Ah, the battle system. jRPGs have produced an impressive array of combat mechanics and battle systems over the years. Some are quick and easy and some are long and drawn out and quite complex. Most fall somewhere in the middle. For the purposes of this rant, action RPGs and tactical RPGs (Ogre Battle, Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics) are excluded. I'll go into the reasons why in a bit.
In the typical jRPG you explore areas. They may be scaled out map areas or detailed dungeon-line twisty passages. The common theme is that you are exploring and getting into fights along the way. Some games, like Chrono Trigger and Grandia, allow you to see your opponents on the exploration screen so you can attempt to evade them. Others have you wandering empty worlds only to be suddenly sucked into a fight. One required element to this class of jRPGs is that you will fight a metric crap-ton of battles. Some games allow you to gain levels and power without having to hunt down extra battles for experience. Some make you grind much like a modern MMORPG.
This leads to the key problem. In these jRPGs most of the actual gameplay action takes place in three modes. One is exploring and examining the landscape. Another mode is story exposition. This involves talking to characters and watching cut scenes and dialogues. The final mode, the most common mode in all these games, is combat. You're in a fight pounding away on an opponent. If the battle system is really simple, well, that means the bulk of your game is really simple. If the combat system is complicated and deep the game MIGHT be complicated and deep.
So a complex combat system doesn't necessarily mean a complex game. If combats are too easy players don't have to tap into the depth of the combat system in order to win. In cases like that a game with a great battle system may devolve into simply hitting a button over and over until a boss comes along. If battles are harder players have to rely on the complexity to carry themselves through the fight.
Battle frequency can stab this whole equation in the foot, though. If a game with simple or easy combats has too many combat encounters it can be easy for players to get bored hitting the button over and over, waiting for that foregone conclusion that is victory. This can bite harder RPGs with more complex systems in the ass, too. It may be the fights are challenging and can be a lot of fun, but if you have too many fights it can simply take too long to get from one area or save point to the next with too many opportunities to die. This can lead to frustration or boredom. It may be the combat frequency has players wishing they could just hit a button repeatedly and get through it.
Having varied monster selections with a variety of powers and battle strategies to employ against the players can help remove some of the drudgery, but how many of us are used to suffering through a huge area with only 3 monster types, or fighting monsters that look similar but have completely different powers (palette swaps), or even monsters that look dramatically different but don't do anything differently in combat?
Making a good jRPG is, from the perspective of combat, quite a delicate balance. Skies of Arcadia has a nice combat system but there are too many battles. Grandia has an excellent combat system but many battles are too easy. Most of the Final Fantasy games feature a battle system which is relatively simple but you get stuck in combat so darned often, and in the older games you have to grind like mad at times because every combat is damned hard, making things even worse. And there there are are games where combat is simple and easy, where the combats don't really feel like you're doing much because they breeze by. This is especially sad because the bulk of your gameplay experience is spent hitting one button and pissing away your play time.
And then they throw in stuff like Pokemon or Persona where you can "collect" monsters or cards or rare whatchamajiggies. They try and make you want to find extra battles even though maybe the battles are no good. Thankfully, in Persona they can be both challenging and fun, but even then they can drag when you're wandering back over the same stretch of land.
Companies like to make it so you have to spend at least 40 hours beating their RPG and if you want you can drag that out to 100 hours. But if they're non-fun hours of play experience what's the point? And is there any way to make a 40+ hour RPG consistently entertaining? I think I almost prefer that RPGs be a little shorter. Make the play experience, like the story, short and sweet. A 20 - 25 hr RPG might feel a little puny compared the the big boys, but if those 20 - 25 hours are consistently fun isn't that better than playing 25 hours of fun and at least 15 hours of drudgery to get through a competing game? Scrap the filler and drudgery. Make my RPG experience consistently good all the way through, and since I'm going to be spending most of that time in combat, make it complex, challenging, and no so frequent I want to pull my hair out and set yours on fire.
More RPG rant. Combat addendum.
Great rant again. I'm going to take it to the extreme and just say that all random encounters are bullshit. They've never been a good idea and never will. It just doesn't make sense to be walking on a clean open field and then suddenly get attacked by some monstrous fucking thing. Random encounters are the main reason I recently quit Megaman Battle Network 2. Most of the game's missions are unskippable, and require that you wonder aimlessly about the net areas, constantly being attacked by weak and pointless enemies. Then every once in a while the game randomly throws a fucking epic boss at you, that you apparently cant escape from, and he rapes you, and you die, and you lose an hour of progress. Fuck you 600HP Quickman, what with your being quick, and invincible 98% of the time. That is such an outrage. I kicked your ass all over the place on NES. What is this crap?!
Now I can understand random encounters in some games. Like in Pokemon, you will be attacked by a variety of little bastards when you go into the shrubs and caves and other places where enemies could potentially hide around in. I can work with that. At least you can stick to the roads and be safe. Something that no random encounter fueled RPG seems to have thought of yet, is the idea that the more encounters you get into for a given area, the fewer enemies there are to be encountered. I mean, if you're ganna make a game where you kill thousands of animals in these small areas, why must you insist that they are infinite in number? Is it too dark to consider animal populations dwindling, while the act of genocide is a-ok?
But overall, I much prefer games like Chrono Trigger and Grandia 2, where you can see the enemies before attacking them. This allows for greater control and strategy over the game. I love it. There are still lesser enemies you cannot skip, because of their placement usually, but thats ok. I get to skip the majority of them while still exploring, and it makes the boss battles that much more intense and strategic.
