That’s an interesting question. I’d say yes and no. I’m sure one of his incarnations fit the description of anti-hero.
His original incarnation who asked the night hag Ravel to grant him immortality, was actually a good person who sought to atone for his sins. The original incarnation of the Nameless One was responsible for so many deaths that Ravel had lost count. Ravel couldn’t understand how someone who had the blackest of hearts could regret his past and become a better person almost overnight. Her pursuit for an answer to the question of what could change the nature of a man became a personal obssession for her, ultimately leading to her own downfall. Planescape: Torment told a wonderful story of redemption in my opinion.
That’s an interesting question. I’d say yes and no. I’m sure one of his incarnations fit the description of anti-hero.
His original incarnation who asked the night hag Ravel to grant him immortality, was actually a good person who sought to atone for his sins. The original incarnation of the Nameless One was responsible for so many deaths that Ravel had lost count. Ravel couldn’t understand how someone who had the blackest of hearts could regret his past and become a better person almost overnight. Her pursuit for an answer to the question of what could change the nature of a man became a personal obssession for her, ultimately leading to her own downfall. Planescape: Torment told a wonderful story of redemption in my opinion.[/quote]
Indeed, it is ironic to think that a video game, which is often considered a shallow past time could tell such a deep story.
I aked because you mentioned cliched anti-heroes, it makes me wonder if it is possible to have an anti-hero that is not cliched, or in fact can actually fit into an epic story without dominating it, given the rather narrow definiton. Having said that I would say it is no excuse for the usuall very poor) stories that seem to be written as an afterthought for most console RPGs.
Console RPGs are developed with teenagers in mind if I’m not mistaken. They generally sacrifice depth of character for… something else. Angst maybe?
The Nameless One isn’t really your character, but you can still shape his personality however you see fit nonetheless. I loved Torment. Yes, the world in which it is set seemed incredibly alien to me at first, but the more I learned about it the more I was immersed in it. I loved learning some of the intricacies of the perpetual Blood War. It’s a shame we may never see another RPG like Torment again.
We will just have to wait patiently for another real RPG to arrive. I almost can’t believe that the term “role playing game” has become synonymous with Final Fantasy and Square-Enix.
Doesn’t forget though that mpost of the fundamental qualities of such a game have roots in games from the West. The original console RPG, Drgaon Warrior was created after workers at Enix were inspired by the Ultima series (does that bring back memories…). Even many of your favouirte console RPGs and COmputer RPGs have the same hertitage and share the same basic chareteristics, Panzer Dragoon Saga is more a very different varition on the theme of Dragon Warrior, while Final Fnatsy is (and always has been) a copy of the game, with “classic” stories. In any case I do get a compulsion to hit people who say they cried when Aeris died. I mean honestly :Roll:. In any case in this country and Japan, Final Fantsy is the streo typical RPG (althought in Japan Dragon Warrrior is actually more popular). However in the US it is more synomonous with pen ‘n’ paper RPGs, which funnily enough is where most of the best Computer RPGs (with the exception of Fallout which was strongly influenced by setting such as Gamma World) come from. I still dispute PC Zones assurtion in a preveiw of Dungeon Seige that such “dusty outdated” system are ill suited for Computer games. The actual final quality of Dunegon Seige shows my point, it was another Diablo (Diablo’s alright if your into hack ‘n’ slash but I prefer tactics in combate personally) rip off IMO, and theres something that RPG makers both sides of the Pacific share: wanting to capitalise on Diablos Western and Korean success (need I mention Shining SOoul) In many ways calling Shining Force an RPG is insulting to the genre given the way your charecter is stright jacketed from the start although the game is claerly marked in its own sub-genre unlike Final Fanatsy which makes it slightly more forgivable.
I need to play more RPGs before I can make more informed comparisons.
Maybe I’m just annoyed because some of my favourite RPGs weren’t even translated while Square’s garbage sells on the strength of its name alone (Drakenguard anyone?). I’m jaded to the point where none of this even matters to me anymore.
At least Sega is starting to develop more RPGs now.
Most companies are, the European market for RPGs even 10 years ago was dead compared to now.
However unlike the USA that gets most of the good RPGs nowaydays (and used to to btter) we still miss out on a lot, the whole Playstaionn “silver age” of RPGs when the US had plenty of releases, and wjhile most were admittedly Final Fantasy some will real gems like Thousand Arms, the whole era passed us over :sigh:
Missing out is the story of our lives. This is someone’s cue to tell us that instead of resenting what we don’t have, we should appreciate what we do have. Bah!
I think the almost unjust nature of releases is what is frustratingWhat is especially frustrating in the UK the amount of time we have to wait for the game ot be translated to the whole european market. The australians get PAL games (that work on UK consoles) months before we get it.
The funny thing is that it confirms something I personally think: that every one in the world should speak one lanuge (and not nessacarily english), after all isn;t it incredible inefficent to translate constantly or have people learning to say the same things in a different way. Isn’t there so much more to learn that is much more fufilling? But anyway thats just me Maybe I’m just bitter becuse I fialed all my language exams while at school…
Perhaps it’s not very apparent to english speaking countries since there are other countries than your own that speak the same language, but, to me, language, religion (even tho I’m not a very religious person) and insert_word_that_describes_political_state_here, are symbols of my nation and I woudn’t want anyone to force me to forget about any of those. Language especially includes a lot of things and is a very large part of a nation’s history. Ditching something so importand because “it’s more efficient for everyone to speak one language” would make no sense Anyway, stopping it short and sweet, I’m not gonna write an essay on this or something…
And games don’t get translated in Greek so we aren’t stalling releases
i fall in love with games that have great atmospheres; ico, panzer dragoon orta , jet set radio future and otogi are some examples of this. with the exception of jsrf, it would seem that those games are all mature fairy tales . . . so i suppose i look for that in a game – something that’ll transport me into a world that ignites imagination.
I think a game has to have a certain shine. In-Depth storyline, nice music and graphics and good gameplay. That is why i love PDS so much, because it has all of those qualities, well, maybe not graphics anymore, but that has no effect.
Maybe I’m just bitter becuse I fialed all my language exams while at school…