Absolutely loved mass effect 3 demo.
Bioware are some of the only devs who realize stats aren't what makes an RPG and RPG. Stats were first used and created for the sole reason to keep track of health and damage in paper role playing games. The role playing part was not the stats but the dungeon master and player choices part of the game.

Videogamers took the stats to mean RPG when games began to use them In the early days and that stigma has stuck.

Mass effect 2 is more RPG than final fantasy will ever be, but gamers have this FALSE understanding of what RPG originally was that they don't actually know.

Most games called rpgs like final fantasy are actually point and click adventures. There is no role playing elements to them.

So this:



Is the same as this:



This topic was actually nice, until this BS came along.

Edit: Also, I love how you use Bioware as an example for stat-less RPG's, when they're only the creators of stat heavy RPGs such as Dragon Age Origins, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire and Neverwinter Nights

Oh wait, I forgot....those are Point and Click Adventures!!!

Edit2: Thankfully, this generation has been full of amazing Point and Click Adventures then, starting with Lost Odyssey, which is amongst the best Point and Click Adventures ever created. Hey, remind me again, don't you usually talk about Lost Odyssey being one of the best RPGs of this generation whenever there's a topic about FF? 

He is right in a way though, role playing is when choice matters, in a Final Fantasy game the story etc is always the same no matter your choice. The combat the characters, the music and the story is great though. You can also make a lot of combat choices, change equipment use items etc. All of this can also be done in Devil May Cry and that game is not classified as a RPG, when it has about as much RPG elements as some of the JRPGS (not naming any specific just pointing it out). The newer school of JRPGS (not all of them) are actually hack and slash and not RPGS.

That said i love Final Fantasy and my favorite game of all time is FF7, but that doesn't change the fact that its not really an Role Playing Game. All of Biowares games are, even though the newer school is not half as much role playing as say; Baldurs Gate.

Also for the record Selnor never said Final Fantasy was bad...

I agree when it comes to the fact that in terms of pure role playing, Final Fantasy isn't the best example of it, especially since it follows a rigid structure that doesn't allow much tailoring to character development outside that of what's programmed in-game. 

That being said, in videogaming there aren't a lot of examples that allow a proper tailoring of character development as seen in a pen&paper RPG or something similar, mainly because every videogame is tailored to the choices that are created by the developer, even games such as mass effect where choices are given, those choices are only limited to the scope of what is programmed, thus creating a similar rigid structure. 

I agree that Baldur's Gate is probably one of the closer experiences to a true Role Playing game, basically because it follows a very similar structure to the pen&paper games, though, from that point of view, so does the core JRPG structural games (the original Dragon Quest games, old school JRPGs, etc.), mostly because they were created on the same set of rules, albeit with much more rigidity to their story structure. 

What I don't agree and it's a pretty inaccurate thing to say, is to equal games like Final Fantasy to point and click adventures. While in theory, you couldn't categorize a FF game as a true RPG, going so far as to put it in that former category is a pretty far-fetched thing to do, because while FF games do have some set bases from RPGs, they have nothing from the P&C Adventure games. 

And while Selnor didn't point out anything bad about FF in this thread, I've seen enough of his posts in other threads (mainly FF ones) where he goes on a spree of FF downplay, so my reply to him was based on history than on his current post.

@ lestatdark.

Yes ff has more in common with san and max hit the road than what role playing is.
Im not wrong here. Stats and level Ups do not and are not what makes a role playing game. I played enough advanced dungeons and dragons septor 2 when I was 10 years old to know what makes a great role playing game. It had nothing to do with stats at all. Stats were just a necessity to work out damage. The role playing part was the character and choices I made.

Funny, I played the same advanced D&D and many other pen&paper RPGs and I still know what makes a great RPG as well. 

And you still are wrong when you say that FF has more in common with Sam and Max than with RPGs. While I remit to my previous post and agree that stats and level ups don't make a RPG, the ability to play out as a character and to influence it does. While FF games are extremely rigid in their structure and character development, they have some parameters from D&D mechanics (which were paramount in creating the JRPG sub-genre) while on the other hand, they have no parameters whatsoever from P&C mechanics, other than P&C games have a rigid structure, but then again, all story driven games have, so that broad generalization wouldn't be effective as a categorization stick.

Mass Effect, as much choices it gives you, it still follows a rigid structure that's pre-ordained and which final outcome is already structured, so no matter your choices, you'll get one of many multiple endings, a factor that has been seen in other computerized RPGs and even RPGs (heck, even the most recent FF has multiple endings based on choices too). So by that definition alone, wouldn't you also say that games like Infamous also categorize as a RPG, given that you also have choices and you also play the part of a character that you grow to a certain outcome? 

If you want to restrict the categorization of RPGs to similar parameters as pure pen&paper RPGs, few, if any, computerized RPGs could meet those standards, because in the end, none offer you true freedom over your character development and story structure. At best, you can say that some games follow the RPG standards more closely than others, yet that will always fall into a biased comparison. For example, while you say that Mass Effect is closer to a true RPG than FF, I'd say that not even Mass Effect comes close to giving you a true RPG experience as an Elder Scrolls game gives you for example.

Tech Armour was just absurdly strong in Mass Effect 2. I was tempted to play as a Sentinel in ME3 because I thought I'd miss it too much, but on balance I think I'd prefer to keep Singularity (I was an Adept first time through). I'm glad they've nerfed it.

They're just going in a different direction. Unfortunately, the golden days of Baldur's Gate and KOTOR aren't here any more, and gamers want more action-focused experiences. I think a greater focus on action has actually worked very well for the Mass Effect franchise (whereas it practically destroyed Dragon Age)

It would definitely be nice, though, to see them go back to that formula for a couple of games now that Mass Effect is finished and Dragon Age soon will be.

Stop thinking, it sounds like it's harming you.

Charming.

How about adding something meaningful to the discussion? At least some of us actually like to think