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"STURGEON'S LAW, TASTE AND RPG MAKER"
Posts
suzy_cheesedreams
1480
suzy_cheesedreams
View playlists
Closehttps://bigtallwords.com/2013/08/12/sturgeons-law-taste-and-rpg-maker/
(Not sure where exactly to post these RPG Maker related article links when the occasion comes up - here, general discussion, video games, ?)
Interesting, if old (2013), piece on RPG Maker games with examples chosen by the author to challenge the idea of the typical RPG Maker game being "Final Fantasy fan-fiction". Naturally pretty out of date by now, and funnily enough literal Final Fantasy fanfic games are still being made.
(Not sure where exactly to post these RPG Maker related article links when the occasion comes up - here, general discussion, video games, ?)
Interesting, if old (2013), piece on RPG Maker games with examples chosen by the author to challenge the idea of the typical RPG Maker game being "Final Fantasy fan-fiction". Naturally pretty out of date by now, and funnily enough literal Final Fantasy fanfic games are still being made.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I mean, probably most RPGs in general are, by some definition, Final Fantasy fanfic, if only because FF has been a majorly influential franchise. (In the same vein, the genre of first person shooters was originally known as "Doom clones.")
I could go on a long tangent about fanfic and its legitimacy from a historical POV (like literally the idea of everything having to be original is super new and modern and unnatural compared to the development of narrative for most of human history) but I'll refrain unless someone actually wants to read that shit.
I do feel like "90% of everything isn’t crud, it’s just average," is maybe reading too much into Sturgeon's Law as a criticism (where it originally was meant as a defense of genre fiction). But that's probably also another tangent.
Can't say anything about the selection of games, having never heard of or played any of them. vOv
I could go on a long tangent about fanfic and its legitimacy from a historical POV (like literally the idea of everything having to be original is super new and modern and unnatural compared to the development of narrative for most of human history) but I'll refrain unless someone actually wants to read that shit.
I do feel like "90% of everything isn’t crud, it’s just average," is maybe reading too much into Sturgeon's Law as a criticism (where it originally was meant as a defense of genre fiction). But that's probably also another tangent.
Can't say anything about the selection of games, having never heard of or played any of them. vOv
i find it funny that starless umbra is included as it's such a collection of GW's own silly tropes and requirements, the type that spawned #shmup... but alas.
exit fate's the shit, y'all. play it
exit fate's the shit, y'all. play it
suzy_cheesedreams
1480
@Sooz Feel free to discuss whatever you want that's tangentially related to the article. I'd read it too.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Aight y'all asked for it!
As a nota bene before I start, my interest in fanwork is almost entirely conceptual; I've just never been that into fanworks outside of a bit of fanart, and most of my knowledge of them comes from being around people who participate. I am not a fanfic fan, one might say! :V
The vast, vast majority of human narratives for most of history have been variations on a kind of core story. You'll see it in a whole lot of our literary canons, even: Dante's Inferno is a big ol' self-insert mary sue crossover fic that's all about how Dante's favorite philosopher loves him, and everyone who was mean to Dante gets tortured in Hell, described in loving detail. Almost every single play by Shakespeare is a retelling of another story. Fairy tales and myths are told and retold with tons of variations and embellishments, and nobody ever cared much about it.
This is thousands of years of people just copying each other's plots and characters and giving no fucks.
Then, in 1450 CE, the printing press happened. (In Europe, anyway; Asia had that mess for centuries, but for various reasons didn't end up with the copyright arguments.) And all of a sudden it was monumentally easy to copy anything written down, which opened up the market for a bunch of chancers looking for easy money.*
Cue centuries of legal back-and-forth on what kind of copies are okay to sell, which of course leads to the assumption, in a culture based on selling things, that anything that can't be legally sold must therefore be worthless at best, actively harmful at worst. The latter opinion becomes more entrenched as copyright holders become obligated to fight every challenge to their ownership or risk losing that ownership.
So, in the long view, we've gone from a fairly open-source view of storytelling to one that discourages any kind of copying pretty much overnight.
