Post by Andreshi on May 25, 2006 15:25:56 GMT -5
Ok, like the title says, this is the place where I'll put all the RPG cliches I know and found (you may add the ones I missed)
RPG cliches (in no particular order):
1. Strong weapons are tough to control.
2. The main female character doesn't know how to cook.
3. Shops never close, unless it's during a certain time period, or during a certain event.
4. You play as a the hero who kills the big bad demon.
5. The empire is evil.
6. Amnesia will be involve somehow.
7. A terrible monster appears only 1000 years since it was banished/sealed/killed.
8. You'll have to fight one of your later party members.
9. There will be something that makes you faster in the overworld.
10. Everybody with amnesia will regain their memory at some point during the story.
11. Legendary race vanishes (usually 1000 years ago)
12. There will be a flying castle at some point.
13. Insert your name here (This one has dissapeared in newer games)
14. Characters usually don't eat food.
15. There will be only a few people in the last battle. (This leaves me to wonder where the armies went)
16. Something that is burning won't burn down until whatever you need to do is done.
17. Religions are up to no good.
18. Religions that don't involve priests and/or churches are good, infact, they end up helping you.
19. Whenever they tell you not to do something or go someplace, you should.
20. Towns are always safe, monsters don't bother to attack them for some reason.
21. By the time the heroes get someplace, the badguys are always there first.
22. Nobody cares if you walk into their houses and start talking to them.
23. There will be a bonus boss that you don't need to beat and is stronger than the final boss.
24. The bonus boss will have the strongest weapon. (which is really useless because if you can beat that boss, you can beat the final boss, no problem)
25. There will be an inaccesible area (usually a broken bridge), until you do a certain fetch quest.
26. Whenever the hero has a more experienced buddy or leader, that character always dies, leaving the hero to fend for themself.
27. Whenever a character permanently leaves the party (due to death or otherwise), all their items and equipment are usually returned to you. Say warrior #1 dies/leaves, warrior #2 gets all his items, experience, weapons.
28. Annoying enemy move in which an enemy summons other members of its kind. This can lead to long annoying battles.
29. Most shops have chests behind the counter. Frusterating as it is, there's no way to reach them.
30. Chancellors or other advisors to kings are always up to no good.
31. People in games keep stuff in weird places, i.e. valuable heal potions inside pots, powerful equipment just sitting around caves in chests, etc.
32. All buildings, towns, vehicles, etc. appear tiny on the overworld map in relation to your character, but when you are inside them, they are much bigger.
33. Major enemy hideouts (especially the final dungeon) always collapse when you beat the dungeon, even though there is absolutely no physical force that would cause them to collapse.
34. In most RPGs, one major good character dies, there are a few games where more than one major good character dies.
35. Whenever you have to escape from a place within a time limit, the location will blow up/collapse as soon as you leave, no matter how much time is left on your timer.
36. The major bad guys keep running away, leaving flunkies for you to fight, until you finally fight them near the end of the game.
37. Except in Final Fantasy (and other games by Squaresoft/Square Enix) games, the main character never talks (unless you are choosing the response), although other characters react as if the character was talking.
38. Currencies in most games start with the letter G. (gil, gella, goth, gilder, gold, etc.)
39. Stereotypical cute and furry animal character. Usually worthless in battle and just intended for comedic relief.
40. Characters and enemies can have 1 out of 2500 HP and be perfectly healthy, but as soon as they drop to 0 HP, they suddenly die.
41. Deja Vu Dungeon. Cliched plot device in which a dungeon you visit in the beginning of a game (generally in the game's opening sequence) later is the last dungeon or a dungeon near the end of the game.
42. If you don't actually see a character die (or are explicitly told so by somebody who did), they're not dead.
43. In most cases, your party are the only ones trying to save the world. Nobody else ever beats you to it or even tries. Anybody that is trying to save the world on their own ends up either joining you, or dying.
44. Whenever there is a spy for the bad guys in your party, that spy always up turning good and staying in your party after being unmasked.
45. Any overpowering character that joins your party soon leaves your party for any number of reasons (killed, is actually a bad guy, etc.)
