So, after playing both Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean 2, I've noticed that both don't have wizard characters do much interesting. In both games, they are faceless nukers that are best used to apply high area wide damage. There's little difference between a Celine and a Leon, or a Nanami and a Gandar once they've got their good spells. In a way, this is kinda funny; usually in video games the magical classes have the interesting options while the fighters are considerably more simplified, but tri-Ace somehow inverts this completely, often making intricate fighting mechanics and then not having their wizard characters deal with any of it. I wonder if this is the case for their other games, and if so, why.
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Are tri-Ace bad at making wizards?
- Thread starter Second Duke Revier
- Start date
i feel like the problem you're identifying is something pretty common in action rpgs and their relatives in that era until more recently, which is that magic uses a very different kind of mechanical system than weapon attacks and the like which isn't really fleshed out in the same way. i'm inclined to think that something like secret of mana (or older than that) was kind of a big inspiration for tri-ace's games since there's a similar focus on visual effects and the "screen freeze" at spellcasting. in secret of mana though, magic is kind of akin to the weapon attacks, which also generally hit one at a time, have delays due to the stamina bar, and so on...so the gap becomes more jarring once you go to a game where some of your characters start doing fast combos and the other one pauses the game 50% of the time to hit with meteors for a few thousand damage
i definitely think it's true that star ocean 2's mages are lacking in both mechanical design and overall power level (vp's...are really good, but it's boring to cart around 3 of them and menu enemies to death) but also...not really the only part of the game that's wonky and unbalanced. but i do think it's something that a lot of designers have iterated on in time, not just tri-ace; playing spellcasters wasn't super interesting until the later ps2 era in tales games either, and ff7r's version of aerith probably has my favorite action-game type mechanics for a "mage type" i've seen. (obviously, it helps that "basic" elemental nuke spells are baked into materia in that game and designed for anyone to be able to use, so they really had to come up with cool stuff to give her.) in valkyrie profile 2 spellcasters still aren't super exciting, but they bring a bit more to the table in terms of non-damage utility and it's easier to work around their poor combo power, and the more recent star ocean games (even if i don't think i would really recommend 4 or 5 to much of anyone, lol) have at least tried to bring magic mechanics more in line with the sorts of combos and stuff that weapons have, to varying success. in 6 the healer actually still doesn't play like other characters but she has some interesting resource and buff mechanics that i think are pretty cool...
anyway, i just wanted to finish writing this before someone comes in like "tri-ace are bad at making most things amirite" or something lol. i'm still a big fan of most of their games, jank and all
i definitely think it's true that star ocean 2's mages are lacking in both mechanical design and overall power level (vp's...are really good, but it's boring to cart around 3 of them and menu enemies to death) but also...not really the only part of the game that's wonky and unbalanced. but i do think it's something that a lot of designers have iterated on in time, not just tri-ace; playing spellcasters wasn't super interesting until the later ps2 era in tales games either, and ff7r's version of aerith probably has my favorite action-game type mechanics for a "mage type" i've seen. (obviously, it helps that "basic" elemental nuke spells are baked into materia in that game and designed for anyone to be able to use, so they really had to come up with cool stuff to give her.) in valkyrie profile 2 spellcasters still aren't super exciting, but they bring a bit more to the table in terms of non-damage utility and it's easier to work around their poor combo power, and the more recent star ocean games (even if i don't think i would really recommend 4 or 5 to much of anyone, lol) have at least tried to bring magic mechanics more in line with the sorts of combos and stuff that weapons have, to varying success. in 6 the healer actually still doesn't play like other characters but she has some interesting resource and buff mechanics that i think are pretty cool...
anyway, i just wanted to finish writing this before someone comes in like "tri-ace are bad at making most things amirite" or something lol. i'm still a big fan of most of their games, jank and all
Counterpoint: Lezard Valeth is an incredibly good wizard villain.
Interesting observations, spines. Yeah, it's certainly tricky to think of magic performing other roles effectively in a real time combat setting, though there are certainly directions they could take. Hell, Star Ocean 2 itself has alternate roles in the form of status spells, just they're usually pretty bad status spells. I feel like letting wizards effectively either mix in either various forms of magic beyond direct damage, or switch between regular attacks and magic could do a lot to make them play far more interestingly, and could help add personality to them.
I'd argue that that confirms that they're great at making bad wizards
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Star Ocean Divine Force lets the main Wizard Guy function exactly like the rest of the fighters (if you pick up the Final Chant versions of his basic spells).
Good point. Now I'm wondering if someone here has ever ran a Top 50 Wizards popularity contest...
It was the first.
The Popularity Contest Masterlist
Here is a constantly updated list of all of the popularity contests. I want to thank Conchobar for running the original (which I copy and pasted). My masterlist will include what he has done and will update to include future lists. As well, the next post also will contain full lists of all of...
talking-time.net
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
And certainly not the last. But yeah, that was the first one I tossed out there to get people interested. Characters who made that list include Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Aang because... people really like to split heirs on definitions (sadly, no Ice King). No Tri-Ace wizards (or and three Harry Potter characters because that's how long ago the list was.
You could do videogame wizards. Or traditional wizards. If we wanted to exclude space wizards or movie ones.
Doesnt that one fly in some sort of space submarine?
Oh goodness no, that would be ridiculous.
Ralethor flies in the space-submarine, and he's a mysterious hermit, not necessarily a wizard
Ralethor flies in the space-submarine, and he's a mysterious hermit, not necessarily a wizard
I kind of wonder how much spells ignoring defense and evasion and hitting a wide area in those two games plays into the blandness I talked about? On one hand, spells ignoring those mechanics makes sense, but on the other, it means they're innately designed to skip most of the game's design, and, at the very least, need some new framework around them to have a flavor beyond "big area wide damage".
I mean usually theyre glass cannons. So big damage but crumple under physical attacks. I'm not familiar enough with the games under discussion to know if that is true. Though, I do see how this can translate poorly into the JRPG paradigm.