Skies of Arcadia was kind of a bitch on Dreamcast, but they lessened the encounters on gamecube. Plus you get the ability to fly above and below the clouds about mid-way, which lets you avoid all battles. Very handy.
Ironically, I love Panzer Dragoon Saga, and it has random encounters. Explain that one. I can't.
Now I can understand random encounters in some games. Like in Pokemon, you will be attacked by a variety of little bastards when you go into the shrubs and caves and other places where enemies could potentially hide around in. I can work with that. At least you can stick to the roads and be safe. Something that no random encounter fueled RPG seems to have thought of yet, is the idea that the more encounters you get into for a given area, the fewer enemies there are to be encountered. I mean, if you're ganna make a game where you kill thousands of animals in these small areas, why must you insist that they are infinite in number? Is it too dark to consider animal populations dwindling, while the act of genocide is a-ok?
But overall, I much prefer games like Chrono Trigger and Grandia 2, where you can see the enemies before attacking them. This allows for greater control and strategy over the game. I love it. There are still lesser enemies you cannot skip, because of their placement usually, but thats ok. I get to skip the majority of them while still exploring, and it makes the boss battles that much more intense and strategic.
Skies of Arcadia was kind of a bitch on Dreamcast, but they lessened the encounters on gamecube. Plus you get the ability to fly above and below the clouds about mid-way, which lets you avoid all battles. Very handy.
Ironically, I love Panzer Dragoon Saga, and it has random encounters. Explain that one. I can't.
Re: More RPG rant. Combat addendum.
marurun wrote:Companies like to make it so you have to spend at least 40 hours beating their RPG and if you want you can drag that out to 100 hours. But if they're non-fun hours of play experience what's the point? And is there any way to make a 40+ hour RPG consistently entertaining? I think I almost prefer that RPGs be a little shorter. Make the play experience, like the story, short and sweet. A 20 - 25 hr RPG might feel a little puny compared the the big boys, but if those 20 - 25 hours are consistently fun isn't that better than playing 25 hours of fun and at least 15 hours of drudgery to get through a competing game? Scrap the filler and drudgery. Make my RPG experience consistently good all the way through, and since I'm going to be spending most of that time in combat, make it complex, challenging, and no so frequent I want to pull my hair out and set yours on fire.
I really wish they would make more rpgs with this in mind. More like a action adventure time frame, but rpg style gameplay. Many of the rpg's could lose much of the fetch quests and level grinding and be great. This I why I only play an tru RPG once a year or so, I don't have the time!
I also much prefer being able to see your enemies like Tales of the Abyss. I didn't think the battles were boring either. I actually sunk 100 hours in that sucker.
Re: More RPG rant. Combat addendum.
Woah, Abyss lets you see them beforehand? I should play it then. I assumed the entire series has been, and always will be random encounters. As much as I loved Eternia, it would have been better with this method.ott0bot wrote:I also much prefer being able to see your enemies like Tales of the Abyss. I didn't think the battles were boring either. I actually sunk 100 hours in that sucker.
Re: More RPG rant. Combat addendum.
Mozgus wrote:Woah, Abyss lets you see them beforehand? I should play it then. I assumed the entire series has been, and always will be random encounters. As much as I loved Eternia, it would have been better with this method.ott0bot wrote:I also much prefer being able to see your enemies like Tales of the Abyss. I didn't think the battles were boring either. I actually sunk 100 hours in that sucker.
Yep, I love it. Just like Chrono Cross. I think Legendia is that way too.
I have a few questions to ask you guys about your opinions on how a few games handled these issues. First of all, the Lufia titles split the idea of showing "random encounters" to the party. In dungeons, the enemy group would be represented by a small sprite of one of the monsters, and they would only move whenever the player moved, thus making it easier to plan how you intended to avoid them. However the game would go back to the traditional system of random encounters whenever the player entered the overworld screen. Does this system seem more reasonable, as you can see what's in a room with you but you can't see what's necessarily coming through the trees at you?
Legend of Dragoon also had an unusual system, where an arrow cursor over the main character's head would change color from green to yellow to red before a random encounter occurred, so the player knew when the encounter was coming and had time to prepare, but was unable to avoid the encounter.
And then there was the 7th Saga method, where the player had a radar at the bottom of the screen, which showed enemies quickly rushing their way towards the player, and would continue to do so even when the player didn't move...but wouldn't actually fight the player until they took a step.
Personally, I found the 7th Saga system annoying because it was impossible to avoid oncoming enemies and therefore felt pointless to have a map at all. The other two I enjoyed, though I preferred Lufia's take on the idea.
As far as actual combat goes, do you consider the large battle systems or 2D combat planes of the Tales and Star Ocean titles to be preferable to the more traditional system used by games like Final Fantasy? And what do you think about targeting individual units as opposed to targeting a group of the same "type" of enemy?
Legend of Dragoon also had an unusual system, where an arrow cursor over the main character's head would change color from green to yellow to red before a random encounter occurred, so the player knew when the encounter was coming and had time to prepare, but was unable to avoid the encounter.
And then there was the 7th Saga method, where the player had a radar at the bottom of the screen, which showed enemies quickly rushing their way towards the player, and would continue to do so even when the player didn't move...but wouldn't actually fight the player until they took a step.
Personally, I found the 7th Saga system annoying because it was impossible to avoid oncoming enemies and therefore felt pointless to have a map at all. The other two I enjoyed, though I preferred Lufia's take on the idea.
As far as actual combat goes, do you consider the large battle systems or 2D combat planes of the Tales and Star Ocean titles to be preferable to the more traditional system used by games like Final Fantasy? And what do you think about targeting individual units as opposed to targeting a group of the same "type" of enemy?