Leaning forward, always alert — or brooding over choices with a cup of tea? Players may have their preferences when it comes to combat in games. Let’s have a look at why the action lovers are clearly wrong.
According to people on the internet, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has brought turn-based combat back into the mainstream.
Whether you think this is true — kinda ignoring series like Paper Mario, Baldur’s Gate or Persona, which have been very successful for decades —, there’s certainly an on-going debate about battle systems in games: Which is better, turn-based combat or action combat?
Since RPG Maker offers a turn-based battle system, and therefore, all of my games feature such a system, I would like to lay out some arguments for why turn-based combat may beat action combat, especially in JRPGs.
10 Aspects of Turn-based Superiority
There are, of course, way more than 10 aspects to this superiority — and you know it! But these are the 10 aspects I feel are most compelling:
Strategy over Reflexes
Success depends on brilliant ideas rather than fast fingers.
Having great reflexes is nice, of course, but proving that you’re a strategic mastermind is clearly better. Dexterity can be trained, after all, intelligence can’t.
Let’s put it this way: If you found a magic lamp in some ruins deep below the sands of a desert, freed the genie and were – for whatever wish – to decide between a lower reaction time and a higher thinking capacity, what would you choose?
Yeah, I thought so.
Accessible to all Skill Levels
If anyone can play a game with turn-based combat — regardless of physical skills —, even very young or very old people or disabled people or people who simply can’t press buttons fast enough for whatever reason can give it a try.
You may say that there are games with easy action combat, or that there are games with difficult turn-based combat, but, um, let’s ignore that for now. The vast majority of games with action combat do, in fact, ask a lot of players later on. On the other hand, the vast majority of games with turn-based combat are JRPGs which allow for level grinding to beat any challenging boss during the main story with some patience.
Perfect for complex Systems and Builds
Turn-based combat allows layered mechanics without overwhelming the player. Split-second decisions don’t go very well with having multiple resources as well as lots of buff and debuff icons to take into ‘consideration’. In turn-based games, you may present the player with a lot of information at once that they can read and understand at their own pace.
I mean, sure, that might not look very pretty after a certain threshold of different shapes and colours, but at least the player could still take their time and think about every single thing on the screen if they really wanted to.
Clear Cause-and-Effect Relationships
In fast-paced action combat, you may not always know what’s going on or what caused what. There’s stuff flying around, magical spells flung at enemies from every corner of your field of vision, and then, all of a sudden, objects get destroyed, enemies take damage, you find yourself debuffed — and you have no idea why.
That isn’t very fun, is it?
In turn-based combat, there’s really only one action happening at a time, and therefore, any event and its outcome are easy to see, understand and evaluate.
Less physical Strain and Fatigue
Turn-based combat doesn’t require constant tension or rapid inputs — which means it’s a more relaxed experience, perfect for the evening hours after a long day of work.
And some people simply prefer that kind of gameplay for their escapism, anyway, even on their days off.
Deeper Party Management
Each character’s role and the synergies between them can be utilised thoughtfully. In action combat, you may command other characters sometimes and/or to some degree, but in turn-based combat, they are actual player characters — which also helps the narrative and its emotional impact!
Easier to Balance for Developers
Predictable actions with clear definitions make tuning encounters way easier.
There are also fewer values to worry about in most cases. For example, there are only 5 main stats in Wildsilver.
Characters and enemies which move and act in real time can and must be fine-tuned in terms of various speed values, hit boxes, knockback, collision damage et cetera. You may even need to take the environment and objects into account!
More respectful of the Player’s Pace
Even if you love action combat, you may not always be in the mood for it.
Turn-based combat adapts to how the player wants to play. You can spam the A button and hope for the best — which can also be quite a spectacular mess — or take your time to fight most efficiently.
Let’s be honest: In many JRPGs, both ways of playing actually work. (You may need another healing spell or two to compensate for your lack of strategy, however, but that should be okay.)
Way better for long Play Sessions
Mental engagement usually lasts much longer without any kind of physical exhaustion. Some may be able to hack and slash all night, but that’s probably not true for the average gamer.
Grinding for hours in turn-based combat, though? Not a problem for a true JRPG fan! (I know, I know. There are MMORPGs which have players grind a lot — a lot! — as well, and it seems to work just fine. For a certain target group, that is.)
Admiring the Art
Action combat tends to be too fast to actually have a look at the character models / sprites and all the beautiful particle effects. Turn-based combat lets you enjoy the graphics without any distractions.
This is clearly an advantage for players who like pixel art or stylised graphics!
While the spectacle of action-combat games usually doesn’t go unappraised, I think artists benefit from players being able to fully grasp how much work that went into the presentation. Turn-based combat presents players with more of an oil painting than an action movie, so to speak, which lends itself to the feeling of genuine awe a visual artist may want to incite in the viewer.
Conclusion
And thus, we’re done. Those were 10 aspects you may not have thought of when trying to argue about whether action combat or turn-based combat is to be preferred. Hopefully, some of these sections made you nod frantically.
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So, here’s the obvious question: Do you actually prefer turn-based combat or action combat? Or could a hybrid be the optimal choice? And which game has your favourite battle system? Let me know in the comments!