Submitted 1 week ago by ZephyrXero@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_C0CdAgLdbY
A look at the downfall of turn based battle mechanics in the Final Fantasy series and through out the larger industry. Followed with new hopes in recent releases and upcoming ones like Expedition 33
The most popular game in the past 2 years is a turn-based RPG?
In the past 2 years, you’re getting Elden Ring. In the past year, it might not be the most popular, but it’s the most acclaimed.
FF is one series. DQ is still turn based and so is SMT
It’s a meme at this point.
“Turn based RPGs are dead!”
points at, well, everywhere
“No, I meant turn based JRPGs”
points at Like a Dragon, Persona, Metaphor
“No, I meant turn based JRPGs developed by Square”
points at Bravely Default, Dragon Quest, countless remasters/remakes
“No, I want AAA mainline Final Fantasy to be turn based!”
🤷♀️
I don’t think these people will ever be happy, even if Sakaguchi came back to Square and brought the whole gang back with him.
We just want a sequel to chrono trigger and chrono cross that is better than both of them combined is that too much to ask
FF 13 was 15 years ago, but it was also only 2 single player titles in the franchise ago if we don’t count remakes. Square Enix is just very slow at making them.
Personally, I don’t like turn based RPGs. Not because I don’t like turn based games, but mainly because the combat occurs too often and that it becomes extremely repetitive. The same battle music, the same battle environment background, the same enemies with the same strategy. In comparison to action combat, even if the enemies and winning strategy is the same, the environment and combat occuring at different times and in different locations mix things up enough to not become overly repetitive. Additionally, I can have an immediate impact on the combat in an action game and not spend 80% of my game time in combat.
I recently started playing Koudelka, and I actually enjoy it except for one aspect: the random combat. It interrupts the gameplay and sometimes I don’t want to engage in combat, I just want to explore a bit. But at least the combat is not so extremely repetitive like when I played Dragon Quest 11. And it seems to happen a bit too often. When i played Yakuza 0, towards the end of it I was actively avoiding the combat because I spent so much of the first 2/3rds of the game in combat that I just didn’t enjoy it all that much anymore.
What you’re referring to are “trash mobs”. They’re usually less incentivized in tun-based games that emphasize tactical positioning, like Baldur’s Gate 3; you won’t find a single encounter that felt like it shouldn’t have been there. If the combat encounters are very quick, the designers are incentivized to put in more of them, which is why I don’t usually like real time with pause (like old D&D games), though Pillars of Eternity II definitely cleaned up the trash mob problem from its predecessor, even when you play it in real time with pause mode.
Well, with regards to Koudelka, I am specifically referring to the mechanic in many JRPGs by which combat is initiated randomly, without the player ever interacting, colliding with, or even seeing a visible enemy. One moment you are walking, and the next you are in combat. You never had the option to not be in combat, you just get vortexed in. Chrono Trigger and many Final Fantasy games operate this way as well. Its not that they feel out if place, they are annoying because they interrupt what I was doing. In BG3, PoE2, and even Dragon Quest, enemies are visible. You basically never enter combat randomly.
Now, with regards to Dragon Quest, I found the music always being the same was too repetitive. Combat always felt the same regardless of what enemies I faced or where. At least I could choose when I enter combat, which is probably why I made it as far into the game as I did (got to the mermaid queen and stopped shortly after).
I don’t like them because they’re turn-based. Glad the Final Fantasy series went away from that.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 week ago
You can only put “are turn-based RPGs dying?” in the thumbnail if you just woke up from a 10-year coma.
simple@lemm.ee 1 week ago
This year alone we got:
Not mentioning a ton of indies probably…
ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 1 week ago
4 of those are remakes. And Fantasian came out in 2021, it’s just now getting ported to other platforms.
Also Metaphor is only half-turn based, you only directly control one character.
Like a Dragon is the only one I would actually count in such an argument
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I had to look it up and octopath traveler 2 was last year. I’m never getting my normal sense of the passage of time back, am i
meant2live218@lemmy.world 1 week ago
On the indy front, I picked up Terra Memoria, and it’s been interesting so far!
gnomesaiyan@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I want to get Dragon 8. Dunkey sold me on that shit.