I'm old enough to remember these terms developing. I can remember when the first Diablo came out and called itself an 'ARPG'. There was some controversy over this term and simply the use of the term RPG. As video games developed, there was some prestige around the 'RPG' label. By the late 90s, you were looking at a lot of well loved and top games using the term. Gold Box Games, Bard's Tale, Ultima, JRPGs like Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, etc.
Diablo is the first game that I can recall that really prominently advertised itself as an ARPG. They did this of course because it wasn't really as deep as the rest of them. There weren't a lot of 'choices' to be made in this game. You set up your character and ran through the dungeon. They wanted to use the 'RPG' label because it was well regarded at the time and helped move units. It was a lot like calling an RV a sports car because sports cars have wheels, doors, can drive on the road. ARPGs had RPG mechanics, in that there were things like stats and you could choose abilities/spells on level up. But they really weren't RPGs.
Around that time in PC Gamer there was a great column about what made an RPG an RPG and it was clear that games like Diablo weren't it, the key from that was an RPG had players making meaningful choices that had a lasting impact on the game world. Whether you threw fireballs or lightning bolts wasn't exactly a meaningful choice that had impact on the game world.
When it came to JPRGs vs RPGs, the difference was always fairly clear. RPGs were of the D&D variety. While they featured magic, the system itself was somewhat grounded in reality. JRPGs had a distinct style. Big numbers, wild combos, certain aesthetics, etc. To me the JRPG label makes sense, because it is a different style of game. I would note that JRPGs though really didn't fit the definition of RPG for the most part, a lot of 'RPGs' didn't because there was very little decision making. They were quest style games where you had a party that levelled up, but you weren't making many decisions in the game that had much an impact.
I think the labels are absolutely important for distinguishing the type of game it is. People want to know what they're getting into when they play it. If I'm expecting Baldur's gate and get Diablo, I'm probably going to be a bit disappointed.
How would star wars even work in a total war game?
I can see the hero characters like jedi and such fit with how they work in the WarHammer games. Things like tanks and walkers filling the space of single and low unit count monster troops.
But would regular troopers be standing in lines of 50? I suppose it’s not a stretch of the imagination to think they could make smaller infantry units, but I have always associated the total war games with dragging out the lines of my spears and flanking cavalry rather than flicking small teams of shooters into cover positions
The Battles of Naboo and Geonosis basically play out as line battles with massive groups marching in formations at each other, not to mention most of the Tartakovsky clone wars, so I could see CA approaching it like Empire Total War with hover tanks.
Honestly, I doubt whether CA are even willing to adapt their formula enough to actually have small teams of shooters flicking into cover positions.
While I agree with the general sentiment, Gothic 1 is basically unplayable on modern hardware. It outright crashes, and a generation of players misses out on one of the best/most pivotal western cRPGs in history.
Not to mention, graphics cards and even the worst potato are so much more powerful than our gaming rigs in 2001 that we can afford more than 32 MB of video memory for textures that don’t look like blurry smears, or perhaps, characters with actual fingers.
Both could be fixed by mods/patches - even official ones. You don’t need a remake.
Old games, just like old movies, are only relevant and great as products of their time. Gothic is dated as hell in many regards - which is perfectly ok - so a remake would either be just a glorified texture pack or wouldn’t be true to the original.
Make it playable, add new textures, higher resolution, etc. where possible, but don’t change the actual game.
Some games are so borked from a technical perspective they'd need a remake to work right, like Oblivion. That game is so technically bottlenecked by itself that even on modern hardware I fucking stutter, and I've trawled so many performance mods with fellow players in the comments just having to come to terms with the fact that no mod can fix the inherently poor optimization on an engine level.
Remakes can definitely be warranted in certain cases. Sometimes it's easier to just start over clean than try to untangle an existing mess and Frankenstein it back together. Sometimes making vast changes can produce an alternative reality of a game to be enjoyed by more or a different audience, like the Resident Evil Remakes, which are fucking excellent, or the FF7 remake, which, while contentious, is mostly only so because of purists, who do still have the original they can play (and I do believe companies should always keep the original around)
Games that would appreciate an update never receive one and games that wouldn’t receive several. That is to say, give me ps1/ps2 armored core remakes without terrible controls already. They would surely be profitable now.
I mostly agree. Games of all types can co-exist and knowing this doesn't ruin enjoyment of the games that I do play.
Like Skyrim modding for example, there's so many mods that display fanservice, nudity and even intercourse. Does that ruin the game for me? Not at all. In fact, I still play it despite that knowledge. I simply choose not to use mods that I don't want to use.
Or a certain magicky wizarding game, that game can exist too without wishing death on people who want to play it. Doesn't mean I have to play it, nor does it ruin gaming for me.
Instead, the logical thing to do would be to pass on this game and find another. I fully understand that BG3 is one of the games of our lifetime, but it's not the game for me. (Of which there are many)
As someone who grew up watching my father crawl through dungeons (I think he enjoyed IWD more than BG), it's great to see Baldur's Gate at the forefront. Hopefully more of my childhood favourite RPGs will come back. I'd love to see Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights brought back.
The wizarding game upsets me. I grew up with that series and it is literally a game I would have loved to play as a kid, but I don't want to support the TERF. Low-key hoping it comes to ps+ so I can get it without giving them money.
The fuss seems to be mostly just the Japanese developers getting butthurt that people in the west got bored of their simplistic combat systems and random encounters, and came up with a term to differentiate the games that, at the time were entirely developed in Japan, that fit this style.
It’s not the Japanese part that made them disliked more. It was the style of gameplay they offered. If you played one, you played them all, basically. They are barely RPGs, taking a more linear, choiceless approach to not only character creation, but dialogue options if even offered, are generally “yes/no” responses to questions that don’t have any real impact.
It took the big developers of these games way too long to actually listen to fans’ very valid criticisms and make changes to these systems, and they still very much keep so many more traditions that the term endures.
I personally am not one for nudity in my games but BG3 is literally the dumbest hill to die on. If anyone actually is, I didn't see any examples. Reason being, the first thing that happens when you start the game is that it asks if you want to turn it off.
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