Gamespy's 'Top 10 Ways to Know You're a PC Snob'

[A Black Falcon]

Dark Jaguar I'm not debating strategy games or sims. I will however debate pretty much everything else. RPGs, well again it's a matter of taste. I've played FFXII and I've played Oblivion. They tend in different directions. One is open ended and is very flexible in character creation, but the combat system is pathetic. There is no real strategy involved. It's all determined beforehand by your stats. Don't get me wrong, I love character development, but it is what it is. On the other hand, while the character are predefined in Japanese RPGs, the combat systems are usually VERY rich. "Stand in lines and take turns stabbing each other" more accurately describes American RPGs. I really don't recall ever actually having to come up with a strategy in battle. Whether I won or not was already determined by my equipment in a game like KOTOR. Now there's something to be said for that sort of development, but I much prefer having to develop an overly complicated chain of special abilities that leads to a single conclusion. For example, I don't recall ever having to use a "jump" ability to avoid a major spell in a battle where draining MP is the way to victory, remembering to case "Reraise" on my characters to prepare for a scripted "Ultima" spell at the end of the battle, but these sorts of complicated strategies are par for the course in Japanese RPGs. All the bosses have unique abilities that require complicated battle plans. Of course, you could just power level yourself so you can just use the sword over and over until they fall down, but that's the boring way to play it.

Really what I look forward to is an RPG that combines the strengths of both styles.

I could write a long post, but this one is so uninformed that it's not worth it.

1) Oblivion, and the TES series in general, has pitifully bad combat. It's FPS level, really. Many PC RPG fans criticize the series greatly for this fact. This is a horrible example of "typical PC-style RPG" (though even so, you're wrong... Oblivion has a skill element I believe, or at least a random element. Stats don't determine everything; equipment (weapons or spells you use) and player skill matters some too.). Fallout or Baldur's Gate would be much, much better examples. Not KotOR; it's consolized and simplistic in comparison to true PC RPGs (no movement orders while paused? No "party AI off" option to make them ONLY do what you say? WHAT?? And add to that the horrible console-style infinite inventory in one giant list (no weight limits? Why not??), the annoying console-style interface, the extremely simplified game and stat system in comparison to true PC RPGs, etc...),

2) FFXII's combat system is NOT a standard console RPG system. It's quite different. Movement is a factor. It actually reflects some of the improvements PC RPGs have made to the RPG genre in the past fifteen years, combat system wise. It's just as bad a pick for "typical console RPG" as Oblivion is for PC RPG. Really, it's like you chose the least strategic PC RPG possible and one of the most strategic console ones (without going into "SRPGs"), and that's not right. Pick something more conventional.

3. "stand in lines" does not apply to PC RPGs because "stand in lines" means "STAND". That is, you can't move. You can move in battle in virtually any PC RPG released since Pools of Radiance, excepting a few first-person throwback games (Wizardry series, Might & Magic perhaps, etc) or action-style first-person RPGs (TES series, Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld, etc), movement is a big element in battle... and in those action-style first-person RPGs you can move too, even if it's often just back and forth in the corridors. So no, you're completely wrong. In most PC RPGs you move. In most console RPGs you select options from a menu and can't move. There are of course exceptions -- those rare console RPGs with strategic combat do exist -- but I'm talking about overall, and overall the Japanese RPG genre is still working off of the Wizardry model, not the Pools of Radiance, Baldur's Gate, or Fallout models, and it's really too bad. (though FFXII changes that a bit, I don't know if that's going to last... sounds like FXIII might be going back to a more traditional system).

