The Most Overused Cliche

by Fawkes 

I hate dungeons. The RPG genre has created nothing more evil or nasty in all of its life. It's like I am being continually tortured by having fun in the cities and towns and talking to various people while progressing through the story.

Here's some plot, now jump back into the flesh-eating acid and shut the hell up, please.

While the battle systems themselves may be fun to a certain extent, dungeons are not. Hour long wastes of time. What makes them worse is when they contain random battles. Nothing gets me as angry. The enemies walking around give me a chance to run from them, and to get out of the stinkhole.

Here's a bottomless pit. When you touch the ground, climb out.

Maybe I'm just bored of RPGs. Or perhaps I am just bored of fighting my way out of a ice-themed dungeon for the thousandth time. Or a fire-themed dungeon. Don't get me wrong, I do understand that RPGs have to have dungeons, or else they wouldn't be longer than three minutes. But, damn, all that torment for only three blissful minutes?

Once you make it out of the ice dungeon, make your way to the fire dungeon, water dungeon, sky dungeon, desert dungeon, sewer dungeon, cloud dungeon, ancient dungeon, urban dungeon, space dungeon and mountain dungeon, go ahead and do it all over again fifty times. Thanks buddy.

So as you see, I've got a problem on my hands. I like only a small small portion of the game. What am I ever to do? Well, I have a few choices. I can pay someone else to play through the dungeons for me, but that makes the game much slower. I could also hum loudly and pretend not to be paying attention while I make my way into and out of the dungeon. Or I suppose I could just not play any RPGs at all. But forget that, I need to have something to rant about besides the amount of cursing in online comics.

I hope that dungeon just spontaneously combusts, revealing a plot-filled town overflowing with new characters and interesting situations. For the love of all that is good and minty fresh, let that happen.

Why must all RPGs have dungeons? Can't they have crazy races instead? Puzzles? Long blinding flashes of light? Anything other than dungeons!? Just replace the dungeons with something more fun! Perhaps shafts of bamboo lodged up my fingernails? Why not just make the game innovative and get rid of dungeons! Blow me away with creativity! Don't just give me the same crap you've been making me trudge through multiple times before! Oh wow, this dungeon looks better than the last one! It's still a dungeon dammit. Eye candy doesn't work for dungeons, genius.

You're not paranoid if the dungeons really are out to get you.

This rant has been supplied to you by the almighty Fawkes. If I have offended anyone in any way, please speak up so I may point at you and laugh.