one of my pet peeves in rpgs is when i go into an item shop, unload a bunch of money on a new item, then 10 minutes later find that same item in the next dungeon/area for free -_-
My biggest complaint in RPG's: "What the hell was I doing...itis?" When you drop a game for a couple of weeks, and the game doesn't give you an objective of what you are supposed to do. So you have to remember what you did last, and then look up a walkthrough of where to go next. Nocturne being the biggest offender of this in my case
+Blandrew Generally, I have a laser focus whenever I'm playing a game. What actually happens is that I'm playing the shit out of something, I get to the mid-to-late game (regardless of whether it took me 30 hours or 100, I seem to lose attention at the same point during a game) then lose interest and stop playing. Months later, I might get interested in it again, only to reprise my old save file and be like "...where am I and what was I doing?" Then I play through and it feels weird, I don't remember enough about what I was doing last, I can't get into the mindset I was in when I was making my builds, so I say fuck it and play it again from scratch. Then I get to repeat the process ALL OVER AGAIN unless I decide to say fuck it, let's forget the sidequests and just power through the rest of the story for the sake of being able to say I've "completed" it. Honestly the number of games I "might well have completed" vs the number I've actually finished is pretty shocking.
agreed, johnny is my favorite as well. his passion for gaming always shines through when he speaks and his gaming tastes are oddly identical to mine :)
NarcoticDimension I love gamesack, they're so thorough with their content, but these guys need to put down the scripts and try actually conversating. even if they have to shorten their videos to do so, I think they'd have a larger user base if they did. the way they read their script is so cut and dry. I find myself toning out their voice and just looking at the gameplay shots they put up because of this. I know these guys have alot of passion, but we dont get to see any of it when they hide behind a script like that :(
HappyConsoleGamer I like you dude! Nice videos. Your segment on amiibos actually is quite spot on and some people can relate to it. All I ask is that you do a video on whether a video game should be priced for 60 dollars or if a game is worth that much money.
- Too much grinding. - Side quests. - Battle system that is slow and makes battles last a long time where you have a'lot of the same battles over and over. - Silent protagonist (lazy writing) - Solving a puzzle while you have random encounters braking your train of thought. - Sudden huge difficulty spikes. I so agree with you about weapon stats and then you spend a'lot of money on a weapon and it turns out to be worse or it has misleading states or is cursed in some way.
Silent Protagonists can be neat, if done right. Chrono Trigger/Cross did it with success, in my opinion. To branch off of RPG's for a second, I noticed that more people want Link to start talking in future LoZ titles.
Matthew J. Boone When I imagine what them games would of been like with a speaking protagonist I tend to think the worst because they are games I already love despite the silent protagonist. It's easy to see how they were actually done than to try imagine how they would of been had they had dialog. You are right though I think some games are probably better with out a speaking protagonist if done right and for the right kind of game.
The things to hate in rpg's are the childlike imnature protagonist especially if he has a go lucky very enthusiastict personality , convoluted plots where the antoganist changes frequently , alot of characters that are playable but you can't take with you on 1 team even though the world is ending they stay at the base doing nothing , and shallow character relationships suck hard
Disagree got a kid and in my thirties; still playing them. Its really just a matter if you like them enough to play them. If RPGs aren't your thing then time isn't the issue the genre is.
Or just play skyrim or fallout no grinding, no drawn out affaire ( unless you want to spend hundreds of hours reading and finding lore, secrets, unique quests and fighting unique enemy's. All dialouge is skippable ( to whatever extent you want ) . Random enconters dont break the flow of any of the things above. Including combat which is seamless to the rest of the game. Skyrim and fallout new vegas are the best rpgs ive ever played hands down.
In regards to not seeing your equipment stat changes when buying armor, I "HATE" when they give your the green arrow up ^ and you only get 1 positive stat change but there are 5 different stats that go down... really annoying.
As a single player gamer, I *_LOVE_* RPG's cause they're perfect for me as I'm the only one playing. Still there are some things I *_HATE_* about RPG's as well like: 1. Unnecessarily difficult side-quests or enemies that in the end, give you a useless, common or mediocre item after having gone through total hell to complete said quests or defeat said enemies. 2. Games that give you a *_HUGE_* number of weapons, items, armor etc. etc. but, your character is limited to only taking a handful with them due to very small and limited inventory space. 3. Games that offer extremely expensive weapons, pieces of armor or items that require tons of hours of grind to amass the proper amount of funds to purchase them, then when you finally buy it, it turns out to be mediocre or at times even worse or useless compared to the items, armor and weapons you already own and use. 4. RPG's that offer "Save Points" but said "Save Points" are so few and far between, you have to tread back and forth over long distances just to hopefully make it to the next or last "Save Point" without dying. 5. Games that offer tons of purchasable "attacks", each more expensive than the last, yet once bought and equipped or "learned", are really rather useless or rarely used compared to your standard "basic" attack. 6. As a "completion-ist", I like trying to get every weapon, item and piece of armor offered in the game (I don't buy DLC items, armor etc.) but I hate games that have *_ONE_* specific weapon or item you can only get from one particular enemy or quest and if you miss your chance to get that item, it's gone - you have to either restart from a previous "save" or you just have to finish and/or restart the whole game. 7. RPG's that have a particularly bad user interface/menu system. I can't stand when a game has a clunky and poorly designed interface/menu system, especially when other games of the time were already using superior versions of the same thing. 8. RPG's that offer some type of link play or link trade system and offer new weapons, items, armor etc. *_ONLY_* to those who can take advantage of the "link" feature. 9. I also hate when I buy a game at full price and then a short while later, the game is re-released with new or extra content at a much higher price. 10. Re-released ports of older games that are promoted as "improved" or the "definitive edition" but once you buy them, have inferior and changed dialogue, music, gameplay etc. etc.. (P.S. These are more of a nitpick for me - RPG's that offer the same cliche-type characters like kids or teens "saving the world". I'm so tired of the "kid" or "teen" aspect in many RPG's, especially modern ones. Also, the overly "Emo-androgynous-teen" look that many RPG characters are given nowadays. Last, horrible voice acting (especially with overly "kid-like" voices for some female characters) that make me wish for old-school *_SILENT_* text dialogue...)
I hate whenever I pause a RPG game and go to do something else for a little bit and then when I come back it still counts up time rather than pausing the time. I don't know why, but I guess it's because it looks like I put in a bunch ours even though some where spent on the pause menu with no activity.
This is why FF9 is an excellent game. Only 8 main characters with great back stories, 4 players in a party at most times, time clock, stat changes shown, excellent music, simple but intuitive ability system, no difficulty change, and dozens of fun side quests.
Ff9 is literally the worse FF game ever. The battle system was bad. Having to equip weapons until you learn the move was annoying. Also there was too much story in that. I know RPGs are story driven but it got in the way of the gameplay. FF5 was better the FF9...I'm not ever going to bring up FF7
What I hate about RPG's is the fact i simply cannot resist talking to every npc ever. I know this is more my problem than the games, but they tempt me with so many interesting looking characters i just have to hear what they've got to say.
*Too many Puzzles....... You shouldn't play Light Crusader or Landstalker *Too many random encounters.......(when you don't want to farm, are weak or don't want them) Can be extremely annoying and frustrating.... *And full inventory box, Like I said on Twitch..... An Inventory box that gets easily ful due to the fact that the characters can't carry anything can be hell at times. I call it the Resident Evil Chris syndrome....Or the the leaking nut syndrome...
Things I don't like: - Love triangles - Empty towns with too few NPCs, NPCs that say the same thing the entire time - Going from one lcoation to the other takes forever - RPGs that consist almost entirely of quests - Annoying micromanagement of character skills
I strongly recommend giving Dragon's Dogma another chance for at least one playthrough. I promise you'll enjoy it and the gripe you had about it is perfectly explained with the incredible story. I wish I could tell you but it's a massive spoiler. I implore you to reconsider.
I hate it when it's not clear whether or not NPCs have more than one thing to say, as well, although some games handle this well. It's not an RPG, but Deadly Premonition displays the Talk command in yellow if a character has something else to say, while the Talk command is white if the character is just going to repeat something you've already heard/read. Since you mentioned switchable characters, though, I'll mention something else that I hate, because it ties into the aforementioned issue. I absolutely HATE having to talk to certain NPCs as a specific character, especially if the game doesn't make it clear that a specific character would have a certain effect on an NPC.
