Yeah, I know, this is going to make it look like I was middle-aged when Bard's Tale and Wizardry came out (DAMN YOU EMP!!!!!), but it's gotta be said. It just seems way too many people have no desire to be challenged by RPGs anymore.

I've been playing FF XII for some time. Basically, I do the main quest completely honest and use guides for one thing and one thing only: to make sure I don't miss out on optional stuff. I don't use them to be told HOW to beat Zodiark or Yiazmat, but I do use them so I don't fail to get the opportunity to fight them. Pretty much the only things I want them for is to make sure I don't miss all the marks, espers and/or rare game that gives trophies. And with a game this big, I have no desire to beat it, realize I didn't find a handful of cool things and have to start from scratch just to get them.

Yesterday, I had some free time and went to the GameFaqs message board for the game just to see what kind of talk people were having about it. It was a mortifying experience. Let's look at a couple of gems:

1. A thread was started where one guy was questioning the order Split Infinity had players doing certain optional things in his guide (mainly how early he said players could go after the White Mousse mark). I got the idea from reading the posts there that a percentage of players get the game and follow a FAQ word for word in how they play it. What's the fun of playing a game if you're just going to follow a guide to the letter instead of, I don't know, devising your own strategies to get past tough encounters and using your own ability to make decisions to determine where you go and when you fight tough battles?

2. There's a thread concerning your least favorite place in the game. The overwhelming pick is the Great Crystal, with the main reason being that it's a huge, confusing dungeon with no map and there's no save crystal right before certain huge encounters. What kind of pussyshit reason is that? It's absolutely sad that players are so lame now that they NEED to save at nearly anytime and need to have their hands held to get through any dungeon.

So what did I learn about a number of RPG players?

1. They'd rather completely rely on a guide instead of actually trying to beat a game on their own.

2. They are too lazy to make their own maps, prefering to complain whenever the game doesn't hand them a picture-perfect one.

3. They're mortified when they don't get the opportunity to save immediately before fighting any sort of tough battle. Because, god forbid they'd actually get beat and lose 30 minutes of exploration/fighting/etc.

I shudder to think about what these guys would do if they were forced to play a true old-school game where you were expected to draw maps and could only save in a tiny handful of specific spots. While I love how RPGs have become more commonplace due to being more accessible to the masses, the flaw is that they've become easier over time, so whenever something remotely challenging gets put into the game, people act like it's the most sadistic thing ever created.