Will Western RPG's ever be freed from the iron grasp of derrivative Tolkien ripoffs?

Will Western RPG's ever be freed from the iron grasp of derrivative Tolkien ripoffs?

It's no small irony that the word "fantasy" has become associated with such a contrived mindset. Stuff like The Elder Scrolls has been made more and more generic to fit a more mainstream idea of what "fantasy RPG" is supposed to be; and can you really blame Bethesda for it? Even with popular JRPG's like Bloodborne, you have aggravated Souls fans complaining because From has the AUDACITY to take more inspiration from stuff like H.P Lovecraft instead. Because god forbid an RPG isn't some kind pseudo-medieval shit.

Why are people so fucking obsessed with their knights and wizards?

Because swords and sorcery is fun

Name a more interesting setting

>Name a more interesting setting
Any fantasy setting that doesn't fall into the typical conventions.

>you have aggravated Souls fans complaining because From has the AUDACITY to take more inspiration from stuff like H.P Lovecraft instead
Idiots will complain about everything. Dark Souls wasn't even Tolkien-ish except on the surface. The lore was original with hollows, the first flame and so on.

Not really an RPG but I've always thought Zelda did a decent job of establishing its own fantastic world. Mainly thanks to stuff like Dekus, Zoras, Gorons etc. Just not using elves or orcs or anything like that goes a long way.

It's because nobody likes any interesting JRPG setting enough to use it as inspiration for their idea

I hope torment will be good enough to convince producers that wildly alien/weird settings are good
The problem is that tolkien derivatives are safe, most people like them because they can ease right into them instead of having to take in alien races, cultures and design choices

Name ATLEAST five that do not fall in the "typical" convention

Nomadic shamanism and early city cultures in ancient Siberia and Khorasan.

>impyling all RPGs are medieval fantasy

crpg is never popular enough to be considered by the big boys after 2000s

Dekus are goblins, zoras are water elves and gorons are a mix of trolls and dwarves.

>Implying that was ever implied.

>can you really blame Bethesda for it?
Yes, if you willingly make lowbrow shit that gets worse with every installment, you're still wrong whether it's what the masses clamor for or not.

>Why are people so fucking obsessed with their knights and wizards?
Probably because it hasn't been done extremely well yet. Bethesda games have shit combat, and when we get decent source material like LotR or GoT it ends up being bamham ripoffs of walking sim Telltale shit.

I want cosmic horror games

>Probably because it hasn't been done extremely well yet.

Baldurs Gate

I think Torment will be utter shit, but this is false, as Obsidian have said that they got offers from big publishers for PoE2 but they rejected all of them to remain 100% in charge of the project.

>tolkien invented western mythology

No. And the real problem is that 0.000000001% of people who claim to love "fantasy" even understand what makes LoTR appealing and wonderful

As soon as JRPGs are freed from the iron grasp of anime.
Still, I would like to see more Wrpgs that aren't Tolkien, Wasteland and Fallout have some of my favorite atmospheres in gaming period.

True but it's almost 20 years old at this point.

This would be nice. Late XIX, early XX century would be a great setting for cosmic horror, eerie RPGs

Morrowind while not perfect, was in my opinion the best combination so far of Fantasy and Scifi that actually had a world that felt truly alien with weird customs, plants and traditions.

Oblivion was generic but still good (It also got remedied by Shivering Isles DLC which introduced a place that felt very alien.

By the time that Skyrim rolled around the medieval fantasy settings has really worn itself out. We need a new game in one of the more alien provinces.

>As soon as JRPGs are freed from the iron grasp of anime.

t. EOP

>and can you really blame Bethesda for it
Yes, of course I can. I can blame Bethesda for literally everything. Even for my parrot's death 17 years ago

I suppose it's getting a little bit better? There are plenty of post-apocalyptic RPGs, cyberpunk RPGs. The Witcher has some unusual twists on typical high fantasy, PoE2 is going after pirates theme, Torment's world seems interesting and Divinity is attempting more humorous approach.

>We need a new game in one of the more alien provinces
And we'll get Hammerfell
> human province -> northern human province -> black human province
Bethesda after Morrowind seems to be pretty consistent in what they are trying to do

Tolkien these days is "too white" to use even as inpiration.

Funnily enough, the generic fantasy elf is nothing like a Tolkien elf. Elves encountered the most in LOTR are lesser wood elves (Legolas and his cunt of a father) who never reached Valinor. They're sneaky bowmen because they settled in a forest.

