The RPG is one of the most popular genres in video games. The acronym stands for Role Playing Game, and it refers to games that feature you playing a game with a highly engrossing, often fantasy or science fiction-based storyline with certain genre conventions, like stat points for how much damage you do and how much health you have, multiple kinds of equipment, etc. There are action RPGs, where fighting is real-time and you only control one character, like Fallout 3. There are also turn-based RPGs, where everyone takes a turn attacking, and you input commands when it is your turn. There are more RPGs of the latter type, and those tend to come out from Japan, where there are certain conventions as to what kind of characters will join your party and how the story will play out.

Take, for example, Final Fantasy. It is considered by many to be the greatest RPG game series and one of the greatest game series, period, of all time. And it is a Japanese series. Every given game tends to have one or more of the following: a kind-hearted healer, a mage with a dark color scheme, a brooding, bad-ass fighter, a big-breasted woman, and someone who is so perky that it drives you nuts. Because of these recurring kinds of characters, many people shy away from Japanese RPGs, since they expect the storyline to be predictable and the characters paper-thin. However, that is not necessarily the case. Series like Final Fantasy and Tales tend to take these character archetypes and make them more vibrant. The plot may not be the most original thing you have ever seen, but these stereotypical characters are so much more lovable and interesting than you expected that the blandness of the storyline is not so bad.

The other kind of RPG, the action RPG/the American RPG, tends to be darker. The topics are often more science-fiction based with some shooter elements, like Mass Effect and Fallout 3. That is not to say that American RPGs are always dark and action RPGs. However, that is the tendency, partially due to the aforementioned disillusion that Americans have with Japanese RPG genre conventions. These games normally have real-time fighting, and if there is more than one character, you only control one, and the others act on their own, though you can order them to do something specific if you choose.

If you are looking for an RPG to buy, it is your best bet to look for a brand name series, like Suikoden, Tales, Final Fantasy, Fallout, Oblivion, or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The reason that they are series is because they have stood the test of time and consistently provided enough quality that they garnered popularity. If you are looking for a new game series, the box art can normally be quite telling. If it is a Japanese RPG, good art does not assure a good game. The art may simply be obscuring cookie-cutter characters. You should take a look at the back to see if the gameplay and plot sound interesting. If you want an action RPG, then you should look at an American RPG. Then, learning about the gameplay is even more crucial, since the specifics of the real-time fighting differ from game to game. But do not assume that the game will be bad if the story is something you have heard before. Star Wars was based on the Japanese movie the Hidden Fortress, and both are considered classics on their own merits.