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Dynamic Speech Choices in RPGs
I'm curious if I'm the only one that thinks this way. Whenever I play "American" RPGs, especially from Bioware, you usually get several options when talking to NPCs. Usually the options are "evil", "neutral", or "good" responses. I personally dislike this system and think it weakens the story tremendously. I pretty much dislike the D&D engine completely. There was one game I liked using it though, and that was Neverwinter Nights (any comments on 2? I haven't tried it yet). Was fun, had good gameplay, and the story still worked even with this text system.
But imagine playing Final Fantasy 7, walking up to Aerith, and saying, "I hope you die, wench", ya it'd be pretty funny the first time but to me that would seriously cheapen the story and I'd never be able to take it seriously. As a matter of fact Final Fantasy 7 had a few of these moments where you could pick different options (mostly for the date scene) and they worked really well, but never truly altered or cheapened the storyline. It was done intelligently, and not overused.
If I wanted to play a sandbox RPG where I can say whatever I want I'd play a MMORPG where I am the character, and I make my own story. The strongest point that I've always liked in RPGs is the narrative. And to me American RPGs just don't cut it. I'm really missing the onslaught of good RPGs (or should I use the newage term, JRPGs). I hope the dry spell ends soon, but I'm kinda doubting it. Major media sites and their uber douchebag reviewers have been spinning endless garbage about how (J)RPGs are stale (yet all other genres apparently aren't) for quite awhile now, and you can see the impact of it (does PS3/Wii even have a single JRPG on it?). Where are all the next-gen RPG series (Suikoden? Final Fantasy? Xenosaga?-this one will never happen unfortunately). Atleast we finally got one series, Star Ocean 4 (which I've yet to play but will be soon). And we do have the Tales series, props to you Namco, even though I don't really follow the series. Anyways, I'm just sick of the negativity, and want to play a good 'ol next-gen turn-based RPG already (the ONLY good one I've enjoyed so far has been Lost Odyssey)!
Here's looking at you Mass Effect (and your crappy dialogue system)!
I imagine I'm on the smaller side of this debate, but oh well.
Written by Dark Templar on 2009-03-06 03:12:04.0
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Discussion
Mass Effect has one of the best dialog systems I've ever seen. The voice acting is great as well, much better than any other game out there. They let you choose a disposition, and then play out how that character would act it out, and do a great job. I don't get your gripe with it. It was one of the only parts of that game that I really really liked.
By Costalis on 2009-03-06 10:23:01.0 | Total Comments: 8
I got bored with Mass Effect after about an hour. They just tried to do TOO much and because of it, it felt watered down to me. I was really looking forward to it too, was actually one of the reasons I even wanted a 360.
By Dark Templar on 2009-03-06 12:58:27.0 | Total Comments: 54
You should try fallout. It's not really an RPG persay, but has some qualities of it (I guess). I kinda hate American RPGs too. The US of A just can't seem to create decent RPGs (except for a select few), we only make good shooters lol cause we LOVE our guns XD
By Crazyglitcher on 2009-03-06 13:58:20.0 | Total Comments: 29
I attempted Fallout but just couldn't get into it. It was like, Oblivion with guns. Speaking of Oblivion, that was actually kinda fun. One of the few games of that style I (mostly) enjoyed.
By Dark Templar on 2009-03-18 16:58:42.0 | Total Comments: 54