Written in 2024 by vio81
Title #16 - The World Ends With You
Title #18 - Deus Ex: Human Revolution
What if life is too short for sticking to well-trodden paths for you - when a sequel, a third, fourth or fifth title sounds like work and not fun to you? Been there, done that - you crave something new:
Fear not, there are enough RPGs that stretch the boundaries of what you can still call "RPG", and if you are fed up with yet-another run-of-the-mill Star Ocean or Final Fantasy, consider giving one (or more) of the following titles a fair shot - and you may experience something _quite different_.
If you would invent the genre of RPGs in the early 2000s, how would a modern, zeit-geisty approach to the genre look and feel like? Once again, SQEX has got you covered:
You will have to search long and hard to find more belts and zippers on display than the main cast of TWEWY wears proudly - and I would even go so far to argue that this is Peak-Nomura design, for good or worse.
Making full use of the two displays of the Nintendo DS, you can choose to fight on two screens at the same time, juggling combo-attacks from top to bottom or vice versa, and depending on enemy type(s), using different attacks executed via button presses and the stylus on the scratch-pad/bottom screen. These attacks are collected as pins dropped by FOEs, bought in stores or found when scanning the thoughts of NPCs.
This game is close to the definition of _weird_, and exactly the reason why it belongs here:
For maximum effect, pick any JPRG (e.g. FF1 or DQ1) and fight a few battles, then immediately jump to TWEWY - comparing them back-to-back makes you realize what sensory overkill is on offer here that just fits to our times. Granted, 17 years have passed since TWEWY was released, so we are missing the mostly toxic "improvements" like lootboxes, DLCs, F2P MOBA Season Passes, but none of these would make TWEWY any bit better - so you can enjoy it for what it is rather than what it shouldn't have or be.
Speaking of what a game is (or isn't):
What if you pick a middle-aged dad as your main character instead of the usual barely-20-years-old angsty adolescent adonis?
Nier Gestalt answers this question with bravado - and if you consider the fact that in Japan/Asia, the PS3-version didn't get Dad Nier, but shonen-angsty-typical-teenager as our hero instead. The setting is based on one of the alternate endings of a PS2-era dynasty-warrior-clone released by Enix, which basically nobody has played (you had to grind a lot for that ending, long before "achivements" were a thing), and we are also treated to a cast that is the anti-thesis to your normal party of He-Mans and beauty-queens - and the game manages to give them more personality than many a RPG does.
What's more, we get some genre-breaking gameplay-cameos of bullet-hell Shoot'em'Ups or isometric western RPG-style mixed in for good measure, and as a cherry on top, a soundtrack that went on to become so iconic that 10-year-anniversary re-releases on Vinyl are sold out faster than you can blink (but don't despair, in the mean time they have re-issued some stock and you can get them without selling a kidney).
No surprise then that it was successful enough to get a highly acclaimed successor as well!
It doesn't take a degree to realize that 'hey, this technically ISN'T a real RPG!' But what is and isn't a RPG any longer then?
docower's note: we actually tried to answer that.
If you look at it at face value, DX:HR is a stealth-first-person-shooter-action-RPG set in a near future version of our world, where augmentation (replacing missing or inferior body parts with high-tech replacements) is a "gamechanger" that has shaken Humanity's understanding of what it means being a Human.
And what better way to ponder that question (is it or isn't it a RPG?) along the lines of finding out what it means to be human?
DX:HR feels like it would belong in a line of less conventional RPGs, like Illusion of Time or Secret of Evermore. So if you have been sticking to your standard (J-)RPGs for a while (like I did back then), this is a worthy alternative to try ... and you can experience what it means to become a better version of yourself with Sarif Industries!
Speaking of becoming a better version of yourself:
What if the innocent nuclear-dream world of the 1950ies became true and we got nuclear-powered cars, household robots, and life was as clean and easy as promised in utopias back then? Welcome to the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout then, which many RPGs are skipping for presenting a story set in the far future, where mankind/survivors have already built up new civilizations on the ruins of mankind.
This series, however, goes all in and drops you in the dirty middle bit - there's no shiny future, new or advanced civilization, but rather the ruins of contemporary civilization: As such, you can join one of several factions, be a good guy or a wasteland hunter. But as with any good RPG, your party can make or break the experience - thankfully, you will meet many characters during journey, and you can decide who will keep you company - one at a time though.
Be it coincidence or being in the right place at the right time, Fallout 4 managed to become a mainstream hit, meeting critical as well as commercial success: Maybe it is due to the flexible gameplay design/choices that have been made:
You can choose to play the game in first-person or third-person mode, and the VATS-system (a super-slow-motion function in fights) is optional as well - you can either completely ignore it or make heavy use of it (so much so that you could almost call it ATB-like).
docower's note: And that's exactly why I was able to play through Fallout 4, hehe.
There are many weapons with different perks on offer, and depending on the allocation of experience points, you might be able to talk you way out of tricky situations.
When it comes to genre-bending, this may very well be the weirdest one: Welcome to the first CarPG you've probably never played!
Years before Cars (the Pixar animation series) became a thing, this game would let you choose to be a Nissan Z350, Honda HR-V, Mini Cooper, Jeep, Sedan, Toy-Truck or Formula 1 car. Or rather, possess the body of such a vehicle - would that make ChoroQ also a body-snatcher type of horror game? Worth a separate debate, I guess!
Instead of an overworld, you travel around multiple interconnected islands you can visit. You start in a tiny town where cars follow their daily routine ... driving around to visit the local paintshop, buy some new rims, upgrade their ride and go to car-races (of course). And that's what you actually do - going racing, which would be the equivalent of typical RPG-battles. And if that wasn't enough, you wouldn't belive the plot even if I tried to summarize it. Yes, it is _that_ crazy.
If this piques your interest, go and check it out - there's nothing else out there like it!
As we settle down for a good night's rest in our favourite car park, let's ponder all the new options we covered this time: You can be a post-nuclear wasteland bounty-hunter, an augmented super-detective, a caring-dad, a fashionista or a sports-car - who's saying there's just the same thing to play over and over again? Tune in next week then when we wrap up our journey en route to the finish-line and ask ourselves - where do we go next?
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