Your dream games

[Soeroah]

I've always wanted a time-travel simulation/real time strategy game.

So, for example, at a point you create a time machine or find a way to time travel or whatever. You get to go back in time say, 20 real-world minutes for a brief amount of time, or stay there if you spend enough resources.

If you stay there, the game basically continues as normal, except you have more troops, from 'the future'. If you only go back to make a change, the game simulates what would have happened. So, say you're being attacked by an enemy's army from their western city. In desperation, you send the last of your forces back in time 20 real-world minutes, to when the map was unexplored. This time, however, you know where the enemy base is, and what they are planning on doing. You send your future army into their city and kill a peasant, before you snap back to your present. That peasant was responsible for building the barracks in that city, and his death means that barracks was never built, potentially setting the enemy's army back a few minutes, potentially causing them to lose past skirmishes due to not having an army as early as they originally did.

I reckon I'd love a game like that. My concept is more you move to an alternate timeline rather than change the past, though, so unfortunately you can't go back in time and kill your early city to create a paradox. If you could, though, I'd want that to be a last-ditch 'doomsday' play, where no one wins.

[Tehwilburforce]

I have one idea for what would probably end up being a trilogy. It would span three planets in the same solar system. Each planet would represent different stages that civilizations go through, so one would be very heavily renaissance themed, one would be like our modern world, and the last would be a post-apoc wasteland. The objective would be to stop this sorceress who's trying to get revenge on civilization for ignorantly refuting her scientific discoveries(think Galileo and the Catholic Church).

The game would be heavily story-based and would not only hold a lot of lore built into each planet, but would also explore each party member's personal life quite thoroughly. Some of them will seem bad at first, and some may even join the party to accomplish hidden agendas, but they'd all end up working for the common good in the end.

The battle system would be something in between that of old FF games and the reaction system from Paper Mario. It'd look very traditional in layout, but would be a lot more interactive than just going through menus to choose attacks. Choosing some attacks or spells might change the view and have the player complete some sort of small task in order to determine its effectiveness.

In the overworld, there'd be a huge emphasis on airships and hovercrafts as a means of getting from point A to point B. I'm sure there'd be a way to work in combat with vehicles as well, though I'm not sure how.

[Adol The Red]

So I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy Tatctics lately and it got me to thinking about what a cool update might be like. I think I would start by keeping the more middle english tone of the PSP remake so far as dialogue is concerened, but perhaps tone it down a bit. For character names, though, I would stick with most of the names in the original PS1 release. I understand some of the changes due to the difficulties of romanizing Japanese, but some of the changes they made for the PPS1 version are rediculious. Algus and Argath wouldn't be all that different in Japanese, but in English at least Algus sounds like a name, especially one that could have come from a medieval era. Balbanes' name is odd no matter what, but again, I'm going with the PS1 version here.

Graphically I wouldn't do much to the game, except maybe sharpen it up a bit. I'd prefer to keep the same style, but with a slight size increase all the sprites could be a tad bit more detailed. The same goes for the maps; just stick with what's there and maybe sharpen it up. For the generic characters, I'd like a bit more customization of their sprites. Perhaps a set of hair, eye, and skin colors to choose from, all of which would change on the sprite as well as the portrait. Also, having a few sets of custom colors to choose from for your generic team's clothing would also be a neat addition. In the same vain, I think it would be cool if the story characters you pick up along the way had a few variations to their outfit depending on what job they had. Not necessarily a different outfit for each job, but perhaps a few archetypes. Agrias, for instance, could use her regular outfit for all the jobs that a equip heavy armor. For caster jobs, add a variation that makes her gear look more like a robe. For faster jobs, or those with minimal gear (Ninja, Thief, Monk) maybe reduce the coat and lose the breast plate. I don't want drastic changes, but some minor variations would be neat. As a comedic bonus, give her portrait a perturbed face for jobs that clash with her personality, like Thief or Dancer (not exactly a hill I'm dying on, I just think it would be funny). Also, how about some (cosmetic, at least) armor for chocobos in your party, so they at least look the part of mounts? Concequently anyone riding a chocobo in a scene would have a standard armored mount as well.

Further on the characters front, an increase to the amount of characaters you can have is always welcome. Now, I can think of loads of characters from other FF games I'd like to see unlockable in tactics, but I think that's a bit overboard. However, the ability to unlock special character skins and portraits for your generic characters would be cool. How awesome would it be to unlock a skin of Rydia and put it on a Summoner/Black Mage? You could even recruit someone and give them the proper name if you wanted. I know this one probably wouldn't be that likely if they ever did another remake, but this is dream games, after all (and more Rydia is never a bad thing).

