Well, over the past week I finished my second full Hard run of EDF6 with a modded class, and I updated several mods on other games. Got the updated Shutoko Revival Project on Assetto Corsa, the new Gran Turismo 4 Spec II, which I’m enjoying a lot, feels like a new game. And the Dawn of War Unification team pushed out a minor patch for the 20th anniversary of the series. I am also considering upgrading my old build of STALKER Gamma from late last year to the current one. My setup is working but they added a lot of new things since then that I want to check out, like new early game guns.
I’ve come around to really liking them. In short, they vastly improve dungeons in my opinion.
Most RPGs don’t manage to create interesting battles outside of boss fights. Heck, an increasing amount of RPGs fails to create any kind of challange. However, random encounter can add another layer to dungeons: resource management. You have to plan out how to tackle fights in order to get through the dungeons with your limited items/MP - do you sacrifice more HP or do you go for your strongest attacks? How much exploration can you get in? Do you need to be extra careful and plan for stronger rare encounters? Maybe even plan around lvl up healing.
Sadly, this layer is easily removed. Overworld encounters? Just dodge everything. Adjustable encounters? Grind just enough, go heal and disable encounters. Non-challanging fights? Just use basic attacks. Healing stations? No need to plan anymore. Ideally, the dungeons provides no healing at all - especially not before encountering the boss.
If you’re interested in a game with great dungeons, I’d recommend every single Etrian Odyssey.
I think, it works kind of well in games where you’re able to enslave/recruit the random encouters (Pokémon, Shin Megami Tensei and such), as it’s then a surprise what you’ll find, somewhat like a slot machine.
But the way the more recent entries work in these series, that you find out what creatures roam the world by exploring, that kind of works, too.
More generally, I don’t particularly like the problem that random encounters solve. Which is that you’ve got sections of gameplay where nothing happens, so you throw enemy encounters into there. That also goes for non-random encounters.
RPGs do this and I used to enjoy RPGs as a form of escapism. But now that I’m doing more stuff in real-life, I want it condensed down in roguelike form, or I’ll just play other genres…
Treat it objectively and ignore that it’s a Final Fantasy game.
I loved it. Everything from the story to the music to the combat. I bought and played through both DLCs as well. For me, it is the perfect mix of a great movie and great video game.
Plot: The Ezio trilogy.
Core Gameplay: Black Flag/Rogue.
Replay value: Odyssey.
I just want to chill out after a long day: Odyssey.
I actually want to get sucked into the setting and characters: Black Flag.
FF style? Hate 'em. I’m not a fan of the turn-based combat in those types of games either. Outside of boss fights/special enemies, you’re usually just spamming A to select the first option (attack) until you win. It gets hella old, hella fast and the random encounters happen every so many steps you take.
Fallout style, on the other hand, is awesome. More like Fallout 3 and beyond than 1 or 2 which are still a bit like FF in that you can’t see shit, you just walk the map and then FF battle music fade to black and pop into the encounter.
The Yakuza series does them well. They’re visible when wandering around, but they’ll also just appear at random all over the city walking down streets or chilling in alleys. You can’t always tell exactly what you’ll fight but you’ll know how to get around them if you don’t want to fight.
Of course I also like roguelikes. The entire game is a random encounter.
I agree FF style turn based combat is boring. I mean games that have an auto button that plays it for you are admitting it.
That’s why I like games that have more creative combat that blends different genres. Undertale has some turn based, some realtime bullet hell. Battle network has a real time grid based with card game elements.
There’s so much you can do but so often devs fall back on choose from menu watch cutscene.
Oh yeah, Undertale is gnar. They actually did something new and different with the style, which is what I’m really about here. Octopath Traveller is another good one; the thing that it has going for it is the sheer number of options you actually have. It’s not just “attack, item, magic, defend, or run away.” It also has a lot of other Western RPG elements in it like actually having dialogue choices that matter making it an actual game with branching paths and not simply a story with some minimal interactive elements.
I’m in the “if I can’t avoid them, I’m not playing the game long” camp.
I don’t hate them, and they can be fun. But most of the games that do them make them impossible to bypass. Like others have already said, when you’re questing, they just derail the gameplay experience. There’s times that’s okay, but if a game has them often enough, it ends up making me hate the game and quit.
It’s why I don’t go back an replay the final fantasy stuff.
They’re not the worst thing ever, but I’m happy when a game finds another way to challenge the player that isn’t “throw an enemy encounter at the player every ten steps”.
Nowadays I particularly enjoy games where the encounter is fought on the map itself instead of having a transition screen and a separate map. Games like Sea of Stars, or Yakuza Kiwami for example. I find that removing the transition screen also removes much of the tedium I feel with enemy encounters in video games.
Man…this question would have SO much more gravity if it weren’t about gaming.
Like if you’re thinking back on your life. You met your wife at a coffee shop, but what would your life be today if they got a bagel instead? Where would your life be, 20 years later?
Or what if you’re single? Did you make the wrong arbitrary choice? Did you walk left instead of right? Did you miss out on meeting your special someone because of a choice you didn’t realize had ramifications?
And how should we feel about that today, knowing nothing in the past can be changed?
Haha I have thought about that too actually. Mainly because my career path and favorite hobby were both decided by small random moments. It’s definitely made me more open to new experiences.
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Aktywne