A good RPG isn’t about stats, skills, upgrades or loot. It’s about connecting with the story, with the characters and being immersed in a world that isn’t our own.
Stats are important when used effectively, as they provide the chance to build a character from my own creative mind. Narrative and character development are also necessary, so long as they’re pushed to a high degree. Consider Borderlands for example. While playing this epic tale–developed Gearbox Software–with friends, there was always thrilling feeling had whenever I got the chance to show off my new weapon or continue fighting through thousands more mindless enemies. However, games still have so much more to offer.
Divinity: Original Sin is an old-school RPG, with the interesting and awesome addition of co-op. I’ve played almost a hundred hours of it with a friend and it’s still as fun, if not more so than when we started. Just like Borderlands, it has the chance for us to show off our latest and greatest loot and abilities, but it also has an interesting and weird world for us to explore. While the overall narrative was forgettable, the game gave us the chance to really work as a team and come up with creative ways to combine our skills to defeat our foes. That’s something I haven’t really seen in many games and it’s the first time I’ve seen it in an RPG.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall has everything Divinity lacked. It’s authentic, consistent world that immersed me in everything I was doing. While traveling around Berlin, solving people’s problems and unraveling the mysteries behind the overarching narrative, I was getting to know my crew, the people in the city and the world itself. My twenty hours in the game felt real to me, as I was absorbed in the experience completely and cared about what happened.
Context in an RPG should also aim to hold the attention of the player, an attribute that games like Legend of Grimrock 2 failed to provide. Sure, there’s a world filled with enemies to fight and puzzles to solve, but if there’s no story or characters to be invested in, then the game feels flat. In the aforementioned game, everything is hollow and focused solely on the mechanics. While the game is still pretty impressive based on the beautiful scenery and solid mechanics, there was no story or characters to keep me invested in what was happening. Everything felt a bit pointless. Like nothing I did was making a difference in a lifeless world, lacking any narrative or character. My party were just skill point containers. unlike a Bioware RPG there was no dialogue or banter between them. I had nothing to connect with.
While I’ll probably end up playing more at some point, as it is still enjoyable, I would’ve preferred a more complex world, with characters developing and growing as people. What it offers isn’t really what I’m looking for in an RPG.
Games are evolving as a form of interactive storytelling. Mass Effect forces players to make choices in a stunningly well realized sci-fi world and while the impact of these choices was quite meaningless in the end, the choices themselves were enough to connect me to that world in a way that movies and books never could. Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us and recently Tales from the Borderlands take player choice to the next level. These decisions have a strong impact on the story’s events and characters change based on what you do. This is why I’m playing and writing about video games. I’m not focused on mechanics. Story and character holds more weight.
In contrast, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter wasn’t about your choices, but it’s a perfect example of unique storytelling and helping the player become one with the main character. Putting you in control of a detective, reconstructing crime scenes, finding clues and piecing everything together.After a while, you feel like an actual detective.
If a game really wants to impress me, it should have a combination of all of these innovations. Give me a game in a well-realized world, with believable characters that have complex motivations. Make my choices matter, immerse me in your world and connect me to your characters. Shadowrun: Dragonfall is the closest I’ve ever seen to my ideal game, but there’s so much more that could be done.
Focusing on the strengths of the medium, giving players a chance to have an active part in activities like crime solving should be more common and should learn from the successes and failures of games like Ethan Carter and L.A. Noire. I don’t want a walking simulator or a game focused solely on mechanics. Luckily, RPG’s are starting to present experiences that I’ve been craving and, for the most part, things are getting better.
