In my boredom, I was surfing the net and chanced upon these message boards with a bunch of angry people arguing about what game falls under what genre and doesn't fit into a certain genre. Some intelligent argument on these, but others not so much. Most of these boiled down to "which games were RPGs and which games weren't."
Some of these threads were actually pretty funny to read while others were a bit annoying (flame wars, you know how that goes). People have different interpretations of what an RPG is to them, as ridiculous as some of them were acting. Well, I found this amusing (but interesting) to see such comments like these, made by different people, mind you. These are generally silly to me, but it opened my eyes a bit on how people have different thoughts about what an RPG is:
-"FF7 (Final Fantasy VII) was not an RPG."
-"Fallout 3 is NOT an RPG! It's a FPS."
-Baldur's Gate isn't an RPG because (something along the lines) of it not using a text-intensive menu system with some specific form of turn-based combat.
-Zelda games are generally "Action (or Adventure) RPG's". (I feel I remember a few Pavilionites arguing just the opposite, not too long ago).
-Western RPGs really aren't RPGs. They are just turn-based strategy games or hack-and-slashes "with a story". And ironically...
-As for Japanese RPGs...same thing. To be honest these two going hand-in-hand made me laugh. As one WRPG player and another JRPG player were going at it, arguing but ironically trying to use the same points to "discredit" the other's preference. That's what I made of it anyway.
-"Any game that introduces RPG Elements makes it an RPG (by default, apparently)." *shrugs* Anyway...
There are many more but quite a few of them have this over-bearing ignorance than them being mere point of preference.
Generally, I feel that it is what one makes of it. But I also have an idea of what is an RPG to me and what is not. To be honest, some of these are silly to me. Taking the Final Fantasy VII reference into account, I am not sure what to call it, if not RPG.
But anyway, the general definition roughly means "a game that consists of assuming a role of a person or character in a fictional situation, usually to accomplish a common goal." Or at least that's the gist of what I learned of reading others opinions, and many of them vary slightly in detail. But this is a pretty vague definition. With this "It's an RPG whenever you assume a role..." generalization, then when I'm playing Smackdown vs Raw 2011...am I not assuming the role of Randy Orton when I RKO and pin John Cena, with that said goal in mind of reclaiming the WWE Championship? One can take any video game and call it an RPG at that point, correct? So I am interested in what an RPG is to you. And do try to be nicer than than these other boards I've read. I believe in you, assuming this thread gets any kind of interest at all.
Oh, for the record, I don't consider Smackdown vs Raw to be an RPG, I was just using an example to illustrate how easy it would be to make use of that definition and be (technically) correct, ridiculous as it is. Your thoughts, my fellow Pavilionites?
Some of these threads were actually pretty funny to read while others were a bit annoying (flame wars, you know how that goes). People have different interpretations of what an RPG is to them, as ridiculous as some of them were acting. Well, I found this amusing (but interesting) to see such comments like these, made by different people, mind you. These are generally silly to me, but it opened my eyes a bit on how people have different thoughts about what an RPG is:
-"FF7 (Final Fantasy VII) was not an RPG."
-"Fallout 3 is NOT an RPG! It's a FPS."
-Baldur's Gate isn't an RPG because (something along the lines) of it not using a text-intensive menu system with some specific form of turn-based combat.
-Zelda games are generally "Action (or Adventure) RPG's". (I feel I remember a few Pavilionites arguing just the opposite, not too long ago).
-Western RPGs really aren't RPGs. They are just turn-based strategy games or hack-and-slashes "with a story". And ironically...
-As for Japanese RPGs...same thing. To be honest these two going hand-in-hand made me laugh. As one WRPG player and another JRPG player were going at it, arguing but ironically trying to use the same points to "discredit" the other's preference. That's what I made of it anyway.
-"Any game that introduces RPG Elements makes it an RPG (by default, apparently)." *shrugs* Anyway...
There are many more but quite a few of them have this over-bearing ignorance than them being mere point of preference.
Generally, I feel that it is what one makes of it. But I also have an idea of what is an RPG to me and what is not. To be honest, some of these are silly to me. Taking the Final Fantasy VII reference into account, I am not sure what to call it, if not RPG.
But anyway, the general definition roughly means "a game that consists of assuming a role of a person or character in a fictional situation, usually to accomplish a common goal." Or at least that's the gist of what I learned of reading others opinions, and many of them vary slightly in detail. But this is a pretty vague definition. With this "It's an RPG whenever you assume a role..." generalization, then when I'm playing Smackdown vs Raw 2011...am I not assuming the role of Randy Orton when I RKO and pin John Cena, with that said goal in mind of reclaiming the WWE Championship? One can take any video game and call it an RPG at that point, correct? So I am interested in what an RPG is to you. And do try to be nicer than than these other boards I've read. I believe in you, assuming this thread gets any kind of interest at all.
Oh, for the record, I don't consider Smackdown vs Raw to be an RPG, I was just using an example to illustrate how easy it would be to make use of that definition and be (technically) correct, ridiculous as it is. Your thoughts, my fellow Pavilionites?
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