This has its upsides and downsides, of course.
On the one hand, we're discouraging the kind of normal evolution and mutation one previously found in storytelling, where an author could put their own individual spin on an otherwise prosaic narrative and not have to worry about anything else. This would allow for great craftspeople like Shakespeare to make beautiful works without the need to establish new stories, characters, etc.
On the other hand, the requirement of originality is also kind of a pressure cooker for ideas, and has encouraged a lot of thought on tropes and genre that might have come slower in other environments. Personally, I'm a big fan of works that are doing something different and new, whether or not they succeed entirely, so I can't complain too much about an environment that encourages them!
To bring up Sturgeon's Law again, fanfic itself gets a lot of flak for being substandard and samey, but that's exactly what one can expect from a medium with almost no barrier to entry; it'd be like looking at works by students in an art class and expecting them to compare to something displayed in a museum.**
Interestingly, you do see a lot of interesting evolution in fanfiction: while most of it is the same general motifs (to the point that there are specific "genres" that have arisen) there's also a lot of creativity, particularly in taking established characters and moving them to a different setting, or altering story events to play with what might happen- things that, legally speaking, don't count as original but are also more original than the 90% of every genre that just recycle the same plot with slightly different characters.
By limiting the availability of fictional intellectual property and focusing on originality as the only acceptable (read: legally sellable) option, we're also limiting the kinds of people who can write stories. It's actually super rare for someone to be good at every aspect of writing: character, plot, dialog, setting, prose, pacing, etc; they're all distinct disciplines, and most writers will be good at one or two, but pretty weak at the rest. If we allowed writers to use other works as a crutch, I think we'd see a lot more widespread great works. As it is, we're limited to either only consuming what's legal, or wading through the sewers of fanwork to find occasional gold.
So that's my ramble about Why Fanfiction is Totally Legit Literature You Guys, Even Though its Legal Status is Kind of Questionable.
*As an aside, Gutenberg's press created a setting very similar to the one we're encountering today, with the sudden ease of information exchange leading to lots of fake news and people distributing flat-out wrong bullshit and generally messing life up for a while.
**In before jokes about "MY KINDERGARTENER COULD DO THAT!" Which is another thing I have Long Ranty Feelings about. :V
As a nota bene before I start, my interest in fanwork is almost entirely conceptual; I've just never been that into fanworks outside of a bit of fanart, and most of my knowledge of them comes from being around people who participate. I am not a fanfic fan, one might say! :V
The vast, vast majority of human narratives for most of history have been variations on a kind of core story. You'll see it in a whole lot of our literary canons, even: Dante's Inferno is a big ol' self-insert mary sue crossover fic that's all about how Dante's favorite philosopher loves him, and everyone who was mean to Dante gets tortured in Hell, described in loving detail. Almost every single play by Shakespeare is a retelling of another story. Fairy tales and myths are told and retold with tons of variations and embellishments, and nobody ever cared much about it.
This is thousands of years of people just copying each other's plots and characters and giving no fucks.
Then, in 1450 CE, the printing press happened. (In Europe, anyway; Asia had that mess for centuries, but for various reasons didn't end up with the copyright arguments.) And all of a sudden it was monumentally easy to copy anything written down, which opened up the market for a bunch of chancers looking for easy money.*
Cue centuries of legal back-and-forth on what kind of copies are okay to sell, which of course leads to the assumption, in a culture based on selling things, that anything that can't be legally sold must therefore be worthless at best, actively harmful at worst. The latter opinion becomes more entrenched as copyright holders become obligated to fight every challenge to their ownership or risk losing that ownership.
So, in the long view, we've gone from a fairly open-source view of storytelling to one that discourages any kind of copying pretty much overnight.
This has its upsides and downsides, of course.
On the one hand, we're discouraging the kind of normal evolution and mutation one previously found in storytelling, where an author could put their own individual spin on an otherwise prosaic narrative and not have to worry about anything else. This would allow for great craftspeople like Shakespeare to make beautiful works without the need to establish new stories, characters, etc.
