RPG cliches you'd like to see!

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# Pretty Line Syndrome (or, Crash Bandicoot: The RPG)
Seen in most modern RPGs. The key to completing your quest is to walk forward in a straight line for fifty hours, stopping along the way to look at, kill, and/or have meaningful conversations with various pretty things.

Also in Fallout, more amusing descriptions when you use the "look" function on a toilet.

Ability to select starting character class from the following choices:

Fighter
Thief
Magic-User
Jack Russell Terrier

A hideous creature that breeds like rabbits, has its own musical theme, and populates the entire game world. Preferably ridable.

Suggestions:

-Ostrich or emu-like creatures, esp. if there are nuances of dodo.
-Llama or camel analogues.
-Formless blobs/clouds/etc., but with eyes and mouths that sort of move around.

More games set in 1590s London.
More games set in 1690s London.
More games set in 1790s London.

How about an RPG set in the cold war?

yes! more spycraft.

I'll field this one.

In Mother Russia, game plays you.

Those are MILIEUS, not CLICHES. Fools.

I would like to see more games which follow a few more of the points in the Evil Overlord list. And have random encounters that you have to run away from instead of monotonous grinding through forests full of seemingly endless low-level imbeciles, until it becomes just cognitively disruptive to see groups of enemies that are both outnumbered by your party and more poorly equipped basically throwing themselves at you kamikaze-style for your benefit. Keep that "next level up" integer hidden away, I don't want to see that shit.

More weapons that are not swords or axes!

are there any video game rpgs without the level system?

levels are totally pointless in final fantasy viii because enemies level up with you; i'm guessing they were thrown in at the last minute to please fans.

Or to piss off the people who seem proud for some reason because they got to level 99 on the first island, and now because of that the game will be harder for them instead of easier.

Final Fantasy X didn't have levels, just points that let you move further around the grid with all the stats on it.

Level systems are great. The more inane abstraction the better. Since I've killed more skeletons and orcs than you, I'm all-around better at EVERYTHING. Also, saving throws.

FF Tactics, FFTA and the Fire Emblem games eschew traditional level/xp systems for this odd, but sensible workaround wherein the amount of xp or ability points you get is based on the relationship between your level and the level of whomever you're beating up, plus they eliminate the points-on-defeat system for points awarded for every successful action. E.g. if you hit a dude who is 3 levels below you you get like 3 xp instead of the 10 you would get if the two of you were evenly matched.

It makes for some very weird "cheating" schemes in FFT/FFTA where you just spend a lot of time hitting and healing your own people, but it does keep random battles from being completely nonsense. Cheating in those is kind of idiotic anyway, since as in FFVIII the enemies level up relative to you.

The FFVIII system was cool in concept, and it mostly worked for me since I'm a "blast through the game" type rather than a level-grinder. However, the last boss is still super-hard, and if you haven't maxed out by the time you get stuck there then you're fucked.

The trick is to get as many items/item refining abilties as possible without levelling up too much, then converting items to rare magic and junctioning it to your statistics. Cards are good, a couple of the rarer cards (Laguna and another that I forget) can be turned into items that make you invincible for a short while, which makes the last battle a lot easier. I think you can still get one of the cards on disc 4, but it requires finding chocobos and one tiny area in a desert which isn't marked.

Boss fights in RPGs are a cliche I'd like to see obliterated.
So pointless and stupid.

TOMBOTM--the boss fight dread always leads to me pointlessly conserving mana/MP, hitting "Attack" over and over throughout the dungeon because I don't want to get to the boss with no healing/casting ability. Then the boss is either a total pussy or annihilates me effortlessly anyway.

adam I need updates on Dragon Quest 8! I'm playing vicariously through you until we move house and see if we have any money left

"levels are totally pointless in final fantasy viii because enemies level up with you; i'm guessing they were thrown in at the last minute to please fans."

this is why i liked ff8 best out of the ps1 generation FF games - the system encouraged a lot of lateral thinking in order to make the most of your party, and just going through the motions as you're accustomed to (eg. summoning guardian forces, drawing magic, leveling up) ends up being the least productive way to get the best results. unfortunately they didn't do much to emphasize this in-game, which probably led to a frustrating experience for a lot of people.

by "best" i mean "best besides FFT" obv

yeah people like me ):

i remember thinking "oh, i can get to strength 255 really easily when my natural strength is like 70 ... they probably didn't mean for you to do that. that makes it like cheating. i won't do that."

I like boss battles, it's an excuse to let loose with all the MP and powerful shit that you're otherwising conserving for, well, boss battles.

i do not mind the boss battle. It's one of those computer game staples that is reassuring to have around, plus what jordan said. they can get rid of the smash all boxes and barrels thing though.