46. Semi-important characters often vanish near the end of the game.
47. Every game has a boss with several body parts (head and arms, or several heads), each of which can be attacked and destroyed separately.
48. All enemies of the same type are completely identical clones of each other. In addition, many enemy types closely resemble each other with just a variation in color.
49. Annoying townspeople stand in front of a door or passage and won't move.
50. Most games have a boss that you have to find and/or fight as just the main character.
51. In a 16-bit plot, towns and people join the rebellion without hesitation and have no fear of the Empire attacking/killing/destroying them.
52. Earthbound Rule. All final bosses have some special super duper dimension background that you fight in, frequently out in space. So named because Earthbound has these in every battle.
53. Most earthquakes spells generally involve the ground simply shaking, which somehow damages people.
54. Stereotypical character in most RPGs; usually builds your mode of transportation.
55. Despite having no physical shape, ghosts and other spirit-like creatures can be physically damaged.
56. RPG armor is apparently invisible; none of the characters ever look like they're wearing armor, just their normal outfits.
57. Most endings are considered poor by the majority of players.
58. Lately it has become fashionable for a song (with actual lyrics) to play during a game's credits.
59. Stores never run out of items.
60. Both party members and bosses can survive an incredible amount of damage (shot repeatedly, hit with meteor, electrocuted by lightning, attacked with 15-hit sword techniques).
61. Lights (torches, campfires, lamps, whatever) never burn out or run out of electricity -- unless, of course, the story requires them too.
62. The farther you get away from the starting point of the game, the better equipment the stores have. This is true even when there is no reason for it.
63. Frequently in a Deja Vu Dungeon, the hero accidentally unleashes the big bad evil monster, which was sealed there (this can sometimes be an unbeatable). The hero is then sometimes exiled or punished for doing so, but in the end defeats the monster, and all ends well.
64. Most games have a bad guy with a weird laugh ("Mwah ha ha!", "Gyaa haa haa!" [Heidegger], "Khhk khhk khhk!" [Alhazad], etc.). Of course, none of them can beat Kefka.
65. Oldest RPG subplot known. A town has a fake king that is really a monster, while the real king is imprisoned. Sure signs you're dealing with a Fake King Plot are messages like "The king has been acting strange lately" or "The king hasn't been himself since ...". References to this plot have even been found in primitive cave paintings.
66. Transparent attempt to make you believe you are at the end of the game when you aren't (Photosphere in Wild Arms, battle with Zog in BOF1, Floating Continent in FF6, etc.). Believed by no one becuase there is still a lot of the map you haven't explored, items you don't have, etc.
67. One of the major bad guys is always related to one of the major good guys.
68. Save points and healing items inexplicably congregate just before a dangerous area or boss.
69. The second character you get for most of the game is almost always female, a healer of some sort, romantically involved with the main character, or all of the above.
70. Female only towns that hate men. Not only are these in many RPGs, they somehow manage to sustain throughout many generations...that's just wrong. And why aren't there male only towns?
71. Any subquest unimporant to the plot, in which you are sent to find a key/rescue a lost kid/save the workers in the mine/otherwise resolve a town's problem.
72. All materials in RPGs are flammable, including metal, stone, and even ectoplasm (Mommy, look at the burning ghost!).
73. All shops will buy any type of item, even if they have no use for it. Want to sell bazooka ammo to a fishing goods shop? No problem!
74. A boss that keeps summoning a group of flunky enemies; if you kill all of them, it will just resummon them. Thus, your strategy is always to kill all but one of them.
75. When an inn is free for no reason, don't stay there. Somebody will steal your money during the night. Does not apply to inns that are free for a reason (i.e., you saved the town, main character's hometown, etc.).
76. There is usually one airship in the world. Despite the bad guys usually being a big empire/company that rules the world, they apparently can't build another airship. Perhaps this is due to a gas shortage... on the other hand, airships never run out of gas.
77. Most (but not all) female characters are magic-users.
78. Gratuitous Flashback Sequence. The name says it all. Especially annoying because these are
usually extremely linear, change scenes frequently, and have no fighting.
79. All graveyards have a secret passage revealed by pushing a tombstone.
80. All graveyards with tombstones you can examine has a hidden message from the programmer somewhere, usually about something being dead that shouldn't.