On the other hand, the requirement of originality is also kind of a pressure cooker for ideas, and has encouraged a lot of thought on tropes and genre that might have come slower in other environments. Personally, I'm a big fan of works that are doing something different and new, whether or not they succeed entirely, so I can't complain too much about an environment that encourages them!
To bring up Sturgeon's Law again, fanfic itself gets a lot of flak for being substandard and samey, but that's exactly what one can expect from a medium with almost no barrier to entry; it'd be like looking at works by students in an art class and expecting them to compare to something displayed in a museum.**
Interestingly, you do see a lot of interesting evolution in fanfiction: while most of it is the same general motifs (to the point that there are specific "genres" that have arisen) there's also a lot of creativity, particularly in taking established characters and moving them to a different setting, or altering story events to play with what might happen- things that, legally speaking, don't count as original but are also more original than the 90% of every genre that just recycle the same plot with slightly different characters.
By limiting the availability of fictional intellectual property and focusing on originality as the only acceptable (read: legally sellable) option, we're also limiting the kinds of people who can write stories. It's actually super rare for someone to be good at every aspect of writing: character, plot, dialog, setting, prose, pacing, etc; they're all distinct disciplines, and most writers will be good at one or two, but pretty weak at the rest. If we allowed writers to use other works as a crutch, I think we'd see a lot more widespread great works. As it is, we're limited to either only consuming what's legal, or wading through the sewers of fanwork to find occasional gold.
So that's my ramble about Why Fanfiction is Totally Legit Literature You Guys, Even Though its Legal Status is Kind of Questionable.
*As an aside, Gutenberg's press created a setting very similar to the one we're encountering today, with the sudden ease of information exchange leading to lots of fake news and people distributing flat-out wrong bullshit and generally messing life up for a while.
**In before jokes about "MY KINDERGARTENER COULD DO THAT!" Which is another thing I have Long Ranty Feelings about. :V
and it was well worth it.
also, and this is a complete tangent, but I am seeing a lot of "well then the work should be perfectly self-contained and explain everything needed!", which is just... no. The context and circumstance in which a piece of art is made is also very important to the work. It doesn't need to stand alone bereft of context to be good.
also, and this is a complete tangent, but I am seeing a lot of "well then the work should be perfectly self-contained and explain everything needed!", which is just... no. The context and circumstance in which a piece of art is made is also very important to the work. It doesn't need to stand alone bereft of context to be good.
TheNecromancer
3160
Interesting article. I can't say I fully grasp everything said in it though haha My low-brow mind kind of glossed over most of what was said because of the words used. Me Hulk, me no understand fancy word play.
But basically the article is saying "RPG Maker games can be really original so stop being such a hipster art critic with hoity-toity tastes"? Then provides a few examples.
I'm afraid I probably fall in that group of people who think 90% is crap, instead of it being average. Ironically, when I first started in RMing(2002) I did think most everything was actually really cool! It was all exciting and I would have played ANYTHING. But as time went on, being immersed in all the games that showed up on this site(because really I didn't visit any others), my tastes started to change. I can't stand RTP or anything on the default setting, I can't stand "teenagers first RPG", and I need something really unique and top of the line to even be interested in reading the game page.
I try not to be a dick about it though so I just don't post anymore. What have I become? *looks down at hands*
But basically the article is saying "RPG Maker games can be really original so stop being such a hipster art critic with hoity-toity tastes"? Then provides a few examples.
I'm afraid I probably fall in that group of people who think 90% is crap, instead of it being average. Ironically, when I first started in RMing(2002) I did think most everything was actually really cool! It was all exciting and I would have played ANYTHING. But as time went on, being immersed in all the games that showed up on this site(because really I didn't visit any others), my tastes started to change. I can't stand RTP or anything on the default setting, I can't stand "teenagers first RPG", and I need something really unique and top of the line to even be interested in reading the game page.
