Dishing out some Krogan-sized burns in a recent interview with Strategy Informer, Daniel Erickson, writer on the upcoming MMO The Old Republic, pointed out what he felt were some key missing pieces that made Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII anything but a role-playing game.
Specifically in response to the divide between gameplay and story, Erickson had some harsh critiques.
“Well, before I address the main point I just want to take a slightly more controversial route: You can put a ‘J’ in front of it, but it’s not an RPG. You don’t make any choices, you don’t create a character, you don’t live your character… I don’t know what those are – adventure games maybe? But they’re not RPGs.”
It is an RPG, but not a very in-depth one. The man is shrewd, but I see where he is coming from.
Agreed. He has a good point from his perspective. FFXIII is far different than the typical BioWare RPG which is filled with player decisions through dialog and actions, etc. You could easily argue that this provides the player a great “role playing” experience, while ignoring is does the opposite.
The stance that Daniel has taken technically throws out a ton of JRPG’s etc as not being an RPG. Due to different philosophies in game design over the years the term RPG isn’t as narrow a view as choices, and creating your own character etc. RPG’s have evolved through various branching paths over a long time.
I’m curious to see if an MMORPG like ToR can back this talk up by creating a single player RPG experience in a game that will be populated by millions.
Well if it is a true RPG, then you have to go WAY back to the invention of table top RPGs like D&D. You have to manage your stats, and have to know everything, and the such. Everything else is just RPG light games. There was an awesome two videos on Screwattack where a guy defined basically what an RPG is.
But yeah, saying that a game isn’t an RPG without backing up your claims is just ignorance, and there is no place for it. Speaking of no place for not backing up your claims right, Epic has said that Piracy has killed PC gaming when that is factually not true. PC gaming is actually on the rise, but because Digital Distribution is not taking into account, there really isn’t a way to track game sales. Besides, devs not making PC games, adding ridiculous DRM, and horrible controls are what kills PC games, not Piracy (wonder when that article is going to be written up). This last remark is just a side note though, but slander doesn’t help the industry one bit, constructive criticism does though.
I can kind of see where he is coming from… but that is a bit shallow minded. Any RPG has adventure elements. JRPGs focus on narrative, where as WRPGs focus on Expansive worlds.
The RPG genre has separated into two completely different types of games. Their isn’t one definition of a Role-Playing Game (I still hear people calling Legend of Zelda an RPG… and they aren’t necessarily wrong), and to say one isn’t is a bit ignorant.
I still like the comparison of choose your own adventure book vs novel.
They’re both books, neither is inherently bad, but they just use different styles.
Well this just further cements in my mind the fact that Bioware is a very equal opportunity employer – they even hire the mentally handicapped.