[Anonymous No.5139892]

>>5138380
Because the average user of that place is a tryhard that pretends to hate JRPG with passion and always tries to mantain an aura of elitism. But can't despise Souls without looking like a filthy casual, so from now on Souls (and every other JRPG they could like) are WRPG's.

[Anonymous No.5139920]

>>5139892
so glad my dick is above average and I don't have these kinds of problems

[Anonymous No.5139930]

>>5138417
people have been using that as bait for like 2 decades man

[Anonymous No.5140040]

>>5138417
It sure seems I'm right, you have a major case of not being to understand written language.
In every post I mention F1, but you keep talking about the temple.

F1 is practically designed to hold your hand all the way to Junktown on your first playthrough.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's a good thing

[Anonymous No.5140061]

>>5138380
>the list is titled rpg codex top PC rpgs
can't you read? DS was released on PC

also Zelda 2 and Symphony of the Night are not rpgs
also even if they were they are not that good to be on the same list

[Anonymous No.5140070]

>>5139892
you are just so wrong in understanding people's motives youngling
people there don't like jRPG because those are not good RPGs
Dark Souls on the other hand is a good RPG (even if you need to add 'action') so people there like DS
Simple as that

[Anonymous No.5140079]

>>5140061
>Zelda 2 and Symphony of the Night are not rpgs
>implying

[Anonymous No.5140198]

>>5140070
Dark Souls barely qualifies as an RPG. It's almost entirely an action game with minor RPG elements and a surreal, minimalist story.

[Anonymous No.5140293]

>>5140198
>Dark Souls barely qualifies as an RPG
> It's almost entirely an action game
are you for real?!

[Anonymous No.5140362]

>>5140293
yes. can you explain to me how it's more of an RPG than an action game?

[Anonymous No.5140437]

>>5140070
>people there don't like jRPG because those are not good RPGs

There's thousands of JRPG of all kinds, "not being RPG's" or "being bad RPG's" are just bad excuses from people who doesn't even bother to know a little about the games. Since Souls was a big hit they were aware of it and had to make absurd exceptions.
This kind of fake elitism is really common between RPG fans, see "Diablo is not an RPG", "games in real time aren't RPG's" and all the stupid shit it that has been said during the years.

Thanks God it's not general; while making the CRPG project book I don't think anyone involved objected about including japanese games as long as they were released for computers.

[Anonymous No.5140470]

>>5140437
>people there don't like jRPG because those are not good RPGs
>>5140070
Nah, it's more that people traditionally go to RPG Codex to talk about WRPGs as there are plenty of other places where you can discuss JRPGs. There aren't many forums were you can find other people interested in obscure hardcore blobbers compared to forums where you can find people talking about Final Fantasy.

[Anonymous No.5140501]

>>5140293
Dark Souls (and all the Zelda games, actually) are action-adventure games, not RPGs. People see that you can level your character in Dark Souls, have numeric stats, can change equipment, and are in a fantasy setting - these don't define an RPG. Same with Diablo. By the end of the game, you haven't defined Link, the chosen undead, or the-diablo-protagonist nearly at all.

In an RPG, you are Playing the Role of that character and developing it. The big split here is traditionally along WRPG and JRPG lines. In a (modern) JRPG, the focus is on a predefined character. Compare the three protagonists mentioned above with someone like Tidus from FFX. By the end of FFX, you have grown to know Tidus as a character (even if you dislike him), and you are immersed in the drama of that world. By the end of Dark Souls, you kill a bunch of dialogue-less bosses and collect items and keys, selecting from a handful of Yes/No prompts along the way.

In a WRPG, the focus is on taking a "blank slate" character and defining it. Consider Knights of the Old Republic, where you design a character template in the Star Wars setting, and you make choices during quests that define your character's personality in a significant manner, as well as how their storyline develops in a fairly detailed manner.

There's no one saying that Dark Souls is inherently worse than Knights of the Old Republic because the latter is an RPG, they are just pointing out that these are different genres. It's like having Tetris in the top RPG list - great game, but doesn't belong.

[Anonymous No.5140552]

>>5140501
>In a WRPG, the focus is on taking a "blank slate" character and defining it.

What about Gothic and The Witcher.

What personality have your characters in the average blobber. Or in IceWind Dale.

You talk like Bioware or Black Isle invented RPG's. Truth is vast majority of WRPG's never had action/consequence, character interpretation of any kind or morality system. They were about killing monsters, exploring and making your guy/guys stronger.

[Anonymous No.5140553]

>>5140437
>Since Souls was a big hit they were aware of it and had to make absurd exceptions
once again what is the exception here?
is it related to RPG genre? check
was it released for PC? check
is in the top tier RPGs? check

it makes it to top PC RPGs list fucking period
wrap your mind on this

[Anonymous No.5140561]

>>5137336
woosh

[Anonymous No.5140564]

>>5138380
PC released RPGs.

Dark Souls is also a great RPG, the other two aren't.

[Anonymous No.5140567]

>>5140553
If that was the only criterion, then sure it's okay, but I suspect they were doing, mostly, a WRPG list, since we are talking about RPG codex. Also Souls it's usually labeled as an WRPG for whatever reason, so I suspect. But maybe it's just me though.

[Anonymous No.5140580]

>>5140501
>Dark Souls (and all the Zelda games, actually) are action-adventure games, not RPGs.
at this point I can see you are baiting. sure Zelda is an action-adventure game, but DS is definitely has much more RPG elements, enough to make it one of the best cRPGs

thank god another anon already addressed your post
>>5140552

I would just add, consider classic rougelikes, a subgenre of RPGs, consider dungeon-crawlers, a sub-genre of RPGs, consider System Shock 1 not only considered an RPG, but one of the top tier ones.

[Anonymous No.5140584]

>>5140501
Dark Souls is an action RPG.

- It has stats.
- It equipment.
- It has choice & consequence when making your build.

I feel the last point is very underrated when it comes to these discussions. In most games ever made, you don't need to "choose" your build and deal with the consequences. Everything is available to you at the same time. You don't roleplay anything because you can be anything whenever you want.

This is simply not true in proper RPGs. I'd even argue something like Final Fantasy IX is less RPG than Dark Souls: leveling is so linear that you could do without it, and stats.

[Anonymous No.5140585]

>>5140552
Yeah, I was oversimplifying that, and presented WRPG and JRPG as how I figured someone unfamiliar with the genre split to parse them. Obviously the details are more complex, and it can get quite confusing.

Personally, I would consider blobbers/Icewind Dale to not be RPGs. Originally they were, because games like that (in my understanding) were meant to replicate the dungeon-delving-and-treasure-finding aspects of tabletop roleplaying games. However, as the genre matured I think it specialized in two categories - one being more of hack-and-slash adventures (IWD, Dark Souls, etc.), and the other being focused on narrative and character (FFX, Baldur's Gate 2). I would consider the first games to be action-adventure, and the latter to be role-playing games, and I admit that may be a very personal distinction. I can see it being confusing to people because obviously IWD and BG are almost identical on the surface and share the same control schemes, but that's like saying Pride and Prejudice and 1984 are the same because they are both long collections of words about people that aren't real. There is a genre split in both cases.

>>5140580
You can tell me how you define RPGs, I doubt we are using the same definition. Not baiting at all, though.

As what I wrote above, I consider roguelikes to also be action-adventure games. They happen to have "character stats" like strength, damage, etc., but those are just game mechanics.

[Anonymous No.5140587]

>>5137336
oh yeah one of those faggots..
"jRPGs are only rpgs made in Nippon!!!111"
you can use retarded definitions all you want, just don't assume everyone is using the same ones

[Anonymous No.5140603]

>>5140585
"JRPGs" is something that doesn't make any sense.

An RPG is an RPG. JRPGs used to focus on the story and the characters, to the extent you wouldn't have a say on who your character was and how much it influenced the story.

Contrast with earlier RPGs (Wizardry, Ultima) and later RPGs (Fallout, Baldur's Gate), and even games like Icewind Dale. Earlier RPGs were all about building a party and sending them on a journey. Just like Icewind Dale. Later RPGs were about giving you a say, giving your character voice: your voice, not "Zidane's" or "Cloud's".

Dark Souls is more like Icewind Dale. You don't get a voice, but you do get to develop your character through builds. Something like Final Fantasy IX, however:

- You don't make character decisions.
- There's hardly any "builds" to pursue. Ultimately, the right way to play the game is to master all abilities for all characters. Trying to max HP and MP is something that isn't explained in-game.

At least in Final Fantasy VII you had the materia system, but I would still argue it's something you are free to change whenever you want: there's no roleplaying. You don't have a "certain" Cloud. You have Cloud, and countless of materia to use whenever you'd like.

This isn't true for Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex or Dark Souls. It's all about making choices you can't escape from.

