Oblivion, Final Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons... how could three such diverse properties all be labeled as RPG's? It seems as though the title is a catch all for a genre that doesn't exactly know what it wants to be. There's no denying though, of the big names it all started with D&D. Gygax helped to develop and popularize the idea of leveling up, of having different classes, of equipment, and of a magic system, not to mention dungeon crawls, NPC's, and traps and treasure.
But, these things have been adhered to for too long, and its time for some changes to start working their way into the realm of RPG's. It's been a slow growth process for the industry, other than perhaps sports games, it's one of the ones who's seen the least innovation of core gameplay over the years, and one of the last 2D hold outs in some cases. Not something to complain about, there's a lot of advantages to 2D, but suprisingly, not often for turn based RPG's. 2D is good for platformers and fighters when it tightens up hit detection and negates the need for messy cameras, but for strategy oriented games you could make them as pretty or bland as you like and the gameplay wouldn't change. I personally love 2D art, and don't want to see it go away, it's just odd that one of its last bastions is in a field that gameplay wise has no reason to hold onto it.
But, this isn't an analysis of where RPG's are, it's where they need to go, so let's get down to it.
1. No more hard levels/stats
Leveling creates a palpable sense of being awesome. When you're level 100 you could whip a level 5's butt right? But, in most RPG's, what's the point? In Final Fantasy and other jRPG's, you get stronger, but so do the enemies. The only reason leveling exists is so you can basically adjust the difficulty setting in game. Sure, against later bosses you'll do 5,000 damage where against early ones you did 20, but does it really matter when the later boss takes the same number of hits to kill?
Leveling works in games that have little interaction to compensate for the fact that you have to 'imagine' what you're doing. When I play Earthbound on the SNES, the only way that I know that Ness has powered up is when he's doing more damage to enemies, he looks the same wandering around the world map, and battle animations don't change all that much either. But RPG's have, and will always be about playing a character, a role in the world. Now that we have access to much more advanced graphics, and much more powerful systems that allow for better action sequences, why is my character still fighting like he's a spreadsheet?
To put it another way, strength as a stat exists so that, even though Cloud swings the Buster sword with the exact same animation, now I know he's swinging it 5 times stronger than he was. Since we aren't restricted by animation anymore, why doesn't he just actually look stronger as the game progresses? Why doesn't the swing that early in the game glanced a blow against an enemy, now cause that same enemy to be torn mercilessly in half? Or damage the ground around the point of impact? This connects with the second point I have.
2. Tighter Advancement for Characters
At the end of a Sci-Fi or Fantasy novel/movie, the main character is often stronger. Luke Skywalker from Episode 6 could beat the pants of Luke Skywalker from Episode 4. However, he's not so ungodly stronger that it's not even a comparison. Why then, in roleplaying games, do my characters start off doing 10 damage, and end up doing 9,999? Am I supposed to believe that the hero is now 100 times stronger than he was at the start of his quest? Sometimes, this makes sense, like when someone awakens to magical inner strength, or the like. But changes of that size should be important, not the mark of a gradual level grind. That being said, if you look to what I've said above, though I think characters should palpably get stronger as the game progresses (by learning new skills and by improving in say graphical draw or animation style), they should not look as though they're beyond the realms of believability compared to what they were in the start of the game.
Yes, adventure turns a child into a man, that doesn't mean that it turns it into a man who can now casually fingerflick an enemy to death that threatens people in the starting town of the game, that hardly makes sense. Restricting level growth and advancement allows for a much more believable world. Let's look at Oblivion, Oblivion is basically a game of levels with no levels. Whenever you level up, enemies level up, which begs the question... why are you leveling up? Wouldn't the game, for all intents and purposes, be the same if you just never gained experience and only learned new skills as you progressed?
3. Stop with all the equipment!
When was the last time you read this passage in a fantasy novel 'Urthor and his gang of adventures found their way through the forest to a village they'd never seen before. After stopping by the local inn to insure a room, they went to the weapon store, and sold off all the random items they'd gotten off the enemies they'd slaughtered, and then sold in all their weapons and armor and bought slightly better weapons and armor than they had before.' The idea that you trade in your sword 300 times over the course of a game each time for a slightly better one is ludicrous. In an MMO it helps to extend the idea of showing off how cool you are, but in an RPG it just feeds into the unnecessary and arbitrary 'level' phenemona, and actually hurts the game. Let's look at a classic example.
