The role playing genre of video games really intrigues me. It seems to have more potential than any other type of game. That is why it is unfortunate that it is represented by just as much crap as any other genre. When an RPG is a crap, it often takes crap to a whole new level of crappiness. It distresses me to say that even these crap games can sell well due the very reason that they are RPGs, and that fan-boys will buy them for the sole virtue of their existence.

There are great Japanese RPGs as well as great Western ones, and cancerous titles plague both sides. Each style of the genre, or each sub-genre has things I love and respect, and each has what I consider flaws. Of course this stereotyping the designs of these games, but by grouping anything into categories you are creating generalizations. Of late, few titles have proven their harnessing of their innate potential. What I would like to see, and what I feel would revitalize the genre, is a blending of East and West.

The protagonists of Japanese RPGs have good histories and back stories. They are full of character, but feel far to fake. Western heros are like blank slates, or card board cut outs; they are nothing but the vessel for which we the player steer, yet they are more realistic. Combine the best qualities of each and ditch both the lifelessness and introverted crap of one and the other.

Stories in the East are way too complex and convoluted and contrived, while stories from the West often feel diluted. Again, mix it up. Learn from each other. Why have a dozen heroes when you can only really get to know a few? On the flip side, why have one lone man save the world? Camaraderie is a great thing to take advantage of, and with too many or too few characters, you can’t achieve that. Cut out the talking animal or cute teenage girl, or give the tough loner a best friend, even if it is a dog- a dog that doesn’t speak. Drop the far fetched stuff. The world we live in has enough crazy outcomes and possible pasts and futures, that we don’t need to go to the land of fairies. Give a story that can hit home. Some cliches just work, but work them out in a new way. The kid has amnesia, we get it. The kid leaves home at an early village to fight a great evil, fine. Put a twist on that, and drop the fucking kid. No one likes a kid who thinks he knows it all, and no one wants a god damned kid to save the world, again.

Western games are too often hack and slash. Why bother doing anything else when I can just swing my sword over and over again. Eastern games can have a learning curve way steeper than necessary, and improbable. I don’t want to wear a magic ring or suck magic as a countable item from my enemies. Don’t have me fight using golems or mechs or some shit. Give me some variety that makes sense and is useful.

Side quests should add to the main story, give it greater legs, not enable you catch fish in some pond using someone’s special rod. I don’t want to fetch shit just so I can fetch some more. I don’t want gimmicky mini games that take me out of the experience. Make the main quest line evolve by your actions outside of it. If the end of the world is inevitably closing in on you, you shouldn’t have time to do everything, especially not to race some beast somewhere. There should be consequences, not like outcomes that involve a different amount of monetary reward, or a frown on some choice faces, but things that effect life and death, time and setting, emotions and story lines, and by doing so greatly effect your gameplay.

Give me a great big world to explore, but don’t just drive me into the forest and kick me out, leaving me lost with anywhere and everywhere to go, but don’t hold my fucking hand either. Guide me with an invisible hand that doesn’t illogically prevent certain passages. Let me level up and gain experience, but do so in a way that makes sense to that particular world, and do it in a way that is not totally gimmicky. I don’t want to plunk down in the middle of the end of the world and play board games in order to equip the broadsword I’ve been lugging around. Work my mind as well as my body. Give me puzzles that realistically apply in this world.

Fallout 3 is coming out later this year, and I think it will do a good job at incorporating the best the RPG world has to offer. I am greatly looking forward to it. Its story, gameplay, and everything seem to be falling into play quite nicely.

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