Is Turn Based RPG's Dead?

azraelck said:

HOMM5 is Turn Based, IIRC; and Civilization 4 is Turn Based. Both AAA titles; still in stores. Granted, not RPGs, but still a niche in a niche.

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I meant purely in the context of RPGs - I don't watch the strategy market. Civ is intreresting because it's a major franchise brand...has it inspired other publishers to try something similar? I assume not.

The strategy market (from my limited experience) is quite different. There are niche publishers like Matrix and Shrapnel - what niche indie RPG publishers exist?

I thought there are 1000s of freelancers out there, or even specialized studios for graphics assets?

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Yes, but I want someone passionate and intressed in this type of games, I do not want uninspired freelancer work. I want a team just for this game, each one doing it out of passion. If you know of any such a graphics artists send them my way immidietely.

What I did was buy myself a PS2 a few years ago, there are LOTS of turn based RPGs there, some better than others. Suikoden 3 and Gladius are two of my personal favorites.

Well it's less PS2 than JRPG. For some reason Japan mass market still has favor for turn based games and it drags worldwide fan base. So at least until recently there's many JRPG turn based at least for the fight system. But at this point I haven't see yet board based turn based fight system like in Temple of Elemental Evil.

The DS console is quite interesting because it hasn't a lot of cpu and graphical power. So it is well targeted for turn based stuff. And with all GPA games it can play that means a lot of stuff turn based. Ok I bet many traditional WRPG players couldn't support some features like an abuse of many uninspired random fights even when the fight system is well designed. An interesting example is FF4 DS, when you fight Boss and few mini boss the system shows its strength, very tactical and diversity in tricks to use for fighting. It's not fully turned based but almost because it is based on time delays and you can setup this to slow. Alas the game fun is a bit spoiled by a high rate of boring random fights in too many places.

Despite the flaws you can find in most JRPG it's quite a dreamy gaming exploration to discover games on DS (GBA or DS games). The numerous old school approach mixed with more modern stuff is quite cool for someone complaining a bit about the lost of some gaming values in most modern computer games.

I am a big fan of tactics-style games, and god bless those Japanese people for keeping turn-based gaming alive in their hearts.

You know, I think a lot of the concepts we weigh when we post in these forums are related. I think the problem with turn-based for Western gamers is that in the West we view the advance of computing technology as a tool for bringing more realism to games. 3-D graphics of course, but also the dominance of real-time can be seen as a function of this paradigm. It's like the fact that you're playing a game is not something devs want players to be reminded of. And as I've said before, while people can suspend their belief vis-a-vis aliens and dragons, it's harder to give turn-based the benefit of the doubt (reality-wise) when it's contrasted with real-time. Real-time is just the way everything actually is, in the real world as well as in any fantasy world. Turns are abstractions made purely for the game.

Of course, I, and maybe you and surely the Japanese, argue that the game-iness of turn-based systems is not something that needs to be banished, that it's ok for a game to be structured and played like a game, instead of like a movie that you control. But in the West, I don't think people are receptive to that concept.

Let me say two contradictory things about realtime with pause. I'm a Jagged Alliance fan, and I still enjoyed Brigade E5, a JA-sort-of game with 3-D and realtime with pause. A lot of JA fans poo-pooed the realtime mechanism, but I found it didn't detract from the game, because really all there is to do is to move your guys into covered positions and have them start blasting away. So I'm not saying I embrace turn-based solely for the sake of my old school roots.

However, when it comes to a game like Baldur's Gate II, I found real-time with pause really took something away from the fighting. With 6 characters, each with special abilities, I felt like even though I could pause any time I want (and lord knows I paused a lot), I just wasn't in control the way I was back in the turn-based days. So many times I'd give half my party orders, and then unpause it because I wanted to see what happened before I thought about what I wanted my other half to do. I don't know, it's hard to explain. Real-time is absolutely more realistic, but again, realism is not the only or highest goal a game can achieve.

