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Saturday, August 23rd, 2003
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4:43a - Another great observation from the slashdot crowd...
Neither Japanese (Final Fantasy) nor Western (Baldur's Gate) RPGs are true RPGs. In a true RPG, you could generate a character, write your own background, description, etc, and the plot of the game would integrate and work with the character. Unfortunately, we don't have any AIs capable of doing this.
Japanese and Western RPGs have taken different routes, and neither is inherently better or worse. In Icewind Dale, I loved writing really long, descriptive histories for the characters. The thing that annoyed me was that, in the end, these histories meant bugger all throughout the game. Even if I made my character a morose, introspective type, the game would still popup conversation options totally counter to the characters personality. Even though my little fighter was raised by orcs from childhood, he is still forced to react to an encounter with orcs the same way any other character would.
In the opposite way, Japanese-style RPGs weave the character's background into the story very tightly. Because they do this, they limit the gamers choice. It means in Final Fantasy VI, I can't make the protagonist a 6-foot, muscled black guy. I'm stuck with Terra. On the other hand, it means that at all times, Terra acts like Terra, reacts in ways Terra would, and is generally consistent with her own character.
Consider Baldur's Gate; All your NPCs were pre-generated, your own character had much of his background specified, and, as a result, the story of the Baldur's Gate series can be more tightly woven around the protagonist.
Until someone in AI solves the natural language problem, we're going to be stuck with this tradeoff.
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