A lot of people do conisider certain elements necessarily related to a genre. So character growth = RPG. The problem is, you end up getting really screwed up results when applying that. For instance, you gain experience in the World Tour mode of Street Fighter Alpha 3. So for every person saying Symphony of the Night is an RPG because of leveling up, how much of that logic carries over to Street Fighter? Maybe Alpha 3 itself is a fighting game but the World Tour Mode is an RPG? That just sounds absurd. What about Metroid and Zelda? If you think about it, the games are structured exactly the same. You build your character up the same way. You "quest" in the same way. But few people would put them in the same genre. Why? Because one has an isometric view and the other doesn't? I think genre definition is so vague that you just can't assign elements as being necessarily related to anything. You just have to "feel it out" in a way.
See, I find that strange since it's obviously not always the case. The whole fantasy=RPG thing is a vestigial remnant back when everything was inspired by Dungeons & Dragons.
Thanks for the list, in your first post you were calling it Darias' List so I thought the members name was Darias
edit: Could have sword you put Darias' I must be seeing things. Sweet I can start working on some PS1 titles too!
Last edited by Skelix; 02-23-2008 at 03:13 AM. Reason: hmm
tail of the sun is not in any way shape or form an RPG.
Its a damn good Caveman running at full speed then falling asleep and rolling down a hillside simulator... but not an rpg.
<@Carey85> I-75 is the second busiest freeway in the country behind I-95
<@NE146> u r
You're taking what I said out of context and limiting your view to assuming that I meant that the leveling up / experience points / stats are the sole point instead of one of the main points. World Tour Mode is a nice bonus feature with RPG elements, though Ehrgeiz and Tobal no 2 had dungeon crawler bonus features as well... would you call those RPGs? Hell to the no. The mode itself might be RPGish, but it's not like it's the main game. It's like calling Knights of the Old Republic a gambling game, Kingdom Hearts an on rails shooter, or Mario & Luigi's Superstar Saga a puzzle game based solely on the minigames included.
All Metroid and Zelda games (with the exception of the second!) are action adventure titles. It's not because of the viewpoint but because of the structure AND the inclusion of a leveling system. You know, like Ys III, Faxanadu or Symphony of the Night.
If you think that's silly, imagine how pen and paper players feel about computer RPGs (where there's not always a lot in the way of role playing) or how computer RPG fans feel about console RPGs (which are often extremely linear games with leveling mechanics...a far cry from any actual "role playing"). The only real constants (that I can think of, anyway) have been the leveling and the questing (or missions). As long as you have those two, then you've at least got some basis for calling a game an RPG. The definition of RPG isn't broad enough to cover all of the games in the collection but it's specific enough to cover games that aren't included
Hell, if there was a bit more consistency then it wouldn't be as much of a problem. Include From Software's first person rpgs but not Ion Storm Austin's? Include Future Tactics but not Ring of Red? No Grand Theft Auto San Andreas in the collection? Heroes of Might and Magic but no Daisenryaku VII Exceed? Why isn't Puzzle Quest included? With the inclusion of Everquest Online Adventures, you're pretty much stuck with requiring Final Fantasy XI, so you can't really call the collection complete without those, too.
I do agree that it helps to actually play games to determine if they're RPGs or not. It's quite possible that a reviewer or a friend will just label a game (like Ocarina of Time!) an RPG and you'll never know the better until you play it and realize that while it might be a great action adventure, but it's not quite an RPG. No amount of research on a title beats firing the fucker up and sitting down with it for a while.
Open Game Lister | Partial Game Collection
Games Completed in: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | Unknown
Oklahoma DP Roll Call!
lendelin, Chaos Wars is another rpg coming out hopefully in march.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/data/934027.html
Kudos to you! I attempted to complete my PSone RPG collection but it came to a quick hault. After I complete my genesis collection I may take a break from Sega, you inspired me :P
Some things never die....Give me all your Sega belongings!!!
*drools*
very nice job!
Sony, we will NEVER forget nor forgive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G0LlXv-nyI
Congrats on the collection. Very impressive.
Are these US releases only? You are missing the remakes of Phantasy Star 1 and 2.
