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[Grug]

Most probably old, but well worth a read.

Had a bit of a laugh reading through this.

Some good ones...

Nostradamus Rule
All legends are 100% accurate. All rumors are entirely factual. All prophecies will come true, and not just someday but almost immediately.

Bed Bed Bed
A good night's sleep will cure all wounds, diseases, and disabilities, up to and including death in battle.

Short Attention Span Principle
All bookshelves contain exactly one book, which only has enough text on it to fill up half a page.

Guy in the Street Rule
No matter how fast you travel, rumors of world events always travel faster. When you get to anywhere, the people on the street are already talking about where you've been. The stories of your past experiences will spread even if no witnesses were around to see them.

Figurehead Rule
Whenever someone asks you a question to decide what to do, it's just to be polite. He or she will ask the question again and again until you answer "correctly."

Place Transvestite Joke Here (Miss Cloud Rule)
If the male lead is required to dress up like a girl for any reason, he will be regarded by everyone as much more attractive than any "real" girl. If the female lead cross-dresses as a man, she will be immediately recognized as who she is by everyone except the male lead and the main villain.

 

[Amir0x]

so old.

but yeah it's funny and every aspect of it is true. So if you ever need justification for j/wRPG boredom, it works.

 

[Reilly]

Capitalism Is A Harsh Mistress
Once you sell something to a shopkeeper, he instantly sells it to somebody else and you will never see the item again no matter what.

I Know there's an RPG that allows you to buy your stuff back after you sold it. I think it's Breath of Fire 3.

 

[Link1110]

I Know there's an RPG that allows you to buy your stuff back after you sold it. I think it's Breath of Fire 3.

Shining Force 2 I believe.

 

[Amir0x]

there's more than a few RPGs that do that.

There's one I played recently that did it...trying to remember the name...

 

[Wollan]

World of WarCraft let's you buy back your last sold item.

 

[Twilight Princess]

is it DQ8 that you're talking about??

I'm half way through the game.

 

[Days like these...]

That list was too long to read but where on the list was the part about male protagonist in square games having to be effeminate looking twinks?

 

[Reilly]

Stop Your Life (Setzer Rule)
No matter what kind of exciting, dynamic life a character was leading before joining your party, once there they will be perfectly content to sit and wait on the airship until you choose to use them.

:lol

so true

 

[Mr_Moogle]

Those cliche's are hilarious and pretty spot on.

This makes me wish somebody would develop a satyrical JRPG. If Conkers Bad Fur Day was a satyrical platformer, I want to see somebody make an RPG version. The plot and characters can deliberately mock themselves (ala Mario and Luigi, Paper Mario).

The list would come in extremely handy for a project like that.

 

[Xellotah]

The thing is, if any game did differentiate to much from that list, people (especially the hardcore) will bitch endlessly.

 

[Amir0x]

I would not bitch, Xellotah. In fact, I've been the lead crusader in the "RPGs need to change" army for years now. When i read things like this again...

urthermore, expect to encounter most of the following obligatory non-player chararcters (NPCs):

* The townsperson or crewmember who wanders aimlessly in circles and never quite gets where he is going.
* Hilariously incompetent or cowardly soldiers.
* The NPC who has a crush on another NPC and can't quite work up the nerve to tell him or her, so instead tells every other person who wanders by about it at great length.
* A group of small children playing hide-and-seek.
* The wise and noble captain/king/high priest.
* The wise and noble captain/king/high priest's splutteringly evil second-in-command. Nobody, including the hero, will notice the second's constant, crazed scheming until the moment when he betrays everyone to the forces of badness.
* The NPC who is obsessed with his completely mundane job and witters on endlessly about how great it is. He's so thrilled by it that he wants to share it with everyone he sees, so given a quarter of a chance he'll make you do his job for him.
* The (adult) NPC who has nothing better to do than play kids' games with passersby.
* The group of young women who have formed a scarily obsessive fan club for one of your female party members.

...and it's so absolutely spot-on that it's disgusting, it just highlights so clearly how most people who make RPGs these days are fucking devoid of creativity.

And it also pisses me off that towns people just hold conversations with you whenever, even if you're a total god-damned stranger, that you can speak the same language as everyone across the world, and that, as noted, you can just waltz into people's homes and steal everything without permission, and still be considered the timeless, honorable hero. It also pisses me off that 90% of RPGs are done in the same three styles of time period.

