Which Game had the best gameplay? Also when I say gameplay I'm including sidequests, mini-games, and dungeon design into this mix, not simply the battle system.
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Which Game had the best gameplay? Also when I say gameplay I'm including sidequests, mini-games, and dungeon design into this mix, not simply the battle system.
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This was the hardest. All three have great battle systems. DQVII has one of my favorite class systems and it's the tried and true Dragon Quest battle system. Chrono Trigger has double and triple techs. And Xenogears has that really fun combo system and giant robots. Chrono Trigger beats them both in sidequests. I mentioned that one sidequest where you go back in time because this guy was a jerk and make his family nice. That's part of a bigger sidequest to get the Sunstone. Chrono Trigger wins the dungeon too. I love the Black Omen. Dungeons are pretty fun in Dragon Quest VII. The dungeons are okay in Xenogears. But it has that one dungeon that if you slip, you fall a looooong way down.
So I'm choosing Chrono Trigger for two out of three, because that's the way it's setup, but if we get an overall choice it's goinf to Xenogears for me. I just weight the storytelling aspect more highly in my consideration. Especially since the discrepancy in this category isn't so great. Still learning skills in Xenogears can be a little tedious and you don't have the nice double amd triple techs of CT. This is also the only category in which DQVII can compete, IMO, but I'm not a huge job system fan, so it's not going to do it for me. This is CT all the way.
I expect to be outnumbered on this one, but I felt pretty meh about CT's gameplay. It's not bad at all, I just think it's pretty standard ATB fare. I loved the combo system in Xenogears.
That said, I feel like in terms of gameplay this is a pretty weak finale. :p
(because I'm not a fan of ATB and definitely not a fan of DQ's old old school gameplay)
Xenogears is ATB? It's been awhile, to put ir mildly, but I could have sworn it was more like CTB of FFX with an ATB style meter.
Xenogears is Turn Based, not ATB, as enemies can't attack while you're inputting commands during your characters turn. Chrono Trigger is like the only non-FF title by Square to ever use ATB.
Yeah, the ATB part was referring to CT.
Yeah, so it's CTB, although they probably didn't use that term. I consider all of round-based, CTB, and ATB to be loosely "turn-based," although ATB is the least fitting for that because enemies can interfere with your turns. It's still roughly turn-based because it's not a free for all and definitely distinct from, say, an action RPG (also at least "Wait" mode gives you some uninterruptible time in your turn). Round-based, regardless of whether turn order is affected by a speed stat, basically means everyone gets a turn each round. CTB distinguishes itself by a speed stat affecting number of turns. It's a little more specific than that (Breath of Fire 3 has a speed stat affecting number of turns, but it's round-based, not CTB), but I'm trying to come up with a succinct way of saying it...but basically that each unit of time brings all characters closer to their next turn in proportion to some speed stat (I don't care if it's called speed, agility, or whatever). Xenogears is CTB because if you look at characters like Citan, they will often get more turns than anyone else because of their speed and you can see their bar fills up more quickly. There might be other categories of turn-based combat, but those are the only three I can think of. Round-based probably covers most non-Square turn-based games (Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire, Suikoden, Lunar, I think...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I get that, but it's actually just called Turned Based at that point. When you say CTB to me, I'm thinking either FFTactics' Charge Time Battle system or FFX's Conditional Turn Based Battle system because CTB is the acronym used by the developers when talking about it and the C in the acronym denotes something very different from standard Turn Based titles which is largely the players ability to see both their own and enemy turn order and there is an emphasis on manipulating said turn order for tactical gain. Something Xenogears doesn't really do, though Xenosaga does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord GolbezYeah, so it's CTB, although they probably didn't use that term. I consider all of round-based, CTB, and ATB to be loosely "turn-based," although ATB is the least fitting for that because enemies can interfere with your turns. It's still roughly turn-based because it's not a free for all and definitely distinct from, say, an action RPG (also at least "Wait" mode gives you some uninterruptible time in your turn). Round-based, regardless of whether turn order is affected by a speed stat, basically means everyone gets a turn each round. CTB distinguishes itself by a speed stat affecting number of turns. It's a little more specific than that (Breath of Fire 3 has a speed stat affecting number of turns, but it's round-based, not CTB), but I'm trying to come up with a succinct way of saying it...but basically that each unit of time brings all characters closer to their next turn in proportion to some speed stat (I don't care if it's called speed, agility, or whatever). Xenogears is CTB because if you look at characters like Citan, they will often get more turns than anyone else because of their speed and you can see their bar fills up more quickly. There might be other categories of turn-based combat, but those are the only three I can think of. Round-based probably covers most non-Square turn-based games (Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire, Suikoden, Lunar, I trink...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Xenogears is still turn based for the most part despite having a visual cue like an ATB bar, simply because once you cue up a character menu, the enemy can't attack. I guess it might be easier to say it is ATB, but one that is permanently stuck in Wait mode. I mean there isn't much difference from how turn order works in Xenogears than other turn based titles outside of the NES variants of the FF/DQ franchise. Despite Citan's ridiculous speed stat, especially in comparison to Rico's pathetic one, I would still say a "round" of combat would only be complete once all participants have a turn even if one character would technically get two turn's per round. It's not really different from Breath of Fire's EX Turn mechanic when you think about it, and that game is pretty much just a variant of standard Turn Based.
I disagree. I think it's significantly different than BoF's EX turn. First, as far as I know, you can only get one extra turn in BoF regardless of agility, so agility basically acts purely as a threshold stat for this purpose. It's binary. If you have enough for an extra turn you get one, and if you don't have enough you just get the one turn per round and that's it. Hypothetically, in Xenogears, and probably not just hypothetically but actually in the case of Citan and Rico, you could get three or more turns before another person gets one. Second, the EX turns are all done before regular turns and then regular turns proceed. This is pretty different than, say, being 1.5 times as fast as other characters in Xenogears. In the EX turn scenario, the fastest person would likely go twice in a row (assuming they're the only character with an EX turn). If a character were 1.5 times as fast as others in Xenogears, they would get to go more often, but the second turn would still be after the other characters' first turns and only catch up at the third turn/second turn mark. The difference is proportionality to the speed/agility stat such that the ATB bar fills proportionally to that stat. In BoF there is no proportionality, it's just a threshold. In Xenogears there is. If you want to still call it a round, I guess that's fair (although in the case of Xenogears, enemies will also probably lap Rico so they're getting multiple attacks per round and he's the one slowing down the closing out of the round), but I think it's pretty different.