I just want a good experience; I don’t care how I get it. I can think of tons of RPGs that I like with no common link to each other. If anything, I have criterion for things I DON’T want to see in RPGs, and I bet I can even find exception in those.
I’m pretty close to the end. Got the Gates all locked up, just trying to build my party up for the last dungeon. Got a few savestates in there, like one already in the final dungeon, and another right in front of an Asura.
Forgot about the Dungeon Keeper games; will have to look those up. Also forgot about the Badman games on PSP. I really wanted to play that, but I got no PSP.
Beautiful yet explorable world maps with goodies and honest to god rewards scattered about (and I mean in the same level as DQVIII’s world map was like).
A system that can make use of all the previously hoarded equipment and loot found throughout the adventure outside of selling for cash (again like DQVIII or FFIX).
A class system that’s large enough to allow multiple solutions to the obstacles of the game as well as rewards, or a large cast all with their own roles, or a small four man party with individual class options for each. Maybe make players have to pick and choose which one they want without the 'give ‘em everything’ option nor making it so that only one class is clearly superior to the rest.
Skippable cutscenes and tutorials.
Destructible outfits (we already have environments down, let the wear and tear be shown on the world weary travelers already).
A romantic love interest that isn’t the childhood friend/girl next door. In fact more main characters that are female would be very nice (or main antagonists in a fashion similar to FFs III’s Dark Cloud or VIII’s Ultimecia, I demand equal opportunity dammit).
Useful status spells.
A fast forward button or the option to turn off battle animations. In fact, quicker combat overall would be a godsend.
A smaller scale conflict like FFT or something to that effect (being done well should also be mandatory).
Recruitable monsters ala DQV and SMT (and yes Pokemon).
Levelable weapon and magic skills (ala SD2 and only SD2).
Spell levels ala FFs I, III, and MQ and also CC.
Spells, skills, and tools that can be used outside of battle to solve puzzles ala Lufia 2, Wild ARMs, and Golden Sun.
Generations ala DQV or PSIII.
Final boss fights that take actual effort to beat or receive an upgrade if you’ve completed many side quests or post game content.
Completing sidequests for rewards like an expansion to the story or better character depth rather than a sword that’s more powerful and more useless than anything else in the game due to coming right after the last point in the game where it might have helped.
And most importantly not trying to hamfist everything I’ve listed into a single RPG (especially if it leads to horrible gameplay balance ala Sword of Mana).
Destructible outfits (we already have environments down, let the wear and tear be shown on the world weary travelers already).
While they’re at it, maybe make characters wear parkas instead of miniskirts in places like Icicle Inn.
Edit: And while I’m at it, why not toss in the idea of less slutty characters in general.
Final boss fights that take actual effort to beat or receive an upgrade if you’ve completed many side quests or post game content.
Funny thing is that I can only think of One RPG that actually does this:Last Remnant.
SO2, for all the things that it did wrong, letting your broken by the third town party fight against an upgraded version of the final boss was not one of them. (Although you had to go and talk to somebody to trigger it rather than through side quests.)
I think FFXII:RW also had something closer to what I was talking about.
And another thing I’d like to see in an RPG is a method to allow your party to instantly win any fight that’s considered far too weak to have any chance against you. There’s no reason for me to have to fight against scrubs while I’m on some kind of fetch quest.
Also I’ll + one Hades’s suggestion about appropriate attire in different conditions as well.
Indalecio Limiter Off was a bit too much though. You needed to be around level 100 to beat the guy. I would have wished for an intermediate version that wouldn’t require heaploads of grinding, but at least would need a bit more strategy than “Sandwich between Claude and Ashton, Mirror Slice+Sword Dance until dead”.
Suikoden has the “Let Go” option for that. Though on general, random encounters very rarely if ever have any sort of chance unless you are playing Megaten games or Etrian Odyssey.
Incientally, I want more games where random encounters have a good chance to kill you. I’d rather spend twenty minutes fighting for my life than spend ten minutes boredly tapping Attack.
Related to the wear-and-tear thing: I’d like to SEE the characters wear the new armors and weapons they have equipped. I understand that, in the old days, the graphic power of the games was very low so you had to be happy with them always looking like they had the same gear they began with. But with the computing powers the systems have today, don’t tell me this cannot be arranged. It’s a very minor peeve, mind you, but still, it would be nice to see the characters show off those oh-so-flashy Mithryl/Adamantite/Whatever ultimate equipment they had to work so much to get, especially when they go battle the Final Boss!
Ther problem with difefrent-looking armor has always been prerendered scenes. It’s only just recently that in-game rendering is good enough to make cinematic scenes without needing prerendering, so it’s kind of a new thing.
A lot of people have said things about story and characters way better than I could have, so just take it as a given that I’m into that such.
Replayability is kind of a big deal for me too. When I buy a game, I like to buy a game that I know I’ll get a lot of mileage out of. I like having a lot of game to explore and good reasons to do it all again once you’re through.
And they’d also have to design all these different armors, which takes time.
Every rpg should have New Game+ btw.
I’m not a fan of the new game+. I’d much rather have an RPG where you can make whatever type of character you want in the beginning, and have that character determine the path of game you take. Going through the game with the same character twice is most often boring.
I’d much rather have Fallout:Van Buren. /daydreaming