RPG Elements: Difference between revisions

 

Seems to occur most often in [[First-Person Shooter|FPSes]], [[Turn-Based Strategy|strategy]] [[Real Time Strategy|games]] (usually [[Veteran Unit]]), [[Sports Game|sports sims]], and the occasional [[Fighting Game]], especially those that allow you to build your own character from the ground up.

 

* One of the earliest examples is ''[[Zelda II: The Adventure of Link|Zelda II the Adventure of Link]]'', which swapped out a lot of the [[Adventure Game]] elements for a blend of [[Platformer|platforming]], supplemented by RPG Elements like [[Level Grinding]] and a magic system.

* Even earlier than ''Zelda II'' was an [[Infocom]] [[Interactive Fiction|text adventure]], ''Beyond Zork''. Your character had various stats, could use potions and herbs, and even attack monsters, yet it had all of the trademarks of the previous [[Zork]] games (including the mindbending puzzles). Surprisingly, it worked.

* ''[[The Breach]]'' has a level up mechanic, each level increases Sergei's Rate of Fire and damage by 8%, and his health bar and shield regeneration by 5%.

 

* Strangely, Square's ''[[World of Mana]]'' series started out as a straight action-RPG, but every game since the Japanese-only ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' has had {{smallcaps| fewer}} RPG elements than the previous title. ''Dawn Of Mana'' manages to be a straight-out third-person action game with fewer RPG elements than ''[[Ratchet and Clank]].''

* ''[[Scurge: Hive]]'' is an isometric [[Action Game]]-slash-[[Platformer]] with experience points, character levels, and [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]. Oh, and [[Expy]]s of the ''[[Metroid]] Fusion'' cast.

* In ''[[Evolva]]'', you must absorb the DNA from your enemies to mutate again and improve your weapons, making DNA something like [[Experience Points]]. Besides, you're allowed to customize your characters and choose which attacks and skills you want to improve.

 

* Sierra's ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series, though officially a [[Adventure Game|graphical adventure]], allowed you to improve various stats (both physical and skill) by taking related actions. Some tasks could not be completed (at least, not in a particular way) until your character reached a certain skill level.

** Though the fifth and final game is more of an inversion (an RPG with adventure game elements).

* Used very loosely in ''[[The Spellcasting Series]]''. Ernie gains XP and levels by solving puzzles and learning new spells, but since it's a text adventure game without a smidge of combat, the process is mostly for show. Some spells DO require a certain level to be cast, but progressing through the game normally will take care of that problem on its own.

 

* In Capcom's ''[[Knights of the Round]]'', your character will get stronger once your score reaches certain milestones. [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|Does this]] [[Character Level|remind you]] [[Experience Points|of anything]]?

* Capcom's [[Dungeons & Dragons]]-based beat 'em ups ''Tower of Doom'' and ''Shadow Over Mystara'' are loosely based on the tabletop RPG itself. Strangely though, even though your character has [[Experience Points]], they function as just a score if anything, as your characters simply level up once per chapter.

* Surprisingly averted in ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'', which in spite of being published by Capcom (Of which It's Own [[Devil May Cry]] did have RPG Elements) this game intentionally avoids this.

 

* Unusually, the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' video game franchise has RPG Elements in them, to some degree, possibly as a way to gauge the player's growing skill at the game. Unfortunately, some games take this concept too far, and actually prevent you from using cards above your current level, placing [[Fake Difficulty|unneeded]]—and unwanted—restrictions on one of the most appealing parts to the card game: building and customizing your deck(s).

 

* ''[[Midnight Club]]: Los Angeles'' is a racing game that uses levels, albeit three different leveling scales. One is raised by driving certain types of cars, which unlocks parts; the second is for using special abilities, which unlocks more storage for special abilities, and the third and most important one is for racing in general, which unlocks more missions.

* ''[[Blur (video game)|Blur]]'' has you earn fans for finishing in a given place, pulling off stunts, wrecking other cars, etc. Get enough fans, your Fan Level increases, unlocking new cars and, in multiplayer, new car mods.

 

* ''[[Borderlands]]'' is a [[First-Person Shooter]] with separate classes with a specific action ability and passive skill trees, as well as [[Character Level|CharacterLevels]] - unlike other examples of [[An Adventurer Is You]], weapons are not by any means restricted by class though, specific classes just have ways to make certain weapons better.

* ''[[Daikatana]]'' was ([[Vaporware|infamously]]) supposed to be an innovative blend of RPG Elements and the ''[[Quake]]'' FPS system. Delays, developer infighting, and just plain bad design resulted in the final release being... schizophrenic, to say the least.