But yeah, real time with pause is all we're going to see moving forward. And don't assume Civ is safe from the phenomenon either; turn-based systems in the West are seen as a throwback that technology can help devs overcome.

I totally agree with you analysis that links "realism" obsession and real time. I think it can be extended to many other points and that is the main difference between Japan (or Asian?) and Western players or game designers.

For example for Japanese players it seems fine if graphics have a style even if cartoon when Western is looking for a realism (and often forgot any style approach). Take many WRPG the result is they are lacking of poesy and of fantasy. What WRPG got some great looking place with a strong fantasy mood? That's rare we mainly get boring reality.

The cause of this major difference could be many things. Perhaps it's because Japanese players still know enjoy gaming and what play is but most Western players seems have forgot. Another possibility is more facility of suspension of disbelief for Japanase players but for that point you should quote how this is just convention. Take any WGame, what is real? Nothing it's very very far from reality, from keyboard and mouse in hands to "world" in a box. But even graphics sounds and anything. You think it's realistic? Not at all, at least not yet, it's still very far from reality. You can take many other example, for example theater, or a novel even if for that last quote it's a bit more complicated.

Myself I dislike this "realism" obsession. I can't count how many time I got to the answer how good is a game that it is realistic. No it isn't and worse reality is boring. I'd answer where is the gameplay, where is the game, where is the play? But people don't know play anymore perhaps. Or it's just one more "the king is nude" story.

That said there are also features I don't like in JRPG, stuff you rarely see in WRPG.

EDIT: I don't know the history enough but an interesting comparison point is graphical art. When Europe was developing extreme sophistication to reach more and more realism in painting Japan was developing minimalism, graphic symbolism and other non realist approach.

Yeesh said:

Real-time is just the way everything actually is, in the real world as well as in any fantasy world.

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That's not how stories are usually told or depicted, though (the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the Gary Cooper film "High Noon" and the TV show "24"). Not that storytelling involves turns, but my point is that real time contrasts with fiction.

In terms of what's imaginary, the application of real time is a novelty. It also happens to be a defining characteristic of arcade games. Good ones time it so you have just enough opportunity to react and zap something or jump over it, stuff like that.

CRPG isn't just an arcade game. Enjoying one really ought to feel a lot like writing a good story. That's the general idea. Who would ever write a story in real time, without ever even pausing? That would be amazing. You shouldn't be pressured to be amazing. That's your character's job. Sometimes you need to pause and think in order to use your imagination.

I see this as a different point. I agree that turn based setup a mood that lead more easily the player to take his time, take a break and think. But you can take a pause and think even in non turn based RPG. I think it's a similar problem for both kind of game, as you quoted a novel or a movie use ton of shortcuts to skip boring moments. In a game it's much more difficult. Turn based or real time, in both case the time is continuous. Well sometimes there are few cuts in time continuum, for example to travel land in a wide region, some RPG just setup symbolic travels bewteen area. I don't see much more example. Use of teleport could achieve the same goal but aren't break of time continuum.

But that opposition between action and pause is also for me why intense action RPG like most Action Hack&Slash have a lot of pain to setup a RPG mood. The player is grab by the action and it's quite difficult to make him break, enjoy the story details or any element like that.

The major difference between real time and turn based is more that the strategic and tactic aspects could be more complex in turn based than in a real time stuff. Otherwise those both kind of game have the problem to manage pause in order to setup a complete RPG experience.

Gorath said:

I'm pretty far into Drakensang. IMHO many of the criticisms by the DSA community are unfounded.
Until now (teleporter in the dwarf city) the game only has 50-60% action. That's low end according to today's standards. It's supposed to pick up in the last quarter though.

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Well, to several people that's too much. To them - me included - it feels rather like 70-80 % .

But I must say that this seems to be rather a minority in the official forums ...

People who like to fight a lot ( / like a lot to fight) are more prominently there, and they like this game very much.

