Yuji Horii: Western press biased against turn-based systems

[Klaz]

The western press isn't "biased". If some developer makes a turn based game and throws enough money at video game journalists they will score it highly too.

 

[Zeus]

Another possibility: this guy probably hasn't finished a Western RPG since Wizardry 8; he didn't want to sound old and out of it, so he picked the first big-name American title he could think of.

It's a more political answer than, "FOOLISH AMERICANS! YOUR POPPAMOLE 'RPGS' ARE WASTED ON ME!"

 

[Topher]

The western press isn't "biased". If some developer makes a turn based game and throws enough money at video game journalists they will score it highly too.

I disagree. I think popular opinion has turned against turn-based combat.

 

[Sceptic]

Blob combat was overly simplistic and primitive.

Then they invented tactical combat

Have you actually played Wizardry?

And no, looking at a screenshot and seeing that it only has a half dozen commands doesn't count.

 

[Zeus]

Wizardry is the Hair Metal of the game industry, in that it's dead here and still popular in Japan.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Blob combat was overly simplistic and primitive.

Then they invented tactical combat

Have you actually played Wizardry?

And no, looking at a screenshot and seeing that it only has a half dozen commands doesn't count.

1981's Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord?

Nope.

But I've played a lot of Wizardry series games, some of them quite a bit and I've played innumerable other blob combat games.

However, even if you'd never played an RPG in your life, it would STILL be rather obvious that all else being equal, being able to move your characters around increases the options available to you in combat, relative to having your characters stuck together in a blob.

 

[Sceptic]

it would STILL be rather obvious that all else being equal, being able to move your characters around increases the options available to you in combat, relative to having your characters stuck together in a blob.

This != movement being required for tactics to exist. I like your new wording better.

 

[Zomg]

The biggest thing I can say in favor of blob combat in single player games is that it makes it much easier to design challenging combat to be solved using something besides a mass of sad AI exploits. PvP would be another story.

 

[Klaz]

I disagree. I think popular opinion has turned against turn-based combat.

Lots of turn-based jRPG games are still highly rated (Specially portable games). Never underestimate the power of bribery.

 

[J1M]

Anyone who thinks Fallout was even remotely tactical needs a lobotomy.

I played Fallout 1 with a melee-only build. Only companion was the dog. It was my only play through.

Of course I did it because I wanted to try something else after finding the small arms build of Fallout 2, which I played first, so successful. Just because you can break a combat system when you have played a game 3 times doesn't mean it is bad.

Thinking that a character build around a spear will be as useful as one around guns is pretty silly. Same with expecting all character builds to be equally viable in a post-apocalyptic survival setting.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The issue isn't so much spears not being as good as guns as characters with more AP being able to attack and walk backwards to kill enemies who never attack them or take cover. That's just plain retarded.

 

[bhlaab]

Anyone who thinks Fallout was even remotely tactical needs a lobotomy.

There are reasons to like turn based besides tactics.

For one thing by necessity it places greater emphasis on character skill over player skill.

For another thing realtime combat is a pain in my fucking ass. Realtime with pause is a fucking hodge podge and FPS RPGs tend to be neither good RPGs or good FPSes so what the fuck.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Mastermind is a dedicated troll. Don't feed it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Anyone who thinks Fallout was even remotely tactical needs a lobotomy.

There are reasons to like turn based besides tactics.

For one thing by necessity it places greater emphasis on character skill over player skill.

For another thing realtime combat is a pain in my fucking ass. Realtime with pause is a fucking hodge podge and FPS RPGs tend to be neither good RPGs or good FPSes so what the fuck.

Thats true of turn based combat but not movement. If movement doesn't make the combat tactical, it's just a giant pain in the ass that adds a bunch of walking animations to everyone in every single fight so they can get into fighting range. Realtime makes that more tolerable by making all the pointless walking happen at once, but realtime makes combat less tactical and character based unless it's designed to be paused constantly, but that tends to encourage a micromanagement clusterfuck.

 

[Zeus]

Range is less of an issue with archers, or other long range troops. You can blast away at the enemy while they try to run to you.

