SE reveals its E3 line-up

[Cyn]

NO MORE TURN BASE

Why would you complain about something being boring, and then suggest a turn based system? That is, assuming i'm not mistaken and that's what ATB is.

Fuck that. Make it 2D too.

How is controlling every aspect of the fight more boring than running up and watching your party fight without you?

[Kuya]

About as intuitive and immersing as playing tag with a stationary enemy. Plus, if you wanted, in FFXII you could always NOT use the gambits, or at least just use them for buffs onry, seeing as how that's the only thing that nobody ever wants to do. Either way, suggesting making something TB to make it "more fun" is a huge head scratcher, how about we keep the active time, AND make the game less reliant on automation?

[Cyn]

Well ATB was the active turn based thing. The enemy kept attacking all the time, so you had to focus more and be quick in the menus. But why the hate towards TB anyways? It's what console RPGs have been using for decades.

[Kuya]

Using it for decades due to technological constraints, they really have no excuse anymore. I'm not saying that a developer can't make a game for nostalgic reasons and toss TB in there, but most people will agree that TB just isn't as fun as a fully active system. So why would you choose the least enjoyable system when you have an option and you're dealing with videogames, where entertainment is prime?

The crutches of TB have always been that it is slow, lacking of immersion, and limiting when it comes to innovation. But then again, i could just be railing from the lack of satisfaction with Lost Odyssey's gameplay.

[Beckwin]

because decades ago they couldn't do real time very well. ffxii was fun because it forced you to either strategize really well with the gambits or be able to make quick decisions/actions with manual commands. added a bit more urgency and strategy while at the same time eliminated how shitty grinding xp/through a billion random encounters in dungeons was in crash screen turn based encounters.

typical jrpg turn-based is played out. I gotta have srpg or some kind of real time now. if it's gonna be turn-based, it better be really innovative and engaging, and not too often.

[Cyn]

Maybe I'm just old fashioned. >.>

Been playing the FF games since 1 on the NES, and to this day my favorites were the SNES ones.

[Cyn]

Honestly, I just feel that controlling multiple people in real time is still kind of clunky and annoying. Single character real time games like Elder Scrolls and Dark Messiah are pretty cool, feels a lot more engaging when you're only controlling a single character.

FFXII should have at least had a mode that allowed 3 people to play with system link and each control a toon though. Just make it active time, so that people don't have to wait while you're in menus.

[Kuya]

In that same token, FUCK RANDOM ENCOUNTERS.

[Charismatic]

To be effective realistically, you had to use a lot of gambits

Or get faster.
Honestly you don't need very many gambits at all even playing with the battle speed set as fast as it can go in active mode.


Or you could always do it the way I did... I set up pretty nice gambits for my other party members and didn't give Vaan any gambits at all and controlled him directly the whole time.
Sometimes I'd switch to other characters and turn their gambits off while controlling them and Vaan manually the entire time.

[EternityEnd]

In that same token, FUCK RANDOM ENCOUNTERS.

FUCK EVERYTHING ABOUT GOOD, OLD RPGs.

[Charismatic]

Assuming that's sarcasm, let's not forget that some of the best old school games didn't have random encounters for the most part.

Chrono Trigger anyone?
Secret of Mana?

FUCK RANDOM ENCOUNTERS, they were never a good idea.

[Exoduso]

Fuck random encounters, but I like it when RPGs use the blue dragon/eternal sonata style where enemies show up on screen and you can either engage them or just avoid the battle.

[Elcura]

Let's take off the nostalgia goggles for a second here. Random encounters (more so than turn based fights) are fucking stupid, the only reason they are there is because you don't need to program additional AI/pathing as well as not needing more graphics and possibly sound effects and slightly different level design.

It's lazy, it's so damn lazy and any RPG dev who uses random encounters today should be ashamed. The thing about random encounters is that it takes the control out of the game, you can't explore a dungeon fully because sooner or later you'll get sick of fighting every 5 steps (waiting 2 seconds for battle screen to load, 2+ seconds for characters and monsters to wave at the camera, x amount of time fighting, 2+ seconds for characters to wave goodbye, and 2+ seconds looking at status screens) and you'll miss a lot of stuff because you tend to just beeline straight to the end of the dungeon. When you give people the choice to fight, they tend to fight but if you force them to fight they'll get sick of it and won't do it if they have too (generally speaking).

If you need to backtrack through an area of relatively weak enemies (and the designers are too stupid to put a No Encounters thing in by that time) you are forced to either waste time fighting them or waste time running away with long winded animations and battle screens. This actually applies to any area you've already visited and need to go through.

Turn based is different, turn based can be done well and it can be done as standard. Generally my feelings on turn based are the same as random encounters; very lazy. Turn based has been done so much and for so long that you can't expect more from it. Story rarely saves a game from bad gameplay, so unless you have an epic story you can't expect to get away with turn based fights. Apart from that, Kuya has mostly mentioned the things wrong with turn based fights.

Reading the above (or not) it should be clear why I like FFXII, they completely turned around from the norm and dared to do something new. You can run through areas with ease, it takes like 2 seconds to get in and out from a fight and the areas are designed thoughtfully. Gambits are a problem for some, but I loved it like others mentioned. There is no gambit set up that does it all, for most fights you'll have to tweak gambit priority and settings to get it right and some fights are down right involving.

[Darkhearted]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KPkEJelgELk

Looks pretty good. Battle system looks interesting.

[kuronosan]

Antagonist and Protagonist voice actors in that game sound like Chris Sabat (Piccolo) and Johnny Yong Bosch (Ichigo). Trailer looks awesome.

Shame I don't have an XBox. Oh well.

[SamanosukeShiva]

well, it's on PS3 and X360

and

Antagonist and Protagonist voice actors in that game sound like Chris Sabat (Piccolo) and Johnny Yong Bosch (Ichigo). Trailer looks awesome.

you actually watch dubbed ver.? lol

[kuronosan]

Yea, forgot that little important part about my brain that likes to be able to understand what the fuck people are saying without having to read someone else's interpretation.

[Exoduso]

It's for both 360 and PS3, but it'll be a timed exclusive on the 360.

And I always play with the english voices first, and on my 2nd playthrough I switch to japanese since it's so much better. >.>

[Elcura]

Yea, forgot that little important part about my brain that likes to be able to understand what the fuck people are saying without having to read someone else's interpretation.

You do realize you're listening to an interpretation right?

[kuronosan]

Are you really that dense?