[Anonymous No.5140618]

>>5140585
>You can tell me how you define RPGs
Look bro, not every word has a definition, that would describe the full set of objects.
take 'art' for example. The best definition is a logical loop, 'art' is what 'art' people call 'art'.
RPG is quite like that, RPGs is what RPG players call RPGs.
it helps if the game hits some of the following :
- gradual stat based character development
- player has control over stat based development
- inventory management
- non-combat NPC interaction
- player has control over NPC interaction
- heavy emphasis on telling a story via gameplay
- heavy emphasis on worldbuilding
the list is not full of course

[Anonymous No.5140627]

>>5140584
>>5140603
I mention in my post that I was using JRPG/WRPG to try to connect to terminology I often see people using; I agree that they are meaningless and detrimental to clarity otherwise.

Are you saying that games like Fallout did not "give you a say"? I am not sure how to parse the beginning and end of your post in relation to one another. To be very explicit (ignore if you agree): In Fallout, you build a (small) party and go on a journey, yes, but your character build (mechanically) has consequences, and your actions impact the narrative (character in a literary sense). I think that is distinct to, say, Icewind Dale, where your character doesn't build much in either case. It is more like Dark Souls, I agree, and said so myself.

I think it is emphasizing here that there are two ways of looking at a character in games. There is the mechanical build of the character (a construct of the in-game mechanics), and the personality/how they fit into the setting as a whole. I do not think that the presence of the first class is sufficient to qualify as an RPG. That being said, it CAN reinforce the second. For example, having a Strength attribute that can be improved reinforces the concept of your character as a being in the world that has become stronger through their actions. That can build on your conceptualization of your character as a noble paladin who focuses on martial strength to achieve good deeds. In Icewind Dale, it largely just boosts your melee damage, and there is not really any chance for the "good nature" of your paladin to shine.

Thus, in Fallout, BG, and Deus Ex, you develop the character on both scales. In Dark Souls, you only develop the character mechanically. Does joining the Forest Hunter covenant and killing people really feel like you have defined your character as a defender of graves from pillagers? No, because it is totally superficial from a setting/literary perspective.

[Anonymous No.5140640]

>>5140603
the term JRPGs is usually used in one of two ways
- a legit sub-genre that describes a fuckton of games with specific features some of which are: menu-based turn-based or phase-based combat, pre-defined characters, little to no control in stat development of your characters, little to no control in NPC dialogs, heavy emphasis on storytelling via cut-scenes as opposed to storytelling via gameplay, random encounters
- an autistic 'RPG made in Nippon'

PS some of those features are a straight copy from early cRPGs, the difference is that in early cRPGs those were technical limitations, in jRPGs it became a staple of the genre copied from one game to the next

[Anonymous No.5140647]

>>5140618
Right. But "art" is a useless category for detailed discussion for that reason. That is why people instead use subcategories like "sculpture" or "film" - so they can compare similar works of art.

My point is that the similarities between something like Planescape: Torment and Rogue are so thin that they shouldn't all be addressed as "RPGs". I think it is beneficial to use RPG to refer to the former, and something like action-RPG, hack-and-slash, or action-adventure (not so much adventure for Rogue, though, since it implies a narrative background) for the latter.

Otherwise, this problem will persist. People are looking for narrative/character-focused games, see Dark Souls as a suggestion in the Top RPGs List, and then get very disappointed when they play it and realize those aspects are not present in a significant way.

[Anonymous No.5140649]

>>5140627
>Are you saying that games like Fallout did not "give you a say"?
On the contrary: they let you speak for yourself as opposed to something like Final Fantasy VII.

The reason I say both Dark Souls and Icewind Dale RPGs is the same reason I find Wizardry to be an RPG: you develop your character in a scale, emphasis on "your". This is not Symphony of the Night, where killing enemies is enough to raise your level and your strength. That is not "developing" your character, it's simply achieving goals and getting a reward.

Dark Souls not allowing you to define your character from a setting/literary perspective doesn't make it a non-RPG. It just makes it a worse RPG compared to the (fictional) Dark Souls where you could do both at the same time, mechanical and literary.

You said earlier to another anon, and I quote
>You can tell me how you define RPGs
This is interesting to me because I don't think RPGs are a genre you so much define, but rather an experience you get out of a game.

I'm playing a roleplaying game when I see I make decisions when building and developing my character. This is why Dark Souls and Icewind Dale are RPGs:

- I choose my initial build.
- I choose my level up bonuses.
- And all of these have a major impact on how the game plays.

But like I said earlier, Final Fantasy IX? There's no meaningful decisions to be made in any way or form. I don't see it as an RPG. Final Fantasy 1, on the other hand, most definitely is.

[Anonymous No.5140669]

>>5140649
I see what you are saying. I was proposing a two-way split, but I think we can reconcile with something three-way.

1) Games with a story, but no character development of any kind. Presumably, this is like SotN and FFIX (haven't played them), as well as something like Ocarina of Time. You can argue that the protagonist changes personality in these, but they aren't by significant player choice, it's rather linked to the ongoing story/plot.

2) Games with a story, and character development only in a mechanical sense. This would be Dark Souls and IWD. You could consider them "light" RPGs, I think it is just convenient to refer to them as action-adventure with RPG elements (to refer to the character building in a mechanical sense only), rather than "true" or "full" RPGs (like the fictional Dark Souls you mention).

3) Games with a story and character development both in a mechanical (with consequences) and a narrative sense. These would be "true/full" RPGs. Your choices matter both in the setting and in the outcome of your character as an in-game actor (mechanically and narratively).

[Anonymous No.5140714]

>>5140647
>My point is that the similarities between something like Planescape: Torment and Rogue are so thin that they shouldn't all be addressed as "RPGs".

Sure, but they still have something in common, same with all RPG's; focus on character skills over player (control) skills. That's what RPG's as a videogame genre are all about, from Aklabeth to Diablo to FFVII.
An arcade and a simulator are really different but both can be driving games, you don't say only simulators or games with high customization are the only real driving games.

[Anonymous No.5140718]

>>5140627
>and your actions impact the narrative

Also, a game can have that and not to be an RPG, no one says Life is Strange is an RPG (there's probably better examples but you get the idea).

[Anonymous No.5140742]

>>5140718
Yes, exactly. That game has narrative impact, but not character development. Looking at my desktop, I also see Star Control II. That game has very significant consequences for choices, but the player character is undefined. One could argue that this is "playing the role of an undefined starship captain", and thus is an RPG, but luckily people refer to those games as other genres already. The more specificity, the better. Maybe they are all linked under the broad heading of "RPG", and the "true" RPGs should be called "character RPGs" or something.

>>5140714
See my current post and the one above you. I agree that those have similarities, but what about Dark Souls? Arguably the player's skills far outweigh the impact of the character's there. I think you are still trying to link them all together under a very general heading defined by mechanical similarities. This is in line with my book analogy above. The genre of the game can be something more detailed though. You run around and pick up ammunition and keys in Silent Hill and Ocarina of Time from a third-person perspective, but clearly their genres are distinct.

The category of "character skill is dominant to player/control skill" is too vague to be useful in a non-academic context. It exists, yes, and it does link those games on a very, very high level. For any practical discussion though, more precise terms are needed.

[Anonymous No.5140796]

>>5140742
>Arguably the player's skills far outweigh the impact of the character's there.

There's people that can end the game at lvl 1 but that's not the average player, you even need stats to use weapons and spells. Even a bad player can end the game with enough levels.

>For any practical discussion though, more precise terms are needed.
That's what subgenres are for; dungeon crawler, action-rpg, tactics, etc.
If certain games have been called RPG's since the beginning I don't see the point of changing the definition decades after. Make new more specific ones if it's necessary, but you can't say Wizardry suddenly isn't an RPG just because the trends have changed or games have evolved.

[Anonymous No.5140810]

>>5140742
>Star Control II

Tim Cain (the creator of the original Fallout) thinks it's an RPG: https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/review-index/1992-star-control-2/

>When I am asked what my favorite CRPG is, people are often surprised when I answer Star Control 2. “That’s an adventure game”, they reply. Oh, but Star Control 2 is so much more than that!

>You control a ship that starts off as a bare-bones hull, and as you acquire resources and credits, you can buy upgrades to improve your ship, as well as gain new crew and landing craft to replace any that were lost in battles and exploration. These features are a direct analog to the skills, items and hit points in a typical role-playing game, making Star Control 2 closer to a CRPG than an adventure game. And like any good CRPG, Star Control 2 offers three areas of activity for the player: exploration, storyline, and combat.

[Anonymous No.5141380]

>>5140584
>In most games ever made, you don't need to "choose" your build and deal with the consequences.
Mega Man.
RC Pro-Am.
Falcon F-16 Flight Simulator (you choose your armaments)
Examples that predate Dark Souls by two and a half decades.

>You don't roleplay anything because you can be anything whenever you want.
If you invest the same amount of time building your Dark Souls that one typically invests into an actual RPG, that's the result you get. Because most players approach it like an action game, they plan a build and just complete the necessary requirements. More importantly, builds almost exclusively affect how you play the character in an action sense, not a roleplay sense.

Consider this: Dark Souls would play out in a VERY similar way if you fixed melee stats based on class choice. You would lose a little depth and build subtlety, but the game itself would play almost exactly the same. And at that point, how would it be that different from loadouts in a game like Call of Duty?

