BEst and Worst RPG gameplay additions and alterations

[Rift120]

Alright it occured to me that RPG's have come a long way since the old text based games. Along the way the formula of the gameplay has been altered, tweaked and modified.

This includes adding on features to the combat system, or gameplay system. Some of these have been good, some bad. Some Ground breaking enough to be copied by other games, others so terrible they kill the game they were introduced in.

I thought this thread might be nice to list some of the additions to RPG gameplay you liked, and ones you despiesed.

I only ask you list the game where the addition came from and why you like/hate the feature your discussing. Here are a few of my own.

Favorite: The 'Judgement ring' from Shadow Hearts Covenent. (Haven't got a copy of the original SH, so not sure if this combat system was present there or not.)

Anyways this is the generic combat system, lottery method, discount, minigame system of Shadow Hearts covenent. Its a fairly simple concept.. a ring appears with several marked areas.. you have to hit the X button while a spinner is within the area. If you miss a area than the action you are trying to do fails.

Simple, and yet it becomes complex. Alteration of  Ring size, spinner speed, spinner direction, and number of 'hit' areas all provide a good variety of challenge levels for certain tasks. Being able to adjust the type of ring to either a 'one hit or miss small target' gamble or the 'you can miss the hit zone ' practice modes, provide different levels of skill for beginners and veterns at the judgement ring. The balancing mechanics behind these alternate modes are also well done... with the practice mode meaning you have to sacrifice your ability to get 'critical hit strike zones'. While the Gamble ring has a suitably small hit area, that actually shrinks the more 'hit zones' you are gambling on executing correctly.  It also creates a whole new list of ailments your opponents can inflict upon you.

All of these are great game mechanics and well balanced in my opnion. But what makes this a GREAT feature for the game is that its ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. Aside from the beginning tutorial fight, you can actually switch the judgement ring OFF in your menu and play the game like a normal turnbased RPG.

The offset is that by doing this, your charcters no longer does as much damage since the auto ring takes away your combos that the judgement ring makes your normal attacks, plus you loose out on many of the side quests and special items.  But the fact remains that if you are just not good at the timing and cordination needed for the judgement ring, you can still play the game.

Thus we get a great fighting system, that requires some skill but won't ruin the game if you lack said skill for hand eye cordination.

Bad game mechanic: The 'sidestep' from Star Ocean 3. For those who don't know of this accursed game mechanic, the insturction booklet basically state its a move that lets you jump aside and avoid enemy attacks during battle.

I read this and read how to pull it off. I thought it looked fairly simple and the idea sounded good. Oh how deluded I was.....

This is the most useless move in the game. I tried it in early battles, the end result is my charcter would stop what they were doing, get hit, jump to the side, and get hit AGAIN! I tried it for 2-3 battles... and then said screw it and never used the feature again for as long as I played the game. I discovered my fighting ability improved 200% by just ignoring this feature.

A dodgeing feature for a Active battling system like SO3 should be easy and intuitive to pull off... more importantly it should WORK for the players! While this was not the game mechanic that made me quit SO3 in eminent dissapointment (the item creation system gets that lovely honor), it was one of the three main annoyances I had with the game and the only reason it didn't break the game for me in and of itself was because I could fight just as well (better even) without it.

Honorable mention: Group XP- not sure which game started this mechanic, but basically it maens that a fraction of the xp your party gained in battle is given to members of your party that weren't fighting . This meant that for RPG's with more charcters than slots in combat, you didn't have to worry about your auxilery charcters falling to far behind the level curve of the enemies you are faceing.

Dishonorable mention: The special move buttons of SO3- in case you didn't get this game, SO3 replaced the IMO perfectly fine control scheme of SO2 with a new design. Most frustrating of these changes were what they did to the special move keys. In SO2 you could assign 4 special moves to each of the shoulder pads, and this was good.

SO3 your special moves are dependent on how HARD you press the attack buttons. This was mind numbingly frustrating for me. 1) I've never been good at judging how hard I press a button so half the time I either A) was unable to execute the move I wanted or B) Exectued a move when I wanted to do a normal attack and save MP. 2) I have a rather old controller and thus it doesn't always register the difference between a light button tap and a hard button tap.

At times the special move system made me want to throw my controller as I missed what should have been a easy kill for my special moves.

[thepanda]

The Good:

Grandia 3's active battle system. The ability to control the flow of battle through canceling, comboing, criting, having your speed reduced due to certain aactions you take, and repositioning around the battlefield makes eacha nd every battle interesting AND most of them life threatening. Being overpowered doesn't instantly net you the win in even minor encounters due to the fact thtat so many different factors can effect the outcome of a given battle.

The Bad:

Instant Death moves given to minor enemies. FFX-2 was especially guilty of this rediculous bs, with high level characters falling prey to minor, begining level mosters. This is a terribly poor attempt to add the feeling that each battle counts, when in fact its just a horribly broken attack. I don't mind if the enemies AT MY LEVEL OR HIGHER get to pull this kind, but for some weak, 15hp 'throw-a-pebble-and-OHKO-it' monster to kill your level 60 PC is just plain garbage.

