I was thinking this morning after playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 last night, that the game was a decent action game but I didn't really notice any part about the game that hardly warranted mention of the RPG genre. And then I thought further still that the game lacked something fundemental to its gameplay, something to make it a higher replay value... however pinpoint such things can be complex. So I have come here to ask what everyone thinks an exellence experience of both Action and RPG in one game truly needs. No detail too small. I will start with what I have thought of:

-Action Aspect: High level of responsive and tights controls with proper smooth animations to complement them. It sucks when I am executing a combo or a special attack and I want to stop in order to run, jump, sidestep, re-target, change attack, heal, etc., and i am just stuck in animation, when I hit a button i want a response right then and there and i want the result to be smooth in appearance.

-RPG Aspect: Super High level of stat and skill customization. When I get the final few experience points of a level I want to be excited. I want to have multiple points to spend and too many places to spend it. It should have Stat points, it should have stat modification points, it should have skill points, it should have skill modification points, and it should have them every single level. It should have stats like Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Luck, Vitality, and Constitution; stat modifications like +% to, Health Point Regeneration, Mana Point Regeneration, Physical attack, Magic attack, Hit Rate, Dodge Rate, Physical Defense, Magic Defense, Jump Power, Move Speed, Attack speed, Critical Rate, Find Item Rate. It should have many skill trees for every playable class, about 4-6 skill trees: and skill modifications of +% to any specific numerical aspect of the skill displayed.

-Action Aspect: Very animated deaths relevant to how they died. If i slam a guy across a room and he hits a wall and dies, I want him to be quick from hitting the wall to going limp to the floor; if someone is bleeding out to death they should be crawling away as they try escape their fate.

-Action Aspect: Accurate damage simulation. When I slash across someones chest i want a big gashing wound across there in the same direction, when I crater a wall with a punch it should stay there, when there are a sea of corpses around they should stay right where they are, If blood splatters on my character i want it to stain him and stay until he gets washed by water or otherwise.

-RPG Aspect: Large amount of equipment slots. Why some games only have 3 or 4 equipment slots? I have no idea, if I have a mountain of armor, weapons, and accessories I want to wear them, it is my property and it is my choice what i do with them i say. Lets spruce it up to somewhere between say 20-30 slots.

-RPG Aspect: Large variety in equipable items. Random generated items, some generic items, some with Stat Mods, Skill Mods, Animation Mods, Sockets for insertable items for extra mods.

-RPG Aspect: Items Level up with repeated use. If i like my cruddy rotten toothpick i stab minotaurs with from the first 10 minutes of playing the game by golly i ought to be able to use it proficiently. Obviously leveling better items would still be more effective but a level 277 club should be able to compete with a level 1 Excalibur if i so care to put the time to do so.

-RPG Aspect: No Leveling Limit on characters, items, skills, stats. Why you might ask? Well it is a rather basic idea once you can no longer make progress towards a new level you actually remove the RPG element of the game. Everyone at one point or another would hit the level cap and then... its just an action game, nothing wrong with action games but why stop something that has been prevalent throughout the whole game up to that point? If i played 600 hours my character should be more proficient in combat then he was at 90 hours or gameplay.

What makes a good action rpg?

Bethesda.

+ Good controls.

- Stupid amounts of customization. Simple is best. Ever wonder why Diablo 2 went so far with just 4 stats and the skill trees? It's intuitive, easy to understand, and you can spend more time playing and less time worrying about stats.

= Highly animated deaths aren't a big deal. Whether an enemy lives for 2 seconds or dies instantly doesn't make the game better for me. I'd just like some deaths to reflect the means that killed them: fire, ice, etc.

= Damage simulation is meh. It's nice but I'd rather have more enemies, more levels, more fun powers, and more of a lot of other things than damage simulation.

- I prefer fewer equipment slots. It makes the game simpler to play for a novice and more challenging for someone experienced as they try to select the best gear combination.

+ Better item variety is great. I'd like to play a game once where I actually have reason to use just about everything I find.

- I prefer finding new versions of items. Leveling up items is just another statistic to grind.

- I prefer hard limits because in an action RPG (ala Diablo 2), replay-ability is huge. If you could do everything possible with one character, the game would be done after one playthrough.

Blizzard.

An elf with blonde hair, green overshirt and long pointy cap, brown boots, and a sword & shield.

Square-Enix {runs}

I think one thing that makes for a good Action RPG is the necessity of dodging. If you can just stand there and smack enemies while they hit you without a worry then it'll get boring, but if you have to dodge or mitigate pretty much every blow from the enemy then you have a much more exciting system. Examples are SMT: Devil Summoner 2 and Demon's Souls.

dodging is really bad in the tales of series, its rather better to block and hope it doesnt kill you, or run away to the farther side of the field.

I think diablo II's sucess it not credit to its simplistic stat menu, And It would have been very nice for each class to have 1 or 2 more trees to choose from in that game. More options = more freedom and unique characters. I honestly think diablo II's sucess had more to do with its exellent controls, varying levels of difficulties/rewards, no character resets (this is a positive), randomized loot system, smooth animation, and the sheer glee of flying through seas of monsters (best part of any action game really).

The game can still be simple for novices with lots of slots, Auto-equip FTW. And the more slots, the more challenge to get the best gear combonation, given a large enough pool of gear for each slot. Really though, i think they should do away with gear set/set bonuses its standardizes equipment into a simplistic heirarchy, once you hit the top equipment = done, quite lame in my book.

There needs to be randomized equipment that levels so its always evolving, progress = good. Same with Character levels, stats, and skills. The thing is you could never do everything possible with one character because of the limitless options you have; 300 points in 1 skill, why not, 10 points in every skill ok, 50 here 0 there 27 there whatever. You could have 20 characters of the same class and none of them have a similar builds.

obviously diablo created the genre yes ;)

but fallout 3 i played with no slo mo shooting, and that lead to some insanely tense moments for an rpg action wise