Mission impossible?

[trancekuja]

RPG's are , weather you like it or not , evolving. OK , maybe not all of them or at least not at the same pace ( Suikoden,anyone?). Our beloved , eternally non-final Final Fantasy is an example of such evolution. Checking the latest info on XIII's battle system triggered some strange feeling of sadness inside me. A kind of sadness you experience when a memory of your childhood friends ( or someone you haven't seen in a long , long time) rises from the ashes of oblivion to remind you of the transience of life.
In this case that someone is evolutionary outcast called random encounters. Times when we were running around in circles hoping that the game will finally grace us with the pleasure of meeting Tonberry so that we can capture him and complete the Sunken Cave monster list are locked in the chronicles of history. Never to be released again.

So , in the light of the new battle system presented in FF XIII can you , dear friend , reach down to the deepest depths of your heart and try to find something that probably wont be there? Can you find just one good thing about random encounters? Will the EOFF be able to reach the number of 10? Or is it , as the title implies , mission impossible?

I'll start : the feeling of joy when you , after the long search , finally encounter a rarity such as Stingray is just priceless. The sight is so rare , you almost don't want to kill the poor bastard. No , ADB can produce that.

P.S. I'm don't think that old FF systems are better , I just thought that this would be fun

[Flying Mullet]

Caves of Narshe doesn't like you hotlinking their images.

*moves to gen gaming*

[Jessweeee♪]

Eh, people whine enough about the story and characters being the same in every game, it wouldn't help if everything else was the same, too.

[trancekuja]

Caves of Narshe doesn't like you hotlinking their images.

oh , sorry...I'll take care of that right away!

[Bolivar]

One thing I'll miss that probably won't be there, at least in light of the last few games, is an actual world. I hope to be proven wrong.

Random encounters were great because they allowed storytelling to be continuous. Characters could converse in battle, or certain events could happen in the middle of them. This includes Gilgamesh being caught in funny situations in FFV, or Palmer getting hit by a truck in FFVII ending the battle. For FFXII, they had to basically stop battle, begin a cutscene, end the cutscene, and begin a new battle. That's regression.

[Bunny]

I hate random encounters with a passion.

[I Don't Need A Name]

It created some kind of battle sequence. I just found the FFXII battles so clumsy and boring that i started to not bother with them.

[Flying Mullet]

I want world exploring where you aren't forced to explore in a certain order. I like it when kick-your-ass enemies are used to give you the hint that you shouldn't be here yet.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

The only thing I really miss are detailed world maps with plenty of unique out-of-the-way locations, as well as a variety of modes of transport with which to explore them. One of my favorite aspects of Lost Odyssey is how it brought that back to a significant extent.

I'll start : the feeling of joy when you , after the long search , finally encounter a rarity such as Stingray is just priceless. The sight is so rare , you almost don't want to kill the poor bastard. No , ADB can produce that.

There are rare monsters in FFXII, too. You don't need random encounters to achieve that feeling.

Random encounters were great because they allowed storytelling to be continuous. Characters could converse in battle, or certain events could happen in the middle of them. This includes Gilgamesh being caught in funny situations in FFV, or Palmer getting hit by a truck in FFVII ending the battle. For FFXII, they had to basically stop battle, begin a cutscene, end the cutscene, and begin a new battle. That's regression.

You couldn't hit Gilgamesh or Palmer while they were pulling their antics in old games, either. The battle is paused either way.

[Vermachtnis]

I miss letting us figure out what to do on our own. Take Final Fantasy I for example. The second town you stroll in and kick some pirates ass and take their boat and that's that. Now, you'd be told about the pirates before hand, what to do with the boat when you get it, and it's probably take more than an hour to finish, ya know opposed to the five minute fight.

[scrumpleberry]

I miss letting us figure out what to do on our own. Take Final Fantasy I for example. The second town you stroll in and kick some pirates ass and take their boat and that's that. Now, you'd be told about the pirates before hand, what to do with the boat when you get it, and it's probably take more than an hour to finish, ya know opposed to the five minute fight.

This to some extent. You get kick started at the beginning of the game, and then you have to hunt a little for hints.

[Shoeberto]

I was thinking about this kind of stuff last night and how much of the traditional stuff seems like it'd get axed or at least hard to implement with the amount of detail and voicework expected by people in releasing it on a high-end system. It really just made me wish they'd pull a Mega Man 9 and return to an older stylized version instead of having super-ridiculous graphics. Or they could at least go the route of the Dragon Quest games and release it on the DS or Wii and at least have the excuse of the hardware for lower quality graphics.

It just seems like in trying to stay at the forefront of everything they've increased their development time so much that most people don't even really care. The games, to me, were always primarily about the characters and story. Graphics were just sort of a side perk. Besides, I miss fighting a hard battle to be rewarded with a pre-rendered cutscene (something that FFIV DS managed to bring back, albeit swapping out pre-rendered with voice work)

[Bolivar]

You couldn't hit Gilgamesh or Palmer while they were pulling their antics in old games, either. The battle is paused either way.

No, the battle is not paused, it is ended and a cutscene ensues, then back into a new battle.

You're missing the point - it was the ability to tell story in battle, that made some of the games so advanced, storytelling became mobile.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

The HUD goes away, and the camera closes in the boss. He talks, he does some stuff, and the HUD reappears. The music doesn't even stop. It's not two different battles.

[Wolf Kanno]

XII brought back something I had really missed from the genre, the ability to explore the world. The towns and world zones were huge and every new horizon offered something new. VIII and IX had one or two little things that made exploring the world map worthwhile but overall, they were pretty barren to me. X completely wiped out exploration which bugged me to no end.

I actually liked wandering around and finding my own way, not just take a quick look and see where I need to be or wander around a huge map only to find out I have only one option as to where I can go. Exploration and forcing the player to explore I felt helped RPGs, it made the worlds more interesting to the players and they generally appreciated the game each time you found that hidden goodie, like an optional town that sells excellent equipment or an optional dungeon with bountiful rewards.

I also miss challenge, XII brought it back a bit but even then the main story is still pretty easy cause the challenge comes from the Mark Hunts and optional content. Like Hsu said, I miss earning the ability to progress the story. RPGs are so notoriously easy nowadays that battles are like the equivalent of watching a movie and pausing it for a few minutes and one click of the button later, the movie starts again. Playing through Persona and MegaTen III Nocturne made me appreciate the old days when I actually had to put effort into the game to progress the story. It made those cutscenes and story parts more exciting and compelling cause you poured your heart and soul into figuring out that puzzle or beating that really tough boss.

RPGs nowaday are casual affairs, which is surprising when you think about how they were a hardcore genre 10 years ago. They basically are designed to hold your hand and allow you to get everything out of it without putting any time or effort from the player. The actual game part of it is optional.

As for random encounters, I would need them to diasppear from the genre completely for a few years to say whether I would miss them, or not. I don't hate them but I can't say I feel they are important for a game to be good. I always thought of them as a solution to a limited technology. Besides, games like Persona 3, Xenosaga series, and BoFV have shown that a lot can be done to add depth and strategy to normal enemy encounters by allowing you to see them on the map.

I can't say if XIII will remedy my two major problems with modern RPGs, but I do feel the enemy encounter system is pretty good and the combat system holds a lot of potential. If it can remedy my other two problems and tell a decent story to boot, I might say SE is closer to reclaiming their throne.