Square Enix Considering Bringing Final Fantasy V, VI to 3DS

[bluestarultor]

I really don't get the hate for random battles. They make grinding a lot easier and pretty well ensure your party is properly leveled for the next boss if you actually fight them.

I get that we can do all sorts of fancy things with enemies in the field, but, news flash, we've been able to do that since the CGA (early DOS) era, as seen in the Ultima series. Not to mention that it was already done by the same company on the same original console in Chrono Trigger.

It doesn't make much sense gutting a perfectly valid system and having to totally rebalance the game for a different play style just because the technology's fancier.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

I really don't get the hate for random battles. They make grinding a lot easier and pretty well ensure your party is properly leveled for the next boss if you actually fight them.

Having the choice of whether or not to do any combat is nice, and especially convenient when I just want to hurry to the next save point. Additionally, in a good game, there is usually more to the non-random combat than simply touching the enemy on the field. As for the whole "they make grinding a lot easier", not really. Whenever I want to grind in a game without random encounters, I generally am able to initiate combat more or less as quickly as I could when they were random encounters, until everything in the area is dead, which is a perfect opportunity to go save.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Having the choice of whether or not to do any combat is nice, and especially convenient when I just want to hurry to the next save point. Additionally, in a good game, there is usually more to the non-random combat than simply touching the enemy on the field. As for the whole "they make grinding a lot easier", not really. Whenever I want to grind in a game without random encounters, I generally am able to initiate combat more or less as quickly as I could when they were random encounters, until everything in the area is dead, which is a perfect opportunity to go save.

While that's true to an extent, well-designed games with random encounters don't trample you between save points. FF6 is actually blisteringly easy in the beginning. I know, because I was inspired to pop it in last night and start a new file. Without actually stopping to grind, I was never in danger of dying or running out of items and I had enough to buy all of Edward's available Tools like three times over if not more, which have turned the game into a protracted session of "shit, I have to keep these enemies alive so Locke can rob them." I haven't even used Fire yet. The biggest limitation I've had so far is the slow walk speed and issues controlling myself while running. Battle is also kind of frustratingly sluggish, but I think I can adjust that.

Plus, monsters on the field work fine when you have wide open spaces, but FF6's dungeons are nothing short of cramped and labyrinthine. Short of a total redesign, you'd basically be forced into every battle.

Also, monsters on the field are hard to implement on a world map. Chrono Cross tried this in one area, but the effect wasn't very good. Given how much hoofing it around the world map you do, it's easier to just let the systems be.


I'm not saying monsters on the field are a bad thing or that random battles are better, just that everything has its place.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Also, monsters on the field are hard to implement on a world map.

Tales of Symphonia.

[greed]

Yeah Symphonia and Vesperia both prove that wandering encounters work on world maps.

And Persona 3 shows that they can work in dense clustered labyrinths.

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

I really don't get the hate for random battles. They make grinding a lot easier and pretty well ensure your party is properly leveled for the next boss if you actually fight them.

I get that we can do all sorts of fancy things with enemies in the field, but, news flash, we've been able to do that since the CGA (early DOS) era, as seen in the Ultima series. Not to mention that it was already done by the same company on the same original console in Chrono Trigger.

It doesn't make much sense gutting a perfectly valid system and having to totally rebalance the game for a different play style just because the technology's fancier.

Random battles is annoying as all get up. It's disjointing to have to wait for a screen to load or change fields to fight enemies that weren't there before. I don't care if it's about grinding or anything else. All I want is to know that hey look, that salamander is something I can fight, kill it. Not "doo do doo... I--what the...?!"

Furthermore, if the company gets it wrong, then you have to fight at every. Three. F(*&%ing. Steps. which actually turned me off to quite a few RPGs that weren't Secret of Mana/Evermore back in the day. It took me a while to beat Lufia because it had that exact problem.

I'm not even going to get into what happens when you get back to the main screen, forgot which way you were going, and ran into ANOTHER Random battle. FFFFUUU---

Bof II had that very problem. Great game but FUCK! The Sky Tower really got annoying with RBs...