** It's a similar situation to [[Magic Versus Science]]. [[Word of God]] ([[All There in the Manual|or at least the advertising material]]) is that they're RPGs with first-person shooter interfaces.

** ''[[BioShock (series)]]'', 2K's spiritual successor to ''[[System Shock]] 2'', however, had its RPG mechanics scaled back somewhat to simplify gameplay (although the actual world itself contains a touch more complexity (in terms of systems that players and NPCs can interact with) than System Shock 2): Players were invited to enhance themselves by using [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|ADAM]] to buy genetic upgrades, divided into plasmids (active superhuman attacks that let you fling items around and [[Bee-Bee Gun|shoot bees out of your hand]] among other things) and gene tonics (passive upgrades that enforce the player's ability to deal with enemies, the environment and machinery), which were all swappable at will.

* Hello, ''[[Call of Duty]] 4''. See [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/9/ this comic]. For clarification: as with an RPG, every kill you make rewards you with experience. Gain enough, you rank up and get access to more equipment. As it's ''Call of Duty'', [[Follow the Leader|this has become very popular in multiplayer shooters since then]].

* An [[Older Than the NES]] example: ''Dungeons of Daggorath'' for the Tandy Color Computer 2- ostensibly an early first-person dungeon-crawler, but deeper. Killing creatures increased your strength, and therefore both your health and damage; your strength was also the factor in "revealing" magical items that were more powerful than mundane ones once revealed. You were free to roam through the first three levels of the Dungeon at will, but as the second level's creatures would splatter you in one hit, and the ''third'' level had magical creatures that you couldn't even ''see'' without a magical torch, you were far better off hunting down every last creature before moving on.

* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Star Wars: Dark Forces|Dark Forces II]]'' and later. The player gets to pick force powers as the game progresses and can drift towards an evil / good character.

 

* In ''[[Civilization]] IV'', a "Unit Promotions" game mechanic was introduced, allowing you to use experience gained by your units in battle to buy them special traits that improved their combat values or added new abilities.

** While picking specific bonuses as you level up is new, units getting better with experience has been part of the series since the original game. It started with a simple binary distinction (veteran vs normal) in ''Civ I'' and ''Civ II'' and slowly became more elaborate.

* In ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'', capital ships gain experience points, increasing their fighter cap, and granting the use of special abilities, which could be upgraded by throwing a skill point into them.

 

* ''[[Drakengard]]'' is [[Hack and Slash]] meets [[Simulation Game|Flight Sim]] meets RPG Elements. You level up your HP, you level up your weapons, and you level up your dragon.

 

* Speaking of ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'', your [[BFG]]s level up with use, and your health bar levels up as you score kills.

* Parodied in ''[[Kirby Super Star]]'', as pictured at the top of the page. In the "Great Cave Offensive" sub-game, you fight a supposedly "RPG-style" boss known as the Computer Virus, which takes the form of generic [[Medieval European Fantasy]] enemies like knights and dragons (as opposed to the ''[[Kirby]]'' series's more bizarre fare), complete with a little text box at the top of the screen that announces the player's or boss's blocks or attacks and a [[Stylistic Suck|tinny, 8-bit style rendition]] of the main boss theme. The player, though, continues to control Kirby in the normal [[Platformer]] style throughout the battle, so it isn't actually an [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] (it just looks like one.) When you win, the menu awards you various (spurious) spoils, including [[Experience Point]]s, "hunger points," "happy smile points," "exam score points," and so on.

* Platform-shooter ''[[Iji]]'' uses RPG Elements to level up various skills like hacking or strength (for kicking). They're necessary and change how the player proceeds - concentrating on hacking enemies or destroy them with the most powerful guns? There's a huge amount of choices. It works in-game because the character, Iji, is part-cyborg.

 

* Similar to both the above, ''[[BattleTech|MechCommander]]'' features pilots that gain experience as you progress through the game. Additionally, said pilots can be injured during missions and, although they do recuperate over the course of multiple missions, they can receive sufficient injury to kill them.

* ''[[Dawn of War]]: Dark Crusade's'' campaign mode allows the player to equip their chosen faction's commander with various pieces of Wargear, which offer various stat boosts, as well as other bonuses, while also looking cool to boot. This carried over into the next expansion, ''Soulstorm''. This carries over to DOW 2, with the "standard" campaign troops gaining experience and wargear choices.

* The third ''[[Taiko no Tatsujin]]'' game for the DS, ''Dororon! Yokai Daikessen'', includes an RPG mode. From what's normally a rhythm game series. You travel a world map, get into random battles, gain level ups, visit towns, buy equipment, and fight bosses, just like a regular RPG. The main change is that battles is presented like songs are in the games. Every correct note you hit causes damage to your opponent, but enemies will sometimes use tricks to try and [[Interface Screw|obscure your vision]] or generally make it harder to hit notes.

