Posting this question on a Final Fantasy based forum is really an uphill struggle but here it goes anyways. Which type of RPGs do you prefer? The DnD influenced Western ones or the more linearly structured Eastern RPGs?

To me the answer is rather obvious, I think the Japanese RPGs really reached their limit on the 16-bit era and have not offered me much thrills after that. Granted I was a kid back then and everything I encountered in games was new and exiting but playing Lost Odyssey after Chrono Trigger really shows to me how little the genre has progressed in 20 years. Most of the Japanese role playing games offer very little role playing to me. As a kid all that simplicity was nice but who wants to play games with cookie cutter characters and plots anymore?

Only interesting thing I have come across from the Japanese rpg-market is the “Shin Megami Tensei”-series and even that is a moot point since the potential of the game was totally crippled by the annoying “hit or miss”-gameplay on the boss fights, I like that shit on SHMUPs but its annoying to play through the same dungeon 10 times just to figure out what spell works on the boss the best. Still liked the idea of having Goat of Mendez as my Pokemon though.

I can play through Fallout as an amphetamine addicted thief or a misogynistic gun maniac and that game always offers me something new, can you say the same about Tales of Phantasia? My older cousin gave me the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when I was four and that was to me the greatest role-playing experience I ever had. I think RPGs should offer you a great story molded after the actions and character development you choose, I just do not get the same kicks from saving the world as an orphan hero from an ancient evil as I did when I was eight. Even a game with rubbish gameplay like Dragon Age: Origins was to me a more pleasant experience than games like Star Ocean 4 or Tales of Vesperia just because it atleast tried to bring back the old ways of great PC rpgs like Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights.

I don't really know. Perhaps I have just missed all the real gems from Japan, granted I have not played many new games after the Playstation years but as a picked up console gaming again after buying a used XBOX360 last summer I have tried out many new JRPGs and none of them have offered me anything. It's just FF3 all over again.

I just think RPGs should evoke your imagination, rather than suppressing it. I guess all I want to know is what draws you guys into Japanese RPGs?

The problem with such varied choices however, is that it tends to make the other character's stories (and game events in general) quite lightweight in comparison to Eastern games.

Because the game can only anticipate and account for all your different choices in quite generalised ways, Western RPGs tend to generate an illusion of how the world is reacting to you, whereas Eastern RPGs stricter scripts and progression, at least chart a definate map of where characters are with each other, what the missions definately is etc.

I.e in Eastern games, you know you are the good guys, going to kill the bad guys. The game is then free to set up various encounters, where everyone knows where they stand.

Western RPGs give you the option to be pretty (or very) evil yourself though, often meaning different party members, different slants on the mission and different methods of resolution.

The games account for all these, but at the expense of knowing for sure what is going on and producing a story that can take advantage of that certainty, (giving characters specific heroic tasks - like Aeris' death in FF7 for example).

Because the onus is quite firmly on your character in western RPGs, your team almost never act as a unit. It is very rare in Bioware's games for example, for the party members to interact in any meaningful ways with each other, with anyone other than you.

The set piece action sequences in Western RPGs, revolve around what your character does in a situation. They rarely force you to use specific party members and script actions for them to do in those sequences.

It all leads to a sense that your character is truly your own creation, but that only he/she truly matters. There is much less sense of the party being a real team.

It also makes cutscenes all but impossible to make, given the number of variables in team composition, character's feelings for each other etc.

So to use Bioware again as an example, although their games often set up interesting locations and characters etc, most scenarios boil down to your character and the signficant NPC of the moment, standing opposite each other, discussing a moral decision to be taken, calmly and with no real urgency.

The lack of cutscenes means that the drama is more static. There are no big sweeping events that unfold, no high drama etc. It would just be too difficult to make all the different cutscenes you would need to account for how you have played the game up to that point.

So the cutscenes that there are, are usually of the fairly neutral 'party runs away from big explosions' etc variety or 'Your Main character tackles main Villain X'.

Your hero is never greatly shaken out of their composure, because the game must allow you different choices to reflect how your character is. So you gain more control, but sacrifice those truly spine tingling moments in Eastern RPGs, where a really tightly written and well acted scene hits all the right notes.

Basically, western games allow you the freedom to tailor your experience, to give yourself the best chance of getting something you like.

