Blue Dragon to borrow game elements from Earthbound.

[Vizzys]

some gameplay info from gamefaqs poster (based on a play session at tgs and last sakaguchi's interview translation):

_______________

* As we have seen from movies, you can see the enemies on the map before battle starts. If you can walk into them from behind rather than the front you get a back attack, which starts you with an advantage (two of the achievements are related to this as well.)

* However, that isn't all. It also seems that you will be able to paralyize and cause other status effects to enemies before going into battle.

* Furthermore (I saw this in the demo too) one of the options when walking around is "Fight All." A circle expands out from around your character and you can fight all of the groups of monsters within it at once.

* The trick with "Fight All" is that some monsters don't like other monsters. If you get two groups that don't like each other in the same battle, they may start fighting each other rather than you. One of the achievements is "Start 100 Monster Fights," you may have noticed, as well as one to fight 10 or more groups at once and beat them all!

* Exactly how powering up Shadows works is unclear right now, no status screen availible in the demo, but it seems they have a variety of categories that you can power up. One of these is "Barrier." A barrier called the "Bari- Barrier" allows you to automatically defeat enemies on the map without having to go into battle with them, if they are a certain number of levels lower than you are. This should cut down on pointless random battling (see Mother 2). You also still recieve points needed to powerup your Shadows from killing enemies like this.

* The main feature that made the battle system at TGS unique was the ability to charge moves. When you select certain attacks a bar appears with where each of the other characters in battle (both ally and enemy) will move marked on it. But holding down the button you can charge the attack up, increasing its damage but pushing the point at which the attack will activate beyond other characters turns. So the attack comes out later but is more powerful. In the footage I saw of someone else playing the demo this bar appears on the screen a few times when they select an attack, but they don't seem to know how to use it and never charge it up.


* No game in the next generation has depeicted drama to this extent.

* One goal that couldn't be achieved until now was to totally realize the world of Toriyama.

* Playtime is stated at being 40 ~ 50 hours. Sakaguchi says that going directly through the game still takes him 35 hours.

* There are 9 categories of Shadow, which can be changed freely at any time. Shadows and characters have different levels and need different experiance to level up. The Bari-Barrier which I mentioned before still gives you Shadow experience, but not much character experience, which is how they balanced that.

* Whilst character experience required for new levels continues to go up with each level, like a standard RPG, Shadow rank experience doesn't. So once you get the Bari-Barrier you can go back to the first dungeon, run around and rank up loads.

* Equipped skills to your Shadows gives you a great deal of variety. You can get a maximum of 11 skill slots and many skills combine together - e.g. create a magical sword attack that both steals and can be charged up, absorbs HP and MP and sometimes kills in one hit.

* The interviewer asks is this level of freedom <certainly sounds insanely powerful> made balancing the game hard. Sakaguchi replies that the staff would keep on coming back to him saying "this combination of skills makes it super easy!". He would get mad but doesn't believe in making the skills weaker, so they adjusted enemy strength instead.

* Plenty of little side games and stuff included. Once you can ride in the Mekkat (I guess the flying ship seen in the videos) you can travel to numerous places. Free download content is planned, the first from around New Year, and it sounds like these will be new locations to travel to.

* Sakaguchi even took part in adjusting the content of treasure chests. There are around 500 regular chests and around 5000 more searchable locations in the game. Sakaguchi wants the player to have fun with these - e.g. originally searching Zora's bathtub awarded 10 gold. He added +30 exp on there as well.

* Sequal is all but confirmed, but not actually officially confirmed, for Xbox 360.

Bolded points are seen in a 10 year old game for SNES called Earthbound.

[brawndolicious]

But no random battles!

Trade-off am console warriors argueing over 3 DVD's being switched in as little as 10 hours.

And DBZ style being jacked off on maliciously by amirox if I remember correctly.

Looks good anyways.

[Himu]

Those features are in a lot of other rpgs.

[Vizzys]

Those bolded points are in other RPGs though right?

Earthbound sucks.

You suck if you fail to see the significance here, it took 10+ years for another RPG to emulate Earthbound innovations unto rpgs. It was simply ahead of its time.

As far as I know, no other RPG has these features (the bolded points) in the same form at least. FF's have had the surprise attack, where you RANDOMLY get a first strike, unlike previous FF though, Blue Dragons enemies are on the map before you fight them, ala Chrono Trigger/ff12.

Not to mention this is the second game Ive heard of where if your level dwarfs that of your enemy, you instantly win the battle, a feature only found in Earthbound. In Blue Dragon you have to have a special item to do this, but nonetheless its the same idea.

[Vizzys]

Those features are in a lot of other rpgs.

Feel free to list them if they come before earthbound. I haven't played a lot of old school dragon warrior, which eb is said to draw elements from.

[Himu]

Valkyrie Profile lets you get bonuses if you hit them before you fight em. So does Dragon Quarter, Xenosaga, Persona 3, and many many other rpgs, even more so recently. If you want a list of jrpgs that don't use random battles recently I'll do the pleasure just fine.

Dragon Quarter
Persona 3
Xenosaga 1-3
Rogue Galaxy
Kingdom Hearts I and II
Final Fantasy XII

;etc. etc.

As for not fighting small fry in battle, in some cases, when you fight enemies in low levels late in some games, they simply run away because they're so scared.

[Vizzys]

Well in earthbound, you see the enemy on the map much like Chrono Trigger, there are no random battles. What I mean is, if the enemy is looking away and you touch the enemy's back, you will get to attack first (a surprise attack).

However in the second case, if the enemy is a lower level then you, they will try to run away from you and you have catch them to instant kill them, this can be done with or without a surprise attack.

I know in some rpgs with random battles, enemies will puss out and run away, DDS1/2 taught me this well. But Earthbound is way old, and the pioneer, is what I'm saying. Most of the games you mentioned are 3d thus probably not as old as earthbound anyway.

[Himu]

Yes but you act as if BD is doing something new when lots of other rpgs have taken nods.

[Vizzys]

No, just saying they are taking some elements from earthbound. I'm aware other rpgs have something similar, but I've been waiting for another game to steal the "instant kill enemy's lower level then you" idea for years. It doesnt seem like it would work for games with random battles, so yeah I can see why it took this long. I hate random battles.

[The Sceneman]

You guys played Contact?

[Himu]

Yep, been playing it recently.

[Vizzys]

No I haven't played contact.

[The Sceneman]

No I haven't played contact.

It borrows from Earthbound apparently, like the lower level monsters run away from you and shit. Its a pretty sweet game.

[MrAngryFace]

Games of the future to borrow elements from GAMES OF THE PAST! more at 11

[Van Cruncheon]

Superman 64 also borrowed from Earthbound -- it borrowed the UGLY and the SUCK.

[Vizzys]

Games of the future to borrow elements from GAMES OF THE PAST! more at 11

Shocking, I know.

[Vizzys]

Superman 64 also borrowed from Earthbound -- it borrowed the UGLY and the SUCK.

  Not shocking at all from a man that compares DBZ to Bleach.

[Van Cruncheon]

you mean they're both utterly cliched, predictable shonen crap?

[Vizzys]

you mean they're both utterly cliched, predictable shonen crap?

I'd say the only thing they have in common is that they are both animated drawings.

[MrAngryFace]

OMG IDEAS TAKEN FROM A GAME THAT TOOK IDEAs FROM GAMES!