CRPGAddict

[Lord_Potato]

You're clearly overthinking this, guys.

Almost like you were some unemployed blokes living in their mum's basement with too much time on your hands

 

[Grauken]

Things got a little bit heated down in the comment section with his latest Zelda post.

I don't quite understand what motivates people, let alone full-grown adults, to want to play these titles.

Man, he clearly doesn't get how ironic this is

 

[newtmonkey]

I think he's trolling to some degree. He probably was driven to madness after reading the 10,000th comment along the lines of, "I've never played a CRPG, don't even really know what a computer is, all these old games look dumb. If you like story-rich RPGs, you really should make an exception and cover Mario RPG and Zelda!!! XDDDDDDD"

 

[octavius]

The console brigade is rather tiresome. They can't let a CRPG Addict alone.
It's not like there's not already enough console retro blogs out there.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Yep, the Zelda post comment section is pure gold.

 

[Darth Canoli]

You're clearly overthinking this, guys.

Almost like you were some unemployed blokes living in their mum's basement with too much time on your hands

I don't know if they're overthinking at all, think about the time he can sink into this, not only playing but reporting it, reading and answering comments.

There is 3 options

1. His wife only exist in his head
2. She's 90 years old, sticked to the tv but still she can cook for him and lace his shoes
3. She's not, in this case, she probably fucks the mailman or the neighbors. Possibly all at once while he's playing in the basement.

 

[JarlFrank]

The console brigade is rather tiresome. They can't let a CRPG Addict alone.
It's not like there's not already enough console retro blogs out there.

Yeah, I regularly read his blogposts and the comments, and the console brigade has been clamoring about including console RPGs for years.

When he finally does so, and predictably doesn't enjoy them (the few PC-ported JRPGs he played didn't leave a great impression on him, either - he didn't like the anime visuals and the linear and lengthy cutscene-style dialogues of Knights of Xentar, for example), the console brigade pops up in the comment section en masse to defend their beloved games and tell him how wrong he is about them. These console entries get vastly more comments than his regular CRPG posts.

I'd be pissed, too.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

The Zelda entry is some grade A troll material. If he really wants to piss off the Codex, the guy should do an entry on Planscape or Fallout 2 in the same tone and style. Even as someone who likes JRPGs I get why he'd want to bash the irksome fans that shit up his comments. The whole JRPG subculture is pretty rotten, just like anime it attracts a certain sort of degenerate to a high degree.

 

[Grauken]

I think he's trolling to some degree. He probably was driven to madness after reading the 10,000th comment along the lines of, "I've never played a CRPG, don't even really know what a computer is, all these old games look dumb. If you like story-rich RPGs, you really should make an exception and cover Mario RPG and Zelda!!! XDDDDDDD"

He's incapable of trolling. That's the reason he can plow through hundreds of utterly dull games to find the few gems in between. It's also the reason his writing is utter drivel when he's not just describing surface layers and tries to dig deeper. He's the tin man not even knowing what he lacks

 

[samuraigaiden]

Adult Nintendo fans are particularly sensitive about being told that Nintendo games are intended for children.

 

[Tweed]

Twerp goes into ancient console game expecting to hate it, surprise! He hates it! Bonus points for being too good to play games that were marketed at children, but making the sacrifice anyway just to "experience" something he obviously didn't want any part of.

What's funny is despite allegedly having lived through the 80s and having friends that had Nintendos he's mystified by the limitations of a game released in 1986 for an 8-bit system.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

For those who keep commenting, "Why did you even play it? It's not an RPG," I think I answered that early in the entry. Some people think it IS an RPG. It has some RPG characteristics. It influenced RPGs. And its own sequel is usually given as an RPG. But I perhaps just should have played it and wrote about the experience without giving it a number and including it in the count of RPGs.

At the time of its release in the United States (1987), The Legend of Zelda was considered an "action-adventure" game and no-one confused it with RPGs. I don't know what influence he thinks it had on RPGs, certainly it had little to none outside Japan (and it had nothing to do with the creation of the JRPG subgenre). Yet CRPGAddict professes to be surprised that fans of this type of game, nowadays called Zelda-likes due to this game's establishment of its own genre, might be a trifle irritated at his judging it as though it were something it isn't.

