Bwah. After many days, we return to the world of long letters. So I'll cut out my opening would-be witty bantering, and get straight into it. | Horrific | Well, if it isn't those stars, it's the damn planets. I've been thinking again. Okay, this time, I was wondering why there aren't more horror RPG's...the whole "timing" thing that was such a problem with humor RPG's wouldn't be an issue, just stuff extra "surprises" in boxes, or have monsters crash out of walls unexpectedly, instead of sitting on their pixly asses waiting for you to come whoop on them. FMV scenes like this would also probably make me wet myself. And as a bonus, I'd like to see an "Enter your name" screen that had phonetic stuff on it, instead of just letters and symbols. So that in games with voice acting, like Resident Evil, or Xenogears, they actually say your name. It'd make the game a little more personal, and if a monster jumps out of a box screaming "ALLAN YOU'RE DEAD!!!" It'd scare the hell out of me a lot more than just a monster jumping out of a box. Only downside is how many people who'd think they're creative and make the game pronounce cuss words. God that'd get old fast. Maybe now those damn celestial bodies will butt out of my life. Osiris |
Oh lord, cool as it'd be for games to yell your name as they ruthlessly slaughter you, I don't think it'd work. We have enough trouble getting live actors to sound convicing, much less trying to train a video game system to synthesize decent acting. Still, it's always nice to see some diversity of genre in RPGs, and a horror-based one would be nice. Especially a Victorian-styled one, more Shelley and Welles than Scream. | Not dead yet | Hey Seb/Double Agent/Allan whatever the hell you want to be called, I don'tcare. :) This question, to put it bluntly, relates somewhat to the Gohan question,but not really. Feel glad....somewhat. ^_- You can't escape the genderissue! After stewing over Gohan's question, and seeing everyone ranted the way Iwould have personally ranted myself, another question popped into my mind.We all argued about how women are different but equal (which I agree with),but has anyone noticed that women are constantly...CONSTANTLY the ones whoget kidnapped, assaulted, etc.? Why is this? Well, it's basically theclassic RPG stereotype of the 8-bit days "Princess has been kidnapped. Herogets upset. Hero goes to save princess and kill big bad wizard. Hero wins.All is joyous." Secondly, why aren't there more female RPG baddies. I meanmain RPG baddies, not side baddies. Ones that you very well could fight nearthe end of the game. This question isn't quite as easily answered as thefirst. What I want to ask you, and your fellow readers: is there any games thatbreak the two basic RPG stereotypes? Is there a game where a girl saves aguy, or there's a strong female RPG villain(ess)? Pathetically enough, Ionly came up with two games, and a possible third. For the 'girl saves guy'scenario, there's Secret of Mana, where the main PC girl joins the heroescause to save Dyluck, her ill-fated (and very pathetically useless),boyfriend. For the RPG baddie, there's Arcana, there's Rimasla, who wouldhave a much better impression on me if she had a decent personality tackedon her. Finally, FFVIj is the only game where every character is somewhatequal to each other. Sure, Locke saves Celes, but Celes also saves (nay,finds) Locke in the World of Ruin, and in fact unofficially leads the partyduring the second half of the game. Speaking of which, RPG Heroines are alsoa rarity. There's Alis, of course, from PS1, but besides her? Not much else.Of course, it's also late at night...there could be more that I'm notthinking of. Ahh...how much I would pay to have a game with a strong, non-stereotypicalRPG heroine, who fights with, by god, a sword! Imagine that! Imagine thatshe has a nice, kind, but rather luckless boyfriend...let's say he's apowerful wizard (Or *Snicker* healer...couldn't resist a Gohan stab. Sorry^_^). The villain in the game happens to be a villainess...who wants themale's powers. Poof! She kidnaps him and or does something nasty orstereotypical to him. Girl gets upset. The strong, enduring RPG heroineleads a gaggle of friends to save the world. By god, what a delicious rolereversal. Of course, that RPG storyline's a bit clichÚ, but even thosechanges would spark new life into the RPG genre. Ah well, I just thought I'd bring that up. Seems a lot more productive thanwhining about Gohan for the 20th, time, doesn't it? Thanks for your time Allen, Lucca "Make sure to buy your CandyXXX dolls today---now with Kung Fu 'gripping'action!" |