I have come to the thought that with the "action" part of RPGs becoming bigger and bigger since it seems to sell very well (Blizzard), people might have gotten used to it - so much that they perceive a higher amount of action rather as normal than maybe in pre-action-RPG times.

I'm undecided on this, but I thought it was woirth mentioning, because becoming used to something might subtly distort a point of view so much that it becomes biased.

It's like as if I was used to heavy criminality in my home town, and I would say that there had been "only 5 kills today".

That's not how stories are usually told or depicted, though (the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the Gary Cooper film "High Noon" and the TV show "24"). Not that storytelling involves turns, but my point is that real time contrasts with fiction.

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But that is the point: hearing a story, watching a movie or TV show, NONE of these things involve turns at all. So how can you support your claim that real time contrasts with fiction more than turns do? We're not speaking in a vacuum here, we're in the context of real-time versus turns. You may read a story so serialized that it's released one page per hour, but even so you'll never read in that story: "The dragon charged at the heroine, but knew he wouldn't be able to reach her until his next turn".

In terms of what's imaginary, the application of real time is a novelty. It also happens to be a defining characteristic of arcade games. Good ones time it so you have just enough opportunity to react and zap something or jump over it, stuff like that.

CRPG isn't just an arcade game.

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You're just being dismissive. Sure, arcade games are nearly all real-time, but I think arcade games' defining characteristic is more that they're found in arcades. You know what other games tend to be real-time? Sports games, vehicle simulations, action games... in fact, the only genre that isn't real-time THESE DAYS is strategy games, and the pulled that off by creating an entirely separate genre called RTS. Think about that. "Oh no, strategy games aren't real-time. That real-time strategy game? That's different; it's an RTS, silly!"

My point is that real-time gameplay is all over the place these days, and it's going to be more so as time goes by. I personally prefer turn-based games, but I'm not going to pretend that turn-based somehow has a greater basis in reality than real-time.

And another thing. Regarding lots of combat in RPGs: This is not a recent development. Sure, maybe enthusiast communities have great fondness for certain old classics which had gameplay tuned to their liking. I begrudge no one this. But how have we forgotten that slicing up monster and collecting loot has ALWAYS been the heart of the genre?

Think Gold Box. 80% combat too much for you? I don't think you'd like those. Think Wizardry, think Might and Magic. These are not obscure games. How much combat was in there?

It is by no means a recent revelation to developers that most people would rather kill stuff than walk their parties around peacefully. Just because the combat used to be turn-based didn't mean it was any less common.

It just took longer.

Yeesh said:

So how can you support your claim that real time contrasts with fiction more than turns do? We're not speaking in a vacuum here, we're in the context of real-time versus turns.

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Sorry if I'm not carrying on the same conversation as you and some others in this thread; but if you check my posts, you'll find that I haven't made that claim at all. Instead of seeing it one way or the other, I'm describing my view of the impact of real time on CRPG while also imagining the potential for new kinds of turns.

Right now real time is set in obvious opposition with turns. But is that really all there is to consider? I don't think so. Real time is cool. But like turns, the commitment to it is also somewhat limiting.

My point about turns vs. real time is really an argument for using computers as thinking machines vs. multimedia generators.

If gaming platforms count, turn-based RPG's are absolutely not dead.

NIS(Nippon Ichi) has been releasing quality turn-based SRPG's(SRPG-ish, I suppose) for a while, and appears to be continuing to do so. Their next title is slated to release in 2009, for ps2. It appears similar to Rhapsody.

I love NIS games, TONS of after-play in some of them(level 9999, millions of stat points etc, normal game gets you to level 100ish with hundreds of stat points). I don't know of any other specific developers though.

I'm surprised this debate hasn't touched on party size. In Diablo, for example, it's just you. When you've got one character performing a limited number of potential actions, the need for pausing(turns) diminishes. I imagine you wouldn't want to play a version of Disgaea in real-time, however, as handling as many characters as an SRPG brings to the table all at once would be...frustrating, to say the least.

