Why do people miss towns?

I freely admit that my personal experience with this game is limited to the first few hours and watching friends on the rest. However, one of the main complaints I hear is "They got rid of the towns!! :mad2:" I'm just curious what made people like towns so much inn previous games.

Personally I saw towns as one thing: shops. I could not care less about talking with NPC's, checking every pot for a hidden item, and so on. In almost every JRPG my journey through a new town consists of Inn, Weapon Shop, Armor Shop, Item Shop, and on with the story. The only games I can think of where this isn't the fact are the Dragon Quest games, and I can't really say why I feel this way.

So, do people really find talking to one-line NPC's and running around a sterile area to be... fun? Something to really be missed? Apparently, so if that's you feel free to explain why, if possible.

I guess it has to do with the town being a element of RPGness, for it to be like a safe haven where they can go to sleep in the inn, buy items at the shop, etc. etc.

The cut scenes and NPCs within the towns add a personal touch to the storyline methinks. I also like to explore the towns and find solace in knowing I won't get interrupted by a random battle while doing so. I dunno maybe I'm just bias because I do enjoy sandbox gaming environments.

I haven't found towns have had the same effect since the series moved to full 3D.

I agree with you about the shops, but I think you understate the importance of shops. One of the biggest joys I have in a game is finally reaching a new town in a far off local and running around to all the shops to find out what cool swag they have.

Also is the sense of safe haven. Back in the old days your MP didn't restore automatically at save points. Towns meant places to rest from your previous adventures and prepare for your next escapade. As they have taken virtually all of the sense of danger out of dungeon exploration naturally the sense of relief at finding a town is seriously diminished.

Yeah, I'll go the same route to say towns gave a sense of relief after a long walk through a particularly difficult area. They're like the reward for making it across a part of the overworld or whatever.

Man, I LOVE towns. I love exploring them, I love talking to every single NPC. I love wandering into people's houses and just chilling there for a bit, cause I think it's really funny that you can just do that in games and not get shot or arrested for trespassing. :p Kinda the same reason I like sitting around in those demo living rooms at Ikea. I like hitting up the stores and seeing what this particular shop might have to offer. Buying stuff from a save point just isn't as homey.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

I haven't found towns have had the same effect since the series moved to full 3D.

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I agree with this. Towns used to be so cute. They're not so cute anymore, but more vast and realistic. I don't necessarily need realism from towns, just cuteness and lots of random treasures to steal from people's homes.

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Originally Posted by Miriel

Man, I LOVE towns. I love exploring them, I love talking to every single NPC. I love wandering into people's houses and just chilling there for a bit, cause I think it's really funny that you can just do that in games and not get shot or arrested for trespassing. :p Kinda the same reason I like sitting around in those demo living rooms at Ikea. I like hitting up the stores and seeing what this particular shop might have to offer. Buying stuff from a save point just isn't as homey.

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Agreed with all of this, 100%. Also, as was said, they're something of a reward for getting through the overworld or latest dungeon, they are generally safe places where you find various sidequests, minigames, and other such diversions.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

I haven't found towns have had the same effect since the series moved to full 3D.

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I agree with this. Towns used to be so cute. They're not so cute anymore, but more vast and realistic. I don't necessarily need realism from towns, just cuteness and lots of random treasures to steal from people's homes.

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Sort-of agreed. :p I have no problem with big 'realistic' sized towns, the problem is that so few of them are, most just try to be and fail. After Lenele, they really don't cut it anymore, and I reckon it would be better to stick with small cute ones in the traditional style if they're not going to do it properly.

For an example on how great a town can be, see Treno from FFIX. Packed with sidequests, hidden treasures and events. I'd mention Alexandria and Lindblum too, but the sidequests of Treno are just awesome!

A well made town doesn't just have one-liner NPC's and shops, that's a crappy town. You should have to do stuff around town to get deeper into the story and progress it.

I guess it wouldn't make sense if the characters who are supposed to be destroying the world went around for a stroll in one of Cocoon's many cities, though.

