Too much of a good thing?

by Arpad Korossy

Many people lately have complained about an overabundance of plot and FMV in modern RPGs. They say that too much dialogue, or too much storyline, or too much FMV makes a game into a movie. Well, I personally don't care all that much for gameplay, but I wouldn't begrudge those people their opinions. But I would warn them not too dislike a game because it has story. I believe that both Xenogears and FFVII partially fell prey to this.

These same people say that FFVII isn't as good as the earlier games, and is just one big movie. But probably the same people would adore FFVII and defend it vehemently if you stripped the FMV, and went back to 2D sprites on pre-drawn 2D backgrounds. Beneath the shiny graphics, VII was a great game (albeit a bit hard to understand), but many people seem to dislike it soley because it had graphics. They have crossed over the line from 'graphics don't make a good game' (certainly true), to 'games with good graphics are bad' (certainly false).

Xenogears is also criticized for its gobs of dialogue. While a text speed setting or a method to skip FMV if you've seen it before would have been nice, the dialogue doesn't make the gameplay bad by any means. In fact, Xenogears had one of the best battle engines I've seen in a traditional non-strategy RPG. It had the deathblows and combo strings, and a totally seperate battle system involving fuel and attack levels for gear fighting. But I think many people dislike the game soley because it has storyline. Again, it's 'storyline doesn't make a good game' (debatable but certainly a valid opinion), versus 'storyline ruins a game' (blatently false). I certainly don't want to seem like I'm attacking anyone here, although reading other editorials did inspire me to write this. But I know many people who do attack others and their opinions. So take a moment next time you feel ready to criticize a game for too much storyline or FMV or 3D graphics or whatever. For, while these things might not make a game great, they certainly don't make it bad.