Is Turn Based RPG's Dead?

I didn't knew FF series had totally changed their fight system. From what I know of this series there's one thing I'd like they change, it's their abuse of random fights. It destroyed some of my fun when playing FF4 on DS lite. Otherwise it's a quite cute look and a very good RPG. My RPG list on DS is going to be longuer and longuer with more DS titles that I suspected and more GBA titles. I even found Eyes of the Beholder on GBA to play with my DS lite.

I count and at this point I found 17 RPG DS to try and a selection of 16 GBA RPG, and the majority are turn based at least for their fight system. For the DS selection it's certainly not top category titles but also I can be quite cautious about any noise around DS games because I don't have the standard console player point of view nor the same tastes than net reviewers mainstream and even specialized. I'm playing Etrian Odyssey, turn based RPG. It certainly has some flaws but that's a really good playing anyway.

Thanks, for all the answers, it look like I have to turn to my PS2 and JRPG’s to play some turn based RPGs , “sadly” I recent bought a new flat screen TV , I tried out FFVII on it last night and I was surprised how ugly it look on 1080p, so it look like I have to invest in a PS3.

I forget to mention that Im a big fan of the Final Fantasy series, but they have also gone from the traditional turn based side against side, to live action whit their newest effort. Maybe The Last Remnant to PC is worth to check out, then it come out. Until then I think it have to be NWN2: SoZ that have to do, whit a lot of auto pause.

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I suggest you copy the Bios from your console and get a epsxe for playstation 1 games, and pcsx2 for ps2 games as long as you copy the bios from your console it is not illegal! They look much better on the computer with filtering and anti-aliasing.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

One point is almost never touched: I believe that kind of an addiction to it is possible (Hooligans).

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It doesnt have to be that malign. I get an adrenaline rush from playing squash

Me from simple jogging.

I will say something radical here...

Turn-based combat is combat. If you are the kind of roleplayer who are more into story and atmosphere than combat, real-time actually has an advantage in resolving battles at a quicker pace.

When I played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout 3, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect or any of the RPG's out there with pauseable-but-otherwise-realtime combat I never felt any "adrenaline rush". I did however feel the rush in games like Gothic (which I love) and Oblivion (which I do not love). I do not play "diablo-kind" rpg's at all unless they offer a lot of story (Dungeon Siege II).

I have seen a few posts on the Final Fantasy series. Gamewise I prefer FFXII on top of the rest for the very same reason. Battles are resolved quickly, much quicker than the often tiresome random encounters of the previous games.

Having said that; Turn Based is not dead, but it's a niche. It's best kept in games that are focused on tactical combat such as the UFO series or Jagged Alliance. In RPG's I first and foremost want immersion and in immersive games, battles are best over quickly.

JemyM said:

Turn-based combat is combat. If you are the kind of roleplayer who are more into story and atmosphere than combat, real-time actually has an advantage...When I played Baldur's Gate....

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(Sorry about the edit) Have you asked yourself why turns were only used only in combat in Baldur's Gate? Why they weren't used in other situations?

Take pubs, for instance. If characters were actually doing things in pubs, if their status changed moment-to-moment, then turns would have been useful then too. Instead of static places where everyone always said and did the same thing, they could have been written and scripted in a variety of clever ways. If they had been, then the player's moment-to-moment decisions would have mattered, the way they did during combat.

Turns don't just limit; they can also enable.

I'm not sure it's really the point, "they" stripped out puzzling from RPG so the player enjoy more freely the story and now "they" are stripping out the fights. I think I remember a debate about that here. Well at this point perhaps it's better watch a movie or perhaps play an adventure game.

Well, that's in part a matter of definition.

Traditionally, an RPG should contain fights and puzzles.

Me, I'd like to see puzzles yes, but no fights, and wonder how this might work out.

But I'm sure someone would tell me that fights are an essential part of the evolving and growing of an character.

Well, like in real life, I'd reply.

Me, I'd like to see puzzles yes, but no fights, and wonder how this might work out.

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Here is what baffles me about the "I like RPGs but not combat" sentiment: There's always been puzzles and story without fighting. The genre you're looking for isn't RPG, it's Adventure. Combat and it's attendant stats and character advancement are the very dividing line between the two genres. "Roleplaying" and story, on the other hand, are equally at home in either sort of game.