>I'd even argue something like Final Fantasy IX is less RPG than Dark Souls: leveling is so linear that you could do without it, and stats
This kind of observation is usually a sign that you're not really using genre terminology appropriately. These terms are meant to classify similar games in a useful way so people know what to expect. FFIX very closely fits the pattern of what most people expect from a JRPG and is a lot like many other JRPGs. So saying it's "actually not really..." is rather missing the point about why these terms exist in the first place.

[Anonymous No.5141414]

>>5140649
>The reason I say both Dark Souls and Icewind Dale RPGs
For me the distinguishing feature is the emphasis on tactical combat. RPGs evolved from tactical combat games and were as much about that as build choices. The "action" element in many ARPGs is a rather thin replacement for a turn-based system and tactical decisions are still more important than technical skill. Some ARPG systems even go so far as to have auto-attack and design the game such that taking damage is basically unavoidable (EQ-era MMOs had this design).

Icewind Dale's combat is primarily about tactical decision-making and resource allocation. The game is real-time with pause in order to allow players to adjust the pace of battle to something comfortable for them, as default turn-based D&D play can get very tedious otherwise but it's nearly impossible to make meaningful decisions without any pause at all.

In Dark Souls, tactical decision-making is a relevant, but secondary aspect to technical execution. Any tactical decision you might make is tied directly to a technical challenge. Often, tactical decisions only have a minor effect on the outcome. Being able to kill an enemy in 3 hits instead of 4 is meaningful, but much less important than the technical challenge of landing those hits without taking damage yourself.

Tactical games are all about choosing the 3 hit solution instead of the 4 hit solution. In general, RPGs, even ARPGs, de-emphasize technical skill in favor of strategic and tactical decision-making.

[Anonymous No.5141421]

>>5140742
>The category of "character skill is dominant to player/control skill" is too vague to be useful in a non-academic context.
Nah not really. Although I prefer my distinction of tactical vs technical described here: >>5141414
In an RPG, characters (and their "skills" or "traits") are a game piece and game is making strategic and/or tactical decisions about how to use that game piece. The distinction between this and strategy/RTS games is the focus on characters and adventure in an alternate world rather than military units and warfare.

>For any practical discussion though, more precise terms are needed.
For discussion about a typical game, of course you will have to drill down to the details.

[Anonymous No.5141425]

>>5140647
to be fair, that codex list includes detailed commentary about each game. I mean I know people hate reading but...

[Anonymous No.5143430]

>>5140649
> Final Fantasy IX? There's no meaningful decisions to be made in any way or form. I don't see it as an RPG. Final Fantasy 1, on the other hand, most definitely is.
the thing is you can trace a very obvious, connected line in the evolution of the franchise from FF1 to FF9; an evolution that was shared by many of its peers in the JRPG genre over that timeframe.

[Anonymous No.5143510]

>>5141380
I haven't played none of those games so I can't speak about them.

And no, I wouldn't consider a vehicle game to be a roleplaying game. You roleplay a character, not a vehicle.

>If you invest the same amount of time building your Dark Souls that one typically invests into an actual RPG, that's the result you get.
In an "actual" RPG, I don't spend time building my character. Building my character is a side-effect of playing the game, i.e. as I play Baldur's Gate normally by doing quest and advancing through the story, I gain levels and build my character accordingly.

If I do the same in Dark Souls, I don't end up as a "master of all".

>Consider this: Dark Souls would play out in a VERY similar way if you fixed melee stats based on class choice. You would lose a little depth and build subtlety, but the game itself would play almost exactly the same. And at that point, how would it be that different from loadouts in a game like Call of Duty?
"At that point" we are not talking about Dark Souls, but an imaginary Dark Souls that doesn't exist. I don't know what "loadouts" are.

>>5141414
>For me the distinguishing feature is the emphasis on tactical combat.
Well, I can't say I agree at all with that. You would be describing tactical/strategy games over RPGs if that's what you think is the emphasis.

To me, the emphasis on RPGs is very much on choices with consequences that cannot be easily ignored.

>>5143430
I think that the evolution was pretty much lost over time. Final Fantasy IV, for instance, lost all and any kind of "character building" present in Final Fantasy. Unless I'm mistaken, in Final Fantasy VI it boils down to the relics you pick and using different Espers to level up, but this goes back to what I told the other anon

>To me, the emphasis on RPGs is very much on choices with consequences that cannot be easily ignored.
The Final Fantasy games starting with V and on are so easy that you can pretty much ignore any kind of character building.

[Anonymous No.5143553]

>>5143510
>You would be describing tactical/strategy games over RPGs if that's what you think is the emphasis.
No, I wouldn't. In fact I made this distinction earlier. To put crudely, tactics games that aren't RPGs are usually focused on warfare and some mix individual battle scenarios and grand strategy. The emphasis is on military units, not characters and hand-to-hand combat. There's usually minimal to no interaction between characters and NPCs outside the strategy context. They might have "Heros" but these tend to function as a special unit rather than an RPG character.

RPGs are focused on hand-to-hand combat between individual characters and adventurers. RPG combat rules were originally based on rules from tabletop wargames. Before creating D&D, Gygax was heavily involved in wargames and even developed one called "Chainmail." D&D begot CRPGs in particular Wizardry, which split into JRPGs and WRPGs over the next decade. JRPGs aimed at streamlining the gameplay to make it faster and more exciting while merging elements of visual storytelling from Manga and Visual Novels. Meanwhile WRPGs went a few different ways, with various blobbers and dungeon-crawlers refining the Wizardry/Tomb of Horrors format, Ultima exploring moral agency, and the rest trying various methods to make progress towards implementing a full tabletop RPG experience in a videogame (SSI Gold Box, Dark Sun, Betrayal at Krondor, Baldur's Gate).

These games form the core of the RPG genre, and all trace the majority of their core gameplay components back to Wizardry and D&D. Yes, even Final Fantasy IX. Its combat and class systems are directly descended from D&D.

[Anonymous No.5143586]

>>5143553
>>5143510
Dark Souls, on the other hand, does not trace its core gameplay and design back to D&D and Wizardry. Dark Souls primary ancestors trace back to games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Bushido Blade, and Ocarina of Time. Sure, the stats and leveling system are borrowed from RPGs but all the other major gameplay systems are derived from Action or Action-Adventure games. The world design is like a 3D Metroid. The role of NPCs is more like the hint-givers and helpers in Zelda 1 than any RPG. The level design is like 3D Castlevania. The action mechanics are like Ocarina of Time crossed with Bushido Blade.

Apart from the medieval aesthetic, literally nothing about this game seems like anything in the RPG family until you get to the stats and leveling, which influences the game in subtle rather than overt ways.

Most actual ARPGs can be linked substantially to an RPG with turn-based mechanics.

[Anonymous No.5143842]

>>5143586
>Dark Souls primary ancestors trace back to games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Bushido Blade, and Ocarina of Time.

And not Shadow Tower, King's Field and ultimately, Ultima Underworld?

[Anonymous No.5144021]

>>5143842
Well obviously to some extent. That's probably where you can trace the RPG elements that remain. But there's a reason why Demon's Souls was the sleeper hit that set up Dark Souls massive success. There was a major shift in design between KFIV and DeS. KF is much more like an ARPG similar to other ARPGs of its era. DeS implemented a new 3rd person action system that became the primary emphasis of the game and the game was designed around it.

Series obviously can evolve away from their original genre. But Final Fantasy doesn't. Its core gameplay systems remain fundamentally the same for the first 10 entries. FFIV shifted to the real-time 'ATB' system, and FFX retired it, but they're all the same style of stat-based, menu-driven tactical combat.

On the other hand, if you look at FFXV, there's almost nothing about classic Final Fantasy that remains. It seems influenced more by Kingdom Hearts and open-world style games than its own history.

[Anonymous No.5144030]

>>5138425
I agree, but how is Neverwinter Nights good? I played the campaign when you start of in a plague ridden city, and it was pretty bad. As in one character driven combat(in a system that encourages party, this isn't Fallout 1), bad quests, your standard 3 choices dialogue, very boring.

[Anonymous No.5144105]

>>5144030
Multiplayer Modules with a full party are good.

The single player is garbage.

[Anonymous No.5144108]

>>5136881
Honestly, this.
I fucking love Fallout 1. Fallout 2 is good, too, but it is too large for its own good. Even then, you can't go wrong with either of these.

[Anonymous No.5144113]

>>5144021
I haven't played it but I have heard Shadow Tower Abyss is basically a first-person Souls, so maybe that major shift wasn't such considering there was something in between.

[Anonymous No.5144115]

>>5144030
Main campaign is just a shitty demo that happens to be included. NWN is an amazing tool to make games, no more, no less. For some reason NWN2 was really different.

[Anonymous No.5144117]

>>5144108
I always preffered 1 too until I replayed both one year ago; 1 feels so damn short, it feels like a demo of 2.

[Anonymous No.5144153]

>>5143553
>There's usually minimal to no interaction between characters and NPCs outside the strategy context.
To me this sounds like moving the goalposts, as you said
>For me the distinguishing feature is the emphasis on tactical combat.
Moving on
>RPG combat rules were originally based on rules from tabletop wargames.
Yes, but by no means was that the emphasis of roleplaying games.

