Things you don't like about RPGs

[Trillian]

I'm playing an RPG that has yet to annoy me yet, so it's gotten me thinking about what does annoy me.

Unavoidable cut scenes before a boss battle are definitely at the top of my list. This is only annoying if I die, and if the battle gives me too much trouble I may just stop playing the game rather than watch the cut scene again. Cut scenes that you can't pause can be pretty annoying as well.

Large gaps between save points can be very irritating. Sometimes I just want to squeeze in a couple of minutes of play, not an hour or so!

[LadyAkuma]

I hate the large gap in between save points too. Especially if I am in a difficult place and I get towards the end and die and have to start over. I rarely die but it still pisses me off because my characters revert back to where they were when I saved.

I usually don't like it when certain party members are completely useless until they learn their ultimate ability which is REALLY useful so then you have to fight with them anyway to level them up (Shauna from LoD).

Also, I hate it when you have to play some stupid mini-game that you're not good at to give your characters their ultimate weapons (I'll never get Lulu's or Wakka's ultimate in FFX).

[Priest4hire]

Then there are RPGs that let you save anywhere—a feature which should be far more common than it is. And before someone brings up challenge, it's entirely possible to have save anywhere and still maintain the gap based difficulty.

While I understand the reasons, I still am not a big fan of RPGs as dumbed down versions of other genres. I remember playing Hellgate: London and thinking that it felt like a shooter for severely handicapped gamers. I still remember a time when 'RPG' meant increased depth and sophistication rather than dumbed down. RPGs were the kind of game that actually tracked ammo per magazine instead of inexplicably doing away with it. When Halo offers a deeper level of realism you know RPGs are in trouble.

Next up is the story/gameplay divide. Once again, I understand that gameplay considerations will require some sacrifices in believability. That does not excuse games that literally render the story unworkable unless selective amnesia is used to block them out. It's as though they're being treated not as a single, holistic game but two separate products: a game and a an unlockable movie/comic book.

Case in point: Final Fantasy VIII and Irvine. Irvine apparently hasn't killed anyone and chokes when attempting to assassinate the Sorceress. At least that is what the cutscene is trying to tell us. The game has Irvine shooting people in the face with a sawed off shotgun. Irvine apparently has a very flexible conception of first. JRPG designers might consider that when your game has a body count that puts Total Recall to shame, you can not pull out the pacifist/battle shy card.

Then there is abuse of the mechanics. The classic mechanics of RPGs were developed to allow the game to simulate a greater depth of interaction. While a wargame might only care about basic combat performance, RPGs needed a robust system that could model all sorts of character actions. Hence the classic attributes. However, since these are just numbers in a basic mathematical model, they can be abused or even ripped out of their grounding as a simulation of the game world. The result is extreme abstraction and a disconnect between the story/characters and the mechanics.

Consider World of Warcraft. When my hunter started out she had 20 agility. Now she has 1642. What does that increase by a multiple of 82.1 even mean? She can't run any faster or jump any higher or demonstrate any indication of increased physical ability outside a number generating system. Besides, could such a gap even be made to make any sense? Gone is the notion that stats are a means to the end of simulating actual physical and mental abilities possessed by the character. In its place are meaningless numbers that exist solely to fuel an abstract combat system.

Now to finish this with a minor pet peeve: stupid names for combat engines. "Flex Range Element Enhanced Linear Motion Battle System." I could not make this crap up.

[WOTON]

High encounter rates, the kind that appear every few steps. This can be more irritating if the battle system is dull or slow.
Long cut scenes that you cannot skip.

[Nickoten]

Like Priest, I don't like when RPGs make ridiculous breaks in context or believability. Consistency really goes a long way to making things immersive. I realize that the combat abstraction is almost a key element of Japanese RPGs these days, but I think that there are games that try to make sense of some things and I appreciate it. I like, for example, that in Suikoden the large character roster plays into the theme of war and the concept of forming an army, and it's not just there for the sake of it ala Chrono Cross or something.

Also, I wish that more RPGs would be written to appeal to someone my age than to all the 13 year olds, but really that's just how business goes.

[Less Than Liz]

Gripe that is actually common among many mediums but: "Hey, I'm a chick! I heal a lot and this quirky, immature guy (or, the alternative cliche, brooding stone cold guy with the emotional spectrum of a gnat) is my love interest!

This deviates occasionally, but not usually. I find it hard to relate to RPG female characters. We need a lady Balthier who is not completely obnoxious (lookin' at you, Yuffie.)

[Temporal Distortion]

A generic JRPG is an abomination in itself, there's little to like about it. Thus, the more a game strays from cliches that's been plaguing its genre, the better.

God, I love TWEWY.

[Priest4hire]

I have to play that game through some time. It does inherit a few standard JRPG elements though. The story/gameplay segregation and excessive abstraction of combat spring to mind. In a way the abstraction of combat is even worse because it has two different abstract combat systems at the same time.

A couple more gripes. Chests in SRPGs are a pain in the ass. And they are so nonsensical that just thinking about them hurts my brain. Getting the blasted things is just busy work that extends what are typically already long fights. Every time I do retrieve one I'm being a terrible commander since a battle is a really bad time to be looting chests. Thus it's both an obnoxious gameplay element even as it delivers a soul punch to the game's believability.

