RPG Design - an opinionated rant
We bought Lost Odyssey for the 360 recently. It's not a bad game - actually,it;s quite good - but in terms of design choices it might as well have "Copyright Squaresoft 1997" stamped across it's forehead. It's inspired the following list - numbers 2 and 11 in particular, but also 1, 3, 6, 9, and 10.
Rif's Tenets of RPG design
1) No "Long straight road". FFX is the prime example of this. The quest start at point A, then proceeds down a road that almost never branches as it goes through points b to y, then ends at point Z with the final boss. Satnav not required. This just makes the game feel far too linear - I want to at least be fooled in to thinking I have some free will! Overworld maps are quite good in this regard, but seem to have fallen from favour recently.
2) Restrictive save systems. These are a relic of previous technology, where the game only had the capacity to save a few variables. Modern DS games let you save anywhere - why can't main console games with their superior storage capacities? If nothing else, they should allow a "continue and power down" style save point. Again, stand up all the FF games here. Guilty as charged, lads.
3) Voice Actors. The player will have to listen to those voice actors for the whole game, so please try to make sure that none of them are doing their super-annoying voice. If nothing else, just leave the foreign voices on the disk so players have a choice. Playing Arc on the PS2 in spanish added at least 10% points to the review score in my opinion, mainly for sounding like a mexican daytime TV soap opera.Examples of what not to do here include Grandia, where I would have quite happily shot the main voice cast after the first hour.
4) Unskippable cutscenes. If I have to watch a 5 minute scene directly before I fight a boss, I'm not going to be pleased if that boss kills me and I have to sit through the same thing again. The fight I'll probably be ok with repeating, the FMV less so.
5) Buy-the-strategy guide items. The top-ranking weapon in FFXII, the Odin materia in FFVII - games which have items in that you can't reasonably expect to get without shelling out for the guide book. What makes those last two games particularly obnoxious is that you lose all chance to get the item after a certain point/mistake.
6) Enforced mini-game sections. Dear Mr. Publisher, whilst I realise that your programmers had fun implementing this and don't want players to skip it, I didn't buy FFXII for the chocobo racing, nor did I buy Lost Odyssey for the enforced stealth sections. Make arcade mini-games optional!
7) Pointless mini games. ...and on the other hand, make sure there is SOME point to them. Don't hide the knights of the round materia behind them, but let there be some reward, such as the Doomtrain GF from FFVIII. Otherwise you really might as well not bother putting them in. I mean... do people really rush home with the latest Breath of Fire game because they think it'll be better than Bass Challenge?
8) Silent Heroes. I don't want to play a game where the main hero says nothing. Even if he does start the story as the most unlikeable emo stereotype imaginable, at least he'll have more to say than a row of dots, and by virtue of this have more personality. Even worse; where other characters react to our silent friend by saying something along the lines of "What's that Mr hero? The kids are trapped down an old mine shaft? And you're off to rescue them?" It's like listening to one half of a phone call to Lassie.
9) Choice of growth. Another Old-school hangover in my view. You level up, hit a certain level, and learn a set skill. Repeat for the rest of the game. This is probably just a personal preference thing, but I like to be able to control how my characters grow rather than having the game dictate it to me. It makes me feel more involved.
10) The timed button push. Lost Odyssey, Shadow Hearts, Legend of Dragoon... oh, and boosting from FFVII *shudder*. Arcade style RPGS can work; turn based systems can work. Hybrid systems have a much lower success rate so proceed with caution - especially if the thing you're hybridising it with is essentially Track and Field. Valkyrie Profile and the Tales games show how you should do this, the above ones less so. The lesson? I suspect you need to fully commit to such a template to make it work, rather than tacking Bishi-Bashi Special on to a Final-fantasy-a-like battle engine.
11) Random encounters. Haven't we had enough good examples now of how you can design a game with enemies you can see and then choose to avoid? FFXII, Blue Dragon and similar show it can be done. When you combine random battles with a restrictive save system, you can get in the all-too familiar situation where you play on half an hour longer than you were going to, not enjoying it and desperate to get back to that save.
12) WTF Final Bosses. Two games here. Mr Behind-the-Scenes-Until-the-last-second from FFIX, and the spider between two bricks moment from FFX. Yes, they may be the linchpin of your plot, but they're either so poorly foreshadowed, or so inherently naf, that the last battle becomes a complete anticlimax.
13) Leveling Worlds. This is actually a pretty cute concept, but it's in here for a very specific example: Oblivion. I can understand the motivation - the world levels with the character to provide a constant level of challenge. OK in theory, but some types of character (e.g. stealth) get shafted by this. You also lose those joyful moments from RPGs where you stray back to an old area and gleefully twat the enemies that nearly killed you first time round.
