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Thread: What do you consider to be the Five Worst Written RPGs?

  1. #76

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    Whatever the reasoning may be, it was less apparent. The biggest issues were translation issues. Perhaps it was due to the technology and style being primitive enough to match. Technology and artistry has grown, but writing really hasn't in most cases. And I'm not even going to pretend that those games couldn't have been better. Sure they were good, but with a real writer even back then they could have probably been amazing. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment had real writing chops at the helm. Not entirely sure if the writers in question were published or technically professional, but they were definitely of equal caliber. So yeah, I'll single out the glaring examples, and the best examples

    Baldur's Gate and Planescape were not pretty. The combat was clunky. The inventory was annoying. It was a chore to trudge through most places. And they're going to be remembered fondly by most people due to the writing. It is important



  2. #77

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    I have heard nothing but endless praise from people about Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 but I am skeptical. These are the same people who spend all their time whining about how Bethesda and BioWare have lost their way. They think Knights of the Old Republic 1 was better than Mass Effect 2. Or that Bethesda made a spectacular failure in FO3...when it was a huge success and salvaged an obscure, dead franchise.

    Old PC RPG fans are a strange, fanatical minority.
    ]

  3. #78
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    Where were the professional writers in FFI-VI? I must have missed them.

    You singled out FFX, and Nojima I suppose, but no one involved in any other FF game has been any kind of "real author."
    Well Kenji Terada (main scenario writer/consultant for FFI-III) is an actual professional script writer and author who started in the 80s anime scene before doing some work for Square. Sorya Saga worked on FFVI's scenario and went on to develop stories for Xenogears and Xenosaga and she's an actual professional freelance writer. Masato Kato (CT, CC, Xenogears and FFVII) started in the arcade scene with Tecmo but worked with Gainax as a writer before joining Square and he's attached to some of the most praised games/stories in Square's history. Honestly, Square has had professional writers helping them from the beginning despite the technology failing to do any justice for them.

    I feel like it's the reason why Lost Odyssey is so lop-sided in it's writing because the main concept/premise and Thousand Year arcs were written by a professional novelist whereas the rest of the story was just the Mistwalker Team trying to do it justice so the writing is hit or miss on that one.

  4. #79

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    A lot of people wrote Chrono Trigger and the one game Kato is most known for, Chrono Cross, is often mocked as a giant pile of crap in terms of writing.

    Soraya Saga wrote a few games so has Hideo Kojima. I thought we were talking about writers of books and other things.

  5. #80
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    A lot of people wrote Chrono Trigger and the one game Kato is most known for, Chrono Cross, is often mocked as a giant pile of crap in terms of writing.

    Soraya Saga wrote a few games so has Hideo Kojima. I thought we were talking about writers of books and other things.
    Well all three are actual professional writers (well Kojima has a lot of help if you pay attention to the credits) and frankly, looking at the writing credits of CT, Kato did most of the work seeing how Yuji Horii simply came up with the story concept with Toriyma and Sakaguchi's input; and Kitase and Tanaka were brought in later on in development to work on subplots as opposed to the main scenario, so Kato did most of the heavy lifting in terms of writing the game. The entire 12,000 B.C. section was created by him as well with no input from the others and it's considered the best part of the game.

    Chrono Cross' story is only hated by jaded CT fans. Most sources/people I know tend to really enjoy CC's plot. Characters could have been more involved but CC's purpose was as philosophical look at the ramifications of time travel, not the story of Serge and his friends. Course you'll always find people who love/hate a story on the internet; but it is the internet which is a collective unconscious without filters, where everyone has an opinion, and we all pretend it can be a fact or some objective truth despite it being subjective nonsense.

    My point was that there are professional writers in Japan's gaming scene that cut there teeth on the classics and so they actually have a professional game writers as opposed to the West which the article Vyk post shows is different on how they approach it. I would argue the real issue with some of Squenix's game is that they sometimes give too much autonomy to one writer and the other writers just kind of follow their lead for better or for worse, whereas in the companies Golden Age, they had several people with pretty equal standing working on the plot as an ensemble piece. Kato can claim the Chrono series but not one person can claim Xenogears or FFVI. Even VII often gets mis-credited with Nojima doing all the work when the game had several writers involved, which might explain why the Compilation mostly written by him isn't as strong as the original.

  6. #81
    The King's Shield The Summoner of Leviathan's Avatar
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    FFVIII. One of the few FF that is simply quit and couldn't get into after getting into the second disc. I couldn't have cared less about characters.

    Skyrim. I am not into the whole TES lore, but just the main story was weak and horrible. It is good for mods though.

    Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. So campy the dialogue.

    FF X-2. Fun mechanics, but really? Just really?

    I can't think of another, but I am sure if I took out my PS2 library I could find something...