[Kim]

SMT Strange Journey made random battles much less annoying by having something at the top of the screen that let you know how close you were to having another one, as well as special stuff you could use to make random encounters more/less frequent.

[Red Fighter 1073]

Furthermore, if the company gets it wrong, then you have to fight at every. Three. F(*&%ing. Steps. which actually turned me off to quite a few RPGs that weren't Secret of Mana/Evermore back in the day.

This. Holy shit this. Pretty much exactly why I hate random battles and hell even some RPGs altogether. If I want to battle and level up, I want to be able to do it on my own terms. There's nothing more disjointing than having an enemy appear out of nowhere every five seconds when you're just trying to do a puzzle or just get through a dungeon.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Tales of Symphonia.

Originally Posted by greed

Yeah Symphonia and Vesperia both prove that wandering encounters work on world maps.

And Persona 3 shows that they can work in dense clustered labyrinths.

You guys are right. Tales of the Abyss had visible battles on the world map and it worked quite well. I guess my mind was stuck on the zoomed out overview approach that FF6 has and the closest comparison was that CC section.

And yes, Persona 3 (and 4, too) has battles in cramped mazes, but it also has small enemy representations for the most part and its fair share of larger rooms to put them in. They're also relatively slow and blind. I have to say that's fine for Persona, since it's all Shadows, but FF6 has woolly mammoths and stuff running around and a general lack of open spaces that half of them would even be able to fit in if things were to scale. I mean I guess you could just blow the maps up in relation and have little mini-monsters running around, but I don't think the latter would really be satisfying. I loved the enemies being on the field in the Grandia series, but a lot of that came from them being the same size when you actually fought them. I'd honestly rather have random battles than deal with those kinds of scaling issues, but that's just me.

Originally Posted by Jagos

Random battles is annoying as all get up. It's disjointing to have to wait for a screen to load or change fields to fight enemies that weren't there before. I don't care if it's about grinding or anything else. All I want is to know that hey look, that salamander is something I can fight, kill it. Not "doo do doo... I--what the...?!"

Furthermore, if the company gets it wrong, then you have to fight at every. Three. F(*&%ing. Steps. which actually turned me off to quite a few RPGs that weren't Secret of Mana/Evermore back in the day. It took me a while to beat Lufia because it had that exact problem.

I'm not even going to get into what happens when you get back to the main screen, forgot which way you were going, and ran into ANOTHER Random battle. FFFFUUU---

Bof II had that very problem. Great game but FUCK! The Sky Tower really got annoying with RBs...

Well, that WOULD be very annoying if it applied to Square's games, but they've been quite good about encounter rate from the very beginning. At least in FF. Like, okay, I get you're talking globally, but most games aren't all that bad about it from my experience.

Also, games tend to return your character back to where they were standing and facing the direction they'd been facing before battle. Even Quest 64 did that much for all its flaws. I hate to sound like I'm attacking you for this, but it's a universal visual cue to help avoid the player getting lost.

I can get wanting to see if a battle's coming up, but it's all just an aesthetics issue. In most cases, running into an enemy sets you off to a battle arena anyway, so there's nothing gained or lost there. When it doesn't, you're either playing an MMO or FF12, which is an MMO in all but multiplayer. An MMO system puts a lot of balance up to random chance, too. It's fair enough if the monsters are sparse and there's not much chance of getting more than you can handle, but then they're sparse and you have to run around to kill them all, which can make grinding a pain. In cases where they're dense enough to come to each others' aid, you really have to start worrying about your luck or find some way to lure them away from the pack or suffer. Like it or not, cutting to a battle area is a form of protection. You get your monster group and fight it without interruptions, rinse and repeat. Maybe it takes a bit more in loading, but it also gives you some opportunity to recover.

Originally Posted by NonCon

SMT Strange Journey made random battles much less annoying by having something at the top of the screen that let you know how close you were to having another one, as well as special stuff you could use to make random encounters more/less frequent.

I'd argue this is a better alternative. The Legend of Dragoon had an indicator for how close a battle was and items that could knock it back down or bump it up. They even made the system colorblind-friendly.

Quite frankly, I don't know why more games don't do it that way.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Atelier Iris did. Or was it Ar Tonelico.