I’ve been playing a bit of Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas lately, and while I find the games entertaining during quests and action scenes, on the whole the time spent between is well damn boring. I’m not saying they are bad games, but for me there is something just off about the pacing of them. I grew up on RPGs with the early Final Fantasy titles, Breath of Fire, Suikoden, Chrono Trigger, and other numerous titles released by the now defunct Strategic Simulations Inc. titles under their D&D Lisc. I’ve always enjoyed games that mixed the mystery, exploration, and discovery of plot and story line with a moderate to fast paced progression. I simply don’t see a point in a single player RPG to have 200+ hours of content where 99% of it is either created by mods, or walking around an open world doing, well nothing except walking. People all over have talked about spending upwards of 300 hours playing New Vegas without completing all content, yet a straight story line run can be completed in 2-4 hours. Skyrim is the same, and while the games are feature rich, and graphically beautiful they are simply largely wasted empty space filled up by world builders. I simply can not wrap my head around the need for so many little or unused features in single player game, combined with so much empty space in a wide open game world.
Now I like open world games, in MMORPGs, but for single player games I find the open world aspects largely pointless unless there are large quantities of side quests available, or some type of dungeon experience that is repeatable, and fulfilling. This is where I have issues with some of Bethesda’s more popular titles, while there are side missions and a few dungeon areas, they simply are not enough for me to get the total fulfillment factor in. Graphics, and Sound are fine, but there is more to a good game than just visual and audio. They need to be backed up by good and innovative game play.
The area where many of the old school RPGs excelled was balancing action with exploration most started you down the story line and kept the action up and had you moving you down the line in a brisk fashion. Side quests were there to add depth, not make up the meat of the game and while there was often an open world, the story line presented progress in a fashion that made you want to go along the route of story progression because they gave a sense of urgency, and not a sense of “grind”. If I wanted to grind I’d play Everquest or one of the numerous games that derived their base structure from it like World of War Craft, Rift, or Star Wars: The Old Republic.
It makes me wonder a bit, if the lack of new we see in MMORPGs has caught up with RPGs as well. Are publishers too involved with the money grab and asking developers to push out generic lifeless games that simply follow by rote a based skeletal blank when it comes to mechanics and game play. I have to wonder since so many titles from a studio seem to be more or less the same game with just new art, at least in terms of how they play. While story is different not much else is, it almost feels like holding the “Tried and True” as motto instead of actually creating new and rewarding experiences for those of us who are looking for something that is actually “New” in our gaming experiences. Is the issue that studios are looking to pump out titles faster on smaller budgets so they are doing much like Disney did back in the 1960’s and 1970’s where animation cells would be reused by simply painting over them. By using a stock “blank” and painting it with new art, much of a game would be up and running for internal testing much faster, the down side is lack of originality, and innovation in game play even if the story was mind blowing.
Maybe it’s just me, I’m not a teen or a 20 something anymore, I’m after all I’m closer to 40 than 30 now. Maybe I’ve just seen enough variety that much of what is coming out just doesn’t “Wow” me anymore because I’ve seen it done better somewhere else. Maybe I’m just reaching a point where I have too much to compare a title too, and I’m becoming a real critic, or at least a cynic when it comes to games. But for now all I have to say on it is: Are Bethesda’s RPG’s all they are cracked up to be? I’m not sure.
Then again who’s are? The Final Fantasy series is pretty much dead, and for you nay sayers, when a press conference degenerates to people asking if the new graphics engine will allow female characters and NPCs to have parts of their anatomy “jiggle” your series is done… accept it an move on. There hasn’t been a good Legacy of Kain series game since Defiance, Breath of Fire, and the Chrono series have been abandoned. What is there really left out of the good classic series of games that hasn’t adopted this cookie cutter layout? You tell me in the Comments!
**Update**
Yes I know Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian, but it was done so under lisc. from Bethesda whom it is apparent called a lot of the shots on the development.