Genre categories themselves are nothing more than measured based on how a game within the category relates to the others. I, personally, find calling Symphony of the Night an RPG absurd because it's plainly obvious that saying "If you liked Super Metroid you'll love Symphony" makes a hell of a lot more sense than saying "If you liked Chrono Trigger you'll love Symphony."
A really good example is Smash Bros. It's...kind of a fighting game...I suppose. But you'd have to be nuts to tell someone "If you like Street Fighter you'll like Smash." Hence something like Smash essentially bred a new genre or possibly subgenre within the parent umbrella of "fighting game."
I remember a philosophical question that relates to this. Imagine a heap of straw. Now remove one piece of straw. Is it still a heap? Now remove another piece. Is it still a heap? Eventually you'll get down to just one piece remaining. Is that one piece of straw a heap? Most people would say no. So that means one of two things. Either a single piece of straw really is a heap or there's one point where the cutoff happens. Something like ten pieces is a heap but take one more away and it's no longer a heap. But of course even that sounds crazy. It's the vagueness of "heap" that gets you there. Same with any genre.
Well done, that's an impressive collection indeed. Do you collect PS2 games with emphasis, and happen to have a lot of RPGs as a side effect, or do you just collect the RPGs?
Either way, what's your next PS2 goal?
Welcome to Macintosh.
Why do these threads always degenerate into a disscussion of genre definitions. Whether or not you consider Draken an RPG or not it's still an impressive collection.
And congrats Lendelin that's just a really nice horde of games. I especially liked your library analogy. It's all the reasons I collect games, but I'd never thought of it quite like that before. Also kind of funny to open the thread and see my name plastered over the first post.
Also while I love your definative PS2 list, this thread is actually a lot more helpful to me with all the pictures. I really haven't kept up with the PS2, I guess it just doesn't have the same magic as classic stlye RPGs. Probably why DQ8 is also my favorite PS2 game. But as I was saying, I can see you your pictures then easily spot the games when I hit EB or whatever. I don't intend to collect every PS2 RPG... but I can't pass up cheap RPGs when I find them and you know these things just sort of fall into place. But it's scary to think I have 60 something already, and while it seems like a sizable chunk it's only half the battle.
Last edited by Daria; 02-23-2008 at 12:18 PM.
Just curious. Do you every consider getting FFXI & the expansion?
.:Collection Pics:.
Chrono Trigger, Symphony of the Night, Wizardry 8, Pokemon, Baten Kaitos, Planescape Torment, World of Warcraft, Fallout, and Ys are all completely different videogame RPGs, but they're all videogame RPGs all the same. Liking one doesn't mean you'll like any of the others because they're all done in radically different styles and create neat little subgenres. Super Smash Brothers is a fighting game, but it is pretty different from Street Fighter and more along the lines of Power Stone 2, another fighting game that I don't really dig despite loving more traditional stuff like King of Fighters 98 and more party stuff like Poitter's Point 2.
It's very rare that someone actually likes an entire main genre worth of stuff; Most people prefer their separate subgenres, but games in the RPG umbrella still share the common threads of stats/levels and quests/missions. After that then it's fair game to debate whether or not it falls under the main RPG umbrella or if it's one of those silly genre benders that straddles multiple main genres equally welll (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.!).
Funny, I said much the same thing when I started a post with, "Oh! Not to detract from the hotness of the collection...". Of course it's an impressive collection, but there's not much in the way of consistency throughout it and the thread title being fairly misleading when one of the lines in the OP is "...and all of the FF XI MMO RPGs I'm just not interested in". The reason why there's always a debate is because no one ever bothers to try to follow any sort of standard other than, "Turn based combat or Fantasy setting? It's an RPG!", which I think is completely the wrong way to go about it.
Really, I'm mostly curious about:
You can paint as broad of a definition as you want, but you should at least be able to define why it is you consider game X whatever and game Y whatever else.
Open Game Lister | Partial Game Collection
Games Completed in: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | Unknown
Oklahoma DP Roll Call!
Awesome collection and thanks for posting the pictures.
Chronogamer. Every game. Chronologically.
Latest entry 31 March 2010
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