81. Town/castle NPCs who have no purpose except to say "Welcome to ______!" (EVERY RPG KNOWN TO MAN)
82. Townspeople remain in the same place, doing the same thing, the whole game.
83. Nobody ever opens chests except you. In rare occasions, another important character will open them. (like when Locke opens all the chests in the Phoenix Cave)
84. Magic usually never misses. In addition, it will never harm people on your side (even if a huge tidal wave just swept across the battlefield, only the opposing side is damaged). (For turn based RPGs)
85. The hero's hometown, or other town where you start, is usually destroyed, or the hero is somehow otherwise prevented from returning.
86. The enemies always have far more HP than your characters do, but inflict less damage than your party does, so it all comes out even. I guess they don't want your party's HP numbers to get too big...
87. If you fight someone who joins your party, they always have way more HP when you fight them than they do when they join you.
88. Each inn in the game gets progressively more expensive for no logical reason.
89. Whenever the characters go to the inn without you controlling them, something important happens during the night.
90. There is always vacany at any inn. The inns apparently reserve a room for the party just in case they happen to show up.
91. Except in action-RPGs, you can never walk off a pit or into water. You can only walk off ledges in certain circumstances, when there is a need for you to be able to jump off ledges.
92. Heroes often have a parent/grandparent/ancestor, almost always male, who was a hero as well.
93. If you think about it, most RPGs take place in an incredibly tiny world with only a few cities and a surface area less than the moon. The same applies for towns -- they have about six houses, tops.
94. After you somehow help a king, he gives you access to his entire treasure room and lets you just loot the place -- which is weird on its own, but gets weirder when all these kingdoms have in their treasure room is a couple of herbs, a sword, and some money.
95. In most games, you can just walk into houses and loot people's cabinets, chests, and pots; and nobody cares, even though they are standing right in the room as you are ripping them off.
96. The heroes always arrive just as the bad guys are about to execute their plan. The bad guys always wait patiently for the heroes to arrive, even if you go off and spend several days building up levels.
97. Whenever there is any mention that a character might die, that character always does. In general, whenever there is a hint that something might happen or be true, it always happens or is true.
98. All RPG world maps wrap around on both sides of the map (east/west and north/south). This is physically impossible. (In FF8, though, the map seems to work in two different ways)
99. In most RPG series, each sequel has nothing to do with any of the previous games, but a few characters and locations inexplicably appear in every game in the series.
100. Your characters often have to sneak into some bad guy headquarters, even though they are powerful enough to just walk in the front gate and slaughter anybody in their way.
101. There are never ever queens in games, nor are there any princes (okay, okay, besides in FF4). Any princess in a game is always important to the storyline.
102. The only living parent of male characters is the mother; for female characters, only the father is living.
103. Programmers do not want to expend extra effort on characters and artwork that aren't essential to the game. Thus, any character that joins your party for any length of time (in a game where you can choose which characters you want to use) is not going to die, because the artists don't want to spend time on a character that isn't going to be used much (FF7 is a notable exception here). Also, any character (such as Mina in BOF2) with their own unique sprite is important, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time, because otherwise the artists would not waste their time drawing a different sprite.
104. Obligatory weapon that can only be drawn by the hero. Needed to kill the big bad evil demon.
105. Any bad guy that turns good dies, except for characters that were possessed by or under the control of one of the truly evil characters.
106. No rumor is ever true. (Exception: Pokemon)
107. All characters named Leo die. (FF6, SoulBlazer, Y's IV). Okay, EXCEPT for the one in Lunar.
108. All characters join the party at a level about equal to what the rest of the party is at, regardless of how much training they have. Occasionally, though, you get a character who starts at level 1 and must be brought up to a normal level.
109. Mad scientists turn themselves into a monster (by drinking something or injecting something into themsleves) when you fight them.
110. RPGs are frequently populated by plants that wander around and attack people. This is not common in the real world.
111. To open any locked door, you must have the key. You can never just break the door down, despite having spells that could take out a small village.
