The Lounge: Gamers' Division

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

So, I figured there's a lot of gaming news stories that crop up from time to time, some of them thread worthy, some of them not. This here is the place to discuss all the odds and sods of general video game news (rather than the odds and sods of life courtesy of the main Lounge) that leap out at you and you want to address without cluttering the board up with a thread that will die in a couple of days, if not hours- I'm looking at you Gamers' Wiki thread...  :

I'm gonna kick things off with this impressive, if downright weird, trailer for a new RPG coming to the Wii: Opoona. (I'll get the jokes out the way- It's not about scoring intergalactic poon and there is no long lost history of Epona's ancestors.)

It's a real strange one. Looks like the love child of Lego Star Wars and Superman, with some of your standard RPG add ons. Oh, and the control scheme...? Apparently it's nunchuk only. That's right. An analogue stick, two buttons and an accelerometer. Too gimmicky even for the Wii or simplistic genius? It's got a kind of kiddy look to it, but under that cute shell may well beat the heart of a truly challenging monster.

Happy chatting, and watch the 

[The Tao Of Bill]

Turn based RPG = borrrrringg

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Awww, Bill.... Sure an online Friend-Code-free multiplayer feature wouldn't sway you?

[The Tao Of Bill]

maybe if I was having trouble falling asleep

[FDLink]

Yeah, turn-based is boring . . . maybe that's why Dragon Quest never caught on, here.

Give me ATB or ADB anyday.

[Mongooseman]

Turn-based is sometimes boring, but I've enjoyed more than one or two such games. The 3-D Final Fantasies are boring, imo, because they force you to do a lot of waiting and watch needlessly drawn-out battle animations over and over again. On the other hand, a typical Golden Sun or Pokemon battle can be ended swiftly when you're moving through an area with a lot of random fights.

I think that the Wii and DS both need more and better RPG and adventure games, so I'll keep an eye on Opoona. Aside from its genre, nothing about it stands out so far, but it's probably still in its early stages, so it could surprise me. The nunchuk-only control doesn't make sense to me, though. I can see it working, as RPGs don't generally require a lot of button usage, but giving up the pointing and tilting functions of the Wiimote is a bad idea, especially if only for the sake of saying, "Look, Ma! No remote!"

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Just got this off Wiki, if it's legit it's the nuttiest name in game mechanic history...

To progress through the game, Opoona will acquire Licenses for different jobs (rescuer, idol, detective) with players being able to choose what they would like to become. The game is played one handed using just the Wii's Wii Nunchuk attachment. In battles, jerking the Nunchuk will fire a projectile at enemies with the trajectory able to be changed by moving the Nunchuk. This style of play is named the Active Bon Bon Battle System

BTW: WTH is Sony's advertising department smoking atm?

[JordAnime]

Grandia was turn based and it kicked ass, though they made up their own term for it, it was like Ultimate Action Battle System, kicked ass!

Though ToS had a sweet battle system too, especially if you can get someone else to play.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Can safely say Ultimate Action Battle System sounds a lot more impressive than Active Bon Bon. Of course, that's probably just in Japan, and we'll probably see something slightly more sane creep in to the game whenever it hits US and EU shores. But if that thing on his head is the "Active Bon Bon" maybe not...

I have a feeling once the GL is more established and my shameless plugging can end, either this or Paper Mario will earn a place in my sig. Look at the cuteness! And that logo has a pretty sweet design.

[Hyruleansoldier]

Grandia was turn based and it kicked ass, though they made up their own term for it, it was like Ultimate Action Battle System, kicked ass!

Though ToS had a sweet battle system too, especially if you can get someone else to play.

Lol, whatever it was, turn-based battle systems are NOT necessarily a a bad thing. Like Mongooseman said, if you think Pokémon and Golden Sun, you have just named two game series I dearly love, and where battles do NOT get boring EVER. Hell, having played over 12 hours straight of Pokémon Stadium you'd expect me to be sick of it, but I'm really not. And Golden Sun had SO FRIGGIN MANY ways of battling that it wasn't pretty. You could literally remain in the same room for hours still getting varied gameplay by altering your battle system.

But then in came Tales and it showed us Teh Future... I hope we'll see more of that. Soon.

[Scott Shelby]

Turn based systems can be great, it just depends on the game.