I try not to be a dick about it though so I just don't post anymore. What have I become? *looks down at hands*
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I think that 90% of everything is crap and is also average, TBH. Like, the difference between a low-barrier-of-entry medium and a curated-by-publishers medium is pretty much just volume and some lower lows.
It also makes a difference what kind of crap you're talking about: too often in discussions like these, we conflate quality and enjoyability, which is a stupid mistake to make, because they're not the same thing. We also forget that tastes are completely subjective and that works can be bad at some things and great at others.
Like the biggest hangup I've seen most people have in discussions like these is "This work can't be bad- I loved it!" Which, no, it can totally be bad! By objective standards, in many cases! Because "bad" (or, in Sturgeon's Law, "crap/crud") is a measure of quality, not enjoyability. It measures how competent a creator is at their work, the nuts and bolts of the whole thing.
As an analogy, let's compare a five star chef's meal with fast food. Both are edible, but one is very clearly better in terms of workmanship. If I'm gonna be doing food critic stuff, I'm going to give a win to the chef. But goddamn do I love me some Chicken McNuggets.
For some people, the quality really, really matters to their enjoyment, and they can't stomach narrative McNuggets. Some people give no shits and will metaphorically have the McNuggets for every meal. Most people, however, have a broad spectrum of how much McNuggetness they'll tolerate, mostly depending on how much other appeal there is.
For example, I am a picky motherfucker when it comes to anime. I will straight up drop a show unless it's fairly well-written and avoids a mile-long list of tropes. EXCEPT FOR THIS GODDAMN SHOW, which caters to just the right combination of dumb shit I adore that I will love it forever. It's not good, in the sense of being a quality story. It's extremely rote, by the numbers, predictable, thin characterization, just generally trash. But that doesn't matter, because it's wonderful to me.
I think I got away from the point I was trying to make. >_>
The gist of what I'm trying to say is, "90% of everything is crap, and that's OK, because people can still enjoy crap." It's awesome to have that 10% of great stuff, but not everything needs to be great. It just needs to be Good Enough, and sometimes it'll have the right combination of things to a few people to be crap that is also treasure. Like McNuggets. Which are delicious.
It also makes a difference what kind of crap you're talking about: too often in discussions like these, we conflate quality and enjoyability, which is a stupid mistake to make, because they're not the same thing. We also forget that tastes are completely subjective and that works can be bad at some things and great at others.
Like the biggest hangup I've seen most people have in discussions like these is "This work can't be bad- I loved it!" Which, no, it can totally be bad! By objective standards, in many cases! Because "bad" (or, in Sturgeon's Law, "crap/crud") is a measure of quality, not enjoyability. It measures how competent a creator is at their work, the nuts and bolts of the whole thing.
As an analogy, let's compare a five star chef's meal with fast food. Both are edible, but one is very clearly better in terms of workmanship. If I'm gonna be doing food critic stuff, I'm going to give a win to the chef. But goddamn do I love me some Chicken McNuggets.
For some people, the quality really, really matters to their enjoyment, and they can't stomach narrative McNuggets. Some people give no shits and will metaphorically have the McNuggets for every meal. Most people, however, have a broad spectrum of how much McNuggetness they'll tolerate, mostly depending on how much other appeal there is.
For example, I am a picky motherfucker when it comes to anime. I will straight up drop a show unless it's fairly well-written and avoids a mile-long list of tropes. EXCEPT FOR THIS GODDAMN SHOW, which caters to just the right combination of dumb shit I adore that I will love it forever. It's not good, in the sense of being a quality story. It's extremely rote, by the numbers, predictable, thin characterization, just generally trash. But that doesn't matter, because it's wonderful to me.
I think I got away from the point I was trying to make. >_>
The gist of what I'm trying to say is, "90% of everything is crap, and that's OK, because people can still enjoy crap." It's awesome to have that 10% of great stuff, but not everything needs to be great. It just needs to be Good Enough, and sometimes it'll have the right combination of things to a few people to be crap that is also treasure. Like McNuggets. Which are delicious.
