Overused overworld tropes/cliches in RPG/Adventure games that you still want every game to have.

[ReyVGM]

There are certain RPG/Adventure game tropes found in overworld maps that a lot of games have been doing since the 8-bit days, but no matter how many times they're used and reused, I still look forward to stumbling upon them.

Mine are:

A cave behind a waterfall.
I don't care if Zelda has been doing it since the 80s, I want my hidden waterfall caves in every single adventure game.

A cave/dungeon under a well.
Witcher 3 is incredible at this. I was terribly disappointed that BotW didn't have any caves or dungeons under a well, so when I played Witcher 3 (after Botw) I was in for a nice surprise. One of the first quests the game gives you is to inspect a well in a town. My innocent ass jumped straight into the well without looking thinking it was going to be empty and at ground level like all the Botw wells. Holy shit it wasn't like that at all! I fell down into a dark and creepy underground lake and right there I knew Witcher 3 was going to be incredible.

A desert that was once an ocean.
I want to see whale bones, derelict boats, or an indication that the desert was once full of life. This trope has been done many times, but I think Skyward Sword did it best in the Lanayru Desert with the Timeshift Stones that allow you to actually SEE how the desert looked like when it was an ocean. Easily the best area of the game. I would kill for a Zelda game based on the Timeshift Stones mechanic.

Draining water to uncover shit.
This is something that again, Zelda games have done many times, but I never get tired of it. A Link to the Past was the first one that did it when you drained the moat of the 2nd Light World dungeon. But Ocarina of Time did it best when as an adult, Lake Hylia is completely drained. It was amazing back then to see that beautiful lake, now empty and able to explore it's empty depths.

 

[Yimothy]

I was playing Firewatch the other day and came to a waterfall, very disappointed not to be able to walk through it into a cave.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’m always a big confused and disappointed when I find waterfalls that don’t have anything behind them. What is even the point?!?

Also; Floating Islands, love ‘em. Mountains shouldn’t be in the sky, but they are! They’ve left their home and are on a new adventure!

 

[Phantoon]

Just wandering into people's houses and cleaning out all of their treasure chests and that being apparently fine

 

[Isrieri]

"Now remember! That broad sword is no use to you, unless you equip it first!"

 

[MetManMas]

Being able to bust into nigh every random house you can see, even if there's nothing in there. I get that it's not realistic or feasible to enter every single door, but for me that's one of the things that makes an RPG world feel more like a world.

 

[Phantoon]

"Now remember! That broad sword is no use to you, unless you equip it first!"

That's given me the mental image of The Hero stupidly slapping a monster, sword still sheathed and armour still in a bag

 

[Yimothy]

I was playing Firewatch the other day and came to a waterfall, very disappointed not to be able to walk through it into a cave.

I’m playing Alwa’s Awakening now, and just found a cave behind a waterfall. AA better than Firewatch, confirmed.

 

[Olli]

Just wandering into people's houses and cleaning out all of their treasure chests and that being apparently fine

This trope is so old that Ultima VI (1990) had Iolo give you shit for looting homes

 

[Phantoon]

I was really impressed when Knights of the Old Republic called you out on it

 

[Mogri]

Listen, if they didn't want you taking their possessions, they wouldn't have stored them in actual treasure chests.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Or they would have locked them at least.

 

[Falselogic]

I love when an early game edge lord villain becomes a party member later on.

 

[Mogri]

Actually, on the topic of treasure chests in houses, can we please go back to every town and castle being a treasure hunt? At least one room with way too many treasure chests in it per game? That was the best part of FFs 3-5.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Actually, on the topic of treasure chests in houses, can we please go back to every town and castle being a treasure hunt? At least one room with way too many treasure chests in it per game? That was the best part of FFs 3-5.

I approve of this as long as nothing is permanently missable.

 

[Phantoon]

Actually, on the topic of treasure chests in houses, can we please go back to every town and castle being a treasure hunt? At least one room with way too many treasure chests in it per game? That was the best part of FFs 3-5.

I approve of this as long as nothing is permanently missable.

Yes please!

 

[YangusKhan]

I love the thing in early Dragon Quests where there's hidden stuff in towns by stepping out to what appears to be the border of the screen, but actually doesn't transition to the overworld map and instead you can walk around the town layout and find extra NPCs and such.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I’m always a big confused and disappointed when I find waterfalls that don’t have anything behind them. What is even the point?!?

I would like to know the percentage of irl waterfalls that have anything behind him that isn't just flat bedrock. I assume it's a miniscule amount, that's not really how rivers work. I still check behind every waterfall in games, it's fun. Asscreed Ragnarok was pretty good about rewarding that behavior of mine.

I love the thing in early Dragon Quests where there's hidden stuff in towns by stepping out to what appears to be the border of the screen, but actually doesn't transition to the overworld map and instead you can walk around the town layout and find extra NPCs and such.

This is a thing in RPGs I very much do not miss. I cannot stand the hidden, missable rooms not on mini-maps, or invisible walls that you only notice if you are boundary-checking every single inch of every wall in a dungeon. Easily the worst part about Suikoden 1&2. This stuff isn't fun! This is the kind of things that drives players to FAQs

 

[Beowulf]

I think I've found almost all of these in Dragon Quest XI so far. Clearly, a game series that still caters to what we really want.

