...in which the old schoolers come
out of the woodwork -
December 4, 2000 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. No, really. It was like that scene in Aliens for a while
there. Those bastards, they killed Bill Paxton! Don't say we didn't warn you.
A brief word about PC game discussion in the column, if I may:
No.
See, that was brief. To expand a bit more on the theme, whenever we get
into one of these "what should be changed about console RPG" topics,
there's invariably a deluge of letters that say either "why don't you talk
about PC RPGs" or "console RPGs suck, you should play Fallout". To the
first, the answer is that the site covers console RPGs, not PC RPGs, and
the column follows suit. To the second, it's a matter of opinion. I like
console RPGs, the readers like console RPGs, you're allowed to voice your
opinion on the matter but I'm not obligated to print it.
I'm not even arguing against PC RPGs - some of them are excellent, and
there are a few PC developers (Blizzard, frex) that can give Square a run
for their money. I got no problems with somebody mentioning a PC RPG, and
I got no problems with somebody comparing PC RPGs to console RPGs. But if
you're going to send in a list of the reasons why the latter should be
like the former, you're gonna run into my gut reaction: if I wanted to
play PC RPGs, I wouldn't have 4 consoles hooked up to my TV.
Onward.
| Talk, talk, talk |
| On Conversation in RPGS:
Well, the Japanese version of Tales of Destiny had the characters talk
to each other on the overworld, and Phantasy Star 4 had that "Talk"
option which was in there to tell you what to do next but allowed you to
see some enjoyable conversational snippets as well. Still, there's good
reason for cutting out a lot of stuff. No literary, television or film
work shows you all the little things that happen, for the simple reason
that even in an epic tale, a lot of stuff is best glossed over. In FF9
there's a bit of conversation relating to most every area in the game
except the overworld, and that works nicely, but do you REALLY want to
hear EVERYTHING that happens in the meantime?
-AJ |
I'd like to take a third position here, and disagree with both you
and the people you're disagreeing with. On the one hand, I think
seemingly trivial back-and-forth between characters is really important
to giving them some depth. Two people bickering about fashion or
politics (or video games) may not do anything to advance the plot, but
it does gives us a great idea of who we're dealing with, without which
people just fall into archetypes: the boy-learning-to-become-a-man,
the girl-who-must-learn-to-love, the gentle-but-determined-magic-user.
I'm not a huge fan of Pulp Fiction's oh so clever dialog, but it does
give the characters some... character.
On the other hand, I don't think some of the most frequently cited
examples of good character interaction are all that great. Grandia's
dinner table conversations are a step in the right direction, but a
lot of the time they feel like "more backstory exposition added here"
events. There's none of the genuine back and forth that you see at a
real dinner table - you don't get the impression that these are people
who have been traveling for days, doing unbelievably strange stuff,
and are just blowing off some steam. Same goes for Lunar's chatter
between, say, Jessica and Kyle, but to a
lesser extent.
| Not a tired topic, a
comatose topic |
| Chris:
I realize this is a tired topic, but...
It occurs to me that despite the wailings of the unwashed masses, the
encounter rate in FF9 is not too high. In fact, it's just about right. Why?
Because if you fight every battle you encounter (and use the built-in
battle-avoiding features when you don't want to fight, namely the airship
and chocobo), the boss battles are neither obscenely difficult nor
mind-numbingly easy. I suspect that the encounter rate was probably tested
to achieve just this kind of balance. As much as some of us hate the idea of
the random encounter, it serves a necessary structural purpose: it gives us
something to do to advance our characters at roughly the speed that the
monsters become more difficult.
Obviously some games try to get away from the randomness of combat, but
those solutions have problems too. For instance, in Vagrant Story and Chrono
Cross, you still have unavoidable battles, and you still end up fighting
twinky monsters that you'd rather not. Example: CC -- El Nido Triangle --
You can avoid those fish all you want, but eventually, when one catches you,
you'll end up fighting about 5 annoying combats in a row, when the rest of
them swarm. At least with random battles you have a reasonable chance to
move through most of a screen before you're required to fight again (or
flee--and with random enemies, flight doesn't leave you with an increased
chance of fighting again when you get caught by the same monster).
It's all well and good to complain about random monster encounters, but I'd
be interested to see what gamers would replace it with (that still leaves us
with a game rather than a console-based movie), and what makes their
preferred systems serve the requirements of structural character development
better than random monster encounters.