Of course, this is merely an amplified version of something the CRPGAddict is perpetually engaging in, namely judging all CRPGs by a set of criteria devised for Baldur's Gate and Oblivion/Skyrim, rather than on a set of merits appropriate for each RPG's particular subgenre.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I'd go even further and say that the original Zelda was not influential to RPGs nearly as much as it was influenced by them, especially by the earliest Action RPGs made by Nihom Falcom in Japan. It was only when Zelda went 3D with Ocarina of Time that it truly became influential because of the way 3D movement, contextual action and aim-lock combat were implemented - and even then that influence was broad and certainly not limited to RPGs.

 

[Grauken]

I'd go even further and say that the original Zelda was not influential to RPGs nearly as much as it was influenced by them, especially by the earliest Action RPGs made by Nihom Falcom in Japan. It was only when Zelda went 3D with Ocarina of Time that it truly became influential because of the way 3D movement, contextual action and aim-lock combat were implemented - and even then that influence was broad and certainly not limited to RPGs.

the 2d top down Zelda were massively more influential than the later 3d ones, if you've played enough action RPGs or similiar Zelda-likes in the NES/SNES and early 32bit era, you could see those influences all over, while the 3d Zelda developed all that stuff you cite at the same time as everybody else did, they didn't so much influence other 3d action adventures as they were merely peak performers in their niche

 

[Mortmal]

Adult Nintendo fans are particularly sensitive about being told that Nintendo games are intended for children.

If only…Put a kid in front of a Nintendo game and see the result, the gameplay of a mario or zelda is the most hardcore and demanding you can get nowaday ,cute cartoony graphics but completely unsuitable for young kids .A game like smash bro ? Super technic and hard to master more than tekken. They will cause them anger, frustration, and soon expect a tantrum. Xbox one games are a lot lot easier although unsuitable for children cause of violence .Oh and one more detail , Nintendo games have lot of text and require reading , Xbox games are fully voiced.

 

[newtmonkey]

I'm 99% certain he covered Zelda because he had run some kind of informal poll of the resident console gamers, asking what they considered the "formative" Japanese games in the RPG genre. In the console realm, every fucking game is an RPG (this is where the "Halo is a an RPG cuz you play the role of Master Chief" thing came from). This is why he's playing things like Bokosuka Wars (a popular game in Japan in its time, but what does it have to do with RPGs????), Dragon Warrior 1 (prob the only game listed that fits the criteria of a "formative JRPG"), The Legend of Zelda (an action game ffs), Deadly Towers (a Zelda clone, though with more "RPG" elements per the CRPG Addict definition than Zelda), and the early Nihon Falcom PC RPGs (Xanadu).

I think he's approaching it the wrong way. The foundation of JRPGs for all intents and purposes looks like this:

Ultima & Wizardry -> Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy -> modern JRPGs.

There's no reason for him to be playing things like Zelda because it has nothing to do with what are widely considered to be JRPGs (i.e. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and their clones).

 

[Grauken]

I think the usual problem is that early jRPGs (especially early 2d top down action RPGs) and early 2d top down action adventures influenced each other, but they were still two streams of gameplay that run parallel but are at their core completely different, while looking to outsider pretty similiar. I played a couple of the early 2d top down action adventures in the last year, many of those that came even before Zelda (console and jap PCs), and you can clearly see the evolution of those elements and why the first Zelda was such a masterstroke and milestone at the time, in comparison to its contemporaries (who are mostly forgotten these days), but the real impact on jRPGs was relatively minor. Some influence on games like the Seiken Densetsu / Secret of Mana series to a small extend, but that's it.

 

[newtmonkey]

It just shows how out of touch the JRPG fans on his blog are. They either are not reading what he actually writes, or are completely brain-dead. Knowing his preferences (turn-based tactical combat, a strong economy, optional quests/exploration, excellent equipment/loot system) who on earth would suggest playing Zelda? And then who would be insulted when he doesn't like it? I am convinced that many of his most vocal commenters don't even read his posts. It would explain the general tone of "Ultimate VI: False Profit seems okay, hey you'd probably love Earthbound if you like that one, great story and graphics" you see in this comments.

