A look at the downfall of turn based battle mechanics in the Final Fantasy series and through out the larger industry. Followed with new hopes in recent releases and upcoming ones like Expedition 33
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You can only put “are turn-based RPGs dying?” in the thumbnail if you just woke up from a 10-year coma.
The most popular game in the past 2 years is a turn-based RPG?
In the past 2 years, you’re getting Elden Ring. In the past year, it might not be the most popular, but it’s the most acclaimed.
Only 1 2 3 and 10 were turn based. Even if you consider ATB to be turn based, that was last seen in FF13 which was 15 years ago. This complaint never seems to end.
Also DQ is still turn based and so is SMT
Personally, I don’t like turn based RPGs. Not because I don’t like turn based games, but mainly because the combat occurs too often and that it becomes extremely repetitive. The same battle music, the same battle environment background, the same enemies with the same strategy. In comparison to action combat, even if the enemies and winning strategy is the same, the environment and combat occuring at different times and in different locations mix things up enough to not become overly repetitive. Additionally, I can have an immediate impact on the combat in an action game and not spend 80% of my game time in combat.
I recently started playing Koudelka, and I actually enjoy it except for one aspect: the random combat. It interrupts the gameplay and sometimes I don’t want to engage in combat, I just want to explore a bit. But at least the combat is not so extremely repetitive like when I played Dragon Quest 11. And it seems to happen a bit too often. When i played Yakuza 0, towards the end of it I was actively avoiding the combat because I spent so much of the first 2/3rds of the game in combat that I just didn’t enjoy it all that much anymore.
I don’t like them because I dont like turn-based combat. Glad the Final Fantasy series went away from that.
What you’re referring to are “trash mobs”. They’re usually less incentivized in tun-based games that emphasize tactical positioning, like Baldur’s Gate 3; you won’t find a single encounter that felt like it shouldn’t have been there. If the combat encounters are very quick, the designers are incentivized to put in more of them, which is why I don’t usually like real time with pause (like old D&D games), though Pillars of Eternity II definitely cleaned up the trash mob problem from its predecessor, even when you play it in real time with pause mode.
Well, with regards to Koudelka, I am specifically referring to the mechanic in many JRPGs by which combat is initiated randomly, without the player ever interacting, colliding with, or even seeing a visible enemy. One moment you are walking, and the next you are in combat. You never had the option to not be in combat, you just get vortexed in. Chrono Trigger and many Final Fantasy games operate this way as well. Its not that they feel out if place, they are annoying because they interrupt what I was doing. In BG3, PoE2, and even Dragon Quest, enemies are visible. You basically never enter combat randomly.
Now, with regards to Dragon Quest, I found the music always being the same was too repetitive. Combat always felt the same regardless of what enemies I faced or where. At least I could choose when I enter combat, which is probably why I made it as far into the game as I did (got to the mermaid queen and stopped shortly after).
Enemies are visible in Chrono Trigger as well, specifically so you can avoid them. If you’re significantly over-leveled, they’ll even run away from you, if memory serves. I’m playing through Metaphor: ReFantazio right now, and its solution is to make it so that you can one-shot those enemies outside of battle; and if they’ll actually challenge you, you go into the battle mode proper. That’s certainly one way to skin that cat. Meanwhile, The Thaumaturge (released this year) has a shocking number of similarities in its battle system to Metaphor (and, presumably, Persona), but its number of combats are fairly scarce, in a good way, never really ending up in that situation where you’re super over-leveled, because its leveling system doesn’t revolve around a lot of “number go up”.