The best, and sadly one of the few, counter-examples I can think of is Popful Mail, for Sega CD. Girl with a sword, tough, cool (in a bizarre kinda way), and probably the best of the three playable characters, too. How's that for role reversal? I agree, though, that there should be more, for variety's sake if nothing else. Oh, and anyone who insists that only women can be healers must be chained to a Sega CD and forced to play Lunar: Eternal Blue until their eyes shrivel away into dust. EB boasts a distinctive, weird, perverse healer by the name of Ronfar. And it's a he. And he kicks butt as a healer, and sucks in combat. The moral of the story? A role is a role, and forcing a character into a role based on sex alone isn't always the most interesting choice. | RPGs and movies, oil and water | I don't expect the RPG/movie topic to fly, but what the heck: But, okay: The Earthbound movie: Will be made by a team of randomly selectedstoners while under the influence of powerful narcotics. Certain wordsin the dialogue will be replaced with loud, monotone, taboo words:"Damn, that was rough. You want to go to Denny's and grab some -SHIT-?"Will contain profound messages about life, but everybody will ignorethem because it will be SO FUCKING WEIRD. Will be adored by Twin Peaksfans. The Illusion of Gaia movie: The most profound movie ever, but with aStanley Kubrick-esque ending that nobody understands. Nobody willactually pay attention to the depth of the movie, because they'll spendall their time sayin things like, "Did you understand the ending?No...that was weird. See, I think maybe he was saying..." The Legend of Legaia movie: A brilliant masterpiece, worthy of an Oscar.Will be forgotten entirely except for the pimp line. The Drakkhen movies: Will be a ten-part series, except all the movieswill be sort of the same, with complicated but boring plots, and nobodywill really pay attention to them anyway. Good movie to making outduring. [Allan: there are movies it's not good to make out during?] The Xenogears movie: Wonderful and deeply involving up until the lastten minutes, where the second half of the story is told inscrolling-text format over a blank white screen. The FF4 movie: Star Wars dubbed in Japanese, with poorly translatedEnglish subtitles. The Seventh Saga movie: Relatively unremarkable, except you'll have todefeat an expert martial artist using only youur bare hands before theylet you into the theater. Will have good music, though. The Pokemon movie: I feel bloated on mountain air! Okay, I know you only wanted one, but...bleh. I'll think of a witty linetomorrow. |
Yeah, the RPGs and movies topic didn't really fly. Some people gave it a valiant effort, but the consensus seemed to be that games were too long and too different from movies to be translated very well. The best suggestion, to my mind, was the idea of adapting Xenogears or Lunar into anime OAV series. That allows greater breadth of time to tell the story fully, and they're both pretty cinematic games to start with. This, and one other letter I'll print tomorrow, represent my favourite entries of the whole discussion thread, which I take full responsibility for being a total flop. Mea culpa. Still, I got a laugh out of the above, so it's not a total loss, ne? | Facts 'n figures | Hey Allan, According to NPD TRSTS sales figures published in Games Week Magazine and on FFOnline, Xenogears sold 116,039 copies which I gather is quite well for a RPG in North America (It was outsold by Breath of Fire III and Diablo, however). In comparison, Parasite Eve was listed at 386,376 copies, which was second to FF7, and SaGa Frontier at 87,471. I seriously hope that these figures are good enough to keep Square and other companies faithful in bringer future titles (other than guaranteed hits such as FF8) over. DarkElf |
Thanks for the info, DarkElf. Those figures look familiar, though I could've sworn that Xenogears sold better than that. Ah well. The trends are certainly clear. | Equal time and representation | Dear Allan, Hey I just like to first mention that I really enjoy the column it is a great place for me to interact and to see what my fellow gamers think about situations going on in the gaming world. I also consider the column to be a balanced forum for me to join in. However recently I'm not so convinced, after Drew posted the particular letter of a sexist persons point of view I found that instead of there being equal time the follow letters that were all posted were ment to bash said gamer. No to and extent I agree with that gamer, however there is a lot I disagree on. He did in fact misrepresent all Christians with his views, but I've only seen letters agreeing with the host and/or bashing the sexist letter. Now if those letters were indeed the most qualified to be posted then I'll just shut up right now, and I believe in your compentance as a host to make sure of that, but I'm a little uneasy about it. So I offer my comment to balance out the time. I now that you think the debate is dead but I have some valid points. When it comes to women in RPG's I agree that