u/IllMaintenance7693

The big upcoming Square RPG is Final Fantasy Resonance, which is still using the same basic turn-based combat system the first Final Fantasy had in the 1980's. And armor still doesn't change your character's appearance. And you still only have 1 character running around, as if party members just disappear into a pocket dimension outside of combat. And it's still using random encounters and loading screens before and after every encounter, instead of simply letting you engage enemies where you encounter them.

It seems Square is more interested in appealing to nostalgia than actually making a good RPG. But why? Shouldn't Square want their games to be successful and be regarded as good RPGs?

Ultima Underworld is obviously much more influential, being not only the first 3D ARPG, but one of the first truly 3D games in general. And it came out 5 years before Diablo.

So why is Diablo always described as the first action-RPG?

Diablo even copied elements of Ultima Underworld, like health/mana orbs as UI elements and the equippable paperdoll.

Half-Life appears to be possibly the only late 90's FPS without an inventory system. Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 2, etc. all had an inventory system with different gadgets, medkits, etc. you could carry around and use.

The AI in Half-Life was dated even at the time. Enemies are passive compared to a game like Unreal, where even common enemies would dodge, put up shields, strafe around you, etc. to counter your attacks.

Level design in Half-Life is a huge simplification compared to other 90's FPS. Half-Life is almost entirely set in one location, Black Mesa. Whenever a 90's FPS was set in one location, that would mean a non-linear structure where you were allowed to freely explore, backtrack, etc. as you gradually unlock more areas. All 90's FPS set in one specific location used this structure: Killing Time, Strife, System Shock, Strife, etc. But Half-Life doesn't do that. It's entirely linear.

A common point of criticism of Half-Life is its awkward platforming sections. By contrast other first-person games like Thief, which came out in the same year as Half-Life, let you grab ledges and climb. Half-Life could have used such mechanics.

The 90's were a period of lots of experimentation in gaming. Some of those experiments didn't necessarily result in good games, but they were at least interesting. But with Half-Life it's like the developers didn't even try. They played it as safe as possible.

Fans of Half-Life will point to its immersive qualities as groundbreaking. But the commonly touted claim that Half-Life was the first FPS where the entire game was an uninterrupted first-person experience without artificial loading screen transitions and cutscenes taking away control from the player is only true if you ignore the existence of numerous games like System Shock, Killing Time and Strife, which did that YEARS before Half-Life, and all 3 games did that while having a non-linear game world that allowed for exploration and backtracking, unlike the very linear Half-Life (though Strife might be disqualified because it transitions to a separate screen for its NPC interactions). For good measure, Unreal would release a few months before Half-Life and again do this, albeit without the non-linear structure of the prior games.

For all the talk about the PC Master Race, "PC games" are just like console games, but with better frame rates and more graphics options.

The thing is, there used to be a time when the PC was largely distinct from console platforms, with its own unique library of games (though sometimes consoles would get a downgraded version of some of those games) and a different style of game design. That was during the 1990's and 2000's.

That era ended just as Steam was taking off. And despite PC gaming outperforming consoles and the PC share of the gaming market becoming bigger and bigger each year, that era doesn't seem to be returning. PC games are mostly just console games with some added bells and whistles. So the frequent proclamations that PC gaming is better than ever and that Valve saved PC gaming are simply not true.

What is disturbing is that whenever the topic is brought up on this subreddit, there will be many comments insisting that PC gaming was actually garbage in the 1990's and 2000's and that only consoles had good games back then. More disturbingly, these comments are typically the most upvoted, meaning the majority of members of a subreddit called "PC Master Race" believe the PC should be nothing more than a platform to play ports of console games.

"PC games" are like console games, but with better frame rates and more graphics options. Though in a few instances, the port is so terrible that the PC version is arguably the inferior way to experience the game.

Why do so few PC games take advantage of the unique properties of the PC platform? Like casting spells in Arx Fatalis by drawing symbols with the mouse. But that game was released 24 years ago. Not to mention games like Crysis that pushed technology forward. But even that game was released 19 years ago.