Final Fantasy VII is a story that has a lot of importance to it, and one of the most important items in it is the Buster Sword. The Buster Sword has a well established backstory (there's a whole game about how Cloud comes to possess it), it features heavily in game related art, and it's an iconic symbol for both its hero and the series of games it produced as a whole. Why then, do you take it off the moment you steal a better sword of soldiers in the Shinra Bldg? The constat swap of armor and items vastly hurts the storytelling possibility of most games, wheras in general fantasy weapons often take on serious import, in a game where you constantly trade up its hard to say the same thing. Its also pretty ridiculous. Swords can be of better make, and they can be smithed better or enchanted magically, but do you honestly think that you'ld be ten times stronger if you had one sword in your hand rather than holding another one?
Games can have equipment that can change over the course of the story, but tieing it into leveling and advancement, especially in RPG's where you have no choice or options, is just a waste of players time. If everytime I go to a town I buy a new slightly better sword, until I get another off a boss, what's the point in the game having them at all? You could just rebalance it so I keep the same sword most of the game and get say, an important enchanted one half way through, and you'ld have another chance to have some really great storytelling.
4. Larger Party Size
If you're going to take on the ultimate evil, the greatest most powerful villain in the world, and you have 8 friends, how come only three of them are stepping up for the last fight? And, on that note, why are there only 8 of you in the first place? Some games set this up pretty well, you can adequately explain why only 6-10 destined heroes are able to stand up to the true evil in the world, but sometimes its pretty flimsy. Sometimes you even know people that can help but arbitrarily don't. That midboss who you beat and switched over to your side? How come he's just sitting in the back cheering you on when you take on his former boss? I seem to remeber him being at least strong enough to be on potion duty or something.
However many people the game gives you, should be allowed in a party. If you make a game with 8 main characters, max party size should be eight. If you're going to give me 100 possible recruits, there better be points in the game where I can take parties of 100 out for an open field battle. It doesn't have to be all the time of course, say you have 8 people, sometimes it might make sense to say 'I think only these people would be good for sneaking in', but when you're just wandering through the woods, how come the other five are sitting out while you wail on the boar that just attacked you?
5. More Action
Action RPG's are becoming more and more common for a good reason, because it's a good hybrid of gameplay. RPG stands for Role Playing Game. The most important part is the idea that you're playing a role, not pointing and clicking. No one said the experience couldn't be immersive. Having more and more active combat, and world exploration really helps to flesh out the idea of that. The thing you need to make sure to avoid though is just increasing the number of clicks. One click autoattack versus multiclick hitting just changes how tired your hand gets while playing the game. If you really want to make combat more immersive and engaging you need to make sure that you involve the players mind in combat. RPG players will always be a little more cerebral than some of their FPS loving counterparts, so you can't just extend the same system to them. Something akin to what you see in fighting games, with combo's, guards at various levels, and command input, is probably a good place to start.
6. Less Health, more 'shielding/endurance/dodging etc.'
Now that we're moving in the realm of more action, and less leveling, characters should have less health. Being able to withstand a giant meteor smashing you in the face does not help you feel attached to your character. In an extention of more action oriented gameplay, something more akin to Assassin's Creeds 'health' is a good idea. Why are you taking 1000 hits when it would be more logical to have your character dodge and block those same hits, while taking only one or two directly kills him? If RPG's are going to work harder at making you feel more in the role of the character, they need to move in this more 'realistic' direction.
The other advantage of using endurance over health is getting to avoid ridiculous heal spells and potion spamming. Not that healing magic and potions have no place in fantasy, but they're a bit awkward and overused. Usually in fantasy epics healing magic isn't just something you chain spam during the entire fight, I don't remember Aragorn yelling at Gandalf to stay in the back and cast 'Heal 3' while he was fighting off Orcs. Recovering Endurance/armor with rests, patching kits, or even bandages and food is a lot more fitting.
7. Over the Shoulder Camera
Everytime you pull back for a cinematic, or a sweeping shot, or you watch a battle scene from the side of the screen, you break immersion with the character and reinforce the notion that you're watching, rather than living a story. Now, First Person actually doesn't work well either, because when you're in First Person it's all too obvious that you're actually involved in a game at the moment. Over the Shoulder provides both a stable wide field of vision, and at the same time, gives you a real sense of connection to your characters actions. The input of the control feels much more tied to the on screen action from an over the shoulder view than most others, and it allows your imagination to better connect yourself when you can view your characters animations from up close.