as with all aspects of life, man or a woman, should be rewarded on who is the best at fulfilling their particular role, in other words, if a female makes a better fighter well then by all means let her be a fighter, her sex should play no role in the judgement of what is a better swordsmen/women. With all things, regardless of sex, all people should be treated equally. To say that men and women are alike is completely false and ignoring this is also too ignore the beauty of women. It is common sense that men and women play different roles, men are better adept to certain things than women, and women are better adept at certain things then are men. Despite our "enlightment" of this era nothing will ever change this basic premise. To say that women are better with kids is not and insult and anybody who says so must not understand the importance and respect that motherhood regrets. In almost every great persons speech or thank you's at the end of a road, they always, no matter man or woman thank their mothers. As in RPG's to say that woman make better healers is not insulting either, I don't know about you but without Rosa or the White Mage in my party I'd be toast. Reverting back to what I said, if Rosa was a better fighter, then by all means she should have been on the front lines confronting Zeomorous (errr however you spell it). In real life women who serve in the Navy on average have 3 months more a year that they take off because of pregnancy. Once again I'm not implying that they are bad at their jobs, but they do need on a whole more time off. For Feminist to come out and think that whenever they speak they represent all women, they don't, in fact according to "The Indepent Womens Magazine", 94% of women would rather stay home and take care of their kids than work. Feminism used to be good 50 years ago when equality was the main point of the issue, but now they have an agenda and equality hardly is one of those points. My whole point is that to say men and women are the same is to ignore some blatent facts of life. Sure, each gender should be treated equally and never be limited by such, but by our gender we inturn help to choose what we want out of life. I mean come on, has anybody here ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend? If we were so alike how come you guys fought so much ( and then luckily got to make up)? In RPG's or action games it is no different. Lara Croft may look nice but if she dresses skimpy that doesn't make her a slut, but does say a lot about her. It may be hot outside, but if a woman dresses really skimpy she knows why she is doing. Same with men, we dress for attention from others as well. People who can't attract attention with their character obviously know that they lack it. I hope I came off as fair and balanced as I could be but still getting my points across. It may offend some, but this is my beliefs and I don't really care. In fact I'm sure most people agree with me. Love the column Allan and I hope we can still be friends. Rhett P.S. I would buy a same-sex couple game because I would find it interesting. I don't think homosexaulity is okay, but I still like them as my friends. Tolerance to others means I accept that person, not what they do. Also tolerance does not mean I have to EMBRACE what that person does as right. |
I'd declared the sexism topic dead, but Rhett and Lucca's letters were good enough for me to revoke my moratorium. In defense of the past few days, the response given in the column was totally representative of general sentiment about the whole issue. For my part, I'd have posted any letters that had supported Gohan's points, but they simply did not exist, so I couldn't. For my money, I think the harsh response was entirely appropriate, not simply because I disagree with much of Gohan's sentiment and reasoning, but because he stated said opinions in a very inflammatory and irrational manner. By contrast, I don't agree with everything you've written, but it's presented well, so I doubt the response will be half as heated. Anyhow, I think we all do agree that men and women are different. I'm not disputing that there are some natural predispositions based on sex or gender. What I take issue with is pigeonholing women as healers, without exception. Or never having them as the butt-kicking fighters. Or what have you. I want diversity of character types and roles, and I, and many other DA readers, feel that current RPGs aren't delivering in this respect. The two areas where I really disagree with you are the need for feminism and homosexuality. In the former category, I point out that North America is a looooong way from pay equity, and while radical feminism has certainly soured the waters for activism, and there have been great strides forward, the job isn't finished. And probably will never be. As for your views of