>>5143586
>These games form the core of the RPG genre, and all trace the majority of their core gameplay components back to Wizardry and D&D. Yes, even Final Fantasy IX. Its combat and class systems are directly descended from D&D. Dark Souls, on the other hand, does not trace its core gameplay and design back to D&D and Wizardry.
I have no problem admitting that Dark Souls plays unlike Ultima or Wizardry, unlike Final Fantasy IX, and unlike Fallout or Baldur's Gate. It's clearly an action-oriented game, but an action-RPG nonetheless.

Feel free to define RPGs based on their combat system if you'd like. To me, RPGs are much more than that. To me, Dark Souls is closer to Wizardry than Final Fantasy IX could hope to be, by virtue of having character development when it comes to a build.

You roleplay by creating a character and then developing it to make it your own. There's no such thing in Final Fantasy IX: no character creation, no character development, no roleplaying to do.

The combat in Final Fantasy IX is:

- Turn-based.
- Based on stats.

But going back to an example you told me yourself: if I were to fix each character's stats and removed leveling, would it still be a roleplaying game? The combat would still be

- Turn-based.
- Based on stats.

At least in Dark Souls you could still pick a class, which automatically makes it a better RPG.

[Anonymous No.5144159]

>>5144021
>Series obviously can evolve away from their original genre. But Final Fantasy doesn't. Its core gameplay systems remain fundamentally the same for the first 10 entries
The issue here is that you consider "make your own character, develop it how you want" not to be a core gameplay system.

I haven't played II or III, but even as back as Final Fantasy IV the series doesn't play the same. There's no character development of any kind. You don't make your own party. Hell, you are even spoonfed the different companions you gain (and lose) at fixed points of the storyline.

[Anonymous No.5144191]

>>5144117
Fallout 1 is quite balanced in comparison and the setting/characters made more sense. The engine wasn't made around squad combat obviously, and Fallout 2 seemed to forget this. Also the blatant balance issues, where half the skills are even more useless than in Fallout 1, throwing, repair is now garbage, doctor and first aid makes no sense since there is no clock etc, big guns is crap, mellee is crap, sneak has no uses(tried to play it with >200% sneak). Lots of nauseous content like fetch quests, bad economy(quest rewards make no sense anymore), lots of random encounters that drag on(when it's properly calibrated like in the year of the game release, many PCs made the travelling really fast changing the intended gameplay).

Whereas many skills in Fallout 1 made sense. While far from balanced, at least the combat ones worked. Repair fetched Power armor. Science alleviated one threat in combination with Sneak, but wasn't game breaking like in F2 when it kills off main boss. Quests were interesting, organically woven into story, and rewards were balanced for risk/current progress. Thief character made sense.


tldr; Fallout 2 is rushed, the only good thing about it is Sulik and Hakunin. And its balance rewards Speech/Small guns ad nauseam.

[Anonymous No.5144201]

>>5144117
That's one of the reasons I prefer it tho. F1 is really small in comparison, that's a given, but I find myself more frequently replaying F1 with some crazy build and finding new things each time than F2, just because F2 is a huge time commitment (and it isn't as fine tuned and balanced as F1).

[Anonymous No.5144421]

>>5144113
The Ocarina-style 3rd person perspective, the dodge-roll, and the fighting-game style movesets on weapons are a huge deal. Those are the core elements of Souls gameplay and precisely the elements that make it more like an action game rather than an RPG.

[Anonymous No.5144457]

>>5144153
>To me this sounds like moving the goalposts
>Feel free to define RPGs based on their combat system if you'd like.
You're failing to understand that this isn't a binary litmus test. It never is. It's never JUST ONE trait that makes a game part of a particular genre. That said, the combat system is usually the most important distinguishing feature of a game and is the first thing to look at.

A game that looks like an RPG in every single aspect except the tactical combat system, might still make sense to call an RPG. you'd have to make the case for each individual game, though. If Dark Souls had the same combat engine, but the content itself was designed to be more like a typical RPG world with an overworld with towns and politics and such, and dungeons were placed in that context, maybe it might feel more like an RPG than an action game. At that point, the argument would be more than just the "has character customization, stats and leveling system."

Similarly, I never said tactical combat was the ONLY necessary feature of an RPG. Obviously not, and it's not moving the goalposts in the slightest to explain what distinguishes RPG tactical combat from other tactical combat.

>>5144159
>The issue here is that you consider "make your own character, develop it how you want" not to be a core gameplay system.
Because it's not a core system. The core system revolves around the part of the game where you can succeed or fail.
In computer RPGs, this is usually combat first and foremost, and secondarily exploration (pic-related) and interaction with NPCs. Character creation and development is the next layer up from the core systems. Without the core systems, character creation would be meaningless. Stats aren't meaningful until core gameplay is defined. Equipment choices or restrictions aren't meaningful until the core gameplay is defined. When Chr is a dump stat, that's because the core game systems failed to make that stat sufficiently relevant.

[Anonymous No.5144473]

>>5144153
>But going back to an example you told me yourself: if I were to fix each character's stats and removed leveling, would it still be a roleplaying game? The combat would still be
>- Turn-based.
>- Based on stats.
>At least in Dark Souls you could still pick a class, which automatically makes it a better RPG.
But FFIX has a class system. The only difference is that you don't choose the classes in your party until late in the game. Instead, the designers give you different party compositions and different scenarios to work with. You're way too fixated on character customization.

And yes, if you took away the progression system in FFIX it would still be a JRPG, although substantially less so than before. It's true that FF-style games remove a great deal of your actions to have permanent consequences for your characters, and the leveling system is one of the primary ways that still happens. Also, you'd have to severely modify a great many game systems designed around progression in FFIX. Often, higher-level abilities are just stronger versions of lower-level abilities. You'd probably wind up either cutting a great many spells and abilities, or tying them to event progression rather than stats and leveling.

Dark Souls, meanwhile, can and often is played without gaining any levels whatsoever. Attempting a Level 1 run is extremely common, and with very few exceptions does not require any drastically different approaches to playing the game. You're just limited to a fairly small selection of weapons and can't boost your HP and Stamina. Ultimately you just have to be good at the core dodge/counterattack gameplay.

[Anonymous No.5144943]

My fucking god, are you seriously mentally impaired?
action - RPG
It's an action RPG
ACTION/rpg
half action - half RPG
what are you arguing about?

[Anonymous No.5145017]

>>5144457
>You're failing to understand that this isn't a binary litmus test.
You say this, but then say
>A game that looks like an RPG in every single aspect except the tactical combat system, might still make sense to call an RPG. you'd have to make the case for each individual game, though.
i.e. you are basically conceding that if a game has no tactical combat system, then we need to make a case by case analysis to see if a game is an RPG or not.

>maybe it might feel more like an RPG than an action game.
An RPG is not defined just by having towns with "politics and such" or by having dungeons, not to mention Dark Souls already has dungeons.

An RPG is a game where you make a character your own. This is, to my understanding, the best way to define an RPG. Because an RPG is ultimately a roleplaying game, and there's no roleplaying if you are handed a character and told how to play the game.

That is pretty much the issue with Final Fantasy IX.

>Without the core systems, character creation would be meaningless.
Without character creation or development, your "core systems" are meaningless. You are playing a set character with pretty much railroaded skill growth in a game where you aren't allowed to voice your own voice.

>>5144473
>But FFIX has a class system.
What? A class system means allowing me to pick my own class, as opposed to having different characters have set abilities (Zidane = Thief, Vivi = Black Mage, etc.).

>if you took away the progression system in FFIX it would still be a JRPG
Just... no man. A game with no progression system (of any kind) cannot be an RPG.

>Dark Souls, meanwhile, can and often is played without gaining any levels whatsoever. Attempting a Level 1 run is extremely common, and with very few exceptions does not require any drastically different approaches to playing the game.
It requires mastering the gameplay. You can do that in many JRPGs too, like FFXII's 122333 run.

[Anonymous No.5145041]

>>5144473
>>5145017
Fucking 4chan limits, but whatever.
>But FFIX has a class system.
In Final Fantasy IX, you don't pick a class. You are given a class. Going back to the "Dark Souls with fixed stats but classes to choose from", you can see the difference: you choose who to play as. So that already makes it superior.

No matter what you believe, most RPGs ever made are combat centric. If Dark Souls feels "more like an action game than an RPG", it is only because its combat is action based. As I have explained, stat-based action combat does not make a game "not an RPG". It's simply that because combat is everpresent in RPGs, doing a lot of action combat makes you feel it's an action game, nothing more, nothing less.

In many RPGs, interaction is just a way to get quests, and these quests are solved through combat most of the time: kill 20 enemies, get item, return, get reward. It's all combat centric. Notable exceptions are quests that rely on non-combat solutions. But those only make a game a better RPG.