Such experiences have an inherent 'house of cards' nature to them. The game cannot and does not anticipate every choice you make, but it can often give a very impression that it is.

It's only when all is said and done, that you realise that your romance was actually quite shallow, that your dealings with certain NPCs didn't actually amount to all that much, that most of your party members did nothing outside of the scenes where you recruited them etc.

Eastern games have a set reality and way that the story and characters develop. There is always a great possibility that any given viewer/gamer will not like it or some aspects, so much that they cannot play it.

But for those who do, they offer far more substantial and engrossing experiences, with meticulously planned development and interaction between the whole cast of characters.

The game knows how characters feel about each other and what their mental state is etc at each individual stage and can produce scenes that take these things into account.

Anyway, I'm very tired and I'd best take this up another time.

I prefer the story. And because I hate MOST people the play DnD (particularly Wal-Mart at the comic book store), I choose the Japanese on this one. Plus, sometimes, the music is awesome :).

As a kid all that simplicity was nice but who wants to play games with cookie cutter characters and plots anymore?

Adults.

Maybe you should try the Lunatic Dawn or World Neverland games.

Lately it's been no contest. WRPGs all the way for me.

There's the story thing... but a lot of the time it doesn't matter to me if a JRPG has a tighter story. Not if you can already tell what's going to happen. Kinda defeats the purpose of playing the game for story, right?

Also, a strong story can be a disability to a form of entertainment defined by its interactivity. Too structured and it's too obviously travelling from point A to B to unveil another scenario DQ style. A strong story is great, but a restrictive story is um restrictive.

WRPGs aren't exactly budding with the freshest plots, but the choices help make story less predictable. I don't feel like I'm losing out on story at all in a BioWare game or something like The Witcher or a classic like Planescape: Torment. The choices enrich the story instead of hurt it.

Conversely, open world RPGs like TES don't got a huge focus on story-driven content, but the scope of exploration more than makes up for it imo. I dunno how my character feels about an NPC over in Chorrol, but I won't care much because I'll be busy for days discovering a bunch of new shit. And I prefer to not have to watch out for inevitably moronic AI in real-time combat.

WRPGs aren't exactly budding with the freshest plots, but the choices help make story less predictable. I don't feel like I'm losing out on story at all in a BioWare game or something like The Witcher or a classic like Planescape: Torment. The choices enrich the story instead of hurt it.

You should try Kenran Butousai or the Gunparade series.

It's horses for courses, isn't it?

You have to use your imagination a bit more in WRPGs, to cover over the cracks that appear in the reality of your telling of the story. Whenever the game fails to account for how you're playing your character, it exposes itself. Or the times when you want your apparent freedom to do something that the game cannot allow.

(An obvious example of this would be the invincible 'plot character' NPCS in Oblivion and Fallout 3, who you can bludgeon far past the point where they should be some bloodstains on the floor, but they'll be fine, telling you to stop messing around and annoying them, as you whack them in the head).

Take Dragon Age as another example. I was playing as an Elven Mage one time, right? Now, the game insists that Elves are mistrusted and disliked and mages even more so.

And yet my character was able to wander around in robes that screamed 'I'm a wizard!' and nobody batted an eyelash, by and large.

You'd get the occasional 'You're an elf!', but then the conversation would quickly forget that and become universal, as they offered their standard quest or whatever they were there for.

Because the game cannot alter huge chunks of dialogue and refuse to give out quests and info etc, based on race and class, to any great degree. There are 3 races you could be, 2 genders and 3 different classes (and different social origins).

So the game cannot cater to one specific build across the entire game world, tailoring everyone's responses and attitudes. It would take far too much work and take far too much time and space to program.

Same with Shepard in Mass Effect 2. People talk to you like you are a Soldier class character. Even if you are an Engineer or Biotic, they talk to you like you have no idea what these things are or how they work (even if they've seen you doing them!).

So WRPGs present an illusion of reality, which occasionally slips to show that it's really still just a standard A to B story, which just allows you to modify bits and pieces here and there.

sure, it has limits. but the point is I plain find it more interesting to have choices in the way I mold my character's development than not.

it doesn't matter if that all leads to the same point. at the very least it's more fun getting there compared to a linear RPG J or W.