You know, it's kinda odd that Final Fantasy is automatically assumed to be the default JRPG type that people are supposedly emulating in RPG Maker. I don't really find that FF is always the prototype, unless the game is specifically named Final Fantasy Blah Blah Blah.
When I think of the generic RPG Maker game, I think of Alex, age 16 and master swordsman. He meets his girlfriend, a cute spunky healer princess who banters with him all day long. There's also a beefy un-magical guy and a black mage. The sleepyhead hero wakes up late and then his village gets destroyed. Together, they are caught up in events bigger than they ever imagined and have to save the world. The tone is mostly happy and cheerful, with lots of casual humorous dialogue, and anime style face sets.
The classic FFs, being FF4 and FF6 for the west, never had all this stuff. For the most part, these FF games had a serious and somber tone, the characters didn't have a whole lot of chitchat between them, and they didn't have an anime style look. A lot of other RPG cliches and tropes aren't even found in these FF games.
When I think of the generic RPG Maker game, I think of Alex, age 16 and master swordsman. He meets his girlfriend, a cute spunky healer princess who banters with him all day long. There's also a beefy un-magical guy and a black mage. The sleepyhead hero wakes up late and then his village gets destroyed. Together, they are caught up in events bigger than they ever imagined and have to save the world. The tone is mostly happy and cheerful, with lots of casual humorous dialogue, and anime style face sets.
The classic FFs, being FF4 and FF6 for the west, never had all this stuff. For the most part, these FF games had a serious and somber tone, the characters didn't have a whole lot of chitchat between them, and they didn't have an anime style look. A lot of other RPG cliches and tropes aren't even found in these FF games.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I think it's just that Final Fantasy, being the best-known JRPG franchise in the west, is everyone's first go-to for "what is a JRPG"
That, and the fangames are probably more memorable at first glance than the sea of generic titles that is the rest of the 90%
That, and the fangames are probably more memorable at first glance than the sea of generic titles that is the rest of the 90%
TheNecromancer
3160
author=kentonaNo, I'm still cool. Look.
old.
author=SoozNo, but fair points. I feel like I have a pretty good sense of game design and I notice every little thing. A sprite facing the wrong way, or an image that doesn't line up, and it really turns me off. I have a hard time looking past little issues like that and seeing the fun inside. It's hard for me to just enjoy the ride because I'm analyzing every little detail. It's like a curse for becoming a game dev, you start to notice things you probably wouldn't have before. "That move route command was sloppy"
The gist of what I'm trying to say is, "I work for McDonalds."
Part of it too, is that I don't like wasting my time any more. When I was young I didn't care, but now I'm very picky about what games I play.
Final Fantasy 1 was the first RPG I remember ever playing, and it would be the series with the most games I've played. It's like referencing McDonalds, there's lots of fast food restaurants out there but everybody knows MickyD's.
author=SgtMettoolSo basically I'm part of the problem and I didn't even know it? haha
It basically says that elitist gamer culture ruined video games.
Granted, this piece was written five years ago and this very culture that held so much sway in the industry has since been blown wide open and continues to be slowly dis-empowered as we speak.
author=Link_2112
Interesting article. I can't say I fully grasp everything said in it though haha My low-brow mind kind of glossed over most of what was said because of the words used. Me Hulk, me no understand fancy word play.
It basically says that elitist gamer culture ruined video games.
Granted, this piece was written five years ago and this very culture that held so much sway in the industry has since been blown wide open and continues to be slowly dis-empowered as we speak.
psy_wombats
13315
author=Link_2112
Part of it too, is that I don't like wasting my time any more. When I was young I didn't care, but now I'm very picky about what games I play.
This is a big part of it. I (and a lot of people here) got into RM young because there's a low barrier to entry. But also young teenagers/kids are very undiscriminating consumers, so all those junky RM games we were making/playing back then didn't seem so bad and it was the norm, or I guess normal enough that I'm confident enough to call that 90% 'crap' rather than 'average' haha. I think is referred to now in the RMN submission rules as "spastic noob submissions."
