Topic: Wii RPGs

While we're at it, let's call GTA and Halo RPGs

The wii has plenty of good GAMES, no one is denying that. What it lacks is RPGs, and this is not appling a narrow definition of the genre to the topic, this is applying the actual definition to the topic.

If there isn't a definition of what classifies a game as belonging to a genre, then it's pointless having genres at all. If we leave the definition of genre to the individual, I'm going to start calling Wii Sports a fighting game, and Just Dance 2 a platformer (there is some jumping involved, after all).

Fragile Dreams is not an RPG.

Quantity over quality

Just as well most of them are amazing, huh?

Fragile Dreams is not a RPG!
But what makes it different?

Well, I'd like to compare it to SECRET OF MANA, as both have the same gameplay:

• Leveling up your stats by monster slaying
• Items collecting and buying/selling
• Equipping weapons
• Solving puzzles now and then
• Exploration
• Talking to characters
• Following a story

So SECRET OF MANA is not a RPG!
Oh God, Final Fantasy is not a RPG either.

I don't know what it is but WaltzElf has a point somewhere.

There's no role playing in this world except for actors in a movie.

Actually, everyone takes on roles daily in real life... but that's a topic for a different forum.

I think Fragile Dreams could definitely be argued to be a JRPG, much more so than something like Monster Hunter. The way the narrative works is like a classic JRPG. I'd classify it as adventure game more though. It's a weird game to classify though, I wonder how the Developers classify it... I suspect they'd class it as a JRPG as the development team are all JRPG specialists.

Hahaha!...I mean to each their own. Though I will agree that for every good RPG there's a bad one on the PS3, but I'd hardly call every Wii RPG a gem. Heck, the best RPGs IMO are ports and games that stretch the definition of Roleplaying.

If you apply a proper definition of RPG to these games, then you're right, Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana are not RPGs.

I think Fragile Dreams could definitely be argued to be a JRPG, much more so than something like Monster Hunter. The way the narrative works is like a classic JRPG. I'd classify it as adventure game more though. It's a weird game to classify though, I wonder how the Developers classify it... I suspect they'd class it as a JRPG as the development team are all JRPG specialists.

The only reason I consider Monster Hunter Tri as a game resembling an RPG is the depth of character customisation. You do have genuine control over how your character is represented in the game.

Otherwise, it's an out-and-out action/ OCD collection game.

I blame games journalists for all this confusion over RPGs. The definition is far too liberally applied. I think a games journalist should at least play a few pen-and-paper games before they start calling games like Zelda (seen it happen) and even Final Fantasy "RPGs"

Also, the PS3 has access to a handful of really good PSOne RPGs (and if you can read Japanese and access the Japanese PSN, a bunch never released in English). WiiWare and virtual console have the "quantity over quality" thing going there.

Not that I'm dismissing WiiWare or Virtual Console, but people in glass houses, and all that...

Genres are becoming more and more interchangeable and it's rare to see a game that is just one genre

I don't think you can blame game journalist entirely, a lot of it comes down to the fact that genre at its core is a marketing tool and it's been manipulated by publishers. Koei could easily market (at least some of) the Musou games as RPGs, the 3DS one sounds especially RPGish. The problem with the RPG compared to other genres is that other genres have distinct game mechanics or settings whilst RPGs don't have them... or if they do they're not unanimously agreed.

That's true, actually. Genre is a part of marketing, and positioning a game as an "RPG" to attract a certain audience is part of the problem. (Koei is positioning an upcoming game, Trinity Zill o'll Zero as an RPG, actually. As far as I can tell, it's a reskinned Warriors game).

The problem with RPGs is that, in the early days of gaming, people let games such as Final Fantasy be called an "RPG," despite the fact that it was merely an attempt at capturing some of Gygax' vision in video game form, and due to technical limitations, is not actually an RPG at all.

Because that game (and Dragon Warrior) was popular, and spawned a mass of copycats, the genre that the marketers and media attached to it, "RPG" stuck.

Given the technology is now there to make a genuine RPG experience, I would really like to see the industry as a whole move to properly define RPG - it would be good for cosumers (unlike Platformer, you really don't know what you are getting when someone recommends you an "RPG"), and it would be good for the industry itself - Final Fantasy games would be less hated on if people stopped going into them expecting an "RPG"

Is that the game with the crayon graphics? Funky looking fer sure.

Out of interest have you played Dragon Quest V? It doesn't have as much choice as the most open RPGs but there are some significant life choices and I'd definitely class that as an RPG.... a very railroaded one but still an RPG.

That's kind of where WRPG and JRPG genres came from, an attempt to properly codify the different directions that the games took... the problem really is about where to draw the line as the games did spawn from RPGs even if they then took their own direction. The mainstream WRPGs seem to be restricting choice more and more nowadays as well, which is a shame.

Yeah, I like Dragon Quest V. It and Dragon Quest IX are the closest to genuine RPGs in that series, for sure.

There's a whole mess of sub genres in the RPG space these days - beneath the JRPG and WRPG you have Action RPG, Hack 'n Slash RPG, Dungeon Crawler RPG, Strategy/ Tactics RPG, RTS RPG, Puzzle RPG, MMORPG, and a host of other, even more obscure ones.

Of those, the only genre that is genuine in "Role Playing" (as in, the Gygaxian/ Cookian vision) is the WRPG, but like you said, even that's becoming steadily more diluted. Perhaps Dragon Age: Origins, Fallout 3/ New Vegas and Oblivion will be the swan calls for true RPG experience.

It would be great to see Bethesda make something on the Wii more like Fallout or the Elder Scrolls.

Actually I'd rather not. Bethesda's recent projects tend to do well mainly due to their oh-so-next-gen graphics and marketing buzz, not because of particularly good gameplay or story. Their games would just flop on the Wii.

Hahahahaha.... nobody buys Bethesda games for their graphics(because the graphics are terrible), it's all about the gameplay but at this point it would be pointless to do a Wii game because there's no audience been established on the system(at this point in its lifetime the audiences are all firmly set).

Yeah, their engine is some 10 years old now and critics and players still talk about how pretty they are... somehow. And the gameplay is stunted compared to many RPGs from the past, even older The Elder Scrolls titles like Daggerfall. Not many redeeming factors there IMO.

And yes, the audience isn't there for the Wii anyway.

Actually the most common complaint about Bethesda games are the looks, specifically animation and the general instability of the engine, which Epic Mcikey is also built on strangely enough. People rejoiced when the news that Elder Scrolls would be on a new engine got out. When I said gameplay I didn't mean the controls or the combat, or anything like that... I meant the fact that the entire games are open(even if the older games were more open).

I just bought Sakura Wars and it's freaking awesome.

My impressions about Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 are that you play in a rather large but static world. Your choices have little to no impact on how the world turns out and what changes you can make are either tightly scripted by the developers (thus ruining the openness of the world) or fleeting and unimportant. Basically, you can become the heralded saviour of the land and people will still say, "hi, who are you?" lol. In Oblivion you can become the leader of a guild in which the previous guild leader banned necromancy - but you can't unban necromancy. Things like that. The games give you a false sense of choice and the worlds are only "open" because they are physically however many miles across.

Oh, and these sorts of things lolol:

Oh yeah, RPGS on the Wii. Right. xD

Yeh, people like that illusion of choice and also the fact you can just run around exploring without touching the stories but the games are glitchy as crap. That's what I'm saying, people don't play them for their technical polish, it's all about the open endedness of it all.