Lunar and enemy tells

The Lunar games for the Playstation are two of my favorite RPGs of that era. One of the big reasons I like them so much is the combat system of the two games. Battles, particularly boss battles, had a degree of strategic complexity to them I rarely see in RPGs. A big part of this complexity comes from the "tells" all enemies, including bosses, give during combat.

In both Playstation Lunar games, enemies have special animations they cycle through during the beginning phase of a combat round, while the player is still inputing commands. Each enemy generally has at least two animations, while bosses often have many more. Each of these animations corresponds to an attack. For example, an enemy that is standing in a neutral pose might just use a basic physical attack. However, if that same enemy rears back threateningly or starts to glow, then it might cast a magic spell or use a special attack during the turn. In this way, the game tells the player exactly what every enemy is going to do during combat.

While giving the player this information sounds like it would make the game easier, it really doesn't. Both Lunar games are actually really hard. Even though the player knows what attacks the enemy will use, the enemies are still going to execute their attacks regardless, so the player's characters are going to suffer the same number of attacks either way. The difference is that the player can use this knowledge to approach a battle with more complex strategies.

In a typical battle system, the player has no way of knowing what the enemy will do, and has to react to situations blindly. When facing a group of six enemies, the player only has one strategy: kill all of the enemies as quickly as possible. However, if the player knows that two of those enemies are preparing to execute a dangerous special attack, new strategies open up. The player can choose to either focus on wiping out the entire group, or focus on disrupting the attacks of the two enemies. If the attacks are particularly dangerous, the player even has the choice to focus on defense. These added tactical options engage the player on a deeper level than most RPGs, vastly improving the player's experience.

A good example of Lunar's combat system in work comes from the boss battles of the game. Bosses have lots of attacks, and thus lots of different idling animations to broadcast those attacks. For example, when the final boss of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete surrounds his outstretched hand with dark energy, he is preparing to use his Hell Wave attack, which hits the entire battlefield for a lot of damage. A smart player would have every party member defend that turn. Developers often give this kind of "force the party to defend" attack to boss monsters in RPGs, but it usually involves the boss wasting a turn broadcasting the attack with a charge action, effectively giving the player a free turn to beat on the boss. I think Lunar's solution is much more elegant.

This system also has the effect of rewarding the player for being cautious. In the early stages of a Lunar boss battle, the player doesn't know what attacks correspond with the enemy's animations. So, the player is encouraged to fight defensively for the first several turns while he learns what moves the boss uses. If the player orders his characters to fight recklessly, the boss might flatten them all with a big attack. So the system encourages the player to study his opponents and come up with tactics to deal with bosses.

The strategic combat created by monster tells is what I remember the Lunar series the best for. Few developers have tried to focus on making combat more tactical by giving the player more information. Yet, I think it is one of the best ways to do so.

Persona 3 FES: The Protagonist

The main hero of Persona 3 works very differently than the other characters in the game. As I mentioned last time, most of the characters in the game are specialists who have distinct strengths and weaknesses, but the main hero is not like them. However, that does not mean he doesn't have strengths or weaknesses at all, or is some kind of jack-of-all-trades who can do everything. Instead, he can completely change all of his abilities by changing his equipped "Persona" even in the middle of battle, so he can be a master of fire magic one moment and a strong physical fighter who is weak to fire attacks the next. He is a character who is always a specialist with both strengths and weaknesses, but whose strengths and weaknesses are always changing, and this ability is central to the game.

The fact that the main hero works differently than every other character is fairly important considering two major gameplay details: the hero is always in the party and it is Game Over if the hero falls unconscious. With these two rules in place it would be a very poor idea to make it so the hero has consistent strengths and weaknesses. If, for example, the hero was always weak to ice attacks, then every enemy who could use ice attacks would have a significant chance of killing the main hero and causing a Game Over. Such a thing would make particular battles artificially difficult simply because the enemy could use ice attacks. Another problem is that a specialist hero's strengths could become too dependable. If the hero always has strong fire attacks, for example, then allies who also specialize in fire attacks would be a lot less useful. As such, unlike other characters, it doesn't make much sense for the hero to be a specialist.