Meanwhile, true Noldor wore armour and weapons crafted with divine knowledge (from the creator of the DWARVES) and fought Melkors armies and beasts on the plains in thick melee of heavy infantry and cavalry the likes of which humans NOR dwarves could ever compete with.

They were kind of cunts as well, though.

It's been this way since time immemorial. Fucking Tolkien stole his ideas from Anglo Saxon and Viking myth. Hobbit is even an AS word. Fantasy is heavily based on traditional myths and legends and Tolkien masterfully brought many ancient myths and legends into modern times through his books. Fantasy will always be influenced by the past (and should be).

As an aside, this is why SciFi is a superior genre for new ideas and new myths.

>And we'll get Hammerfell
That doesn't necesarily have to be bad as they could take a lot from islamic and persian folklore, if Bethesda decided to put some effort in the setting to make it unique like they did with Morrowind they could do it.

But are you really thinking that modern bethesda will make an actual effort in coherent worldbuilding? It'll be as dull as Skyrim, just in a desert with some effortless "haHa curved swords" quirks.

If they could include some yokudan lore and traditions, hammerfell could be an ok province. I just hope that Todd & Co realized how lazy fallout 4 was and that they have chosen to spend a lot of time on the next TES in order to get it right.

One can dream i guess...

Yeah fantasy is boring.

Viking, Tolkien or otherwise, westerners just derive their shit wholesale instead of trying to come up with new shit.

It really is fucking boring, and always generic. Yeah I know it was exciting and novel at the time, but hard to muster that same energy since going through a dumptruck of shit that wears their inspirations on their sleeves.

Sci-fi and contemporary stuff tends to be alright, I guess, or even stuff that mixes it like Quake or Strife.

Something poeish and Kafkaesque set in early 20th century. Akin to The Time Machine and War of the World's

finns are not vikings ree

Tolkien was influenced by Western culture and pre-Christian Eutocentric mythology. Whether you like to admit it or not, Tolkien created modern fantasty. It's kinda hard not to copy Tolkien anymore.

I was pointing out that the problem is not the province but Bethesda itself, the would now make dull even Morrowind or the Black Marsh

zeno clash

So what does make LotR appealing and wonderful?

>It's kinda hard not to copy Tolkien anymore.
It's incredibly easy not to copy Tolkien.

It's a RPG set in Middle Ages England, there's your baseline, except your main antagonists are made of coral and consume the land in dry reef.

You have some other fantasy races, like the immaterial cloud-people, a mutant insectoid race spliced from people and mantis insects who live proudly, a particularly nasty race of gelatinous mammoths who believe themselves to be gods, and there's entire areas of the world that take place in Victorian-era suburbs that got summoned from the future in the same accident that spliced the people.

Woah, holy shit. Fantasy game right there. Shit one, but not one single fucking orc or elf or dwarf in sight. It's not HARD.

I was thinking about some sort of Pessoan character in a "Death In Venice" setting and with Conrad's like plot and politics. Full on atmospheric.

Better hammerfell than a ruined Elsweyr. I want Elsweyr to be made the way it's mentioned in the books, I can wait a few decades for the technology to arrive

>Western RPG
See attached visual reference. Also; KOTOR and KOTOR2.

the problem is that i want dwarves and elves in my fanta sea

:)

What's Elsweyr supposed to be like? Isn't it just like some African-inspired country?

I have no comebacks, only sadness.

nice pick but this game fucking sucked

Shadow Man
Hellgate: London
Strife
Oddworld
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

Random picks right off the top of me fucking head.

the mechanics and combat was pretty lame but it was a feast for the eyes nonetheless

it's like alice: madness returns

Madness Returns looked nice when there was more than 2 platforms, 2 enemies, some recycle assets and a skybox in the area.

Which was rare.

Considering the Morrowind team only has Todd left, and Kirbride who write the settings and most characters in Morrowind is making crazy drugtrip fanfiction, it's vague

>MTG has to come up with a new setting every year

Man I fucking loved Khans of Tarkir

the dollhouse hit the nail on the head regarding the atmosphere of old wooden toys though, it either brought up old feelings from my childhood or retroactively implanted them in my memories

and then they fucked it up with dragons of tarkir

I'd totally play a semi-HOMM clone set in tarkir, the factions and art design were based as fuck

Star Wars

Fantasy design:

>ok so there's a kingdom
>wait, no, maybe like a republic or something more interesting?
>no, kingdom is easier
>ok so it's a good kingdom, let's call it whatever, Kfalia, who gives a shit just make up something
>ok and there's, like, another kingdom, this one's evil and we'll call it something like Groblob
>Ok so Groblob attacked Kfalia's villages
>what, like raiders?
>no just an army of regulars invaded for no discernible reason
>and then there's maybe a hero or something who has to free the villages? but he, like, uncovers a plot by the wizard's union or something like that to overthrow the king?
>etc

It's more inspired by the Silk Road: Muslim-based architecture and a huge focus on mercantilism, with lots of weird exotic stuff

Medieval is better than any kind of weeb fantasy, thats for sure

Dollhouse, Underwater Land, some parts of the castle/skycard maze and weaboo-land come to mind.

