Fire Emblem Souen no Kiseki

[Solo_Wing]

Anyway the PS2 has had plenty of Nippon Ichi SRPGs that have been very sucessful (3, with a 4th one planned), and Atlus are also releashing Stella Deus a new SRPG on the PS2 and lets not forget the sucess of FF:TA no matter how crap it was so its not as if there isnt a market.

I’m heard of those games and I must say that they look quite interesting and worth playing. What I’m wondering is, are there any other games that use a Fire Emblem style graphics engine (fully 3D). I haven’t played a 3D SRPG since Shining Force III on the Saturn.

I personally think it’s wrong for people to consider action games any less deeper than strategic ones (i mean combat-wise).In theory (and in my own opinion) i think the ultimate fighting gameplay system would be a mix of the two but would be essentially action.

I don’t consider action games in general to be less deep than turn based games. When I say less deep I’m talking about in situations where you control more than one character at once. You can never have the same level of control over an entire army in a real time game. The human mind simply can not keep up with controlling so many units at once.

Action games enable the possibility of having the exact same elements of startegy a strategic game would have.You can fake turn-based combat in an action game but you can’t fake action in a turn-based game.

How exactly? Even in a real time strategy you don’t have direct control over each and every unit at the same time, you tell multiple units to do the same thing.

Sega could make a hack and slash game that had 12 characters on the battlefield at once, but if AI was controlling the other 11 characters then you could never have the same level of control over those characters as you do in a true Shining Force game.

So, while you may have more control over the single character that you’re controlling, I don’t see any way that you could have “the exact same elements of strategy” that a Force game would have.

I mean - playing with statistics can be done outside of gaming with pen and paper.I have played SRPG’s and enjoyed some.I loved Shining Force 2 and (event ho it was the first RPG i ever played) I only near-finished it 2 years ago or so.But such games often feel like a facade to something that could be experienced without a computer/console.It doens’t feel interactive.

Yes, you could play something like Shining Force outside of a video game, but you wouldn’t get the same visual effects, and you’d have to keep track of everything yourself which would be a lot of hassle considering the sheer amount of stats etc. With Shining Force, you can just pick up the controller and the computer does all of the calculating for you. I don’t see how that is “a waste of the console’s potential”.

[Felix]

[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]

Anyway the PS2 has had plenty of Nippon Ichi SRPGs that have been very sucessful (3, with a 4th one planned), and Atlus are also releashing Stella Deus a new SRPG on the PS2 and lets not forget the sucess of FF:TA no matter how crap it was so its not as if there isnt a market.

I’m heard of those games and I must say that they look quite interesting and worth playing. What I’m wondering is, are there any other games that use a Fire Emblem style graphics engine (fully 3D). I haven’t played a 3D SRPG since Shining Force III on the Saturn.[/quote]

Front Mission 4 is about the closest thing you can get on a PS2 in terms of a fully 3D SRPG, also there is a great title by Lucas Arts called Gladius, it is available for all platforms and is a fully 3D gladitorial strategy RPG, I sued to own it for the Xbox and it was on of the best games I have ever played.

It even had a great multiplayer mode for up to 4 people where you can train your school of gladiators and pit them against each other. The game had a great mix of classic gladiators and magic based characters, plus animals. I always loved assaulting my enemies with my bear, Zod.

If anyone wants a great deep SRPG, I would highly recommend this game. It is very long (50+ hours) and has 2 campaigns, each that length.

http://www.lucasarts.com/products/gladius/index.html

[Ehndow]

It’s a waste of power Solo, because even my old 486 could handle the statistics involved.

Oh and when I say fake turnbased I don’t mean controlling alot of people at the same time.I mean you having your turn and then your adversary having his/her.I’m not talking about the strategy of numbers in a combat I’m talking about other startegic elements liek striking first

But I think it’s possible to do a SRPG inside an Action RPG.Issueing commands and switching characters while in combat are two relatively simple thinks that can/could be done.

[Al3xand3r]

WTF? Action RPGs are just as old as Strategy RPGs, if not older… You can strip the fancy graphics and animations and special effects and whatever else off of any game and reduce characters to a few pixels and then your old 486 would play them all. How does that make an SRPG any more of a waste of power than an ARPG? Hell, behind your fast paced hack and slash there’s a hidden much simpler statistics system than that of an SRPG.

