I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.
Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?
You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.
Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.
Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.
Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.
Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?
While compiling a list of games to respond to a user question on the
Great show guys!
@Final Fantasy: This was one of my favorite series growing up I started with the very first game when it came out! So imagine having spent hours playing that first game, then when FFIV(2 in USA) came out it looked like leaps and bounds in improvement. To me FF6 was an improvement in graphics, story and characters over FF4. Hearing Paul having trouble differentiating between 4 and 6 got me thinking that the characters may have been a bit bland in comparison. As there is no other “green summoner girl” besides Rydia and no other Dragon Knight other than Kain. I haven’t played those games in years and I still remember their names. The characters in FF6 were very different than in FF4. Also bad Paul getting my hopes up that I had perhaps missed a sequel to FF6 when he had been thinking of FF4 sequel.
@Backwards compatibility: The problem for me is that the old hardware breaks down and they stop making the older systems so it’s not as easy or cheap to get a hold of. I looked on Ebay for fully backwards compatible PS3 and most were very expensive AND had “Yellow light of death”.
@Kinect: If they want me to buy a next gen system they SHOULD make a Star Wars Lightsaber or some sword dueling game. There was a Red Katana or something for Wii but that was a FPS with a few sword fights peppered in there. If either the Xbox or PS4 came out with a sword fighting game, especially one I could play with friends I would buy it in a heart beat. Obviously they don’t want me as customer.
QorW: I think Animal Crossing: New Leaf counts right? I’m having fun playing this with my wife and daughter we go on the island tours. I am like Jordan though I don’t play many portable games I’m mostly a PC guy.
Oh and sorry for spelling errors in last weeks comments. I think I had a dyslexic moment myself and I always think Indy when I see Indie. It’s hard not to when he was a childhood hero of mine.
I forgot to mention I loved hearing the Clue reference to Mrs White’s bit. That’s one of my all time favorite movies.
I never understood being a Final Fantasy person VS a Phantasy Star person, can’t one enjoy both series? I particularly enjoyed Phantasy Star 3 with it’s Family generational story, I don’t think there is any other game that has you going down the line of a family tree while trying to save the world. I thought it was a pretty great concept that I would love to see more of.