Your 5 Must-haves in an RPG

[ipei]

1. World

It must have another world in it. Every graphic, music, and sound effect makes up one harmonized world.

2.You are the hero

The player must be the hero. Not an audience. Even if the name of character is a given one. The personality must be the player him/herself.

3.Joy of tactics

It must give the player the chance to make a strategy. Whatever is OK as far as the player forget the time and enjoy thinking.

4.Comfortability

It must be like a high quality hotel with the top hospitality. Every detail is just for the player's comfortability.

5.Memory

After the player finished it, there must be a memory in the player. It must remain with a good feeling for a long long time.

 

[TheRiotInside]

1) Pizzazz!

Haha, really though, one of the only things that will completely turn me off of a game is the dialogue. An RPG can be phenomenal and have simple graphics (Earthbound), a cliche story (Golden Sun) or whatever else, but if the actual dialogue is cheesy and not realistic, it just kills it for me. I'm not too concerned or bothered by the other aspects of the game as much, as long as they're polished (except when it comes to my own games of course, being the perfectionist that I am).

 

[Eschaton]

1. It must be fun. If the gameplay is slow and repetitive, no pretty visuals will make me continue, or make me care about these people.

2. Interesting, relatable, well-written characters. I have to care about these people if I wanna keep going.

3. Must be aesthetically peleasing. I could care less if the graphics look like something from the Game Boy or the NES, but the aesthetics have to work to serve the game. Not the other way around.

4. Innovative gameplay without being overly esoteric. I like skill trees that open when the characters gain levels. I dislike "Soul Boards ®" that are powered by the souls of (x fancy name for monsters from some obscure mythology) that can only be accessed through acts or charity so long as you have "Soul Spheres ®" or whatever.

5. Games that keep what works and discard the rest. Random battles will cause me to close the game. An overworld map is a turn-off. Excessive menus will make the game less fun.

 

[ShinGamix]

1. Originality with Class and Style goes along way.  Give me an intriguing and interesting story with serious overtones and comedic instances, don't bore me to death!

    If you can't make a good story make a bad story that is really over the top and funny! If all else fails add a time machine or something that is never going to happen in reality!

    Don't end a great show like Lost with a dumbass ending!! If you're going to do that just shoot the main character have him fall on the floor and stare at the camera while he bleeds fade to black and end!

    and don't name any Game Chrono (Cross) that doesn't have Chrono in it!! 

2. Suspenseful and mysterious storyline without obvious plot twists with intelligent vision to the ordeals the characters go through

3. The first five minutes must make you as the player WANT to play the rest of the game not just make you want to get through it faster to get to playing the game. I despise this!

4. A rollercoaster of emotions:make me feel the game!

5. Make Powerful and evil villains! You can only like the hero(s) only as much as hate the villains and want to see them pay and suffer!

 

[West Mains]

1. A good story

2. Well written dialogue

3. Lore that's thought out well.

4. Actually challenging gameplay, i.e. mobs that can't be defeated by just spamming my strongest attack.

5. Nudity or double entendres.

 

[Caustic]

Since I generally care more about story over gameplay (though the latter being boring can ruin things as well), I'll just run with what I know / believe. 

1. Make your game!
   Unless it's a fanquel (take a guess at what that means), no game that you make should be "like 'x'". Don't just rip off whatever you like in-particular: give your game it's own identity! No one wants to play your version of Final Fantasy 7 or the exact works of Shakespeare in game form.
    
2. Make the story / characters interesting!
   Probably the hardest one, because so much has been done already. But there's still room to wiggle. 
   Break conventional tripe: have the healer chick be the scary badass; have the "big bad" end up not being the big bad (as in, they weren't evil to begin with, not "your main villain is in another castle"); have the main character become more sarcastic as the game goes on; other such stuff. Give the story some quirky and silly moments (that aren't just tacked on for the sake of silliness). Do SOMETHING for the love of all that is holy to make your game more unique!
   s long as it makes sense in context, I'd be down for it.
    
3. Absolutely, positively do not make a dayum Tidus!
   Mopey, whiny, sullen main characters, a good game does not make. There are far enough characters with excessive emotional baggage that drag their respective stories (and often the rest of the cast) down with them. Make your MC's interesting: give them more than one-note personalities - having them react with appropriate shock, anger, regret, and joy to events - give them heart, give them "life", so to speak. You can be fanciful world- and story-wise while still remaining emotionally realistic.
    
4. Make your villains interesting!!
   Boring villains can ruin an otherwise-great game. Power Ranger villains are boring and soooo 1994; make your villains' motivations realistic, give them as much personality as your "heroes" (more-so, even, since they generally get less screentime than your party), and for God's sake don't make them all bishies. I f@#%ing hate wavy-haired, perfect-skinned, sexually-ambiguous assbags.
   
   And if all else fails, ham it up to 11, possibly for no reason but ONLY if there's a good reason. Nothing is more entertaining than a villain chewing the scenery for all it's worth, possibly with the main characters thinking that they really have lost their s#!%. Think Malcolm McDowell or Nickolas Cage levels of over-the-top (or Christopher Lloyd playing Doc in Back to the Future, for a more heroic reference :3). Just... be careful. It's easy to ruin a good ham by cooking it too long, if you know what I mean D:
    
5. Above all, have fun with your story <3
   Because if you aren't having fun writing your story, then your audience likely isn't having fun watching/playing it.

 

[Kurisu]

This is an interesting thread. I had second thoughts whether to make my list since it might offend some people... oh well.

1) visuals!

There's a good chance you will hate me for this, but if your game looks anything like

then I am probably going to skip it. No RTP is #1 requirement for me to get interested... Thing is, judging by screenshots I more or less know what to expect :/ Please forgive me though, I have an attention span of a 12-year old and I don't play many RPG Maker games anyway

In other words, I am allergic to RTP. RTP character sprites especially. Graphics is a big problem I need to tackle in my own game somehow...

2) I want to control my character and control him fast!

So yeah, about that attention span... If your game starts with a wall of text slowly rolling up the screen, telling me about a huge war between the two kingdoms and... *presses F12, down, down, enter*

3) Unique, interesting story!

Again, if the story of your game revolves around a huge war between the two kingdoms... *presses F12, down, down, enter*

4) Engaging, interesting combat! ...or no combat at all.

Default combat = nononono. I like game creators who think outside the box - combat is often the most time-consuming part of RPG games so if you create one, you should really put great care to making this part AWESOME. If you remove combat completely and replace it with something unique, I will love it even more

5) Love <3

There is this thing that is difficult to describe   When I play an indie game sometimes, I can feel that it's author had tons of fun making it and he really put his heart into it.

===

Please don't be angry with the first two points. I see this in really many games around here but that doesn't mean they're bad. I'm sure many people will enjoy playing them!