Well........I\'m buried..

Damn. It took a long dry spell (Oct 00, Summer 01), but I\'m about to get buried by rpg\'s-- (Not that it\'s a BAD thing)

Geez..........

Dark Cloud NOW
(ps1)Final Fantasy Chronicles (July) (2 Games mind you)
Empheral Fantasia (July)
ICO (August)
OKAGE: Shadow King (August)
Baulders Gate DA (Sept)
(ps1)Tales of Destiny 2 (Oct)
(ps1)Dragon Warrior VII (Nov)
Draken 2 (Nov)
FFX

....just to name a few I\'m looking forward to. Must...find...more time...

PS2=Rpg bliss.

I got a question.... How can you tell if a game is a rpg?.... I mean cause I\'ve only played one rpg, (or so I think) final fantasy I think like 9 or 8....

you know what i can\'t think of a good way to explain what an rpg is exactly

oh well - its usually a long game with aspects of HP and MP and you level up and there is usually one major goal in the game with lots of little bumps in the road to get to that part and they usually have great stories - usually

well i guess thats kinda what most are

and the rpgs are coming to the PS2 full force now

Also you know a games a RPG, buy the way you can collect weapons and magic items like theres no tomorrow.

any self respecting RPG Fan won\'t consider a game complete until all sub quests and special items are collected and used.

Being on oldie.....

To me a TRUE rpg has to have so-called "Turn Based" battles. That means all involved in the battles take turns issuing commands (attack, cure, use item, etc.).

This stems from the roots of Role Playing Games (RPG). Back before computers and consoles Rpg\'s were played with characters that existed on paper. All attributes, like hit points, magic points, speed, etc. were on this paper.

When you got attacked or attacked other\'s you would roll dice (in turns) and according to the roll and attributes, damage would be dealt.

That\'s not to say Rpg\'s HAVE TO be turn-based, it\'s just my preference (especially if you control more than a single character). But yes, Rpg\'s have to have the elements listed above. Every day though the lines between Rpg\'s and so-called Action/adventure are blurring. That\'s fine.....as long as they still leave room for my turn-based:)

Originally posted by Sublimesjg
you know what i can\'t think of a good way to explain what an rpg is exactly

a Role Playing Game

thats how you can describe it.

I was never into RPG\'s that much, but now after getting Dark Cloud and soon FFX, i dont know whats going to happen.

most RPGs are pretty easy to get into, like square games give you extensive tuturials that aren\'t boring in nature ( they show you how to equip weapons and magic on screen as you go ) so it\'s pretty easy to learn. although they can get confusing sometimes.. but once you understand one of them , the rest mostly become easier to grasp.

now over on how to identify an RPG game if you see one, The easiest way would proably to look for the \'HP\' attribute, which propably refers to hit points. as that symbol is used in propably all RPG games. Also MP is  quite popular but i noticed it wasn\'t used in FF8 (which used a uniqe stupid magic system). Additionally you can identify RPGs by how the battel system is designed, as  usually characters have a bar ( usually called ATB) that only when it is full that the player can command the respective character to make a certain move like attack or cure etc. So it\'s not exactly turn based since some of the characters are faster than others and the faster ones could end-up having two consecutive turns while other characters are still filling their bar and waiting their turn. another identification , from the name of the genre, Role playing game, since you play the role of the characters in the game as if it was you , and in many of these RPGs you can actually name most of the main characters.

Some RPGs are more action oriented, and they are called action-RPG like vagrant story, Zelda, dark cloud or legend of mana. and those look more or less like a standard hack & slash game in some cases. when you see the MP and the HP on them, you may think they are also standard RPGs but they are not. standard RPGs are the ones i discussed in the last paragraph.

also In a standard RPG you usually have more than 1 character, and in some cases you can choose which characters to join or not to join your party. but in action-RPGs you usually have one character playable at a time.

I prefer standard RPGs over the action-RPGs because most of the standard RPGs have a stronger story. and if i want a hack and slash game i could get one, why get an action-RPG? but that\'s just my taste i guess.. my current favourate hack & slash game is DW2. i think that is pure fun, if i want action , i go all the way for pure action, as i am not a big fan of mixing action with RPG.

I rented tales of dynasty 1 a long time ago, the game sucked.... but some dumbass did leave there ps1 memory card in the rental box.... so the free memory card kinda made up for the bad rental.

Am i a heretic? cause in the past year or so i have come to like action-RPG\'s like Zelda and now Dark Cloud.