Just because the hero can't be a specialist, though, doesn't mean that he should have no strengths or weaknesses. In addition to being bland, that would mean that the battle system would not work as well. Unless you get ambushed by the enemy, the hero always moves first in every fight in the game. In addition to being a chance to set the team's tactics, this is usually your one chance to end a battle quickly without wasting a lot of time or taking a lot of damage. Unless the hero has the strength to seize such a chance, battles become difficult. Of course, if the hero is too strong then the game becomes too easy. Thus, the game system creates a paradox in which the main hero can neither be a specialist nor a generalist. This is hardly a problem unique to Persona 3 (I think any game that has both a true "main hero" and a supporting cast has this issue, and most solve it poorly), but unlike most other games with the problem Persona 3 has a great solution.

The hero of Persona 3 is a specialist who constantly changes his specialization. He could be a master healer who is weak to fire and uses lightning spells one moment, and a strong fighter who uses ice magic and is weak to wind the next. However, the hero's flexibility is limited by his current list of Personas, so it is almost impossible to have the perfect ability set for every situation. Unless you plan perfectly when creating a Persona line-up, there will probably be gaps in your abilities, Perhaps you may not bring any Persona that can use wind, you may not have a Persona that is strong against fire, or worst of all you may have forgotten to bring a Persona that can heal your allies. However, even if you have planned well and have everything covered, the hero still would not be overly powerful. Even if the hero can both use and be resistant to every attack type with his current line-up of different Personas, there is no guarantee that you have a Persona who can be both resistant to an enemies attack and able to attack its weakness at the same time, since you can only use one Persona at a time. As a result, this system is flexible, customizable, encourages planning, introduces an element of unpredictability, and lets the hero be powerful in his own right without overshadowing his allies completely or making them obsolete. It is a really good system overall.

One thing I like in particular about the system is that it encourages creating a team that can compliment the hero's ever-changing abilities. If you don't have a Persona that can use ice attacks, you can bring Mitsuru to perform ice attacks instead of the hero. If you forgot to bring a Persona with healing magic, you can bring Yukari to heal everyone. If you need to heal but don't have Yukari, you can always switch to a healer Persona and perform her role yourself. The party changes to suit the current hero and the current hero changes to suit the party. It is an amazingly elegant balancing act that adds quite a bit to the game.

Persona 3 FES: Character Specialization

I believe I have briefly touched on this point earlier, but Persona 3 FES is a game where it is not advisable to pick a small subset of your allies and use them the whole game without ever using the rest. The main reason for this is simple: every character has unique strengths and weaknesses that can not be ignored. Partially, these strengths and weaknesses are explicit elemental attributes. Yukari is the only ally who uses Wind magic, Wind magic can hardly hurt her, and she will be badly hurt and knocked down by Lightning magic. Akihiko is the only Lightning magic-user, he won't be hurt much by Lightning, and he is vulnerable to Ice magic. Against any enemy who uses Lightning magic or is immune to wind magic, Yukari is a poor choice compared to Akihiko. If there are a lot of enemies around who are vulnerable to Wind magic, then Yukari almost becomes a necessary choice. All of the characters in Persona 3 are specialists. No single character can do everything and fight every battle, and I like that about the game.

There are four important factors at work that I like regarding the characters in Persona 3.

1) Every character specializes in some way. This is the most basic and central factor of this. Each character specializes, with both strengths and weaknesses. No single character can do everything, and every character can do something. Any videogame that allows multiple characters must have some element of this, or the choice between different characters becomes shallow and meaningless.

2) Every character's specialization is unique. This is one of the most important ones. No two characters are identical in role and ability. Any point of similarity between two characters is balanced out by a way in which they are different. Every character has a unique way to fight and contribute to the team. The lets characters have a memorable identity reflected in the game mechanics, so characters are individuals rather than faces and names added onto generic shells or copies of a limited set of archetypes.