--DarkLao, who rode a chocobo when he didn't want to fight--he figures
that's why they peppered the world with chocobo tracks. He could be wrong. |
I don't want to get into what could replace random battles at the
moment, except to say that I would like to see a finite number
of monsters. Fight them random or non-random, I don't care, but there
should be an opportunity for you to clear an area and not have to worry
about fighting the same things over and over when you go back there. I
know there are a couple of games that do something close to this, but
I'd like to see it more widespread, if possible.
And incidentally, I think "console-based movie" is a gross
oversimplification. I played at least the last two discs of FF8 with
the random battles off, and still found it much more interactive than
any movie (and more enjoyable than most, to boot).
| Now give me some
allegro on that |
|
Coldjones,
Having no battle music in a game is a great idea, and one I've been toying
with for a while. Probably the best approach to this would be to compose a
parallel set of more dramatic instruments that would be muted during the
exploration, but would fade in when a battle ensues. Do you remember that
percussive track that would be added to the music whenever you rode Yoshi
in Super Mario World. Same idea, just more complex. Actually, you could
take it farther and bring in a lead that modulates the current key of a
song from minor to major or vise versa, stuff like that. These things would
make composition more difficult, but I'm sure the top writers have the
talent if they accept the fact that game midi doesn't have to be a static
medium. Of course, sometimes a separate battle song is a good idea, like
for a boss battle.
...Which creates a perfect segue into my second idea. Sometimes innovation
is a good idea, but sometimes it isn't, and I hope that there will always
be developers that keep the old schoolers in mind. I'm all for innovation,
but some of these old ideas do make games enjoyable, and while monsters
dropping gold may be an example of "Nintendo logic", does it really make a
game any less fun to play? I find that in developers' quests to eliminate
staples of the genre, they often fail to find a suitable replacement for
said system, and we're left missing a gameplay feature, bringing us closer
to an "interactive movie". And finally, while I loved Chrono Cross' battle
system, I have friends who hated the fact that you lost the freedom to
power up your characters, or even shape their growth in any real sense.
Basically all I'm saying is that for every innovation that brings in new
gamers, some other's are left in the cold. Sometimes innovation isn't a
matter of fixing, but instead of changing. And I'm all for change, but not
all the time, and not to the utmost degree. Baskin' Robbins has 31 flavors
for a reason, and some people honestly like RPG staples for reasons other
than nostalgia.
War and Strife,
-Sickpigman
P.S. You want well developed character interaction: Lunar! Lunar! Lunar! |
I think I'm largely with one of Drew's other proposals on this one -
no game music at all, except perhaps at key points. As cool as some
battle themes are, I think they largely distract you from the fact that
you're basically just standing in a line against an enemy and hitting
them and getting hit by them until one of you falls down. (Again,
hyperbole, but not much.) I'd like to see a game where you're so
deeply drawn in to winning the battle that you don't need battle
music, just the ocasional (realistic) sound effect... or better yet, a game in which making noise of any type is a
bad thing, so you move your characters around and fight as quietly as
possible.
And I'd get into debating your second idea, but I think I'll end up
covering most of the points below.
| Applied military logic |
| Howdy.
I just thought I'd let you know that Navy beat Army 30-28, as you all
knew we would. This leaves us with a perfect season, despite the fact
that we're now 1-10.
-Arpad, enjoying the fact that he's now allowed to talk during meals |
Arpad returns! Kinda. Mr. Korossy, for those of you who don't know (and
as if you couldn't guess by his letter) recently left us for Annapolis,
where he's training to become part of an orginization that gives our sorry
asses the leisure and opportunity to debate things as trivial as RPGs. So,
um, thanks for that, dude.
Still doesn't excuse that gross logic error regarding a perfect season, tho.
| My favorite kind of
random battle |
|
Chris,
This happens all too often..with every new rpg just
about. And it seems even worse with the new influx of
gamers lured into the world of rpgs by FF7. All you
seem to here is how horrible random battles are, how
stupid using a menu to choose battle commands is, and
how in a real battle you wouldn't take turns. What is
so bad about taking turns, it's not like the enemy
isn't fighting back. And as for menus...if you(the
whiny gamers I mean) would take the time to think
about it, doesn't every game have a menu to choose
attacks? It's called the buttons on the controller. In
rpgs generally there's a command button and then the
menu for options, but on action games and such the
menu are the buttons themselves, each having a
different function and in essence allowing you a
choice...much like a menu in an rpg.