I actually kinda hate multiple endings in RPGs. It's cool if the game is like 8 hours long. But I'm not gonna play through a damn 60 hour long RPG again just to try to see a different or better ending. Star Ocean: The Second Story is the big example of this.
Haha "Long drawn out cut-scenes" I have to ask Pete if you've played Tears to Tiara II for the PS3? I did a video on the game intro just because of this pet peeve.
My biggest complaint for certain RPGs is enemies and bosses that scale with you. If I spend hours leveling up then I want to see the fruits of my labor and be able to destroy anything and everything. Also it ruins low level runs as well since enemies aren't as strong as they could be.
The only thing on your list that I can for sure agree on is repetitive side quests. This is the main reason why I haven't finished Dead Island. I love doing side quests, but I don't like doing the same side quests again later in the game. For some games like Ni No Kuni(except the side quests with Derwin) and Skyrim, it's not a big deal to me, but Dead Island is plagued by it. Seriously, early in the game, you will be doing a escort mission, then later you will be doing another escort mission with a different NPC in a different area.
one thing that really bugs me about rpgs is when they sit you through like 10 min of cut scenes then have you gain control of you group/charicter just to walk down a path and click the button at a door then give me more cut scene its like what game play value did i get from moving to a door and going through it ?? i seem to remember lost oddessy doing that once or twice not sure though since its been ages since i played it
A personal pet peeve of mines in general is the constant grinding in RPGs, both Western and Japanese. I'm even guilty of this method on occasion. It feels artificial, and defeats the the purpose game's overall design and challenge. But a turning point in most RPGs nowadays is that they're becoming more action-oriented, though still suffer the "Grinding Problem" it is a tad less noticeable however.
RPG's should have multiple battle songs, I got so tired of hearing "Reach Out to the Truth" while playing Persona 4, it's not even a bad song, it just got annoying the sheer amount of times you hear it throughout the game.
All are legit points. One of the reasons I don't play a lot of RPGs these days is many of the issues you mentioned. An RPG has to be near perfect for me to seriously get into it, but so many I play have one or two issues that you mentioned that keeps me from getting absorbed in the experience, and thus I stop playing.
I hate the inability to save anywhere in the game. In 2015, I should not have to hunt for save points and block out lots of time to get from one of them to the next.
Only RPG I was ever able to get into was Pokemon. I've tried FF3 and 7, I tried chrono trigger, I tried earthbound, just not a fan. I hate games that force me to look up a guide just so I know where to go. That's bad conveyance and just isn't what a game should be. I know those games are like "OH MY GUD IT"S DA BEST" but like, fuck all of them. Drawn out, being forced to grind, not knowing what items to get, just no. RPG's suck... And again, any game that forces me to look up a guide to beat it, is a bad game *Looks at Symphony of the night, Legend of zelda (you pick which one) as well as super metroid*
Great to see you back Pete! It's been a while. This video was a great watch! I can't say I've played too many RPGs, but have to agree with you on most of your comments here! I think for me, my most disliked thing about RPGs is when you're asked to go find a person or object in a town but the NPC gives you no clues or information on where you're meant to go. I'm sure this happened in Tales of Xillia a few times, especially on side quests where it will say you need to speak with this person in this town, but with no real insight into where that person was, it got frustrating. Great video once again! I'll be sure to catch you on Twitch :-)
I actually agree with everything you mentioned . Except the your first point . If you know how many games I gave up on because I couldn't go pass that one boss or mission , you'll understand how in game difficulty option is a life saver for me . I play video games to unwind and release the days' stress . I don't need them to add more ...
Agree with most of your points such as: being restricted to only 3 party members. I prefer 4 as well. Like you said, it lets you experiment more. I disagree with changing between characters. I love taking control of other characters and learning their abilities, like in Ys Memories of Celceta. Great video!
Great video. I agreed with pretty much everything you said especially having too many characters to choose from, and having a party of 3 or less. One thing that always gets me is having to use a character that you haven't been using at all for a vital boss or dungeon.
OMG not seeing stat changes on your equipment screen. How the heck are you supposed to know if it's worth keeping!? Or when you are on a loot screen and you can't compare your new gear to your current gear. Just forces you to waste time.
One of my things is an RPG that doesn't track my time. Playing the original Devil Survivor for the DS does this and it bothers me so much. So I feel your pain. Another is random encounters. I'm not a fan of them, they kill me often enough and I hate taking just two steps after a battle only to get into another one. Granted, it doesn't stop me from playing a game with them, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Really, those are the main ones for me.
1.- Agreed. I would like either Change it in specific parts, or made you chose after a few minutes / hours, like "hey, you just finish chapter 0 on normal difficulty, chose now your difficulty and any description of what each difficulty means (Better AI, more damage enemies etc..)". 2.- I believe the main problem about this is the fact that anyone can get targeted, regardless of where they are supposed to be (like, far away for ranged, which is sort of fixed with the "position" system in Etrian-type games). Also Etrian games have that, and i love the whole configurations you can make. 3.- Yeah. 4.- I have left so many RPGs unfinished and i never knew why, and later i realize the music was killing the atmosphere for me to a subconcious point. 5.- I agree, and that's why i liked how Final Fantasy Tactics did this, first because most of the mechanics (like height) weren't needed to play the game, and the job system let you sort of store the points so you can try things out when needed. 6.- well yeah, but i guess they dont think their game is bad or have bad story. 7.- I guess, there are games though, where you can sort of give them their own story in terms of how battles go, like how they crit the final enemy, while they were gonna die next turn and such. 8.- 9.- Yeah, but i hate backtracking more. 10.- I dont really care about it, but its nice. 11.- I like as much info as possible, i hate this persona BS that (Increase damage on bash attacks), i want to know %s. 12.- 13.- Yeah, i agree. I was playing with a friend and we got to a point that it was like. Fuck it, just main story from now on.
I hate how a lot of them have padding to them, whether it's the story going on for longer than it should, with long stretches of time where the story doesn't really progress, or grinding. God, I really fucking hate grinding, especially in Pokemon. I just want to get my gym badge, and the only things willing to battle me are the wild Pokemon, which are significantly weaker than my team.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when you haven't played an RPG in a while and you finally get back into it and the game doesn't remind you what you're suppose to be doing so you either have to try to remember or starting all over again but luckily most modern RPGs fixed that problem
"Extra recruitable throwaway characters" is why I LOVE Etrian Odyssey Untold but don't think I could like the other "classic" Etrian Odysseys. Your whole party is just characters you pick and choose from the class list, and they aren't customizable in appearance at all, let alone the rest of their characterizations... So it's like, you have to imagine what they all act like? If the whole character is going to be filled in by my imagination then I'd like to be able to choose more about them than class, since they all have set appearances, like red haired warrior boy or black haired warrior boy. Maybe I'm just missing something since I only played a demo of 4 and played classic mode of Untold for an hour...
See, I think being able to switch characters is fun...I'm mostly thinking of FF10 where different enemies have different weaknesses so you almost need to switch to the right characters (at least if you keep them each as the same job). Puzzles...I dunno. Normally RPGs have the simplest puzzles that are just there to add another dimension. Golden Sun was quite simple in the puzzle department imo, unless you were going for every djinni maybe. Great vid as always. Keep it up Pete :).
I agree with you on the character switching in arpgs, but in ys defense, the character switching in that game is all based on the fact that each of your 3 characters were strong/weak to certain enemies. so to get the most out of fighting, you would have to utilize this mechanic. but most other games dont do this and allow you to switch for no reason at all.
Great to see you back, Pete, with a good video to kick off your return. I agreed with practically everything you said, especially being able to change the difficulty on the fly. I'm too weak for that. >.< See you around on Twitch sometime!
So basically you want a game that plays itself (so no puzzles, no stats or progression, limited gear probably class restricted) and has a handful a characters with parties minimal of 4 members, short cutscenes that don't give enough depth for you to learn anything - oh wait you want to get attached to characters (so not possible at all)... yeah... Sounds like a drag of a game your ideal rpg.