3) There are many ways to build a team that can do anything. While this doesn't apply to attack elements, every character does have a focus that overlaps with other characters. Junpei and Aigis are very different, but they both have buffing spells and a variety of powerful physical attacks. If you need to use physical attacks, you have a choice between the two of them. Yukari is a stronger healer and Mitsuru is a stronger magical attacker, but both can heal and use magic attacks, so neither is strictly necessary. There are meaningful choices to made regarding team members, but it is not so inflexible as to force you to use a limited set of "good teams". Instead, you only need to worry about whether individual characters are good for particular situations or not, and can mostly leave the rest of the team up to preference.

4) There is no way to build a team that covers every weakness. Unlike many RPGs, where elements are always constructed in opposing pairs that are both strong and weak against each other, characters vulnerabilities are not based on their strengths. To compare, in Chrono Cross you can always build a team so that you have one ally who is is resistant to fire and vulnerable to ice and another ally who is vulnerable to fire and resistant to ice. In such a case, weaknesses balance out, so any time one character is in trouble, there is another character who is in no danger at all who can pick up the slack. Because vulnerabilities are asymmetric in Persona 3, and because there are an odd number of allies, there is no team that can have resistances and vulnerabilities balance out as nicely as they do elsewhere. There is always an element that can be used against the team that will do extra damage against someone and normal damage against every other team member. Because of this, there is no team that can survive against every possible encounter.

RPGs that allows you to pick a team from a larger pool of characters, yet still has all of these traits, are rare indeed, even though I consider it to be one of the best ways of designing a game built around a team.

Anyways, I should mention that everything I mentioned above is not quite accurate, since I am making a deliberate omission: the main hero. If you add the main hero of the game to the mix, it changes things slightly, but that difference is a topic for another day.

Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam UC Mode

On a whim, my brother and I dug out the PS2 action game Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam. It is easily the best action game in the Gundam franchise that I have seen. However, there is a major flaw in the game's Universal Century mode, the largest mode available in the game; the gameplay is way too repetitive.

The Universal Century mode lets the player play through the events of the TV series Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam. The player can even play as characters from the villains' sides. In fact, just about every named Mobile Suit pilot from both TV series is playable in the Universal Century mode, from major characters like Amuro Ray and Char to relatively minor characters who only appear in a few episodes. Sadly, the weakness of the Universal Century mode comes from this large cast.

In the Universal Century mode, every character follows a specific route through the game based on the major battles that character fought in the two TV series. Of course, there is a lot of overlap in these stages, since most major battles in Zeta Gundam or Mobile Suit Gundam involved anywhere from two to almost a dozen named pilots. So, many different characters will be expected to fight the same battle on their respective paths. While the player has the chance the fight the same battle from both sides, he does have to fight the same battle over and over again.

The problem of repetition is compounded by the game's system of route splits and alternate history stages. A big part of the Universal Century mode is about changing history. The game lets the player win certain battles with a character who died in that same battle in the original series. If the player does this, it unlocks an alternate history route for that character, and possible for other characters. For example, Jarid has two points where his path branches out into an alternate history path if another specific character survives. Unfortunately, while this system gives the player the satisfaction of changing history, it adds a lot more repetition to the game.

As an example of this problem, let's look at Jarid's path. Jarid has two places where his route splits: the battle where Lila dies, and the battle where Mouar dies. If Lila manages to survive her fateful battle, Jarid's route branches, and a new chain of missions becomes unavailable. The problem is that the new unlocked missions are identical to his original set of missions. The only variation is that Lila is his new teammate (and CPU teammates are not typically a major factor in a mission). If Mouar survives her battle, the same thing happens. Furthermore, the new paths that are unlocked for Mouar and Lila assume they fight alongside Jarid. So, they also go through Jarid's remaining missions, and are even given the same mechs Jarid gets. So the player is expected to fight through the exact same set of missions five times with just three characters.