Ok enough with the petty stuff. The main reason I
wrote was because of random battle whiners. A lot of
these people come from an action/adventure game
background and, as I said, lured to the realm of rpgs
by the eye candy in FF7, but plenty of people complain
other than those complain too. Without random battles
the game wouldn't be half as entertaining and not
challenging in the least. What fun is a game with no
challenge?(note: tedious is something else..most rpgs
don't involve tedious random battles, some do and
those are annoying)But surly most rpgers(who have been
playing rpgs for awhile) has been in the situation of
fighting your way through an area and you're weak and
are in great need of healing..every step could bring
you into a battle that could be your last, but you
keep fighting and somehow manage to win the battle but
still that next step could end it...you manage to make
it to an inn/tent/whatever. Nothing is like that sense
of accompplishment, the exhileration of not knowing if
that next step will lead you to your game over. All
that possible because of random battles. Taking away
random battles will take away from rpgs. Well this is
gettin glong so I guess I really can't go into other
reasons. But I will say this to all those who whine.
If random battles, menu fighting, and/or taking turns
in battle irritate you that much just quit playing
rpgs. If you want to watch a story unfold go read a
book or watch a movie. If you want to have an
interactive story play an rpg. Although I'm of the
opinion gameplay in an rpg makes it more interesting
than story. An rpg with a good story will suck if the
gameplay is poor. An this is too long for you to
actually print isn't it...ah well atleast I got to rant. |
What's my favorite kind of random battle? That would be the one
where some random, unsigned old schooler comes and unloads a bunch of
nonsense on me about their false assumptions and outdated world view.
And now I get to fight back.
It's foolish to say that a menu is the same as buttons on a
controller. Ask a long time command line user to switch to a GUI and
see what answer they give you.
What's bad about taking turns is what I mentioned earlier - in all
but a handful of battles, you're basically just standing around hitting
each other until somebody falls down. There's some variation,
sometimes (use fire weapons here, kill that enemy first there) but by
and large, it's pretty dumb and tedious. I'm not saying this because
I'm a newbie who just starting playing RPGs yesterday, I'm saying this
because I've been playing RPGs for more than 10 years now, and I want
to try something different while keeping many of the elements I do
like (strong story, interactivity) around. Once upon a time (with a
LOT of suspension of disbelief) it was interesting to battle through
dungeons with heavy encounter rates and escape by the skin of your
teeth, but after a while I've come to realize two things: 1) if you're
in that situation, it's usually just because you didn't buy enough
healing potions before you went in, and 2) it's something they put in
there just to increase play time, and after you've done it enough, it's
not fun anymore. Finding all the nooks and crannies of Lea Monde was
interesting, but pressing
fight,fight,fight,heal,block,fight,fight,fight is not. End of story.
| So Jeff Bezos is the
final boss? Does he turn into an angel? |
|
Shirak!
As everyone was talking about changes in the structure of RPGs (obtaining money,
finding items, etc.), I feel the time is right for a real sequel to Taloon's
chapter from Dragon Warrior/Quest IV. Now *that* was an RPG! You get to play the
part of the guy behind the counter. Triple Triad? Hmph. I'd much rather laugh at
customers that come in. "You want the club? Too bad! Mwahahaha!" "Sure, I'll buy
your Sword of Legend for 9 Gold." And the way you could inflate/deflate prices
for customers was simply classic. It's just like running Amazon.com! Heck, they
could call it Amazongaga or Amazonzonzon -- a million seller to be sure.
--Imad "(e)magius" Hussain, who goes wacky around finals |
Actually, that was pretty cool, especially for the time. I dunno if
they could pad it out to a full game, but it'd probably make a good
interlude. Picture this: your character gets hurt on a cross country
journey, and has to spend the winter recuperating somewhere. To get
by, (s)he gets a job at a local general store, and to advance you have to earn
enough money to buy new supplies to continue your trek. Could be worth
trying.
| Just wait, it'll get
here |
|
So where's our spoiler-drenched FFIX discussion? Or did I miss it?
~Alex M. |
You didn't miss anything yet - there has been no discussion. And
there probably won't be, coming from me, because I've yet to play more
than 20 minutes of the game, due to finals.
However, the good news is that I should be able to get a
replacement who has finished the game sometime next week while
I take my tests and do some traveling, so you should be able to go nuts
on the game fairly soon.
Closing Comments:
My own lack of gaming recently inspires me to ask this question: how
do you like to play your RPGs, time-wise? Do you like to rush through
as soon as possible in a few days, space it out over time, or does it
depend on the game? Are there games you regret playing through too
quickly or too slowly, or what? Drop me a line, and I'll see you
tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, the once and
future game player |