  7. #82

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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    I have heard nothing but endless praise from people about Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 but I am skeptical. These are the same people who spend all their time whining about how Bethesda and BioWare have lost their way. They think Knights of the Old Republic 1 was better than Mass Effect 2. Or that Bethesda made a spectacular failure in FO3...when it was a huge success and salvaged an obscure, dead franchise.

    Old PC RPG fans are a strange, fanatical minority.
    ]
    Yeah, not going to deny that one. But that's like most nostalgia driven fans. The golden age was always years ago lol Guilty as charged. Just not for those games. I love BioWare and Bethesda's new stuff. Also love their old stuff. And also have plenty of critique for both

    I don't know why I'm so jaded against JRPGs, and I'm okay with the quirks and plot holes of most prominent WRPGs. People hated Mass Effect 3's ending, even after its renovations. I had no trouble with it. My only problem was that there was no real good answer. Just 3 bad choices to finalize the trilogy. But I didn't think it was garbage

    As to the conversation Wolf is covering, I'm honestly not sure what "professional" writer should mean, other than someone who either has been taught or just knows by nature how to write something cohesive and compelling in some manner or another. I used FFX as an example because of a huge well-known plot-hole that I can't imagine any respectable.. real, legitimate writer (of any definition) would allow into their story without some weird explanation somewhere. And their only explanation as far as I'm aware just some Mary Sue new ability Sin just randomly has and is never mentioned or used again

    Though due to Wolf's input I can see that Japan suffers from a whole different issue. I shouldn't have assumed on that one. They do have their won writing issues, but that reminds me again of BioWare with the writing people have hated most is due to one writer taking control of the entire project and going solo with no input or critique until it was too late. Which is visibly a terrible idea on both sides of the pond

    I don't honestly even care if some director or producer wants to write something that's passionately burning in their head. If they get the opportunity to go for it, more power to them. I just wish they'd acknowledge their shortcomings and accept the help of other writers to tighten things up, or a decent editor to fix mistakes and pull it all together. But that just doesn't seem to be the way things work for them, not anymore at least



  8. #83
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    To be fair, "professional writer" simply means you're adequate enough that people like your work. It doesn't necessarily mean their work is without flaw, and as I stated with the internet rant, mass communication tends to accentuate the extremes of good and bad. Japan has professional game writers compared to some Western studios but many of these professionals got their start as artist and programmers and probably have no background in writing.

    Of anything the real issue is that the technology for gaming has advanced to a point where players are shifting standards. As good as something as Chrono Trigger is, I'm not sure it's story would do so well if it was presented without change in a game designed with modern specs. Old games kind of get a pass because no one expected anything from the plot, so the fact some effort was put into it was deeply appreciated, but now story is the norm and not the exception, so a half-ass written plot is going to get scrutinized more now than it has in the past.

  9. #84
    Slothstronaut Recognized Member Slothy's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    I have heard nothing but endless praise from people about Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 but I am skeptical. These are the same people who spend all their time whining about how Bethesda and BioWare have lost their way. They think Knights of the Old Republic 1 was better than Mass Effect 2. Or that Bethesda made a spectacular failure in FO3...when it was a huge success and salvaged an obscure, dead franchise.

    Old PC RPG fans are a strange, fanatical minority.
    ]
    I'm not sure why you're equating commercial success with quality. The two are rarely directly connected.

  10. #85
    Nerf This~ Laddy's Avatar
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    Planescape: Torment is my favorite game of all time but it is not what'd I call fun. The combat is boring and entirely superfluous, there is a lot of backtracking, and some things are not conveyed well to the player. Dungeons are the weak point for sure.

    I believe there is no game in existence close to the caliber of writing that game creates. Not one. If Torment scrapped combat altogether and just kept the D&D license and setting, it's arguably be better. The amount of nuance, emotional resonance in the themes, imagery, and dialogue borders on overwhelmingly potent. I am more than willing to tear through the clunky combat and cumbersome menus for the opportunity to have my life changed.

    For my list it'd be...

    Fallout 3: Fallout is an engaging, morally ambiguous, and darkly humorous setting and Fallout 3 stripped all that away for every Hollywood cliché ever. It has no respect for the series' canon or lore outside of borrowing it for its own useless plot.

    Oblivion: Every lame Western Fantasy trope ever is here. Whenever the quests or characters take an interesting turn you discover the execution is sloppy and disappointing. Skyrim is better but not by much.

    Star Ocean 4: It's Oblivion but with Japanese clichés instead. Edge Maverick.

    Final Fantasy VIII: It's a promising concept that's executed awful. I love the idea of Gardens, Sorceresses, etc but the characters are one-note and that dumb Orphanage twist is yawn.

    Grandia III: The mom is cool but everything else is just a paint-by-the-numbers borefest. Play it for the combat.

    Games with writing that I find overrated: Undertale, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy IV, Dragon Age: Origins, and Kingdom Hearts.



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