 

[Grauken]

Yeah, it doesn't exactly surprise me he doesn't like Zelda, and given the review he probably would hate Earthbound on style alone

 

[Nutmeg]

turn-based tactical combat, a strong economy, optional quests/exploration, excellent equipment/loot system

Except he only likes this stuff if it's devoid of all meaning. See his post here http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2019/08/spellcraft-i-cant-always.html

There were hints of this horrible mentality earlier (his taste in modern games, his deplorable off topic rants), but this really sealed the deal.

It is not good design to completely trivialize survival play in your game.

Once you do that, the only actual game you have left (other than the make pretend game AKA LARPing), is playing for efficiency.

But it's clear he doesn't really care much about that either.

He just wants to LARP.

That's fine.

But he concluded his Zelda post with "their best games (I based this on reading descriptions of the major sequels), they approach the level of complexity that you find a good RPG".

Which doesn't make any sense. He actively complains about meaningful* complexity (just read the post I link) yet decries the lack of complexity here. Moreover, Zelda (especially Zelda 1) offers much more meaningful complexity than most CRPGs. This is because in Zelda, even the few variables you can change as a player, have incredible meaning and consequence to the outcome of the game. For example, the X Y position of the character. In most CRPGs where X Y char position is present, it is meaningless. Might as well not have it (indeed a whole school of CRPGs (Dungeon Crawlers) eschew it).

So, I really don't like this guise of "I like complex games for adults" when in fact, he likes make pretend games for ages 8 to 12.

* meaningful complexity can be measured as the amount of meaningful decisions the player makes per unit of game time multiplied by the amount of time player input is processed per unit of real time.

Also, I tried to post this as a comment, but it didn't pass his moderation.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

, just like anime it attracts a certain sort of degenerate to a high degree.

this is a scientific fact

 

[Grauken]

It's good to be a degenerate

 

[Viata]

Moreover, Zelda (especially Zelda 1) offers much more meaningful complexity than most CRPGs.

 

[Nutmeg]

Moreover, Zelda (especially Zelda 1) offers much more meaningful complexity than most CRPGs.

Do you really think CRPGs are that complex?

Take Fallout 1 for example. You have 7 stats, 18 skills, 16 traits and a bunch of secondary values calculated from those. Does any of it matter? No. Why? Because you never really have to decide on any of it throughout the course of a game, which is completeable in ~9 minutes of mechanical toddler shape puzzle gameplay as shown e.g. here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpYH5P3cdDU.

Heavens the complexity! Really have to wrack my noodle while playing this one.

Maybe I'm not being fair in some ways but generally this is the issue with most CRPGs: You learn some very simple things about the game, and after you've done that it never asks anything more from you. You're on auto-pilot. Zero meaningful decisions per unit of game time other than the initial planning work you did.

Even if you're generous and you evaluate what the game is like "blind" it's still not very complex, because the multitude of dials and knobs don't matter, are clearly suboptimal, are completely interchangeable or just for show, so you quickly converge on a solution.

Compare with e.g. Doom. No stat allocation or anything like that but the game parameters it does allow you to vary (e.g. player position) matter immensely (player position doesn't matter at all in FO, it's just for show), and if you want optimal play either blind or with full knowledge your brain will need to make many many meaningful decisions per unit of game time (c.f. none (or very few (blind)) when playing FO)

 

[Grauken]

You're confusing complexity (or in the case of Fallout variety just as much) with difficulty

That said, difficulty of gameplay and difficulty to get into a game are different things as well, a newbie was hasn't played many games will have an infinitely easier time to get into even the first NES Zelda, than into Fallout, even when Fallout is for those who know how to handle it, easier

There's a reason a lot of people think the difference between console and computer games is that a lot of console games are easy to get into but hard to master, while the converse is true for computer games. While I don't buy that completely, there's something to that notion when you compare Zelda and Fallout