8. Remove Direct Control of Multiple Characters
Yes, AI squadmates are rarely useful, but they've been getting better over the years, and one of the detriments to many games is the total control that you have. In FF VII am I playing as Cloud? Tifa? Barret? Everyone? I feel more like someone watching a story unfold than an actual player in the part. Such games might better be titled NPG's, for 'Narrator Playing Games'. In many ways you are the Narrator, you direct the action in a vague sense and watch it unfold. If you really want to have the player connect to the character, you need to tie the player more and more to that characters actions. Systems like the Gambit System, and squad commands in Mass Effect show that it's squad commands, if they're not quite there yet, are getting more and more viable, and its a trend that needs to continue. I feel much more like the hero if I'm taking time in between battles to set up strategies and time in battles to shout orders rather than leaping out to just straight up control someone.
9. Get Rid of Random Encounters
Once again, have you ever read a fantasy novel that went 'Uthor then set out with his brave friends to travel to the Castle of Forgoth. After stepping into Dorlaen woods, he and his party encountered an ape which they slew, and then five feet further another ape reared its fearsome head, and they slew it.'
Random Encounters only exist to support the artificial leveling mechanic. Most if not all games even treat these monsters as garbage, when was the last time in either a jRPG or a US one that any trash goblin or monkey in a dunegon seriously threatened your party? Do things up properly, reduce the number of encounters (yes, if I'm in a dungeon, I should probably fight a goblin or two I'd hope), but make them more serious and deadly. If the game calls for it, allow stealth to make a difference. And for the love of pete, don't make Apes drop gold. Goblins, yeah, ok so maybe he was carrying gold, but an ape should give me at best ape fur (not bannanas, why would an ape bring bannanas to a fight?). And why do only some cows you kill in games leave behind 'leather'? If I can skin a cow, I should be able to skin every single one I fight, the same goes for fish scales, dragon eyes, whatever.
10. Do NOT use 'realistic' inventory systems
Realistic inventory systems work for survival horror games and that's about it. Having to clumsily manage your inventory and weight/size restrictions is a tremendous pain and gives no worthwhile immersion. But, then again, if you're taking my other advice and cutting out all the ridiculous equipment, and modifying the health system to a more 'endurance' based one, this shouldn't be so much of a problem.
11. Heroes should be Bland or Heavy with Personality, not inbetween
Not in the middle, perhaps the worst in the middle example is Kite from the .Hack series. He has a voice, but has absolutely no personality, walking in the middle road between 'silent protagonist' and 'voiced protagonist'. That makes him exceedingly boring. You don't have to leave choices to the player to give them immersion, people like playing as cool characters, and sometimes taking a character out of a players control for major decisions is fine, if you can make someone they'll want to play as (aka Dante from DMC). Both paths work, but should be done appropriately. If you're going to give a character a distinct 'personality', give him a voice and make sure he's well represented. Though I love the game, I'll have to point to Chrono Trigger as something that does this badly. Chrono makes certain obvious decisions over the course of the game. He has expressed goals and relationships, but he never talks. That combination prevents you from really 'getting in his shoes' from either side of the equation. Mass Effect is a good example of the 'American way', they manage to hold to a story even while creating the illusion of choice in many places, but you really get a feel that you are in control of your character, whether he's a jerk or a military brat or a kind hearted philanthropist. It's a brilliant push further down the path. On the other hand, to move a bit into turn based gaming, Disgaea is a great example of the other side. You don't get much choice over what Laharl does, he has a very expressed personality and goal, and you as the player are sort of along for the ride, even if he's doing things you wouldn't. But its never something you complain about. Laharl is bursting with personality and memorable phrases and scenes, and you can't help but enjoy following through his evil plans, point in fact he allows you the pleasure of working out some of your darker sides in a more light hearted fashion. RPG's don't have to be about choice, but either let the player be free to a pretty extensive scope, or keep them constrained in a very enjoyable storyline. The more you move into the middleground the worse the story gets.
12. Reduce Gametime
This is my last real point. Many RPGs are just too long. I know people don't want to necessarily agree with me on this, but this should flow naturally from many other things I've suggested. If you get rid of random encounters, gear progression, leveling up, and all that stuff, you can bring the game down to what's really important, the story. 20-30 hours is more than enough time to tell an engrossing story once you've cut to the heart of it, and you won't wear out the welcome of your combat system. Everything gets boring after awhile (except for PVP play), and very few people will play any sort of PVE game for 50+ hours, so that needs to be taken to heart when you're drilling things down.
There's other thoughts I have, like the fact that danger comes from more than combat, and increasing the number of political and environmental dangers in RPGs, but I think thats enough thoughts on the matter for now. Its a genre I love and I see it moving in the right direction, but I just think theres some trappings of the past that need to be shed away.
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