We play rpg’s for the huge, epic, often melodramatic storylines, the robust customization options and the fascinating, memorable characters.  Generally, though, role playing games, whether they be turn-based or real-time, trail behind action games in the combat department.  For many fans of action games, the concept of dice-based combat seems overly clunky and unnecessarily anachronistic.  Trying to explain why a game like Knights of the Old Republic is the way it is can be difficult.  Why use cinematic turn-based battles rather than actual dynamic combat, like Jedi Academy or Star Wars Battlefront?  BioWare’s newest offering, Mass Effect, makes strides towards a common ground for rpg and action aficionados, but at the heart of the game’s visually impressive firefights is a classic pen & paper rpg engine well-disguised as an action game.

After all these years, we're still playing like this?

Why do role playing games still use these archaic systems when they could seemingly convert to more modern dynamic combat engines?  Is this a conscious choice made by developers to make sure that die hard rpg fans don’t feel alienated, or is there some technical reason for it?  Do the massive game worlds and hours upon hours of dialogue just take up too much space on discs to allow for a true combat engine?  Do the branching storylines and heavy character interaction prohibit run-and-gun gameplay for some reason?  With the raw processing power available in the next-gen consoles, it would seem that limitations like these would be all but nullified (especially on the PS3, which uses massive Blu-Ray format game discs), but in games like Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata and Enchanted Arms we still fight through one turn-based random battle after another.  

Close, but still not quite there 

All I want is a game with the scope of Oblivion, the customization of Final Fantasy X-2, the story and characters of Mass Effect and the gameplay of Ninja Gaiden or Call of Duty.  Is that really so much to ask?  Actually, I guess it is.  There's a lot of things that are common to rpg's that I actually wouldn't want to see infect action games (16 year old boys in belly shirts, swords the size of Tennessee).  Likewise, there are some aspects of action games that would only hurt the rpg genre (meathead dialogue).  Still, the time is coming when rpg's will have to evolve if they want to survive.