I'm not adverse to driving a sword into a random orc; but I would like for RPGs to offer some other methods of dealing with the situation. Phantasie III was the last game I can recall that you could resolve potentially any battle scene without drawing blood. The problem was with that is that you didn't get any experience, gold, or treasure.

It's something I'm doing in my own design; offering a full set of rules for dealing with situations diplomatically vs hacking apart whatever gets in the way.

I do dislike the increasing simplification of non-combat situations. My favorite part of the entire Bard's Tale series was in 2; the Death Snares. In fact, it seems like everything is getting simpler in many cases everything is getting simpler, which I don't like.

Yeesh said:

The genre you're looking for isn't RPG, it's Adventure. Combat and it's attendant stats and character advancement are the very dividing line between the two genres. "Roleplaying" and story, on the other hand, are equally at home in either sort of game.

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Well, I must admit that I "come from the adventure genre", that's right. There are my roots.

However, there are no things like "exploring", free roaming and free choice and similar things we often see in RPGs. There are no treasures to be found like in an old tower like in Gothic 1, for example, there are no hidden "secrets".

In adventures, a character doesn't grow". There are no talents, just puzzles. Nothing else.
At least in the adventures I know.

Story-wise, and adventure is like a short story, mostly. There is no sign of days passing by, which can instead be seen in several RPGs (resting, for example).

An adventure is pure "rail-roading" ( a term I once read in an discussion about game mastering styles in RPGs). An RPG usually leaves far more free choice than most adventures.

Adventures also have no spells, and almost all I know of have no fantasy theme ("The Book of unwritten Tales" is actually the only adventure I know of containing Elves, Dwarves etc. ) .

My wish is to have the boundary between Adventures and Role-Playing games lowered.

What we currently see is the boundary between first-person shooters and role-playing games being lowered.

If that is possible, so why not for adventures, too ?

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Well, I must admit that I "come from the adventure genre", that's right. There are my roots.

However, there are no things like "exploring", free roaming and free choice and similar things we often see in RPGs. There are no treasures to be found like in an old tower like in Gothic 1, for example, there are no hidden "secrets".

In adventures, a character doesn't grow". There are no talents, just puzzles. Nothing else.
At least in the adventures I know.

Story-wise, and adventure is like a short story, mostly. There is no sign of days passing by, which can instead be seen in several RPGs (resting, for example).

An adventure is pure "rail-roading" ( a term I once read in an discussion about game mastering styles in RPGs). An RPG usually leaves far more free choice than most adventures.

Adventures also have no spells, and almost all I know of have no fantasy theme ("The Book of unwritten Tales" is actually the only adventure I know of containing Elves, Dwarves etc. ) .

My wish is to have the boundary between Adventures and Role-Playing games lowered.

What we currently see is the boundary between first-person shooters and role-playing games being lowered.

If that is possible, so why not for adventures, too ?

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The problem is that you're too late in that aspect. It's the other way around, many RPGs started more like an adventure/RPG. You had to solve puzzles and you had the stat-based RPG system (Quest for Glory series is the perfect example). As the adventure genre died, so did the adventure half of the adventure/RPG games, now taken by 'action' (as in action/RPGs), which by the way is now more than 'half', it seems nowadays games like Fallout 3 are 70% action 30% RPG but I digress.
But adventure games are sort of coming back in the episodic game format, maybe we'll see an adventure RPG episodic game too (Penny Arcade adventures is sort of like that I think)

Adventure & RPG cross-over has been done before. Quest for Glory, King's Quest 8, a whole series of games by Legend Entertainment.

Yes, but that's long ago.

One of my biggest complains, for example, is, that there are few adventure games with a free and vase 3D environment. Something like Gothic, only as an adventure game.

Currently only Keepsake comes to my mind.

Simon The Sorcerer 3D was such a game, but with - in my opinion - crappy graphics.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

My wish is to have the boundary between Adventures and Role-Playing games lowered.

What we currently see is the boundary between first-person shooters and role-playing games being lowered.

If that is possible, so why not for adventures, too ?

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I believed it's already been debated here. Or that was on another forum.