Well I personally like the idea of changeable difficulty just because a lot of games have an area that is very poorly designed. By poorly designed, I mean much much more difficult than anything you've done in the past so you haven't built your characters to face those types of challenges. Or there might be bugs that make something very hard. So, instead of completely ruining your file and having to start over you can just change the difficulty for the one area.
my two nit picks are miss-able side quests (especially the ones with a very tiny and often time don't make sense window) I love the tales games but I feel like I have to have a walk through on hand when i play them. and my most hated thing about rpgs boss battles your supposed to lose. there is never indication and you normally end up wasting valuable items cause of these battles.
While some of your complaints are sound, such as overly long cutscenes, others are just really, really casual complaints. Don't like being able to change difficulty on the fly? You "fell victim" to it? No, you did not fall victim. It was your own fault. Too many characters being a problem? If anything sounded like a first world problem, that would be it. Having lots of characters available gives the game variety and replay value. It demands organization and decisions from the player and allows the player to create his/her own playstyle. As for complex character upgrade systems, to me, complex systems is what a RPG should be about. Interesting, unique, and complex upgrade systems make up some of the best RPGs out there.
Hey Pete, welcome back! Great episode, really enjoyed this one. Every time I thought of a frustration, you mentioned it almost immediately after. Playing through Earthbound for the first time, and would have to add Inventory/Item management to that list. Games like Earthbound or Super Mario RPG offer a huge amount of frustration with a limited inventory, and the inability to 'combine' items in a list (ie: 10 croissants takes up 10 spaces). Not having a clear indication of what an item does is also frustrating; with such a huge roster of food items, I'd love to get information on how much/what it heals, and not necessarily 'what it tastes like'.
I like adjustable difficulty. It often makes me more adventurous and daring with the difficulty I start on. I'll pick something harder knowing that if I come across something that I can't tackle I can always adjust it down as a last resort. To me this is an anti-frustration feature. What good does a difficulty choice before I start the game do unless I've played it before?
One of the things I hate most in an RPG, is when you get to some super long cutscene, with a boss straight after and that boss is one of the hardest in the game or just has cheap tactics ect. Then you have to watch that long cutscene all over again. (At least if theres no cutswcene skip... god dangit FFX)
One thing that I hate in some RPGs are when you have infinite side quests, like in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. I was trying to do every side quest that appeared, before I progressed any further in the main quest, so that I wouldn't hit a roadblock in the main quest where I wasn't strong enough to progress. However, the same side quests just get looped over and over and over again. It made side quests just feel like grinding levels, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted to do side quests so that I could feel like I was making some progress towards 100% completion, and to also avoid having to halt during the main quest to grind. Side quests in this game did not fulfill that at all.
Wait, what? I can't believe this. I love tons of playable characters! In the Japanese indie RPG CardWirth, you are given full control over the customization of any playable character you have created, ranging from personality traits (be it honest or conservative) to race (be it slime or giant). And unsurprisingly, all these characteristics are relevent to skill learning (I have collected 800+ different magic spells). A team can hold 6 PCs at max, and the changing of party members will affect your battle strategy drastically. Also, the lack of an experience system keeps things intense at all times. Sound like a classic CRPG, doesn't it?
I think the problem with games that have too many characters is that they don't make it easier to raise several at once to compensate for that high number. With Chrono Cross, there's over 40 characters, but it would've been a lot easier to handle had they allowed parties of 4, or even 5, instead of just 3 (for that matter, is it just me, or were 3-member parties obnoxiously common with early PS1 games after we had several SNES, and even NES, RPGs that boasted 4? I can only hope they had the excuse of that being a technical problem, like they had trouble displaying too many 3D models at once). This was also a problem with the original Super Famicom version of Dragon Quest 5: you can gather up several monster comrades, but only 3 party members at a time despite 4 in the previous games (you could level up 8 at a time thanks to the wagon, but that does jack shit for you in caves). Thank god they fixed that in the remakes. Same thing with Pokemon. Sure, you can have a party of 6, but you can usually only send out one at a time, and until XY gave us a reworked Experience All, sending out more than one Pokemon in a battle meant dividing that experience between participants. Speaking of monster-raising RPGs (which, practically by default, allow you to have a huge roster of characters), Azure Dreams also dealt with this horribly. It was bad enough that the game only allows you to bring 5 items with you at a time, but when equipment and reserve monsters take up those item slots, you can expect to only bring, at best, a couple monsters at a time. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, on the other hand, seems to do it right. As you progress in the game, you're allowed to carry more and more Digimon in your party at a time (albeit only 3 are usable in battle, but they still level up). On top of that, via certain skills, it's very easy to gain EXP (I haven't gotten too far, but I'm hearing of people who are able to go from level 1 to 99 in a matter of minutes), and that's not counting the fact that your Digimon gain EXP even when stored in the farm. Granted, you do revert to level 1 several times due to how the evolution system works, but being able to power level like crazy this way is still extremely convenient. On a personal note, I actually don't mind a bunch of "expendable" characters. For me, part of the joy in playing an RPG is just being able to raise a bunch of characters to become the strongest they can possibly be. There's just something extremely amusing and rewarding about seeing a character go from not even being able to kill a Slime in more than a couple hits, to something that could potentially solo the final boss. Lastly, I gotta say that in-game clocks honestly bug me. Sure, it may be nice to keep track of how long you've been playing a game, but I just kind of see it as a mark of shame, telling you that you took 'too' long to complete this game (which is especially daunting when you hear about reviewers going on about how a game has 40 hours of play time or something, but you're only halfway through and clocked in maybe double that). I also hate that they don't take in certain factors, like if you leave the game on pause for a long time while you go do something. Not to mention that with some RPGs, you just get a straight-up Game Over anytime you die, losing all progress from your last save including whatever you racked up on the timer, which kinda makes the timer seem rather pointless anyway (especially if you die several times on one particularly hard boss). Unfortunately for me, pretty much every game released nowadays clocks in your playtime. And if it isn't viewable within the game itself, it gets logged into your system (seriously, I think you can view your Etrian Odyssey playtime if you search around the 3DS's menu).
I definitely agree about the number of party members. That was why I originally went on a hunt for Suikoden around the time it was released. When I saw a screenshot in Game Informer showing 6 characters in battle, I knew it was a game I had to find.
"Changeable difficulty" is not a small nitpick to me: Games would not be rewarding without some challenge, the player wouldn't be forced to use every facet of the games possibilities and learn to play the game right and some games like "Demon's Souls" couldn't even present their dark and hopeless mood to the player if all was a piece of cake. I think many of todays simplifications are due to a lacking attention span of many people. I kind of quit this generation with the exception of a few titles. I hardly like any changes in the medium anymore and looking at a collection of - for example PS4 games- is like looking on a pile of trash, because there only is some basic crap on the discs and not a finished product, which was carefully programmed and delivered to the customer with a coloured booklet. ...What I hate about NPCs with different dialogue is the fact that I get the feeling I have to speak to EVERY person twice in the game because there was one NPC in the first 30 minutes who had a second line. :) Just discovered your channel and I think it's great. Greetings from Hamburg
The only game that I played with adjustable/on the fly difficulty as far as I know was the world ends with you. I found it incredibly useful, I didn't really use it to make boss fights any easier. One of the best things I liked about the adjustable difficulty is the harder you made the game the better item drops you would get and it also increased the percentage of the rare item drops. Incredibly helpful for a 100% completionist file. RPG's with limited battle parties I've never really considered a problem. It may also come from the fact that I haven't played that many rpg's to begin with, but I can definitely see 4 party members being more appealing to a game than say three party members. I will agree with you on games that have too many party members with chrono cross being a perfect example. When I play my rpgs I like to use all the characters and not stick to a few, but it can be challenging for games such as chrono cross and the suikoden series. Bad battle music I can handle, no matter how bad it is I can get myself to play it , but bad battle systems I really really struggle with. Its probably my biggest rpg pet peeve. I don't mind crafting or long cut scenes, but in all honesty one thing I do notice about a lot of the games I do play, it really takes a lot to piss me off. Puzzles I don't mind, but sometimes they can be overbearing like the millennium puzzles from wild arms 3, there was literally too many of those with each one being more worse than the other. Xenosaga Episode II is pretty bad with repetitive sidequests, that game has way too many fetch quests, but I don't consider it a gamebreaker. Overall I think the biggest thing I struggle with the jrpg's I do play, are bad battle system. If the battle is truly bad I have a really hard time getting through it. I don't give up, it just makes the experience a lot more painful to go through.
