Is the Pokemon series a RPG or something else

[Salidin54]

The title pretty much covers it. I know this is extremely random and about 10 years behind the times, but since this is a largely RPG-based site I figured I'd ask.

[fable]

The title pretty much covers it. I know this is extremely random and about 10 years behind the times, but since this is a largely RPG-based site I figured I'd ask.

No, but what do you think of a good curry?

[Salidin54]

Think about it. You build a party of characters with various talents and attributes. You follow a storyline to gather *number* of some item in order to become the "best." Your party gains experience and levels up to get better skills and stats. It could even be said to have an extremely wide class system. There are stat boosting items, healing items, and a currency system.

just sayin'

[Crenshinibon]

Well, gaining levels and items and being the best isn't the point of an RPG. If anything, I'd attribute Pokemon to a dungeon-crawl type game, something along the lines of Diablo or Darkstone.

[Salidin54]

So you're saying it's more of a RPG-hybrid?

[kmonster]

The Pokemon series are obviously rpgs, not the best (kids might think differently) but the most successful rpg series ever.

[fable]

Well, if you want to be serious about it...

RPG means roleplaying. Sending things to fight for you and adding to their stats as they level isn't roleplaying, is it? It's strategy. Roleplaying is about entering a new world, and interacting both with that world in detail and its inhabitants. Sure, numbers are involved in traditional roleplaying, but in the background, and the level of involvement for an RPG, I think, goes far beyond just putting bizarre Japanese plush toys in battle.

[RPGguy]

haha, burn.

:laugh:

[dragon wench]

[QUOTE=fable]Sure, numbers are involved in traditional roleplaying, but in the background, and the level of involvement for an RPG, I think, goes far beyond just putting bizarre Japanese plush toys in battle.[/QUOTE]

ROFL! Nicely put :laugh:

Er yeah.. saying that Pokemon is an RPG is even more bizarre than calling Sims an RPG...

[fable]

ROFL! Nicely put :laugh:

Er yeah.. saying that Pokemon is an RPG is even more bizarre than calling Sims an RPG...

Well, no burn was meant. It's just that genres are only useful in conversation (or anywhere else) if they have meaning. I know a lot of fake-reviewers call any game by any genre they can think of, because they accept whatever marketing they've been fed and remember no game that's more than a year or two old. But an RPG isn't a graphical adventure isn't a realtime strategy isn't a turn-based strategy isn't platformer isn't an arcade.

But I stand by my remarks about the Japanese plush toys. Those things are as weird as bonito flakes. Of course, the Japanese probably say as much about Chuck Norris, and they're right, too.

[Salidin54]

So then what is Pokemon?

Edit: I'm also sort of disappointed no one has come in here and tried to valiantly defend Pokemon's RPG status, and that no one has pointed out how completely stupid this discussion is.

[fable]

So then what is Pokemon?

Um, a nightmarish hybrid of the twin Japanese loves for combat and cuteness?

Edit: I'm also sort of disappointed no one has come in here and tried to valiantly defend Pokemon's RPG status, and that no one has pointed out how completely stupid this discussion is.

Why do you think I brought up curry?

And for that matter, what do you think of curry?

[Salidin54]

Um, a nightmarish hybrid of the twin Japanese loves for combat and cuteness?

OK then, I guess that will work. Good luck getting that classified as an official genre. And I don't know about curry, I've never had it, I've had guinea pig though and that's pretty good.

And also RPGguy: who got burned?

[Tricky]

The Wicker man. Best harvest ever.. sigh.

Oh what the hell.

"Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med"

Come on, everybody!

- "And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes þu cuccu;
Ne swik þu nauer nu.

Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!"

Aah.. Best harvest ever!

[fable]

One good turn of an early secular song deserves a good parody, courtesy of Ezra Pound:

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn yiu, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddam, DAMM.

And don't you wish it was summer? But not autumn; no wicker men for this non-agricultural community.

[RPGguy]

And also RPGguy: who got burned?

I understand you are just creating discussion, not defending the franchise. And I'm not about to venture down the path of debating how my toy dragons pwn your toy teddy bears.

I just thought fable's choice of words kind of effectively summarized my own notion about how ridiculous that franchise is and so I sanction the intentional (or inadvertent) slam against anyone who plays it or supports its continued existence on this planet by purchasing the related products.

[Salidin54]

gotcha!

[kmonster]

RPG means roleplaying. Sending things to fight for you and adding to their stats as they level isn't roleplaying, is it? It's strategy. Roleplaying is about entering a new world, and interacting both with that world in detail and its inhabitants. Sure, numbers are involved in traditional roleplaying, but in the background, and the level of involvement for an RPG, I think, goes far beyond just putting bizarre Japanese plush toys in battle.

Your description fits to pen&paper. But for computer games there's another category, adventure. The difference between crpg and adventure is gaining experience and levels.
Ultima, Wizardry, Dungeon master, Eye of the Beholder were all considered crpgs without a doubt when they were released although there's even less interaction than in the normal pokemon games.

Sorting computer games into categories is not about how close they gets to what one may consider the optimal crpg, it's about into which category they fit best.

For rpg fans it's hard to accept, but the common opinion is that pokomon series are rpgs.
Just look at the sites which sort computer games into categories like mobygames, gamefaqs, Wikipedia ...

[Salidin54]

AHHHH! Why does this thread have over 100 views, it's just not right.

[fable]

Your description fits to pen&paper. But for computer games there's another category, adventure. The difference between crpg and adventure is gaining experience and levels.
Ultima, Wizardry, Dungeon master, Eye of the Beholder were all considered crpgs without a doubt when they were released although there's even less interaction than in the normal pokemon games.

I'm having a problem admittedly with some of this. The Ultima series? Where you can pick up a bucket, drop it into a well, fill it, pull it out, and use the contents to put out a fire? Wizardry, where you can cast summoning spells, move tree limbs to provide walkways, and get attacked for selling back items to merchants you've stolen them from? Even if we make no allowance for the age of these titles, that sounds like a lot more interaction than you have with those plushies and their world.

I don't recall DM well, and EotB wasn't an RPG: it was a realtime, action-based dungeon crawl. I can't speak to how it was marketed. I reviewed it when it came out, and I disagreed with calling it an RPG, then.

Sorting computer games into categories is not about how close they gets to what one may consider the optimal crpg, it's about into which category they fit best.

Which is what I'm doing. Throwing animals into battles to gain experience, which becomes levels, already occurs in several games, all of them considered strategy, like Battles of Norghan. If Pokemon offers more ability to interact at a real level with its environment, then perhaps it can be called an RPG. But I doubt this happens. Does it?

For rpg fans it's hard to accept, but the common opinion is that pokomon series are rpgs. Just look at the sites which sort computer games into categories like mobygames, gamefaqs, Wikipedia ...

When a company labels a game, that label is accepted almost universally. But this doesn't make it accurate, or a suitable label for purposes of discussion. And on that note...

I just finished a review of a 1978 filmed opera by the great East German director Walter Felsenstein. Until recently, Wikipedia (and other sites) listed him as a great pioneer of Regietheater, which basically can be summed up as "a stage director can pay next to no attention to the work they're doing, in pursuit of their own ideas." In fact, Felsenstein was the opposite of this: a meticulous researcher into the music and libretto, and a man who repeatedly stated that his goal was to be as loyal to the composer's intentions in their opera as possible. All his filmed work reflects this. A bunch of people dedicated to promulgating the opposite viewpoint in order to promote Regietheater don't change the facts.