Well like a lot of people said it's a time to relax but it's also a time to interact with people, the world and it's environments. In Final Fantasy XIII you barely get to talk to anyone outside the main party and excuse me if I'm starting to sound like a broken record (based on my other posts about this game) but it just makes everything empty and lifeless.

The real reason: people like b & e's. Also, if you read this thread out of context it could easily be like you're talking about Daniel Towns.

Diverse towns make the world seem more real. No real towns was one reason why I didn't feel like the world of XIII was real at all, rather just a place created just for me to run around. I miss talking to npcs and getting their views on what is going on in the world. And of course, a sense of relief and a rest period between battling.

It's satisfying to arrive at a safe haven after an arduous trip. Towns also break up the dungeon crawling and battling lest it all become monotonous and dulling. For plot and 'role-playing' reasons, it's also good to allow the player to engage the setting in as many ways as possible.

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Originally Posted by Rase

So, do people really find talking to one-line NPC's and running around a sterile area to be... fun? Something to really be missed? Apparently, so if that's you feel free to explain why, if possible.

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The thing is, modern RPGs need to (and should) use superior technology to make town/haven sections more interesting. One-line NPCs and sterile areas were fine back in the day because, well, RPGs were still quaint and left a lot up to the player's imagination. Designing an HD game (for example) with the same tricks and conventions that one would use to design a SNES game is the first step to making a boring, stale game. In and of themselves towns aren't exciting or boring; they just need to be designed well (like any other element of a game), used cleverly (again, like any other element of a game), and interesting for reasons other than the fact that they simply exist for the player to pass through.

I hate it when games have huge towns that take forever to explore or get anywhere like in FFXII or White Knight Chronicles. Back in the 2D days they were better. In FFXII I actually dreaded finding new towns because I knew it would take forever talking to everybody, seeing all the shops and completely exploring it.

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

I hate it when games have huge towns that take forever to explore or get anywhere like in FFXII or White Knight Chronicles. Back in the 2D days they were better. In FFXII I actually dreaded finding new towns because I knew it would take forever talking to everybody, seeing all the shops and completely exploring it.

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I agree with this. Towns like Rabanastre and Archades were fun the first time, but if you're going back to them to do something specific like trigger a sidequest, I don't like having to go through 8 screens and a cutscene of a hover taxi just to get there.

Having said that, no towns at all isn't good either. I think the PSX era games captured towns perfectly.

I really like FFXIII, but I was waiting for an area where the party could just wind down, relax, talk to people, and just get away from battles completely. The game ended up being a long, lonely, exhausting trek through an enormous tunnel infested with soldiers and monsters. There were a few moments like Nautilis and Hope's house, but such moments are too far in between.

Then again, I do know that the party is scrambling to get rid of their l'cie brands; but overall, having at least one peaceful area with some sidequests and absolutely NO battle encounters could bring an even greater balance to the game than just Gran Pulse.

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Originally Posted by the holy meteor

I really like FFXIII, but I was waiting for an area where the party could just wind down, relax, talk to people, and just get away from battles completely. The game ended up being a long, lonely, exhausting trek through an enormous tunnel infested with soldiers and monsters. There were a few moments like Nautilis and Hope's house, but such moments are too far in between.

Then again, I do know that the party is scrambling to get rid of their l'cie brands; but overall, having at least one peaceful area with some sidequests and absolutely NO battle encounters could bring an even greater balance to the game than just Gran Pulse.

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Which wouldn't make sense, being that damn near everyone on Cocoon is after them.

That seems to be a common argument but it can be fixed with a few tweaks. Square could have made it so that the party's identities were never revealed to the public in order to not cause a stir amongst it's citizens allowing the party to explore the town and stuff before a storyline event makes them leave. As for Pulse maybe at first cocoon really DID evacuate people there (before realizing it would be easier to just kill them) and those people started small communities.

Because every single Final Fantasy before XIII had towns and they don't like the change.

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Originally Posted by Brennan

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Originally Posted by the holy meteor

I really like FFXIII, but I was waiting for an area where the party could just wind down, relax, talk to people, and just get away from battles completely. The game ended up being a long, lonely, exhausting trek through an enormous tunnel infested with soldiers and monsters. There were a few moments like Nautilis and Hope's house, but such moments are too far in between.