Also, contrary to the title of the thread, there is no "East" when it comes to RPGs. It's just Japan and the occasional Korean RPG. And I think it's a hugely positive thing that WRPGs come from more than one country since different cultures have different ideas of RPing, storytelling, etc. you get more of a varied experience.

In my view FFXII moved into the realms of western RPG's, with it having tons of side quests, a more realistic battle system and a free roam world. All these things while good detracted from the story and it suffered because of it.

I think one of the key problems that JRPGs have, is that there isn't much margin for error. If you are forced to accept a main hero or heroine over whose personality you have no control, they had better be pretty interesting.

The same goes for the story and how the characters interact and how much they get to do of true significance. If it all works, then the experience becomes something that people treasure forever, as FF7's enduring popularity shows, for example.

But if it pretty much any of these elements doesn't work in a JRPG, they are usually dismissed out of hand. Because they live and die by their characters and story.

At their core, Bioware's games still tell very familiar (over familiar really) rehashs of Star Wars and Babylon 5 etc. They still haven't made any stories that truly leap out and scream 'This is truly original and interesting on its own terms'.

It's all 'An ancient evil returns, only the fabled brotherhood of legendary warriors can stop them...' with lots of explosions and big battles etc.

But they have the joy that comes with playing your character how you want, seeing how your character can interact with your team mates, as well as simply being from a more familiar cultural background, which will always seem more truly relevant to us, than the Japs' unusual fantasy worlds).

But the flipside is that western RPGs tend to be saner and more predictable.

And I'm not really talking about story here; more the way that the Japs have that ability to put out games with truly bizarre characters, locations and situations etc that you simply cannot imagine western minds ever thinking would be a sane idea.

And they have no qualms about including their various fetishes in their games, ranging from cross dressing, scenarios featuring older women and younger girls, hot spa scenarios with peeping toms...

And Japan still has the monoploy on gaming auteurs, those crazed geniuses like Shinji Mikami, Suda 51 (can you even conceive of a western developer writing a game like Killer7?), Hideo Kojima (he of the hour long cutscenes) etc.

JRPGs matter, because they give an insight into a curiously odd and endearingly strange people.

I love Oblivion and Fallout 3 from Bethesda, they are very open ended and big with a bunch of customisation etc. BUT I prefer Final Fantasy over it because of the stories and the characters.

However a lot of JRPG's I have played have been pooooor.

Remember also that JRPGs have been around for ages. WRPGs have taken much longer to get established, but can make use of the very latest technologies.

But yes, a lot of JRPGs are very poor indeed.

The thing is though, that when they do get it right, they create an experience so engrossing, that it motivates people like few other kinds of games can, no matter how classic they are.

Bioware have made some great games, games that will be remembered for their quality. But even though Mass Effect 2 for example is generating rave reviews and is the big noise at the moment, the jury is still out on whether it will reach Final Fantasy's levels of sustained adoration.

The series will almost certainly be remembered as a classic, but lots of games can claim that. Final Fantasy generates massive interest, spawns all kinds of websites and expectation when a new game is announced.

And I think FF has that mystique about it now, that even though it maybe hasn't produced in recent times, a lot of fans still have faith that if the series could find its old form again...

Well, it'd be the only game in town wouldn't it? Regardless of what the opposition were doing, it would be one of those landmark moments.

Because Fallout, Oblivion, even KOTOR and Mass Effect... They're great games, no question. But in 10-15 years, are they really going to be as relevant as Final Fantasy still is, decades on from even FF7, which many still consider the defining moment of the series?

Well, yes, Final Fantasy has one of the biggest fanbases in gaming. Even though COD:MW2 sold an insanely stupid number of copies in it's first week it will be forgotten. Games like FFVII will live on, so to speak.

ffvii was the exception to the rule, not demonstrative of the genre. SE themselves can't replicate that success unless they cave and milk the name a bit more. And only if it's a remake. plenty of other quality (and better) RPGs that hit the mark simply aren't as popular. key word is 'quality'.

so why exactly is it so terrible that one WRPG doesn't have Halo hype?

implying WRPGs are lesser because they don't have a game with as many legions of annoying sycophants is really arbitrary. Because classic is classic.

I do not view this as a case of which is greater or lesser, to any real extent. My point was simply that the most beloved RPG series of all time is a JRPG one.

In my opinion, WRPGS have yet to show that they can match JRPGs when they are at their best. Because there are classics and then there are the real giant, the one that truly last in people's memories and affections.

