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The Core RPGC Main Forum
1

Since about 15 to 20 new consoles are released per week nowadays, I think we should jump on the bandwagon and make our own.

We’ll call it the RPGConsole, it’ll be made specifically for RPGs. It’ll be great.

Oh wait, no it won’t. It’ll be just like every other console released lately, with a lifespan of 2 weeks and a zero concentration of good games. Specifically, the new handhelds, of which we’ve had about 7 or 8 released in what feels like the past year.

To be blunt, shut the fuck up for a few years, corporations. No one’s impressed by your marginally improved shit. I want a single console with a lot of good games on it, so stop pumping out trashy systems with bargain-bin stock games.

Yeah, yeah, I know some cunt on these forums is gonna complain about so-and-so being a good game. Whatever, I don’t care. The point is, the vast majority aren’t.

2

Let’s hop in the wabac machine and set it for 1988. Nintendo was the only company with a console (technically Sega had a console, but it didn’t sell at all in America). How many great games were released? Well, plenty, but no more than we’ve seen on PS1 or PS2. How many bad games were released? Plenty there, too. More importantly, though, since Nintendo was the only company out there, there were some pretty strong regulations on the game makers. For example, each 3rd party licensee was only allowed to make 3 games per year. If they wanted to make more than that, they had to wait until the next year (eventually companies got around this by making wholly owned subsidiaries, like Konami’s “Ultra Games,” and Acclaim’s “LJN”). Companies were threatened with losing their license to publish Nintendo games if they tried to make games for another system, like the Sega or Commodore (which Acclaim got around by forming “Flying Edge,” and Capcom sold the rights to many of their games to “US Gold”).

The most important part, however, is that games then cost $79.99 or higher. When Atari was the only name on the market, you could buy a copy of Asteroids for $99.99 and up. Fortunately, my family got that game on clearance for $59.99.

The point is that the competition is good for the market. And consoles aren’t coming out any faster than they used to. Handhelds are, but that’s because more companies are trying to compete. Let’s look at the timeline here (all dates US):

1977: Atari 2600
1980: Intellivision
1982: Atari 5200
1982: Colecovision
1982: Commodore 64
1984: Atari 7800
1985: Nintendo Entertainment System
1986: Sega Master System
1989: Sega Genesis
1989: TurboGrafx-16
1991: Philips CD-i
1991: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
1992: TurboDuo
1993: 3DO Interactive Multiplayer
1993: Atari Jaguar
1993: Sega CD
1994: Sega 32X
1995: Sega Saturn
1995: Sony Playstation
1996: Nintendo 64
1999: Sega Dreamcast
2000: Sony Playstation 2
2001: Microsoft Xbox
2001: Nintendo Gamecube

That’s just consoles, and that’s only the more promonent ones that came out in the US. Here’s a look at memorable handhelds worldwide:

1989: Atari Lynx
1989: Gameboy
1990: TurboExpress
1991: Game Gear
1995: Gameboy Play It Loud!
1996: Gameboy Pocket
1997: Game.com
1998: Gameboy Color
1998: Neo Geo Pocket
1998: Neo Geo Pocket Color
1999: Wonderswan
2000: Wonderswan Color
2001: Gameboy Advance
2001 (?): SwanCrystal
2003: Gameboy Advance SP
2004: Nintendo DS
2005: Sony PSP

Again, that’s just promonent ones. There’ve been others. My point is, there’s almost never been a time when there was only one console/handheld on the market, and whenever there was, the only advantages were lack of innovation and high prices.

3

You’ re damn right except for one thing, while most games are bargain-bin stock stuff, the prices aren’ t. :confused: They sell that stuff at prices they’ re not worthy. I’ m not saying all next-gen games suck, mind you.

4

2000: Sony Playstation 2
2001: Microsoft Xbox
2001: Nintendo Gamecube

2003: Gameboy Advance SP
2004: Nintendo DS
2005: Sony PSP
It’s these situations that I’m talking about. Everything is split three way, and to make it worse, I’d have to disagree with what you said about the concentration of good games.

I mean truly good games. What we have now is as good as what we had back then, and that’s the problem. Back then it was fresh and new and stretching the capabilities of the consoles. Nowadays it’s old and trite and coprorations have the ability to do so much more with their games, but they just aren’t.

So many games lack so many basic necessities that they’re a frustration to play. And these are put in deliberately. Long scene transitions, slow text speeds, unskippable cut-scenes and cinematics, lack of or inconvenient retries. BAD GAMEPLAY.