[twentytwo]

Honorable mention: Group XP- not sure which game started this mechanic, but basically it maens that a fraction of the xp your party gained in battle is given to members of your party that weren't fighting...

Chrono Trigger is the first I remember...


Good:

The 'Timed-Hit' system from:
 Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy 8 (Squall only), Legend of Dragoon, Parappa the Rapper... (j/k :P)

Push the button at a certain time, and you get added damage! Quite fun, as you actually had to pay attention to pull it off. Legend of Dragoon really pulled that off well, with the rotating squares - even their addition of timed defense was actually quite interesting...

Only downside - you can't watch TV quite building EXP...


The 'Party Level' from:
 Ephemeral Phantasia

I bring this one up a lot...

I really liked the idea behind this. The amount of experience you gain during the game is recorded and your group is given a level based on this. When your character's individual level is lower than this party level, you get extra experience, which quickly allows low level characters to catch up to the others.

The problem with this system, though, was that it forced you to have a single main character in your team at all times, which eventually made it impossible for him to level up any further without leveling up EVERYONE... (and there were TONS of characters...)


The 'SeeD Rank' from:
  Final Fantasy 8

Am I the only one who thinks beating up monsters shouldn't make you money...?

EXP, yes. Money... huh?

Though I admit, it would be better if the characters you didn't have in your team were forced to work parttime to fund your adventures... LOL


Bad:

The Wheel from:
  Unlimited:SaGa

Yes... it's always a good idea to make all your abilities depend on a spinning wheel which displays nothing but the same set of icons over and over again that mean entirely different things with different equipment...

...I'm not even sure that SENTENCE made sense...

The 'Half your Gold' dilemma from:
  Dragon Quest

I ABSOLUTELY hate this idea. First of all, it IS nice that when you die, you have the option to not lose everything you've worked for. However, I never could figure out who in the world, in their right mind, would actually give up half of their hard-earned money just to recapture an hour of level-building. It often takes WAY longer than that just to earn that money. As good as it sounds, it makes absolutely no sense...

Final Fantasy 6 was at least fair, in that when you die, you just restart from where you last saved, having retained the level-up you earned. The only sacrifice there was any bonuses you may have gotten from the Espers you equipped...

Which brings me to:

My Favorite!, the 'Try Again' from
  Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (FF USA)

I have never loved a game mechanic so much as this one. If you lose in a fight, just try again... no questions asked. Wild Arms 3 tried this, though their Gimel Coins weren't exactly the same (you had to earn 'continues').

Now, back to earning some money...
-22

[Dracos]

Timed hits is good to some degree.

M&L2 is an example I'd quote of taking it too far.  I'd quote Dragoon too but you never had a reason to use anything less than your most awesome combo in effect as I remember.

Dracos

[Dexie Oblivion]

I'm totally digging the reaction command system from Kingdom Hearts 2.

Granted, my reflexes suck and I miss like, half of them, but still, it's a cool way to add variety to a hacky-slashy game.

[Dexie Oblivion]

The stupid-as-hell radar system from Wild ARMs series needs to burn.

[Ragnar]

The 'Half your Gold' dilemma

I hate that as well. There is, however, an explanation courtesy of a nice Dragon-Warrior comic website (scroll down). There are some other funny DQ comics on there, too.

[twentytwo]

I'm totally digging the reaction command system from Kingdom Hearts 2.

Wind Waker *cough* rip-off *cough cough*

At least in Wind Waker, you could actually push the button at the wrong time and cancel the effect, whereas in KH2 you could just mash it and get it every time.

The only real benefit that had, besides looking awesome, was that you got to mash something other than the X button...

Very enjoyable, but not exactly a ground-breaker...

The stupid-as-hell radar system from Wild ARMs series needs to burn.

sad... I happen to like that one...

A lot better than having every landmark and hidden treasure visible on the field. Not only that, but it is actually used as a dynamic way to control where the player can and cannot go at various times during the game (you can only find the places you have been told about). As far as game-design goes, its pretty useful, but only if you use it right. It's a nice mix between the Strategy RPG formula of adding static locations to your map so you can go there and the wandering around looking for something to do formula used in regular RPGs.

I played the original game and loved that system when it was introduced in 2nd Ignition (which by the way was one of my favorite games). Personally, it's better than the alternative...

***

Well, speaking of KH2...

Pretty Good:

The shared exprience system from:
Kingdom Hearts 2

Just like the Party Leveling thing, only different. Basicly, if you get experience, everyone gets experience, even those who aren't with you at the moment. Only one number is used for everyone; if YOU've got 2500 experience during the game, then EVERYONE has 2500 experience. Simplicity at its finest. No catch-up required...