Final Fantasy has done that. And even if the series, or JPRGs in general have (very arguably) only reached that pinnnacle once, that still puts JRPGs in a very strong position.

Because who cares if you have lots of great games, when the opposition has the only Legendary Game?

WRPGs are still reletively new. At the moment, they have great controls, decent worlds, great ability to construct your character etc etc.

But they still haven't cracked the story yet. Their stories range from practically non-existant (Oblivion and Fallout) to great thrill rides (KOTOR, Mass Effect etc).

But still nothing that shouts 'You must experience this.'

The best story in a Western game, is not in an WRPG, but in a first person shooter - Bioshock. And though that had moral choices in a small way, it didn't really change the story at all.

The more control you give players over the story, the less control the writers have. And when writers lose control over their story, it makes it less significant.

I'm not looking to go round and round on which is better. I can only give my opinion. Both are fun to play, but until they prove me wrong, I will continue to believe that when both are at their best, JRPGs or at least stories that are tightly controlled, will be more substantial.

WRPGs are still reletively new.
The first WRPGs were released a good six years before the first JRPG.


But they still haven't cracked the story yet.
Play Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, then revise your opinion.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines,

How I hated that game.... & I still hate it, but it's not because of the storyline.

i mean sure, although JRPGs did not come first, they have long been more popular. but again i think you're confusing exposure with some sort of measure of quality.

vry, I respect your preference but i don't respect uninformed opinions like WPRGs haven't "cracked the story".

I don't know what you're basing that off of. cos it can't be experience.

Heya.

I am not going to revise my opinion on which came first, because I meant that WRPGs have only come to the wider public's attention in recent times (just as JRPGs were niche in the west, before FF took them to the stars). Wolfenstein came before Doom, but Doom is stil considered the daddy of FPS.

WRPGs existed largely on the PC only, up until recently. So whilst PC gamers can pull their 'The Beatles didn't invent rock music - this obscure band did!' argument, the fact is that the wider public had little to no exposure to such games before Bioware and Bethesda starting making them for consoles.

And WRPGs haven't cracked the story experience yet, plain and simple (but again, it's just my opinion, no matter how strongly I believe it).

I mean... who cares at all about the main story in games like Oblivion and Fallout 3? How many people have even bothered to complete them, for that matter?!

As for Bioware, even their greatest fans admit that they have a formula that is becoming very tired and overfamiliar (starting level which often includes a fight with the main enemies, a visit to your first village/city, approx 3-5 recruitment style missions, the 'crisis' level where you get captured, tortured or someone dies etc, then the final assault on boss's stronghold).

Because of the choices you can make, they cannot include cutscenes to show anything beyond 'dramatic escapes from explosions' and 'villains monologue at the hero' (who will not respond to any great degree, as the game cannot anticipate what kind of person you are playing as).

And Bioware's WRPGs are just reruns of B5 and Star Wars at the moment. They give us the 'blockbuster film' thrills, but they don't lock people in, in the same way that the best JRPGs do. Yes, ME2 is the talk of the town - for now. But one thing that even the most rabidly positive reviewers have admitted, is that ME2's story is very weak.

So how long will this goodwill last? Consider also, that the last part of a trilogy or last season of a great sci-fi series is almost invariably the worst. Return of the Jedi is easily the least beloved of the original trilogy, Return of the King was the weakest of TLOTR, Godfather part 3, Alien 3, Babylon 5 Season 5, X-Files Seasons 8-9, Halo 3, Matrix Revolutions...

Why should we expect that after the lacklustre Collectors story, that ME will fare any better than any of these giants?

And don't even think of trying to pull that 'He hates WRPGs, he's just a JRPG fanboy'. I stated quite plainly that I love both kinds of RPG. The thread asked which I like better and why, and I responded.

Because games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age etc are good, but what are the main story elements that are supposed to get me worked up? The ending of Mass Effect 1 was about the only truly great example, and even that was still just explosions and gunfights.

There's still nothing to equal the death of Aeris, Dyne's suicide, the plate falling on Sector 7, killing Jessie and the others, the final revelation of who Cloud really is and what happened at Nibelheim etc.

WRPGs do make for a good experience, but one that is ultimately rather shallow, under their glossy exteriors. They rely on you to add the X factor, to really believe in who your character is and that they really think the way you imagine they do.