MGS2 didn’t have to be so clunky and unnatural. WHY DID THEY MAKE IT THAT WAY? Why are they still making games like Onimusha with time-limited slide puzzles that last 30 seconds, are nearly impossible to beat, and take 10 minutes to retry ONCE? Why did it take what felt like 45 seconds to initiate a battle in Chrono Cross, and why were the battles so slow when you finally did get in? Why did your run-of-the-mill enemies have monstrous amounts of HP while you dealt 10 damage per hit and took about 15 seconds to complete a three-hit combo? WHY DO RPGS STILL USE FUCKING MENUS!?

Do you see what I’m getting at? Game developers are either becoming extremely sloppy, deliberately trying to piss us off, or should have gone into the film industry.

That’s why, IMO, they should stop coming out with dual-touchscreen bullshit and start making games that don’t blow.

5

Once again, you’ re f**king right. I’ ve never thought about it, but I must say you are saying the truth. That stuff makes me lose heart. And don’ t forget the IDIOTIC data loading of “The Bouncer”: 1) You have to manually load data before you can select to continue, risking to SAVE scratch-situation data over your hard-earned save and 2) When you lose is like resetting your PS2, intro & reloading included.

6

I agree with your second post almost entirely. Though I do ask, if we didn’t have menus in RPGs, what would we have? Wouldn’t they be action RPGs at that point? I’ll stick with my menus until someone comes up with something better.

As for things being split three-way, that’s Sony’s fault. Before them, it was a two-man race between Nintendo and Sega. Granted, someone else would have broken it up eventually. If you’re looking for new ideas and better presentation of current ideas, new faces on the market will only help that.

I think you are kind of contradicting yourself, though. You say that they keep making the same old thing when they could be innovating, but then you knock innovations like the DS. Agreed, the DS wasn’t the best innovation to come out of gaming, but at least they’re trying.

I have to say, the next generation of consoles very well could be the last for a while; graphics aren’t going to be improved very much, load times will be almost non-existant, etc. The companies simply won’t have much to improve upon. Unless they start innovating, things are going to become even more stagnant.

7

There’s good innovation and bad innovation, but let’s not make this any more complicated than it has to be. I almost totally agree with what you just said.

And I guess menus aren’t that bad. What kills me is when they’re combined with turn-basedness. It’s just a really passive style of play, and I admit I like action RPGs far more than traditional RPGs.

What I like is an SO3 style system. Overworld menus, but action gameplay on dynamic 3 dimensional fields.

8

I happen to like turn based RPGs… if there is a point for them being turn based. If there is any strategy besides “HIT IT, damnit HIT IIIIIIIIIIIIT!” then a turn based system isn’t too bad. This makes me wonder exactly why the Final Fantasy system didn’t go turn based a looong time ago.

Okay, that was off topic. Carry on. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Final Fantasy was turn based looong ago. Then things went 16-bit and it stopped being turn based. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m also a fan of turn based, but a good action RPG is fun every once in a while, SO3 being an excellent example.

10

Corporation answer :

10 page of trite shit on how Hades sucks cock and the FBI should have him anally violated in about two seconds.

11

Solution to this problem:
Emulators for every system. That way, you get all the good games on one system.

Seriously, the only console I own is a PSP, because it looked like it had enough good games to keep me interested for a long time. I still wouldn’t have bought it if it weren’t portable.

12

Blame capitalism.

13

Ditto. And why the fuck is EVERYTHING so expensive!? A game, say avg. 3 discs… $80 - $120, when it was produced for what? A million, billionth of that price!? Meh… I’m just bitching I suppose, but for peoples like me, with o cash, we’re stuffed!

Ninten:cool:

14

Geez, Hades, someone has sand in his vagina this morning.

There are plenty of new and “innovative” things coming out. Just last year we had Katamari Damacy, for Christ’s sake. I remember Super Smash Brothers coming out years ago and breathing new life into the fighting genre, too. When they first appeared, CG cutscenes were a new thing, obviously. I’m not going to name anything more recent than Katamari since I haven’t really played anything newer.

Also, let’s not forget that newer is not better. The N-Gage was new, but…well, the defense rests.

And Ninten, I’m kind of surprised that you find games to more expensive than they used to be. I remember buying Super Mario Bro. 3 for the NES for 60 USD, and seeing Phantasy Star III for the Genesis for sale for 79.99 USD. The N64 and Gamecube standard price has been 50 USD, but new Playstation games are known to be available for as low as 39.99, and I believe some are even 29.99. For me, at least, games are more affordable now than they ever were before.

15

What defense? I think you’re confused. The whole point of this thread is that newer is shit, and that corporations need to get their act together.