You won't play Dragons Dogma because pawns don't have a back story? Well that really sucks. Because Dragons Dogma is an awesome action RPG. One of my favorites. I recommend giving it a try and ignoring the whole pawn thing. They're still fun and useful.
Pretty much agree on everything you just said, especially party setup and "filler" characters. That's why i can never get into Disgaea-like games, where you can lose a character forever (pretty easily), if it's story related i can deal with it (Mass Effect), but not from random battles. A 4-man party is much better than 3 (Tank, heal, support, dps / your choice of setup). More available characters than party allows (ex: Mass Effect), i just can't choose which to use... Another one is character creation, i prefer rpgs with race/class/look choice when i start, it doesn't matter what the story is, my character can still be used for the games story (examples, "Tales of" games, The witcher).
You missed the single biggest problem that has plagued EVERY RPG since the beginning of time! When you talk to a guy a couple times, but you missed what he said first, or you want to reread what he said, but there is no way to read the first thing he said again. Maybe you clicked the button too fast and a big bunch of text looked important but the final thing he says is useless and no clue.
One thing that annoys me about rpgs is that most of them take so long to finish. Yeah and the stories, which may be short, usually get dragged by excessive level grinding and I resent that sometimes, such as in FFXII. All that grinding just for a short story. I used to be love rpgs, but my tastes have changed. As for your reasons as to why they have flaws or faulty characteristics, I say that I get where you're going.
I hate turn based battles, random generated fights when ur walking and having to do chores for NPC's in games. Yeah I said it! I hate RPGs! Closest thing to an RPG I'll play is Corpse Party
I completely agree about the time progress part. I'm a little OCD about it though and can't stand RPG's that either have no way to pause the game (excluding just going to the party menu), or stop the timer if you have to walk away for a couple minutes here and there. I like my time-played to be as accurate as possible.
I actually thought I was going to disagree with most of these as a really big RPG player... but I was wrong, I agreed with all of these. Especially the Stat changes one at a shop... go to buy something and I don't feel like looking real quickly to do the math, so I just buy the equipment piece and then BAM, waste of 1800 gold. Or when you increase a stat that you're not sure exactly what does, most of the time it's self-explanatory but some just don't tell you, or they only tell you in the manual. I'm having trouble thinking of an example right now.
Hey Pete, great vid! One thing I hate is when the main character is swapped throughout the story, like in FF8. For some reason I like to just be one continuous character because otherwise I lose the immersion. Even in assassins creed where you are sort of taken out back into the real world, that always gets in my nerves too.
it infuriated me when every 5 times i died in kingdoms of amalur reckoning, it asked me if i wanted to change difficulty. it was defaulted to yes aswell so you had to be very careful not to spam through the text just for another attempt at the boss.
Thats why I like Tales series they have good characters and good stories. And your tempted to play them muiltiple times because your grade carries over. I like Hyper Dimension Neptunia series as well, I do go back sometimes and play old games like Suikoden 1 and 2 and Chrono Trigger for some reason.
Extra ginding kills me...grind is normal in rpg, but there are some games you play more than half of it just grinding.......I agree with you regarding time..we want to know how many hours we are playing..
- i HATE difficulty settings in general! not just in the middle of the game, not only in rpgs..i hate them in general. I definitely prefer a game built with a focus on what it should be..i don't like to start a game and see some meaningless options because let's face it..normal mode today means "easy", while ten years ago was today's "hard", but even today some games will be cakewalks at hard, while others will be too hard at normal...i definitely prefer to have a game that gives the player tools to tweak the difficulty by game mechanics..one example: in dark souls you don't have a difficulty setting (it would ruin the whole point of the game)..do you want challenge and have the most out of the combat? play as a thief...do you want a medium difficulty? wear heavy armor and a tower shield with heavy damage dealing weapons". Do you want to not really be in the center of the action but still want to explore the world and play the game? Play as a mage/ranged class. - in my opinion for group based rpgs the minimum number of characters should be 4 to be decent to at least have the standard "fighter-cleric-rogue-mage", but i definitely prefer 5 or even 6
Gotta admit that I hate it too when there is too many characters to choose from.. namely; Chrono Cross If you're RPG "perfectoinist" which mainly means "no party members left behind!" then you understand how tiresome it is to _level-up all those character individually!_ Not to mention how too many characters were more of a game-killer then advantage in Chrono Cross..
Oh jeez, Chrono Cross. There are fighting games that have smaller playable rosters than that game. I think my biggest pet peeve is super chatty characters. Seemingly endless seens of clicking the A button. (I'm looking at you Camelot Software Planning!)
I fricking hate..... Getting choice for Party members -.- is OVER 5+. I just loved the way FFX did. Cause you could switch if character died to another character, or switch in mid battle to another character.
Great video pete nice to see ya uploading again. Life can get hectic thats for sure. Great list of pet peeves you nailed them on the head, I tried Dragon's Dogma and I felt it was so blah and you nailed it on the head the characters were very generic. I also dislike too many difficult puzzle areas in rpgs, if it happens and i cant figure it out i usually go on youtube. I'm currently playing through Tales of Xillia on the PS3 and it has the change the characters on the fly I dont really use it yet, but I have a feeling i will need to.
I loooooooved having just 3 characters through Wild ARMs. Really became intimate with the characters as a result of the journey with them. In terms of gameplay I suppose you could say that they fulfilled more than one role each between them, so that works out.
I totally agree with the difficulty thing. When playing Oblivion, if I turn the difficulty up to challenge myself, I'm always tempted to turn it back down the minute I have a hard fight ahead of me... lol...
The first one is COMPLETELY BS. No, Pete. You did not fall victim to anything. You made an informed decision and regretted it afterward. That does not make you a victim. The option is there for less skilled players to get through it. You can use it if you want but it's not our job to protect you from yourself in a game. It's your job to make your decisions amd own them. This is like the "Blargh! I hate unlimited continues!" Thing. So what?! Don't use them! How many continues would you prefer? Okay, use those and then stop! Don't use the setting if you don't want to. YOU make that decision. I don't use it myself but if someone else does, cool. Doesn't impact my experience. This is a BS entitled argument and it just has no merit. Let's get back to the whole personal responsibility thing for a bit, yeah? Sound good? A little more accountability in general? Sounds good to me.
one of my pet peeves in rpgs is when i go into an item shop, unload a bunch of money on a new item, then 10 minutes later find that same item in the next dungeon/area for free -_-
That happened to me before! lol
Think I know what you mean by your avatar.....and I completely agree hah
Agreed! Just ran into that in Earthbound where I bought a ton of stuff in Summers; only to find it for a fraction of the price in the next town.
Holy smokes, yes. Although right now I'm playing P3P and I'm finding that its the opposite, curiously...
Then you sell it back to the same shop for half the price....
My biggest complaint in RPG's: "What the hell was I doing...itis?"
When you drop a game for a couple of weeks, and the game doesn't give you an objective of what you are supposed to do. So you have to remember what you did last, and then look up a walkthrough of where to go next. Nocturne being the biggest offender of this in my case
Or wander aimlessly and hope you hit a story sequence that will remind you of where to go
Hey it's youuuuuuuuu!
Blandrew In that case it helps to look at your "key items" and use Ctrl+F to find them in a walkthrough. That should help jog your memory.
+Blandrew Generally, I have a laser focus whenever I'm playing a game. What actually happens is that I'm playing the shit out of something, I get to the mid-to-late game (regardless of whether it took me 30 hours or 100, I seem to lose attention at the same point during a game) then lose interest and stop playing. Months later, I might get interested in it again, only to reprise my old save file and be like "...where am I and what was I doing?" Then I play through and it feels weird, I don't remember enough about what I was doing last, I can't get into the mindset I was in when I was making my builds, so I say fuck it and play it again from scratch. Then I get to repeat the process ALL OVER AGAIN unless I decide to say fuck it, let's forget the sidequests and just power through the rest of the story for the sake of being able to say I've "completed" it.
Honestly the number of games I "might well have completed" vs the number I've actually finished is pretty shocking.
I hate nothing except all the things I hate in some RPGs!
agreed, johnny is my favorite as well. his passion for gaming always shines through when he speaks and his gaming tastes are oddly identical to mine :)
Gzus Kreist You've obviously never seen game sack :O
NarcoticDimension I love gamesack, they're so thorough with their content, but these guys need to put down the scripts and try actually conversating. even if they have to shorten their videos to do so, I think they'd have a larger user base if they did. the way they read their script is so cut and dry. I find myself toning out their voice and just looking at the gameplay shots they put up because of this. I know these guys have alot of passion, but we dont get to see any of it when they hide behind a script like that :(
HappyConsoleGamer does rock.
