With the epicness that is known as The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim just around the corner I thought I would identify why we love RPG’s and what makes us wanting more of them each year.

RPG’s (Role Playing Games) have become a popular genre in the current generation of gaming. Each year new successful RPGs fly off the shelves and we are not talking about yearly updates either (I’m looking at you MW3). But why are they so popular? What makes us spend hours or our lives in a medieval world, fighting aliens in space, or defeating mutants in a post apocalyptic world? I think it comes down to four main points that help bring an RPG to life.

 

Story:  People love a great story, I could talk for hours about what makes a good story but I’ll keep it short and sweet. For a good story to work in a RPG it has to be thick with lots or twists and turns that take the player in new directions and constantly wanting to see what’s around the corner.

A good RPG story is embedded in-game play as in the Mass Effect series. The game follows Commander Sheppard as the player picks from a number of backgrounds, each play through you have to decide your Sheppard’s back history that will impact on future events of the game. Each story from your past has a different element that impacts on the Sheppard you play as not only in his attitude but in his/her ability. The amount of separate stories going on throughout the game truly what makes it memorable, there is the main plot of Serin trying to bring back the Reapers which is always on the characters minds, but there are also the side plots involving the crew of the Normandy. During your time on the ship you can talk to each member and learn more about them, time after time they will give you a mission that when you complete will help enhance your relationship with them, pleasing them will gain you their loyalty which will be important later on in the game. RPGs that flesh out multiple stories create a believable world fo us to explore which is really important if you are spending 30+hours in a game. If this story isn’t interactive or believable then what is the point of it?

 

Combat: When it comes to RPG’s the fighting system can be a hit or miss scenario. Each game brings it own interruption to how the combat should feel, this is often an element that can put people off playing a game. The two biggest differences that often occur between RPG’s are turn based combat and real-time combat.

Turn based combat can work very well in games but sometimes when games try to use that system it doesn’t quite work. The best examples of turn based fighting are without a doubt the Final Fantasy series (bar a few modern releases). As you upgrade your character the enemies will become increasing more difficult this makes turn based combat more challenging with more micro management and pre fight preparations. I find that this makes fights against tough adversaries even more pleasing.

Real time combat can fall into the trap of becoming a hack and slash game at times. The fear of death is lowered too as in most games you can simply run away until your heath goes back up. The benefits of this fighting system is that it feels more realistic, you can time each hit and defence perfectly with instant gratification. It also doesn’t feel as cheap as turn based games as you can tell how strong a foe will be quickly, instead of getting annihilated half way into the fight by their secret attack that does 94389429 damage. I don’t really need to say it, but Oblivion (and now Skyrim) are two of the best examples of how to do real-time combat in RPGs. Combat is essential in this genre  to become a classic game. While releases such as Dragon Age were great fun, they wont be remembered in years due to their lacklustre combat system.

 

Characters: The element that I believe attracts a player to RPGs are the characters. It’s the part that I think stands out from other game genre. In First Person Shooters the characters feel like lifeless, boring drones that had no emotion or personality. I couldn’t find myself caring for them or finding any purpose for them being in the game world. If I don’t feel for the character I find it difficult to care about the story. I always found characters in RPG’s have a lot of personality and attitude, the characters from the Zelda series even though they don’t talk have so much to them not only by how they look but the noises they make. Often you find yourself laughing at the characters but feel for them as well even though you never hear them speak. Characters help to flesh out a game and sometimes others shine through, Hk-47 from Knights of the Old Republic II made me laugh throughout and as a consequence of this I took him out on more missions and did more missions to do with him. If there is no characters to care about then who cares about your quest to save your elf-mage friends family, or stop that alien on your team from being slaughtered.

 

Environment: The most common and popular setting for an RPG game is currently medieval times.  The genre is still the dominated by castles, dwarfs, elves, swords, shields and magic and each year, game after game is released with the same environment with and some small tweaks. But every now and again games will come out that will break the model by creating something different. Fallout 3 is one of the more recent games to come out that does exactly that. Even though it’s part of a long running game series it had not been around for almost a year. The setting of a harsh desert with destroyed towns really comes to life seeing them in full HD, every little detail of the world can really be admired. I still remember leaving the vault, my character seeing the light of the nature for the first time. It’s something out of this world, you really feel like it is the first time you’re seeing the world. RPGs can use dwarves, humans or aliens. As long as the world has been designed to fit in with the story in mind then it works.

 

To round-up this little feature of mine I want to relay that all the aspects of a game I have tried to cover that help create a great RPG. Of course there are other elements that add to the RPG playing experience, I wanted to show the factors that I believe most people tend to notice when first playing a game or what they expect to see. RPGs are heavy hitting games with so much depth, there is often so much to take in that you miss some parts. which is what makes it so great. RPGs are your world with everyone having different experiences on different play throughs. Stay tuned for my review of Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.

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