Poll of the Day > N64 only people. How did you cope with the lack of RPGs?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I had a ps1 as well, but I would have but the shit out of paper mario if I only had an n64

In that era the great RPGs were mostly on PC. They generally weren't worth playing due to the loading times.

Once the Playstation came out - the loading times were as bad or worse than the PC.

There were some decent RPGs on the system, but the best games were on PC at that point. Heck, some of the 'best' games on PSX were ports of SNES - and they were much worse because of the awful loading times (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Star Ocean, Ogre Battle, etc)

This topic makes me want a Quest 64 remake. I loved the element system, and it rewarded exploration. It would have been great to be able to max out all 4 of them though.
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HylianFox posted...

most RPGs from the N64/PSX era sucked anyways, other than maybe FF7

Psx was golden age of rpg
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jmikla posted...

HylianFox posted...

most RPGs from the N64/PSX era sucked anyways, other than maybe FF7

Psx was golden age of rpg

true even the gamecube and dreamcast had good rpg's

phantasy star online, shenmue and tales of...
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Paper Mario?

But mainly the lack of RPGs wasn't a problem because there were so many good party games that I was always playing those with friends.
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adjl posted...

GanglyKhan posted...

adjl posted...

I like how that entire list didn't include the term "role-playing" once

You can "role-play" in any game. Jumping up and down in my living room while shouting "bing bing whahoo!" doesn't turn Super Mario Odyssey into an RPG.

While true, it's still pretty funny that defining "role-playing game" didn't include the concept of role playing at all. I feel like that should really make you question what you're prioritizing in putting that definition together.

The way I see it, RPG isn't a genre. There are a number of game mechanics and design elements that can be considered "RPG elements," including character (and/or party) customization, character progression, variable stats, and meaningful player influence on how the story plays out, but elements like those show up in so many wildly different games that trying to call RPG's a genre of their own is a futile exercise in drawing arbitrary highly-specific lines (numerical damage display? Seriously?). Many, many games include some degree of character progression and customization these days.

To that end, I prefer to look at it as a matter of how significant a game's RPG elements are. Zelda has RPG elements (namely equipment and stat progression, plus your choice of regularly-used items). However, those RPG elements are lighter than what you'd see in, say, Elder Scrolls, where you have a much greater degree of control over how your character develops, as well as a greater ability to choose how you want the world to unfold. Ergo, Zelda has light RPG elements, Elder Scrolls has heavy RPG elements.

It's more that other games have blurred the lines as time has gone on. Games like God of War are even incorporating more RPG elements. If you roll the clock back to the 90s the difference between say Final Fantasy VI vs. most action games was massive. It's not the RPG genre's fault that God of War for instance now has...

Stats
Gear
Progression of Skills
The ability to enhance gear and craft new gear via the blacksmith
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