Action vs. Turn-Based RPGs: Evolution, Trend, Or Catering To The Lowest Common Denominator?
In the latest "Side Quest" column at RPG Watch, Corwin offers his two cents on the Great Debate: Turn Based or Real Time Combat?

Personally, I always thought the great debate was about "save anywhere", but maybe that's just me. It seems to me that, as far as mainstream is concerned at least, real-time combat has won. Game Over. I mean, when was the last mainstream turn-based combat RPG released (in the U.S., I'll stipulate... those wacky Japanese get all the cool stuff)? I'm not super-knowledgeable about recent console RPGs, but on the PC at least, the last one I can think of was the Temple of Elemental Evil. Which kinda bombed, from what I heard. I didn't play it on account of the stories of the awful bugs in the game, not because of the combat system. (UPDATE: I just got some reliable secondhand information that ToEE actually made Atari money. Just not as much as they'd have liked.)

Even the latest Final Fantasy game uses real-time combat, after a couple of decades of turn-based game systems (even if there were real-time components to the turns).

Help me out here if I'm missing one. Or a few dozen. I wish I was more "in the know" as to the goings-on in the CRPG world than I have time to be.

Todd Howard of Bethesda, which is creating Fallout 3, recently said in an interview, "Certainly turn-based combat limits your audience to a small number, but I do find that audiences will come if your game is good enough and the presentation is superb. Ultimately we'll do what we think will be the most fun."

"Certainly, turn-based limits your audience to a small number."
It does? It's being spouted off like a truism. And I don't doubt that a big part of Diablo's success was because it abandoned the original turn-based system in favor of the click-and-kill interface now aped by many mainstream PC RPGs nowadays. But I wonder what happened to all the fans of Final Fantasy VII, who made it the best-selling RPG of all time? Or all the fans of the original Fallout games. Or, much more recently, all the people that bought Final Fantasy X and X-2.

I wonder what Mr. Howard's definition of "a small number" is?

Now, I am going to assume for a moment that he's correct in that turn-based won't sell nearly as well as realtime. He states it as a given, and I'll take it at face value. So my next question is:

Why?

Possible answers:

#1 - The Market has Evolved
Back in the day, the old RPGs were designed to emulate an imperfect gaming system which had to be turn-based by virtue of human moderation. But with computer moderation and cleaner interfaces have arrived, it's natural to go towards more action-style play because it is inherently more fun (to most people) than the plodding, methodical turn-based system of the genre's roots.

We should move forward and not look back. Turn-based is dead.

#2 - It's A Trend
For a while, about a decade ago, RPGs seemed dead. They were revived by Diablo. Okay, that's an extremely Western point of view, as I don't think they ever fell out of favor in Japan, and I don't believe Diablo's success wasn't even half that of FF7. But that's a whole 'nother debate.

Anyway... things in the games business are cyclical. Success breeds more success, and the risk-averse publishers are simply following a well-blazed trail. Action-based RPGs are clearly selling now, and there's no clear indications that turn-based games will. If someone does take a risk and make a turn-based game that outsells the latest crop of action-RPGs, publishers and marketers will see it as a "change in the audience" (it's always the audience changing their tastes, not the fact that the game was actually good, for some reason) and will follow suit with a flood of turn-based RPGs again.

#3 - It's Catering to the Lowest Common Denominator
Turn-based fans will usually put up with action-based RPGs, but it the reverse does not apply. So if you want to sell a game to both audiences, you have to make your RPG more arcade-y. It's simple math, and Mr. Howard is simply trying to explain that when he says turn-based addresses a small audience. Relatively speaking, there's no question.


So... which is it? Or is it something else I haven't considered?

As for me... as a fan of turn-based I'd like to think it's #2, but I'm more inclined to believe #3. Though I think if they do decide to go turn-based for Fallout 3, and it turns out to be a hit of even half of Oblivion's proportions, we might expect to see a few more mainstream RPGs following suit. But I won't hold my breath.

Fortunately, there seems to be a bunch of indie developers willing to rush in where angels (and mainstream publishers) fear to tread. So turn-based RPGs remain alive and well for now, if not well-advertised.


(Vaguely) related brandishing of a +3 Keyboard of Charisma Loss:
* The Evolution of Computer RPGs
* RPG Combat Design
* Innovation in RPGs?
* Why Was Final Fantasy 7 So Successful?

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Labels: Indie Evangelism, Mainstream Games, Roleplaying Games

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