Then again, I do know that the party is scrambling to get rid of their l'cie brands; but overall, having at least one peaceful area with some sidequests and absolutely NO battle encounters could bring an even greater balance to the game than just Gran Pulse.

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Which wouldn't make sense, being that damn near everyone on Cocoon is after them.

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True, but that's no excuse for Oerba. Heck, having just one slightly backwater refuge would have been awesome and I reckon would have added a lot to the game. Also note that nobody on Cocoon actually recognized the characters until their tattoos were revealed - it seems their identities were not actually widely known.

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Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF

True, but that's no excuse for Oerba. Heck, having just one slightly backwater refuge would have been awesome and I reckon would have added a lot to the game. Also note that nobody on Cocoon actually recognized the characters until their tattoos were revealed - it seems their identities were not actually widely known.

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Not to mention that the story could have easily had minor modifications to allow for towns where you could rest a bit, explore, and feel like Cocoon was something other than empty set pieces, even if only for a set amount of time before the military comes rolling through after you. As it was the entire game world felt lifeless, boring and uninteresting to me because there was absolutely nothing going on with it aside from battle after battle after yet another tired battle.

Explaining bad game design through the story doesn't magically make the bad game design disappear.

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Originally Posted by Miriel

Towns used to be so cute.

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It's true. It's true.

I love towns but I don't miss them.

Why?

Because I have welcomed the change of pace in the series. I'm afraid if fans are rigid in their expectations of the series and require the reptition of certain elements over and over again, that it will hurt the series more than help it.


Final Fantasy IX had the BEST TOWNS. Treno, Alexandria, and Lindblum -- amazing! Especially Treno.

In FFVII, Midgar is one of my most favorite fantasy/sci-fi landscapes ever.

Smurf this, I love exploring towns. :colbert:

I always looked forward to stopping and seeing what the foolish locals had to say. I liked it in FFs, and in every other RPG I've played since I was 4. Even in Pokemon and Animal Crossing.

I guess if they were gone I'd expect some kind of substitute for my ingrained freakish need to talk to every human being on the planet.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

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Originally Posted by Miriel

Towns used to be so cute.

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It's true. It's true.

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You look like Mulley itbt.

The point of towns and the issue of their watered down nature in XIII is that they make the world feel alive and immerse the player better. One of my main complaints about XIII was how I never gave a crap about Cocoon. To me, saving it was something the characters wanted but the game took no steps to make the player want to save the world or to make the player understand why the characters wanted to save it either.

You get the idea that it is home to them but since the game never gives you details on their attachments to the place, Cocoon is simply just a series of uninspiring dungeons. Even worse is the fact that the few times the game actually lets you talk to NPC's their dialogue is as inspiring as an old school 8-bit RPG and even then I feel FFII and III's NPC's were more fun and interesting.

The really annoying thing is how several other RPGs got this right and the quality of towns and NPCs have gone up in some other RPGs. At the end of XIII, I never felt a sense of accomplishment, simply just the relief of knowing I finally finished a game but I had no attachment to its world and thus never cared how the game was going to end. I ended up approaching XIII more as a game than a story cause I gained my parties resolutions halfway through and the rest of the plot had no meaning to me as a player, I was simply just an outsider watching someone else's problem.

This is why you need towns, so the player can actually have a seamless way of getting to know the world beyond boring monologues and reading source book info.

You know what I would like to see in a town in a JRPG? Being able to go into shops and taking the stuff off the counters and paying for them at the front desk. I haven't thought what could happen if you attempted to walk out the store with those items.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

You know what I would like to see in a town in a JRPG? Being able to go into shops and taking the stuff off the counters and paying for them at the front desk. I haven't thought what could happen if you attempted to walk out the store with those items.

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This is just. I MEAN OHMYGOD.

Blowing my mind! I would spend ALL FREAKIN' DAY shopping in stores if this was the case. Someone make this happen!

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

I haven't thought what could happen if you attempted to walk out the store with those items.

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I imagine something like this.