You can effectively remove progression in Final Fantasy IX, and the only thing this would change is how challenging you decide to make the game as a result, because you remove grinding (the decision to level up or not and make the game easier or harder as a result). Such a decision is as much "RPG" as it is to abstain from using certain weapons in Quake, that is, not "RPG" at all, especially because the game encourages you to fight enemies as opposing to avoiding them.

In Final Fantasy IX, you can learn all abilities for each specific character as long as you buy the equipment. There's no choice to be made beyond "which ones do I need right now?", which once is made trivial by just how easy it is to gain AP in this game.

We can say a lot of things about Final Fantasy IX:

- It has beautiful graphics.
- It has great music.
- It has a loveable cast.
- It has a great story.
- The combat is fun.

But a good RPG it is not.

[Anonymous No.5145054]

>>5145041
As a final comment, I have a theory on why non-RPGs are called "RPGs". It's because of the leveling system.

People like leveling systems. They like seeing numbers go up when they level up, even if they don't have a say on how the numbers are distributed. They like being able to go to shops and buy stuff. They like when said stuff has bigger, nicer numbers.

People just like progression systems, even if the game is not an RPG at all. And progression systems aren't found in other genres for the most part, because what kind of retard would add a progression system that is pretty much pointless? A progression system is particularly useful in these big games, since they help gauge how far you have come.

[Anonymous No.5145235]

>>5144943
>plebian ranting
I wrote:
>Dark Souls barely qualifies as an RPG.
Which made at least one or two posters lose their mind. Hence, the argument. The original issue is related to whether it fits in on the RPG Codex list. My official position on that is that I haven't played enough of the other games on the list to say for sure whether it's an odd one out or not.
>half action - half RPG
I say it's more like 90% action and 10% RPG. The argument is about the details. I happen to find categorization and linguistics interesting. If you are too dumb to pay attention to details and don't care about genres and language, just go find some other posts to respond to.

[Anonymous No.5145313]

>>5140587
Okay, be an absolute poofter and pretend that JRPG is a gameplay descriptor and then explain to me how Planescape Torment, a literal point 'n click Balder's Gate engine RTWP fetchquestfest, literally the most WRPG-specific formula in existence, using AD&D rules is a JRPG, gameplay wise.

[Anonymous No.5145348]

>>5145017
>An RPG is not defined just by...
Of course not. You're putting way too much emphasis on coming up with "a definition." We're talking about classification of a large and diverse category of games with several different sub-families. There will be many traits of varying importance.

> if a game has no tactical combat system, then we need to make a case by case analysis to see if a game is an RPG or not.
Well, if you think the game is an RPG, yes. Platypuses are mammals even though they lays eggs, because they have mammary glands and share other traits more in common with mammals than birds or reptiles. But they're a special category of mammal, distinct from the rest.

>Without character creation or development, your "core systems" are meaningless
This is just flat out incorrect. Without the rules there is no game. If you create a character with 100 strength, 50 dexterity, and 1400 charisma, what does that mean? It means nothing. Meanwhile you can define what strength means in your game without giving the player any ability to customize or change their own strength at all.

That's the main difference between a core game system and a higher level game system. Character creation in RPGs is built on top of core systems, not the other way around. For an example of a game where unit creation IS a core game system, you can look at RTS games like Warcraft or Starcraft. Creating units is a core gameplay system and doing it well has a major impact on the outcome of a battle.

>A class system means allowing me to pick my own class
Also simply incorrect. A class system means players or actors in the game have abilities and limitations set by a distinct class. Dark Souls does not have a class system. Capabilities are limited by stats only, not class. Abilities themselves are clearly inspired by typical RPG class systems, but are tied only to stats and equipment not actual class definitions.

[Anonymous No.5145359]

>>5145313
Not him but...
The "Planescape: Torment" part looks really tongue-in-cheek to me. I don't think anyone is SERIOUSLY fucking arguing that Planescape: Torment is a JRPG.

Anachronox is actually the main game mentioned in the comment and that game is well-known as being an attempt to make a "Western JRPG" by a fan of Chrono Trigger.

[Anonymous No.5145370]

Instead of arguing what defines a rpg can we get back to recommending rpgs

[Anonymous No.5145383]

I started with Fallout 1 and feel like it was a good starting point for me. But I really enjoyed the atmosphere more than the typical fantasy stuff at the time.

[Anonymous No.5145386]

>>5145348
>You're putting way too much emphasis on coming up with "a definition."
Because it is ultimately what decides whether a game is an RPG or not. I don't buy into the whole "it is enough of an RPG to be called an RPG". To me, something is an RPG, or it isn't. And afterwards, it is either a passable RPG or a fantastic RPG.
>This is just flat out incorrect. Without the rules there is no game.
We are not talking about what it takes to have a game. We are talking about roleplaying games. You can have rules, but not a roleplaying game.
>Meanwhile you can define what strength means in your game without giving the player any ability to customize or change their own strength at all.
And you end up with "not an RPG", because if my stats are set in stone, I don't have an RPG anymore unless I'm allowed to pick a class at the start of the game (something that Final Fantasy IX doesn't let me do, for instance).

I'm not really interested in this whole "core system" discussion, because it is pointless. Core system or not, Final Fantasy is an RPG and Final Fantasy IX barely classifies as one, to the point I would be better off calling it an adventure game with numbers, because a real RPG fan would be disappointed to see he has basically no decisions to make in this alleged "roleplaying" game.

The core gameplay of an RPG is:

- The build and/or develop your character.
- To deal with the consequences of these and other choices you make.

The combat can be turn-based (Wizardry), tactical (Fallout, Baldur's Gate), action (Dark Souls, Gothic), whatever you'd like. If it doesn't have the things I mentioned earlier, it can never be an RPG. You simply don't have roleplaying if you can be anything you'd like whenever you'd like.

[Anonymous No.5145397]

>>5145386
>>5145348
>Also simply incorrect. A class system means players or actors in the game have abilities and limitations set by a distinct class.
You are joking, right? Because this would be the first time I'd ever hear someone say Final Fantasy IX has a class system just because different characters have different abilities.

There's no class system in Final Fantasy IX. You don't pick a class. Final Fantasy Tactics has a class system. So does Wizardry. So does Fallout, albeit in an abstract way. And so does Dark Souls.

- Warrior.
- Knight.
- Wanderer.
- Thief.
- Bandit.
- Hunter.
- Sorcerer.
- Pyromancer.

Classes in any game pretty much mean "a certain alocation of stats and abilities" (hence why you can have classes in Fallout, just follow an archetypical build or make your own).

>>5137336
>>5145313
It's a joke, retard. Codexers like to compare it to JRPGs (as a joke) because it is storyheavy and character focused.

[Anonymous No.5145421]

>>5145041
>So that already makes it superior.
I'm not even talking about superior or not superior. We're talking about classification, not quality. I could rant for days about Final Fantasy IX, I don't like that game very much. But it is a JRPG.

>If Dark Souls feels "more like an action game than an RPG", it is only because its combat is action based.
DkS feels more like an action game because technical skill is overwhelmingly the most important factor to even moderately successful play, and the overwhelming majority of time spent playing the game involves applying technical skill to overcome challenges.

[Anonymous No.5145437]

>>5145421
>I'm not even talking about superior or not superior.
Well, yes we are. Dark Souls being the superior RPG compared to an "undisputable" RPG means it is not a questionable RPG.
>DkS feels more like an action game because technical skill is overwhelmingly the most important factor to even moderately successful play
This is not that true. The difference between Dark Souls and your average JRPG is that people feel more inclined to push through in Dark Souls, as opposed to grind Souls to have a stronger character, something that (for many people) is the norm in JRPGs.

I'm actually not good in Dark Souls and beat the Bell Gargoyles by grinding up souls. Like I mentioned earlier, low level challenges exist in many JRPGs. Does that mean that suddenly stats do not matter and player skill (technical or not, player skill IS player skill at the end of the day) means said JRPGs are no longer RPGs but more like "chess" games?

[Anonymous No.5145443]

>>5145397
>You are joking, right?
No, not at all. It's clear you really don't understand what "class system" means.
>this would be the first time I'd ever hear someone say Final Fantasy IX has a class system just because different characters have different abilities.
Not surprising, it's pretty clear you haven't spent much time around people who know anything about videogames.

>And so does Dark Souls
No, really doesn't. Sure it has "classes" in the sense that you can pick a starting class, and you can apply class as a concept to interpret the different categories of abilities, but classes themselves have no role whatsoever in the game beyond starting stats.

A game with a class system means that the classes themselves define the parameters of the gameplay. Wizards can't equip swords. Warriors can, and have the best to-hit values for melee weapons. Rogues are allowed to backstab and can hide in shadows. And so on. Your ability to choose which class you play has no bearing whatsoever on whether the game has a class system or not.

It's important because there are many good alternatives to class systems. Obviously, Dark Souls' stat-based system is very effective. Another alternative is a skill tree system (Skyrim is one example). Final Fantasy VII heavily de-emphasizes its class system, which only determines weapons and limit breaks. Most abilities and stat changes are come from equipping materia.

You can't reason about the character ability system in a game if you can't distinguish a class system from a skill tree or stat system. Meanwhile, if the game has a class system, you can always just say whether the player has control to choose their class or not.