Well... there's my 2p-worth at least. Oh, and Lost Odyssey is probably still worth buying for an RPG fan with a 360.
Rif's Tenets of RPG design
1) No "Long straight road". FFX is the prime example of this. The quest start at point A, then proceeds down a road that almost never branches as it goes through points b to y, then ends at point Z with the final boss. Satnav not required. This just makes the game feel far too linear - I want to at least be fooled in to thinking I have some free will! Overworld maps are quite good in this regard, but seem to have fallen from favour recently.
2) Restrictive save systems. These are a relic of previous technology, where the game only had the capacity to save a few variables. Modern DS games let you save anywhere - why can't main console games with their superior storage capacities? If nothing else, they should allow a "continue and power down" style save point. Again, stand up all the FF games here. Guilty as charged, lads.
3) Voice Actors. The player will have to listen to those voice actors for the whole game, so please try to make sure that none of them are doing their super-annoying voice. If nothing else, just leave the foreign voices on the disk so players have a choice. Playing Arc on the PS2 in spanish added at least 10% points to the review score in my opinion, mainly for sounding like a mexican daytime TV soap opera.Examples of what not to do here include Grandia, where I would have quite happily shot the main voice cast after the first hour.
4) Unskippable cutscenes. If I have to watch a 5 minute scene directly before I fight a boss, I'm not going to be pleased if that boss kills me and I have to sit through the same thing again. The fight I'll probably be ok with repeating, the FMV less so.
5) Buy-the-strategy guide items. The top-ranking weapon in FFXII, the Odin materia in FFVII - games which have items in that you can't reasonably expect to get without shelling out for the guide book. What makes those last two games particularly obnoxious is that you lose all chance to get the item after a certain point/mistake.
6) Enforced mini-game sections. Dear Mr. Publisher, whilst I realise that your programmers had fun implementing this and don't want players to skip it, I didn't buy FFXII for the chocobo racing, nor did I buy Lost Odyssey for the enforced stealth sections. Make arcade mini-games optional!
7) Pointless mini games. ...and on the other hand, make sure there is SOME point to them. Don't hide the knights of the round materia behind them, but let there be some reward, such as the Doomtrain GF from FFVIII. Otherwise you really might as well not bother putting them in. I mean... do people really rush home with the latest Breath of Fire game because they think it'll be better than Bass Challenge?
8) Silent Heroes. I don't want to play a game where the main hero says nothing. Even if he does start the story as the most unlikeable emo stereotype imaginable, at least he'll have more to say than a row of dots, and by virtue of this have more personality. Even worse; where other characters react to our silent friend by saying something along the lines of "What's that Mr hero? The kids are trapped down an old mine shaft? And you're off to rescue them?" It's like listening to one half of a phone call to Lassie.
9) Choice of growth. Another Old-school hangover in my view. You level up, hit a certain level, and learn a set skill. Repeat for the rest of the game. This is probably just a personal preference thing, but I like to be able to control how my characters grow rather than having the game dictate it to me. It makes me feel more involved.
10) The timed button push. Lost Odyssey, Shadow Hearts, Legend of Dragoon... oh, and boosting from FFVII *shudder*. Arcade style RPGS can work; turn based systems can work. Hybrid systems have a much lower success rate so proceed with caution - especially if the thing you're hybridising it with is essentially Track and Field. Valkyrie Profile and the Tales games show how you should do this, the above ones less so. The lesson? I suspect you need to fully commit to such a template to make it work, rather than tacking Bishi-Bashi Special on to a Final-fantasy-a-like battle engine.
11) Random encounters. Haven't we had enough good examples now of how you can design a game with enemies you can see and then choose to avoid? FFXII, Blue Dragon and similar show it can be done. When you combine random battles with a restrictive save system, you can get in the all-too familiar situation where you play on half an hour longer than you were going to, not enjoying it and desperate to get back to that save.
12) WTF Final Bosses. Two games here. Mr Behind-the-Scenes-Until-the-last-second from FFIX, and the spider between two bricks moment from FFX. Yes, they may be the linchpin of your plot, but they're either so poorly foreshadowed, or so inherently naf, that the last battle becomes a complete anticlimax.
13) Leveling Worlds. This is actually a pretty cute concept, but it's in here for a very specific example: Oblivion. I can understand the motivation - the world levels with the character to provide a constant level of challenge. OK in theory, but some types of character (e.g. stealth) get shafted by this. You also lose those joyful moments from RPGs where you stray back to an old area and gleefully twat the enemies that nearly killed you first time round.
Well... there's my 2p-worth at least. Oh, and Lost Odyssey is probably still worth buying for an RPG fan with a 360.