Dang, Rase beat me to it. The ability is older than it appears from that video though. That game is a remake of the old brick gameboy.

oh you could do it in oracle of seasons too. I don't think I remembered or noticed because shops are kind of useless in Zelda. I was thinking more of the store being compared to the size of a cvs pharmacy or grocery store and maybe sending the local knights and police to deal with you.

Actually it'll be funnier if you could hide them in your clothes and on your way out someone would say, "hey I could've sworn you were skinnier when you came in."

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

The point of towns and the issue of their watered down nature in XIII is that they make the world feel alive and immerse the player better. One of my main complaints about XIII was how I never gave a crap about Cocoon. To me, saving it was something the characters wanted but the game took no steps to make the player want to save the world or to make the player understand why the characters wanted to save it either.

You get the idea that it is home to them but since the game never gives you details on their attachments to the place, Cocoon is simply just a series of uninspiring dungeons. Even worse is the fact that the few times the game actually lets you talk to NPC's their dialogue is as inspiring as an old school 8-bit RPG and even then I feel FFII and III's NPC's were more fun and interesting.

The really annoying thing is how several other RPGs got this right and the quality of towns and NPCs have gone up in some other RPGs. At the end of XIII, I never felt a sense of accomplishment, simply just the relief of knowing I finally finished a game but I had no attachment to its world and thus never cared how the game was going to end. I ended up approaching XIII more as a game than a story cause I gained my parties resolutions halfway through and the rest of the plot had no meaning to me as a player, I was simply just an outsider watching someone else's problem.

This is why you need towns, so the player can actually have a seamless way of getting to know the world beyond boring monologues and reading source book info.

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Very well put, Wolf Kanno! I agree especially that some of the first FF's had way better npc-dialogue. Some of the npc dialogue in III is so good it gives me chills, but the npcs in XIII say the most generic things.

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Originally Posted by Rase

I freely admit that my personal experience with this game is limited to the first few hours and watching friends on the rest. However, one of the main complaints I hear is "They got rid of the towns!! :mad2:" I'm just curious what made people like towns so much inn previous games.

Personally I saw towns as one thing: shops. I could not care less about talking with NPC's, checking every pot for a hidden item, and so on. In almost every JRPG my journey through a new town consists of Inn, Weapon Shop, Armor Shop, Item Shop, and on with the story. The only games I can think of where this isn't the fact are the Dragon Quest games, and I can't really say why I feel this way.

So, do people really find talking to one-line NPC's and running around a sterile area to be... fun? Something to really be missed? Apparently, so if that's you feel free to explain why, if possible.

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All right. To me, towns are important in terms of fleshing out the world you're playing in, and pacing the story.

Entering a normal town gives you a break from the fighting, a breather, the ability to still play the game without having to worry about monsters lurking around and crap. There's almost no breaks like that in FF13, just a relentless push forwards at all times, and it really stresses me out. The only way to get a breather is to turn off the game.

Towns, and their NPCs, also lets you explore the world you're in, beyond just the main storyline. It helps giving you the impression that you're in a world that exists beyond just supplying locations where the main story can take place. It lets you find out back stories of characters, events, locations, customs, the world's history and lore. Things that in FF13 were just fed to you though a very uninspiring data log in the main menu.

I miss being young and games being so new. The towns in the Playstation era were so cute and fancy. But now, when I go into them, I just think, how small and trivial. Happened to me in IX (although IX didn't help it's cause by blowing half of them up!!!!!!!!!). When I finish IX, I'm going to go back to VIII (my utter favourite in terms of random stuff), but I think I'll find it too has lost its special feeling.

So, I think nostalgia really has a part to play here, although I wish that XIII did have some times to allow you to explore towns (the cutscenes in Bodhum were really cool in giving a sense of home). But I think that XIII was character-driven. You were supposed to like the characters and therefore want what they want.

I think Versus will be including towns, especially as Nomura has strongly hinted/confirmed a World Map. So, I think Versus will possibly be better than XIII. However, I think the positive elements of XIII will be carried forwards to future games, making them much better. XIII could be considered the beginning of the modern Final Fantasy.