And the game can only provide very short sequences for you to feel this (because of all the alternate choices you could make). The characters cannot get too involved in what they say, cannot have anything like detailed conversations in which their personality really comes out.

Because they have no personality; just a loose construction of one that you have made. And the other party members cannot have such sections, because the game cannot anticipate how much you know about them or what their relationship to you and the others is.

So your party usually just have to stand around, saying and doing nothing, whilst you do all the interacting, talking and action.

Without being able to see genuine torment and the toll on the heroes, to see and hear their emotional reactions and feel that there is a mind of their own at work that cares about what's happening, it never feels as important as the real Babylon 5 or Star Wars etc.

Your characters are simply too calm in WRPGs, with no emotional investment that we can actually see, beyond a rudimentary 'This guy has to be stopped', because the game cannot presume to speak for you.

Only in very, very small sections do these games feel they can make an assumption about how your character (or more usually another party member) feels and act accordingly with scripted scenes etc.

Story and atmosphere in games matter to me a great deal. It's part of why I like RPGs so much. And for my money, with my opinion that I am entitled to as much as you are to yours, JRPGs (the good ones) offer the best story experiences. Bioshock has shown that western developers can tell a truly great story - but they haven't shown they can do it in an RPG yet.

Mass Effect 1 is the closest they've come. But aside from the tightly scripted beginning and end, it still wasn't as consistently absorbing as the best JRPGs.

WRPGs existed largely on the PC only, up until recently. So whilst PC gamers can pull their 'The Beatles didn't invent rock music - this obscure band did!' argument, the fact is that the wider public had little to no exposure to such games before Bioware and Bethesda starting making them for consoles.

This is an incredibly ignorant statement. People who didn't play computer games didn't have exposure to them, but that is as meaningful as saying Phantasy Star doesn't count because it wasn't released on the NES. The popular PC RPGs of the late 90s sold about as well as FF7 did. No other console RPG in the west did as well as FF7, and even the FF series has been in a one directional decline in popularity since then. In the 16 bit era, console RPGs were a minor genre, and they had almost no presence the generation before that. And obviously in the 80s, the jRPG makers were fans of early western RPGs, with the creator of Dragon Quest even putting a 3D map and Wizardry references into one of his pre DQ adventure games as well as yanking the battle system which would become a jRPG standard. The biggest games were probably the Ultima series, Might and Magic, Bard's Tale etc. There is no way you can pretend that western RPGs just suddenly popped up into the spotlight in the past few years out of obscurity in comparison to Japanese games.

Also, the most popular jRPG series is Pokemon. It neither concerns itself deeply with character nor story, nor does it focus on customizing your character's personality and letting you mark your own moral path through the game world, yet it has been consistently trounced every other series for over a decade without deviating from it's basic formula. At this point, even the Pokemon roguelikes might be more popular than just about any other RPGs out there. The problem with these kind of east vs. west comparisons is that people don't really look at how the genre has developed so much as they just take take two fairly specific approaches, assign them to different regions and then proceed to ignore anything that conflicts with the narrow room they've established for the debate to take place. And it becomes especially ridiculous when someone actually says "who cares about all of those old western RPGs, they don't really count so I'm going to ignore them and go back to comparing a few recent western games to that one jRPG from last century that I really like".

Why are you getting so defensive, over one person's opinion? This is not a thread where everyone has to agree that only WRPGs have any worth.

My point about WRPGs starting with Bioware etc for many, is no more or less than what I said. WRPGs have only come to mainstream popularity, since the emergence of the Xbox, bringing PC style games to a wider audience.

Don't think that because I don't really care about PC gaming anymore, that I don't know anything about it. I've played all those games that were mentioned.

My point there, was simply that the wider gaming community is getting its first real taste of WRPGs at a time when technology is at a high point. Whereas the most famous JRPG is FF7 - a very old game now.

None of which has any real relevance to the issue at hand. The only thing that counts is the quality and reletive substance of the games at hand. And in this regard, I find JRPGs much more substantial.

I've given my reasons why I believe JRPGs are superior. They are my opinions, which you obviously don't share.

Why make more of it than that? Why does it matter this much to you, that someone on the Internet likes something a little bit less than you do?!

