Sunday, April 02, 2006

RPGs of the Old Days


A clip from the 8-bit Theater comic
Do you remember back in the day when RPGs were cool? Before all the main characters had to be teen-boppers? I'm talking about before famous game series like Breath of Fire and Final Fantasy became 3D. Now, of course, their 3D entries are utter-crap but that doesn't mean they're good.

I'll admit that the first time I play a 3D RPG, my first being Final Fantasy VII, the graphics amazed me. It was my first experience with a game that wasn't sprite-based and my mind was sent reeling at the display and such geometric shapes.

After the nostalgia wore off, though, I realized it wasn't that great of a game. Yes, I know, you want to burn me at the stake right now or, a more civilized approach, ignore me, but I'd prefer if you didn't do either. Please hear me out, I want your comments. It doesn't matter if you post 'You're gay for hating FF7!' or maybe some helpful feedback, I still want it. I want to know what you think.

Back on topic, though, I'll get to my point. Just as I said in my last post, I don't care for graphics. I don't care that these 3D characters look better then sprites. I care how the characters are defined. That's what I want and would prefer.

So, yes, I like handheld gaming, especially the kind found on the DS and GBA because they lack in graphics and must instead define themselves through another path. For the good games, that path is making itself a good game.

Where Final Fantasy failed was when it abandoned his D&D style of character development. I know it never was based on D&D and really isn't related to it, but the original characters from the first game gave the sort of feeling. Around the 6th entry they completely lost that concept and instead replaced it with characters that are all clones of each other plus a few small differences between each other. That is, in my opinion, what final fantasy is crap recently.

A small note on a totally different subject: I want to offer you guys some great video game tunes in some of my future posts so, if anyone knows a good MP3 hosting site that will host that MP3 for me forever without any set erase date, please tell me. Oh, and it has to be free. I'm too poor for anything requiring cash.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You know, I think Final Fantasy has made itself into an oxymoron....

Anyway. Having never played FF7, I can't tell you if you're right or wrong about it's suckiness. However, I did play FF8, and while it was a cool game, I have to theorize that they just stick the title "Final Fantasy #" so people will buy it. Yeah, they have the same items and a few of the same names for characters (Biggs and Wedge, Cid), but really, none of them connect and it's kinda weird to string them together in the way they do actual sequels. That's my two cents of nonsense.