Console role-playing game facts for kids

A console role-playing game is a type of video game that feels a lot like traditional role-playing games. Imagine games where you control a hero or a team of heroes on an amazing adventure! Many console RPGs share cool features. These include battles where you take turns, unexpected fights, and improving your characters' stats and skills as you play. You also get to make your characters stronger by "leveling up."

What Are Console RPGs?

Console RPGs are video games where you play the role of a character or a group of characters. You guide them through a story, often in a fantasy or science fiction world. These games usually focus on storytelling, character development, and exploration.

Key Features of RPGs

Many console RPGs have common elements that make them fun:

• Turn-based battles: In these fights, you and your enemies take turns attacking. It's like a strategic board game where you plan your moves carefully.
• Random battles: Sometimes, enemies might surprise you as you explore the game world. These unexpected fights keep you on your toes!
• Stats and skills: Your characters have different numbers (stats) that show how strong, fast, or smart they are. They also learn new skills and spells as they get better.
• Leveling up: As your characters win battles and complete quests, they gain experience points. When they get enough, they "level up," becoming stronger and sometimes learning new abilities.

Exploring the Game World

In many RPGs, you get to explore huge worlds. These can be vast Overworld maps where you travel between towns and dungeons. Sometimes, you'll find hidden paths or secret areas. Exploring is a big part of the adventure!

Character Creation and Customization

A cool part of many RPGs is creating your own character. You can often choose their look, their job (like a warrior or a wizard), and even their personality. As you play, you can also find new armor and weapons to make your character even more unique. This lets you play the game your way.

Storytelling and Quests

Console RPGs are known for their deep stories. You might be on a quest to save the world, find a lost treasure, or defeat a powerful villain. Along the way, you'll meet many interesting characters. Some will help you, and others might give you side quests to complete for rewards.

Types of Console RPGs

Over the years, console RPGs have developed many different styles. Some focus on action, while others are more about strategy.

Classic RPG Adventures

Early console RPGs often had simple graphics but deep gameplay. Players sometimes even drew their own maps on graph paper to remember where they had been! Later games added automaps to help you navigate. These games often had a party of heroes moving together to explore dungeons and fight monsters.

Action RPGs

In action RPGs, battles happen in real-time, meaning you attack and dodge without waiting for turns. This makes the combat feel faster and more exciting. You need quick reflexes to succeed in these games.

Tactical RPGs

Tactical RPGs combine strategy with role-playing. Battles often take place on a grid, like a chessboard. You move your characters around and use their skills to outsmart your enemies. Positioning your team is very important in these games.

Online RPGs

Some console RPGs let you play with other people online. These are called MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). In these games, you can team up with friends or meet new players from all over the world. You can go on adventures together, trade items, and chat.

History of Console RPGs

Console RPGs have a rich history, evolving from early computer games. They became very popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

Early Influences

Many console RPGs were inspired by older computer role-playing games. These early games often used simple text or basic graphics. They focused on letting players imagine the world and their adventures.

Graphics and Evolution

As technology improved, console RPGs started to look much better. With the rise of 3D graphics accelerators in the mid-1990s, games could show detailed worlds and characters. This made the adventures feel even more real and immersive. Developers like Bethesda Softworks and designers like Hironobu Sakaguchi helped shape the genre.

Images for kids

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  A party of adventurers gathered together in Tales of Trolls & Treasures

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  Overworld map from the tactical RPG The Battle for Wesnoth.

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  Example of a dungeon map drawn by hand on graph paper. This practice was common among players of early role-playing games, such as early titles in the Wizardry and Might and Magic series. Later on, games of this type started featuring automaps.

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  Character information and inventory screen in a typical computer role-playing game. Pictured here is the roguelike-like S.C.O.U.R.G.E.: Heroes of Lesser Renown. Note the paper doll in the top left portion of the image.

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  An example of character creation in an RPG. In this particular game, players can assign points into attributes, select a deity, and choose a portrait and profession for their character.

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  Ranged magical combat in the party-based graphical roguelike-like Dungeon Monkey Eternal. The fireball being cast by the wizard in the image is an area of effect (AoE) attack, and damages multiple characters at once.

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  The graphical roguelike-like NEO Scavenger has text on the right indicating what events have transpired, and gives the players options (bottom) based on their character's abilities. At left is the character's current stats.

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  Starting in the mid-1990s with the advent of 3D graphics accelerators, real-time first- and third-person polygonal graphics also became common in CRPGs. Pictured here is Sintel The Game.

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  Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII is often seen as the "quintessential bishounen" in Japanese RPGs.

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  Screenshot of Damnation of Gods, a Dungeon Master clone. All four members of the players' party move around the game world as a single unit, or "blob", in first-person perspective.

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  Multiple people chat and play online in the MMORPG Daimonin.

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  NetHack and other roguelikes often use ASCII text characters to represent objects in the game world. The position of the main character in this image is indicated by the symbol @.

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  Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3 booth at the Games Convention 2008

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  Hironobu Sakaguchi at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California in 2007

See also

In Spanish: Videojuego de rol para niños