 

[YangusKhan]

I cannot stand the hidden, missable rooms not on mini-maps, or invisible walls that you only notice if you are boundary-checking every single inch of every wall in a dungeon.

Well Dragon Quest doesn't really do this though and that's not what I'm referring to? It's pretty specifically a DQ thing when this kind of thing only happens in towns, and there's usually a subtle hint where you can see an NPC or part of a building that's outside of the "normal town boundary."

 

[Torzelbaum]

I love the thing in early Dragon Quests where there's hidden stuff in towns by stepping out to what appears to be the border of the screen, but actually doesn't transition to the overworld map and instead you can walk around the town layout and find extra NPCs and such.

I didn't like it when it cost you a consumable key every time you tried to check that.

 

[Lokii]

3D models on 2D prerendered backgrounds.

I guess this one aint so much overused. It's time in the sun was too short

 

[Issun]

Well Dragon Quest doesn't really do this though and that's not what I'm referring to? It's pretty specifically a DQ thing when this kind of thing only happens in towns, and there's usually a subtle hint where you can see an NPC or part of a building that's outside of the "normal town boundary."

The first 6 Final Fantasy games all had this as well.

 

[estragon]

Actually, on the topic of treasure chests in houses, can we please go back to every town and castle being a treasure hunt? At least one room with way too many treasure chests in it per game? That was the best part of FFs 3-5.

I also want this, but I think it also needs to be part of drastically scaling back town sizes. Thinking of the most recent JRPG I played, the towns in DQXI were a big empty mess with way too many NPCs with a new thing of no interest to say that would update after every event, for example. Take half or more of interactable NPCs and replace them with treasure chests in the way too empty nooks and crannies. (The NPCs can still be there visually for atmosphere, just make them the non-interactable kind with that auto-dialogue-bubble that pops up when you approach but that doesn't make you stop moving or require any active interaction.)

When I walk into a town, I want a handful of NPCs with some representative dialogue and a treasure hunt, with basically no effort to even suggest it's town of a realistic scale filled with a lot of people, other than maybe some non-interactable NPCs and the implication that there are more sections of the town you could theoretically enter but never will.

The other extreme is also fine, if you get it to an Elder Scrolls or Baldur's Gate level of being able to interact with almost anything or anyone, often in ways that would cause you a lot of trouble. But right now way too many JRPGs are in the DQXI spot of having a worst of both worlds approach to town design, with none of the best elements of either JRPGs or PC RPGs: big open towns where you can do nothing and everyone can talk but no one has anything to say.

 

[MetManMas]

right now way too many JRPGs are in the DQXI spot of having a worst of both worlds approach to town design, with none of the best elements of either JRPGs or PC RPGs: big open towns where you can do nothing and everyone can talk but no one has anything to say.

And when they're not big open towns with nothing they're streamlined and cut down towns with nothing.

I try not to beat this dead horse too often nowadays, but when Bravely Default had towns that were all of like two or three screens with only one or two enterable buildings with no relevance outside cutscenes and about half a dozen FF1-esque "Go directly to shop UI" doors...and then the game spent money to record multiple fully voice acted lines all boiling down to some different version of "You can't GO PLACE" if you tried going somewhere the plot didn't want you to yet...That stuck with me.

That said, streamlining can work. I quite like how SaGa Frontier's world is set up to imply there's more stuff outside the scope of your protagonists' personal quests, especially with how all shops cover a very specific inventory and places where you can sell things are limited. Takes real dedication to have a shopping mall where the only store of interest (to the player) is a jewelry shop and a casino level where you can't actually gamble.

 

[YangusKhan]

But right now way too many JRPGs are in the DQXI spot of having a worst of both worlds approach to town design, with none of the best elements of either JRPGs or PC RPGs: big open towns where you can do nothing and everyone can talk but no one has anything to say.

Co-signed. DQXI was way too big.

 

[Bongo]

Getting the band back together. But it's a spoiler every time it happens, so I can't give examples.

Party members commenting on recent events, or seeing them doing various tasks. What are they up to when you're not fighting or dungeoneering? How do they spend their downtime?

Visiting all the towns after the final boss and seeing the world at peace. An extended denouement.

 

[gorha]

Visiting the same locations before and after a timeskip. Also works in reverse, through time travel or a playable flashback, or even across multiple games in a series.

 

[q 3]

Revisiting an early dungeon to find that there's a whole nother dungeon beneath it.

 

[gogglebob]

Visiting the same locations before and after a timeskip. Also works in reverse, through time travel or a playable flashback, or even across multiple games in a series.

Related but not quite the same: any sort of "dark world" or "other world". Don't care if it is some wholly separate universe or an astral plane or whatever, just something along the lines of "here the map kind of looks the same, but there are differences, and maybe you can do things here that impact the other world". Cannot get enough of "solved a block puzzle in this world, now a door unlocks in the other world", even when it makes exactly zero sense.