I hate the formulaic nature of RPGs :(

[GummySnake]

Who says I havent finished a lot of books though??? Really, I used to read a lot, but now I have have so little time to do anything. I only play games, or read on weekends, but I find it easier to turn the Xbox On (Using the controller), than to go to my bookshelf and find the book I'm reading.

[Cyllya]

at least having an older adviser of sorts on the team would help, even if the main hero and heroine are basically just kids (perhaps with a special power, necessitating that they be the ones to do it).

As if they don't tend to have an older adviser of sorts?

I go through books so fast it sometimes gets annoying when I have to wait for another book in a series to be released.

A Song of Ice and Fire is killing me!

Who writes the stories for videogames anyways? maybe they should make some book into a game. That'd be fun to see.

Eww. Books and video games are two very different media of storytelling. You can't just plop the story into one if it was built for other, especially going book->JRPG. In order to facilitate the gameplay, a JRPG's plot requires that you spend lots of time out in the wilderness or some dungeon beating the snot out of a buttload of wild animals or monsters or something. Most book plots don't have that, since they had the freedom to do otherwise. Even most fantasy adventure stories don't. Remember how ToA gets a lot of criticism for having you go around to various towns to talk to people, often with little to no fighting between? Accurately adapted book plots would have the same problem but way worse, and inaccurately adapted book plot defeat the purpose of adapting a book in the first place.

But this hasn't stopped them from making books into games. For example...

Realistically, the experienced will lead and tell the kids to go home.

Really? What if the kids are the most experienced? Take ToP, where Cless has trained as a swordsman for years, Mint has trained in houjutsu, and Klarth is... a school teacher. And he's never seen Dhaos in person unlike them. Well, he did end up being the party leader due to his knowledge about the 4202 world, Spirits, magic, etc, but would it really have been realistic for him to say, "Okay, Cless and Mint, stay here in Euclid where it's safe while I go save the world by myself!"?

Or what if the experienced one tries lead and tell the kids to go home, but the kids told him to go screw himself, like in ToS? He griped about it to the second oldest/experienced character, who told him the same thing. Which was probably really good for the group, because you remember what he's most experienced at, right? Spineless servitude, in case you forgot. Personality has a lot to do with leadership ability, so despite his age and combat ability, Kratos has the leadership skills of a retarded lemming. Colette was the one with official command since she was the Chosen One, and she opted to leave decision-making to someone else because she doesn't have the necessary self-confidence, but would it have been realistic for her to pick Kratos? The guy she knows nothing about except his name, the fact he's good at whacking things with sharp objects, and the fact that he's asking for money to protect her while she saves the world? The guy the other party members don't listen to? Raine's not much better because Lloyd don't listen to her either, and when the two of them tell him something different, Genis listens Lloyd. Same for Colette herself, which makes a lot of sense given her backstory ("Because I was the Chosen, I was always alone in the village. Until Lloyd came to school, no one would be my friend. Because I was the creature known as the Chosen... I wasn't even a human being.") And by the time other people who could be half-decent leaders join the party, Lloyd is the most experienced.

If they'd put anyone but Lloyd in charge (which would require Lloyd being dead or something), the plot would have ended with Colette's death at the first Tower of Salvation visit.

And with most of the other games, aren't the older characters usually in charge, like in TOP? Well, not Fog for obvious reasons. Not Elmira, because that would have had the group trying to commit genocide.

I think ToA was the only one that bothered me in respect to kids and leadership. The sixteen-year-old sergeant whom both players and other characters mistake for being older was okay. The two-year-old 14-looking puppet leader of a religious organization was okay. The thirteen-year-old level 5 body guard for the fon master was just silly. A sixteen-year-old with the appearance of a ten-year-old and the mannerisms, maturity, and speaking style of a three-year-old because the devs were trying to use feral dwarfism (or something) to appeal to anyone with a lolita complex as a god general and former fon master body guard is sillier. Luke's involvement in the plot was reasonable until an exchange at the end that went something like, "What should we do now, Luke?" "Huh, why are you asking me?" "Well, you're the leader, aren't you?"

[Kajitani-Eizan]

jade's incompetence at being a mentor killed me throughout the game. he was hilarious, sure, but a total moron for all his supposed genius.

luke: what was that? were you about to tell me something really, really important?
jade: oh, nothing.
luke: no, seriously, that sounded like i needed to know it. maybe it could avert a disaster, who knows?
jade: oh, nothing.
luke: i'm gonna go chat in private with master van now. you don't have a problem with that now, do you?
jade: oh, nothing. ... wait, what? i wasn't paying attention again. luke? ... hello?

oh yeah, and arietta is actually vaguely okay, as i assume they promoted her more for her unique abilities than the usual reasons for promotion. anise, on the other hand...

[NekoGnash]

Why stop at RPGs?

MANY other games share the same generic formulas as others.  Not to mention: 

MMORPGs [level grind-fests]

"Button masher" fighting games [self explanatory]

Action games/FPSes/3rd person shooters etc [blow/kill stuff/people things throw in a cutscene or two to advance some semblance of a "story"]

Racing games [press a button, car goes "vroom"]

Why must everyone insist on being an "uber-critic" and stop caring about whatever makes a game FUN in the first place?