That brings me to weapons. The game already has a pretty awesome assortment of weapons, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. First you have the whip. I would make the whip relatively low damage weapon for casters, and probably dancers, with a 2 square range of attack. Second, war hammers. A heavy weapon that would slow you down but would have a high attack and give a slight increase of success to the chances of a Knight's destruction attacks (By the way am I the only one who thinks its hilarious to block a shield break attack with my shield?). There are probably a few more good additions, but I'll leave it at that for weapons.

Which brings me to job classes. A few jobs have come and gone in the FF games with job systems, and I'm sure everyone has their favorites. For me, it was the Mystic Knight from FFV. So far as I know this wasn't in any other FF game, but I found it to be very useful. If you don't know, a mystic Knight charges their sword with a spell and subsequent attacks do physical damage plus spell damage (My best example of how they are awesome was using Drain blade to keep my character alive during a particularly tough boss fight). There are a few ways this could be added to FFT. First, I would make them able to equip shields, but only medium armor (of course I'm using Dual Wield with my Mystic Knight). As far as learning skills goes, you could have them work like the Calculator/Arithmetician and have them be able to pull from whatever spells they've learned from the other caster jobs. I'd probably keep white magics if only for use against undead enemies. I'd keep speed average, since they can do a fair amount of damage, and probably keep physical damage ability slightly below average since you're supposed to be powering them up with spells anyway. As far as how the power up works, I would either keep the casting delay but have the spell stick to the weapon until a new one is chosen, or have you choose a spell each time but lose the delay. The second one might sound better, but MP will suffer, so I'd probably go with the first if only to keep the Mystic Knight from being too overpowering (that's what the math whiz is for).

Other than that I'd probably just add a varient maps to each of the random battle points, at least to spice it up, though I'd leave Mount Bervenia alone until you found the Materia Blade. Mechanically I don't think I'd change anything. The game works just fine and gives players who know what they're doing the ability to really route the enemy. However, and this will probably sound blasphemous to the die hards, I might consider adding an easy mode. I say this because I love the hell out of this game. I think it has one of the best stories a video game has ever had, and I want my friends to experience it. However, a startegy RPG can take so much busy work that I can understand their reluctance. Now, a part of me doesn't want something like an easier mode added. That comes from my experience with this game, of not being able to play it at all, and running through it with my gameshark and thinking about how tough some of these battles must be without cheating. Now that I have played and beaten it myself legitemately, I count it as one of my proudest video gaming achievements (even though most of those battles aren't nearly as hard as I thought they would be, thank you Calculator). However, it is just pride, and probably a sense of territorialism that makes me balk at the idea of an easy mode. On the other hand, making it just slightly more accessable would give a lot of gamers who are otherwise reluctant the chance to enjoy such a great gaming experience. The music is wonderful, the story is wonderful, and the whole thing provides an emotional experience you don't often get in games. If an easier mode give more people the opportunity to enjoy it, then I'm for that.

Anyway, enough being serious I just really love this game. That last thing I would add is New Game+. I would love to import all my wonderfully trained characters, along with money and equipment, and blast through the game again. Of course, you would have to scale the shops to your level early, but that is doable.

So yeah, I guess thats my dream version of FFT, more or less.

[Tehwilburforce]

That sounds positively awesome, Adol. I've just started Tactics for the first time and I'm enjoying it so far. One thing I've been mulling over that I think would be cool is a multiplayer version of Tactics. You could recruit an army, with each player starting on a far edge of the game world. If 2 players met, they would go into battle and, depending on how the battle goes, the loser could be eliminated entirely or choose to retreat before being eliminated. If they are eliminated, they'd just respawn at their original starting point and have the chance to raise another army unless that area has been taken over by an opposing player. If they retreat, they'd be able to get away with what few units are left and hide in friendly territory to escape the other player's army. They could then get back to raising an army afterwards.

[RollCasket]

I just want a brand new FFT in general. The FFT Advance games are ok...but just not the same. I guess mainly I want the same art style, I'm not sure if I care for the added races in the Advance version or not.

I got a name for a FFT online vs though, you could call it "Orlandu vs Orlandu" or "Don't anger the Thunder God Cid".

[Adol The Red]

Depending on how many players there are in each game universe, it would be cool to have the possiblity of setting up alliances. That way if you have to retreat you could call on an ally for help defending your territory while you rebuild. You could also work in feint and deception tactics. Face an enemy with an inferior and poorly built force, then retreat. If they decide to attack because they think you would be a pushover to defeat you could have an ally waiting to enter the next battle with you and hit their flank. Perhaps you could also cut off escape routes with the help of allies, but that would be a gamble if you had a death ground mechanic that increases the stats of units that are in a win or die situation. Lay some some Sun Tzu all over this game.

