RPG Cliches Part 1 (no list)

I really found this on a website because I got interested in finding out why RPGs get mostly repetitive in some way.

1.  Sleepyhead Rule
The teenaged male lead will begin the first day of the game by oversleeping, being woken up by his mother, and being reminded that he’s slept in so late he missed meeting his girlfriend.

Well I think that I rarely see this kind of cliche because the game starts where the company wants to. Some games start with the main character, others with the villain and the rest with some people that the hero may meet in the future.

2. “No! My beloved peasant village!”
The hero’s home town, city, slum, or planet will usually be annihilated in a spectacular fashion before the end of the game, and often before the end of the opening scene.

Some RPGs are just like that. Others have the hero without a hometown. Others have unrelated events to this.

3. Thinking With The Wrong Head (Hiro Rule)
No matter what she’s accused of doing or how mysterious her origins are, the hero will always be ready to fight to the death for any girl he met three seconds ago.

Obviously in most RPGs the hero will always fight for his party members loyal or not.

4. Cubic Zirconium Corollary
The aforementioned mysterious girl will be wearing a pendant that will ultimately prove to be the key to either saving the world or destroying it.

That’s what makes her special from the other female members of the group regardless of her relationship with the hero.

5. Logan’s Run Rule
RPG characters are young. Very young. The average age seems to be 15, unless the character is a decorated and battle-hardened soldier, in which case he might even be as old as 18. Such teenagers often have skills with multiple weapons and magic, years of experience, and never ever worry about their parents telling them to come home from adventuring before bedtime. By contrast, characters more than twenty-two years old will cheerfully refer to themselves as washed-up old fogies and be eager to make room for the younger generation.

Age won’t matter in a game but yeah it’s mostly teenaged guys and the oldies are the ones with 25+ years of age (how weird.).

6. Single Parent Rule
RPG characters with two living parents are almost unheard of. As a general rule, male characters will only have a mother, and female characters will only have a father. The missing parent either vanished mysteriously and traumatically several years ago or is never referred to at all. Frequently the main character’s surviving parent will also meet an awkward end just after the story begins, thus freeing him of inconvenient filial obligations.

The company is free to do what they want here. The mysterious parent is mostly found helpless in a situation or a strong villain in the game. The remaining parent may live or die by some chance.

7. Some Call Me… Tim?
Good guys will only have first names, and bad guys will only have last names. Any bad guy who only has a first name will become a good guy at some point in the game. Good guys’ last names may be mentioned in the manual but they will never be referred to in the story.

I think the first names usually are mentioned not the last.

8. Nominal Rule
Any character who actually has a name is important in some way and must be sought out. However, if you are referred to as a part of a posessive noun (“Crono’s Mom”) then you are superfluous.

Sometimes I find it hard to say why should there be pronouns but still a name can do fit the situation.

9. The Compulsories
There’s always a fire dungeon, an ice dungeon, a sewer maze, a misty forest, a derelict ghost ship, a mine, a glowing crystal maze, an ancient temple full of traps, a magic floating castle, and a technological dungeon.

It’s not really cumpulsory but yeah there are lots of useless dungeons which can be classified as one of these. Good thing it fits where it is supposed to be.

10. Luddite Rule (or, George Lucas Rule)
Speaking of which, technology is inherently evil and is the exclusive province of the Bad Guys. They’re the ones with the robots, factories, cyberpunk megalopolises and floating battle stations, while the Good Guys live in small villages in peaceful harmony with nature. (Although somehow your guns and/or heavily armed airships are exempted from this.)

It depends on the game itself because some bad guys are in traditional places. Some good guys are also in the world  where there is also technology.

11. Let’s Start From The Very Beginning (Yuna Rule)
Whenever there is a sequel to an RPG that features the same main character as the previous game, that character will always start with beginner skills. Everything that they learned in the previous game will be gone, as will all their ultra-powerful weapons and equipment.

I usually believe FFX-2 is just one of Square-Enix’s spinoffs but it is a sequel to FFX this time with female leads. The battle system was changed in a way as well as their stats. Balancing the party is up to you. FFX-2 equipment is different than in FFX. The skills are almost the same.

I do believe that all RPGs should start in Level 1 and FFX-2 is no exception. It’s just plain stupid for them because Yuna can’t summon any aeons and the rest don’t seem to care that she’s ex-summoner 2 years ago.

12. Poor Little Rich Hero (Meis Rule)
If the hero comes from a rich and powerful family, it will have fallen on hard times and be broke and destitute by the time the game actually starts.

The hero usually comes from a poor family but this is a very rare case.

13. The Higher The Hair, The Closer To God (Cloud Rule)
The more outrageous his hairstyle, the more important a male character is to the story.

So that the male character is easily recognized, the looks have to be considered.

14. Garrett’s Principle
Let’s not mince words: you’re a thief. You can walk into just about anybody’s house like the door wasn’t even locked. You just barge right in and start looking for stuff. Anything you can find that’s not nailed down is yours to keep. You will often walk into perfect strangers’ houses, lift their precious artifacts, and then chat with them like you were old neighbors as you head back out with their family heirlooms under your arm. Unfortunately, this never works in stores.

I also notice that stranger’s houses were like for exhibition purposes but I don’t know why they let strangers in for a reason.

 

18. Crono’s Complaint
The less the main character talks, the more words are put into his mouth, and therefore the more trouble he gets into through no fault of his own.

The characters who are almost mute can express their own opinions as if they have no freedom of speech.

 

19. “Silly Squall, bringing a sword to a gunfight…”
No matter what timeframe the game is set in — past, present, or future — the main hero and his antagonist will both use a sword for a weapon. (Therefore, you can identify your antagonist pretty easily right from the start of the game just by looking for the other guy who uses a sword.) These swords will be far more powerful than any gun and often capable of distance attacks.

Well some villains have special or no weapons at all. It is so typical and plain stupid just for a villain to have sword as their weapon.

 20. Just Nod Your Head And Smile
And no matter how big that big-ass sword is, you won’t stand out in a crowd. Nobody ever crosses the street to avoid you or seems to be especially shocked or alarmed when a heavily armed gang bursts into their house during dinner, rummages through their posessions, and demands to know if they’ve seen a black-caped man. People can get used to anything, apparently.

People even have heard more rumors than the group has and they (the group) have no idea what’s going on until they decide to explore the situation much later in the game.

~ ni karlosgwapo sa Hunyo 7, 2008.