Hell even if the statistics system was just as complex as that of an SRPG it wouldn’t make much of a difference since you’d always be able to win with pure reflexes and “skill” rendering any kind of weakness or whatever a simple difference in the time it takes you to defeat an enemy rather than have a real impact in the battle.

As for changing characters while in combat making an ARPG deeper… Eh… If it’s real time and you switch characters then the previous character you controlled will either become static or have AI take over meaning it’s just the same as when you only controlled the one character anyway… It doesn’t give it any more depth, it just gives you more variety in what character you are playing with while the rest are AI controlled doing their own thing as before… And also have you worry that the AI will screw up and cost you a good character while if you were controlling him yourself at the time you’d have won.

The ability to give a few commands to characters doesn’t come anywhere near close having to decide every single action each unit takes with near perfect precision, thinking several turns ahead, since if done wrong it may cost you a good character you have built or even the whole battle.

Consider the chess thing someone said earlier, do you seriously think that an Action RPG can have as much depth and require as much thought with the millions of strategies that exist for it?

Now take chess and multiply the depth tenfold for a good SRPG since each unit doesn’t only have one way of moving and one “attack” but a full range of skills, attacks, possible equipment, strengths and weaknesses and statistics since each and every one is a full blown RPG character. Then also add the way the terrain type the unit currently resides on affects all the aforementioned elements in one way or another.

Even if the game mechanics of an ARPG gave you as much control over all the characters you just wouldn’t be able to keep up with them all and play it just as if you never had that level of control with only occasionally using a command or two inbetween the hack & slashing.

And even if you could keep up (which you couldn’t, I’m just saying, IF), then the battle would still just rely on fighting skill instead of deep tactical thinking and if you were good enough you’d win the whole battle with one character regardless of how the rest of your team did.

From the way you talk about this it sounds like you never got really into an SRPG. You can just simply say you prefer realtime action with perhaps a few tactical elements over turn based games. Not make a futile attempt to show people something as outrageous as an ARPG having the level of depth of an SRPG. That simply can’t happen.

[Ehndow]

Let go of that teenager angst (however old you are)!There is strategy in action games and it can be as deep as strategic games.Most of the times you are just using your reflexes and the strategy feels natural but it’s there.

Basically I’m just fighting the idea that action games are any dumber than SRPGs since from my own personal experience I had a lot of action game situations where I had a bigger strategy enigma than in strategy RPGs.

PS:Old actino RPGs were very limited in terms of what I’m talking about.Where’s the strategy in Blood Omen’s combat?Or most of the old Zelda’s?

[Bluefoot]

[quote=“Felix”]also there is a great title by Lucas Arts called Gladius, it is available for all platforms and is a fully 3D gladitorial strategy RPG, I sued to own it for the Xbox and it was on of the best games I have ever played.

It even had a great multiplayer mode for up to 4 people where you can train your school of gladiators and pit them against each other. The game had a great mix of classic gladiators and magic based characters, plus animals. I always loved assaulting my enemies with my bear, Zod.

If anyone wants a great deep SRPG, I would highly recommend this game. It is very long (50+ hours) and has 2 campaigns, each that length.

http://www.lucasarts.com/products/gladius/index.html[/quote]

I actually bought this game for Gamecube last summer. It was pretty fun, but it never really sucked me in. After reading that, though, maybe I’ll give it another whack.

[Al3xand3r]

Let go of that teenager angst (however old you are)!There is strategy in action games and it can be as deep as strategic games.Most of the times you are just using your reflexes and the strategy feels natural but it’s there.

Maybe you should keep pointless provocative comments to yourself and reply properly to my or whoever else’s points? If you don’t wish that then simply ignore them alltogether. I hardly think that a wtf or the usage of the word hell in a manner similar to my post gives off that kind of attitude, especially when it’s been used in these forums in far different and worse ways quite often. I made no attempts to provoce you or insult you and I’d like the discussion to be kept in the same way in its entirety as this is The Holy District and I’m also in no mood of returning to our old glory days where I couldn’t say almost anything without an almost direct attack from a certain someone following right after…

PS:Old actino RPGs were very limited in terms of what I’m talking about.Where’s the strategy in Blood Omen’s combat?Or most of the old Zelda’s?

