I'm Starting To Think All RPG's Are The Same

It's hard to believe, but I've lived though all the major video game system releases.  I remember my parents coming home with an Atari 2600.  Yes, the one with the fake wooden paneling.  In the late 80's my Mother and Sister fought through the lines to bring home an original NES.  A few years later the SNES showed what video games could do with decent graphics.

I've played all varieties of games, but I have to say I love role playing games the most.  However, I've noticed they have gotten kind of stale lately.  Heck, even College Humor made fun of the whole genre a few years ago.  If you haven't seen this video, it's worth watching.

It's kind of come down to the same plot.

1.  I'm just an orphan who was raised in this backwater village.
2.  Oh no!  There is a fight between two large cities!  I must leave to see if I can help in some way.
3.  Those cities are being controlled, or working with other (much bigger) cities on this continent.
4.  But there are larger forces at play!  There is a worldwide faction that is controlling war between the people of the planet.
5.  This faction lives in a floating city.
6.  The evil ruler is bad, but is also being manipulated by another force/man/devil/whatever.
7.  The ruler dies, and the real evil behind everything shows it's face.
8.  You end up fighting God, or a God-like figure.
9.  No, you just ended up defeating it's first form.  There are two more forms to go.

Along the way your party includes:

1.  Your spunky childhood friend who is a technician.
2.  A princess/ white mage.
3.  A heavy brawler with a bad attitude.
4.  Comic relief in the form a thief/ranger.
5.  An old wizard, or a sexy, nearly naked hot witch covered in red tattoos.
6.  Some sort of robot.
7.  An animal that can talk/fight/do stuff.
8.  Someone who was on the opposing side. but is now on your side.  Usually a hot female general.
9.  A spunky kid who knows everything.
10.  Ninja.  There's always a ninja/martial artist type.

So when I saw a game called Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, (pronounced Ees (as in "Grease") Eight: Lack-Ri-Mow-Sa of Donna) I thought this would be my kind of RPG.

It was said to be a cross between Zelda, Harvest Moon, and a pirate type of adventure.  (Warning!  Spoilers ahead.!)

I liked the idea of a game about pirates, being lost at sea, crashing on a deserted island.  I also liked the idea of having to put a village together, growing your own food while searching for survivors of the shipwreck.  That sounded awesome.

Instead, it relied on too many RPG tropes.  But I'll give it this.  Instead of fighting an angry God at the end, you had to fight evolution.  Even the Wardens of Evolution tell you, "You can't fight it.  You just have to go with the flow.  No one can stop it.  I mean, unless you really want to?  Then you can just fight a bunch of stuff.  But, please!  Don't even try to do that!"

Of course, the plot of the story is you do just that.  So like everything else on the island, you end up fighting evolution.  Hence, you save the planet without them even realizing.  Then, you make your way off the island.  The End.

Don't get me wrong.  I liked the game.  Sometimes it was a little bit repetitive, but overall I liked it.  I just thought it was funny that they substituted "Evolution" for "God" this time.  Although I did find the nun character pretty funny.

First she's all devout and praying all the time.

Then she realizes she can't run well in her habit, so she makes a few "alterations."

Suddenly, she's the "sexy" nun, and I'm surprisingly okay with that.  I mean, she's still praying all the time.  She's just praying while showing a lot more skin.

The game is fun, but every now and then a big ass dinosaur shows up, and you have to run like hell.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out why a level 42 tyrannosaurus rex is right on the path when I'm only level 18?  It seems the only way to deal with it is to run like hell until you make it to the next screen.

Maybe I need a break from RPG's?  I hear the new Animal Crossing game is coming out soon.  I can waste a large part of my life that way.  It's called "New Horizons" and sounds like a good laid back game for me.  A little fishing.  A bit of building.  Hanging out by the beach.

Of course, if I really wanted to hang out by the beach I could just drive 25 miles West.  I mean, I do live in Florida.  Or if I really wanted to, I could hang out by the beach in Animal Crossing while lying on the beach in Florida.  Honestly, that sounds like something I would do.  I just have to remember my beach umbrella.