Original post by JDUK By your logic Mario and Sonic are role playing games as you are either forced into the role of a plumber rescuing a princess form some mushroom inhabited bizzaro world or a blue hegdhog out to save his fury friends from a mad scientist.
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Cloud in FF7: See Guybrush Threepwood. Dude from Morrowind: See The Avatar.
Yes. I did say that the term is vague. Also i see that you feel that FF7 is not an RPG.
the RPG name exists because in non-computer games one rarely assumes the role of a character. I still say its an anachronism, and it doesn't really say anything about a computer game, other than that you play a character in it. (in tetris you don't play a character)
This all boils down to levels of interactivity. Some games are little more than Interactive Movies, whereas most people who've really RP'd know RPGing as a free form system where the player assumes the form of a character, and produces completely random events and outcomes based on his actions within the story.
The problem is the level of classification between these styles of play besides the all encompassing RPG. What the industry needs is new stanards to differentiate between an Interactive Story with combat/puzzles lightly sprinkled in, to games like Morrowind where you can go and kill everyone in town and damn the storyline if you want.
I cant see any reclassification happening any time soon. The term RPG is not just a Genre(its not even the genre of a lot of games thusly labeled) its a marketing label.
Association of the very popular games like FF, Zelda, Tales of Synphonia with the term RPG have made it a very marketable label to put on games.
RPG's where popular with gamers back in the 80's, pull out any of your early to mid 80's comic books and look at the amount of adverts for Dungeons and Dragons, TSR products or "Fantasty" computer games. Back then RPG was marketable as well, games like Zelda and the FF series came out bearing the popular "RPG" label and sold very well.
Interest in RPG's died down as computer games became seen as more and more of a geekier past time(and RPG's even more so). Until the advent of Playstation and 3D home consoles when popularity soared to unthinkable heights and FF7 And the N64 Zelda games are released and are sell incredibly well. Hurrraa! the RPG was insaneley popular again..... well actually it wasn't just the new craze for adventures and action adventures that bear the faux RPG title carried over from market sensitive labels thought up many years previously.
People seem to assume that all players and developers believe these games are true RPG's and in the assumption of some that all pro games devs are earth-walking demi gods who bestow gaming goodness on us all with their benevolent powers, they bow to their infinate wisdom. But its not the Devs who classify these titles its a bunch of suits labelling them for the best possibly market penetration.
So no one should be a total muppet and just go "Well it says it on the label so its gotta be the gods honest truth" ... didn't Driv3r have a load of bullshit about its greatness printed on its cover? did you belive that?
So in summary their not true RPG's but genre assignment wont change because the RPG title sells games and no ones going to want to sacrifice that.