[Anonymous No.5145445]

>>5145370
This thread was about to die when I picked up the argument again.

[Anonymous No.5145457]

>>5145437
>Like I mentioned earlier, low level challenges exist in many JRPGs.
It's a question of what it takes to accomplish a low level challenge. In most RPGs, a low-level challenge usually winds up requiring a great deal of counter-intuitive play like exploiting glitches, RNG manipulation, heavily abusing minor usually-overlooked mechanics, or just really fucking insane perseverance.

In Dark Souls, playing an SL1 run is basically just like playing a normal run except you're limited to certain weapons and shields, and can't make as many mistakes. That's about it. You can still upgrade plenty of high-quality weapons to max Chaos and Lightning, which is fine for everything except the DLC. The only fight that is really massively different is 4 Kings, and in that case the difference is that you actually have to win the fight for real instead of cheesing it with poise-tanking. Some other fights can be substantially more difficult, but winning still just means getting your roll-dodge timings down and knowing it's safe to attack.

[Anonymous No.5145676]

I have been away from this thread for a while, but am interested in this discussion.

I made a chart that shows which RPG-affiliated features match up with certain games. The blue is one is an unknown/maybe, I think that one depends. The box around the upper-right surrounds what seem to me to be the "primary contenders" for games and traits essential to RPGs.

In particular, note that below the box I don't think anyone would seriously argue the games to be RPGs. The area from FFIX down to the Rogue-likes is contentious, I would say that these are games with features/elements common to RPGs, but are not themselves full-fledged RPGs.

I will admit that I haven't played all these games and am guessing a bit, but I hope this contributes to sharpening the discussion in some way.

[Anonymous No.5145858]

>>5145443
>No, not at all. It's clear you really don't understand what "class system" means.
More along the lines of you not understanding what people mean by "class system".

I never denied Zidane is a Thief, Vivi a Black Mage, Steiner a Knight/Spellsword, etc. But that doesn't mean Final Fantasy IX has a class system; only that each character is modeled after an RPG archetype (Amarant -> Monk).

>but classes themselves have no role whatsoever in the game beyond starting stats.
You say this like it is meaningless.

>A game with a class system means that the classes themselves define the parameters of the gameplay. Wizards can't equip swords.
No, this is your own idea of what a "class" is. While I respect it, because I know what you are talking about, it doesn't mean that's what a "class" always is.

Not to mention D&D's class system is retarded, and Dark Souls and other games have the superior, class-less system which neverminds allows you to make a build modeled after a class, but not with the artificial restrictions (my mage can't use a sword? seriously?) that comes with strict classes.

The reason many JRPGs have no class system is because their "specialty" is a defining trait of the characters you play with. There's no class system because it would go against the point of the characters. Without a class system, you can easily model characters to your heart's content, and this is what western RPGs do while also keeping a class system for the player character (Jaheira is a Druid but you can be whatever you want).

[Anonymous No.5145975]

>>5145858
Mages can use swords in D&D. You dual or multi-class with a thief or fighter and you get the ability to use the weapon.

[Anonymous No.5146565]

>>5135134
What are your top 10 cRPGs? Can be new or old

[Anonymous No.5146635]

>>5145858
>More along the lines of you not understanding what people mean by "class system".
I think you're confused about what "system" means. A system is a group of game elements along with the rules for how they behave and interact with each other. A system is not the subjective experience of playing the game. Both are important, and if you want to call the ability to customize a character a "class system" that's fine with me, but you should realize you're using the term incorrectly.

>But that doesn't mean Final Fantasy IX has a class system; only that each character is modeled after an RPG archetype
>RPG archetype
aka a "class." Older FF games (the games for which FFIX is a throwback), like Final Fantasy IV, the game literally tells you the class for the character. In FFIX, essentially the character system and class system are merged. If you want to say that's not a "class system" OK, but it's very close. It is certainly far closer than Dark Souls.

>You say this like it is meaningless.
It's not meaningless, but it's not a system. The class you chose heavily influences your initial experience with the game. But it's not a system by itself. Starting classes in Dark Souls are content built on the stat system.

[Anonymous No.5146780]

>>5145676
First thought on that chart is that "rich setting" is far too vague and subjective to really encompass the different kinds of settings you can have in a game.

>Player Agency
Does the player have freedom to move about in the world and do things, or is it just a sequence of action levels or battle maps?

>Functional reality vs a Purely Gameplay world.
Functional reality means the world makes some attempt be a world that could exist apart from the game. A fairy tale world like Hyrule in Legend of Zelda or A Link to the Past, makes no real effort to portray a functional reality. It's more like a Theme Park.

>Scope
A single dungeon crawl?
A small region?
An entire continent?
The whole world?

>Interactivity
A game like Master of Magic has an entire world, but your ability to interact with that world is limited to the strategy gameplay systems. You can't take a character and explore a town or dungeon in any meaningful way. Final Fantasy Tactics has some interaction, like visiting a shop from a menu option, but no real exploration. Meanwhile almost all standard RPGs are interactive worlds. Even dungeon crawlers are.

>Symbolic vs Realistic
aka 90s JRPG vs WRPG. A JRPG house in a town represents all the mundane dwellings in that town. A WRPG house is a realistic sample of the other mundane dwellings in the town that would exist if we could render them.

[Anonymous No.5146849]

>>5146635
>you should realize you're using the term incorrectly.
It hardly matters, because everyone knows Final Fantasy IX doesn't have a class system.
>aka a "class."
Yes, a.k.a. a "class", but no class system because you don't pick your class, and that's what pretty much everyone agrees on.
>like Final Fantasy IV, the game literally tells you the class for the character
Yes, I know. Particularly useful because I have no way to modify my character...
>If you want to say that's not a "class system" OK, but it's very close. It is certainly far closer than Dark Souls.
Final Fantasy IX has the better classes, but no class system. Dark Souls has the worse classes, but the better class system by virtue of having one.

[Anonymous No.5146856]

>>5146635
>>5146849
Ultimately, the reason I mentioned Final Fantasy IX having no class system (where you cannot pick your own class) is because it shows how watered down it is.

The only thing it was missing was earning skills at level up as opposed to gaining them through AP. But like I mentioned earlier, choice and consequence: you barely make a "choice" in Final Fantasy IX because you can get all abilities, fairly quickly at that. The only consequences to your choices in Final Fantasy IX is how (little) time you want to spend grinding for abilities.

As opposed to, say, something like Baldur's Gate, where grinding is very much a late game thing that isn't needed at all.

[Anonymous No.5146857]

>>5146849
You should spend less time with retards.

[Anonymous No.5147632]

>>5135134
I have a mild suggestion for you OP.
Try some of the gold box games. I'm not suggesting you should play them straight of, just try some as a way of testing your tolerance for old mechanisms and interfaces. Try later games and see how you feel with those. Knowing and being honest about what you can and cannot stand in this department will steer you well in playing old crpgs.

[Anonymous No.5147668]

>>5146857
At this point you are just arguing semantics. The point is that you don't pick how your character plays out in Final Fantasy IX, but you do in Dark Souls. That makes it superior when it comes to being an RPG.

[Anonymous No.5147690]

>>5147668
>arguing semantics
um, yes that's I've been doing for the last 4 days. More accurately the focus has been genre classification, but semantics are closely tied to that.

This: >>5140198
Is (indirectly) an assertion about semantics. The question about whether Dark Souls belongs on a ranked list of RPGs is also rooted in semantics (specifically: what does RPG mean?). Sorry if you ever thought this was about games being better or worse than each other. There are good and bad games in every genre. It looks like your thought process works like this:

>I like games that let you customize your character
>I have played RPGs that let you customize your character
>Therefore I must like RPGs.
>Therefore RPGs must be good.
>Therefore good games are RPGs.
>Therefore bad games are not RPGs.

[Anonymous No.5147782]

>>5137197
I don't k now if it's "retro".

But a lot of old gold box games and old d&d modules were made for Never Winter and Never Winter nights 2 as mods.

[Anonymous No.5147784]

>>5147782
honestly what I'd really like are true remakes of those gold box games, with the same combat engine but with updated graphics and user interface.

[Anonymous No.5147884]

>>5147690
>It looks like your thought process works like this:
I'm not sure when did I ever imply good games = RPGs, bad games = not RPGs.

I don't even like Final Fantasy and I like Final Fantasy IX, so much for your "thought process". When I say "superior", I do not mean to say "it's a better game". Rather, "it's the superior RPG". Which, again, doesn't mean "it's a better game".

[Anonymous No.5147964]

>>5147884
I will say you have a unique way with language, jesus.

[Anonymous No.5147989]

How the fuck do I beat Abazigal on ascension?

[Anonymous No.5148316]

>>5135134
>their gameplay systems tend to be more sophisticated
Not really. They tend to be more obtuse and complicated for no reason.
>quality of story and characters
Only if you like Tolkien

[Anonymous No.5148335]

Is Icewind Dale EE good? I know people complained about balance issues but I don't really care about those unless they're gamebreaking. I imagine they didn't change anything to the story since there isn't that much to it anyway but I just want to be sure.