Yeah, I'd change a lot of shit about RPGs. So many ideas, so many internet message boards to proclaim them in!

 

[ziran]

Most probably old, but well worth a read.

Had a bit of a laugh reading through this.

Some good ones...

Nostradamus Rule
All legends are 100% accurate. All rumors are entirely factual. All prophecies will come true, and not just someday but almost immediately.

Bed Bed Bed
A good night's sleep will cure all wounds, diseases, and disabilities, up to and including death in battle.

Short Attention Span Principle
All bookshelves contain exactly one book, which only has enough text on it to fill up half a page.

Guy in the Street Rule
No matter how fast you travel, rumors of world events always travel faster. When you get to anywhere, the people on the street are already talking about where you've been. The stories of your past experiences will spread even if no witnesses were around to see them.

Figurehead Rule
Whenever someone asks you a question to decide what to do, it's just to be polite. He or she will ask the question again and again until you answer "correctly."

Place Transvestite Joke Here (Miss Cloud Rule)
If the male lead is required to dress up like a girl for any reason, he will be regarded by everyone as much more attractive than any "real" girl. If the female lead cross-dresses as a man, she will be immediately recognized as who she is by everyone except the male lead and the main villain.

:lol

that was great.

 

[SantaC]

George W. Bush Geography Simplification Initiative
Every country in the world will have exactly one town in it, except for the country you start out in, which will have three.

:lol :lol

 

[EmSeta]

10% of these are hilarious and spot-on, while the rest of them are very narrow and stupid.

 

[Kiriku]

:lol Of course, a good number of those are limited to very few games, but still funny.
And I tried to find another cliché which I've grown tired of...you know, everytime you're about to leave for the final dungeon, you have to see each and every character say something inspiring and characteristic in turn...it's so silly because developers seem forced to make EVERY character in your party say something no matter what.

 

[Prine]

brilliant :lol

 

[SantaC]

:lol Of course, a good number of those are limited to very few games, but still funny.
And I tried to find another cliché which I've grown tired of...you know, everytime you're about to leave for the final dungeon, you have to see each and every character say something inspiring and characteristic in turn...it's so silly because developers seem forced to make EVERY character in your party say something no matter what.

so true, and while everyone says that you must hurry to the final dungeon before the world crumbles, you can suddenly travel around on sidequests for unlimited time and the world never ends :lol

You can often even enter the final dungeon, do everything but enter the last boss room, travel back to where you come from and nothing happens.

 

[Vlad]

Magical Inequality Theorem
In the course of your travels you may find useful-sounding spells such as Petrify, Silence, and Instant Death. However, you will end up never using these spells in combat because a) all ordinary enemies can be killed with a few normal attacks, making fancy attacks unneccessary, b) all bosses and other stronger-than-average monsters are immune to those effects so there's no point in using them for long fights where they'd actually come in handy, and c) the spells usually don't work anyway.
Magical Inequality Corollary
When the enemy uses Petrify, Silence, Instant Death, et cetera spells on you, they will be effective 100% of the time.

Sad, but true.

 

[Mega Man's Electric Sheep]

"So, Andross, you reveal your true form!"
You will have to kill the evil villain at least twice at the end of the game. First the villain will look like a person or some creature and be rather easy to kill. Then he will grow to about 50 times the hero's size and be much harder to kill.
In Your Face, Jesus!
Even if you manage to deal with him that time, you're not done -- the villain will then transform into his final form, which is always an angelic winged figure with background music remixed for ecstatic chorus and pipe organ. "

This one isn't even confined to just rpg's....Mega man x8 did almost this exact thing, and i'm sure there are others.

 

[ManDudeChild]

Sad, but true.

Unless you're equipped with an item that nullifies said spells.

 

[SSGMUN10000]

Im always amazed that when going in to towns you can almost go into anyones house and take there stuff. Your freakin a complete stranger yet they dont say anything. Too top that off you go into a house talk to the npc gives you a story about struggles and being poor yet you open up there cabinet and take there gold. :lol

 

[MC Safety]

Im always amazed that when going in to towns you can almost go into anyones house and take there stuff. Your freakin a complete stranger yet they dont say anything. Too top that off you go into a house talk to the npc gives you a story about struggles and being poor yet you open up there cabinet and take there gold. :lol

And no one's ever thought to open the treasure chest sitting on the side of the road.

