Maybe because those terms are confusing. Is dark souls an arpg or a jrpg? Or both? I know that jrpg is a specific genre of Japanese games, but it’s still confusing. Are final fantasy games jrpgs? Kingdom hearts? Xenoblade?
It’s just easier to say RPG and not enter in a pedantic war with the community.
I’m just saying thank the gods for Screenshots, ‘Let’s Players’. because labeling everything as just “RPG” is the same as just labeling every type of meat as just “Meat” and graphics cards as just “Graphics Card” in closed packaging with only the companies names to differentiate.
I like specifications on the products I might be buying.
I agree, honestly. I also like specifications, but I don’t like the game to be inaccurately specified. I feel that it’s better if an umbrella term is used in the title instead of a more specific fake one, and then a short description describes how the game is played or what kind of experience I should expect in several words, instead of a single term. That, alongside screenshots, let’s plays, and all sort of resources are plenty help to decide if I should buy a game or not.
RPG is used for games where you take the role of a character, and it should somewhat tell the story of either the character or the world around it. That alone differentiates some games from others like rocket league or fifa, where there’s no story, you don’t take the role of nobody that matters, what matters is the gameplay.
Hack&slash was a term used for games where you killed tons of monsters with weapons, and then Diablo started using the ARPG term to say that besides killing tons of monsters, you also get to enjoy a story in a particular ambiance. Dark Souls games also fit the description where it’s more about the action than reading, but feel like a completely different genre, right? no isometric, itemisation is vastly different, the gameplay loop is completely different… This is why just reading ARPG means nothing to me nowadays, I have to dig into the description anyway.
Another example, is “Ys origins” an ARPG or a JRPG? both? It has fast paced combat where you kill tons of mobs and a story, but it has a very japanese style, however, JRPGs are being known for having to manage a party and usually turn based combat, sooo? idk, a 3 line paragraph and 3 5 second clips would be much better than just a term for me.
Sorry for the late response btw, I just forgot lol.
I always referred to Diablo as an isometric RPG. At the end of the day, language is weird, and as long as we’re able to clearly get our point across to another person and have them understand, I think that’s all that matters. But it’s fun to think about
Almost as annoying is DS1, 3 and Elden Ring booting you to the main menu just cuz you got disconnected. But at least they can still be played, it’s just annoying to be pulled out of the game for that when it’s mostly just for bloodstains, messages and being invaded.
I actually didn’t encounter anyone saying Dark Souls and like games being an ARPG. Dark Souls like games are usually called Souls like. The problem is, that the term RPG and Action are not a distinct genres. This is a long standing issue in gaming, long before 2000s even. When I was a teenager, some people called Zelda an RPG, others said Action RPG, some people (me included) said its an Action Adventure. Genres and terms that are vague and broad will always clash with others. Don’t let me begin what Secret of Mana (SNES) actually is.
Look at Racing games. There are Mario Kart and Gran Turismo, two very different kind of racing games and both still are. What about motorcycle racing or classic racing games like Rock’n Roll Racing (someone remember? this is what Blizzard did before they became Blizzard!).
OK, so you see it’s a mess of terms. Diablo isn’t a new game, it evolved from previous games that were similar and mixed in from other genres. How do you classify such a game in an already existing set of genre terms? It’s kind of an Action RPG that existed before, so its natural to put it into such a category. Look at all those RPG games, they are all RPG but still vastly different. BTW I never heard of bullet heaven, but that sounds really funny. It sounds like an anti name for jokes. And being the one with the bullets might even fit into the category funny and fitting name.
If have a new name for Diable like games, it will clash with other genres again. You put generic terms like Loot or Build into it and so on. What if a Diablo like game isn’t that grindy? Or does not focus much on Loot. We have been through this with various other genres. Therefore I would not even try to invent something and not take genres too seriously. It’s a mess. You can’t getting it right by adding more mess to it.
Exactly. Nowadays almost any game becomes and RPG. The terms are fluid. BTW I wouldn’t myself call Dark Souls anything like a Metroidvania, because my personal understanding is that the focus of Dark Souls is not quite on the backtracking and learning new abilities. I mean our discussion here shows again why game genres aren’t useful anymore.
