[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Actually, not to support FF, but most FF games use a gauge meter that lets you do attacks when it fills too… One meter for each person in the team…
Same goes for Grandia. And possibly other titles I can’t think of now.
Some RPGs also have “speed” ratings too which basically do the work of a gauge in deciding the order characters can do their move without having a visible filling gauge… So in that sense they aren’t really turn based…[/quote]
From what i remember, i think FF7 was not gauged based. Gauges improve it sligtly, but PDS being the first proper RPG i ever played with its own battles simply blew me away. And the movement actually makes me feel it is a solely realtime battle. I just dont get those feelings with the other games…
Whatever, man. The battle system in PDS beats the shit out of FF or SoA anyday. I can finish three battles in PDS in the amount of time it takes many to finish a single battle in FF.
It’s not necessarily bad either, when you consider that the turnbased battle engine is much smoother in PDS than FF, whose battle-system bores me to no ends.
The trouble with most role playing games is that they consist mostly of choosing options and then sitting and watching the outcome based on mathematical values while your characters stay in the same exact place. The inclusion of a “time bar” only slowed things down because you had to wait for the bars to fill up. Final Fantasy 7 put a slight spin on this formula by allowing the enemies to attack while you were choosing options so that it seemed like the action was always moving. Panzer Dragoon Saga came out way before Final Fantasy 7 and had the first truly revolutionary battle system, taking the time bars of the earlier Final Fantasies and building on them by speeding up the bars and allowing you to constantly move around the battlefield, giving you a sense of real action. There are only a few enemies where position doesn’t matter and it’s just sitting and waiting. I also love Knights of the Old Republic’s battle system because you could also move around and stack up commands. Grandia and Grandia 2 also had a complex battle system.
What usually makes or breaks an RPG is its story, and here again, Panzer Dragoon Saga has Final Fantasy 7 beat.
Final Fantasy (Japan): 01/31/97
Azel Panzer Dragoon (Japan): 01/29/98
Final Fantasy (North America): 08/31/97
Panzer Dragoon Saga (North America): 04/30/98
Sorry, I don’t have European stats, but FF7 beat PDS out the door by a year. I originally thought the two games were closer contemporaries to each other, but a friend pointed out to me that FF7 was older and when I did some checking I found out that he was right.
Hmm. Odd. Maybe it was because the Saturn was an older and “weaker” system than the Playstation that I assumed that Final Fantasy 7 came out later. But if I remember correctly, the Saturn WAS in competition with the Playstation. And the Playstation naturally trounced it. Thanks for those numbers. 1998 was so long ago.
They came out so reasonably close to each other, but guess which game has the superior graphical design. ^.~
The Saturn was outselling the Playstation in Japan until Final Fantasy 7 arrived, which suggests that it was eagerly awaited even before Square drew up plans to develop the game. Needless to say, Final Fantasy 7 was and still is extremely overrated.
