The demise and doom of RPGs

[klarence]

Destina is my favorite, it's fast paced and controls is pretty good.
Decent graphics, simple and compact story, 6 hour gameplay.
I never played a RPG game as good as Destina again.
Zenonia 3 is good but both graphic and controls are so-so.
Zenonia 2 requires a lot of grind, same problem with Zenonia 4.
FF3 is the worst RPG game I'd ever played. The plot is so stupid and the game is heavy grinding and very slow-paced.
Chaos Rings II is great except it's kind of slow and their characters are very nagging:
"Darwin?" "What?" "Nothing" "Ok, let's go on."
"Darwin?" "errr?" "Darwin." "eh."
"Darwin?" "..." "Darwin." "..."
These dialogues make nonsense other than try to make you feel the game is longer and the plot is deeper than it actually is.

[drelbs]

Originally Posted by violentv

kukuku... how many of these are actually ports? The op only brought up original ios RPGs in his lamentations. It only goes to show that ...there just aren't any original ios RPGs with well developed lore and plot.

I beta tested Undercroft - it's an iOS original, and definitely a classic Dungeon Master / Bard's Tale "Western" RPG game. It was intended as the first of a series, but didn't do well enough to warrant continuing.

The Quest is a port, but some of it's expansions were written for iOS first. (It just so happens that expansions & even save files are 100% compatible across platforms! How's that for great portable coding!)

Legend of Grimrock is not an iOS original, but is releasing very close to the PC release - I'd say this one is on par with titles releasing for PC and consoles (almost) concurrently. It's a fantastic title for a world where "Western" RPGs are few and far between.

Speaking of gamebooks - Keep of the Lich Lord was specifically re-written for iOS (i.e. it's roots are from a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, but the original authors worked with Meghara to re-write portions of the plot & background to place it in the Fabled Lands world.)

Which leads to Fabled Lands - if you want a fleshed out world to play in, take a serious look at Fabled Lands II Gold Edition (and pray they get books 3-12 ported!) It's a port of a set of gamebooks, but Meghara has created tons of art & music to accompany - and they way the books were written I bet most people playing with the app would think of it more of an RPG than a gamebook - it's free roam with many 'sandbox' elements i.e. you can own property, buy/sell commodities, ally with different factions, etc.

[awp69]

I'd agree that as far as Western RPGs are concerned there isn't a whole lot on the iOS that has a grand, epic Skyrim-style story with character customization and the like.

But there are quite a few JRPGs on the iOS that I found to be enjoyable as far as both story and gameplay is concerned, including the aforementioned Ash. The Kemco games, while somewhat generic, are pretty good at storytelling (Fantasy Chronicle is my favorite of those so far).

Seriously, if you go back to the early Final Fantasy games. Was the storytelling really that great? There was no customization. And, well, I guess because stories like those games have been told numerous times since then, they even feel generic by today's standards.

[bigred447uk]

Try 'Fall Of Angels'. It's not western (although it was made in the west I think) but it has a really good gripping story. The naive looking graphic style is better in play than the screenshots suggest. Don't just take my word for it, check the thread where you will find lots of Touch Arcade's hardcore RPG fans praising the narrative.

[ToySoldier]

There is a show called "Extra Credits" floating on the internet dedicated to what makes a Western RPG and a JRPG. Interesting watch if you have the time. It's on Penny-Arcade if I remember correctly.

The TL;DR is this - JRPGs focused more on telling a story and Western RPGs focused on creating experiences.

Story telling in games is hard. Even harder on mobile devices since there is more opportunity for distraction to pull someone right out of the experience (a phone call, a message, another push notification). It can be overcome, but it's going to take time to experiment and play to the strengths of mobile games before the really heavy story driven games will come out

[bighi]

Originally Posted by sizzlakalonji

Yes, they are. See, I can state an opinion as if it's fact too. If you think they have bland stories and characters, I truly wonder what you feel are better on this platform.

Even if there weren't a game better than Chaos Rings on this platform (I'm not saying this is true, just stating a possibility), it doesn't make the game good.

From the games I've played, Ash is better on story and characters. I can't name any other good RPG. I could say Final Fantasy Tactics, but it is more of a strategy game.

Originally Posted by awp69

Seriously, if you go back to the early Final Fantasy games. Was the storytelling really that great? There was no customization. And, well, I guess because stories like those games have been told numerous times since then, they even feel generic by today's standards.

Customization doesn't make a story better or worse. Actually it kinda makes the story worse most of the time. It may make the game better overall (in some cases), but it usually means a not so good story.

[drelbs]

Originally Posted by ToySoldier

Story telling in games is hard. Even harder on mobile devices

...not to mention storage space.

Currently replaying Dragon Age Origins. Almost 14 GB install + mods.

[BirdieNZ]

I would be quite happy to buy a $20 RPG if it was actually worth that much. I wouldn't expect a PC-style RPG for that much, either. I'm probably going to buy at least one of the Chaos Rings games, and if the one I buy is good I'll probably buy all of them. I threw down $10 for Order and Chaos (or however much it is in USD, I think it was $10 NZD) without blinking twice and if it had a better story I'd have kept up a subscription, even if the subscription was $10 for 3 months rather than the small amount it currently is (if I recall correctly).

I'm not an amazing writer and I could write a better story for Aralon; you don't need to hire a writer to be able to do better than that. And it did have some form of a story, so you can't really argue that budget caused them to skimp on the story. (although I bet they skimped on the voice acting. The voice acting and music in that game was...not good.) Don't get me wrong, the game has potential and I wanted to enjoy it.

[Dr. Deviation]

Just putting this out there but GTA3 is also an RPG. So is GTA:CT. Both games have pretty awesome stories! How about Dark Meadow? That's got a pretty lovely and immersive story to it. What about the upcoming game Forgotten Memories? I'd bet my top dollar that it'll have a fascinating story.

[coderkid]

Just putting this out there but I agree almost 100% with this. This is the exact same reason I've given up on/gotten bored with a lot of the RPGs I've played.