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Originally Posted by
Fox
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Originally Posted by
Wolf Kanno
FFX's combat was also criticized for being slow, which is why X-2 brought back ATB and sped it up to make it faster.
Yes but
now, FFXV and VII:R's real-time systems are being criticised for being too fast and not tactical enough. So does that mean actually, action RPG mechanics are out of date and need to be phased out?
Well there are a lot of problems with SE's handling of combat systems as of late, and part of the core issue is that SE is trying to appeal to both camps by blending Action-RPG combat with Turn-Based and frankly they have very opposing views on what makes combat fun. So trying to rectify this has been an issue for them.
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I fully understand all the arguments about why turn based is not a popular system anymore, I just don't see much in the way of corroborating evidence for it. It's not like SE kept making turn based Final Fantasies until the sales started to plummet and then tried something new, they just tried something new anyway and since then the series has struggled (relatively speaking). On home console alone, Persona 4 sold almost twice what Persona 3 did in all its releases. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is turn based on PC and consoles and sold upwards of 4 million copies. Valkyria Chronicles sold more than twice as well on the PS3 than its sequel did on the PSP. Then you look at the modern handhelds and see huge success for... Persona 4 Golden. Pokemon. Fire Emblem. Bravely Default. Lots and lots of very successful turn based games. And these wouldn't work on console because...?
A few points to make here:
X-COM and VC are Tactical RPGs whose genre of combat systems have always been Turn Based and frankly neither game is close to being a core RPG. The combat is the main event in both games and the genre requires tactics and strategy. Neither sold very well in terms of the numbers SE is looking for.
Persona is easily the most financially lucrative property Atlus owns right now but again, when you compare the sales figure to the top ten selling RPGs of the last decades, they are laughable. It is not helped that fans of the games are also divided by the combat system as newer fans push for the system to be less complicated and more user-friendly while older fans want the series to go back to it's more unforgiving roots.
Fire Emblem and Bravery Default also have a numbers issues. The only reason why these two are special is because they did surprisingly well in Western countries despite being more Japanese focus. In fact BP sold better than Lightning Returns, but there is more to this than "Turn-Based is awesome".
Pokemon is the lone exception here as it's easily the best selling RPG in the world, but even Pokemon is heavily criticized for feeling old and stale, and Nintendo's heavy resistance to move the main series beyond the handheld market continues the stigma.
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This looks to me like one of those cases where the cause is being assumed from the effect. "These popular games tend to be on handheld, therefore these games can only work on handheld". Well, I don't see any reason to think that. Show me cases where these games didn't work on consoles, and I'll reconsider. But the few examples we do have to look at so far point to the opposite - there is nothing wrong with turn based systems, and they can work and be successful if and when developers choose to make them.
A lot of this is that actually. The problem comes from last console generation. The best selling JRPG on the PSP was Crisis Core, an Action-RPG whose sales crushed every traditional turn based RPG released on the handheld. Mistwalker's Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon sold mediocre and their "old school" combat systems were heavily criticized, franchises like Tales Of, seriously flourished last gen while other JRPGs retreated to smaller scale handhelds because people were kind of sick of the old school mechanics and wanted something simpler and more reactive. The fact that one of the most popular JRPGs in Japan (doing well in the West as well last I checked) is Monster Hunter, an Action-RPG whose sales have been dominating in Japan, and has been one of the most influential games in Japan for several years. If you're whining about the flood MMO elements and crafting mechanics in the JRPG genre that have popped up in the last few years, it's actually this game's fault and not WoW.
Granted, there are a lot of factors that contributed to this problem, largely stemming from Japan's terrible design process finally catching up to them after all these years. The real problem here is that Western style RPGs overtook the market. Skyrim is one of the best selling RPGs last gen with universal praise, and Mass Effect is probably one of the best new IPs in the genre to come out in years. These WRPGs largely outsold the JRPG market except on handhelds and it really threw off some Japanese companies opinions. There has been discussions on why this was happening and part of the reasoning is because WRPGs are not limited to some traditional stuffy system. These games are more action packed and the shift of combat system created a more organic flow to exploration and interaction with the world. The ability to blend RPG elements with other type of gameplay gives them more variety whereas JRPG sometimes feel the same regardless of who made it. The better development process also saw these games getting quick releases with reasonable budgets, whereas SE floundered to get anything worthwhile out the door last gen. While there are certainly many high profile, universally praised JRPGs with more traditional combat systems that did well during this time frame; it becomes a different story when you look at sales numbers and demographics.
Bravery Default sold well, it's numbers are good for small companies but nothing compared to mainline FF or Skyrim's numbers. It surprised SE that it did well for a number of reasons: it outsold an FF sequel featuring a popular character, it did well in the West despite SE having so little faith in it that Nintendo had to actually publish the game to get it out here because SE felt it would bomb, and BP did better than the game its actually a sequel to, the mostly forgotten FF: 4 Heroes of Light which got reamed for being too old school and kiddy for modern gaming taste. Here's the thing though, just because the game did better than expected over here doesn't mean that Turn-Based is still "in". All it means is that there is still a sizable group of people in the West whom that style of game appeals to, but the numbers don't justify retaining VII's traditional combat system in favor of something that may have wider mass appeal. It simply means that there is a market for those types of games, but I wouldn't be surprised if the demographics show that BP was largely bought by older gamers who grew up with those types of games as opposed to a younger generation. Hell even Pokemon gets reamed for this as the series actually has its greatest appeal with both young children and older gamers in the 25+ range, leaving out the core demographics of tweens and teens that most companies shoot for.
My point is that there is nothing inherently wrong with Turn-Based combat, its a style and preference that seems to be out of favor due to changing tastes. It's not going to vanish or anything, just take a backseat for a few more years before something comes along and puts it back into favor. The issue here is that the business side of all this is looking at how Skyrim, Fallout, Monster Hunter, Tales of, and Mass Effect have shifted the market in the last decade; and how SE can take a sure fire hit like VII and make it an even bigger hit with mass appeal for a younger generation that didn't grow up on stuffy PS1 Turn-Based RPGs. This is a marketing and business decision, nothing else. SE wants to make sure that VII doesn't just grab the nostalgic fanboys, they want to make a whole new generation become nostalgic fanboys, and to do that, they need to market the game to them. Despite the grumbling of some of the traditional fans, chances are, most of you will pick up this Remake despite the changes, and SE knows that. So why bother appealing to the demographic who will buy it regardless? The Compilation already proved these fans would grab anything regardless of quality, gameplay style, and medium. The smart business move here is to focus on the non-fans. This is the same principle that Hollywood uses for adaptions of books, TV Shows, and comics, why should gaming be any different?
