Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Nintendo Fans Alliance. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Top 10 Posters
Topic Started: Mar 19 2010, 07:44 AM (998 Views)
Crystal Ness
Member Avatar
Electric Echidna
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Posted Image
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
Haha, I saw that pic one time. It's pretty hilarious.

As far as the game's status, I would say that technically speaking, Pokemon would be considered an RPG for the purposes of classification. It is just quite a sad one as far as RPG's go, really. I would not reference it as a good example of the RPG genre.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Crystal Ness
Member Avatar
Electric Echidna
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
hey

want me to bring nintfjr here?

he will kick your ass
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
I mean, if this is serious enough for you that you want someone to beat me up via internet, sure. I'll still stand by everything I say.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Crystal Ness
Member Avatar
Electric Echidna
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Well, here's a point

Is Sonic a bad platformer game because it involves running really fast?

seriously

does it
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
Does it? What does it do? What it do?

In a sense, yeah. Although most of the 3D Sonic games are bad platformer games for other reasons.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Golem
Member Avatar
Corrigible Carburetor

aaah timnis answer my question ;-;

Why is Pokemon a bad RPG?
Quoth the raven, "~teehee~"
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
Sorry, I didn't think I'd be getting too much into it before. Nevertheless, here goes. I'll outline my thoughts on the matter briefly.

First of all, what is an RPG? What does RPG actually stand for? Role-Playing Game of course. But of course, everyone knows that, so why would I even mention it?

Because in Pokemon, what role do you really play? You control a character with no real persona, without even a real name (a default will name him after the color of the cartridge you buy!). This character really has no function in the game except to act as a vessel to sub-characters, any of which similarly have no distinct persona. These sub-characters really have no function except to participate in battle, so your vessel character and your fighter characters have no meaningful link to one another. Yellow would have come closest in this regard, as you have to pay attention to the mood of your Pikachu, or something, but really, even that is a pretty much trife relationship.

So none of the characters involved undergo any substantial character development from a story perspective. All they do is grow stronger, learn new moves (and forget old ones, incidentally), so there's nothing so progressive about it. There are tons of these sub-characters, of course, but you can only keep six at any given time. To attempt to strengthen all of them equally would result either sinking ridiculous amounts of time in order to even have one viable team, making this a generally unwise path to follow. As such, most simply get forgotten. Not like it matters much, though, because there is no emotional investment in any particular ones. Of course, this leads to just making the most reasonable choices for your team, because of course, some Pokemon really are better than others. For example, I played through Gold a number of times, each of which, my team always ended up with Typhlosion, Ampharos, Quagsire, Ho-oh, and I don't remember which others now (see, that's how weak the emotional connection is!), because these were choices offered to make the player as powerful as possible, and there was not really any substantial reward for making choices otherwise. So the extent of character development lies on getting your Pokemon to fully evolve and learn the most powerful moves possible (more on this in a bit).

Looking over the characters involved for a second, I'll just take a look at the storyline. Well, there isn't one really. The main character, again, has no personality, character development, or any revealing back story to discover. The supporting characters don't serve any function other than really just to be generic humans there to provide trife dialogue and whatnot. None of the enemies are substantial in their antagonist qualities. Is Team Rocket really intimidating? How about Giovanni himself? The Elite Four? Nah, man. Gary (or your rival, whatever) would have to be the most antagonistic character in the game, and the extent of that relationship is even shallower than most high school conflicts. He just kinda shows up every now and then with some trife dialogue and a battle. Big deal, it's over in a minute or two. The story is one of the most significant elements in an RPG. These games really have no story.

Another key aspect of RPG's is the battle system. Pokemon has pretty much the most basic of turn-based systems. The strategy involved basically amounts to an expanded rock-paper-scissors (only more predictable) system coupled with the difference between a wild battle and a trainer battle (do you want to kill the Pokemon, or just seriously injure it?). There's not really any strategy involved in the move sets, since there's not really any possibility of intricate set-ups even with the game's entire moveset, what to speak of when your Pokemon is limited to four moves. All one really has to do for success is find the best four moves with combination of power and number of the move available. Battling becomes more of a chore than anything.

Pokemon doesn't really have anything beyond the most basic aspects of an RPG that would classify it in that category instead of another. The way the game functions is basically by instilling the collector mentality in its players. If that's not your thing, and you just want to play a good RPG like you'd want to read a good book, then there's nothing really for you.

These are the main points, I guess. If I actually wanted to speak on this in more depth, I probably could. In fact, if you get the new Nintendo Fans site going and are looking for articles, perhaps I could write this one fully.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Golem
Member Avatar
Corrigible Carburetor

afj;lasdf;lksfd you wrote a frikken' book there. Hope that wasn't a hassle, but it was a good read. And yeah, once we do get a new web space, I'm definitely buggin' you about a full article. 8)

Quote:
 
There's not really any strategy involved in the move sets, since there's not really any possibility of intricate set-ups even with the game's entire moveset,

Oh buoy, you would meet resistance on this point from a one Sir Nintenfreak.

Actually, what am I saying? Where's BBro?
Edited by Golem, Mar 30 2010, 10:33 PM.
Quoth the raven, "~teehee~"
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
Nah, it's all good, I do kinda like writing stuff like this. But yeah, that is why I was hesitant to get into it at the time.

Okay, perhaps a super-dedicated person like Nintf could counter that, but he could not counter that any such overthinking of the system is unnecessary for the success of the player. Stuff like that might matter so someone who wants to "get good" at Pokemon, which I think is kinda ridiculous, but the main point of playing an RPG is not to get good at it. That's why I'm not going to give up playing RPG's even though I'm giving up certain kinds of games.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
fantanoice
Member Avatar
Stage 11
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Yeah well, shut up. HeartGold is so hot right now. :(
Posted Image
Entertainment Forum, Video Games Forum, Technology Forum
You wouldn't check it out B)

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
>:D

Yeah, when I was young, I thought the original Gold was amazing. If I hadn't been enlightened, I'd be all over a new version of Gold.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Golem
Member Avatar
Corrigible Carburetor

Timnis
Mar 30 2010, 10:38 PM
Stuff like that might matter so someone who wants to "get good" at Pokemon, which I think is kinda ridiculous, but the main point of playing an RPG is not to get good at it. That's why I'm not going to give up playing RPG's even though I'm giving up certain kinds of games.
This makes me smile, even if I don't fully agree with you. I think that the strategy in Pokemon is too subtle--you can definitely just cruise through the game. If I'm reading you right, that's kind of what you're speaking to here.
Quoth the raven, "~teehee~"
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Crystal Ness
Member Avatar
Electric Echidna
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Yeah, but if you want to play an actual RPG, then...don't play videogames. Play Dungeons and Dragons or whatever. But that @#$% bores me and so do most other RPGs.
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
Timnis
Member Avatar
Traces of Argon
[ *  *  *  * ]
@Golem
Well, in a way. I mean, you're not rewarded for employing any real strategy. In fact, you're much more significantly rewarded by the game for just employing as much brute force as you can muster. So yeah. Although right there in that quote, that's not what I was discussing. I was just mentioning how I thought that wanting to "get good" at Pokemon is a bit absurd.

@Crys
Nah, video game RPG's give you the experience of the tangible story, characters, visuals, and musical score. Completely different experience. But I can understand why one who is into Pokemon wouldn't really be into real RPG's.
Edited by Timnis, Mar 30 2010, 10:51 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Go to Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Join the millions that use us for their forum communities. Create your own forum today.
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Video Games · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Hall of People We Like:
Studio 64