The thing is, there used to be a time when PC was largely distinct from console platforms, with its own unique library of games (though sometimes consoles would get a downgraded version of some of those games) and different style of game design. That was during the 1990's and 2000's.

That era ended just as Steam was taking off. And despite PC gaming outperforming consoles and the PC share of the gaming market becoming bigger and bigger each year, that era doesn't seem to be returning. PC games are mostly just console games with some added bells and whistles. So the frequent proclamations that PC gaming is better than ever and that Valve saved PC gaming are simply not true.

Why do so few PC games take advantage of the unique properties of the PC platform? Like casting spells in Arx Fatalis by drawing symbols with the mouse. But that game was released 24 years ago. Not to mention games like Crysis that pushed technology forward. But even that game was released 19 years ago.

"PC games" nowadays are like console games, but with better frame rates and more graphics options. Though in a few instances, the port is so terrible that the PC version is arguably the inferior way to experience the game.

The thing is, there used to be a time when PC was largely distinct from console platforms, with its own unique library of games (though sometimes consoles would get a downgraded version of some of those games) and different style of game design. That was during the 1990's and 2000's.

That era ended just as Steam was taking off. And despite PC gaming outperforming consoles and the PC share of the gaming market becoming bigger and bigger each year, that era doesn't seem to be returning. PC games are mostly just console games with some added bells and whistles. So the frequent proclamations that PC gaming is better than ever and that Valve saved PC gaming are simply not true.

This isn't because the female protagonist was treated as an afterthought or because the developers had anything against women. Indeed, the most compelling and interesting characters in Kotor 2 are the women, ironically, and the female protagonist has unique content and interactions that the male protagonist doesn't experience. The issue is that the content for the female protagonist is generally less compelling than what the male protagonist gets.

A brief glance on YouTube shows that over 90% of people playing Kotor 2 do so with a female protagonist, obviously because of the misguided notion that this is the "canon" experience, even though Kotor 2's creators had nothing to do with the decision afterwards to turn her into Meetra Surik. In other words, the vast majority of Kotor 2 players are experiencing the worst version of Kotor 2 possible.

Kotor 2 showed great respect to the creators of Kotor 1 by letting the player essentially "import" their version of Revan. Through dialogue choices, you get to set the gender, alignment and other details about Revan.

But after Kotor 2, LucasArts and BioWare took a big steaming dump on Kotor 2. They turned Kotor 2's protagonist into some lady named Meetra Surik who plays second fiddle to Revan. Turning a custom RPG protagonist into a pre-determined character is already a big no-no, but they did it in the worst possible way and worse, held up this character assassination as the "canon" protagonist of Kotor 2.

Even the name itself sounds dumb. Meetra Surik? Really?

It's strange this isn't brought up more often considered it's one of the biggest differences between the two games. One massive improvement is that Kotor 2 has almost twice as many music tracks as Kotor 1. One of the biggest weaknesses of the first game is that it would reuse the same track for different areas. In Kotor 2 every area gets its own unique track, even areas you only pass through once. This is a massive improvement that greatly improves the atmosphere.

But even more important is the quality of the music itself, and here is where Kotor 2 really shines. The compositions are perfect. They are moody without being overbearing, so they never get repetitive, and despite being original compositions, they feel almost as natural to the Star Wars universe as the music from the original movies. The Darth Sion theme perfectly captures a feeling of menace and dread. The Ebon Hawk is a safe haven where you frequently have a heart-to-heart with your companions, and the music perfectly reflects this. The Iziz cantina tune rivals A New Hope for best cantina music in the entire franchise.

The Kotor 1 soundtrack, by comparison, is just kind of there, I guess? When I'm playing Kotor 1, I rarely notice the music. It's just there in the background and doesn't usually stand out. Except for the battle music, which is much too grating and loud.