[Anonymous No.5149161]

>>5145235
>Dark Souls barely qualifies as an RPG.
>My official position on that is that I haven't played enough of the other games on the list to say for sure whether it's an odd one out or not.

quod erat demonstrandum

if you are too dumb to realize you have to be familiar with the genre before making intransigent statements on the topic, please refrain from talking to me. have a good day

[Anonymous No.5149169]

>>5145676
>I will admit that I haven't played all these games and am guessing a bit

It is very clear that you never played a lot of cRPGs
I mean the reason so many non RPG (Zelda, Grand Turismo, GTA etc) games have so many green cells is that you don't understand traits of a cRPG. "Girth", "Rich setting"... yeah right

[Anonymous No.5149170]

>>5145858
>Not to mention D&D's class system is retarded
pleb detected

it's not retarded. In fact it was quite cleverly designed so every player at the table (it is originally a table-top PnP RPG system, remember) could do his/her role and won't be left out.

[Anonymous No.5149318]

>>5145676
>>5149169
Ok you put in some minor effort, so I'll help you out.
It's not going to be fast, but hey you will be playing cool games along the way

play and examine the following games and tell yourself what are difference in core mechanics

Case 1: 1990s action/adventre vs hack&slash (kind of action) RPG

games to compare:

- any 90s Zelda, but I say go with the 2d ones, as it will be easier to compare
- Legacy of Kain Blood omen
- Diablo 1 (a lot of RPG elitists will say that it is far from a cRPG, but even so it has a lot of cRPG traits, which are lacking in the first 2)

[Anonymous No.5149323]

>>5149318
Case 2: the PC "proto-Dark Souls" vs Dark Souls

this is the most relevant to this particular discussion compare:
- Blade of Darkness
- Dark Souls

both games are pretty bad ass and BoD is often referred as the PC proto-Dark Souls. It probably had 0 influence on DS creators, but it might as well could. One of the major difference is that BoD is mostly action with minor RPG elements, and will never make it to any greatest cRPG list.

[Anonymous No.5149330]

>>5135134
IGNORE EVERY OTHER POST IN THE THREAD AND PLAY THESE:

Ultima 6 (with Nuvie source port)
The Complete Ultima 7 (with Exult source port)
Ultima Underworld (get it on GOG)
Ultima Underworld 2 (get it on GOG)
Diablo
Diablo 2
Planescape Torment
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate 2
Gothic
Gothic 2 Gold Edition
Arx Fatalis
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines

[Anonymous No.5149417]

>>5149161
There are 70 games on that Codex list, dumbass. Exactly how many have you fucking played? It's not like anyone in the thread is bothering to use other examples on that list to prove DkS belongs there, either.

Plus, I've also played games not on that list relevant to a discussion about ARPGs like Chrysalis, Secret of Evermore, Zelda 2, and Skyrim. You know, games that actually are ARPGs and not mostly-action games that make some minor use of RPG elements.

[Anonymous No.5149468]

>>5144153
>Yes, but by no means was that the emphasis of roleplaying games.
To this day most RPGs (talking the PNP games) are the same old small squad combat simulators with different genre conventions. Rules for character development (as in literary development, not aquiring perks and stats) are thrown in as an afterthought (to give players "freedom"). There are a lot of people who play RPGs as scaled down wargames and they are too well-entrenched for that playstyle to be discarded as invalid.

[Anonymous No.5149486]

>>5145397
You just implied that Morrowind has classes. And Morrowind is extremely free-form when it comes to the abilities of your character. Did you play Morrowind, by the way?

[Anonymous No.5149869]

>>5149330
Based.

[Anonymous No.5149913]

>>5146780
I agree that rich setting is vague. I couldn't figure out what a defining characteristic of the setting to single out as a trait. I think your Functional Reality is closer, but still isn't totally clear. For example, Gran Turismo. It doesn't have any world building, but being based on the real world it isn't a stretch to say "yeah, people do races here, this seems realistic".

Player agency is a good idea, it isn't totally covered by NPC Interaction. It also seems redundant with Interactivity from your post, though.

I don't see how scope is relevant at all. A very detailed and plot/interaction-heavy single dungeon crawl could be much more of an RPG than a game that drags you across to universe to fight aliens and gods. That's just physical scale and has no bearing on mechanics or narrative.

Symbolic vs. realistic also doesn't seem relevant when describing a game as having RPG traits or not - that seems like an artistic choice if anything, based off assets / party movement speed, etc.

>>5149169
The traits I put in the chart were ones I gathered from THIS thread, to try and focus the conversation that was already going on. I didn't want to just chime in with an eighth opinion and muddy the waters. You have complaints about "Growth" being a trait of RPGs? That's arguably the most defining trait of the genre, based off the posts I've been reading here.

>>5149318
What is the point you are making in these posts? You describe, for example, BoD as being action with minor RPG elements, but that is how I personally view Dark Souls already. If you have an idea for a specific trait to add to that chart, let me know, but playing Blood Omen and Blade of Darkness is beyond the scope of this thread (though I'll remember the suggestions).

[Anonymous No.5149936]

>>5135134
Are there any good crg's with good boss fights? Particularly final boss fights.

[Anonymous No.5150164]

Nobody here play frua?

Forgotten realms unlimitted adventures have a ridiculously amount of mods.

January 2016 edited January 2016
Should post a link to the original web-page as well. It's around roughly 33 modules, and they are designed to take a party from 1-20, with any combination of one's you want to play. Recommended levels are listed for every module, in the North, South, East and West (which comprises about 33 of them). He also made another concurrent campaign of 7 or so called Realm Adventures that are meant to be played in order. We're talking seminal classics like Horror on the Hill, the original Ravenloft, Tomb of Horrors etc etc. If it's a name that makes old school D&D fanatics bow down in awe, he incorporated it into this series.

I make very few exceptions for modded/user made content. While it can be amazing, I've up to this point rarely stuck with anything but the cream of the crop for both Neverwinter Nights games. This project (which the earliest of which goes back almost 18 years) does is even more impressive. The Gold Box engine itself requires a certain devotion to the genre that goes beyond your average player. To use the tool provided late in it's life to essentially take the most acclaimed pen and paper modules ever made and re-create them and preserve them forever so that anyone interested can play them solo is a monumental task, and even if you never intend on playing them, I encourage everyone to check out what was done here. It's fairly obscure (some of the mods have only been downloaded about 1500 times) but even more so than the Infinity Engine, the Gold Box games are the closest approximation to actually playing Dungeons and Dragons that were ever made (even simulating the sometimes glacial pace of actual sessions, though this probably wasn't intended). Best of all, it's free.

http://therealm.flopsyville.com/Menu.htm

[Anonymous No.5150169]

>>5150164

Plus a thread that collected the "Hall of Fame" mods for Unlimited Adventures, so if you're interested, these would be the ones you want to pick from (D&D seems to be in the left column going down). I mean, who knew all this was out there??

http://ua.reonis.com/index.php?topic=321.0

--------------------------------------

So basically this dude made a mega campaign on the forgotten realms of more than 40 pen and paper adapted to the frua engine and there are more than 600 playable mods for the whole thing.

http://frua.rosedragon.org/web/search/index.php?q=Ray%20Dyer&s=200&e=300&user_e=100

[Anonymous No.5150578]

>>5135134
KOTOR & KOTOR 2, play these before you die

[Anonymous No.5150621]

>>5149170
Not a pleb, just stating the facts: in a single player roleplaying game, the player should be smart enough to pick their role without someone enforcing arbitrary restrictions on him.
>>5149486
>You just implied that Morrowind has classes.
Yes I did.
>And Morrowind is extremely free-form when it comes to the abilities of your character. Did you play Morrowind, by the way?
I have over 500 hours in Morrowind and I know the game lets you pick a starting class or make your own.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Classes

Yes, I have played Morrowind. Yes, Morrowind fits my definition of "class" but it doesn't fit other people's definition of "class".

And yes: my definition of "class" is the widely accepted definition of "class".

>>5149417
It's time you realized two things:

- First, that the Top 70 RPGs list is a PC-exclusive list: if the game doesn't have an official PC release, it won't appear on the list.
- Second, the Top 70 RPGs list is a "Top RPGs"-exclusive list. If Codexers didn't think the game was good, they weren't nominating it.

I have played Dark Souls and Skyrim. Dark Souls mops the floor with Skyrim, plain and simple. Both are action RPGs, but Dark Souls went the extra mile in ensuring that its action RPG combat was both satisfying from an action AND a RPG standpoint. This is because it is more demanding on player skill than Skyrim (a literal 80-year old grandma with arthrosis can beat Skyrim), and the stat system of Dark Souls does more than just "lol +5% damage".

[Anonymous No.5150653]

>>5150621
Good god just stop.

