Dragons in RPGs

Aevun wrote:Dark Souls > Skyrim. Even when Skyrim's biggest selling point is concerned.

Skyrim makes a much better drink coaster than Dark Souls. And, Dark Souls and Skyrim perform equally well as frisbees. Though if you scratch Dark Souls, you've ruined a copy of a fantastic game and if you scratch Skyrim then you've scratched a perfectly good frisbee. So there's that.

Regardless, given that these are Skyrim's biggest selling points I have to disagree.

DaFarmerProject wrote:Is anyone else getting tired of the "Dragon" theme in recent RPGs? It's starting to get obnoxious in my opinion. Reason this is posted here is because I was watching the DkSII trailer, and it urked me a little when I saw a lot of dragon things toward the end.

I am sick of dragons.
They are so overused... Need a more original theme.
Anyone know if that's a main theme in DkSII? Opinions? Maybe it's just me.

100% agree with you. I've been sick of dragons since the 90's ended, it's the most overused theme in fantasy games. The fact that dragons were the main plot of Skyrim made it an awfully boring game (and the fact that they had an extremely retarded AI incapable of posing any challenge), and I really hope they're not a large part of DkS II because it too would be very boring.

They did say dragons have a large part in the plot, but I don't mind as long as there's at most just one dragon boss. After all it won't be a very story focused game.

By the way, the things shown in the trailer & the gameplay are actually Wyverns.

skarekrow13 wrote:Seath is pretty smart. He's just a wimp.....


Tougher than Skyrim dragons though.

Yeah Seath is kind of the "nerd" of the dragon race. He decided to read books instead of go to war. Which led to the rest of the dragons picking on him until his scales fell off and he went insane.

The reason dragons are overused is because they have been a representation of both power and greatness for a millennium. In this age: Dragons, gods (or great beings) and undead (Vampires, Zombies, etc.) are probably the 3 most commonly used beings in fantasy, with beastkin also being thrown in there at times.

As for dragons, in Dark Souls 2. I think it has been shown that they will be more active as part of the story and general gameplay (one level is being called the Dragon Mansion, which has a lot to do with dragons). This could mean that dragons will be the main focus of the story instead of the undead. They might be attempting to link the undead with dragons, although, IMO, I don't think dragons are going to be too common, unless...

Well, we'll just wait.

I have no problem with dragons themselves; they are generally used as a living incarnation of wild, individual strength and ferocity. (and in the West, destruction and chaos) Often, the only creatures that compare to a dragon in these regards and might and evil are forces that mess with life and death itself (necromancers) and evil incarnate. (demons/devils, etc)
I think an equally large problem is that nearly every single game has the player save the entire world. Not every story needs the protagonist to save an entire universe. Stories can be plenty (and sometimes more) deep and interesting when set on a smaller scale.

If dragons are done well, then I enjoy them- I.e kalameet, everything in monster hunter ever

However in stuff like skyrim, or dragon's dogma (ironically i thought the final boss dragon was really not that great, was more of a grind than a fun boss fight), where the fights become slow, just an exercise of futility, just time wasting it's bad.. (im looking at you gaping dragon)

In dark souls i don't think there's much danger of dragons being bad, and I certainly don't think they'll be over used as FROM like varied boss themes.

I think also that how good dragons are is how innovative and interesting they make them.

Tolvo wrote:Or I'd love to see a Rat King.

What's up?

hahaha, but yeah i've thought about how awesome that would be. Are you talking about a King Rat, and I'm talking about a boss style, not the depths colossal rat. Or Rat king, which is kinda like a verb and very strange but as a boss would be cool, like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king_(folklore)

People actually enjoyed Kalameet? I fought him for the first time on NG+4, and the only reason he actually killed me was because I was trying to go after his tail. He was certainly more interesting than most dragon fights in games, but he wasn't really challenging (except getting to that damned tail to hit it...)