Role-playing games (RPGs) are my favorite genre of videogames. No other genre offers such depth in character development and storyline. Even if you’ve never played an RPG before, you must’ve heard of big names like Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest. In an RPG, you play the role of a central character and go on a journey of some sort, usually to save the world from some kind of evil and meeting other characters along the way.
Common RPG elements are a battle system that pits a party of your characters against a band of enemies, usually non-human; a menu system to check up on items, status, and equipment; a set of abilities such as magical spells and weapon techniques; and an involving storyline set in a fantasy world. Playing an RPG is like reading an interactive novel. Problem is, many of these novels are poorly written, plagued by cliche after cliche. Here’s an incomplete list:
The hero with mysterious origins. This is a standard story element found not only in RPGs but also in fantasy novels. It is almost an essential aspect of any epic adventure. There’s nothing wrong with a hero with mysterious origins, but sometimes it feels as if writers don’t know what else to do with the hero, as if the hero’s origins are mysterious to them too – even until the very end, which leads to lack of much needed character development.
The hero with amnesia. This is much like the above, except much more specific. In a way, it’s the epitome of the above, a cheap and convenient way to make the hero mysterious without having to think too hard.
The novice hero with unexplained supreme swordsmanship. The big problem with this cliche is that it makes the hero boring. An invincible character is no fun. Take note of the difference between a two-dimensional kid who effortlessly defeats everyone around him and a seasoned bada$$ with a story to tell – although he or she is most likely unwilling to tell it.
“The chosen one.” This one needs no introduction. Destiny is surely a prominent aspect of any fantasy story, but the hero should justify the destiny, not the other way around.
The mute hero. This is the most annoying one of all. Seriously, what purpose does a hero who cannot talk serve? It is highly inconvenient, for I have seen too many scenarios in RPGs bent all the way out of shape just so the hero won’t have to talk. Is it some sort of artistic expression? If so, I haven’t realized it in the 10+ years I have had to deal with mute protagonists.
The hero’s hometown gets razed. A quiet villager is intent on leading a simple life in this tiny part of the world until evil strikes his loved ones, unleashing the warrior within. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this cliche – other than the fact that it is a cliche, overused without any creativity.
“You killed my father.” Revenge of one kind or another or the desire for it is something we can all empathize with, which is why it is employed so often, but somebody needs to breathe new life into this character profile. One Conan is enough.
“I am your father.”The Empire Strikes Back, anybody?
“I am your brother.” Sorry, couldn’t resist. But a fight between brothers is one of the oldest stories ever told. Rome wasn’t built in one day, but it was built by two brothers.
You have to collect some mystical items, and there are either three or seven of them. We all know three and seven are very special numbers, but it gets a little tiring after a few dozen RPGs use this simple story element to create a basic plot structure. Some writers are just lazy.
There’s a corrupt empire. This might be leftovers from the 60’s or 70’s, when many of today’s videogame programmers were either being born or going through their rebellious teenage years. There have long been anti-government sentiments in storylines of RPGs, and I really don’t see this cliche declining in popularity thanks to recent events.
There’s a magic sword. The hero needs to find it, for with it and only with it can he rid the world of this evil threatening the lives of all mankind.
It’s always a hero, never a heroine. Why do you suppose Tomb Raider was such a hit when it came out a decade ago? (I realize Tomb Raider is not an RPG, but that’s how cliched the male protagonist is in RPGs.) It was different on a very fundamental level: You were controlling a chick, not a dude. On that note…
The well-endowed heroine. Honestly, don’t those things get in the way? I realize that they could serve as distractions for deprived male opponents, but what about all the jumping and climbing that you need to go through on your quest to conquer evil? It’s fanfare, plain and simple. And…sadly, it does add to the role-playing experience.
There was a war…a thousand years ago. Do historians and villians only think and write in binary? Why couldn’t the war have happened two hundred and thirty some years ago? Why did the sleeping villian take so long to wake up? If you got knocked out so badly last time that you needed ten centuries to sleep it off, what makes you think you’ll do any better this time? Well, there usually are entertaining if not entirely plausible reasons for all this.
As I have deftly illustrated with my many subtle examples, RPG cliches are not limited to videogames and certainly not to the RPG genre alone. Cliches aren’t bad intrinsically. They’re simply overused but are still effective when used well. Cliches should add to the story, not act as the set of shoulders on which all the story’s plot twists fall.
(Spoiler alert ahead!)
Some great RPGs of the ages have employed cliches. Xenogears, an RPG of such reputation and popularity that I would probably be crucified were I to call it nothing more than a cliche, employs two cliches from my list right off the bat. Fei, the hero, has amnesia, and the place he has begun to call home is burned down by big robots. Crono from Chrono Trigger never says a word, and the game even features a princess and a frog. Although Sephiroth is technically not the hero of Final Fantasy VII (but he is so hot), he is shrouded in just as much if not more mystery than Cloud. Zelda epitomizes the search for mystical items. The characters of Final Fantasy VI are fighting against a corrupt empire, and no gamer would dare slander that classic.
These are all, however, fairly old games. Recent RPGs have used cliches more and more seldom. But some still do. In Final Fantasy X, Sin is Tidus’s father, and the hero in Dragon Quest VIII doesn’t talk either. We, as humans, crave new things, but we don’t mind cliches either because we like that which is familiar. Let’s not forget Voldemort did kill Harry’s father, and we all seem to be fine with that.