Great:

The "Split Scenario System" from:
Final Fantasy 6, Wild Arms series, etc.

Play through a series of events from multiple points of view. Quite nice if it were only done more than once per game...

-22

[Dracos]

I'm totally digging the reaction command system from Kingdom Hearts 2.

Wind Waker *cough* rip-off *cough cough*

At least in Wind Waker, you could actually push the button at the wrong time and cancel the effect, whereas in KH2 you could just mash it and get it every time.

The only real benefit that had, besides looking awesome, was that you got to mash something other than the X button...

Very enjoyable, but not exactly a ground-breaker...

The stupid-as-hell radar system from Wild ARMs series needs to burn.

sad... I happen to like that one...

A lot better than having every landmark and hidden treasure visible on the field. Not only that, but it is actually used as a dynamic way to control where the player can and cannot go at various times during the game (you can only find the places you have been told about). As far as game-design goes, its pretty useful, but only if you use it right. It's a nice mix between the Strategy RPG formula of adding static locations to your map so you can go there and the wandering around looking for something to do formula used in regular RPGs.

I played the original game and loved that system when it was introduced in 2nd Ignition (which by the way was one of my favorite games). Personally, it's better than the alternative...

***

Well, speaking of KH2...

Pretty Good:

The shared exprience system from:
Kingdom Hearts 2

Just like the Party Leveling thing, only different. Basicly, if you get experience, everyone gets experience, even those who aren't with you at the moment. Only one number is used for everyone; if YOU've got 2500 experience during the game, then EVERYONE has 2500 experience. Simplicity at its finest. No catch-up required...

Great:

The "Split Scenario System" from:
Final Fantasy 6, Wild Arms series, etc.

Play through a series of events from multiple points of view. Quite nice if it were only done more than once per game...

-22

Yes, but how they use Radar, it comes out as a different 'rougher' form of the town-dungeon-blockadge mechanic.  It doesn't scale particularly well to large things and how its been implemented thus far often runs along the line of making really silly logic bits.  Towns, as a rule, should be visible if you're in the area.  Especially on open plains and deserts (which is the overwhelming majority of the terrain).  I still hold a grudge against WA2 for making me 'radar out' gigantic towers that pierced into the sky above.  That was stupid and totally tossed me out of any sense of acceptance of the world reality.  Using it for hidden treasures?  Neat.  Technically using it for dynamic control of player going?  Sort of neat...but at the same time, betrays the notion.  Especially with some of the later varients that included 'hey, you can't see this until you know about it' (I recall such anyhow, could recall wrong).

In general?  They needed to have places that you were being given directions to or were blatantly obvious just show up.  They overused the system to keep to consistent handling, to its own detriment.  It doesn't benefit anything to transform "Go north to the tree and then north east to filtzgard" into "Go north to the tree and then north east to filtzgard, then hit the radar a half dozen times around that area as you go to figure out where we built the town".

I think WAs handling of the system, as a whole, was pretty poor.  It could be done better.

That said?  I didn't find it fun to do ever.  I don't like constantly hitting 'search' while I'm going around.  Which is the effect if there's reasonably much to hide  OR stuff is obscure.  Implimented well, it can give a sort of alternate way to find things you shouldn't yet and at the same time, maintain hidden information on the world map (which can be good).

Dracos
Mrrgh

[Rift120]

BAd thing: fighting as purely NPC charcters

Let me explain this. I've been playing Shadow Hearts... I really enjoy this game, aside from a few odd glitches (For somereason equipping the 'anti-ambush' item doesn't seem to work for me)... still one part annoys me...

Namely the mutant apes, aside from their sudden introduciton int he game my main beef with them is the part where you have to fight through several battles using ONLY THEM and none of the player charcters.

Granted the little Shooting gallery mini-game is some what fun, but really was this part even necessary for the game? Having the whole pre walkthrough of Hojo's lab with the mutant apes serves no real purpose, especially since any items gained do NOT enter your main party inventory.  

And then there is the additional boss fight where these three are sent forth to deal witht e bosses minions during a temporary truce with your players party.... three battles, that are COMPLETLY POINTLESS (at least this time you get to keep the items and soul gained, tho...) and just wastes time.  Would it have been so HARD to put in a FMV instead?

Do note I am not complaining about NPC members who temporarily join your party, like Bigs and Wedge from FFVI's opening dungeon.... I'm talking about a pure NPC party you fight with for maybe one dungeon, and then can never use any of the charcters again.

[thepanda]

I liked the moogle battles, though. >_>

[Dracos]

admittingly, npcs fighting 'in front of you' is a different kind of thing than 'random baddies across the world'.

That said, it was partially to build sympathy with Kato and those characters.  It transformed them into something other than simply random unexplained enemies when you do kill them before the end.

Dracos

[Rift120]

I understand why it was done, but I still think it could have been done better with a FMV instead...


And I still say the little pre-shoki fight with them was pointless