Suspenion of Disbelief and You

I think the earliest case that I contemplated these things was back when I was playing the 2d Sonic games on the Genesis, I kinda wondered "why doesn't Robotnik just build a big wall in the level that's too high for me to jump over?". That's a kind of simplistic look at it, but really it does seem a little strange that the bad guys would make all these elaborate levels and fill them with hundreds of robotic villans, yet they never seem to build a wall in your path that's higher than you can jump or can't be broken simply by running into it.

One thing that did kinda hurt a game's belief for me is Star Ocean: The Second Story. A ways through the game, you go to a totally different planet that hasn't had contact with the outside world for a very long time. And yet the great thing is, all of the money that was used on the backwater planet you were on works just fine on the new planet! Hey guys, no need to convert money or anything, a shopkeeper in a futuristic world is more than willing to accept your rupees! And it's worth EXACTLY as much as it was on the other planet, you can even sell your equipment for the exact same price! You'd think that no shopkeeper would want the junk you got from some hick town, but I guess he does!

But really, RPGs are filled with all kinds of ridiculous things like that, but usually I just ignore them and concentrate on killing things. Come to think of it, I don't even know why we accept half the crap shoved at us in these games...I guess we've just been conditioned to not question all mannors of weird plot holes and bizzare non-explainations for various things. Hell, RPGs actually seem to be getting WORSE in that regard, Star Ocean 3's plot twist just blows the doors off any sense of logic or reasoning.

Oh, but I have to say that some games like Tomb Raider actually pull it off pretty well. The random switches and traps are actually there for a somewhat valid reason, and the levels design is fairly justified. Even the main character's role makes sense (duh, she's a tomb raider, not just some hillbilly off the street that happens to need to save the world). Most FPS games even have somewhat believable (if sometimes still flawed) settings for their environments and events. Obviously not every game needs this kind of justification for why your character is doing what they are, but at times it can help that whole immersion thing.

Originally Posted by Freelance Wolf

Besides, you're all forgetting the most perplexing VG mystery of all time: Where did the Koopa Kids come from? I don't see any female Bowsers anywhere in Mario's exploits.

The same way Godzilla had a kid when there's no female Godzillas? Maybe the American Godzilla was onto something with that whole asexual reproduction thing, and hey, they're both lizards. Or maybe Godzilla is actually a female and hooked up with Bowser and they had some kids together (3 of which ended up being Koopas, the other was a Godzilla). See, any plothole can be filled if you take the time to come up with baseless reasoning.

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Oh, I just remember something that really bugged the hell out of me. In Legend of Dragoon (and in it's copy-cat that ripped off it's basic storyline and suckiness, Baten Kaitos), they have about the most unforgivable overlook in "story" design ever. Basically in both games, the characters can sprout wings when they get into fights and do all kinds of crazy acrobatic maneuvers, and often through the story they'll even break out the wings when need be...and yet when you're traversing the map, you are GLUED to the ground. And I mean GLUED. In LoD, there's a roughly waist-high log that you have to get past. So what do you have to do? Find a hatchet in some shack off the map and chop it down. Yes, the main characters have wings, and they can fly, but they need to chop down a waist-high lump of wood to get by. And of course there's no way they could go AROUND it, oh no.

And Baten Kaitos even ripped off that scenario, except they made the log SLIGHTLY bigger so that it doesn't look like you could simply hop over it (of course you should be able to fly right over it without any problem, but noooooo, flying is reserved for BATTLES so that you can fly in place! Not silly things like traveling!).

I can't count the number of times in each game that you would need to jump about 5 feet in order to bypass all kinds of crap in the levels, and yet you're totally unable to get there even though you can FLY! I'm sorry, some RPG plot devices I can overlook, but that's just unforgivable.

There's nowhere I can't reach.