"One to be born from a dragon..." -- Let's Play Final Fantasy II

I would play this. But understand that the "minor battles" are going to eventually become rote, for no reason other than they are minor battles. You can't get around it.

Minor battles must be minor, but good encounter design and ability design can keep them from becoming monotonous. Apparently for some people even well-designed encounters are too samey and not sufficiently demanding, which is a greater risk when the battles feature long animations. Some games compensate for this by making it so that any encounter you don't pay attention to can and probably will fuck you up. Others mix genres with something else that is considered more engaging by default. Many techniques have been done and many more have yet to be tried.

The autofight is nice but I'm spoiled by SaGa 2's option to turn off battle animation. Granted that game needs it more because you might fight fifty enemies at once, but it's no less welcome when you're slogging through a series of smaller battles.

Four Heroes has, at times, the biggest problem that arises with random battles - getting interrupted all the time when you're trying to navigate a maze. But mostly I don't mind them. When it starts to get tedious I stop playing for a while, like in any RPG.

FFXII - well, don't get me started.

With Mother 3, it would have been a couple weeks versus...well, going on five years.

You can still read it online for free!

I'm fluent in Japanese, so while I didn't need the English ROM patch, this guidebook still helped me get through the game. (I started out teaching myself kana right around the time FF2 came out and wound up a professional video game translator. Go figure.)

Depends who you're targeting it at really, but there's a few options. Depending on the target audience, you could probably get away with...

- Huge trap filled puzzley dungeons you have to navigate to get to bosses.

- A ton of little minigame deals (think, like, Fable I guess), possibly involving/improving the same stats as the boss battles do.

- Just a @#$%load of cutscenes.

- Platforming.

Easy enough keeping "numbers go up!" with any of those really.

I've had a similar idea before. An RPG where you only receive experience/levels after boss fights. Standard battles would be compulsory events that are obstacles rather than random annoyances. Grinding wouldn't be an issue. Difficulty would be pretty finely tuned, as it would be impossible to be under/overleveled.

I haven't given it much thought beyond that, though.

...Chrono Cross? Granted, that game was pretty easy, but still.

Very Cool! The lack of a US release of FF5 spurred me to start studying Japanese. . (Just a hobbyist)

It's only easy if you play "well". Chrono Cross becomes a hell of a lot harder if you purposely limit yourself. Just try doing a no-regular-elements run and see how far you get with just consumables. Really, I like that kind of game better: where the challenge factor is primarily determined by the player, not by the developer.

... doesn't every game?

Theoretically. Some games, however, are so strictly designed that there's little to no way to actually impose limitations on yourself. Rhythm games come to mind: there's very little the player can do in-game to increase the challenge outside of the standard difficulty options. Pretty much you have to employ real-world measures (alcohol, alternative controllers, not watching the screen, etc.) if you want to make things more interesting than the game allows for otherwise.

Not true! With Rock Band, at least, you can severely ramp up the difficulty by doing vocals along with whatever instrument you're playing!

Yeah, the rhythm games where you can man the vocals as well as an instrument are usually an exception to that. Alas, there's not nearly as many of those as there are instrument-only. And it still requires a second controller, which (for any of the games that don't come bundled with the set) can get prohibitively expensive.

It's the waiting for something I know I have obtained that's the problem. I'm the same way with looking at the manual for a console game I buy in-store.

Yeah, it's weird, but still.

I can't quite figure out how to explain the other reason I want to wait for a release rather than importing it, but it's sort of like, if I buy a GBA game, I want to be able to play and comprehend it portably. If I just have a ROM, it's not as big of a deal as having a portable cartridge that I can't read any of the text in and then having to play a non-portable translated ROM. And there's no way in hell I'm spending my money on a flash cart (or whatever it's called).

It is my goal to one day play through all of Beatles Rock Band singing while playing the appropriate instrument for whichever one is doing the lead vocals (more or less).

I've never actually played Chrono Cross, so I wouldn't know. Preferably my game would not actually be easy, though.

I'm excited to see that so many people want a grind-free RPG. Sign me up!
This is the approach I'd take, more or less. Give players a choice of the order to tackle dungeons/bosses (with clearly marked difficulty levels), and have each dungeon/level confer some unique piece(s) of equipment. Place a severe restriction on the amount of equipment players can bring into a dungeon, to add strategic planning. Self-imposed challenges could include difficult level orders or equipment restrictions.
I really don't want to lead to a thread derail, but... spluh? You want to play Mother 3, in English, on the go. The only way you can accomplish this at present is via a flashcart. So why exactly are you dead set against getting one?

I have to say, I like some of the ideas you guys are throwing around, but they don't really sound RPG-y to me. Clearly, we need to first define what an RPG is. Thoughts?





...that oughtta keep 'em busy for three or four pages, at least!

A RPG is a Game where you Role Play as another character and gain levels and stuff.

Pish-posh, all this nonsense is truly ludicrous wot. The meaning of RPG is spelled out in the very meaning of the acronym: role-playing game! Mind you, most of the games nowadays calling themselves that don't so much let you play a role as they force you to control the players in the actions of a pre-written story, but such is the limit of the medium I suppose.

And here's the part where we start arguing if they should even be called "role-playing games" at all and swing around the term "JRPG" like a talisman to justify that, right? Oh how I love these debates, especially how they've been had for dozens of years and not one side wants to budge on their position. Simply delightful!

Press the Triangle button or the Y button to open the status menu.

That's it.

Genre classifications tend to be nonsensical on the whole anyway, so it's sort of a moot argument.

SHIT, OH WAIT THIS IS THE INTERNET!

Uh, RPGs are terrible because you're terrible?

Not quite. Try, "Your favorite RPG is terrible because you're terrible, and I'm incapable of making mistakes and having bias." That should work a little better, but it's just a starting point.

"I don't know what you know about RPGs, but I'm an expert."

Anyone who uses the term JRPG is an idiot and should be shot because it could maybe possibly have racist connations. Also, if you do not understand why this amazing new generation of semantics is important, you are stupid. Yes, I know, that's insulting, but it's also true.

Now all we need is the "let's just call 'em RPGs and stop arguing" failed peacemaking attempt and an over-the-top silly suggestion on how to deal with the situation meant to show how silly things have gotten via reductio-ad-absurdum, and we'll have a microcosm of a GameFAQs forum debate!

...Remind me why we're simulating a GameFAQs forum debate again?

Misplaced nostalgia?

In this case, I believe we can all settle on TBCSwaEoAAAoaNMoDRiOtIoANtICStoaIaN.

(Turn-Based Combat Simulator with an Emphasis on Accruing Arbitrary Amounts of a Numerical Measurement of Difficulty Reward in Order to Increase other Arbitrary Numbers that Indicate Combat Skill that often also Incorporates a Narrative).

I am so, so sorry. You're allowed to internet punch me.

It's an RPG if you can see the numbers and it's not obviously something else.