Quote:That's not entirely true. The JA series is both real-time AND turn-based, all depending on what is currently happening in the game. And if anything else, JA has loads of RPG elements. Stat building and experience comes first and foremost to mind. A party of characters with personalities and skills.
How about I avoid your question by saying "there is such a thing as a 'tactics' (or Tactical Strategy) game, they just are not adaquately defined by calling them 'Strategy RPGs'"? :) (for one thing, the word order used there implies that they are more RPG than strategy, which isn't true...)
Yeah, I thought Jagged Alliance might be realtime, but also remembered it being turnbased so I said that... a bit off I guess. Doesn't matter much. You pretty much state my point here: Jagged Alliance is a tactical strategy game, in the strategy genre, with some RPG influences. So is FF Tactics. Fire Emblem... I wouldn't really call that 'tactics', it feels more like a TBS/Wargame with character items and levelliing to me than a tactics game like Jagged Alliance, X-Com, Shining Force, etc...
As I said, it is hard to pin many of these games into one genre. Jagged Alliance 2 is described on its offical site as part strategy, part tactics, and part RPG; this is true. Sir-Tech's own description of Jagged Alliance 1 was "A Strategy Role-Playing Simulation"... role-playing elements, that is unique characters often with unique stats and inventories, are central to tactics games, certainly. But Sir-Tech doesn't say that the game is an RPG; 'tactical strategy' is the first header, really, and 'tactics' is not 'RPG'. X-Com is different -- its overworld (planetary) map mode is deep, grand-scale strategy, while the missions are isometric tactical battles with individual configurable characters.
This goes both ways; Baldur's Gate has been described as an RTS before, and there's some truth to that -- the game has great strategic depth, and if you don't pause it kind of can play like a (Myth or Ground Control-style, no-buildings) RTS... as I said, separating these things apart is hard because the genres have a common root (both strategy games and RPGs decend from wargames) and some features from each of them often show up in games from the others. See "SRPG"s like Dark Wizard (Sega CD) -- hex map (makes it feel a lot more like a wargame than the basic square maps of many SRPGs...), creatable units (that have default names based on their class which you can change if you wish), stats and rankups to higher classes (I think it's five levels to rank up), sidequests that involve you going to various towns and doing things there (though towns are a simple menu of places to visit, not a place you walk around directly) and sometimes backtrack to continue, etc... many of these features show up in RPG-influenced PC RTSes like Wizardry Battlecry or Warcraft III or PC fantasy TBSes like Disciples II, Battle for Wesnoth, Age of Wonders, etc. Those games are not RPGs -- they are RPG-influenced RTSes and TBSes. Same here.
RPG? An RPG has some form of character upgrade -- levelling, stats which improve as you use certain abilities or do certain actions, etc. This idea, that characters are not simply little generic guys who you have in large numbers and dispose of in battle when needed, is the central feature that separates an RPG from a wargame. The concept for Dungeons & Dragons, the first real RPG, comes from what happened when the creators took a wargame and reduced the number of units to just a few, one per person, and then decided to experiment with giving each one more than one hit point (or something like that), and things went from there. The focus is on an individual or small group, and they improve in skill in some way as you play (and usually have an inventory of some fashion too).
Wargames... wargames are games focused on battlefield combat -- they generally have little resource management beyond supply lines and the like. They are often very complex, with huge amounts of depth. Later wargames often do have a kind of experience system (for rookie or veteran units, for instance), but not generally things like inventories or unit-specific names or stats beyond possibly a historical unit commander listing for that unit's leader; you have far too many units to be able to micromanage the details of every one's progress and roster. Wargames are ususally turnbased, but there is a middle ground between wargaming and RTS that includes games like the ones based on the Sid Meier's Gettysburg! engine (Gettysburg, Antietam!, Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle, Austerlitz: Napoleon's Greatest Victory -- usually called realtime wargames), Myth and Myth II (usually called RTSes, but with no base management, I have always put them on the fence), Ground Control (another RTS with just combat, not base management).
Strategy games generally have both your units and some form of base -- a town you build or defend, etc. Some fringe strategy games like Myth or Ground Control don't, but most do. You have to manage resources and buildings or towns in addition to armies and soldiers. Grand strategy games like Civ games or 4X titles (Master of Orion, etc) often go even more abstract, with economic aspects becoming even more important. Fantasy strategy games like Warlords, Disciples or Heroes of Might & Magic focus more on the resource points than on your towns; the towns matter, but more as places for your army to return to and as a sign that you are winning (by controlling more towns and resource-giving mines/crystals/whatever). (Wargames also often have these 'map points you must hold at the end of the battle in order to be successful', actually; different application, but similar concept) RTSes and fantasy TBSes often have a linear mission path or, perhaps, a branching one. Grand strategy games more often have one single gameworld in which the whole game takes place; conquer the world or achieve your objectives and the game is over.
Tactics games... tactics games mix and match some elements of all three of those genres... they have lots of variation of course, from the much harder strategy focus of a Fire Emblem or Dark Wizard to the more RPG-ish Ogre Battle or Final Fantasy Tactics., but they do mix from all of those influences. They have individual characters like RPGs, but more of them than in an RPG. They require strategic tactical thinking like strategy games, but usually do not have expendable units like strategy games; or even if they do, since they are often named and upgraded, you are likely more attached to them and don't want to let them die. Economic aspects vary widely... some have them, like ones where as you conquer towns your income goes up (like in a PC fantasy TBS), others just have gold you get from enemies or items more like an RPG...
... no definite conclusions? Oh well, I think I went through the issue well here, for myself as well as anyone reading it... I guess, though, I will say, I would say that tactics games are both strategy games and RPGs, but the strategy segment comes first in importance and the RPG one second.
So... "Tactical Strategy" or "Tactical RPG"? I prefer the former, but even Wikipedia can't make up its mind...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_ro...d_strategy
Quote:Many (often ignored) Western PC games have utilized this genre for years, as well. Differences include a tendency toward a stronger military theme without many of the Fantasy elements found in their console (and mainly Japanese) counterparts, as well as greater freedom when interacting with the surrounding environment. Notable examples include the X-COM series, the Jagged Alliance series and the Silent Storm series.
The Battle for Wesnoth is an open-source, multi-platform tactical RPG that is very much in the style of the more popular console variants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_Wesnoth
Quote:Battle for Wesnoth is a turn based strategy game. The game is programmed in C++ and is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is cross-platform, and runs on AmigaOS 4, BeOS, FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, RISC OS and Microsoft Windows.
Ah... :)
(Battle for Wesnoth itsself uses that second definition -- that paragraphvery similar to the one on the main page of
http://www.wesnoth.org . The Wikipedia author of the SRPG article uses the SRPG term for the game anyway.)
Of course they were influenced by RPGs, and have significant RPG themes, but that doesn't make them RPGs.