Oh, my favorite bit was in Sudeki. I'm not even sure if it made it into the final game, even...
There was a scene where the hero saved a farmer from a group of villains and liberated his farm. In gratitude, the farmer -- and I am not making this up -- invited the hero inside his house so he could smash a crate or vase or something to receive a reward.

 

[Lindsay]

Yeah that breaking into peoples houses and stealing their stuff needs to go.

Aren't there any RPGs where like if you do that too often you get a bad ending? Or at least make it so item/weapon/whatever shop prices go up each time you steal. That would be nice~

 

[Pakkidis]

Fable did a pretty decent job of the 'stealing problem' If the NPC sees you they will call the guards and if you steal then you will collect evil points.

 

[Xenon]

Fable did a pretty decent job of the 'stealing problem' If the NPC sees you they will call the guards and if you steal then you will collect evil points.

Gothic 2 did something like this. Except everyone in the area would draw their weapons and tell you to get out. If you were caught stealing they would beat you to the edge of your life and take your shit. Once I got got up after one of those beating and tried to attack them again and after beating me down they complained that I didn't even have any money to take.

 

[Beezy]

Has anyone said this yet?

An important female character will cut their hair in order to 'change'.

This also applies to animes.

 

[cubicle47b]

World of Warcraft allows you to buy back more than just the last item. You can get back the last 12 items sold.

 

[BorkBork]

"Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!"
If the villain needs all ten legendary medallions to attain world domination and you have nine of them, everybody in your party still thinks it is neccessary to bring the nine to the villain's castle and get the final one, instead of hiding the ones they've already got and spoiling his plans that way. After you foolishly bring the legendary medallions to the villain's hideout, he will kidnap one of your companions (usually the main love interest) and you will trade the world away to rescue your friend.

:lol :lol

I got one. The villain will always be right ahead/behind you in a complex dungeon, where they are subjected to none of the puzzles/traps/monsters that you have to slug through.

 

[Pellham]

Has anyone said this yet?

An important female character will cut their hair in order to 'change'.

This also applies to animes.

That's because it's a Japanese thing.

other comments:

World of Warcraft isn't an RPG, it's a MMORPG.

It's also a western developed game, and I think this list is really only pertaining to Japanese RPGs, because virtually none of the cliches (except for saving the world) apply to western developed RPGs. For instance in Morrowind, any item you sell, you can buy back.

 

[Beezy]

That's because it's a Japanese thing.

Well they need to stop it! All it does is uglify the girls.

 

[Jupiter Jones]

My list of cliches that I detest:

The hero is almost always an orphan who parents died either fighting the final boss or protecting the hero. If a parent is alive and raising the hero, they usually are dead before the hero leaves his village for good.

The heroine is a princess/lady who parents forbid her to leave the castle/mansion on an adventure. Naturally, she leaves anyway.

The orphan hero will discover his father and/or mother is still alive, but they will dead shortly afterward.

The hero and heroine admit their love for each other, but at the end of the game the go their seperate ways with no explanation.

 

[Srider]

Those cliche's are hilarious and pretty spot on.

This makes me wish somebody would develop a satyrical JRPG. If Conkers Bad Fur Day was a satyrical platformer, I want to see somebody make an RPG version. The plot and characters can deliberately mock themselves (ala Mario and Luigi, Paper Mario).

The list would come in extremely handy for a project like that.

There is a game like that, actually a few by Square Enix. http://www.square-enix.co.jp/hanjuku/

Let see, where to start... For starters, in one of the installments, all the monsters were designed by artwork submitted by the game players.

Such variety can be seen here http://intermezzo.cool.ne.jp/report/2003jump/15.jpg

In the newest installment, the characters can transform themselves FFX-2 style, even into a parody version of Yuna's costume.... etc....

One of the installments was called, Hanjuku Eiyuu VS. 3D, it features 2D sprite characters battling 3D characters, and you can imagine what that's like.

 

[Shinobi]

:lol I always get a kick out of reading this list...