112. Lost Kid Plot. Fetch quest plot second-most common to the Fake King Plot. A kid from the village has gotten lost in the cave. Go find him.
113. With the exception of Suikoden (uh, and Mario RPGs), the main character invariably wields a sword. A large majority of main characters also have spiky hair, generally black, brown, or blue.
114. Segment of a game, usually about 3/4s of the way through, in which the main character leaves the party briefly due to some physical ailment (dead, missing arm, Mako poisoning, etc.), leaving the other party members to take over. Occurs only in recent games.
115. Every RPG has at least one completely useless character.
116. Characters carry their weapons in an invisible space until battle comes, then they appear out of nowhere without being drawned.
117. Monster with a very high defense (you can usually only take 1 HP off it with each hit) that runs after a few turns. Difficult to kill, but you get a lot of experience if you do.
118. Most main characters must have a dead or lost family member.
119. Usually, you have to find some sort of rare or precious mineral (generally mithril) to repair or upgrade something.
120. Most RPGs have exactly one major plot twist.
121. For some reason, all monsters carry money to give you after battle, even though wolves, slimes, dragons, etc. have absolutely no use for money.
122. All monsters gradually get tougher as you go through the game, no matter what circumstances would normally lead them to be otherwise. (i.e, if you go into a flashback, the monsters will be stronger there, which makes no sense)
123. All party members are already trained fighters and/or magic users, even when there is no reason for them to be so.
124. Nighttime Chat. Obligatory scene in which the hero and love interest talk outside the inn and resolve their problem.
125. Parties never get tired, no matter how far you walk on the map or in a dungeon.
126. No guns ever run out of ammo. Even in SaGa Frontier, where guns have ammo, they magically reload after battle.
127. Most enemies that can inflict some kind of status change (poison, silence, etc.) usually drop the item that cures that change (antidote, echo screen, whatever) when killed.
128. All damage inflicted can be expressed as a number, which helpfully appear over the target's head.
129. Obligatory Dungeons. Every game has a mountain, at least one cave, some type of icy dungeon, a tower, a castle, a high-tech dungeon, a forest, and a shrine. Most have volcanoes.
(due to some boundaries, I'll have to post the next section seperatetly, and sorry for the double post)
RPG cliches (in no particular order):
1. Strong weapons are tough to control.
2. The main female character doesn't know how to cook.
3. Shops never close, unless it's during a certain time period, or during a certain event.
4. You play as a the hero who kills the big bad demon.
5. The empire is evil.
6. Amnesia will be involve somehow.
7. A terrible monster appears only 1000 years since it was banished/sealed/killed.
8. You'll have to fight one of your later party members.
9. There will be something that makes you faster in the overworld.
10. Everybody with amnesia will regain their memory at some point during the story.
11. Legendary race vanishes (usually 1000 years ago)
12. There will be a flying castle at some point.
13. Insert your name here (This one has dissapeared in newer games)
14. Characters usually don't eat food.
15. There will be only a few people in the last battle. (This leaves me to wonder where the armies went)
16. Something that is burning won't burn down until whatever you need to do is done.
17. Religions are up to no good.
18. Religions that don't involve priests and/or churches are good, infact, they end up helping you.
19. Whenever they tell you not to do something or go someplace, you should.
20. Towns are always safe, monsters don't bother to attack them for some reason.
21. By the time the heroes get someplace, the badguys are always there first.
22. Nobody cares if you walk into their houses and start talking to them.
23. There will be a bonus boss that you don't need to beat and is stronger than the final boss.
24. The bonus boss will have the strongest weapon. (which is really useless because if you can beat that boss, you can beat the final boss, no problem)
25. There will be an inaccesible area (usually a broken bridge), until you do a certain fetch quest.
26. Whenever the hero has a more experienced buddy or leader, that character always dies, leaving the hero to fend for themself.
27. Whenever a character permanently leaves the party (due to death or otherwise), all their items and equipment are usually returned to you. Say warrior #1 dies/leaves, warrior #2 gets all his items, experience, weapons.
