heh, im in the middle of Majesty right now.

the game is pretty fun, but a little outdated. Also, the goals are kind of lame, and the AI are pretty dry. I would LOVE to see an updated version of this game.

quote: . . . the game is pretty fun, but a little outdated.

A game''s age has very little to do with how fun it is.

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Good is the enemy of excellence.

Speaking of rpg combat, Would people be annoyed at a game that went back to old FF1 approach to combat. In that if you issue multiple attack orders to the same unit and it dies after the first then the rest of the attack orders do nothing. As well as that status effects extend beyond battle and require special items to heal or going to a healer in town.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

I WOULD TOTALLY SHIT MY PANTS IF GAMES WENT BACK TO THAT.

Grandia II, tho my favorite rpg, isnt'' so much of an action system, that I beleive the poster is describing.

I actually tried this type of game where you have a fighter type game that has experience pts and stat scores. It was a long time ago, it was an ok.

Say what you want about it, but Kingdom Hearts had an absolutely brilliant combat system for an RPG.

Also, I've never seen a combat system to match Devil May Cry's

[edited by - glassJAw on December 10, 2003 10:05:46 PM]

Well at the risk of egotism, a lot of the musings here sound like the game we have been creating.

* a Soul Caliber2 melee fighting system: with fighting skills based off RPG skill system.

* a marraige of FPS and RTS: Explore and extract resources in order to expand your PvP territory, which in turn enhances your FPS experience.

Getting the RTS experience to be more immersive just makes sense. The combining of genres is the best developers can do until someone REALLY thinks outside the box and comes up with a whole new type of game or the hardware gets A LOT BETTER (think nano-technological VR)

The question is merely how this current "alphabet" of genres gets mixed together.



Alfred Norris, VoodooFusion Studios
Team Lead - CONFLICT: Omega
www.conflictomega.com

quote: Original post by ishpeck
A game''s age has very little to do with how fun it is.

True.

However, the 16 bit graphics could do with a tune up. Particularly, however, I''m talking about the over-all game play. Instead of having ''levels'' each with their own un-connected objectives and plot, I think it would be better to have a consolidated storyline; and continuatino from one ''level'' to the next. Something like Heavy Gear 2''s ''campaign'' system would be awesome.

''Dated'' only really applies to that in that we expect more than just piece-meal level design in our games today, particularly in RPG-type games.

Its certainly a fun game. But its been out for a while, and it could do with a re-visit and re-vamp. Good games should be improved upon over time, so they become even better.


And TechnoGoth:
I hated that system. I still have trouble going back and playing FF1 because of that specifically, it just bugs me. I think Square''s remake of it actually ''corrected'' this ''problem''.

Yep, FFOrigins has automatic retargetting for killed opponents in both FF1 and FF2. What I want to know is how the "overkill" situation got past playtesting in the first place.

Persistent status effects can be OK - though I also like the FFTA system whereby all characters get restored to optimum condition between fights.

An example of combining RPG elements with Soul Caliber style combat is One Must Fall - which had a campaign mode where, by taking your avatar through fights (arranged into 4 tournaments) you earned money (once you''d paid for repairs) that could be spent on upgrading your stats and entering new tournaments (at the end of each tournament, you''d better keep enough spare cash to sign on for a new one...). In my opinion, the campaign mode turned a so-so fighter into a great game, and also used the statistics well. For example, initially, you have a very low speed stat, and as a result you can''t really do any combos. As your speed increases, you can start hitting in sufficiently rapid succession to put a combo together...

My usual complaint about FF-style combat is that it mostly reduces to a one-dimensional optimisation problem (at least by the time you''ve played more than half the game) - you know which attacks do most damage, and which moves heal most effectively, so the only decision you make in most encounters is whether to attack or heal on each turn, and that''s effectively a matter of choosing a threshhold value for party health. You could design an AI to fight the routine fights for you and tune its parameters between fights if necessary (put in the option of taking over, and set a panic condition where it will hand over to you automatically, and you''re done). Some of the FF games offer variations like choosing whether to steal items/draw magic, but most of the time, I''d be quite happy just casting beserk on most of my party (keeping one person under my control for emergencies) and watching the fight.

Are there any good examples of games with tournament fighter-quality combat and decent RPG content? I can''t really think of any. Star Ocean 2, i guess. True Crime was somewhat close, but fell short in both categories. I suppose that if something like Oni had stats and levels, it would work out, but it was entirely based on combat. What kind of resources does it take to build that level of combat gameplay, and can a game with the fighting of Soul Caliber II and the story/XP levels of Final Fantasy X really be feasible?

Look at it this way: Tournament fighers are one vs. one. A good RPG combat sequence often involves at least multiple enemies, and usually multiple player characters. There are two very real risks with adapting tournament fighter controls to a bigger fight: You might make it impossible to fight more than one guy at a time, or have a clumsy "lock" system, or you might abandon locks altogether, and have your guy flailing through a combo while the baddies stroll around behind you. Both suck.

I''d say a more general, action/adventure style control scheme would be more appropriate. Something like Zelda or Mark of Kri would work pretty well. I was even thinking about a hybrid between Diablo and Rune. Remember Rune? It was a UT-powered stand-alone with third-person view and viking-style swordfighting. If you had a more dynamic weapon system, some magic powers and a better game, that idea could have been neat. The fighting in Rune was sickeningly simple, but not as simple as Everquest.

And by the way, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance totally owns Soul Caliber II.