OK THAT'S IT! Ducky cannot hold in his murderous rage now!!!
First of all, Jenova, please take no offense at any of this. I am merely trying to inform you of a mistake that you made, IMHO. Oh yes, and the things I say about FF7 actually apply to most computer/console RPG's.
Now that I've said that, let me tell you the stuff. Do not ever give me the feces about FF7 being the best selling RPG in America. All of us Myth players know that it doesn't take huge sales for a game to be good. It takes a good game. Starcraft and Quake 2 sell tons more than Myth II, but does that make them good games??? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Those games sell more because they appeal to young teenagers who want nothing more than mayhem and explosions, and want nothing new to learn! Myth II may not sell as many copies as Starcraft or Quake 2, but there is no doubt in my mind or any other Myther's mind that Myth will never be worse than a second rate, near storyless game with an extremely outdated style of gameplay! oooo, wow, first person shooter and warcraft style game. wooopedie doo!
Final Fantasy 7 is so much better selling than REAL role playing games because of the same reason that Starcraft sells more than Myth. It appeals to pretty much everyone, therefor everyone will buy it. That does not mean it is better quality! There has never been a single computer/console RPG that has EVER come close to being as spectacular as a true RPG. The reasons for this will follow shortly, but bear with me here.
But before I tell you why, I have the reason for FF7 being the best selling "RPG" in the world or whatever it was. With FF7, your average 13 year old gaming enthusiast writes "FF7" on his christmas wishlist. His parents find a box in the computer store with the words "Final Fantasy VII" on it. THey buy it and give it to the kid for the holiday, and he proceeds to enter his room and not come out for the next 7 hours. He installs FF7 on his computer and starts playing immediately. He's played before on his friend's playstation, and has a book full of hints to beat the game, so a few days later, he emerges from his room having finished the game and uncovered every secret in the game. Wow, that was fun, he thinks. But wouldn't it have been cool if I could've played as someone different? Or what if I could've done something besides kill or run away from almost every enemy I found? He will never know how cool it would have been because this just would not have happened on FF7 unless there was a certain point in the game that called for that to happen. THen there would be almost no other way to go about getting past that obstacle. Well, time for the next game, or maybe I'll play throught FF7 again and just try to get my character as high level as I can?
That was exciting! One game that provides for a week of entertainment before the replay value starts to effect things.
Now, what would happen if Little Timmy had decided to put "Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook" on his wishlist because his friends told him it was the coolest thing in the world? His parents would have bought it for him, unthinkingly, and wrapped it up for xmas. Timmy, being a computer gamer would read the first few pages of the book thinking "wow, cool, this is a neat intro. Vampires and stuff." After seeing the table of contents, he sees that there are over 200 pages in the book. He saw that it took him about 15 minutes to read the first page while taking in all of the detail, does some quick math on his computer's calculator and finds that reading the book from cover to cover would take him 50 hours total. He thinks once again: "lots of time. this doesn't take as long as FF7, but my friends say it is cool." A few days later he has read the entire book and is very disappointed. There was only one chapter on combat in the game, and the whole thing required ROLE PLAYING (gasp). This was too different from FF7! He would actually have to MAKE HIS OWN CHARACTER (gasp again) and ROLE PLAY A PERSONALITY (gasp even more). Little Timmy then went and returned the book, disgusted, and bought FF7 with the money.
You see what I'm getting at?
Now... Why are computer/console RPG's so much more horrible than the real things? Let's start with the meaning of the game type. Role Playing Game. That probably means that the player role plays, which means he assumes the role of a fictional character. In FF7, the player assumes the role of Cloud, a guy with a sword that's as tall as he is and wields it like it's made of tin foil, and has a set personality, and lives on the world that is set in FF7. In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, the player assumes the role of a warrior, wizard, priest, or rogue, on any of an infinite number of worlds, with any type of personality, and any type of equipment he could possibly imagine. Are you seeing the difference yet?
THe definition of Role Playing from one of the many true RPG creators- Ed Simbalist, creator of Chivalry & Sorcery:
"Role Playing is the means by which we can escape our daily existence to enter those exciting worlds of fantasy. We assume the identities of characters. We leave our own existences behind and create for ourselves personalities who have their own personal histories, their own passions and interests, and, above all, adventurous lives which we could never hope to know in our humdrum existences... There is a lot more to role-playing than 'rolling up' a character with a few throws of the dice, giving him a name, and then jumping right into the middle of the action without further thought. To do that denies us the almost magical experience of being part of an imaginary world that we come to know and understand as if we were born to it and lived in it all our lives."
There is more, but I don't feel like copying two full pages of text to this rant. Suffice it to say that FF7 is not a real RPG. No console/computer game can, or ever will be. There are many things that computers, even with their complex AI's and everything. No computer can do anything more than it was programmed to do, nor will it let the player do anything more than it was programmed to allow him to do. It cannot determine the complex thought processes that go on inside a person's head, so it can't converse with a player, use complex strategies, come up with infinite possibilities, or let the player do any of these. Computers will never be able to do these things, at least not in our lives. A true RPG is run by a human, therefor anything is possible in a true RPG. The players can be any characters that they want to be, can converse with NPC's regularly, can create their own personalities, go off course, and bascially do whatever they want.
NOW... you probably are unaffected by this rant. I can't say I blame you. But know this. Any time you are talking to a person who plays True RPG's, and who you've never met before, it will most likely offend them a lot if they tell you that they play RPG's and you say "What, you mean like FF7?"
I feel it is necessary to reiterate: NO CONSOLE OR COMPUTER GAME WILL EVER BE WORTHY OF THE TITLE "RPG!"
PLEASE! Respond to this Jenova. I really want to hear your opinion on the matter, and it took me a half hour to write all of this, so I need something to justify it :)