Because if you bother to look, you'll see I praise WRPGs as well. Is it so diffocult to understand that someone can like both of them?

But the question asked, which do you think is better? And I answered - end of story.

I didn't say anything about my opinions on the quality of RPGs or your own. I only commented on your mistaken claim about the popularity of western RPGs, which on consoles have mostly just continued with similar levels of popularity that they enjoyed on PCs; your claim that FF7 is the most famous jRPG when it performed worse than every single main release in the Pokemon franchise, and the fact that your reasons for why jRPGs are superior is based on deliberately ignoring a bunch of elements about the history of the genre and the games in it so that you can compare a random selection of titles.

I always thought the Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate series, Planescape Torment) were the epitome of what is awesome with Western RPGs. I just thought I'd mention them because, while they are still symptomatic of a main character whose personality and actions are what you make of them (a Western RPG staple), your companions have loads of personality, the stories have depth and nuance, and the game has oodles of substance and rich background story equivalent to the average Final Fantasy game.

And Baldur's Gate only came out a year after our contestant for best JRPG - Final Fantasy VII.

vry, you are just being called on the ignorance that frames your opinion of WRPGs. preference is fine, but your explanations make a lot of ignorant and frankly insulting assumptions about WRPGs and Western gaming in general.

basically, i don't disagree with your opinions, but with the bad "facts" and arbitrary restrictions you use to support them.

Hola!

They are not incorrect facts to me, because they are what I base my opinions on. And until you explain which elements are incorrect and insulting, then I will go on believing them!

I didn't say anything about the popularity of WRPGs. I commented that they were very popular now, and that this was due in part to them gaining a much wider audience now they are no longer solely on the PC.

The PC is just one system and just because people own PCs, it doesn't follow that they use them for gaming. Until WRPGs started appearing on the Xbox, huge swathes of gamers had no contact with such games.

We've got some way off the issue here. I don't see why it matters that WRPGs were always popular with PC gamers (and I never said they weren't). I mean, so what if they were? It makes no difference; it's completely irrelevant to what I'm saying and to my feelings on which type of RPG is more desirable.

I was just commenting that WRPGs are fortunate to be connecting with the mainstream at a time when such powerful machines are available.

Because this is something that JRPGs like FF7 didn't have, when they exploded in popularity, however many years ago it was, now. If you accept the theory that JRPGs had their day in terms of quality of content back then, it's a shame that such titles have to put up with now dated tech.

That's all I was saying on that point. If you have a problem with my interpretation of the nuts and bolts of why JRPGs are more desirable than WRPGs, then I'd be happy to discuss that, but just saying 'You are wrong' isn't really a debate, is it?

And what is the point you are trying to make with Pokemon, exactly? It a completely different kind of thing to the JRPGs I have been discussing. When I think JRPG, I think of a game like FF7, Tales of Symphonia etc, Star Ocean etc etc.

Pokemon may be under the same designation (I confess I have never thought about Pokemon long enough to wonder what I would classify it as), but they are so different that some distinction would have to be made.

FF and its ilk are all about story, Pokemon can hardly be considered to be the same, can it?

My comparisons are between the JRPGs of the FF kind and the WRPGs that I have played (and I've played all the titles that were mentioned).

I've given my reasons on why I think the storytelling in WRPGs is rather shallow. I've given my reasons on why I think JRPGs offer the chance for a more substantial experience (if executed well).

Unless you want to pick up on those points concerning the actual nuts and bolts of why I think JRPGs are better than WRPGs (and again, I don't usually think in those terms, but the thread asked us to), then there's nothing more for me to say.

your interpretation of known facts aren't right just because you say so, vry.

you can't mangle objective facts to suit your opinions in a debate. you do that with every post, shrinking the argument to suit what you think is and isn't relevant. you just did it to Pokemon. you don't consider it a JRPG even though that is the game's classification, so you throw it out the window so you don't have to re-evaluate your opinion of JRPGs as a whole. that ain't "debate".

but i agree. nothing is solved by any of your further posting til you get it

My comparisons are between the JRPGs of the FF kind and the WRPGs that I have played (and I've played all the titles that were mentioned).

Ok then, what's wrong with the stories in the games I listed? Mask of the Betrayer and Bloodlines are both highly regarded for the quality of their plots, dialogue and voice acting, and Torment is generally considered to have one of the greatest video game stories of all time.