RPG have elements that don't have adventures and those elements allow to fill the free space required to let freedom to the player. Those stuff are:
- Fighting.
- Character level up.
- Character equipment improve for fighting.
- Searching stuff to get more money for buying training or improving equipment.
- Achieving quest for improving character abilities so it could manage tougher fights.

Removes Fighting and Character skill increase through better equipment or level up and the whole structure fall down.

If you remove fights you remove the main skill testing, so to remove them you'll have to invent a replacement to fill the same roles: Challenge the player skills, this give him a motivation to level up and manage equipment. But if you don't like fights you'll hardly enjoy more this new skill testing system. But that could be a fresh approach anyway.

Now remove player skills and inventory management for improving skill for a challenge system. Now you get a very tough task to fill your game with contents and allow enough freedom.

azraelck said:

I'm not adverse to driving a sword into a random orc; but I would like for RPGs to offer some other methods of dealing with the situation. Phantasie III was the last game I can recall that you could resolve potentially any battle scene without drawing blood. The problem was with that is that you didn't get any experience, gold, or treasure.

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A guy made an excellent series of NWN1 modules and choose to provide zero xp for fighting and only xp for achieving targets, exploration goal and quests goal. To polish the system you was getting no drop from killing. But there was still stealing is much more easy after killing and I don't remember he prevent that. His purpose was in fact to manage strictly the level progression of the characters.

JemyM said:

When I played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout 3, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect or any of the RPG's out there with pauseable-but-otherwise-realtime combat I never felt any "adrenaline rush".

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I'd put those games on a different branch of the evolutionary tree compared to say Gothic. For me Baldurs Gate (I certainly dont agree with Alrik that the game is "action"-oriented, it is combat-oriented but more into tactical combat simulation than action) and Neverwinter Nights are successors to the turnbased games, but with improved usability. Going back to sequentially executed turns like in Arcanum or Fallout 1 would be a downgrade with no gain in functionality compared to pausable realtime where you can issue order in the paused state. The only thing lost is the special tactical elements related to the execution order between characters, but THAT is something unrealistic in extreme that always annoyed me.

Oblivion, Gothic et al OTOH come from a tradition where the pace of the combat was supposed to be a major gameplay element, and in deed adrenalin-inducing. I'd put Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, and Ultima Underworld as old examples of this branch.

I'm a huge fan of both real-time and the first-person perspective, just not to the point that I'd like to see it replace turn-based games altogether.

It sacrifices a little RPG purity, but there's definitely something very cool about you, the player, trying your best as your character tries his best, about you working hard to increase and hone your own game-related skills as your character works hard to increase and hone his. That's what I like best about real-time with the first-person perspective.

But you will never be the fantastic character you're playing. And real time will never be enough time for you to properly imagine, consider and decide what your character really ought to do in every situation.

I'm not a game designer, but it makes obvious sense to me that designing for real-time in the first-person perspective must be limiting. Add to that a committment to cutting-edge graphics and some things must become impossible.

Instead of just deciding whether or not to walk down a street, I'd also like to decide how I want to walk down it. Instead of just deciding whether or not to enter a room, I'd also like to decide how I want to enter it. Isn't that how roles are played?

I'd like to see the "turn-based" approach take a step back from the "golden age" of BG2 and Fallout in a way that would free up the imagination and allow for better, more creative turns, ones that would pertain to many more decisions, the kind that would bring about much better role-play.

I'd like to see a new take on turn-based, something that combines the tactical depth and deliberate pace with the power of todays graphics, physics and animation. What I am imagining is something where combat is more like "combat design" with the goal of creatin over the top combat like in the old Pirate or Zorro movies or in Kung-Fu flicks. You get to choose from a large variety of moves. You can move freely. Surroundings are fully interactive (Swing on chandeliers, hop on tables, tip over chairs, slide down the railing, smash it with a sledgehammer) and movement is governed by physics. Since it's all turn or phase-based, you can have much more calculation intensive effects. In the end you can playback the whole thing in real-time. Output as .avi is included, and an online video platform where you can upload your coolest fights is part of the advertising strategy.

Combat as choreography? I think there is a risk that such an approach might end up fairly tedious in the long run, just as some players complain that VATS is dull in Fallout 3