We nowadays use the tagging system, which allows us to give any number of “genres” and combine them individually for each game. Even though we don’t agree on all terms, it’s still better having a single genre like ARPG associated with a game.
I actually didn’t encounter anyone saying Dark Souls and like games being an ARPG. Dark Souls like games are usually called Souls like.
That is because everyone uses the term “Souls-like”. But if that term isn’t used, then they are all labeled as “Action Role-Playing Games”:
A Soulslike (also spelled Souls-like) is a subgenre of action role-playing games known for high levels of difficulty and emphasis on environmental storytelling, typically in a dark fantasy setting. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulslike
If Zelda is an RPG then so is Halo. Master Chief and Link both have exactly the same number of thoughts in their heads. I would argue Halo ODST is more of an RPG than any Zelda game.
The new ARM-based macs are actually very powerful, but as another commenter mentioned, the ARM architecture would normally be a bad fit for gaming as not much runs on it.
That said, there are ways around it.
I’m personally gaming on an M2 Macbook Pro, and am able to play almost my full Steam library of Windows games using a tool called Whisky
Whisky uses Wine (a longstanding Windows emulator commonly used on Linux) along with other toolkits to translate DirectX graphics instructions into Mac-native ‘Metal’ graphics instructions. There is a performance hit in doing this, but the end result is actually pretty good.
The result you get will depend on your hardware. I’m personally running a high-end M2 Max configuration and get 50 FPS on high settings in Deep Rock Galactic (a first-person shoooter game) but lower configurations would be okay for casual gaming.
There is another product that does the same thing as Whisky called Crossover. It is paid (unlike Whisky which is free) but is otherwise similar. You can watch this YouTube video on Crossover to get some idea on how it works, how to set it up, and the performance you might expect.
As for Minecraft, I personally play that too, and it actually runs natively on the new Apple Silicon macs anyway and doesn’t need anything special :)
Very compelling. I’m guessing Steam’s Proton work doesn’t do much if anything for Mac? I’m familiar with gaming on Linux, so I’m not afraid to get technical to get it all working, I’m just trying to get a feel for viability… It sounds like Sims 4 is the only thing up in the air, lol.
I need to find someone with a Mac willing to let me try it… 😂
I’ve been gaming on Linux for a loooong time, lol. I follow Proton’s progress pretty closely since the beginning as it pertains to the Linux space, I just wasn’t sure if it was considered a “solution” in the MacOS world or if it requires some finagling…
Thanks for the insight! I’ll have to do a liiiittle more research, but I’m feeling more comfortable about it now.
Just be sure to research your must-have titles on ProtonDB. It’ll tell you pretty much everything you need to know if there’s any tinkering to be done for your titles… And don’t make the same mistake I did! 😂
I upgraded from an AMD Radeon RX580 to an Intel ARC A750… Works perfect, except the specific setup of Linux + Intel ARC can’t play Halo Infinite… It worked fine (if subpar performance) on the RX580, but there’s some software issues between Vulkan and Intel that means certain DX12 games that make a very particular graphics call will NOT work with an Intel GPU… Otherwise I love it!
Ooh, this looks pretty nice. I’ll have to give Whisky a try just to see how games can run on my M1 Mac Mini. I have it set up as a TV PC and I usually just connect a Linux PC or Steam Deck to game on the TV. If I could run Windows games on it that’d be great.
It’s the same with “hack and slash”. Originally also referred to games like Diablo, but now we all use it to refer to stuff like DMC, pre-2018 God of War, Bayonetta, etc.
If you’re still looking for folk to playtest your game, I’d be down to give it a go! I’ve not done that kinda stuff before, but I have played an unhealthy amount of games, including the Stanley Parable. c:
LTT just did a “console tier list” video with a bit on what went wrong with the Saturn.
I think one of the biggest problems was how Sega decided to split their market between the Saturn and the 32X. They should’ve focused their efforts on making one good console & games catalog instead of two mediocre ones.
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