If consoles get an exclusive TB-mode after I just bought PoE2 on PC, I will be very salty lol.
I finished my read-through of the first four Raymond Feist books in the Riftwar Cycle, so last night I started a playthrough of Betrayal at Krondor (since that is the point in the timeline where the game takes place).
And wow, after marathoning those books it's hard for me to imagine people having played the game without reading them first. From the very start you're immersed in the setting, from the locations of LaMut and Krondor and the characters mentioned like Pug, Arutha, and the Moredhel. Just looking at the map I'm traveling through and knowing that the Mordhel army had mounted a campaign and razed a path from Sar Sargoth to Sethanon, and Prince Arutha had survived an attempted assassination at Sarth while on his search for Silverthorn.
I'm only 2 hours in but I'm hooked by the setting. The super-low-poly first-person exploration, not so much. But that's something I can grow to get used to.
So it sounds like reading the books first is definitely contributing quite a bit to the experience. I was almost hoping it wouldn't, because now I feel like I should read them too before I replay Krondor...but at the same time that's awesome that you can fall right into place from the get-go and not have to do that initial legwork to figure out where these places are, why they're important, etc. I imagine it's the same effect you'd have it you read the Witcher books before playing the games (which I also considered doing, but man that's a lot of pages...)
And yea...Krondor may not win any awards for its graphics aging gracefully lol. But I think that beneath that coat of paint, the core is pretty solid once you get into the swing of it.
So I'm curious, especially in times where pretty much every game out there incorporates some RPG elements, what makes a game an "RPG" anymore for you?
I just beat Mutant Year Zero and while most people would describe the game as "XCOM with a duck" it's much more "Wasteland 2 without out-of-combat stuff" to me. You have a squad of 5 named characters, you level up, get skill points and new skills, get new weapons out of chests, combat is turn based, you have buffs and debuffs etc pp. So it shares a lot of similarities with RPGs (and is based on a popular RPG rule set) but I don't think many people (including me) would consider it an RPG. I think for me it's the lack of dialogue and - as mentioned - out of combat scenarios but then again I would consider Dark Souls an RPG and that also lacks those options. So it's really just a gut feeling for me.
Now obviously genres are completely meaningless anyway, I just thought it would be interesting to hear what makes a game an "RPG" for instead of a "game with RPG elements"
With the caveat that you've already mentioned that genres are completely meaningless anyway - personally what I consider an "RPG" is sort of similar to what Sinatar posted about character sheets, but a bit more abstract.
I consider a game an "RPG" if the primary form of character progression lies in the stats, equipment, and abilities of the character, rather than in my own skill. So for instance:
(1) In Dragon Quest, I can certainly get better at the game in terms of understanding the systems better and developing better strategy, but ultimately my characters' progression through the game relies on their stats increasing, their equipment getting better, the fact that they gain more spells, etc. - I, myself, can't single-handedly get better at the game and thus progress through it in that manner. So it's an RPG to me.
(2) In Dark Souls, while the character has stats and equipment etc., I can ultimately proceed through the game almost entirely based on developing my own skill as a player. Beating the game at level 1 is possible and actually not too difficult once you know what you're doing and have the muscle memory/experience playing the game. My success in battle relies largely on my own dexterity/execution as a player. So I do not consider this an RPG. (And that is true, by the way - I don't consider the Souls games true RPGs, not like it matters though so whatever).
This vague categorization all comes from tabletop RPGs. In tabletop RPGs, I make decisions and roll the dice, but ultimately the success of any given battle, or any given progression of battles throughout a campaign, is based pretty overwhelmingly on my stats, my equipment, my abilities, and so forth. It's not like I can "roll the dice better" or influence the outcome of a fight through my own physical skill; I just make the decisions and then let the character do their thing while hoping luck is in my favor. Since combat is usually the primary method of progressing through critical points in a RPG campaign, I don't consider games that allow me to "cheese" past combat using my own skill as a player to be RPGs. They may capture other strengths of RPGs like choice and consequence storytelling or comprehensive world-building, but they're still action games with RPG elements.
So where does this leave something like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, where it has real-time combat where I have to aim and use my own dexterity, but otherwise it looks, sounds, and feels like an RPG? Well...it doesn't leave it anywhere, really. But the problem with genre classifications is that there will always, ALWAYS be border cases that make any system look stupid - which is why genre classifications in this context are pointless in the first place, other than occupying the first 10 pages of the essentials thread every damn time.
Yeah, I was referring to the RPG club. Has it stopped? If it ever comes back I will be in
The backlog blitz program in the RPG discord is going pretty well, so I'm still trying to figure out how/if the club will coexist alongside that, and what changes should be made to it, if any (there will be at least some for sure). I've been thinking about this for a while and I'll start discussing it more soon since the new year is coming up.
In the meantime, some members have coordinated playing backlog titles together through the blitz program in the Discord, so you can join us in there if you're not there already. Let me know if you need an invite.
As someone who doesn't typically play jrpgs, I just finished Final Fantasy 7 for the first time on PS4. I enjoyed it quite a bit! I liked the mechanics: I was overwhelmed with the amount of Materia choices, which I think is a good thing. I liked the cast of characters for the most part and thought their moment to moment dialogue was pretty interesting. I appreciated the overall narrative and exposition dumps but I think I dug the moment to moment interactions most. I didn't lean on the quality of life cheats too, too much but I did become accustomed to the fast forward feature. I thought it was nice to include. This is the second rpg for me to finish in 2018, Ni No Kuni 2 being the first.
Now, I don't want to go for the platinum just yet. I'd like to add another rpg to pick away at from my backlog. I'm staring at a few and have basically got to the first save point on each and I'm still having cold feet. Here's what I'm considering next now:
Persona 5 - this looks and sounds incredible. The hours required to finish it is my main deterrent. Also, I have access to persona 3-4 on digital via ps3, which are also in my backlog...
Final Fanrasy VIII - the divided community and leveling system seems odd.
Final Fantasy IX - Another ps1 on PS4 romp. It may feel fatiguing after coming straight off VII.
Final Fantasy X Remaster - I've already completed it once on Ps2. Seems like a bit of a time waste with so much in my backlog.
Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age - I'm sort of in the dark on this one but I know it's generally loved. I thought it looked great on the PS4.
Dragon Quest XI - I bought this on sale and I don't know enough about it. The only main complaint I've seen is the soundtrack, which is something that really stood out to me as a big positive in FF7.
Octopath Traveler - I have other sprite based games in my backlog that I need to get to, including FFVI and Chrono Trigger. I'm not sure if this should be my next. I know I need to finish those two especially on my bucket list but I'm looking to play something not strictly sprite based right now.
Nice avatar, also this is a great set of games so you won't go wrong with any of them. If you plan on playing the Persona games though, I do recommend potentially looking into playing P3 and P4 before P5. P5 adds a lot of QoL features that can make going backwards difficult, as opposed to playing them in release order.