(note I think this also applies to some grind-heavy early games every one played as kids that haven't aged well)
turkeyDawg
195
Yanno, for all the talk of "taste makers", I'd say that, even for the time this was written, that field has become very decentralized*. People on the 'net are hanging out in their own cliques and bubbles. Personally, I don't know that many people who champion AAA games above all else.
Especially if we're going to start snarling about HARDCORE ELITISTS, b/c honestly I thought by this point the stereotypical HARDCORE GAMER actively hates the CASUAL AAA INDUSTRY outside of a select few competitive titles.
But maybe that's just limited to the few places I hang around lol
*for regular people. Obviously for publishers all they care about are the magazine reviews
Especially if we're going to start snarling about HARDCORE ELITISTS, b/c honestly I thought by this point the stereotypical HARDCORE GAMER actively hates the CASUAL AAA INDUSTRY outside of a select few competitive titles.
But maybe that's just limited to the few places I hang around lol
*for regular people. Obviously for publishers all they care about are the magazine reviews
Darken
3952
In the RM archival and historian process I've been working on lately I've started to dwell on the "eras" and the major trends that influenced the RM scene. I find that while it's made by a bunch of teenagers high off the the Squaresoft ps1 era, it's actually very complex to trace the influences when you really dive in. Because:
This is actually very true... to an extent. In the early days and nothing but RTP to work off of, a lot of games did ooze of this sort of newgrounds/early2000webcomic style of prose and amatuerness and still did throughout the years. Though when games started using RIPs heavily and interchangeably, then the Final Fantasy elements start showing up in certain aspects. For instance, Kindred Saga, Fatal Limits, and even A Blurred Line, very much swiped the DNA strands from FF7. And would often get the criticism as such. But then like, yeah someone who loves FF4 is obviously going to make a different game than an FF7 fanatic so there's a lot to dispute over just "Final Fantasy" as a catchall trope to begin with. The 3 FF7 inspired games I mentioned weren't even that common of a style but helped sow the ambitiousness that the games started striving for.
That' not even going into how the dialogue differs from a standard Squaresoft writer -> Ted Woosley translation type deal where the only way it gets replicated is through subconsciousness. Most RM game writing choices always felt like they were implemented in a way that "feels" like it fits an RPG (constant use of ellipsis and very emotionally driven dialogue sometimes internal in a very anime way). What blew my mind about game like Love and War was that the writing was so personalized that I almost had an averse reaction to it. Like it didn't "feel" like rpg dialogue, but the writing turned out to be good anyway because there was definitely an outside of RPG writing background that the author came in with.
There's a certain set of games that actually arguably become better than the RPGs they were trying to replicate at times. It mostly comes down to having a personal slant or soul to it based on the author. Since RM games are generally solo projects, you kind of get into the auteurism of really seeing the personal traits of the author reflected within the game... for better or worse. Tell me Phlymortis and its author isn't at least memorable in how best to describe the crazy personalities in the past.
The Legion Saga series is also an intriguing case. Not just because it's a Suikoden ripoff like everyone has said before. But the context of how it was treated as a "series" almost an official line of games (getting its own fanart, fanfics, even fangames, and the main website being a sort of story wiki). Not only was the RM community emulating RPGs but also the context of which RPGs were released in. I'm also referring to the general idea of 14 year olds branding themselves as studios or productions as if to say they're going to release the NEXT BIG THING.
This interests me a lot because, everyone from GW knows exactly what you're talking about. But it's hard to pinpoint what really makes GW era game that would be understandable to someone outside of it. Like ok sure, mapping that far exceeds (some argue pointlessly) the SNES games the chipsets were based off of, but then past that the gameplay and writing is harder to categorize because all I really remember is a bigger focus on features and minigames. But simply being released in GW during 2005-2007 is not enough to even approach what you're talking about. I find it very interesting.
But then on the tail end, you also have games like Dragon Fantasy and Hero's Realm which took a lot from the DQ line of games. Oddly enough that influence felt like it came pretty late cause that's a completely different type of JRPG but at the same time it's kind of what RM2K/RM95 was meant for in the first place. These first person default battle systems that people desperately tried to work around like battle animations being sideviews of the charsets fading into the screen etc. It becomes a little full circle almost.
