Console role-playing game
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Console role-playing games, abbreviated cRPGs with a lower-case c, are a type of video role-playing game that has surfaced in eastern Asia and especially Japan.
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Overview
A cRPG places a strong emphasis on storyline-driven arc and character development, with the payoff almost always based on storytelling instead of experiencing a dynamic world. The cRPGs differentiate themselves from CRPGs with this decidedly re-emphasized point on storytelling — as opposed to the intricate world-crafting of their computer-driven ilk.
Typically, at the beginning the player does not generate the character or make decisions on his/her nature or background, instead opting to step in the shoes of a predesigned character that will be lead and identified with for the rest of the game. Additionally, cRPGs are extremely rarely subject to any previously agreed-on or specific roleplaying systems, such as the d20 System or GURPS, instead relying on their own (simplified) versions of character description and/or interaction. While skills or character classes are often liberally explored, it is rare to see the characters lead any majorly differing philosophies, that dynamically alter and ultimately differentiate the character through anything other than a rash decision or a battle command in a cRPG. This is often in direct contrast to the CRPGs that try to emulate real role-playing, such as Fallout.
Prime examples of the cRPG genre are the Ys, the Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Star Ocean, Grandia and the Xenosaga series.
Control and game architecture
A cRPG is typically menu-driven, as the stark majority has been designed for consoles and their gamepads. The interface is often simplified in comparison to keyboard-driven CRPGs, with only a limited amount of interaction with the landscape and the characters in the game available, unlike in roguelikes (like Nethack) or the Ultima series. The characters rarely need to eat or drink (for other than flavour reasons), nor is there a definite cycle of day and night (found in Ultimas and Baldur's Gate, for example).
The system allows for some points of interaction with the world, often limited by the storyline and the puzzles into pushing levers or picking up objects, although this is a gross generalization limited for the sake of elaboration. Most people in the game's world can be talked to, and depending on plot complexity and relevance, offer either one-liner replies or lengthy, story-driving philosophical discussion.
Even the battle systems are usually menu-based, with several options and attacks to choose from. In a general case, there are no concerns of position or orientation in regard to the battleground, and the battles are simplified reductions into two piles of characters, taking turns to pound at each other with a varying level of flashy effects. The tactics normally arise from the order and scope of one's dedication on specific attacks, and the facility of resource conservation while trying to beat tedious chains of minibosses. In this regard, cRPGs are not to be confused with tactical role-playing games, which are different brethren altogether.
Execution
The character is guided using the gamepad, and the games often provide several different layers of travel (parallel to early CRPGs) — in the form of specific location maps and the overlying overworld map, itself basically the hugest in-game map AND the primary method for moving between locations. It seldom offers other interaction than randomized fights.
As stated, while the main simulated element of CRPG games proves out to be the world, most parts of a cRPG game are subordinate to the storytelling aspects, generally driving the entire game. The plot is usually crafted in an intricate fashion into a strictly-directed and railroaded construct, relying on the viewer to experience most of its twists and turns — at predetermined and specific times, and certain ways. In the vast majority of the games the plot is almost perfectly linear, with the only skill elements and decisionmaking arising from random battle encounters and puzzles / minigames. Sometimes the games allow secondary choices in the progression of the plot, a select few even offering a multitude of decidedly different endings. (Chrono Trigger is famous of this.)
As a cRPG storytelling format has more to do with a movie or a book than a typical game, several guidelines are often found further constricting the general execution: Especially in the most recent (and thus finely-honed) examples of the artform, good care is taken that the player remains entertained and the flow of the story remains unbroken. Combined with the fact that the target audience has especially during earlier times been young children, this has prompted the interactive portion of the games to be faily easy (in a stark contrast to CRPGs), allowing for a typical young gamer to consume the story and to finish the game without any huge trouble. It is even common for the games to give blatant hints and direct guidelines for survival (moreso for the more difficult battles).
However, especially later in the timeline of the genre the games have often balanced this with the inclusion of several extremely difficult optional bosses and puzzles to appease more seasoned gamers. These oft require serious thought, tactics and even outright abuse of the game mechanics to defeat.
Relevant articles
- Rather than reverting to computer role-playing game, please expand this stub. There are major differences between the way storylines are carried with computer and console-based role-playing.