28. Annoying enemy move in which an enemy summons other members of its kind. This can lead to long annoying battles.
29. Most shops have chests behind the counter. Frusterating as it is, there's no way to reach them.
30. Chancellors or other advisors to kings are always up to no good.
31. People in games keep stuff in weird places, i.e. valuable heal potions inside pots, powerful equipment just sitting around caves in chests, etc.
32. All buildings, towns, vehicles, etc. appear tiny on the overworld map in relation to your character, but when you are inside them, they are much bigger.
33. Major enemy hideouts (especially the final dungeon) always collapse when you beat the dungeon, even though there is absolutely no physical force that would cause them to collapse.
34. In most RPGs, one major good character dies, there are a few games where more than one major good character dies.
35. Whenever you have to escape from a place within a time limit, the location will blow up/collapse as soon as you leave, no matter how much time is left on your timer.
36. The major bad guys keep running away, leaving flunkies for you to fight, until you finally fight them near the end of the game.
37. Except in Final Fantasy (and other games by Squaresoft/Square Enix) games, the main character never talks (unless you are choosing the response), although other characters react as if the character was talking.
38. Currencies in most games start with the letter G. (gil, gella, goth, gilder, gold, etc.)
39. Stereotypical cute and furry animal character. Usually worthless in battle and just intended for comedic relief.
40. Characters and enemies can have 1 out of 2500 HP and be perfectly healthy, but as soon as they drop to 0 HP, they suddenly die.
41. Deja Vu Dungeon. Cliched plot device in which a dungeon you visit in the beginning of a game (generally in the game's opening sequence) later is the last dungeon or a dungeon near the end of the game.
42. If you don't actually see a character die (or are explicitly told so by somebody who did), they're not dead.
43. In most cases, your party are the only ones trying to save the world. Nobody else ever beats you to it or even tries. Anybody that is trying to save the world on their own ends up either joining you, or dying.
44. Whenever there is a spy for the bad guys in your party, that spy always up turning good and staying in your party after being unmasked.
45. Any overpowering character that joins your party soon leaves your party for any number of reasons (killed, is actually a bad guy, etc.)
46. Semi-important characters often vanish near the end of the game.
47. Every game has a boss with several body parts (head and arms, or several heads), each of which can be attacked and destroyed separately.
48. All enemies of the same type are completely identical clones of each other. In addition, many enemy types closely resemble each other with just a variation in color.
49. Annoying townspeople stand in front of a door or passage and won't move.
50. Most games have a boss that you have to find and/or fight as just the main character.
51. In a 16-bit plot, towns and people join the rebellion without hesitation and have no fear of the Empire attacking/killing/destroying them.
52. Earthbound Rule. All final bosses have some special super duper dimension background that you fight in, frequently out in space. So named because Earthbound has these in every battle.
53. Most earthquakes spells generally involve the ground simply shaking, which somehow damages people.
54. Stereotypical character in most RPGs; usually builds your mode of transportation.
55. Despite having no physical shape, ghosts and other spirit-like creatures can be physically damaged.
56. RPG armor is apparently invisible; none of the characters ever look like they're wearing armor, just their normal outfits.
57. Most endings are considered poor by the majority of players.
58. Lately it has become fashionable for a song (with actual lyrics) to play during a game's credits.
59. Stores never run out of items.
60. Both party members and bosses can survive an incredible amount of damage (shot repeatedly, hit with meteor, electrocuted by lightning, attacked with 15-hit sword techniques).
61. Lights (torches, campfires, lamps, whatever) never burn out or run out of electricity -- unless, of course, the story requires them too.
62. The farther you get away from the starting point of the game, the better equipment the stores have. This is true even when there is no reason for it.
63. Frequently in a Deja Vu Dungeon, the hero accidentally unleashes the big bad evil monster, which was sealed there (this can sometimes be an unbeatable). The hero is then sometimes exiled or punished for doing so, but in the end defeats the monster, and all ends well.
64. Most games have a bad guy with a weird laugh ("Mwah ha ha!", "Gyaa haa haa!" [Heidegger], "Khhk khhk khhk!" [Alhazad], etc.). Of course, none of them can beat Kefka.
65. Oldest RPG subplot known. A town has a fake king that is really a monster, while the real king is imprisoned. Sure signs you're dealing with a Fake King Plot are messages like "The king has been acting strange lately" or "The king hasn't been himself since ...". References to this plot have even been found in primitive cave paintings.
