EPTOn January 15 2011 04:52 kainzero wrote:
I feel like "He does the same thing as me... but harder!" is a disadvantage that players generally don't like.
Disadvantages can be accomplished through giving strange objectives or unique attacks/moves. With FFT, if I remember correctly, the Marquis Elmdor battle could be difficult even if you overleveled, because they had instant death attacks and charm attacks that you had to overcome. From a player perspective, that seems more fair.
I feel like "He does the same thing as me... but harder!" is a disadvantage that players generally don't like.
Disadvantages can be accomplished through giving strange objectives or unique attacks/moves. With FFT, if I remember correctly, the Marquis Elmdor battle could be difficult even if you overleveled, because they had instant death attacks and charm attacks that you had to overcome. From a player perspective, that seems more fair.
Oh yes definitely, pretty much every TRPG needs to have much much more variety in mission objectives. This is also a more interesting (and perceived by more people to be "fair", as you said) way to create challenge than just stat differences. I'm not much a fan of instant-death attacks, since that feels like a gimmick outside of the normal rules of damage that the rest of the game is based upon. But in reality, that Elmdor fight is pretty easy regardless, as long as you're not trying to steal all the equipment.
On January 15 2011 04:52 kainzero wrote:
Maybe I should check that out, I haven't played it yet.
I'm actually gonna pick up Unlimited SaGa today. It had a high review in Japan and sold very well, but was mostly laughed at here. Perhaps there's something we haven't picked up on? I think SaGa has some of the more interesting mechanics in RPGs that are really overlooked.
) would be Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (BoF5). Enemies are there because they fit into the world, and it's a narrative about that world and struggling towards something. Maybe I should check that out, I haven't played it yet.
I'm actually gonna pick up Unlimited SaGa today. It had a high review in Japan and sold very well, but was mostly laughed at here. Perhaps there's something we haven't picked up on? I think SaGa has some of the more interesting mechanics in RPGs that are really overlooked.
I've played Romancing SaGa 3 a few times and finished SaGa Frontier 1 with Emelia. I felt that SF1 was pretty much a watered-down version of RS3, so it was not as good for me. I tried SaGa Frontier 2 for a bit, but I quit soon thereafter. The game was stylistically and structurally very different from RS3 and SF1, which is somewhat surprising to me considering that the director is the same for all 9 SaGa games IIRC.
I wouldn't always trust what Japan thinks about games, but I've been thinking about trying Unlimited SaGa as well.
Another recent RPG that seems to have a very high reception among Japanese players is Resonance of Fate (name is End of Eternity in Japan). To be honest, out of all the four Tri-Ace games on the current generation of consoles, I would rank the quality of their battles as follows:
Resonance of Fate > Star Ocean 4 > Infinite Undiscovery > Eternal Sonata
That's why I was puzzled at that portion of the OP's article! To be fair, RoF's enemies can get repetitive, but that's only really if you're actually going through fighting every enemy in the dungeons. I just run past all of them that I'm allowed to. You will use many different strategies on many different enemy encounters, or you'll get destroyed. Thus, the variety comes from the depth of the system (well, at least, depth compared to most other RPGs). I'll grant that it's a fairly combat-oriented game for an RPG, which is not to the liking of many people.
