Thread: Turn-Based Controversy

td text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text td td On June 15 Sony made an announcement that would cause many gamers to cream their pants, drop to their knees, and rejoice in pure bliss Final Fantasy VII was gong to be completely remade. This was the game that Final Fantasy fans have been clamoring for even since the release of the PlayStation 2 in the year 2000. That's about 16 years of wishful thinking and imaginations running wild, only spurred on by the beautiful effort of Advent Children and the infamous Final Fantasy VII PS3 tech demo. Gamers were pumped! Then they showed more of the game. Square revealed that the game was not only getting a new chassis and coat of paint, but an entirely new engine and steering wheel. Gamers were pissed. How dare they take away the turn-based combat that was beloved by so many RPG fans. How can they even think to do something so heinous as to change the core of what made the game so fun, and very much playable to this day? In almost no time at all the hype and celebration that surrounded the title turned into another mangled, bloody mess on the battlefield of the wizened neck-beard. It looks just like Kingdom Hearts now! How are you going to control your party members now? It's just going to be a press X to win, hack and slash. Nomura is literally ruining Square! I'm here not only to point out that this line of thought is ridiculous, but to also state why. Oh, so you're into the line up and stare at each other, and take turns hitting each other approach? Why? Final Fantasy VII was ATB anyway, so all they're doing is making the ATB faster, and getting rid of the 1700's musket warfare approach. It's the natural progression of the series and genre. Turn based or ATB were just approximations of a real battle that the development staff could not properly make work in real time. It's okay to like it, but it's silly to think the genre should stay like that. Personally, I'd like to play Advent Children, not Final Fantasy VII with cool graphics. I'll play Final Fantasy VII if I want that gameplay. Anything you can do in turned-based you can do in real time. You can debuff, the timing is far more strict, and there can be just as much strategy. The only difficult thing is having as much of a complete control over the party. I can play Final Fantasy VII all the way through by mostly just hitting attack and using Limit Breaks. The only annoying enemies are frogs, and one or two I'm probably forgetting. Occasionally I'll use cure or protectshell. Anything else can just be brute forced. Let's not pretend that that turned-based is the bastion of strategic gameplay. Doing the same stuff in real time is far more impressive and rewarding, plus it can be more difficult. Plenty of turned-based games are just mash X to attack. They can fuck up turn basedATB just as easily as they can fuck up ARPG. So, really, lets see more than a short-ass clip before we start to get too critical of things. Hell, maybe they might ever surprise some people with the quality. Perhaps this could be a return to form. Sticking to ATB would not create gameplay anymore good than an ARPG. Sure there are preferences, but it's just real-time or not real-time. Hit X to attack constantly, hit x to attack every so often. There is no magical layer of depth, because it's being played in out in turns. The slower gameplay does not automatically mean deeper gameplay, just slower gameplay. You can have deep gameplay that moves more briskly-- probably why Final Fantasy switched to ATB for the fourth installment. They recognized that you could actually add to the combat by making it quicker. If enemies could attack on their turns without waiting, then it's more pressure on the player. So is ARPG that much of a stretch? Besides turn-based looks worse and worse the more realistic the character models are. I'd rather it just play out in real-time, so it doesn't look horribly stupid. Real cool watching Cloud just kinda standing there, and then jumping back to his assigned spot after getting a hit in. It's silly. It was easier to write off before, because everything was an approximation of what something was supposed to look like. Now that things are far more believable, it will look more off. The only turn-based that won't look completely stupid, in my opinion, would be tactical turn based e.g. FFT, Fire Emblem, or more organic like Valkyria Chronicles. If one isn't concerned with the visuals, then why would one care at all? Sure you'll miss out on whatever new content they'll add, but surely it won't change the story drastically, and you'll be saved the hassle of paying for like 80-90 of the same game again. Then again maybe you're fine with the visual absurdity of the 18th century line-em-up style of battle. The question of whether or not Square can actually making a compelling ARPG is in the air. text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here td td text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text td