Like Mongooseman said, if you think Pokémon and Golden Sun, you have just named two game series I dearly love, and where battles do NOT get boring EVER

I've played and beaten Golden Sun as well as a select number of Pokemon games (red and gold). Although I think that Golden Sun works particularly well, I would STRONGLY disagree that Pokemon doesn't get repetitive. RPGs generally center around attack/magic selection. Pokemon sports 4 options for attacks at the maximum (generally 2-3 until you hit levels 10-16). Thus, battling becomes very tedious and repetitive. I realize that the newer games have doubles matches and stuff, but the options are still as limited (albeit with 2 pokemon). Regardless, the only main stategy in the game is taking advantage of elemental weaknesses. In my experience, buffering/weakining is pretty worthless.

But hey, that's not to say I don't like the game. You'll be happy to know I'll be playing the newest game online when I buy it  .

I'm gonna kick things off with this impressive, if downright weird, trailer for a new RPG coming to the Wii: Opoona.

I wasn't really impressed. It looked to much like a Dragon Quest Ripoff to be honest. It will probobly get lost in time as games like FF13/ vs 13, Dragon Quest 9, Blue Dragon, and White Knight Story surface. But hey, only time will tell.

But then in came Tales and it showed us Teh Future... I hope we'll see more of that. Soon.

I've played and owned the ToS, and I hated it's battle system. Without a doubt, it had the most boring, repetitive scheme I've ever seen in my lifetime. The battle scheme doesn't allow for 3D movement, and the variety in battle mechanics is limited to pressing directional buttons while attacking. The best game to play if you don't like turn based is Kingdom Hearts. Whatever you do, do yourself a favor and don't play Tales. There are better games out there- MUCH better games.


Anyways, I'm really excited this week because I can finally pick up God of War II! It should be a really great addition to the series and tie me over until #3 makes its way to the PS3. I'm kind of said though because God of War II marks the beginning of the end for the Ps2 in terms of killer games.

[JordAnime]

I've played and owned the ToS, and I hated it's battle system. Without a doubt, it had the most boring, repetitive scheme I've ever seen in my lifetime. The battle scheme doesn't allow for 3D movement, and the variety in battle mechanics is limited to pressing directional buttons while attacking.

1. 3D movement would have sucked
2. There were also special moves you eventually got, that varied from character to character,   it was a lot like playing SSB except with RPG mvoes. 

[hupla]

Turn based systems can be great, it just depends on the game.

Anyways, I'm really excited this week because I can finally pick up God of War II! It should be a really great addition to the series and tie me over until #3 makes its way to the PS3. I'm kind of said though because God of War II marks the beginning of the end for the Ps2 in terms of killer games.

See this is what I like about sony they have there next-gen system but they know they cant get enough out to evreyone and they know that they have houndreds of thousands of PS2 owners that need something to tide them over until they can get a PS3. Sure they could have ported God of war 2 and make it a PS3 title but they didnt nice job sony.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Ahhh, that one made me chuckle hoopla...

See this is what I like about sony they have there next-gen system but they know they cant get enough out to evreyone despite those consoles sitting unloved on the shelves and they know that they have houndreds of thousands of PS2 owners that need something to tide them over until they can get a PS3 without selling an internal organ of their choosing. Sure they could have ported God of war 2 and make it a PS3 title but they didnt because it was a choice of making money from the software on a flourishing format or one which no-one likes nice job sony.

I can't see the PS2 catalogue going quiet for a while, unlike the Cube which slowly but surely trailed off into a nasty, nasty assortment of animated film titles which no-one could truly love.

[Hyruleansoldier]

I've played and beaten Golden Sun as well as a select number of Pokemon games (red and gold). Although I think that Golden Sun works particularly well, I would STRONGLY disagree that Pokemon doesn't get repetitive. RPGs generally center around attack/magic selection. Pokemon sports 4 options for attacks at the maximum (generally 2-3 until you hit levels 10-16). Thus, battling becomes very tedious and repetitive. I realize that the newer games have doubles matches and stuff, but the options are still as limited (albeit with 2 pokemon). Regardless, the only main stategy in the game is taking advantage of elemental weaknesses. In my experience, buffering/weakining is pretty worthless.

But hey, that's not to say I don't like the game. You'll be happy to know I'll be playing the newest game online when I buy it  .

Yeah, well, I suppose you're right when you just look at the battles themselves, but I was kinda referring to its entirety --- in Red & Blue there were 151 Pokémon and in Gold & Silver there were some 50 more you could get in-game, with a total of 251 different critters. The number of different moves in Red & Blue was, if I recall correctly, well above 300, and since Gold & Silver that only started increasing.