Perhaps it's something they invented some time ago...you know...they this thing  they call "growing up."

[Olimpior]

I agree with wanting new stories and/or different things as to not disappoint fans/players and giving us things to see, but it's a pain to come up with those. That makes games like Valkyrie Profile, Tales of Phantasia, & Chrono Trigger some of my favorites because of the new and original things in them(gameplay, story, and characters for example), which we don't get to see often. I just learn to love games from good series, like the FFs, DQs, and the Tales of games of course(not that pirates online one) and their spin offs.

[gyozilla]

.........If you guys want games made from books, go play the Discworlds on PS1.

MANY other games share the same generic formulas as others.

Why must everyone insist on being an "uber-critic" and stop caring about whatever makes a game FUN in the first place?

I've been saying that I don't even think being an uber-critic / bashing its generic formulas even matters. Tales either seems pretty comfortable where it is with its stories or is too lazy to do anything else. It likes its niche unless tons of people convince them it no longer works. They tweak the tone/style a bit every time, but the story/message are fairly on-point. There's almost always a moral at the end; Tales games are like allegories. That's why it's kinda crazy to expect something way off course; they seem to like how they do things. Even if they don't, they've been sticking to their guns.

Books and video games are two very different media of storytelling.

Not that I don't support the sentiment, but if that's the case, then I consider books and film to be different in that same way too; that ain't gonna stop them from facilitating more active scenes and downplaying long dialogues. A film needs people doing things as much as a game needs actual gameplay. The distinction is we're probably more forgiving of a film than a game adaptation, 'cause we're so used to film adapts and justifying them with "they can stand alone as separate entities" or "it was a nice take on the book". Sure, there's always fans crying foul, but a lot of fans usually think a film was a good adapt, not "well that was a complete waste of time adapting it" (unless it truly sucked). If inaccurate game adapts defeat the purpose, how bad have films been? And people are more or less ok with that? You can almost always make it "work", the issue is whether the result is to one's liking, right? The nature of "adaptation" is arguably less about accuracy (sticking to the plot to a T) and more about the spirit of the plot. If that kind of necessary transformation isn't understood when you change mediums, it's not really adaptation at all.

Really? What if the kids are the most experienced?

How many Tales truly had that? I'm talking experienced as in at the moment they lead/join, they more or less know what they're doing, what they're getting into, the ways of the world, the political atmosphere, REALLY understanding the consequences of one's actions, etcetc, instead of just how to handle yourself/protect others and the cahones to power through come what may. The fact that the kids ignore warnings and tell the experienced to go screw themselves even when they can tell life or death situations are unfolding means they don't really understand the seriousness of it all. And they certainly weren't experienced then. For argument's sake, if they really understood what they were doing at all, the "responsible" thing to do when you know you're not experienced enough is to back off. The fact that Genis had to see Marble meant he didn't understand the consequences of his actions, what would happen to Iselia if he was seen. And Lloyd helping him out but not knowing they were still being watched means inexperience.

Your arguments for Lloyd leading and against others leading sorta revolve around assuming Lloyd being a member/leader a done deal. Kratos being a lemming is fully a thing of hindsight. Nobody knew that, and like you said, Colette didn't know him (but she sure as hell would've followed Kratos' inept lead if told to). Raine being a bad leader 'cause Lloyd doesn't listen to her, Genis listening to Lloyd, all based around Lloyd being integral to the party. If Lloyd stayed behind in the first place knowing he's not experienced enough, then Genis follows suit and both stay out. Ergo Raine has no problem with Lloyd. 3 birds 1 stone. And they'd still have a home if not exiled and less of a reason to track down Colette. They wouldn't be wanted for Lloyd's exsphere and him finding conviction to avenge his mom if they didn't visit Marble. Knowing how to dissuade Genis from visiting Marble (thus no massacre and exile) and finding a productive release for him would be a sign of experience. Knowing your current limits (don't think they did) is a sign of experience. And the saying is, if you really need to cheat the system, don't get caught. That's a sign of experience as well.

And with most of the other games, aren't the older characters usually in charge, like in TOP?

The elders to me are mostly back seat mentors resigning to the young's decisions. Peer pressure, group mentality, etc. Then the inexperienced screw up and the older guys are like "I knew that'd happen but didn't say crap", which is why it's unrealistic. I wouldn't be mentoring young guys in the first place when the world is on the line (tying them to a tree if need be), and if I had to, I wouldn't be holding out Stuff You Need To Know But I Didn't Tell You 'Cause You Didn't Need To Know Yet But Now You Do, Crap It's Too Late.

[Leroy]

I play video games for the gameplay. Story gets in the way.

[gyozilla]

Do you read for the words? :p

[Goshi]

I play video games for the gameplay. Story gets in the way.

Visual Novels probably aren't your cup of tea then =/

[UraRenge]

this link is required for this thread

http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

personally, it doesn't bother me.

[GummySnake]

What the Eff??? Whats the deal with this topic? I don't recall making it. I recall it being a couple of posts I made but I mean.......

[Cless Aileron]

Well, it was getting off topic in the Tales of Vesperia topic and Cless just split it apart into its own topic.