I was playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and came across something interesting.
The game is very much a classic arcade game, think the original arcade TMNT. It feels very much like a console port, the camera is jumpy, the controls don't quite "feel" right and the action/combat is very repetitive.
What grabbed me though was the character progression. Powers to learn, points to earn (and then spend) costumes to unlock, characters to unlock, special abilities to gain. The more you play a specific character, the further you can develop them. And thus they call it an rpg. There's nothing they do here that's remarkable, but it was more of a moment of self realization; I like it when I can develop a character. There's something deeply satisfying and fun in it for me.
So what is an RPG? The basic idea is that you take on the persona of a given character and act it out. That's not really what an rpg is for me, I'll do that with most games. In Grand Theft Auto I used to ignore the missions and imagine my own. There was enough freedom in the game that I was able to to act out what I believed my character would do.
Perhaps the question is pointless. I sit here and try to define what an rpg is to me, but I feel that the term is now just a marketing word with no one definition.
So instead I'll try and get back to the vague point of this blog post. That is, my sudden interest in the game when character development was added. Why did I have such a strong reaction? Is it because from such an early age I've played games with character development? Or perhaps by customizing the character, I'm able to get into their head more and imagine more involved scenarios.
-justin