But yeah, some turn-based tactical games definitely have a boring period early in the battle. Which is why I've always been a fan of really hard, widely spaced tactical battles. Obviously, you can't keep the "Dragon Warrior walk five steps and get in a random fight" system if your fights take 10 minutes. They need to be spaced farther apart, which makes them more memorable.

 

[J1M]

The issue isn't so much spears not being as good as guns as characters with more AP being able to attack and walk backwards to kill enemies who never attack them or take cover. That's just plain retarded.

So the problem is with the AI, not the combat system...

 

[Severian Silk]

The western press isn't "biased". If some developer makes a turn based game and throws enough money at video game journalists they will score it highly too.

I disagree. I think popular opinion has turned against turn-based combat.

Assuming the two aren't related...

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Thats true of turn based combat but not movement. If movement doesn't make the combat tactical

So, how do you imagine tactical combat without movement?

Thats true of turn based combat but not movement. If movement doesn't make the combat tactical, it's just a giant pain in the ass that adds a bunch of walking animations to everyone in every single fight so they can get into fighting range.

You can speed-up walking animations. Actually, you can bypass them completely.

 

[GarfunkeL]

But yeah, some turn-based tactical games definitely have a boring period early in the battle. Which is why I've always been a fan of really hard, widely spaced tactical battles. Obviously, you can't keep the "Dragon Warrior walk five steps and get in a random fight" system if your fights take 10 minutes. They need to be spaced farther apart, which makes them more memorable.

This should be done in nearly every fucking RPG ever. There is too much combat. They had to cut down the monster XP in IE&NWN-games because the player would have hit the level-cap in mid-game thanks to all the pointless filler combat. Every fight doesn't have to be 30 min long epic struggle but filler-fights every 5 minutes isn't ideal either.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Cut down? Do you know that a Great Red Wyrm gives 24000XP in PnP than 64000XP?
At least in BG1/BG2 critters have either PnP XP or bigger.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

I'd rather the gooks move on with the times, and let the mechanic die with dignity, than soil it with their little anime-drawing hands.

Yeah but what? I`d think that turn based battle systems have bean associated with east for like last 10 years if not more.

I'll take Shenmue 3. My fave JRPG was an action RPG with great combat.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

The western press isn't "biased". If some developer makes a turn based game and throws enough money at video game journalists they will score it highly too.

I disagree. I think popular opinion has turned against turn-based combat.

Besides the indie stuff when is the last time we have seen a good TB western deved console game? People are turning away from the spiky haired homoerotic anime crap and dated blob TB. The closest thing we have seen to TB combat from a western dev is real-time pause or pure stat based like Morrowind and that game along with KOTOR and Dragon Age sold well and were well recived.

 

[Malraz Alizar]

Besides the indie stuff when is the last time we have seen a good TB western deved console game?

Off the top of my head, we've seen...

Strategy games like Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution
Board games like The Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride
Card games like Magic: The Gathering and Uno
Traditional RPGs like Tim Schafer's Costume Quest and Penny Arcade Adventures
Puzzle RPGs like Puzzle Quest and Gyromancer
Wargames like Panzer General and Worms

All those have come out for the Xbox 360 in just the last few years. I don't know how many of them would meet your criteria for "good", but they all received generally positive scores from the enthusiast press and most enjoyed decent sales, with many spawning sequels and imitators. There's definitely a market for well-designed turn-based games, the only question is how much crossover there is with the market for games about Space Marines or Mad Max or fucking Middle Earth or whatever else the hardcore man-children are into these days.

 

[Alistus]

Most Japanese turn based games get old very fast. After a couple mission/fights one will just use the same tactics all the way to the end of the game. Happened that way in newer game like Valkyrie chronicles and in older games like Front Mission 1. And it's not like most western games offered anything better back in the day of turn based mechanics if we don't count rogue likes to same list.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Cut down? Do you know that a Great Red Wyrm gives 24000XP in PnP than 64000XP?
At least in BG1/BG2 critters have either PnP XP or bigger.

Wut? 2nd edition makes goblins worth 15 XP. In BG, they are worth 7 XP, unless I remember wrong. You sure that killing Firkraag gives you 64k? And that there isn't quest XP added to it?