That would probably get a little out of hand though. The mechanics would be difficult, and in a battle with more than two live players people would start getting bored waiting for other players to make all their decisions. Still, I always like when you can use real life military strategy in a video game.

[Adol The Red]

On an unrelated note, I was just reading on story versus gameplay. For me these are equally important facets of a game. I used to be very story oriented, but a game can have a great story and still be not very fun if the mechanics aren't implemented well.

That debate aside (not the point of this post just the article that led to my point), something an XCOM developer said caught my attention. He was talking about their use of permadeath for their characters and how having no heroes with their own narrative helps with that, noting that if you had a main character then they were sure to survive at least until the end. It's something people just sort of expect. This got me thinking about RPGs. There are games where characters die, and games where you think the characters die but they don't, but I don't think I've ever played one where the main character dies.

So why not do a game where the main character dies halfway through? The more I think about it the more awesome it seems to me. Part of me would be devastated to lose that character, but this could lead to a potentially awesome game. Obviously its not a point you advertise, and you'd have to hope people don't spoil it for you. I think a Tales game could handle this concept the best. The character development and quality of the narrative in those games makes a Tales universe the perfect setup.

Start out like normal, with your main character growing to become a central figure among your group. Have them become strong, and set up a situation where the other characters are relying on the main character for support and leadership and such. Don't hit people over the head with it of course; best to keep it subtle. And obviously you want to make sure you give people a reason to experiment with the other characters, or at least have a secondary character with a somewhat similar moveset. Things build up, and halfway through the main character gets killed, and will not come back. It could be heroic, though there might be more story potential if it is the result of some treachery.

Here is where I think a Tales universe would shine. From a gameplay perspective, that main character was set up to be the most approachable (hence the earlier mention of experimentation), and now you don't have them to fall back on anymore. Story wise, your group has lost its leader. This sets up a great chance for conflict (and also lets the player know that no-one is safe), and eventually leads to a point where they are forced to come together and deal with the situation without their great hero. That's what I think the selling point is (along with themes regarding moving past a loss, and how we all deal with death). The fallen character would have helped the others grow in some way (as they would have done in reverse), and now they get to rise up and take care of what the hero is no longer around to handle. After all, the villain is still around, and someone still has to stop them. I mean, I know Tales games usually focus on a team effort. Some people may not even use the main character. This is where you need good writing. The fallen character would have been that lean on me hero type. Essentially, the main hero is gone, and the rest have to pull together to finish the job.

I like this idea for a lot of reasons. For one, in my own stories the main hero tends to become a little too central, so it would be interesting to see how things would go without that person. And I think it's just not done very often. Who saves the day without Jason Bourne or James Bond? Who leads the crew without Malcom Reynolds or Captain Sisco? It's a simple idea, and maybe there's a good example in games I'm not aware of, but the more I think about it, the more I would love to see it.

[Tehwilburforce]

This idea has sorta been tested already with the PS3 game, Heavy Rain. However, the idea of the remaining characters banding together without the hero is interesting, but you'd have to be careful of how you pull it off. You'd also need a strong cast of characters to come together in his place to finish the job of saving the world. If you put enough attention into the supporting cast and how they compliment and conflict with each other without throwing too much of it in the player's face, I think you'd have an interesting game there. Would you mind if I borrowed that idea actually, I think I know where I could add that into one of my game ideas that I've been tossing about for a while.

[Adol The Red]

By all means. I mean its just a concept at this point. And yes, the supporting cast would have to be well developed. That's why Tales comes to mind for me. Otherwise, I think its also important that among the other characters no-one comes forth a central hero to replace the former one. They may need someone to act as a leader from time to time, but I supposed the details of the story would dictate many of those things. For me this kind of story would be focused around how people react to and deal with death, along with the negatives and positives that can be born from such a loss. Also, I can jab at things that annoy me, like the whole "I like this person but I must vehemently deny it at all costs" thing. Just tired of that. Then whichever character was acting like that would have to deal with the consequences of that denial. Not as a jab against a lack of confidence, but just against one of the more common tropes that irritates me.

And its funny you mention Heavy Rain because I just bought that and am sort of on and off playing it. Would be full playing it, but you know, Ar Tonelico 2 is in my PS2 and will take all of my attention.

[Fixxxer 117]

Big news from Nintendo. Long story short, they announced seven new games. SEVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!7777777