HappyConsoleGamer I like you dude! Nice videos. Your segment on amiibos actually is quite spot on and some people can relate to it. All I ask is that you do a video on whether a video game should be priced for 60 dollars or if a game is worth that much money.
- Too much grinding.
- Side quests.
- Battle system that is slow and makes battles last a long time where you have a'lot of the same battles over and over.
- Silent protagonist (lazy writing)
- Solving a puzzle while you have random encounters braking your train of thought.
- Sudden huge difficulty spikes.
I so agree with you about weapon stats and then you spend a'lot of money on a weapon and it turns out to be worse or it has misleading states or is cursed in some way.
Silent Protagonists can be neat, if done right. Chrono Trigger/Cross did it with success, in my opinion. To branch off of RPG's for a second, I noticed that more people want Link to start talking in future LoZ titles.
Matthew J. Boone When I imagine what them games would of been like with a speaking protagonist I tend to think the worst because they are games I already love despite the silent protagonist. It's easy to see how they were actually done than to try imagine how they would of been had they had dialog. You are right though I think some games are probably better with out a speaking protagonist if done right and for the right kind of game.
Why are side quests so bad?
Unique Gamers Side Quests can be amazing, but repetitive fetch quests drive me insane!
Silent protagonists is a staple of the JRPG.
The things to hate in rpg's are the childlike imnature protagonist especially if he has a go lucky very enthusiastict personality , convoluted plots where the antoganist changes frequently , alot of characters that are playable but you can't take with you on 1 team even though the world is ending they stay at the base doing nothing , and shallow character relationships suck hard
The older u get, the less time u have to play games, the less u will be playing rpgs. Trust me. Ain't nobody got time for that.
That’s honestly the stage I’m at in my life.
True
Disagree got a kid and in my thirties; still playing them. Its really just a matter if you like them enough to play them. If RPGs aren't your thing then time isn't the issue the genre is.
Single save files. Hate 'em.
u can hate this in every game, not just rpgs hahah
1) they're too long.
2) they're purposedly drawn out.
3) random encounters.
4) grindy & repetitive.
5) too dam long & drawn out.
6) unskippable dialogues & cutscenes.
+TheBrainScratcher I agree man. I can deal with action rpgs but turn based game waste your time on purpose. No thanks.
I FUCKING LOVE YOU
I only play RPG's with accelerators or when Im on my phone
although one of my favorite games of all time is pokemon emerald :p
Or just play skyrim or fallout no grinding, no drawn out affaire ( unless you want to spend hundreds of hours reading and finding lore, secrets, unique quests and fighting unique enemy's. All dialouge is skippable ( to whatever extent you want ) . Random enconters dont break the flow of any of the things above. Including combat which is seamless to the rest of the game. Skyrim and fallout new vegas are the best rpgs ive ever played hands down.
In regards to not seeing your equipment stat changes when buying armor, I "HATE" when they give your the green arrow up ^ and you only get 1 positive stat change but there are 5 different stats that go down... really annoying.
As a single player gamer, I *_LOVE_* RPG's cause they're perfect for me as I'm the only one playing. Still there are some things I *_HATE_* about RPG's as well like:
1. Unnecessarily difficult side-quests or enemies that in the end, give you a useless, common or mediocre item after having gone through total hell to complete said quests or defeat said enemies.
2. Games that give you a *_HUGE_* number of weapons, items, armor etc. etc. but, your character is limited to only taking a handful with them due to very small and limited inventory space.
3. Games that offer extremely expensive weapons, pieces of armor or items that require tons of hours of grind to amass the proper amount of funds to purchase them, then when you finally buy it, it turns out to be mediocre or at times even worse or useless compared to the items, armor and weapons you already own and use.
4. RPG's that offer "Save Points" but said "Save Points" are so few and far between, you have to tread back and forth over long distances just to hopefully make it to the next or last "Save Point" without dying.
5. Games that offer tons of purchasable "attacks", each more expensive than the last, yet once bought and equipped or "learned", are really rather useless or rarely used compared to your standard "basic" attack.
6. As a "completion-ist", I like trying to get every weapon, item and piece of armor offered in the game (I don't buy DLC items, armor etc.) but I hate games that have *_ONE_* specific weapon or item you can only get from one particular enemy or quest and if you miss your chance to get that item, it's gone - you have to either restart from a previous "save" or you just have to finish and/or restart the whole game.
7. RPG's that have a particularly bad user interface/menu system. I can't stand when a game has a clunky and poorly designed interface/menu system, especially when other games of the time were already using superior versions of the same thing.
8. RPG's that offer some type of link play or link trade system and offer new weapons, items, armor etc. *_ONLY_* to those who can take advantage of the "link" feature.
9. I also hate when I buy a game at full price and then a short while later, the game is re-released with new or extra content at a much higher price.
10. Re-released ports of older games that are promoted as "improved" or the "definitive edition" but once you buy them, have inferior and changed dialogue, music, gameplay etc. etc..
(P.S. These are more of a nitpick for me - RPG's that offer the same cliche-type characters like kids or teens "saving the world". I'm so tired of the "kid" or "teen" aspect in many RPG's, especially modern ones. Also, the overly "Emo-androgynous-teen" look that many RPG characters are given nowadays. Last, horrible voice acting (especially with overly "kid-like" voices for some female characters) that make me wish for old-school *_SILENT_* text dialogue...)
I hate whenever I pause a RPG game and go to do something else for a little bit and then when I come back it still counts up time rather than pausing the time. I don't know why, but I guess it's because it looks like I put in a bunch ours even though some where spent on the pause menu with no activity.
This is why FF9 is an excellent game. Only 8 main characters with great back stories, 4 players in a party at most times, time clock, stat changes shown, excellent music, simple but intuitive ability system, no difficulty change, and dozens of fun side quests.
This comment wins!
MovieStarKitten yay!
Ff9 is literally the worse FF game ever. The battle system was bad. Having to equip weapons until you learn the move was annoying. Also there was too much story in that. I know RPGs are story driven but it got in the way of the gameplay. FF5 was better the FF9...I'm not ever going to bring up FF7
***** Best FF game ever.
+Dennis Salas Jr I agree 100% with this guy
What I hate about RPG's is the fact i simply cannot resist talking to every npc ever. I know this is more my problem than the games, but they tempt me with so many interesting looking characters i just have to hear what they've got to say.
*Too many Puzzles.......
You shouldn't play Light Crusader or Landstalker
*Too many random encounters.......(when you don't want to farm, are weak or don't want them) Can be extremely annoying and frustrating....
*And full inventory box, Like I said on Twitch.....
An Inventory box that gets easily ful due to the fact that the characters can't carry anything can be hell at times. I call it the Resident Evil Chris syndrome....Or the the leaking nut syndrome...
Things I don't like:
- Love triangles
- Empty towns with too few NPCs, NPCs that say the same thing the entire time
- Going from one lcoation to the other takes forever
- RPGs that consist almost entirely of quests
- Annoying micromanagement of character skills
I strongly recommend giving Dragon's Dogma another chance for at least one playthrough. I promise you'll enjoy it and the gripe you had about it is perfectly explained with the incredible story. I wish I could tell you but it's a massive spoiler. I implore you to reconsider.
I hate it when it's not clear whether or not NPCs have more than one thing to say, as well, although some games handle this well. It's not an RPG, but Deadly Premonition displays the Talk command in yellow if a character has something else to say, while the Talk command is white if the character is just going to repeat something you've already heard/read.
Since you mentioned switchable characters, though, I'll mention something else that I hate, because it ties into the aforementioned issue. I absolutely HATE having to talk to certain NPCs as a specific character, especially if the game doesn't make it clear that a specific character would have a certain effect on an NPC.
I actually kinda hate multiple endings in RPGs. It's cool if the game is like 8 hours long. But I'm not gonna play through a damn 60 hour long RPG again just to try to see a different or better ending. Star Ocean: The Second Story is the big example of this.
Haha "Long drawn out cut-scenes" I have to ask Pete if you've played Tears to Tiara II for the PS3? I did a video on the game intro just because of this pet peeve.