In my vague memory of VX coming out I remember a trend of dungeon crawler games that felt like Etrian Oddessey or Persona where the raw dungeon to battle design was emphasized a lot more. I mainly blame Craze and ChaosProductions for instigating this, but the impact might only be felt within the RMN community. Then games like Yume Nikki, OFF, Space Funeral, that just becomes a whole other genre of RM games that reached audiences outside our bubble. Because I imagine some people find out they're made in something called "RPGMaker" and they find out games like Laxius Power and A Blurred Line on the wikipedia page. But that's as far as exposure as it'll ever get. Obviously the article is trying to remedy that, but it's really hard to explain why an RM game made under most of the intentions of the engine is worth someone's time.
---
Other than my point being: RM Games and their influences can get pretty nuanced (as they almost cause their own trends within themselves). My perspective on a lot of the common RM games have shifted from "This amateur gamemaker took himself way too seriously" to "Oh that's interesting how a 14 year old in 2002 utilized these elements in x and y way". RM games have become an interesting ecosystem to study because it's kind of isolated from a lot of other communities at the time, that makes it interesting to evaluate. People always complained about the phrase "good for an RM game" but I think it's also in reaction to realizing RM became its own little "micro-medium" where relative innovations can be made.
But yeah I'd like to write up a more detailed breakdown about this and provide more examples to better clarify a lot of this stuff. But it's how I ultimately feel about the state of RM games and how they're viewed.
author=Dyluck
When I think of the generic RPG Maker game, I think of Alex, age 16 and master swordsman. He meets his girlfriend, a cute spunky healer princess who banters with him all day long. There's also a beefy un-magical guy and a black mage. The sleepyhead hero wakes up late and then his village gets destroyed. Together, they are caught up in events bigger than they ever imagined and have to save the world. The tone is mostly happy and cheerful, with lots of casual humorous dialogue, and anime style face sets.
The classic FFs, being FF4 and FF6 for the west, never had all this stuff. For the most part, these FF games had a serious and somber tone, the characters didn't have a whole lot of chitchat between them, and they didn't have an anime style look. A lot of other RPG cliches and tropes aren't even found in these FF games.
This is actually very true... to an extent. In the early days and nothing but RTP to work off of, a lot of games did ooze of this sort of newgrounds/early2000webcomic style of prose and amatuerness and still did throughout the years. Though when games started using RIPs heavily and interchangeably, then the Final Fantasy elements start showing up in certain aspects. For instance, Kindred Saga, Fatal Limits, and even A Blurred Line, very much swiped the DNA strands from FF7. And would often get the criticism as such. But then like, yeah someone who loves FF4 is obviously going to make a different game than an FF7 fanatic so there's a lot to dispute over just "Final Fantasy" as a catchall trope to begin with. The 3 FF7 inspired games I mentioned weren't even that common of a style but helped sow the ambitiousness that the games started striving for.
That' not even going into how the dialogue differs from a standard Squaresoft writer -> Ted Woosley translation type deal where the only way it gets replicated is through subconsciousness. Most RM game writing choices always felt like they were implemented in a way that "feels" like it fits an RPG (constant use of ellipsis and very emotionally driven dialogue sometimes internal in a very anime way). What blew my mind about game like Love and War was that the writing was so personalized that I almost had an averse reaction to it. Like it didn't "feel" like rpg dialogue, but the writing turned out to be good anyway because there was definitely an outside of RPG writing background that the author came in with.
There's a certain set of games that actually arguably become better than the RPGs they were trying to replicate at times. It mostly comes down to having a personal slant or soul to it based on the author. Since RM games are generally solo projects, you kind of get into the auteurism of really seeing the personal traits of the author reflected within the game... for better or worse. Tell me Phlymortis and its author isn't at least memorable in how best to describe the crazy personalities in the past.