I didn’t make any real points regarding that. If the single first sentence of my post confuses you in such a way then simply ignore it and read from the point I wrote “You can strip the fancy graphics…” and onward.

[Ehndow]

Maybe you should keep pointless provocative comments to yourself and reply properly to my or whoever else’s points? If you don’t wish that then simply ignore them alltogether. I hardly think that a wtf or the usage of the word hell in a manner similar to my post gives off that kind of attitude, especially when it’s been used in these forums in far different and worse ways quite often. I made no attempts to provoce you or insult you and I’d like the discussion to be kept in the same way in its entirety as this is The Holy District and I’m also in no mood of returning to our old glory days where I couldn’t say almost anything without an almost direct attack from a certain someone following right after…

You were the one who shifted the conversational mood.If my comment was provocative then what do you call the last paragraph from your previous post?

And my PS was a point in itself.A point of my own not an attempt to prove any of your previous points wrong.

[Al3xand3r]

You were the one who shifted the conversational mood.If my comment was provocative then what do you call the last paragraph from your previous post?

Sorry, no. I call it genuine, to the point, free of any offensive comments and apparently something that for an unknown reason made you go all defensive and resulted in an attempt to insult me instead of a proper reply.

[Ehndow]

Your insinuations (trying to make me look dumb since I was apparently defying a virtual paradigm that says SRPGs will always be deeper than ARPGs) aren’t less offensive than me calling you an anxious teenager (since your post was a rant).

Anyways less stop this ok?

[Al3xand3r]

Sorry, it was not a rant, it has many many valid points that you simply wish to ignore and not reply to as far as I can see. That’s fine with me too, do what you like, it’s not like I’d force you to reply to what I say.
What’s not fine is insulting me when I did not do the same to you. If you have any points to counter everything people here have said and make me see that you are right then I’ll change my mind about that last paragraph which included no offensive remarks except what you chose to interpret. So far, I haven’t.

And yes, you can reply with whatever you want from now on, call me a spammer or whatever, I have nothing more to say to you, or about the original topic anymore since things haven’t been moved on since a few replies above. I’ll only respond again if someone brings up something I find worthwhile or interesting to reply to… And that doesn’t include any more attempts to insult me or make that post of mine appear mean or whatever…

[Felix]

After all this discussion on Fire Emblem (and some other arguments), I was persuaded to go purchase Fire Emblem for my GBA and I am gladly surprised. I don’t know why I didn’t get this game earlier!?!?

I am only a couple hours into it, but I am hooked. I thought the music and the earth tone colors really help the game get a distinct style of it’s own.

[Solo_Wing]

[quote=“Felix”]If anyone wants a great deep SRPG, I would highly recommend this game. It is very long (50+ hours) and has 2 campaigns, each that length.

lucasarts.com/products/gladius/index.html[/quote]

Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for a cheap copy of it.

Basically I’m just fighting the idea that action games are any dumber than SRPGs since from my own personal experience I had a lot of action game situations where I had a bigger strategy enigma than in strategy RPGs.

They’re not always “dumber”, but I think saying that you have less control over an entire army in an action game would be a fair statement. One thing about SRPGs is that you do need to plan a long way ahead, whereas in a hack and slash it’s usually based on the moment with planning ahead not being as important.

But I think it’s possible to do a SRPG inside an Action RPG.Issueing commands and switching characters while in combat are two relatively simple thinks that can/could be done.

Do you mean like having a game where you moved your army like in Shining Force, but when you chose to attack it would turn into a mini game that played like Soul Calibur (just an example)?

Oh, and Felix, enjoy Fire Emblem.

[Felix]

[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]

But I think it’s possible to do a SRPG inside an Action RPG.Issueing commands and switching characters while in combat are two relatively simple thinks that can/could be done.

Do you mean like having a game where you moved your army like in Shining Force, but when you chose to attack it would turn into a mini game that played like Soul Calibur (just an example)?