66. Transparent attempt to make you believe you are at the end of the game when you aren't (Photosphere in Wild Arms, battle with Zog in BOF1, Floating Continent in FF6, etc.). Believed by no one becuase there is still a lot of the map you haven't explored, items you don't have, etc.
67. One of the major bad guys is always related to one of the major good guys.
68. Save points and healing items inexplicably congregate just before a dangerous area or boss.
69. The second character you get for most of the game is almost always female, a healer of some sort, romantically involved with the main character, or all of the above.
70. Female only towns that hate men. Not only are these in many RPGs, they somehow manage to sustain throughout many generations...that's just wrong. And why aren't there male only towns?
71. Any subquest unimporant to the plot, in which you are sent to find a key/rescue a lost kid/save the workers in the mine/otherwise resolve a town's problem.
72. All materials in RPGs are flammable, including metal, stone, and even ectoplasm (Mommy, look at the burning ghost!).
73. All shops will buy any type of item, even if they have no use for it. Want to sell bazooka ammo to a fishing goods shop? No problem!
74. A boss that keeps summoning a group of flunky enemies; if you kill all of them, it will just resummon them. Thus, your strategy is always to kill all but one of them.
75. When an inn is free for no reason, don't stay there. Somebody will steal your money during the night. Does not apply to inns that are free for a reason (i.e., you saved the town, main character's hometown, etc.).
76. There is usually one airship in the world. Despite the bad guys usually being a big empire/company that rules the world, they apparently can't build another airship. Perhaps this is due to a gas shortage... on the other hand, airships never run out of gas.
77. Most (but not all) female characters are magic-users.
78. Gratuitous Flashback Sequence. The name says it all. Especially annoying because these are
usually extremely linear, change scenes frequently, and have no fighting.
79. All graveyards have a secret passage revealed by pushing a tombstone.
80. All graveyards with tombstones you can examine has a hidden message from the programmer somewhere, usually about something being dead that shouldn't.
81. Town/castle NPCs who have no purpose except to say "Welcome to ______!" (EVERY RPG KNOWN TO MAN)
82. Townspeople remain in the same place, doing the same thing, the whole game.
83. Nobody ever opens chests except you. In rare occasions, another important character will open them. (like when Locke opens all the chests in the Phoenix Cave)
84. Magic usually never misses. In addition, it will never harm people on your side (even if a huge tidal wave just swept across the battlefield, only the opposing side is damaged). (For turn based RPGs)
85. The hero's hometown, or other town where you start, is usually destroyed, or the hero is somehow otherwise prevented from returning.
86. The enemies always have far more HP than your characters do, but inflict less damage than your party does, so it all comes out even. I guess they don't want your party's HP numbers to get too big...
87. If you fight someone who joins your party, they always have way more HP when you fight them than they do when they join you.
88. Each inn in the game gets progressively more expensive for no logical reason.
89. Whenever the characters go to the inn without you controlling them, something important happens during the night.
90. There is always vacany at any inn. The inns apparently reserve a room for the party just in case they happen to show up.
91. Except in action-RPGs, you can never walk off a pit or into water. You can only walk off ledges in certain circumstances, when there is a need for you to be able to jump off ledges.
92. Heroes often have a parent/grandparent/ancestor, almost always male, who was a hero as well.
93. If you think about it, most RPGs take place in an incredibly tiny world with only a few cities and a surface area less than the moon. The same applies for towns -- they have about six houses, tops.
94. After you somehow help a king, he gives you access to his entire treasure room and lets you just loot the place -- which is weird on its own, but gets weirder when all these kingdoms have in their treasure room is a couple of herbs, a sword, and some money.
95. In most games, you can just walk into houses and loot people's cabinets, chests, and pots; and nobody cares, even though they are standing right in the room as you are ripping them off.
96. The heroes always arrive just as the bad guys are about to execute their plan. The bad guys always wait patiently for the heroes to arrive, even if you go off and spend several days building up levels.
97. Whenever there is any mention that a character might die, that character always does. In general, whenever there is a hint that something might happen or be true, it always happens or is true.