The problem comes up without the alternate history element, because some very minor characters have been made playable. For example, Yazan, Dungel, and Ramsus are a team of three pilots who always fight together in Zeta Gundam. Yet, they each have individual paths in Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam. All three characters fight virtually the same missions, using the exact same set of mechs. It is the same as being forced to play the exact same part of the game three times.

The problem of all this repetition could have been mitigated somewhat if the game developers varied the wining conditions and opponents between different paths more. By varying the winning conditions from "defeat the Zeta Gundam" to "hold out for two minutes", for example, fighting the same battle again could have been more interesting. Even better, the developers could have embraced the alternate history element of the plot more heavily, and changed the mechs the player faced around on the alternate history paths. It would have been fun to fight against Kamille piloting the Super Gundam or ZZ Gundam instead of the Zeta Gundam on some alternate paths. Or maybe fight Quattro piloting the Jiong instead of the Hyaku Shiki.

Apollo Justice: Movies as Evidence

I recently completed the third case in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. While my brother apparently has some issues with it, and it was a little weak in some areas, I generally liked it. However, there is one part of the case where the game designers did not use the game system to its full potential: the video tape. A major piece of evidence in the third case is a video recording of a concert performance. This video tape is used by both sides to make arguments throughout the trial, particularly in the second half of the case. However, the the use of video evidence in this case of Apollo Justice just doesn't compare to how it was used in the final case of the DS remake of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

In that final case, a video recording of a crime is also a key piece of evidence. At numerous points in the trial, it is necessary to point out specific things in the video. This was done by playing, fast-forwarding, rewinding, and pausing the video as necessary, then manually pointing out a specific part of the picture that has the required clue. I thought it was a lot of fun, and made it very easy to use the video as evidence. I still think it is the best part of that case.

Unfortunately, the use of the video tape in the third case of Apollo Justice isn't nearly as interactive. The player can't pause, fast-forward, or rewind the video at all, only skip between sub-sections. Even worse, the player can't point to a specific part of the video as evidence directly. There are a lot of clues in the video, but the player is restricted to pointing out those clues by presenting other related evidence, rather than pointing them out on the video itself. Being able to point out specific details on the movie itself would have reduced the amount of frustration involved in guessing at what piece of evidence to use to point out the part of the movie I wanted to talk about.

Another problem comes from the sound mixer that was also used as evidence in the third case. In the sound mixer, the player could listen to a song and point out parts of the some as a piece of evidence. Yet, I found the sound mixer to be very annoying to use. Unfortunately, the player couldn't compare the sound mixer to either the video of the song being performed or to the lyrics of the song (since the game used music to represent lyrics in the actual audio). Therefore, it was impossible get a sense of what part of the song in the sound-file matched up with other events going on during the scene in question.

The gameplay mechanics involved in both of these key pieces of evidence could certainly have been improved. The problems with the video tape in particular are jarring because of how well the exact same thing was implemented in a previous game. I hope these problems are fixed in the next Apollo Justice game.

Persona 3 FES: Level Balance

Persona 3 FES is the kind of RPG where the differences in level between various characters can become a problem. Persona 3 has all of the classic causes for this particular problem: the main hero can never leave the team, there are more allies than you can have in the team at one time, there are many advantages to using all of your team members rather than just a minimal number, and team members you are not actively using will not gain any experience points. The problem is further emphasized by the lethality of the game; battles are incredibly deadly even for characters at the appropriate level, and they would be suicidal for a character who has fallen too far behind since all of an ally's abilities are level-dependent. The simple truth is that it is inevitable that some of your allies fall ever more behind in level every time the hero fights a battle, and in addition to being something of a pet peeve of mine, this effect can severely affect the long term viability of a team.

Fortunately, while level gaps are inevitable in Persona 3, the game designers have also provided a pretty good solution to the classic problem: the ability to order your allies to fight Shadows independently of the main hero himself. At any point while exploring Tartarus you can simply order your allies to break off and fight battles on their own, letting the hero sit back and watch as all of the battles are fought for him. Because of this, even though you always control the hero, he does not always have to participate in every battle. Your allies can gain experience without adding to the experience difference between the hero and any other character, and as a result it is possible to make up for any level gap, given enough time. However, "enough time" is the part where another issue arises.