homosexuality, I disagree (big suprise there, huh?), but I do appreciate your understanding of tolerance. Ironically, your views on homosexuality mirror mine of Christianity - I can accept it, but I don't embrace it as being right. In short, while we're never going to see eye-to-eye in terms of our social views, but you're well-spoken, tolerant, and reasonable, so you're always welcome in this column. | Definitions of looooove | Okay, I gots a definition for ya' I have three categories for my defining of games:Adventure, Action, and RPG (note in my definitions I know that therealways is grey area of games that just don't fit, and definitions arespecific to console systems only! no PCs). Let's start with theeasiest... An RPG is a game that has a highly defined plot (i.e. lotsand lots o' dialogue), evolving characters (characters gain abilitiesthrough exp. or learning them, not just finding objects, and charactersare not flat but round, and there are usually multiple playablecharacters), and some form random turn based battles. The most obviousexamples are FF, DragonQuest, Wild Arms, etc. But ParasiteEve,CronoTrigger, although they have a slightly more active, and less randombattle, system are RPGs because ultimately they are turn based. Zelda,Alundra, Brave Fencer Musashiden, Illusion of Gaia, etc are NOT RPGs.... They fall into the category of Adventure. Thedefinition of Adventure is a game that have slightly defined plots(defined plots but not epic defined, are defined more by actions [i.e.quests] than dialogue) flat characters (characters are not highlyrealized, have few emotions, and gain ability more from found objectsthan exp.), and battles are not random and are actively fought (battlesand exploration, solving puzzles, being the focus of the game). Now youmay think that Adventure just sounds like RPG 'lite,' but there is afundamental difference between RPG and Adventure. The focus of an RPG isstory development, and character development. Fighting is of secondimportance. The only reason one goes on quests in an RPG is to unfoldmore plot. The focus in an Adventure is movement and battles. Story isof second importance. The reason there is a story is to develop morescenarios for more battles. If you think about it it makes sense. Link, forexample is a very flat character. He never speaks, he doesn't growintellectually (yeah he changes from young to old, but that doesn'tcount!), he never actually says, "hey, I'm going to save the world ordie trying!" He just gets assigned missions and goes out to do them, forthe sake of adrenaline. Cloud on the other hand grows throughout thegame, and more or less says, "hey, we need to save the world!" He goeson missions, not for the sake of journey but to discover more about'life.' Again what separates RPG and Adventure is what the focus of thegame is. Now you ask, what about Tenchu, Tomb Raider,MetalGear, BioHazard, etc, etc. They fall into the category of Action.An Action game is any game that probably would have been a 2D platformgame in the ol' glory 8bit or 16bit days, like Ninja Gaiden,Castlevania, Mario, Ghouls and Ghosts, etc. It used to be that theirplots were minimal, and they had different boards, but with Tomb Raiderand MetalGear that has changed. Now I define them by their execution ofgame play. They don't really have boards anymore, but levels can bedefined by specific objectives. Action games have very littleexploration. RPGs and Adventure have a great deal of exploration. AlsoAction games tend to be focused in a specific location (MetalGear on abase in Alaska, Castlevania in...er a castle), which is part of thereason they have little exploration. The new gen. of Action games havealso changed in their method of play. They used to be slash, run, andfight the boss, but now have changed to slash, run, and solve thepuzzle. This is another separation that can be seen in the three genres.RPGs have little to no puzzle elements, Adventure often have puzzleelements, and Action games are puzzle intensive. Now that all of that is said I can sum up everything inthree short sentences. 1. RPG anything like Final Fantasy 2. Adventure anything like Zelda 3. Action anything that was Ninja Gaiden and now is BioHazard P-dog |
And there we go. Anyone else care to refute his definitions? Try and find a clearer set? Have totally radical ideas that put FF down as a Puzzle game?
Closing comments Whew. That was a long one, wasn't it? Still, good opinions, well presented, and I ever had two letters that were so good, I nearly felt pain, cutting them out of the final column, to keep it from dragging too long. Good stuff, keep it up, and trust me, it's worth reading all the above letters today. I don't need to prompt today. There's enough to chew on in the meat of the column. So, chew, enjoy, and see you tomorrow with a toothpick. Ciao, - Allan Milligan | | | |
