Right now, I'm remembering the days when I use to play Mario 3 on my NES. It was the first game I ever got for this now defunct retro gaming console. Nothing that's been released to date since has made me feel the way this game once did.
This certainly was a happy birthday indeed, as the years passed I got more and more into gaming, and I enjoyed watching the consoles progress. Then one day the console was rendered obsolete and suddenly a nice scroller was such a hard thing to find, that people would pay hundreds for it on ebay. Seriously some of those titles are now going for into the thousands!
I try to play these new games that come out on a regular basis, but none of them have that same feeling. The story line in modern games seems to be dead. Games like Final Fantasy XII set you outside as more of a spectator then an active participant with your characters running on programmed AI's. Though the story in FF XII was entertaining and it had many side quests as well, It just can't compete with FF VII and below. There is another important factor missing in these new games. In every final fantasy to date you get an air ship, but after FF VII you can no longer pilot it yourself. Getting that awesome new ship and traveling to places you couldn't reach before was a big part of what made the final fantasy series so great. The ability to pilot an airship and travel around the world map was a feature that allowed the developers to hide secrets that wouldn't be obtainable till much later in the game.
Currently there is a massive selection of doom genre games. Doom 'WAS' a great game, when it came out, but one wouldn't expect it's genre of video game to become the top rated play style. This game made a category all of it's own. It seems everywhere you go anymore all you see is FPS(First Person Shooter) titles. Farcry, F.E.A.R. , Doom, Call of duty and many more the market is flooded with these games and yet they continue to make them instead of coming up with original gaming ideas.
What happened to a straight forward story and a relaxing enjoyable playing experience?
New Games seem to be all guns and explosions anymore. This is a prime example of how uncreative these new games are. It's hard to find a creatively inspired game now. The new games all seem to just duplicate something that worked in the past. These new games try to build on and enhance the graphics but forget about story or originality.
I certainly miss the days when a straight forward plot in an RPG was the standard. An RPG without excessive side quests or a story that never seems to end. Point and click PC RPGs just don't do it for me. I want more control and more strategy in my games then that. Chrono Trigger, one of the greatest RPG titles to date says it all. Chrono Trigger has a straight forward storyline that pulls you right into the game and makes the experience so worthwhile that you have to play it again and again. This game is one of the most highly sought after titles known to the SNES for good reason with such great art and an involving storyline.
These new consoles/computers make it hard to find something so involving.
Developers attention has turned far too much towards great graphics, and making a game look like a movie.
It was hard for me to make the move to an RPG with the point and click play style. That style isn't involving enough for me. This new design sets you apart from the player, which makes you feel more like a spectator then a player and makes you feel More like you are telling the player what to do, and less like you are the player. This, in my opinion, defeats the very purpose of an RPG.
The purpose of an RPG is to let you play in the role of the characters you create. Getting so involved in the story line that you cry when one of your members dies, you laugh at their quirks, and jump for joy at defeating a challenging boss. A good RPG should read much like a novel, long and so involving you refuse to put the book down.
NPC (Non Player Character) interaction was once simply a means of discovering a bigger part of the story. In the new RPG genre each NPC simply complains about something then gives you a quest to obtain an item as a reward. The story is erratic at best and so broken that it's incredibly hard to become involved.
The one saving grace for the new genre RPG is the MMORPG where interaction with NPCs and story becomes less important as your interaction with other players lets you create your own story. In my opinion these new titles make gaming more of a spectator sport and less like an involving role. Reality should twist and turn while your fate is decided by the whims of the developer. Time to go get the emulators out enjoy the rest of the day!