 

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' has two modes of play. One is a [[Roguelike]], and the other is similar to ''[[The Sims]]'' or ''[[Dungeon Keeper]]''. Naturally, they both allow the dwarfs to gain skills and whatnot.

 

* In ''[[Mars Matrix]]'', collecting golden cubes will give you [[Experience Points]] and levels. Leveling up increases the power of your main shot.

* Like the above example, in the flash game [[Epic Battle Fantasy]] 3.3: Bullet Heaven, you can collect coins from killed enemies and buy upgrades like more lives, stronger and faster shots, etc. Of course, these stats cap at a certain point; it seems to be more of a way to let newcomers to the [[Bullet Hell]] genre start out slow and work their way up. Any non-hardcore player will need max upgrades to survive the later levels and bonus levels.

* The Playstation port of ''Point Blank'' is a collection of minigames in which you use a gun controller (like Duck Hunt). It has a one-player RPG mode that replaces regular RPG battles with the minigames. The stats don't affect the actual minigames, but determine which ones you play, how many losses you can take before [[Game Over]], etc.

 

* Any [[Sports Game]] with a "Career Mode" will usually contain some RPG Elements.

** ''NBA Street'' from EA Sports Big made it so getting 5/5 in stat made a silver crown appear for that stat, but then you could upgrade to gold crown (essentially 6/5). The catch is only ''one'' stat can get a gold crown; through lots of play, you can get 6/5 on one stat and 5/5 on all others.

*** [[Subverted Trope|Sadly]], [http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/04/camelot_justifies_no_rpg_mode_in_mario_tennis_open it won't.]

 

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]: Portable Ops'' allowed you to collect new 'party members', gave them all unique stats and abilities, and even let you 'level up' their health and stamina with enough play. It felt less ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' and more ''[[Pokémon]]'', though, since there was an element of collecting for the sake of collecting, only one party member was on the field at a time and most of them ended up filling up your Spy Unit (essentially a dump unit).

 

* Likewise, the ''Dark Wizard'' game for Sega CD used units that leveled up, could be equipped with exchangable gear (if they weren't monster types), and even evolved or got class changes, despite being fundamentally a strategy game.

* Many small-scope strategy games like ''[[Close Combat]]'' and ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'' allow you to equip, promote, and transfer troops throughout a campaign.

* [[Heroes of Might and Magic]] had heroes commanding armies and gaining levels when enough enemy creatures had been defeated from the beginning, with each game up to IV adding more and more RPG elements to them (II added skills, III modified the inventory system to use an abstract sort of paperdoll system, and IV made the heroes actually ''fight'' in battles, and not just cast spells).

 

* Many fans of ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' were surprised by the number and variety of RPG Elements in the ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|San Andreas]]'' entry, specifically the idea that using an ability allowed one to improve it. In fact, one could say that the main character CJ in ''GTA: SA'' had a more realistic advancement than many true RPG heroes, as CJ doesn't improve in discrete levels, but almost continuously over time. Most of the titles in the series have some kind of character advancement, but usually in the form of bonuses for completing special missions.

** To get into specifics, some of CJ's stats include strength, stamina, muscle build, fat build, driving skills, cycling skills, flying skills, and yes, even sex appeal. The skill stats for various vehicles improve your handling of them as the skill set builds up, so if CJ rides a bike for the first time, he will pretty much suck at it and fall a lot from even gentle bumps!

* ''[[Minecraft]]'' has this in the form of experience points, potions, and enchantments. Experience points are used to enchant tools and armor pieces for various effects, such as a sword multiplying the number of drops from a mob or a pair of boots that reduces fall damage. Brewing potions can get you various results, depending on what is used, and they can be made into a "splash" form that act like hand grenades. The fanbase is [[Broken Base|divided]] as to whether this constitutes [[Growing the Beard]] or [[Jumping the Shark]].

 

* ''[[Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu]]'', where IQ means [[Ranked by IQ|rank]], examination means [[Serious Business]] and academic performance means [[Experience Points]].

 

* The web serial ''Memetic Narration'' ([http://writetocreate.com/category/memetic-narration/ found here]) features a group of teenagers who fight turn-based rpg battles against evil embodiments of internet memes within a computer. Their abilities in said battles are determined by "leveling up" their personal relationships.

 

* ''[[Adventure Time]]''

{{quote|'''Ice King:''' [[Large Ham|Cast]] ''[[Dungeons & Dragons|Detect Secret Door]]''! (door appears) '''[[Large Ham|SUCCESS!]]'''}}