98. All RPG world maps wrap around on both sides of the map (east/west and north/south). This is physically impossible. (In FF8, though, the map seems to work in two different ways)
99. In most RPG series, each sequel has nothing to do with any of the previous games, but a few characters and locations inexplicably appear in every game in the series.
100. Your characters often have to sneak into some bad guy headquarters, even though they are powerful enough to just walk in the front gate and slaughter anybody in their way.
101. There are never ever queens in games, nor are there any princes (okay, okay, besides in FF4). Any princess in a game is always important to the storyline.
102. The only living parent of male characters is the mother; for female characters, only the father is living.
103. Programmers do not want to expend extra effort on characters and artwork that aren't essential to the game. Thus, any character that joins your party for any length of time (in a game where you can choose which characters you want to use) is not going to die, because the artists don't want to spend time on a character that isn't going to be used much (FF7 is a notable exception here). Also, any character (such as Mina in BOF2) with their own unique sprite is important, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time, because otherwise the artists would not waste their time drawing a different sprite.
104. Obligatory weapon that can only be drawn by the hero. Needed to kill the big bad evil demon.
105. Any bad guy that turns good dies, except for characters that were possessed by or under the control of one of the truly evil characters.
106. No rumor is ever true. (Exception: Pokemon)
107. All characters named Leo die. (FF6, SoulBlazer, Y's IV). Okay, EXCEPT for the one in Lunar.
108. All characters join the party at a level about equal to what the rest of the party is at, regardless of how much training they have. Occasionally, though, you get a character who starts at level 1 and must be brought up to a normal level.
109. Mad scientists turn themselves into a monster (by drinking something or injecting something into themsleves) when you fight them.
110. RPGs are frequently populated by plants that wander around and attack people. This is not common in the real world.
111. To open any locked door, you must have the key. You can never just break the door down, despite having spells that could take out a small village.
112. Lost Kid Plot. Fetch quest plot second-most common to the Fake King Plot. A kid from the village has gotten lost in the cave. Go find him.
113. With the exception of Suikoden (uh, and Mario RPGs), the main character invariably wields a sword. A large majority of main characters also have spiky hair, generally black, brown, or blue.
114. Segment of a game, usually about 3/4s of the way through, in which the main character leaves the party briefly due to some physical ailment (dead, missing arm, Mako poisoning, etc.), leaving the other party members to take over. Occurs only in recent games.
115. Every RPG has at least one completely useless character.
116. Characters carry their weapons in an invisible space until battle comes, then they appear out of nowhere without being drawned.
117. Monster with a very high defense (you can usually only take 1 HP off it with each hit) that runs after a few turns. Difficult to kill, but you get a lot of experience if you do.
118. Most main characters must have a dead or lost family member.
119. Usually, you have to find some sort of rare or precious mineral (generally mithril) to repair or upgrade something.
120. Most RPGs have exactly one major plot twist.
121. For some reason, all monsters carry money to give you after battle, even though wolves, slimes, dragons, etc. have absolutely no use for money.
122. All monsters gradually get tougher as you go through the game, no matter what circumstances would normally lead them to be otherwise. (i.e, if you go into a flashback, the monsters will be stronger there, which makes no sense)
123. All party members are already trained fighters and/or magic users, even when there is no reason for them to be so.
124. Nighttime Chat. Obligatory scene in which the hero and love interest talk outside the inn and resolve their problem.
125. Parties never get tired, no matter how far you walk on the map or in a dungeon.
126. No guns ever run out of ammo. Even in SaGa Frontier, where guns have ammo, they magically reload after battle.
127. Most enemies that can inflict some kind of status change (poison, silence, etc.) usually drop the item that cures that change (antidote, echo screen, whatever) when killed.
128. All damage inflicted can be expressed as a number, which helpfully appear over the target's head.
129. Obligatory Dungeons. Every game has a mountain, at least one cave, some type of icy dungeon, a tower, a castle, a high-tech dungeon, a forest, and a shrine. Most have volcanoes.
(due to some boundaries, I'll have to post the next section seperatetly, and sorry for the double post)
".