Normal PC RPGs have strategic battles. You can move around. Position matters. What the characters are equipped with matters, because you have a lot of choices there. One of the most important aspects of battle is your setup when you enter it... not "your setup" in a console sense, where that means "how many random battles have you fought, depleting your MP and items", but in a "is your skill with this setup enough to overcome the next enemy" sense... in a BG game you can rest anywhere without enemies around, so having your spells is usually not a problem. And equipment and level matter too of course, like in console RPGs, but in PC ones you change equipment less often (in console RPGs it's like 'go to next town, buy next armor type -- iron, bronze, gold, whatever'. It's silly and kind of odd, really. In PC RPGs, generally, you keep equipment for a long time. For instance, in Baldur's Gate II my main character has been wielding one weapon since maybe 15-20 hours into the game (and I'm like 130 hours in including the expansion). Another one has a weapon from even earlier. And armor? You upgrade that just as infrequently. There is much less of a focus in what your equipment is in a PC RPG... what it is is important, but once you get set up, you can know that it'll stay that way for a long time. You also know that there's a very high likelihood that the items you'll truly want to equip will come not from stores, but will come from quests or enemy drops. Stores are useful for selling items to and replenishing consumables, but not often for upgrading your characters' equipment, and that's how it should be... but you can't do that if enemies don't drop usable stuff, of course...

The game also runs on consistent rules. In console games there is no equality; the enemies and you run on different rulebooks. You can't learn the abilities they know, they can't fight competently like humans do. They don't drop their equipment (ie that Lizardman drops his breastplate and axe and you can pick them up and equip them if you want. You probably just leave them there, though, because you don't need to pick them all up... but they are there.), they drop some random items and gold. They get by either as fodder to chew up your time or with lots of HP and overpowered attacks that kill you unfairly quickly that they only use sparingly for no apparent reason. Honestly, these are stupid design ideas. In most PC RPGs, the enemies and you are designed the same -- everyone runs on the same rules. They cast a spell at you? It's probably one you can learn. Maybe not, if it's some special skill that only a Dragon can use or something, but probably. It certainly follows coherent rules, and they won't just not use them simply because their spells are so powerful that if they did you lose. It's so stupid how in console RPGs there is a complete disconnect between the rules your party follows and the rules the enemies follow... that shows that there is no real basic gameworld there, just "enemies to fight and a party".

Now, PC RPGs used to do some of those things too... but then in the late 1980s, starting with Pools of Radiance, the genre began to change. Another great wave of change came in 1997-1998 with Fallout and Baldur's Gate. Console RPGs ignored those and for the most part kept on in their old archaic systems that they had copied from Wizardry and Ultima III so many years earlier. They, instead, focused on telling a story... and a linear story. No role-playing here, oh no, just a linear tale, adventure game style. That's not role playing! Role playing means choices, it means creating a character and acting them out the way you believe that character would act... it doesn't mean just taking a group of precreated characters and using them in a linear, choiceless story.

And as for depth... honestly... I played Golden Sun, Lunar, a bit of the SNES FF games, Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Symphonia, etc... they're fun, but deep? Nope. Most console RPGs are almost comical in their simplicity in comparison to most PC RPGs, in fact. Combat is simple. You have only a few options. There is no deep undersystem running the game like you find in a D&D game, as I said earlier. Late-game Baldur's Gate II combat is so incredibly deep and complex that each turn takes quite a while... you have to manage huge spellbooks in your mages (and the complex nature of the spells themselves; these are not exactly "do 10 damage" stuff... there are direct attacks, area of effect attacks, summons, defensive spells, healing magic, spell protections, spells to disspell spell protections, etc.), all of your skills, what the enemies are doing, where your characters are, the terrain of the area (are you in a small enclosed room? Then avoid those area of effect spells that hurt your party... but which spells do you have left memorized that you can use?), enemy spell protections, et al. Awesome stuff.

This, of course, ignores the PC action-RPG field -- Diablo II, etc. They have a lot of strategy too, much more than console action-RPGs like the Mana games or whatever... I mean I love those games, but there the strategy is mostly just in a few decisions you can make in developing your character. There's a lot more complexity and depth in the character building and development in even a Diablo 2 than in similar console games.

(you know, it's when I write posts like this that I remember why it was that I was confused by how much I liked Skies of Arcadia when I first played it... compared to PC RPGs it's so sillily simplistic, and yet I loved it anyway... there are some reasons I think -- the onscreen automap, discoveries, likable characters, nice graphical design, the positional aspects in combat (how the characters face eachother and pretend to fight, not just stand in two lines, and how spells and stuff have areas of effect), etc -- but still it's still something I think about sometimes, I've found. After all, despite those things it's still not exactly complex. I guess it's as I said earlier -- complex is great, but I like simple sometimes too...)