20th September 2004, 5:30 PM
Okay let me put it this way. A 2D overhead space shooter (ala Raptor or Ikaraga (or however that's spelled) has limited controls. You can go forward, backward, left, right, and fire your weapons. It's simplistic, but there it is. A 3D shooter, ala Panzar Dragoon (sans Saga), or Star Fox (sans Adventures, except some of it) has much more control, allowing you to sorta go where you may. A 3D shooter with free movement (the previous are on-rails games) allows you to actually leave the path and fly around where you want, within the borders, ala Fury 3 or Wing Commander.
What was the point of me explaining stuff you already knew? Simple, I did that to prove a POINT of all things! You see, I wouldn't normally explain all that for no reason, I rather did it for A reason, which is to say-
Everyone in the universe, including Ned: GET ON WITH IT!
DJ: ....Sorry...
Anyway, the thing about it is, the fun of an on-rails shooter, that is, what makes it fun despite it not having all the freedom of "all-range mode" through the whole game, is, in it's ENTIRETY, the limitation of your controls. For that matter, there are times when I would RATHER play a 2D shooter than a 3D. It's not that they are better, per-say, but it's a different play experience. So, I'll play Raptor because it's a very fun game in it's own right, even if it doesn't let me move up and down. In fact, if it did, it could very well ruin the game.
Going on, Metroid Prime compaired to the 2D Metroid games. I wouldn't say 3D is some inherantly better format. Prime is a great game, one of my fave in the series, but to rule out 2D completely just because you can't move Samus around in 3 dimentions, limiting your controls, would be foolish.
Now, I went through all THAT to also prove a point. Meaning, there was a goal in saying that. It was also not to talk about 3D vs 2D, because ABF, I know fully well you love 2D. Rather it was to-
Everyone, except Ned, who just exploded: GET ON WITH IT or I'll cast flare on you!
DJ: Fine!
Han: Good job! Don't get cocky kid!
DJ: Shut up...
Okay, what I meant to do there was give an example we can on agree on. That set, I can now say this. An RPG does NOT let you control your characters directly with good cause.
ABF: Whadda ya mean "good reason"?
DJ: I said CAUSE, not reason! But that is what I meant as well... Anyway, somebody apparently hates turn based combat, but loves Chrono Trigger's excellent gameplay. Okay then... Here's why it was excellent. You didn't run around with full control of hacking and slashing, you waited your turn and told your characters to attack. You had to use strategy, and not a lick of muscle discipline or reflexes was required. That was why it was so cool. You couldn't depend on being able to just dudge dodge dodge and hit the weak point, you had to calculate exactly how strong the enemy's attacks were, what weaknesses it had, and things like that.
I have a hard time really getting my point across, but let me sum it up thusly.
Saying every game should allow full control would completely destroy a huge part of standard RPG battle systems. It's actually HARDER to design an RPG battle system than to just allow someone to run around and hit the attack button, they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to strip you of control and make you give commands to your characters.
And now the final analogy. To remove the whole RPG battle system from RPGs because every game should allow full control of muscle movement so every single game will always be the same sort of hack and slash combat is to say "Chess sucks because it's all turn-based and you don't have full control, let's just make it FULL CONTACT CHESS" *Some idiot proceeds to throw the chess pieces at the other chess pieces.*
What was the point of me explaining stuff you already knew? Simple, I did that to prove a POINT of all things! You see, I wouldn't normally explain all that for no reason, I rather did it for A reason, which is to say-
Everyone in the universe, including Ned: GET ON WITH IT!
DJ: ....Sorry...
Anyway, the thing about it is, the fun of an on-rails shooter, that is, what makes it fun despite it not having all the freedom of "all-range mode" through the whole game, is, in it's ENTIRETY, the limitation of your controls. For that matter, there are times when I would RATHER play a 2D shooter than a 3D. It's not that they are better, per-say, but it's a different play experience. So, I'll play Raptor because it's a very fun game in it's own right, even if it doesn't let me move up and down. In fact, if it did, it could very well ruin the game.
Going on, Metroid Prime compaired to the 2D Metroid games. I wouldn't say 3D is some inherantly better format. Prime is a great game, one of my fave in the series, but to rule out 2D completely just because you can't move Samus around in 3 dimentions, limiting your controls, would be foolish.
Now, I went through all THAT to also prove a point. Meaning, there was a goal in saying that. It was also not to talk about 3D vs 2D, because ABF, I know fully well you love 2D. Rather it was to-
Everyone, except Ned, who just exploded: GET ON WITH IT or I'll cast flare on you!
DJ: Fine!
Han: Good job! Don't get cocky kid!
DJ: Shut up...
Okay, what I meant to do there was give an example we can on agree on. That set, I can now say this. An RPG does NOT let you control your characters directly with good cause.
ABF: Whadda ya mean "good reason"?
DJ: I said CAUSE, not reason! But that is what I meant as well... Anyway, somebody apparently hates turn based combat, but loves Chrono Trigger's excellent gameplay. Okay then... Here's why it was excellent. You didn't run around with full control of hacking and slashing, you waited your turn and told your characters to attack. You had to use strategy, and not a lick of muscle discipline or reflexes was required. That was why it was so cool. You couldn't depend on being able to just dudge dodge dodge and hit the weak point, you had to calculate exactly how strong the enemy's attacks were, what weaknesses it had, and things like that.
I have a hard time really getting my point across, but let me sum it up thusly.
Saying every game should allow full control would completely destroy a huge part of standard RPG battle systems. It's actually HARDER to design an RPG battle system than to just allow someone to run around and hit the attack button, they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to strip you of control and make you give commands to your characters.
And now the final analogy. To remove the whole RPG battle system from RPGs because every game should allow full control of muscle movement so every single game will always be the same sort of hack and slash combat is to say "Chess sucks because it's all turn-based and you don't have full control, let's just make it FULL CONTACT CHESS" *Some idiot proceeds to throw the chess pieces at the other chess pieces.*
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)