 

[Pellham]

someone needs to translate this list into japanese (i'm too lazy to do so) and e-mail it to all the major Japanese publishers with a short blurb at the top "Don't include this crap in your next RPGs, especially you, Square Enix!"

 

[LakeEarth]

# I Don't Like Gears Or Fighting
There are always giant robots. Always.

This one cracks me up :lol

 

[DaBuddaDa]

I think they forgot one:

Any NPC you find in a dungeon who tells you he is "going ahead of you to clear the area," is lying. When you enter the dungeon, he is nowhere to be found, random monster battles remain at consistant levels, and all traps/puzzles are still in place.

 

[iapetus]

An awful lot of these 'cliches' are things that only crop up in a handful of games. Perhaps the list should be retitled "The Grand List of Why I Hate JRPGs Huh-Huh-Huh RPGs Suck"...

 

[Schattenjäger]

one thing i hate about all the newer rpgs is the stupid job system.. not everyone should be able to be a magic user or a fighter.. leave the classes alone sheesh..
this was one of my major gripes with final fantasy 3 and above

 

[Powdered Toastman]

Yeah that breaking into peoples houses and stealing their stuff needs to go.

Aren't there any RPGs where like if you do that too often you get a bad ending? Or at least make it so item/weapon/whatever shop prices go up each time you steal. That would be nice~

In LoZ: Link's Awakening you where renamed THIEF if you stole something from the shop.

 

[Gandara]

Magical Inequality Theorem
In the course of your travels you may find useful-sounding spells such as Petrify, Silence, and Instant Death. However, you will end up never using these spells in combat because a) all ordinary enemies can be killed with a few normal attacks, making fancy attacks unneccessary, b) all bosses and other stronger-than-average monsters are immune to those effects so there's no point in using them for long fights where they'd actually come in handy, and c) the spells usually don't work anyway.

Magical Inequality Corollary
When the enemy uses Petrify, Silence, Instant Death, et cetera spells on you, they will be effective 100% of the time.

At least this isn't true in the Shin Megami Tensei games I've played. Actually some of the later dungeons make it easier if you have these type of spells. But I remember have this problem with different RPGs (Final Fantasy)

 

[John Harker]

How about how you have to sleep, you can be poisoned, sick, confused, turned to stone, get damanged physically, die...

Yet you never have to go to the bathroom? Not ONCE?
Not to mention, you rarely get hungry and eat.

Well, I guess thats why you don't go to the bathroom...?


The Moral Of The Story (Ghaleon Rule)
Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired prettyboy and beating the crap out of him.

- haha, man so true

 

[John Harker]

Ohh, and what about this?

You could be eaten by a dragon, hit by a metorite, cut in a half by a demon, the Devil can take your soul, etc... and a little jar of liqoud or some small plant can heal you, and a feather or mid-level spell can bring you back to life...

Yet anytime someone important or a main character gets stabbed cleanly in the gut during a cut scene, everyone just cries and lets them die, instead of fricking HEALING THEM?!

I didn't know spells and items were context sensative, heh.

 

[Flachmatuch]

An awful lot of these 'cliches' are things that only crop up in a handful of games. Perhaps the list should be retitled "The Grand List of Why I Hate JRPGs Huh-Huh-Huh RPGs Suck"...

I think the list shows more love than hate :-D I have no problem with most of these things, but I still think the list is really funny, even though obviously not all points are universally true.

 

[BorkBork]

Earthbound is probably the only JRPG that defies most of these rules

 

[lyre]

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html I like this list more personally.

 

[ronito]

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html I like this list more personally.

I was just going to post that. Hooray for the evil over lord.

 

[trmas]

That evil overlord link is awesome

 

[Synth_floyd]

This list of cliches is about as cliched as the cliches themselves.

 

[El_Victor]

Ohh, and what about this?

You could be eaten by a dragon, hit by a metorite, cut in a half by a demon, the Devil can take your soul, etc... and a little jar of liqoud or some small plant can heal you, and a feather or mid-level spell can bring you back to life...

Yet anytime someone important or a main character gets stabbed cleanly in the gut during a cut scene, everyone just cries and lets them die, instead of fricking HEALING THEM?!

I didn't know spells and items were context sensative, heh.

It was in the list, more or less.

# "Mommy, why didn't they just use a Phoenix Down on Aeris?"
Don't expect battle mechanics to carry over into the "real world."