My biggest complaint for certain RPGs is enemies and bosses that scale with you. If I spend hours leveling up then I want to see the fruits of my labor and be able to destroy anything and everything. Also it ruins low level runs as well since enemies aren't as strong as they could be.
The only thing on your list that I can for sure agree on is repetitive side quests. This is the main reason why I haven't finished Dead Island. I love doing side quests, but I don't like doing the same side quests again later in the game. For some games like Ni No Kuni(except the side quests with Derwin) and Skyrim, it's not a big deal to me, but Dead Island is plagued by it. Seriously, early in the game, you will be doing a escort mission, then later you will be doing another escort mission with a different NPC in a different area.
one thing that really bugs me about rpgs is when they sit you through like 10 min of cut scenes then have you gain control of you group/charicter just to walk down a path and click the button at a door then give me more cut scene its like what game play value did i get from moving to a door and going through it ?? i seem to remember lost oddessy doing that once or twice not sure though since its been ages since i played it
You should do more on the fly type of videos like these.
Really interesting and I imagine it being much more easier than editing.
A personal pet peeve of mines in general is the constant grinding in RPGs, both Western and Japanese. I'm even guilty of this method on occasion. It feels artificial, and defeats the the purpose game's overall design and challenge.
But a turning point in most RPGs nowadays is that they're becoming more action-oriented, though still suffer the "Grinding Problem" it is a tad less noticeable however.
I like your new video, but BLASPHEMY on dissing the Persona 3 music.
Honestly, that's about the only thing I enjoy about the series :/
Once you go P4G you aint going back.
MaikuBoy1 Yes indeed.
Totally agree but I'm bias. Persona 3 and its music are my favorite video games and soundtracks of all time.
Dissing Dragon's Dogma was blasphemy as well.
RPG's should have multiple battle songs, I got so tired of hearing "Reach Out to the Truth" while playing Persona 4, it's not even a bad song, it just got annoying the sheer amount of times you hear it throughout the game.
All are legit points. One of the reasons I don't play a lot of RPGs these days is many of the issues you mentioned. An RPG has to be near perfect for me to seriously get into it, but so many I play have one or two issues that you mentioned that keeps me from getting absorbed in the experience, and thus I stop playing.
I hate the inability to save anywhere in the game. In 2015, I should not have to hunt for save points and block out lots of time to get from one of them to the next.
The number one thing I hate is when games have insanely terrible encounter rates, I don't like getting attacked every 2 steps
I hate EVERYTHING in RPGs. It's the biggest waste of time of all times.
Miss you on the podcast Pete.
Only RPG I was ever able to get into was Pokemon.
I've tried FF3 and 7, I tried chrono trigger, I tried earthbound, just not a fan. I hate games that force me to look up a guide just so I know where to go. That's bad conveyance and just isn't what a game should be. I know those games are like "OH MY GUD IT"S DA BEST" but like, fuck all of them. Drawn out, being forced to grind, not knowing what items to get, just no.
RPG's suck... And again, any game that forces me to look up a guide to beat it, is a bad game
*Looks at Symphony of the night, Legend of zelda (you pick which one) as well as super metroid*
Great to see you back Pete! It's been a while. This video was a great watch!
I can't say I've played too many RPGs, but have to agree with you on most of your comments here! I think for me, my most disliked thing about RPGs is when you're asked to go find a person or object in a town but the NPC gives you no clues or information on where you're meant to go. I'm sure this happened in Tales of Xillia a few times, especially on side quests where it will say you need to speak with this person in this town, but with no real insight into where that person was, it got frustrating.
Great video once again! I'll be sure to catch you on Twitch :-)
I actually agree with everything you mentioned . Except the your first point . If you know how many games I gave up on because I couldn't go pass that one boss or mission , you'll understand how in game difficulty option is a life saver for me . I play video games to unwind and release the days' stress . I don't need them to add more ...
Agree with most of your points such as: being restricted to only 3 party members. I prefer 4 as well. Like you said, it lets you experiment more. I disagree with changing between characters. I love taking control of other characters and learning their abilities, like in Ys Memories of Celceta. Great video!
Great video. I agreed with pretty much everything you said especially having too many characters to choose from, and having a party of 3 or less. One thing that always gets me is having to use a character that you haven't been using at all for a vital boss or dungeon.
OMG not seeing stat changes on your equipment screen. How the heck are you supposed to know if it's worth keeping!? Or when you are on a loot screen and you can't compare your new gear to your current gear. Just forces you to waste time.
Random encounters. That's pretty much all I hate about them.
One of my things is an RPG that doesn't track my time. Playing the original Devil Survivor for the DS does this and it bothers me so much. So I feel your pain.
Another is random encounters. I'm not a fan of them, they kill me often enough and I hate taking just two steps after a battle only to get into another one. Granted, it doesn't stop me from playing a game with them, but that doesn't mean I have to like them.
Really, those are the main ones for me.
Nice to see you back, Pete. Myself, I'm not a fan of frequent random encounters.
1.- Agreed. I would like either Change it in specific parts, or made you chose after a few minutes / hours, like "hey, you just finish chapter 0 on normal difficulty, chose now your difficulty and any description of what each difficulty means (Better AI, more damage enemies etc..)".
2.- I believe the main problem about this is the fact that anyone can get targeted, regardless of where they are supposed to be (like, far away for ranged, which is sort of fixed with the "position" system in Etrian-type games). Also Etrian games have that, and i love the whole configurations you can make.
3.- Yeah.
4.- I have left so many RPGs unfinished and i never knew why, and later i realize the music was killing the atmosphere for me to a subconcious point.
5.- I agree, and that's why i liked how Final Fantasy Tactics did this, first because most of the mechanics (like height) weren't needed to play the game, and the job system let you sort of store the points so you can try things out when needed.
6.- well yeah, but i guess they dont think their game is bad or have bad story.
7.- I guess, there are games though, where you can sort of give them their own story in terms of how battles go, like how they crit the final enemy, while they were gonna die next turn and such.
8.-
9.- Yeah, but i hate backtracking more.
10.- I dont really care about it, but its nice.
11.- I like as much info as possible, i hate this persona BS that (Increase damage on bash attacks), i want to know %s.
12.-
13.- Yeah, i agree. I was playing with a friend and we got to a point that it was like. Fuck it, just main story from now on.
I hate how a lot of them have padding to them, whether it's the story going on for longer than it should, with long stretches of time where the story doesn't really progress, or grinding. God, I really fucking hate grinding, especially in Pokemon. I just want to get my gym badge, and the only things willing to battle me are the wild Pokemon, which are significantly weaker than my team.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when you haven't played an RPG in a while and you finally get back into it and the game doesn't remind you what you're suppose to be doing so you either have to try to remember or starting all over again but luckily most modern RPGs fixed that problem
"Extra recruitable throwaway characters" is why I LOVE Etrian Odyssey Untold but don't think I could like the other "classic" Etrian Odysseys. Your whole party is just characters you pick and choose from the class list, and they aren't customizable in appearance at all, let alone the rest of their characterizations... So it's like, you have to imagine what they all act like? If the whole character is going to be filled in by my imagination then I'd like to be able to choose more about them than class, since they all have set appearances, like red haired warrior boy or black haired warrior boy. Maybe I'm just missing something since I only played a demo of 4 and played classic mode of Untold for an hour...
Cool seeing you back Pete! Goddamn.., all those points hit home - especially the equip switching. Aggravating. :P
See, I think being able to switch characters is fun...I'm mostly thinking of FF10 where different enemies have different weaknesses so you almost need to switch to the right characters (at least if you keep them each as the same job).
Puzzles...I dunno. Normally RPGs have the simplest puzzles that are just there to add another dimension. Golden Sun was quite simple in the puzzle department imo, unless you were going for every djinni maybe.
Great vid as always. Keep it up Pete :).
I agree with you on the character switching in arpgs, but in ys defense, the character switching in that game is all based on the fact that each of your 3 characters were strong/weak to certain enemies. so to get the most out of fighting, you would have to utilize this mechanic. but most other games dont do this and allow you to switch for no reason at all.
Great to see you back, Pete, with a good video to kick off your return. I agreed with practically everything you said, especially being able to change the difficulty on the fly. I'm too weak for that. >.< See you around on Twitch sometime!
