By this definition, Super Mario Brothers is an RPG. The gamer is put into the shoes of Mario, in a fixed storyline.
What makes an RPG is that the player develops the character. Games like Diablo have shades of this, since you can allocate your skills and stats in different ways. While that’s a part of role-playing, it’s not by far all of it: Mor important is developing the character’s personality, motivation, etc.
‘Replayability’ and ‘Rewarding extra effort’ are stupid concepts?
Thank god you’re not designing games…
You consider Final Fantasy games to be replayable?! As much as I’m enjoying FFX-2, there’s no way in hell I’m ever going through the whole thing again once I’ve beaten it. Even I don’t have that sort of time. Punishing a player for missing 1% of the game by forcing him to replay the other 99% is an awful idea. I’ve noticed that the FF games in general seem to be designed for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but that’s going too far, even by their standards.
The concept of a “New Game +” is hardly unique to FFX-2. Neither is the idea of being able to repeat a game with the gold, items, etc. you got the first time around. Heck, I know of one PS2 RPG where the entire game revolves around you doing so multiple times.
I hardly think this concept is “designed for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
That’s not really the case here. Rather, there’s no way for you to have any idea what will give you points or not. If you just happen not to speak to some characters in the right order, you’ll miss out. You can’t always tell if you’ve gotten any, either. There isn’t a whole lot of replayability in the game - its amounts to a few short extra stages either way.
By that definition, every game is an RPG. That may be true in some tiny way, but if so you’ve redefined the term into meaninglessness. An RPG needs to give you some fashion of defining your character’s character.
A lot of games coughfinalfantasycough seem to actively promote it. NPC’s have no problem if you run through their houses, stealing their precious heirlooms. But it has no effect on the game.
Okay, maybe I misunderstand the situation with X-2. I though furryman was saying he’d have to start the game over from scratch to get the best ending. If he has to play it through again with his high level, pimped out characters from the last time he beat it, that’s somewhat different.
And when I say FF is designed for people with OCD, I mean things like not being able to get the best weapon for Lulu without dodging 100 consecutive lightning bolts on the Plains of Thunder. Anyone who can do that needs to be on some sort of medication. 
Well, you don’t start with your old levels - that’d make it TOO easy. But you do start with all your items, gold, power-boosting accessories, dresspheres, Garment Grids, and all already-learned abilities, which obviously does make things easier.
Actually, I think you need to dodge 200 in a row. 
Yes. The only ones I haven’t played at least twice are II, which I couldn’t manage to force myself through the first quest in either of the two attempts I’ve made; X (which I’ll probably replay after finishing X-2, and finishing I again); and X-2 (which I’m in the middle of playing for the first time).
I, played 4 times. III, twice. IV, 3 or 4 times. V, 3. VI, VII - I’ve lost count. VIII - 3 or 4. IX - 4 or 5 (3 times in a row).
Same goes for pretty much ANY game I’ve ever played and liked.
Why?
The idea of buying a game and playing it through once is completely alien to me - as alien as buying a movie and watching it once, or buying a book to read it once. Unless it sucks, in which case I probably won’t even bother to finish it once.
I never do everything the first time through. First time is to see the main plot, subsequent times are to finish sidequests and beat previous time/level/score/whatever.
Even without New Game +, I’d be replaying it to finish what I didn’t this time, or to beat my record, or whatever. That’s not OCD, that’s enjoying the damned game.
That’s not replayability, that’s repeatability. To me, a replayable game is one where going through it a second time is a markedly different experience. Correct me if I’m wrong, but replaying most of those game results in largely the same experience as the first time through, no?
Reading books and watching movies aren’t the sort of time sink that a video game, particularly a FF game, can be. It took me around forty hours to beat FFX. That’s a lot of time, which I didn’t mind spending when the game was still novel, but it’s not worth that much time for a second pass through, especially when I could be using that time to play something new. Obviously, you feel different, and that’s cool and all, but there aren’t a lot of people out there with that sort of spare time.
See, I understand that, but I don’t want to waste my time repeating segments I’ve already done to get to the content I missed the first time around. If that content is still available after I’ve beaten the game, I’d enjoy the game more. And you could still play the whole thing over again anyway, so why not make it available no matter what, so that people like me who don’t want to do the whole thing over again have the chance to do it, too?
The OCD thing was just a joke, dude. I didn’t mean it personally or anything.
read the instructions… enemys don’t carry items mostly. the items appear to balence out the passing of evil. thats why stronger enemys give better items.
No. It’s the same over-arching plot, but it’s not the same experience. Because I take advantage of the parts I didn’t the last time.
Because then they wouldn’t be special, secret items/endings/extras, and there’d be no reason to be proud of getting them. You don’t want to put the work into getting them, why do you want them? They’re rewards for special effort, they’re something extra, they’re not vital.
You can finish FFIX without getting Excalibur II. But if you can get to the last disk in 12 hours, it’s a nice little reward for doing so.
You don’t need Lulu’s ultimate weapon, or the Anima Aeon to finish FFX (I got neither), but if you finish their quests, you’ve got something extra in-game for your effort.
If they’re not going to be extra, one might as well take them out altogether. Then for someone who doesn’t want to make the effort to get them, there’s no difference, and for those of us who DO - whether on the first run through or on subsequent replays, the value of the game is lessened.
Extra little bits for extra effort are a GOOD thing.
