“I always say that, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.” — Duke of Wellington
Battles are a vital part of RPGs. They consist about 50% of the game while the other 25% is exploring and 25% is plot related. So in order to design a good game, a good battle system is a must. Battle systems vary from game to game; however some rely on old traditions such as turn based or ATB. Some do something different like go Dungeons and Dragon style or Grandia style. The right battle system can salvage a bad game or make a great game look glorious. The wrong battle system can tarnish a game which was destined for something greater, but now we will never know right? I will discuss the many different styles of battle.
Now the most traditional and the easiest to make is turn based. Well, now there are different variations to turn based. One of the examples of the most visual different variations is the difference between Final Fantasy 10(FFX) and Dragon Warrior. Many would call it turn based. Well in theory, it is; however, that is not what old school gamers such as me consider turn based. Hardcore turn based means that you input all the commands at the same time, and the enemy inputs it too. So you tend to have the general idea who goes first, but that is always up for grabs as it can change in turn. How is that different? Well the strategy changes. It is one thing to assess the current situation and make a decision with one character. It is entirely a different thing to make a decision based on the outcome of the round, predictions of what the enemy will do, and wishful hoping.
Let’s give a battle situation. Let’s say one person is critically injured and is in need of immediate healing. The FFX strategy would be is to swap in Yuna or use a Hi potion as it takes effect immediately. Now the Dragon Warrior strategy would be to have one member cure that person and hope the enemy doesn’t attack before he or she had the chance or you can have the whole party cure the member. Why the whole party? The whole party would raise the odds of getting to her first before the monster does. Sometimes that back fires and cures other people if the member dies, and you accomplished nothing that round. So when I said wishful thinking, it comes a lot into pray, stop nothing short of praying once in a while hoping “please for once in my life, don’t let him attack me first”.
That is the obvious aspect. There are other aspects to turn based such as the way they determine who attacks first. Lufia: The Legend Returns has a system that differs from others. They measure the stat of speed and for each person that the player gave a command to, the game put it on a “list” ranking the highest speed first to lowest speed. Simply put, whoever has the highest stat goes first all the time and the order follows as listed to the lowest stat. Some other games have a “stat” and they tend to like +-5, or something like that so that generally, that person will usually go first but the system can change who goes first. This makes it very unreliable and causes you to take risks. One other system allows magic to go first before allowing physical attacks to happen. This example is used in Breath of Fire. You can heal a person before the round begins so you don’t have to worry about the person being cured in time. Okay, that is turn based battle system. Now let’s turn our attention to the battle system that FF has heavily relied on since its conception in Final Fantasy 4(FFIV) Active Turn based!
Active turn based is a battle system that FF has used from FFIV to Final Fantasy 9(FFIX). It is a flawless system that rarely needs updating, however, because of the rare modifications made each time, it tend to become repetitive. Many Squaresoft games have that, and it might be the most familiar battle system to RPGamers. The battle system does not only apply to the FF series, also other games but Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, two prominent games in their own respect. They might be good games because of the story line but having good battle systems definitely seals up some of the doubts. Anyway, the active turn based is a lot more fair and easier. There is a bar under each character that “charges” in time. When the bar becomes full, it is your turn to attack. Simple enough, however, you can wait until other people charge up, then you decide the order but the enemy can attack you in the meantime. Some games prevent enemies from attacking you while you make a choice. That is good for a beginner who has little experience with the pace. The pace is not really, fast but does take time to keep up and think ahead. Some people think FFIV didn’t have ATB. It did, but it never showed the bar. So it sounds turn based. ATB is pretty popular and simple to use. ATB makes the game easier, in my opinion, because you worry about what you can do now instead of how everything will turn out. After FFIX, ATB stopped in FF. I was disappointed when I heard that there would be a new battle system. Now, I realized that it was a good change to something that is old and worn out. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good battle system but it is used too many times like a cliché!
Many battle systems have been developed for many different games. Such examples are Grandia 2, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Dungeons and Dragons games such as Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Nevernight Winters. Grandia 2 is one of the most unique battle systems. They have a bar underneath and all the enemies and characters on there. Over time, the people will move on the bar going to the end of the bar. When they hit a certain point, they are allowed to issue commands. Depending on the command, you might move swiftly to execution and attack fast, or you might move slowly as you cast a magic. During the time between command and execution, you may be able to cancel an enemy attack, so timing is everything. I won’t go too deep into that. Xenogears and Chrono Cross have a unique system. Xenogears is a mixture of both ATB and a stamina system. Characters will be allowed to use three different types of attack using 1, 2, or 3 points of stamina. How does ATB fit in the game? ATB decides when the character is able to attack. As the level goes up, your stamina goes up to a max of 7 points so at that point you will be able to use two 3 points attack and one 1 point attack. Chrono Cross is very similar, only that there is no ATB and you can choose for the characters to attack at anytime providing that they have stamina available. I won’t go too deep. If you are curious, ask me later. Dungeons and Dragons games battle system derive directly from the paper and pencil game itself. They use “dices” in the game which is randomly selected number to determine a point that the attack got. If the hit equal or exceeds the armor class, a stat to define how easy or hard to hit a person or a monster, it will be successful and then rolls to determine how many hp will it take off. I forgot the rules so I might be incorrect but it is something similar to that. It is more real time based, however you can pause to issue commands during the battle. This is helpful if you are focusing on too many things at the same time. So it is also pretty complicated and I am not in favor of the system but many old school RPGamers from way back then like it and still like it to date because of the many opportunities that the games provide.
The battle system makes up a key ingredient the game. These systems are different and many times, different is good. If all games had the same battle system, the games will turn boring no matter how good the plot is. Go forth and slay your enemies but as one wise master said,
“A great warrior humph, war does not make one great”