So basically you want a game that plays itself (so no puzzles, no stats or progression, limited gear probably class restricted) and has a handful a characters with parties minimal of 4 members, short cutscenes that don't give enough depth for you to learn anything - oh wait you want to get attached to characters (so not possible at all)... yeah... Sounds like a drag of a game your ideal rpg.
Awesome list ^_^, great to have you back
Welcome back man! Missed your videos. Was thinking about your videos while game hunting today. Keep up the good work man
Well I personally like the idea of changeable difficulty just because a lot of games have an area that is very poorly designed. By poorly designed, I mean much much more difficult than anything you've done in the past so you haven't built your characters to face those types of challenges. Or there might be bugs that make something very hard. So, instead of completely ruining your file and having to start over you can just change the difficulty for the one area.
my two nit picks are miss-able side quests (especially the ones with a very tiny and often time don't make sense window) I love the tales games but I feel like I have to have a walk through on hand when i play them. and my most hated thing about rpgs boss battles your supposed to lose. there is never indication and you normally end up wasting valuable items cause of these battles.
While some of your complaints are sound, such as overly long cutscenes, others are just really, really casual complaints. Don't like being able to change difficulty on the fly? You "fell victim" to it? No, you did not fall victim. It was your own fault. Too many characters being a problem? If anything sounded like a first world problem, that would be it. Having lots of characters available gives the game variety and replay value. It demands organization and decisions from the player and allows the player to create his/her own playstyle. As for complex character upgrade systems, to me, complex systems is what a RPG should be about. Interesting, unique, and complex upgrade systems make up some of the best RPGs out there.
Glad to have you back Pete.
Hey Pete, welcome back! Great episode, really enjoyed this one. Every time I thought of a frustration, you mentioned it almost immediately after. Playing through Earthbound for the first time, and would have to add Inventory/Item management to that list. Games like Earthbound or Super Mario RPG offer a huge amount of frustration with a limited inventory, and the inability to 'combine' items in a list (ie: 10 croissants takes up 10 spaces). Not having a clear indication of what an item does is also frustrating; with such a huge roster of food items, I'd love to get information on how much/what it heals, and not necessarily 'what it tastes like'.
I like adjustable difficulty. It often makes me more adventurous and daring with the difficulty I start on. I'll pick something harder knowing that if I come across something that I can't tackle I can always adjust it down as a last resort. To me this is an anti-frustration feature. What good does a difficulty choice before I start the game do unless I've played it before?
serious question, PeteDorr. What would you do if a storm blew over your house and destroyed all of your collection?
One of the things I hate most in an RPG, is when you get to some super long cutscene, with a boss straight after and that boss is one of the hardest in the game or just has cheap tactics ect. Then you have to watch that long cutscene all over again. (At least if theres no cutswcene skip... god dangit FFX)
One thing that I hate in some RPGs are when you have infinite side quests, like in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. I was trying to do every side quest that appeared, before I progressed any further in the main quest, so that I wouldn't hit a roadblock in the main quest where I wasn't strong enough to progress. However, the same side quests just get looped over and over and over again. It made side quests just feel like grinding levels, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted to do side quests so that I could feel like I was making some progress towards 100% completion, and to also avoid having to halt during the main quest to grind. Side quests in this game did not fulfill that at all.
Great to see you back Pete :D
Wait, what? I can't believe this. I love tons of playable characters!
In the Japanese indie RPG CardWirth, you are given full control over the customization of any playable character you have created, ranging from personality traits (be it honest or conservative) to race (be it slime or giant). And unsurprisingly, all these characteristics are relevent to skill learning (I have collected 800+ different magic spells). A team can hold 6 PCs at max, and the changing of party members will affect your battle strategy drastically. Also, the lack of an experience system keeps things intense at all times.
Sound like a classic CRPG, doesn't it?
I think the problem with games that have too many characters is that they don't make it easier to raise several at once to compensate for that high number. With Chrono Cross, there's over 40 characters, but it would've been a lot easier to handle had they allowed parties of 4, or even 5, instead of just 3 (for that matter, is it just me, or were 3-member parties obnoxiously common with early PS1 games after we had several SNES, and even NES, RPGs that boasted 4? I can only hope they had the excuse of that being a technical problem, like they had trouble displaying too many 3D models at once). This was also a problem with the original Super Famicom version of Dragon Quest 5: you can gather up several monster comrades, but only 3 party members at a time despite 4 in the previous games (you could level up 8 at a time thanks to the wagon, but that does jack shit for you in caves). Thank god they fixed that in the remakes.
Same thing with Pokemon. Sure, you can have a party of 6, but you can usually only send out one at a time, and until XY gave us a reworked Experience All, sending out more than one Pokemon in a battle meant dividing that experience between participants. Speaking of monster-raising RPGs (which, practically by default, allow you to have a huge roster of characters), Azure Dreams also dealt with this horribly. It was bad enough that the game only allows you to bring 5 items with you at a time, but when equipment and reserve monsters take up those item slots, you can expect to only bring, at best, a couple monsters at a time. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, on the other hand, seems to do it right. As you progress in the game, you're allowed to carry more and more Digimon in your party at a time (albeit only 3 are usable in battle, but they still level up). On top of that, via certain skills, it's very easy to gain EXP (I haven't gotten too far, but I'm hearing of people who are able to go from level 1 to 99 in a matter of minutes), and that's not counting the fact that your Digimon gain EXP even when stored in the farm. Granted, you do revert to level 1 several times due to how the evolution system works, but being able to power level like crazy this way is still extremely convenient.
On a personal note, I actually don't mind a bunch of "expendable" characters. For me, part of the joy in playing an RPG is just being able to raise a bunch of characters to become the strongest they can possibly be. There's just something extremely amusing and rewarding about seeing a character go from not even being able to kill a Slime in more than a couple hits, to something that could potentially solo the final boss.
Lastly, I gotta say that in-game clocks honestly bug me. Sure, it may be nice to keep track of how long you've been playing a game, but I just kind of see it as a mark of shame, telling you that you took 'too' long to complete this game (which is especially daunting when you hear about reviewers going on about how a game has 40 hours of play time or something, but you're only halfway through and clocked in maybe double that). I also hate that they don't take in certain factors, like if you leave the game on pause for a long time while you go do something. Not to mention that with some RPGs, you just get a straight-up Game Over anytime you die, losing all progress from your last save including whatever you racked up on the timer, which kinda makes the timer seem rather pointless anyway (especially if you die several times on one particularly hard boss). Unfortunately for me, pretty much every game released nowadays clocks in your playtime. And if it isn't viewable within the game itself, it gets logged into your system (seriously, I think you can view your Etrian Odyssey playtime if you search around the 3DS's menu).
I definitely agree about the number of party members. That was why I originally went on a hunt for Suikoden around the time it was released. When I saw a screenshot in Game Informer showing 6 characters in battle, I knew it was a game I had to find.
"Changeable difficulty" is not a small nitpick to me: Games would not be rewarding without some challenge, the player wouldn't be forced to use every facet of the games possibilities and learn to play the game right and some games like "Demon's Souls" couldn't even present their dark and hopeless mood to the player if all was a piece of cake.
I think many of todays simplifications are due to a lacking attention span of many people. I kind of quit this generation with the exception of a few titles. I hardly like any changes in the medium anymore and looking at a collection of - for example PS4 games- is like looking on a pile of trash, because there only is some basic crap on the discs and not a finished product, which
was carefully programmed and delivered to the customer with a coloured booklet.
...What I hate about NPCs with different dialogue is the fact that I get the feeling I have to speak to EVERY person twice in the game because there was one NPC in the first 30 minutes who had a second line. :)
Just discovered your channel and I think it's great.