The Legion Saga series is also an intriguing case. Not just because it's a Suikoden ripoff like everyone has said before. But the context of how it was treated as a "series" almost an official line of games (getting its own fanart, fanfics, even fangames, and the main website being a sort of story wiki). Not only was the RM community emulating RPGs but also the context of which RPGs were released in. I'm also referring to the general idea of 14 year olds branding themselves as studios or productions as if to say they're going to release the NEXT BIG THING.
author=Craze
i find it funny that starless umbra is included as it's such a collection of GW's own silly tropes and requirements, the type that spawned #shmup... but alas.
This interests me a lot because, everyone from GW knows exactly what you're talking about. But it's hard to pinpoint what really makes GW era game that would be understandable to someone outside of it. Like ok sure, mapping that far exceeds (some argue pointlessly) the SNES games the chipsets were based off of, but then past that the gameplay and writing is harder to categorize because all I really remember is a bigger focus on features and minigames. But simply being released in GW during 2005-2007 is not enough to even approach what you're talking about. I find it very interesting.
But then on the tail end, you also have games like Dragon Fantasy and Hero's Realm which took a lot from the DQ line of games. Oddly enough that influence felt like it came pretty late cause that's a completely different type of JRPG but at the same time it's kind of what RM2K/RM95 was meant for in the first place. These first person default battle systems that people desperately tried to work around like battle animations being sideviews of the charsets fading into the screen etc. It becomes a little full circle almost.
In my vague memory of VX coming out I remember a trend of dungeon crawler games that felt like Etrian Oddessey or Persona where the raw dungeon to battle design was emphasized a lot more. I mainly blame Craze and ChaosProductions for instigating this, but the impact might only be felt within the RMN community. Then games like Yume Nikki, OFF, Space Funeral, that just becomes a whole other genre of RM games that reached audiences outside our bubble. Because I imagine some people find out they're made in something called "RPGMaker" and they find out games like Laxius Power and A Blurred Line on the wikipedia page. But that's as far as exposure as it'll ever get. Obviously the article is trying to remedy that, but it's really hard to explain why an RM game made under most of the intentions of the engine is worth someone's time.
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Other than my point being: RM Games and their influences can get pretty nuanced (as they almost cause their own trends within themselves). My perspective on a lot of the common RM games have shifted from "This amateur gamemaker took himself way too seriously" to "Oh that's interesting how a 14 year old in 2002 utilized these elements in x and y way". RM games have become an interesting ecosystem to study because it's kind of isolated from a lot of other communities at the time, that makes it interesting to evaluate. People always complained about the phrase "good for an RM game" but I think it's also in reaction to realizing RM became its own little "micro-medium" where relative innovations can be made.
But yeah I'd like to write up a more detailed breakdown about this and provide more examples to better clarify a lot of this stuff. But it's how I ultimately feel about the state of RM games and how they're viewed.
AubreyTheBard
1801
Why do I feel like I've read not only that article, but this thread before? -.-a
Good stuff tho.
Good stuff tho.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=AubreyTheBard
Why do I feel like I've read not only that article, but this thread before? -.-a
Good stuff tho.
Such is the way of thinkpieces
bicfarmer
3601
author=Mark
RPG Maker games are among the most original, clever and powerful I have played.
Why else y'all think I'm digging this site digit by digit looking for games instead of playing some AAA pvp game on steam? Well it's actually because my crappy laptop dont meet the minimum specifications. But that quote above is the reason I'm here instead of on yoyogames' sandbox.
I see RMN as a public library, and each game is a book. When I pull a book from the shelf (download a game), I got little to no idea what kinda game I'll be getting. It's like opening a lootbox, I could get some babby's first RTP gam, or an obscure 20 hour extensive RPG. Well I do use the game page and images to weed out games that don't meet my mandatory preferences, but still. I don't know why so few ppl on this site dont play the thousands of games on here, it's a goldmine. And there's other 'libraries' all across the internet, like RMW, ichio, gamejolt, and some foreign language ones too I've heard. It's too bad a bunch of other larger rpg maker sites burned down, but you know.
