So I’ve been playing through Front Mission on my NDS and am just in absolute nostalgia. Not because I’ve played Front Mission before, but simply because it’s been so long since I last touched a turn based strategy game. I’ve played Front Mission 3 on the PSX, Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance and the Final Fantasy Tactics series too and love the simplicity of the gameplay yet the complexities in the strategy involved. At times it can seem overwhelming and in most cases I wouldn’t recommend these games for the quick “fix”. I think last night I went to bed with my NDS with the intention of falling asleep around 12ish and staying up till about 2 in the morning! Turn based games just take time a lot of time! Especially the ones where you can customize the units you use in game. Final Fantasy and Front Mission have always allowed the player to customize the load outs of the characters / mechs. Advanced Wars focused more on just having a set of units with pros and cons but then mixing it up with Commander Powers that buffed your units or debuffed your enemies.
All the above games are played on a grid however, but there are games that have successfully taken the turn based strategy genre away from the grid system. Most notably is Valkyrie Chronicles which is a great example of turn based strategy in a 3D setting. Controlling infantry and tanks, you take turns carefully positioning your units to attack the enemy and avoid the enemies counter attack as much as possible. If you own a PS3 I highly recommend trying this game. This was the second game I purchased for the PS3 after MGS4… naturally.
For some reason I just remembered Zone of the Enders turn based game for the Gameboy Advance. Pretty much a Front Mission clone but allowed the player to manage the accuracy of the weapons aim by having a fixed crosshair and a moving enemy target that would very quickly come into the sights, an interesting addition and highly satisfying getting a perfect bulls eye.
I’d like to play these types of games more, especially the Super Robot Wars series as that combines the 3 things I love in to one. Mechs, Anime and Games! The only unfortunate thing about these types of games is that their incredibly long winded at times. Levelling up your characters, gearing them and then a single battle could take up to an hour or more. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I love customisation; I guess I wish it was more mainstreamed in some of these games.
Does anyone else enjoy this genre of game, if so any recommendations?
...'sniff'....a man after my own heart. I love tactic, turn based strategy games. I still play Civilization IV to this day. I just finished Valkyria Chronicles, and I started Military Madness: Nectaris on the PS3. I seek out this genre of games. FF Tactics (the original) was one of the best tactics game ever, though I got it and tried to play it recently, and just couldn't get back into it (I'm a self-proclaimed HD snob now). I've been thinking about chekcing out the Fallout Tactics, but again, HD snob.
ReplyDeleteI find this style of game much more entertaining than RTS. Conceptually, they are the same, but I like to have the time like a chess match to think about my turns, and if I can invest in improving my charaters or use a skill tree..., well, let's just say I just got wood.
Panzer General and PG 2 were some favorites in my past. Board game Axis vs Allies...my friends and I had epic battles spanning months at a time. Yes, I know that isn't a video game, but the concept is the same.
They don't seem to want to make those games as much anymore, and it saddens me. This genre and Adventure games (point and click) are some of my favorite of all time, but I guess the market for folks like us who actually like to use our grey matter in some games rather than just twitch and shoot anything that moves, or pretend I'm playing a sport or driving a car just isn't large enough to get much love. But I'll feed on the table scraps as they come. And they are starting to resurge.
Greed Corp just came out, and I haven't gotten it yet, but I will eventually. It's out on XBL and PSN. Military Madness: Nectaris is on multiplatform as well I think, though I know for sure it's on the PS3. Any of the Civilization games. Heroes of Might and Magic games, oh, and King's Bounty games as well. Solid, solid entries in this category. Anothr series that is a little out there but still turn based is the WORMS! series. That should be enough to keep you busy for a long time. Lord knows it did for me!
For some reason I am only a fan of turn based strategy games on my DS. I loved FF tactics on PSone that game was so addictive. The job class system was pretty interesting and I thought it was an interesting change of pace to not only worry about character skills but player placement ,too.
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago I got Advanced Wars on my DS and I was like Johnny staying up all night conquering my enemies.
WORMS was always good game to play between the major games we played at lan parties. But for some reason we couldn't get in CIV4. I think it was because there were too many of us and some peoples turns just took way too long. Maybe if there was only two of us playing it would have been a fun game.
I agree with Landoram. Most of the top games of today are just mindless fun. Look at Resident Evil, the game was pretty much an adventure game with bosses you had to shoot. But after RE4 which I love, it became a action shooter instead of an action puzzler.
Last time I was truly impressed with a game's puzzles was Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. It wasn't the fact that some of the puzzles were really hard but the fact they were intuitive that made it satisfying.