RPGs have long held a place in my heart. They were and still are my favorite genre of all time, but these days, I struggle to finish them. When I was a younger man, I was able to beat everything I bought. My budget was smaller in the 90's, and only a few rpgs came out every three or four years, so there was less to play, but more to focus on. It's not like today where my budget, while not unlimited, allows me to buy more games then back when I was a kid. This leads me to my main problem with modern day rpgs. They are too long. Gone are the days where I can go for day-long benders and spend hour after hour grinding it out, finding key artifacts to save the world, destroying the evil empire, or something of the sort. I feel that rpgs are too long because I feel that modern day plot narratives are not as interesting, coming of age tales and or long build ups do not capture my interest, and lots of the stories are repetitive. I currently have no less than 20 rpgs which were either rated highly or recommended to me by friends in my "vault" that I've spent maybe 45 minutes tops per game. I don't think I'll ever beat any of them.
I grew up in the 90's. It was the greatest time to be a gamer, especially one who fancied rpgs, as most everything that came out was gold, literally the gold cartridges from Zelda, or the absolute classics like Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy 3 (6 over there) to name a few. I was able to invest the necessary hours to play a game. I could grind for items, follow plot narratives, build my characters and just sit in one position hunched over my little 12 inch TV and play for hours. I recently beat the pre-Broken Steel Fallout 3. I bought it the day it came out and I only just beat it recently. I would invest maybe one or two hours then quit because I had grad school or work commitments. Don't get me wrong, I love Fallout 3. It is a lot of fun to explore, pick up and maintain weapons, destroy anything and everything if I want to. It is just that there is too much to do in Fallout 3; it's really easy to get lost in the Wasteland. It took me a year and two months. My biggest beef with Fallout 3 while expansive in scope, it seemed too expansive when compared to something like Final Fantasy 3. While both have very large worlds, Final Fantasy 3 is more tightly focused while plot wise while Fallout 3 is not. I could not finish things up in a timely fashion based on my real-life work schedule. Final Fantasy 3 spans 30-60 hours, two worlds, countless characters and dungeons, and Kefka, and still the plot kept moving. In Fallout 3, I did not care about the main plot thread. I spent 20 hours doing side quests because they were more entertaining than the main plot. Having finally finished the main quest, I was left very dissatisfied. Sure, there was a lot to do in general, but I ultimately was not satisfied at the endgame. I feel like lots of rpgs end this way. Lots of the rpgs that I have played in the last five years are like this: wander a little bit, kill some, improve your gear, see some plot devices in action, rinse, and repeat. It's too long. It's arduous. I'm looking for more focused narratives. I'm looking for a focused experience where I can sit down, explore, and save the world in 20 hours tops. Like Mass Effect, or Final Fantasy 10. Give me something allows me build my characters and gather gear but have it move at a brisk pace. That's what I want now that time is such a premium. It's either that or I have to quit my day job to spend more time crawling through a narrative but that’s not happening any time soon.
As tremendous as the rpgs of 90's were, the problem is that rpgs haven't evolved past that. Everything that a Japanese developer makes is still the same. When they first came out it was awesome, I never played a coming of age tale. They almost all begin the same way, a coming of age tales about a boy who finds a sword and discovers that he is destined for great things and must grow up and face the world with a smile and save everyone from the evil empire or a mission to grab/unlock/protect artifacts lest the evil empire get them first and destroy the world. I've done this at least nine times since the dawn of the 2000's to today. I fit into the core demographic that developers aim. Shouldn't they realize that most of us grew up and have played those types of stories already? Then there are the developers who decide to change it up, such as the more recent Final Fantasy 12, but decide to move the story at a snail’s pace. It takes forever for the story to hit the climax. I know that rpgs are about building your characters up along with the story, but based on my lack of time, I really wish that the build up was not so slow. It should not take me 15 hours to understand that why I need to run away from the evil invading empire when it can be easily accomplished in 15 minutes. Things have to speed up. I'm not talking about cutting hours of game play, just streamlining things here or there to make the experience a little tidier. It is a major reason I have such a backlog. I want to do things differently. I don't want to save the world, give me the chance to destroy it. I don't want to be the savior of the world, let me be an auxiliary observer who helps the savior. Give me the main goal of the game quicker. That's what I want in an rpg. That's why although I bashed Fallout 3 for being "eh" in terms of main narrative; I still had a pretty good time playing it. I was able to change things as I saw fit. In terms of destroying the world, I get that in anything related to the Shin Megami Tensei series. Give me something different please. I don't want to be the mute boy from the quiet town with the world on my shoulders anymore.
Don't get me wrong. I still love rpgs. I still try to finish everything I start, even if I'm bored to tears when the plot drags on towards infinity and beyond. I stay away from jrpgs for the reasons I discussed, unless it is something completely different, which thankfully everything NIS or Altus puts out fits into. If an rpg could put me right in the thick of things with a different narrative instead of those age old clichés, I would love it. In closing, a short list of modern rpgs that avoid the tired trappings and are different:
Mother 3
Final Fantasy X (although Tidus starts out a little whiny)
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne
Almost anything NIS makes themselves such as Disagea
Odin Sphere
Mass Effect (outside of that 1st hour)