| burninmylight said: I'll add another complaint: Battle systems that drain your MP too quickly and force you to conserve your MP-restoring potions in dungeons, so you have to primarily stick to boring basic attacks until you get to a boss.
For me, random encounters aren't the problem. I prefer seeing enemies on a field map, but I can live with a game that has a decent encounter rate and escape rate. The real problem I have is grinding. It doesn't matter whether I can choose when to battle or not if I'm forced to choose to repeatedly and mindlessly battle to get past a boss or area that has a sudden jump in enemy levels and stats. That is an issue with a game's pacing and design, not with the way battles are encountered. I played Tales of Phantasia on my GBA last year (started in 2016), and I could not agree more with your thoughts. I saw it through to the end, but I will never touch that game in its current form again. Random encounter rate out the ass, slowest paced battle system I have ever seen in my life (imagine an action-stopping FFVII summon every single time one of your party members, who is mandatorily in your party for more than half the game, casts a spell, and about 40 percent of the time for another party member), an MP (or TP)-based system like the one I mentioned above, and like many SNES RPGs, a horrible world map traversing system using Mode 7 that makes you waste more time guessing where to land than just walking there yourself (that would be true if not for the random encounter rate). I'm currently playing Tales of Graces f on the PS3, and I'm loving the battle system in it, and wondering if I can ever go back to the TP system in other Tales games now. |
I'm glad im not the only one.
The_Liquid_Laser said:
Actually their sales have fallen off because they stopped doing a lot of this stuff. Final Fantasy X is the 2nd best selling FF game, and it was the last to include turn-based random encounters. They should try getting back to their roots. |
I dont think so, most tradtional rpgs and JRPGs in general these days are niche or lesser known games that generally aren't big in the West.
Final Fantasy and Pokemon are big names that sell well no matter what.
The fact that JRPGs have moved away from these elements says shows Western RPGs mainstream success. The Souls games and Bloodborne sell better in the west despite being JRPGs.
LMU Uncle Alfred said:
If we're talking JRPG sales in general, they've fallen off mostly because they just aren't getting made as much anymore. Leaving aside Pokemon (which I feel is never considered a traditional RPG anyways) the FF series sales have been consistently in the 7-9 million range. Since FF7, and with the exception of FFIX and FFXII, all of them have sold between 7-9 million roughly. I don't know about XI, but I believe XIV is up there now. DQXI from what I have heard is actually one of the highest selling DQ games in the NA region now. |
Disagree. Traditional JRPGs dont sell well in the west. Western RPGs have taken over and sell better each generation, i'm not saying they're better but it shows that mainstream gamers are more interested towards Western RPGs. Pokemon and Final Fantasy have always been good sellers in the west especially in the Playstation era but Dragon Quest has never been a big seller in the West not even DQ11 has done good numbers in the west.
| forest-spirit said: Random encounters can be extremely tedious when they're too frequent. I don't have a problem with them per se, though I prefer having the enemies visible as it gives more strategic options, but I enjoy exploring levels and trying to find all treasures and secrets, and nothing kills the excitement of exploration as effectively as constant interuption by battles (especially in combination with slow battle systems and long transitions). Forced battles isn't exclusive to games with random encounters but unless other games have ridiculous spawn rates and enemy density you will at the very least be able to clear a path through or sneak around the enemies. Tales of Phantasia is a good example of a game where the encounters can ruin the experience. It's not a bad game as far as I'm concerned but it did take me several attempts before finishing because the encounter rate made me lose interest and eventually stop playing. |
It's truly a great game even with it's flawed fighting system but the encounters really ruined the game for me.
| Illusion said: Honestly, I really enjoy classic RPG's with very high random encounter rates as long as level grinding my characters enables them to beat bosses later with relative ease. What I can't stand is spending hours level grinding through a dungeon only to get to a boss where there is some kind of special trick or tactic that needs to be discovered that requires your party to die a few times before you can actually beat the boss regardless of your level. The reward for level grinding should be the ability to easily beat bosses, otherwise there is really no point.
I think westerners generally don't enjoy old-school RPG's with high encounter rates because we can't understand the concept of utilizing game time (as opposed to playing skill) as our resource in games. There is a lot of reward (and in my experience, a lot less frustration) in investing time (ie. by levelling up) as the means to defeat a game's enemies as opposed to your own skills as a gamer. There is something very satisfying about watching your over-powered party lay waste to a difficult boss especially when it was your time spent strengthening them. |
I think we do but why spend most of your time grinding with random encounters if you can freely explore worlds and do lots of side quests in Western RPGs. It's really the freedom of choice, character creation and the more realistic gritty visuals that has made Western RPGs so succesful. The Souls games + Bloodborne are all JRPGs and they really dont sell all well in their native country.
