FITZGRALD'S PROFILE

author=Rine
Hey all. Just thought we should have a topic where people discuss or talk about various RPGs with interesting design concepts, or things that have inspired you to make certain games. Interesting battle systems, magic systems, storylines, overall concepts, whatever people might take inspiration from.

As a note, when I say interesting or inspiring, I don't necessarily imply 'good'. Some of the games I've drawn a lot of inspiration from are not necessarily good, or I may not even like them all that much. They can inspire us with unique game systems or stories, even if they don't do them well on their own.

My own personal list, off the top of my head:

Metal Max Returns: An old school JRPG, never released stateside. I found it interesting that for most of the game (at least what I've played, I didn't get through much) there was no real central story, but a bunch of kill monster quests, as you were a bounty hunter. It also has tanks included in the combat, and as vehicles you ride around in.

Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiya Densetsu: An RPG for the SNES, its pretty bland, very grindy, and not very likable unless you really like DBZ. However, the combat system is something I've not really seen elsewhere. You get five cards in your hand, with different symbols and numbers, symbols for the kind of attack/defense, numbers for how powerful it is. You can give those cards to up to 5 fighters (you could have far more in your team if you don't let them die, perma-death is a thing for the optional characters). It created an interesting system where you wanted to save certain special cards for boss fights, and use the cheap ones while grinding.

Legend of Mana: Not really the best Mana game, but I found the creatable map the most interesting part. Basically, each time you need to go to a new area, or finish a big quest, you get an item representing an area. You can place that area on the world map connecting to areas you've already placed. The further it is from your 'home' location, the more difficult the enemies are, and placing places next to each other might cause extra effects.

Cyber Knight 2: A cool little RPG in general, where you are commander of a starship, commanding a group of mech pilots. The upgrade system where you salvage parts from enemies is cool, the combat system itself was pretty cool with grid movement and such in a side by side RPG, and the fact that units you didn't have in party could back you up with supporting fire.

author=LightningLord2

author=emmych

author=turkeyDawg
e: Tales games
I love the skits. A nice way to flesh out characters without forcing it on the impatient types. Also, there seriously needs to be more LOCAL co-op adventure/RPG games that aren't Diablo-esque dungeon looters.

Straight up: I fucking hate every single Tales of game I have ever played. Thinking about Abyss makes me literally start ranting and raving about how much I hate it. They are terrible games and I hate them every single one oh my gOD

But yes, oh man, I will throw in my vote for skits being EXCELLENT. Tales games just do a real nice job of establishing character chatter? Like even the side characters that get pushed out of the spotlight after their shitty subplot is over get fleshed out and developed beautifully! You know who they are, what they want, and most importantly, how they feel about all the other losers they're palling around with.

Not that I'm actually interested in these people. Most of them infuriate me (although there are a few Symphonia peeps I want to just like... pick up and put into a better game), but I will fully admit they are definitely capital c Characters.

SKITS ARE A GOOD IDEA GET YOUR CHARACTER CHATTER IN YER GAMES

*crawls under rock and ruminates about how much they hate Abyss while throwing darts at a photo of Luke von Fuckface and muttering "i lost 50 hours to you AND I DIDN'T EVEN ENJOY MYSELF"*

The Chrono Stone games of Inazuma Eleven have skits in the form of InaLink (basically, WhatsApp). You constantly get updates in it as you progress with the story, with some of the secondary characters getting to talk in it as well. Another helpful story thing is Inapedia, which explains terms that are used in the game - they're not always comprehensive as they're written by in-game characters, though.

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