Role-Playing

Middle-earth Online Battle Arena

HIGH Mastering Legolas' abilities to finally get that first player kill.

LOW Getting ambushed and destroyed before I knew what hit me.

WTF Gollum killed me? Gollum?!

Bad Girls

HIGH "Time to find allies... The story of my life."

LOW Coming back to Mass Effect 3 for pre-ending DLC felt more than strange.

WTF Where the hell was Aria's couch?

A Year in the Life of Horny, Magical Teenagers

HIGH The Mystery Gang mocking their own corny "Persona!" cries while plastered.

LOW Cut-and-paste dungeons.

WTF Marie's "poetry."

Adult Swim takes the innocent act of a child trying to make his NES cart work and makes it dirty... and funny.

Caution: Crude content

Home is Where the Hearth is… Right?

HIGH Hiring a steward to handle the busywork.

LOW Needing a steward to handle the busywork.

WTF The steward I hired refusing to stay on the estate!

Often Imitated, Never Duplicated

HIGH Starts off very Monster Hunter-ish.

LOW Quickly succumbs to shallow design and tedium.

WTF Who thought locking the player in ambush killboxes was good design?

Numbers Game

HIGH Mopping up a roomful of baddies with a buddy in short order makes you giddy.

LOW My low level runthrough gave me +5 Gray Hairs.

WTF Me: "Did we just murder the Ninja Turtles?"

Moe'd Down

HIGH Charming an entire group of enemies at once, turning them all into adorable bunny creatures!

LOW Do "something" do get a better ending? What does that mean?!

WTF So many bath scenes!

In the wake of the success of Obsidian's Project Eternity Kickstarter, supporters are eagerly watching the stretch goals to see what promised goodies will be put into the game. Meanwhile, I am hoping to see one thing left out: voice acting. Done correctly, voice acting can significantly improve a Japanese RPG. However, recording voices for characters diminishes a Western RPG, regardless of the reading's quality. For this reason, I feel that Western RPGs should avoid having voiced dialogue.

Extra Credits has an interesting two-part discussion about the hero's journey, a concept explored by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Thatgamecompany's Journey is the game example featured here (along with The Legend of Zelda) but this seems to be a concept exploited in all entertainment genres.