I’m not complaining about having rewards for doing stuff that’s super hard, I’m complaining about the idea of having to start the game over from the beginning because you missed an option you didn’t even know exsisted. I don’t mind optional content that’s extremely difficult, it’s needlessly repeating parts of the game I’ve already completed to unlock everything that I find annoying.
Well, that’s not what’s being complained about is the thing.
He’s complaining about not getting the special ending for doing everything possible in the game without successfully doing everything in the game. You can still finish with a good ending without doing everything (and his complaint is hugely exagerated, FTR. You often need to do things between major story points - which are marked out as ‘hot spots’ on the map, but you can do them in whatever order you want as long as you don’t hit a hotspot.)
That is what he’s complaining about, because it’s no longer possible to complete everything in the game. If he wants to do that, he has to start over.
I forgot how many lightning bolts I dodged, but yeah, I dodged them. No cheat codes or devices. I couldn’t win the chocobo races in FFX for whoever’s weapon it was, though, and it usually pisses me off enough that I just quit playing the game. I like certain elements of FFX, the sphere grid, as I’ve said earlier, is one of the best level up devices I’ve ever seen, and it’s a good way to customize the characters. As for medications…{glances over at a syringe box full of pill bottles} yeah, I’m on medications. Probably I shouldn’t mention that I’m on my umpteenth replay of FF7, despite my dislike of the game’s character graphics, because I want to beat Ruby and because I want to finally get all of the Enemy Skills. Maybe I can get an Enemy Skill materia to give birth this time. Right now I’m trying to get Chocobuckle, and not succeeding.
Chrono Cross is more of a roleplaying game. By beating the game at different story points, the outcome is different.
However, for TRUE video roleplaying games, one must look to Fallout, Fallout 2, and Arcanum. I will replay each of these games periodically, and each time I try to make different character choices. Usually there are several ways to solve problems. Some characters can outthink and outtalk their opponents, some can outsneak, and others still just use the good old tank method of rolling over opponents and getting what they want by overpowering everyone. What’s more, the game endings are different, depending on what your character did during the game. The narrator will tell you that this city died, while the other city prospered, because of your choices. I find this gratifying, and I try to get different endings. Also, I like having the option to join the Final Boss instead of automatically defeating him. I ESPECIALLY like the option in the first Fallout, of persuading the Final Boss that his cause is hopeless. That always amuses me.
I’m sorry to say that Arcanum has a major problem for single players. If I play an unpatched version of this game, the main character’s level maxes out at 50. I can’t accumulate enough skill points to make a really interesting, playable character, because so many abilities, spells, and techs have prerequisites that must be pumped up first. This means that I can either learn to make the Best Firearm In The Game, OR I could become a Firearms Master, but not both. To learn to make the best firearm, I have to pump up my intelligence, and to become the master, I have to put oodles of points into my perception, and I just don’t have enough skill points to do both. Very frustrating. Fortunately, I found a patch that allows the main character to level up to 127, though this really feels like cheating. I think that Arcanum is a good game, but it should have been better.
Make up your mind, Miller. Do you have a problem with extras or not? Because that’s what he’s complaining about not being able to get. An extra. He can still finish the game, but if he advances to chapter 2 without getting all the extra bits in chapter 1, he doesn’t get the special **extra-**good ending.
If he wants the **extra-**good ending he needs to put extra effort into it.
I think that what’s bothering him (it certainly bothers me) is the nonsensical requirements that some subquests have, and the limited time frame that one must do them in. I hate it when there’s only one opportunity to pick up an item, or do a task, and it’s something that is completely illogical, and in fact in some cases it would make sense NOT to do that task or search for that item. You can check an offscreen area, and only ONE time during the entire game does an offscreen area have that artifact. And you can only get to that area during one scene. That, to me, is not playing fair with the gamer. The gamer should be able to pick up a clue within the game that an area might have a treasure in it. The treasure doesn’t have to be easily accessible, in fact I enjoy solving puzzles to get to a treasure that I can see but can’t readily get to. But I DO want a clue, as opposed to reading a strategy guide after I’ve played the game and realizing that I’ve missed an essential element, which would have enabled me to go on certain sidequests.
Music videos.
I have a game called Omnicron (my wife found it in a bargain bin). Anyway, not a bad game, but every once in a while it starts playing a music video. And once it starts, you can’t stop it. You’re forced to sit there waiting for it to end.
At a certain point you start finding flyers for a concert. You find them everwhere you go. So you go to the concert, watch the music video then… nothing… not hints, no weapons, nothing to help you with the game.
I disagree with this part. Open-ended sidequests are not a problem, but neither are closed quests. In fact, I’d rather have a few closed side-quests, since there’s more of a sense of accomplishment in it than ‘Oh, I can do this any time’.
And here, again, is where the ‘problem’ is exagerated. Those hints DO exist. And they’re not even hints - they out and out tell you what you need to do. And they’re not hidden in areas you wouldn’t be looking anyway, if you were trying to get everything first time around. If you want to get everything and don’t want to take the effort of looking for it, get a walkthrough. I hope I’m not coming across as harsh here, but if you’re that completist that you HAVE to get the special ending for finishing everything, what are you doing walking past obvious NPCs or skipping whole areas?
I’m complaining about not being able to do the extra if I accidentally do something else first. I’m complaining about not being able to get the extra content if I do things in the wrong order. There’s no reason to shut down the side quests in chapter one just because the game has advanced to chapter two, especially if that change doesn’t involve any sort of change in location. There should at least be some sort of warning that if you advance at that point, you won’t be able to go back.