Castle Paradox

[Moogle1]

Informal poll: What is your favorite battle in any RPG in terms of gameplay?

Good/bad examples from FF4:
Bad: Battle with Edge's parents. (This is a story battle.)
Good: Battle with Magus sisters. (This is a gameplay battle.)

Feel free to elaborate... or not.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Mike Caron]

Gameplay, eh? Hmm... While I don't like FFIV very much as a whole, that one battle in that cave where the wall is closing in on you (like, moving across the screen), and you have to kill the wall before it reaches the party is kinda neat.

Of course, that's Console-style RPG. Since Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is an RPG, I'll have to vote for the Julius battle, since it really feels like you're fighting another player.
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[DomGallo]

I always kind of liked the battle against Magus in Chrono Trigger. Something about the atmosphere, and the changing magical barriers, and trying to keep Frog alive long enough for the Masamune to work. Ultros also had some pretty fun battles in FF6, especially the one on the Opera stage, with the music going nuts, and him tentacling everyone.
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[msw188]

I've enjoyed most of the Dragon Warrior games' final battles. In particular, I just beat Dragon Quest VI for the second time a week ago or so (if you don't know, there is a very good translation patch for this game if you can get a ROM for it, and it works on a SNES emulator). That final battle was really good, I thought. I really had to cycle through my heroes, bringing different ones into the active party while healing those in the reserve. Which makes me think of a suggestion for the OHR. I'm heading over to the OHR General Forum.

[Mr B]

Best: It's embarrassing to admit, but my favorite/most memorable battle was a stupid error completely my own fault. It took place in KotOR.

Near the beginning of the game, when you just enter the Ebon Hawk's hanger to steal it, the main character, Canderous, and a third hero of player's choice are confronted by the planet's crime boss and a bounty hunter. I was having difficulty with this battle and kept reloading. One time, the player character and the third character died, and Canderous was at 20 HP and I accidentally saved instead of reloading -- over my single save slot (to this day I can't explain why I was only using one slot). I didn't want to start the entire game over again, so I was forced to use my wits and guile to kill two minibosses with this one nearly-dead character. The third char, Bastilla, was down, so she couldn't use Force Heal. It was a stupid battle that I should never have gotten myself into, but it was FUN.

Worst: KotOR II, Darth Nihil. Besides being a horribly stupid name (heck, "Darth Nemo" would have been better...), the game sets him up as an incredibly evil, distressing, difficult, and difficult character. I killed him, first try, in five moves -- without loosing more than 1/5 of my HP. Thinking I had discovered a bug, I reloaded and fought again with the same results. This was the first time through the game, so it's not as if I had figured out how to optimize anything... Yeah. And then he died, and NOTHING happened. Not only was the battle simpler than many random encounters, but it completely broke the story (which continued in it's bizarre death-throws for several more hours...).

Other Good Battle: In Mario RPG, when you're fighting that archer boss in the forest, and he kept disabling certain buttons. It was weird and a little annoying, but it somehow worked. Normally stuff like that would drive me nuts, but not this time.

[Santa Claus]

I really liked that Buorn battle from Dragon Quest V. You know? Where you have this giant monster that escaped from the bottle and it was like ZOMGWTF U HAV TO DEFEET IT!

I checked a couple of FAQs later and it turned out that my characters were severely underleveled, but I still won anyways.

Also, a minor character says "Joy cookies" after you defeat the boss. It was pretty awesome.

[Jack]

I'm not sure if I can pick just one, but the boss battles in Tales of Phantasia are cool (by the way, does action rpg count?). Trying to avoid spells that kill you in one hit is always a fun thing to do.
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[Leonhart]

I love the battles of the Tales series. they're not your average battle where only one party member attacks at a certain time.
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[Blue Pixel]

i loved pretty much every battle in mario and luigi, super saga. turn based + timing = awwsome.
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[LeRoy_Leo]

I think the original point of this thread was to see what people think were good battles and what were bad battles as well, Like Mr B did. We're missing half the topic. I'm not sure on the matter myself. I don't play enough rpgs...
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---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[Sparoku]

My favorite RPG battle would have to be the Final battle in Paper Mario 2.

The battle I liked the least was the one against Lavos. It takes for-freaking-ever to beat that guy.
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[Moogle1]

[msw188]

I never really liked the final Lavos battle in Chrono Trigger either. I'm not sure why. I don't think that it was the length, it just seemed strangely out of place or something. I don't remember it being too difficult, or too easy really, but somehow boring. Sorry I can't offer any helpful ideas in there.

I thought it might be helpful to discuss general, non-boss battles as well, if this thread is being used to help make a game. Again, the Dragon Warrior games for me seemed paced just about right, so that general battles were usually not singly challenging, but getting through a dungeon required careful use of MP. Dragon Warrior IV, Part 5 as a whole seems a very strong example. Final Fantasy III (or VI) was back and forth in this category for me. The idea of having skills like Edgar's AutoCrossbow be free was rediculous, and most of the early places seemed incredibly easy. The Floating Island was a good challenge though, and that is mostly because of good random battles (I think).

I've been sitting here trying to think of some specific reasons that I feel the way I do about all that, and it isn't coming. And I have to go meet my friend at the airport. He's Mormon. By the way, Moogle1, are you at BYU?

[Moogle1]

No, but both my brothers go there. The one that's still there graduates this month; the other is home for the break.

Chrono Trigger has the best battles in any standard-system RPG, I've decided. Whether or not you like Lavos, you still have Magus, Masa&Mune, Guardian, Dragon Tank, and so forth for boss battles -- and the standard battles are also excellent.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Mike Caron]