Oh, and Felix, enjoy Fire Emblem. [/quote]

Mortal Kombat: Deception had a mini game that was similar. It was basic chess, where you move your pieces etc…but when you tried to take over a piece you would fight one round to determine the winner. So in theory if you were really good you could sweep th board with your pawns.

A SRPG would be awesome with that mechanic, actually that would be an awesome Soul Calibur\Edge\Blade RPG now that you mention it Solo.

[Ehndow]

Do you mean like having a game where you moved your army like in Shining Force, but when you chose to attack it would turn into a mini game that played like Soul Calibur (just an example)?

That’s one possibility.But that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.I mean an ARPG were you could control your party like in SW: Republic Commando.With some easy-to-use menu you could issue orders to your party while in combat.

And you could switch between characters all the time.

And if Al3xand3r is reading this : would you answer someone’s well-thought post if you felt that person was calling you dumb and unexperienced [your last paragraph] as far as the matter (SRPGs) was concerned?

[Al3xand3r]

I propably would reply unless it was blatantly obvious and not something that could be interpreted in different ways depending on someone’s mood which is pretty much the case with my post. You said you thought the SRPGs dumb down games possibilities, should all the SRPGs fans here believe you are calling them dumb for liking them more than ARPGs?

Also, nothing I said indicates you are inexperienced (which is what you propably wanted to write above instead of “experienced”). I simply said you seem to not have been REALLY into the SRPG genre. You said you’ve only enjoyed some of those games and love SF2 and yet only finished it two years ago, how does that indicate that you are someone who has really been into this genre? If anything it shows you generally dislike it with a few exceptions that even they aren’t enough to keep you hooked since it took you so long to finish SF2… SF2 is also quite an old game and fairly simplistic compared to newer titles so not really representative of the genre as a whole nowadays.

As for your other points, they’ve been addressed in that reply of mine.

*“The ability to give a few commands to characters doesn’t come anywhere near close having to decide every single action each unit takes with near perfect precision, thinking several turns ahead, since if done wrong it may cost you a good character you have built or even the whole battle…”

"…Even if the game mechanics of an ARPG gave you as much control over all the characters you just wouldn’t be able to keep up with them all and play it just as if you never had that level of control with only occasionally using a command or two inbetween the hack & slashing.

And even if you could keep up (which you couldn’t, I’m just saying, IF), then the battle would still just rely on fighting skill instead of deep tactical thinking and if you were good enough you’d win the whole battle with one character regardless of how the rest of your team did…"*

It’s like Rainbow Six I guess. Just because it lets you order people around and such, it doesn’t automatically make it a real time strategy game since the scale of it is nowhere near as large as those games. Especially since for several of the missions you can finish them with a single character and not a full team if you chose to do so. It’s just a genre of its own I guess,

I guess that’s fine for fans of that genre but that doesn’t make Rainbow Six alikes able to fully replace RTS games since there are fans who just wish to have full on strategy and not a lighter version of it with the addition of the action element.

So, would anyone want to tell those people “nah, you are wrong, RTS games are relics of an ancient age, Action RTS is the future!”.

And, similar to the above, why tell the SRPG fans the same thing trying to say how ARPGs are better because they can have some strategy elements and not “dumb down the gameplay” or whatever your personal opinion on the genre is?

And since I mentioned RTS games, your posts make it seem that you want to add elements of a RTS in action games rather than a SRPG. Two genres that are again, very very different.

[Ehndow]

I think it’s the easiest way to add more strategy to an Action (realtime) game since you don’t have turns.

You said you thought the SRPGs dumb down games possibilities, should all the SRPGs fans here believe you are calling them dumb for liking them more than ARPGs?

Of course not.I used “dumbed down” as the experssion it is.You could use minimize or any other word.I wasn’t saying SRPGs have low game possibilities as compared to ARPGs.I mean they have low game possibilities versus pretty much every genre out there except maybe graphical adventures (a genre I personally love).

But I’m only talking about combat of course.

[Felix]

Does anyone know what the subtitle of the Gamecube Fire Emblem game translates to?

[Geoffrey]

Trail of Blue Flames.

[Abadd]

I have no idea

I looked up the kanji, but can’t read it. Not listed in my dictionary, either.