The only thing worse would be pickpocketing. It is really telling that when JRPGs faced the choice of dropping the ever popular pickpocketing option or implementing gameplay outside combat they chose instead to implement in-combat theft. Characters actually refuse to take certain items from the pockets of fallen enemies unless they stole it in mid battle. Do the enemies carry notes to let the PCs know which items are which?

Finally, I am not a fan of silly weapons. A volleyball? A guitar? Let's beat them to death with a child's toy. Yeah, because real weapons just aren't cool enough.

Now I feel like a real crotchety old geezer.

[moogle]

Now to finish this with a minor pet peeve: stupid names for combat engines. "Flex Range Element Enhanced Linear Motion Battle System." I could not make this crap up.
I was convinced you made that up until I googled it. Damn.

Now I feel like a real crotchety old geezer.
No offense, but you kind of sound like one. ;) That's part of why we like having you around though, you always seem to have a different perspective on things than everyone else.


Part of the reason I don't have too much interest in RPGs these days is that the traditional battle system bores me. I lose interest way too easily these days grinding without thinking. The closer to real-time combat the better. The exception, though, is the strategy/tactical RPG, which I can still bring myself to enjoy.

Something I tend to hate in RPGs (or any game, but especially RPGs) is when they lock you out of visiting an area again, or only let you use an item/weapon/magic/character/whatever once, or a limited number of times. If it's needed for the story I'll allow it, as long as it doesn't break my method of playing too much.

And of course I share many of the same sentiments of others in this thread; I won't bother repeating them.

[Trillian]

I hate it when you have to play some stupid mini-game that you're not good at to give your characters their ultimate weapons (I'll never get Lulu's or Wakka's ultimate in FFX).

That reminds me how I'm not a big fan of ultimate weapons and other optional quests. Sometimes I just want to finish the game and find out what happens, but there's so much crammed in at the end of the game. There's ultimate weapons, secret summons, awesome items, and so on. A lot of the time I end up skipping all those things in order to beat the game and it always makes me feel guilty.

[pigeon_of_doom]

Completely agree all the points mentioned so far. The divide between the gameplay world and the narrative is so common in games that I end up turning a blind eye to it, but it does get ridiculous at times, Irvine being a fantastic example. Having more plot elements impacting combat (example, Dagger's silence in FFIX) could work really well if not overdone.

RPG lite elements don't really figure in my idea of RPGs, usually just seeming to be a tacked on addition to add a little more depth to games which is rarely done effectively. Deus Ex is yet to be topped in that respect imo.

To be honest, I can live with slightly unbalanced gameplay, high encounter rates, rare savepoints and pre-boss unskippable cutscenes, no matter how much they can annoy me. What can really make an RPG (JRPG, specifically) unplayable to me is an overload of anime style humour. Tried playing Radiata Stories the other day, but couldn't get into it as the humour surely must be juvenile in Japan as well as in the West, and combined with the Saturday morning cartoon voice acting really put me off the game. I have a reasonably high tolerance for most other issues, but all that inane, light-hearted stuff just prevented me from coming close to enjoying the game. Maybe I'm just too used to my heroic quests to have it demeaned by frequent jokes that I don't find funny...

Unoriginal plotlines piss me off too, but I can live with it if it's delivered with panache. And some of the more traditional conventions of the genre can be annoying too, but they're almost too many to list. Townspeople with one line throughout the game, random battles, basic combat etc.

[Idun]

Gripe that is actually common among many mediums but: "Hey, I'm a chick! I heal a lot and this quirky, immature guy (or, the alternative cliche, brooding stone cold guy with the emotional spectrum of a gnat) is my love interest!

This deviates occasionally, but not usually. I find it hard to relate to RPG female characters. We need a lady Balthier who is not completely obnoxious (lookin' at you, Yuffie.)


I rejoined primarily just to respond to this post. It's true that this gripe extends further than the RPG medium. I think it's important to emphasis this actually, if there is any hope in redeeming the collective female represented in video games. Why?

Well, I could enumerate on how many well done female characters cross genre that I've seen, but when I experience horrific outliers like Shana from SHC or Argilla from DDS, or Ayame from Tenchu, the experience of well done feels significantly ephemeral.

There's a good amount of RPGs out there now with female characters who do not define themselves through their love interest. I do believe it is diverging significantly from occasion. This isn't to say that there aren't still horrific female cast characters who still fit an ideology of feminine prototypes.

Not requiring you TO play these games, but to list off the top of my head: Suikoden V, Valkyrie Profile Silmeria, Dragon Quest VIII, Infinite Undiscovery, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect, The World Ends With You, Jeanne D'Arc, La Pucelle Tactics, Folklore, Wild Arms IV and etc. etc that indeed have a great range of redeemable female characters.

Inability to skip RPGs story screens seems to gone the way of the dodo, but I'm told there are still a few out there like Tales of Vesperia that forget what good progression has been considered for story presentation. Thankfully I haven't encountered this issue significantly in the last couple years of RPG gaming.