There are signature things to look for in RPGs. There are almost always experience/level systems, wild encounters, and equipment that gets better as you progress (and as a result, even small towns in the middle of nowhere have better armour than the biggest cities in the world). A lot of this is considered normal in an RPG. But sometimes there are things that just overstay their welcome in RPGs. So many games stick so closely to the rulebook that the features they incorporate just feel tired rather than exciting. What do you wish more RPGs avoided using? Personally, I'd like to see a story try and break away from conventions. In RPGs, you expect the main character to start off as a normal person who ends up being inadvertently roped into an adventure, and somehow ends up saving the world from utter destruction by the end. And the person behind the chaos is often somebody that you consider an ally for the first 2/3 of the game, only to find that actually, he was the bad guy all along! More games need to try focusing on different plots. Why can't a game take place on a smaller scale? There's nothing wrong with being heroes, but why is the whole world always at risk? Why not just save a small town or an island instead? Alternatively, why don't we get to be the bad guys for a change? Why can't we cause the damage and destruction for once? I'm not saying that these types of stories are inherently bad, but it'd be nice to mix things up once in a while. Honourable mentions go to characters that constantly fluctuate between being evil and good, weapons larger than their wielders, and tiny fluffy animals that are more powerful than that dragon you just spent half an hour fighting not so long ago.
The 3 class system, definitely. I know that there's not much else, but I'm really bored of seeing the stock setup of "wizard warrior thief" with various funky names assigned to them. Why can't there be an RPG that has a necromancer, a guy who's good with manipulating metal from a distance and shaping it with magnetic force, and I don't know, a flame warrior who draws power from the sunlight and uses a club. See, it's not hard. Or just get rid of classes altogether, and let the player decide what they want to use. Being born with arbitrary warrior genes that allow you to handle nothing but a two-handed sword since birth would suck pretty badly. What if you decide you want to pick up sorcery later on and realize that using weapons is boring? The goodie two shoes protagonist is also an excellent point. There needs to be more games where you can just be a dick to everything you see, and be rewarded for it. I know we're probably steering off the reasonable moral path here, but whatever.
For me I really hate when RPG's the protagonist is always has good intentions it would be nice to have some evil as well to make the character more relatable I would like to see more RPG games take a similar approach to the Fable franchise.
If you think about it, the Fable series still always has the "good intention" theme, even if you can do wicked things. Every Fable game in the series that I have played eventually leads the main character toward being the "Hero that saved the world". I think I get what you are trying to say though. I feel like Fallout 3 did a good job at portraying the spectrum between good and evil. Western RPGs are kinda leaning towards that model now it seems. Depending on what you consider an RPG, I think the Last of Us is also relevant to this. During that game, there really isn't a good or evil in that game. At least that is what I felt.
I totally agree with your post. I feel like betrayals happen way too often in RPGs. I would like to see a shift in RPGs so that they are more Heavy Rain or Telltale's The Walking Dead. Both were exceptionally emotional, which I thought was great. In the Walking Dead, you basically had a lot of freedom to make choices. There were little choices, and HUGE choices, and I thought that it was nice to try to relate to the character, rather than be the character. I'm not sure if that makes a whole lot of sense, but I feel as if Western RPGs are focused at creating the character in your own image. In Skyrim, you get to create who you are, what you look like, and what you do. But trying to play a game for the benefit of the character (and not yourself), I think is also quite appealing. I would like to see more of that. I recommend both of the mentioned games also!
You're definitely correct on the difference between Western and Japanese RPGs - WRPGs are very rarely a fixed character playing through a fixed scenario, but rather a character whose story you can control to some extent, and even create the entire character to your desire. I do think there is a place for both though. WRPGs give developers the space to create a world, in which players can craft their own tales. This is done by following questlines that interest you, training your character in certain disciplines, or even role-playing every aspect of the game. On the other hand, JRPGs allow a narrative to be told, giving players some extent of control, but rather viewing the story without feeling as though any of your decisions affected the outcome. Both types of game need to try and move away from cliches though.
A good non-conventional RPG is Eternal Sonata for the Xbox 360. You play as normal people (You actually play as Frederich Chopin in this game lol), and I haven't beat the entire game, but as far as I know, the entire game takes place inside of someone's dream. It also has a really cool battle system that I've never seen before. You guys should check it out. In general, I like both Western and Japanese style RPGs, and I don't think one is better than the other, I think both have a place, and I hope they never go away. Heavy Rain is a one of a kind game, but if all RPGs were like Heavy Rain I'd hate it.
It's not really a feature, but the whole sappy love story (such as FF7) have been well overplayed to this point. It seems to be the basis of a lot of RPG's, but you'd think the creative minds behind the story lines could come up with their own ideas as opposed to rehashing the same cheesy love stories
I hear ya! I've noticed that too, I get turned off when I see such a generic class system going on in a game. It shows a lack of thought the development of the game. Makes me think of classics like Arcanum.
