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LivingMetal on 07 March 2017
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Hiku said:
LivingMetal said:

If you want natural, go outside and play.  I see what you're saying, but if every battle system were made the same way, what's the point?  Both battle systems can be utilized effectively.  It just seems that the newer FFs are more FF in brand than in spirit.

Hmm, I don't think you do though?
For starters, when I said natural, I meant within the bounds of the game. For example, if a character is commonly doing a lot of acrobatic moves, leaping over buildings and bosses, it could seem unnatural for them to have their path blocked by a tiny cardboard box, due to a lack of a jump button, or a way to just walk over it. If the game designers want to block that path, they may need to use something more beliavable than a small cardboard box. Like a locked door.
A cardboard box could work as a natural path blocker in a different game, but it depends on how the game is designed.
In the case of FF7, I can imagine that the more focus it has on fidelity and action packed sequences, the more distracting the contrast of going from all of that to standing around and waiting for your turn will be. I think that's why they're incorporating the ATB element into something else/while you're doing something else now. (The gauge that fills up when you're actively attacking).

If you think back, a lot of things in older rpg's we didn't take for face value, but sort of as a "metaphore" for something else, in lack of a better term.

For example, random encounters. We didn't actually believe that enemies were invisible and then all of a sudden spawned out of nowhere, right? The crew obviously ran into them, but we could only imagine what that would look like. But we accepted it as a graphical limitation at the time (in most cases.) Same thing with Cloud and co. just standing around, blocking machine gun bursts with their faces while doing nothing, waiting for their turn. Obviously they weren't so stupid that they actually fought that way. But again, we could only imagine how the fights really played out.

Well, when technical advances get as far as they have today, where they can show us more clearly how the fights really played out, and attack sequences are a lot more detailed, flashy and immersive, going from 100 to 0 can stand out a lot more in contrast to the rest. It's what the rest of the game is like that determines if an element feels natural in that game or not. Not what it's like outside our door.

Secondly, I'm not suggesting that every game should be made the same way. It's the other way around. I'm glad Persona 5 is turn based for example.
There should be different styles of games made. But I acknowledge that elements like turn based can feel more or less natural in a game, depending on how you design the rest of it.

I didn't.  Suikoden, Wild ARMs, FFVII, Xenosaga, Persona Revelations, Lunar, Chrono Cross, Grandia, Legend of Legaia, etc. were are turned based for the most part with their own gameplay and graphical style and presentation.  Yes, there were graphical limitations which sometimes determine what a developer can or cannot do.  But they were still RPGs regardless.  With that same processing power, Squaresoft could have made FFVII into a 2d action platformer like Castlevania SOTN or an adventure game like Soul Reaver.  Obviously, we have more processing power now than before, and developers can do what they want with that power.  It just would be nice for the FFVII remake to stay closer to its roots.  If fact, it was FFVII PSOne that brought me back to console gaming because I was a huge fan of the first and fourth FFs.  Not FF Tactics and not Core, both good games but different gameplay styles.  And FFVII Remake might turn out to be an awesome action base game.  So maybe a Persona 3 remake should be action based as well, but I won't be buying it.