[Anonymous No.5150663]

>>5150653
Not an argument. :^)

[Anonymous No.5150686]

>>5148335

The EE is fine, ignore the shitters. It uses BG2 rules, so things like kits are available which weren't in the game originally, and the right kits can make the game far easier since it's mostly combat and balanced around scare scrolls, which sorcerers don't have to deal with, and all the undead makes Undead Hunter the best Paladin option. The only new writing is a few dialogs that only happen if your speaking character is a certain class or kit, and they're fine and few and far between anyway.

[Anonymous No.5150692]

>>5150686

To expand because I thought it was a bit vague, the balance issues are more that you can utterly destroy the game with the right options since you make your whole party instead of just one Charname. If you go kitless and don't pick Sorcerer it's not nearly as bad.

[Anonymous No.5150851]

Has anyone mentioned the Quest for Glory series yet? Always been a favorite of mine, even 3 and 5, despite their flaws.

[Anonymous No.5150936]

>>5149417
>relevant to a discussion ... like Chrysalis, Secret of Evermore, Zelda 2, and Skyrim
>implying ...
I said have a good day

PS have you at least played the top 10, say halfway through at minimum? be honest you know n o t h i n g on the topic of cRPGs, you are a console fag.

[Anonymous No.5150940]

>>5150621
>Not a pleb, just stating the facts: in a single player roleplaying game, the player should be smart enough to pick their role without someone enforcing arbitrary restrictions on him.

once again DnD classes are fine for the intended purpose (with balancing issue, which are addressed each iteration, but that is not the point). People who use DnD classes for SP single character computer games are retarded

[Anonymous No.5150957]

>>5149913
>What is the point you are making in these posts?
The point is to stop irritating people with your dilettante opinion based on your poor knowledge of the subject.

Formalizing broad and unspecific terms is hard work, and I'm not doing it for you for nothing.
In fact it is quite rude to assume that people are responsible to do those things for you.

I'm showing you a way to educate yourself. No bullshit. You will legit understand what can be considered RPG elements, and what can't, what's a pure action(adventure) with minor RPG elements and what is an action/RPG.

Play the games to your gain and you will understand everything for yourself. Alternatively don't play them I don't care.

[Anonymous No.5150968]

>>5150957
Irritating people? I'm sorry, I hadn't realized we had such a sensitive little flower in our midst.

It is hard work, which is why my chart isn't very good, first attempt though it is. I didn't ask for you to do shit for me, I made it for the thread because people seemed to be arguing in circles, and your big contribution was "why don't you go play 40 hours of games and learn lessons I can't be bothered to type in five minutes". The only one assuming things here is you, both that I haven't played the games you suggested, and that I was expecting anyone to do something for me at all.

No shit that playing more games would expand my knowledge. If I had time to play all 3000 existing RPGs and get perfect knowledge of the genre, that would be great. Instead, I am leveraging the existence of this imageboard to have a rational conversation and share opinions such that our combined perspectives can cover a decent breadth of the genre.

You might have seen the advantage in that if you weren't a stuck-up blowhard with crippled social skills.

[Anonymous No.5151007]

>>5150621
I do not know why do you think your definition of class is the widely accepted one. In most of the games classes mean a clearly defined set of a abilities and limitations, maybe even down to the stats. In games with free-form builds classes are mostly a label to slap on certain builds with little to no mechanical effects.
It holds true even for adjacent genres - the strategies, MMOs and mobas (characters are classes in the latter case).

[Anonymous No.5151159]

>>5151007
>I do not know why do you think your definition of class is the widely accepted one
Because it is? When it comes to computer RPGs at the very least, and that is ultimately what we are talking about.

Like I said earlier, this is all pointless semantics that have nothing to do with my point of Dark Souls having much greater customization than Final Fantasy IX does.

[Anonymous No.5151182]

>>5150936
HOW MANY have you played?
Put up or shut up, faggot.

I've played BG1, BG2, all the Gold Box Dragonlance games, Dungeon Master, and Betrayal at Krondor. Other PC RPGs I've played not on the list include Eye of the Beholder 1+2, Everquest, World of Warcraft, and Skyrim.

More importantly, unlike you I can read and comprehend English and each game on that list has a lengthy description. So when it says "real-time with pause" I know what that means. I know what the Infinity Engine is. I can look at a screenshot and see the First-Person blobber perspective I'm familiar with from Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder games. I can, for example on Might and Magic VI, see the player clearly in a town populated with NPC characters, suggesting the kind of functional/realistic world design that Dark Souls does NOT have.

And of course I found this comment funny, about Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines:
>It's being a story-focused game and not a full-fledged RPG, but also neither a good first person shooter nor a good third person hack'n'slash

[Anonymous No.5151213]

>>5151007
he is unable to distinguish between a game system and his subjective experience of playing a game. If he's playing Dark Souls and it feels like he has built a cleric class, he's going to call that a class system even though it's neither a system or a class. At this point it's really not worth trying to explain I don't think.

[Anonymous No.5151406]

Well now that there's no baldur's gate thread it's only fair to call this one one.

Want to replay the games, what other mods would you recommend?

[Anonymous No.5151478]

>>5151182
Pathetic
You wanted to dismiss my belief of you not being knowledgeable enough about cRPG, but only solidified my assurance
Essentially you played only 4 out of dozens archetypes of cRPGs : infinity engine, golden box, dungeon master style dungeon crawlers and early 90s open world as implemented in Betrayal at Krondor

that Might n Magic 6 functional world assumption vs DS passage is just hilarious and is more proof to my claims

BTW Doesn't the 'non-functional' almost post-apocalyptic world with vending-machine NPCs in DS remind you some games that are also on that list like, System Shock 1 n 2, Ultima Underworld 1, Arx Fatalis, pre-7th installments of Wizardry, ADOM? wasn't that supposed to be an argument on how DS different from other cRPGs? :^)

Pathetic

[Anonymous No.5151489]

>>5150968
>"why don't you go play 40 hours of games and learn lessons I can't be bothered to type in five minutes"

than don't, but I can only show you the door, you are the one that has to walk through it
just fyi it doesn't take 5 minutes and I already wasted more in >>5140618

> with crippled social skills
lol you are funny

[Anonymous No.5151823]

>>5151478
So basically, you telling me that you haven't played any of them except for Dark Souls and Morrowind. And you've played Final Fantasy IX.

[Anonymous No.5151985]

>>5151213
Imagine completely ignoring everything I have said, when I've made it clear I know what a class system is by your definition.

[Anonymous No.5152758]

>>5151406
Add unfinished business, npc flirts is pretty fun if you go for a romance, and I found npc stronghold really well made although prone to bugs
Also 'mod for the orderly' adds a keyring, can't play without it tbqh

[Anonymous No.5153145]

>>5152758
Gotcha.

[Anonymous No.5153235]

>>5144030
Main campaign was bad. I felt kind of sick just slaughtering prisoners. But it was a great platform to replace FRUA for creators, and Underdark is a legitimately fun game.

[Anonymous No.5153441]

>>5135140
Is there a good list like this for shooters?

[Anonymous No.5153447]

>>5148316
That's like saying the meat is good only if you like meat. It's a western RPG I don't expect "s-senpai don't hold my hand uguu~" or shounen. I expect Western fantasy.

[Anonymous No.5153451]

>>5151823
We have such short lives, and you think I will waste my precious minutes bragging about how much time I wasted playing video games on some mongolian cartoon-porn site?

Because this is exactly what I will do!
from the RPG codex top 70 I haven't played exactly 26 titles. Most of those I feel I wouldn't enjoy as much, but there are about 7 from my next-to-play list. Of course there is a metric fuck-ton of cRPGs that I played but are not on that list. btw personally I would swap a lot of titles from that list with more worthy games.

[Anonymous No.5154670]

Is there a mod that increases the party size in Baldur's Gate? I just want one more companion. Then I'll just up the difficulty and/or pick some of the harder SCS options.

[Anonymous No.5154703]

>>5148316
>Only if you like Tolkien
Tolkien knock-offs that don't understand any of the things they're aping, you mean.

[Anonymous No.5154773]

>>5148316
>They tend to be more obtuse and complicated for no reason.
False.
>Only if you like Tolkien
Also false.

[Anonymous No.5155242]

>>5139624
Thats the point though. You're some kid who wound up in the middle of the woods with minimal training, that's the arc of the PC

[Anonymous No.5155275]

>>5154670
No, there's no mod like that. But you can change difficulty on the fly, so you should always be able to match the challenge level to your liking.

[Anonymous No.5155316]

>>5155275
>No, there's no mod like that.
That's a shame. I guess I'll bench Khalid when I grab Viconia, then.
>But you can change difficulty on the fly, so you should always be able to match the challenge level to your liking.
I was going make things harder to compensate for having an extra party member. That's all I meant.

[Anonymous No.5155385]

>>5154703
A lot of D&D stuff is less influenced by Tolkein than by other pulp fantasy like Fritz Leiber.

[Anonymous No.5156379]

Anyone here try Back to Brynnlaw? I'm wondering if I should give it a go.

[Anonymous No.5158027]

>>5135134
Play Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, the Sega Master System version (the NES one is another game basically, that is more like a jRPG than a cRPG, and is shit, don't play Ultima 4 in the NES).

[Anonymous No.5158081]

>>5139141
Z2 sucked shit