Greetings from Hamburg
the most annoying thing is when some RPGs do not allow inactive party members to gain experience points
The only game that I played with adjustable/on the fly difficulty as far as I know was the world ends with you. I found it incredibly useful, I didn't really use it to make boss fights any easier. One of the best things I liked about the adjustable difficulty is the harder you made the game the better item drops you would get and it also increased the percentage of the rare item drops. Incredibly helpful for a 100% completionist file. RPG's with limited battle parties I've never really considered a problem. It may also come from the fact that I haven't played that many rpg's to begin with, but I can definitely see 4 party members being more appealing to a game than say three party members. I will agree with you on games that have too many party members with chrono cross being a perfect example. When I play my rpgs I like to use all the characters and not stick to a few, but it can be challenging for games such as chrono cross and the suikoden series. Bad battle music I can handle, no matter how bad it is I can get myself to play it , but bad battle systems I really really struggle with. Its probably my biggest rpg pet peeve. I don't mind crafting or long cut scenes, but in all honesty one thing I do notice about a lot of the games I do play, it really takes a lot to piss me off. Puzzles I don't mind, but sometimes they can be overbearing like the millennium puzzles from wild arms 3, there was literally too many of those with each one being more worse than the other. Xenosaga Episode II is pretty bad with repetitive sidequests, that game has way too many fetch quests, but I don't consider it a gamebreaker. Overall I think the biggest thing I struggle with the jrpg's I do play, are bad battle system. If the battle is truly bad I have a really hard time getting through it. I don't give up, it just makes the experience a lot more painful to go through.
You won't play Dragons Dogma because pawns don't have a back story? Well that really sucks. Because Dragons Dogma is an awesome action RPG. One of my favorites. I recommend giving it a try and ignoring the whole pawn thing. They're still fun and useful.
Pretty much agree on everything you just said, especially party setup and "filler" characters. That's why i can never get into Disgaea-like games, where you can lose a character forever (pretty easily), if it's story related i can deal with it (Mass Effect), but not from random battles. A 4-man party is much better than 3 (Tank, heal, support, dps / your choice of setup). More available characters than party allows (ex: Mass Effect), i just can't choose which to use... Another one is character creation, i prefer rpgs with race/class/look choice when i start, it doesn't matter what the story is, my character can still be used for the games story (examples, "Tales of" games, The witcher).
You missed the single biggest problem that has plagued EVERY RPG since the beginning of time! When you talk to a guy a couple times, but you missed what he said first, or you want to reread what he said, but there is no way to read the first thing he said again. Maybe you clicked the button too fast and a big bunch of text looked important but the final thing he says is useless and no clue.
Pete how did you enjoy Bug Riders? It would be funny if you did a review on it.
Welcome back Pete!
One thing that annoys me about rpgs is that most of them take so long to finish. Yeah and the stories, which may be short, usually get dragged by excessive level grinding and I resent that sometimes, such as in FFXII. All that grinding just for a short story. I used to be love rpgs, but my tastes have changed. As for your reasons as to why they have flaws or faulty characteristics, I say that I get where you're going.
Yes! Pete Returns!!!
Nostalgia...difficulty spikes and basically the same retrieve or kill boss adventure quest >.>
I hate turn based battles, random generated fights when ur walking and having to do chores for NPC's in games. Yeah I said it! I hate RPGs! Closest thing to an RPG I'll play is Corpse Party
I completely agree about the time progress part. I'm a little OCD about it though and can't stand RPG's that either have no way to pause the game (excluding just going to the party menu), or stop the timer if you have to walk away for a couple minutes here and there. I like my time-played to be as accurate as possible.
I disagree, I think the ability to adjust the difficulty on Bravely Default was one of its best features, _especially_ the encounter rate.
I actually thought I was going to disagree with most of these as a really big RPG player... but I was wrong, I agreed with all of these. Especially the Stat changes one at a shop... go to buy something and I don't feel like looking real quickly to do the math, so I just buy the equipment piece and then BAM, waste of 1800 gold.
Or when you increase a stat that you're not sure exactly what does, most of the time it's self-explanatory but some just don't tell you, or they only tell you in the manual. I'm having trouble thinking of an example right now.
The thing i hate is Level cap due to progression of story. im a person who likes to grind for hours in a spot so my next boss battle is easier.
Hey Pete, great vid! One thing I hate is when the main character is swapped throughout the story, like in FF8. For some reason I like to just be one continuous character because otherwise I lose the immersion. Even in assassins creed where you are sort of taken out back into the real world, that always gets in my nerves too.
it infuriated me when every 5 times i died in kingdoms of amalur reckoning, it asked me if i wanted to change difficulty. it was defaulted to yes aswell so you had to be very careful not to spam through the text just for another attempt at the boss.
where did you get that hoodie?
i dont play enough RPGs to even have an opinion. cool video tho. glad you're back!! :)
I couldn't agree more about the 1-3 party member thing, it annoys the hell out of me!!!
4 should be standard, always!
Thats why I like Tales series they have good characters and good stories.
And your tempted to play them muiltiple times because your grade carries over.
I like Hyper Dimension Neptunia series as well, I do go back sometimes and play old games like Suikoden 1 and 2 and Chrono Trigger for some reason.
I definitely agree with you on the 1st point, I'm also weak when it comes to that. Also, 4 party members tends to be the perfect number.
Extra ginding kills me...grind is normal in rpg, but there are some games you play more than half of it just grinding.......I agree with you regarding time..we want to know how many hours we are playing..
I don't mind being able to change the difficulty in a game. Mostly because it's optional. I like the music in Persona 3. Good video.
- i HATE difficulty settings in general! not just in the middle of the game, not only in rpgs..i hate them in general. I definitely prefer a game built with a focus on what it should be..i don't like to start a game and see some meaningless options because let's face it..normal mode today means "easy", while ten years ago was today's "hard", but even today some games will be cakewalks at hard, while others will be too hard at normal...i definitely prefer to have a game that gives the player tools to tweak the difficulty by game mechanics..one example:
in dark souls you don't have a difficulty setting (it would ruin the whole point of the game)..do you want challenge and have the most out of the combat? play as a thief...do you want a medium difficulty? wear heavy armor and a tower shield with heavy damage dealing weapons". Do you want to not really be in the center of the action but still want to explore the world and play the game? Play as a mage/ranged class.
- in my opinion for group based rpgs the minimum number of characters should be 4 to be decent to at least have the standard "fighter-cleric-rogue-mage", but i definitely prefer 5 or even 6
i like dificulty settings, makes everyone beat the game, and not just some hardcore players that have to spend a lot of time in computer
Gotta admit that I hate it too when there is too many characters to choose from..
namely; Chrono Cross
If you're RPG "perfectoinist" which mainly means "no party members left behind!" then you understand how tiresome it is to _level-up all those character individually!_
Not to mention how too many characters were more of a game-killer then advantage in Chrono Cross..
Oh jeez, Chrono Cross. There are fighting games that have smaller playable rosters than that game.
I think my biggest pet peeve is super chatty characters. Seemingly endless seens of clicking the A button. (I'm looking at you Camelot Software Planning!)
I fricking hate..... Getting choice for Party members -.- is OVER 5+.
I just loved the way FFX did. Cause you could switch if character died to another character, or switch in mid battle to another character.
I love this video, you should do a sequel, or a whole series
Great video pete nice to see ya uploading again. Life can get hectic thats for sure. Great list of pet peeves you nailed them on the head, I tried Dragon's Dogma and I felt it was so blah and you nailed it on the head the characters were very generic. I also dislike too many difficult puzzle areas in rpgs, if it happens and i cant figure it out i usually go on youtube. I'm currently playing through Tales of Xillia on the PS3 and it has the change the characters on the fly I dont really use it yet, but I have a feeling i will need to.
I loooooooved having just 3 characters through Wild ARMs. Really became intimate with the characters as a result of the journey with them. In terms of gameplay I suppose you could say that they fulfilled more than one role each between them, so that works out.
**checks suscriptions. . . realizes Pete uploaded a new video** Yupe. . . Doomsday's right around the corner
OMG Persona 3 battle theme is awesome...
I totally agree with the difficulty thing. When playing Oblivion, if I turn the difficulty up to challenge myself, I'm always tempted to turn it back down the minute I have a hard fight ahead of me... lol...
The first one is COMPLETELY BS. No, Pete. You did not fall victim to anything. You made an informed decision and regretted it afterward. That does not make you a victim. The option is there for less skilled players to get through it. You can use it if you want but it's not our job to protect you from yourself in a game. It's your job to make your decisions amd own them. This is like the "Blargh! I hate unlimited continues!" Thing. So what?! Don't use them! How many continues would you prefer? Okay, use those and then stop! Don't use the setting if you don't want to. YOU make that decision. I don't use it myself but if someone else does, cool. Doesn't impact my experience. This is a BS entitled argument and it just has no merit. Let's get back to the whole personal responsibility thing for a bit, yeah? Sound good? A little more accountability in general? Sounds good to me.