So what I'm saying is: if you take your average RPG, you get 8, 12, 16-or-so unique characters and that's usually it. You get a lot of moves, but not in the hundreds. You do get a lot of different weapons and stuff, a variety of magics and summons, but no 300+ unique moves to choose from, executed by 151 to 251 different characters. So in that respect there was a LOT of variety.

But I do agree that when you only consider one little battle at a time, you are mostly restrained to using 4 moves - although there are moves like Metronome which makes you do any possible attack, or mimic, copying one from your opponent.

The thing with them battles was that quite often they didn't *need* to last ages, so you didn't need a wide variation of moves with one specific Pokémon at a time. You could use a few stat-boosting or stat-attacking moves, and then the most effective moves against your enemy's type. And then a different battle set in, playing out different moves & types against each other. So I wouldn't *really* call it too repetitive or limited... It's Pokémon. If you love it/them, you'll rarely be fed up with battling. In fact, I know of little RPG-like games in which battling in its own right can well be an activity you could participate in for many hours on end and still have fun. Even after all these years I can still rejoice over Pokémon battles. There's just so many different battle permutations to go through, potentially causing endless fun... Who could say no to that, unless they're no Pokémon fan?  :

[Witless]

I've played and owned the ToS, and I hated it's battle system. Without a doubt, it had the most boring, repetitive scheme I've ever seen in my lifetime.

TBS is much more boring to be honest.

The battle scheme doesn't allow for 3D movement, and the variety in battle mechanics is limited to pressing directional buttons while attacking.

Actually, you had pseudo-3D movement which worked very well with the system. It allowed you to dodge attacks and manouvre really well. Also, the battle machanics allowed you to form combo's and unlock different set of moves depending on what kind of attacks you use often. I thought it was very intuitive and less sleep indusing since you could easily switch from player to player during a battle.

I'm not even talking about the awesome Duo, Triple Mana Attacks.

The best game to play if you don't like turn based is Kingdom Hearts. Whatever you do, do yourself a favor and don't play Tales. There are better games out there- MUCH better games.

I agree with the latter, but not the first. Kingdom Hearts is not an RPG, It's an Action Adventure with RPG elements, like The Legend Of Zelda.

But yes, a real time battle system is always better than a form of turn-based-system.

[The Tao Of Bill]

The thing about turn base battles I do not like is it takes no skill. Yes there are stradegy elements involved but once you learn that stradegy anyone can do it because it becomes just a matter of preplanned steps to kill major enemies. In pokemon you can take on pretty much any gym leader as soon as you reconize his main pokemon type. If he uses rock you use water. If he uses grass you use fire. Everyone knows that and because of that everyone can make it through the game. Real time battles take more skill and not everyone can make it through alive. You have to watch your enemy closely and determine what attacks you can counter and what attacks you can dodge and what attacks you can block. A good real time battle system forces you to come up with a stradegy while your enemy is trying his hardest to kill you. In turned based your enemy stands there just waiting for you to come up with a stradegy to kill him. It's just dumb. When are you ever going to be in a fight where your enemy just stands there and lets you think long and hard about how you are going to attack him.

[JordAnime]

You have to watch your enemy closely and determine what attacks you can counter and what attacks you can dodge and what attacks you can block. A good real time battle system forces you to come up with a stradegy while your enemy is try

The Grandia series is a lot of dodging and movement aspects.  Not saying it takes a ton of skill but it can get pretty challenging.  And I mean on the other hand of things, Kingdom Hearts and say Oblivion don't really have a ton of skill to them, they're just as mindless and representative as any turn standard based game.

[The Tao Of Bill]

Kingdom hearts doesn't have a good battle system... it's just button mashing. I was thinking more along the lines of God of War or Prince Of Persia. These games require fast paced thinking and dodging and blocking.

[Witless]

Actually, God Of War and Prince Of Persia is pretty much button bashing just like Kingdom Hearts is, and Zelda for that matter. The reason why I like Kingdom Hearts is basically because of the ease of fighting, yet, it takes some skill to kill off your opponents as you need to block, dodge and attack really fast when it comes to Boss Battles.

It will always be 'mindless' and repetitive. It's your own skill that makes the difference in wether you make it through the battle with 5 hearts, or 1 heart.