Just about everything else was egregiously fucking bad. You could just erase that entire steampunk factory and train from the game and nobody would be the wiser.

Gimme Discworld.

Has Sup Forums turned into a weeb hating site or something?

All I fucking see now is how god-tier Western games are, and if it's a Japanese game it's instantly shit (Even if they never even bothered playing it either)

Discworld is an intentionally garbage generic setting, it was just the dialogue, characters and meta-commentary that carried it.

The steampunk factory was pretty forgettable, but you're being unfair to the train, it wasn't given any time to shine, being basically just a boss fight. It was nice how the inside of the train carts were small and tranquil despite the screaming monstrosity of the outside.

>Why are people so fucking obsessed with their knights and wizards?

the same reason you fags are obsessed with ten million year old loli demons and manlet black hair whiny protagonists.

Vocal westcucks are vocal, nothing new here.

>if it's a Japanese game it's instantly shit

The greatest WRPGs ever made are nip games, what are you even saying?

Can jrpgs stop doing school settings?

Yeah, give me that.

Pls go and try to post this on /tg/ op.
I dare you.

>Play games for kids and teens
>ignore all the others
>stahp doing school setting pls

You only have yourself to blame.

No my point is that everytime I come into Sup Forums, all I hear is praise be Grand Theft Auto, Praise be Witcher 3... and "Oh yea and fuck that Japanese game cuz it's full of weebshit, but I never played it... BUT FUCK IT ANYWAY!!! REEEEE!"

Breath of the Wild honestly looks fucking amazing, I can't believe how much hate it's getting on Sup Forums ... Maybe I'm just not enough of a depressed asshole to discuss games on Sup Forums anymore.

Okay but only if you bring the ritual materials to bring Terry Pratchett back from the dead.

I'll bring the sacrifice, but I'm not messing around with cinnamon candles, shits gay.

>I can't believe how much hate it's getting on Sup Forums

This board is full of thirsty sonyggers, how can you not believe it?

And there are even more Soulsborne and JRPG threads on the next page, so?

If we are talking about japanese rpgs, can I have The World Ends With You 2 and adequate sequel to Valkyria Chronicles

He's not dead. There are still ripples... (´・ω・｀)

He's dead as a dodo and his hack daughter is driving his name straight into the ground for a quick paycheck.

The music in The world ends with you is fucking awesome, I never got to beat the game but I played a few hours of it and its pretty dope.

I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been some kind of social justice campaign to end using dwarfs as a stock fantasy "race" yet. You know, considering dwarves are like a real thing and not a fictional race and might resent being used as such.

There are plenty of old PC games that aren't just European only fantasy.

Ever played Quest for Glory 3? The whole game is nothing but Middle Eastern setting and fantasy from a ton of different eras and locations. Or Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire, which is like a pseudo-historical adventure game about exploring the new world and jungles and shit. Not to even mention all the countless sci-fi games. OP, you need to look harder. I'll admit these locations aren't as common in new games, but they are still there.

Nooooooo

Wouldn't mind a conan universe game thats not a survival sandbox or mmo

>tfw there will never be an RPG that takes place in Ancient Rome
y liv?

>tfw you love first/third person RPGs (optionally ARPGs) but you played every single one of them so you're just bored as fuck now

>Tales series. Even the one WITH dwarves and elves still has magi-tem and dual worlds
> Wild ARMS series. Spaghetti western meets fantasy
>Suikoden series
>Final Fantasy series
>Shadow Hearts series
Not to mention one off games like Thousand Arms and Chrono Trigger

>jrpgs

>wrpg

He's still right though

Dune

So you want something like Age of Decadence?

There's literally nothing wrong with a generic fantasy setting.

Prove me wrong.

>tfw no rpg in byzantium

>tfw no rpg at all

what did he mean by this?

Name at least 1 (one) game, go on, try

>tfw no

>Posts american anime

I'll check it out.

Something that is a first/third person RPG set during Julius Cesar destroys the republic and becomes emperor to his assassinatin to the civil war and the triumvirate. You choose to be a pleb, soldier, or member of a patrician family trying to change history/gain fame and wealth.