Your allies simply do not earn a lot of experience when they defeat a shadow without the hero's help. They gain some experience, so fixing level gaps is an inevitability, but doing so can take quite a lot of effort. The big problem is that your allies seem to earn far more experience when the hero participates in a battle than when he does not, even though the general rule in the game holds that you gain more experience if fewer people participate in a battle, In truth, an ally fighting alone may earn 20 experience points from a particular enemy, but a team of both that character and the hero would earn 50 experience points from the same enemy. In addition, the amount of experience you allies earn when fighting Shadows without the hero around is incredibly hard to predict, particularly since it is impossible to know what you allies are actually fighting unless the hero intervenes. Because of these factors, correcting level gaps can be a time-consuming hit-or-miss process.

Another problem with this method is that it can be both dull and frustrating. The AI that runs how characters explore the levels of Tartarus is not very good, and combined with the random nature of the dungeon it means that it is impossible to just order your allies to fight Shadows and get a prompt and effective result. An even bigger issue is the fact that your allies simply don't seem to fight very well without you. Even enemies far below the team's level can kill an ally in a single battle and your allies don't ever heal themselves on their own, so you need to constantly run around monitoring their health and healing them when necessary, which can be troublesome in large areas where allies are far apart. Even if things go well, it still involves a lot of standing around waiting for battles to finish. All told, this whole process is almost more trouble than it is worth.

As a whole, the ability to split up your team and fight Shadows individually in Persona 3 would work really well if it was just modified slightly. If it was a little less troublesome and a little more rewarding, it would be a lot more useful. I suppose that the game designers did not want it to be a completely superior choice to normal team combat, particularly since any battle that does not involve the hero will never lead to a Game Over, but I think they might have gone a bit too far in making it a poor choice.

Order of Actions in Turn-based RPGs, cont

In my last post, I talked about how important it is in a turn-based RPG to make the action order dependable. There are actually a few turn based RPGs out there that have gone beyond that, and gave the player direct control over the order in which the characters in a battle act.

The first of these is Breath of Fire 4 for the Playstation. At the beginning of every turn, the player picks three characters out of the six available, and gives them commands. Those three characters move up to the front row of the battle to fight, while the other three characters move to the back row and sit the turn out. Moreover, the three attacking characters will act in the order in which they were selected. So, if the player orders Ryu to attack, Nina to blast with a fire spell, and Cray to use a status spell, they will carry out those actions in that exact order. 

Yet, speed is still an important stat in the game. Nina is incredibly fast, easily capable of moving before any enemy does. Ryu is a fair bit slower than Nina. Cray is very slow, and will generally move after the enemies. So, if the inputed order is Nina, Ryu, Cray, then Nina will move first, before the monsters do, while Cray will move last. However, if the action order is reversed, making it Cray, Ryu, Nina, then Nina and Ryu will wait until Cray takes his turn, with the monsters most certainly acting before he does.

The Playstation 2 RPG Wild ARMs 3 had a nearly identical system. The four party members acted in a very specific order based on their speed stats (typically Virginia, then Jet, then Gallows, then finally Clive). However, the player could manually change the action order into whatever he wanted during a battle. So the player could have Clive move first if he wanted, though typically at the cost of letting the monsters get the first action.

So, it was possible in both of these games to intentionally let the monsters go before the heroes do, or to hold back the action of a powerful attacker until a slower character could cast a buffing spell. Not only is there no chance that the turn won't play out the way the player expects, but the action order becomes a tool the player can use to create more complex strategies. Arguably, this system gives the player even more control over the flow of battle than the Final Fantasy series' Active Time Battle system, where a character has to forego acting in order to letting other characters move first, which is a net loss in the number of actions the team can take.

Hmm... Maybe I should talk about other RPG action systems sometime.