As for the debate about realism, unless you're playing against live players I see zero difference between turn-based and real-time. If you're fighting NPC's, you can always hit escape, or press the pause key, or reload your game(very realistic, no?). I don't see that providing you extra time via a turn-based combat system is a problem, and I find this works especially well for story-driven games.

Turn-based can work just fine with other players as well as long as it's an appropriate venue, IMO. Strategy games like civilization work well under a turn-based system(If you disagree, I imagine you've never played a long game of civilization).

I think that the merit behind whether or not a game is turn-based has less to do with realism and more to do with how appropriate the application is. If you have been placed in control of multiple entities, I believe turn-based gameplay is appropriate. Here's where Squeek's line of thinking comes into play, for a group of individuals can all make decisions at once whereas in the RPG world you must decide for each of those individuals, something you cannot do all at once.

Nobody could deny that Western Gaming is less and less turn based. It's not true for JGame but that's another point. Wargames was typical turn based stuff, they became RTS. RPG was turn based then evolved to more and more real time. Why do you think it happened? Have you any explanation? Ha yes Civilization the counter example, that's not a lot.

The realism obsession in western gaming is a clear explanation of this evolution. Not that real time is more realistic than turn based but because plenty western gamers and designers think this and are going to more and more realism.

Yes, that's different for JRPG and other Japan console games but that's another point, clearly Japanese console market is going elsewhere.

I think both RPGs and strategy games (though I wouldnt say that RTS are direct descendants of war games) went real time for the sake of the adrenalin rush, not in a pursuit of realism per se. The real time=realism argument is IMHO mainly made by twitchy teenagers without patience

Zaleukos; I wholeheartedly agree. As the market moves more towards the casual gamer, we'll see this even more. What we'll also see is a continued stripping-down of titles in general. Less story, less "meat", more boom, more kablam.

For story I disagree, RPG are going to more and more story stuff, not quality but quantity. Gothic series, Kotor, Mass Effect, The Witcher, NWN2 OC, Morrowind and even Oblivion. Even Action Hack@Slash have more and more story when compared to older H&S. It's more puzzles that disappeared in WRPG, almost.

For the other points, it's right that it's probably more a key than realism but also it's so obvious that WRPG are going to more realism when compared to JRPG.

Zaleukos said:

I think both RPGs and strategy games (though I wouldnt say that RTS are direct descendants of war games) went real time for the sake of the adrenalin rush,

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I fully agree.

The "adrenaline rush" is one of the major themes coming out of advertisements even between the lines - without being mentioned implicitely or explicitely.

The "adrenaline rush" was also often mentioned in marketing releases if I remember correctly.

That's one of the reasons I'm always saying were in an "age of action".

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

If I were a conspirations theorist, I'd say that this effect is wanted. Like tobacco.

When everybody is agree, here is the conspiration.

More adrenalin? Doom 1993 (or 92) I'm not sure that modern games bring more adrenalin. Is this adrenalin thing really a new thing or just technology that allows more realism?

More kaboom effects? Well most games was trying to bring the more kaboom effects allowed by the technology. Cars, sports, Action, Fps, Flying, and so on.

More crude effects that is sure but because more realism is allowed and because the whole society evolves. But even about that last point I'm not sure it's fully true, take Rambo and Terminator there was already violence. But well it's sure that stuff like Tarentino movies went further and made evolves something, no surprise if some games are influenced when technology allows it. But for this point I don't see any major evolution in computer gaming.

I disagree to see that in a whole. I feel an important change in games only in:
- WRPG but not that much in JRPG
- In "simplified" western wargame (pure wargame always bored anybody but few) like the Battle Isle series but there was much more wargame like that, until RTS destroy them but you can see many non RTS simplified Japan wargames (or console).
- Perhaps in adventure games but I don't have a good view on this as I always hated the stupid logic of old adventure games.

For any other stuff like cars, sports, Action, Fps, Flying, and so on. All always tried to have the more kaboom effects and the more adrenalin possible, nothing new here.

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.