It seems like a common sentiment nowadays is that turn-based RPGs are old-fashioned and that action RPGs are the new standard. Of course, it isn't just recently that people have had the idea for that sort of gameplay. There have been action RPGs since at least the NES; back when turn-based RPGs were still the standard. Let's talk about some of the action RPGs that have come out on, say, the PS1 and earlier systems.
Kouryuu Densetsu Villgust Gaiden
This is actually the second game in the Villgust franchise. The first game was a standard Dragon Quest type game for the Super Famicom. I'm not sure why they went back a console generation, but whatever. The SNES one was Winkysoft, who made the earlier Super Robot Wars games, whereas this one is by TOSE, who made everything ever without you knowing about it. Even Splatoon. There are also a Villgust OVA anime, but since they came out at around the same time, I'm not really sure what's based on what.
The story is some generic crap that I can't be bothered to remember. There's a goddess and she wants you to do some stuff. I dunno. I think the anime was just some ecchi crap. What's more important is that the main character, Murobo, is a giant wolfman with Centurion armour and a poleaxe. That is badass. You might want to complain about that he's a furry, but this came out at the time of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice from Mars, and Street Sharks. Would you play a Street Sharks RPG? I sure as hell would.
The other characters aren't as interesting. There are some more animal people, but they're anime style, where they're humans with animal ears and maybe a tail. Murobo's the tank, having high attack and defense and never learning any magic. Lucia the catgirl is the balanced one. There's also another catgirl, Sylvie, who is vaguely similar. Lemmy is the healer, so she's also the weakest. Bostoph the thief uses a boomerang, so he's the ranged fighter. Lita is another balanced character with better magic.
Anyway, onto the interesting part. The gameplay. Whenever you get into a random battle or boss fight, your enemies will all appear on a pie chart. Your characters take turns handling one slice at a time. Before you get into the combat, you have a menu, which lets you rearrange the order of your characters or try to run away. There's also an autobattle option, which goes into a turn-based mode.
When you're actually fighting, it's like Zelda 2 in a fixed arena. The battle lasts until either you or your enemies are all dead. You really only have two physical attacks. There's your basic slash, which you can do while crouching or in the air, and there's the aerial stomp attack. Murobo and Lita have slightly better range than Sylvie or Lemmy; they don't need to crouch to hit smaller enemies.
You can also pop open a menu during battle to equip weapons and healing items. You have to hit an enemy to activate a healing item, so if you're careless, it's entirely possible that you'll walk into them instead and die when you're trying to save yourself with a potion. Magic is activated by holding up and hitting the attack button. There are no buffs, only healing spells and attacks. Attacks take the form of projectiles or smart bomb type moves that hit the whole screen.
Enemies damage you on contact like most platformers. Some will just charge you, but a lot of them use projectiles or other attacks. There are a ton of enemy types, and even ones that have the same graphics have somewhat different patterns. Different areas in the game also have different platforms, which is sometimes useful for avoiding enemy attacks or getting to flying enemies.
So, basically, Villgust is a neat game that is often overlooked. I like to think of it as sort of the ancestor of the Tales series (and therefore the only Tales game I like). It's really short for a NES RPG, though. You can beat it in just a few hours. It's also pretty linear and doesn't really do anything interesting on the RPG side. Still, I wonder how games like Villgust would have done in the American NES market. Would the hybrid gameplay help them break into a market that still hadn't developed a taste for RPGs?
Anyway, you can see a full playthrough of it (no commentary) here.
Kouryuu Densetsu Villgust Gaiden
This is actually the second game in the Villgust franchise. The first game was a standard Dragon Quest type game for the Super Famicom. I'm not sure why they went back a console generation, but whatever. The SNES one was Winkysoft, who made the earlier Super Robot Wars games, whereas this one is by TOSE, who made everything ever without you knowing about it. Even Splatoon. There are also a Villgust OVA anime, but since they came out at around the same time, I'm not really sure what's based on what.
The story is some generic crap that I can't be bothered to remember. There's a goddess and she wants you to do some stuff. I dunno. I think the anime was just some ecchi crap. What's more important is that the main character, Murobo, is a giant wolfman with Centurion armour and a poleaxe. That is badass. You might want to complain about that he's a furry, but this came out at the time of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice from Mars, and Street Sharks. Would you play a Street Sharks RPG? I sure as hell would.
The other characters aren't as interesting. There are some more animal people, but they're anime style, where they're humans with animal ears and maybe a tail. Murobo's the tank, having high attack and defense and never learning any magic. Lucia the catgirl is the balanced one. There's also another catgirl, Sylvie, who is vaguely similar. Lemmy is the healer, so she's also the weakest. Bostoph the thief uses a boomerang, so he's the ranged fighter. Lita is another balanced character with better magic.
Anyway, onto the interesting part. The gameplay. Whenever you get into a random battle or boss fight, your enemies will all appear on a pie chart. Your characters take turns handling one slice at a time. Before you get into the combat, you have a menu, which lets you rearrange the order of your characters or try to run away. There's also an autobattle option, which goes into a turn-based mode.
When you're actually fighting, it's like Zelda 2 in a fixed arena. The battle lasts until either you or your enemies are all dead. You really only have two physical attacks. There's your basic slash, which you can do while crouching or in the air, and there's the aerial stomp attack. Murobo and Lita have slightly better range than Sylvie or Lemmy; they don't need to crouch to hit smaller enemies.
You can also pop open a menu during battle to equip weapons and healing items. You have to hit an enemy to activate a healing item, so if you're careless, it's entirely possible that you'll walk into them instead and die when you're trying to save yourself with a potion. Magic is activated by holding up and hitting the attack button. There are no buffs, only healing spells and attacks. Attacks take the form of projectiles or smart bomb type moves that hit the whole screen.
Enemies damage you on contact like most platformers. Some will just charge you, but a lot of them use projectiles or other attacks. There are a ton of enemy types, and even ones that have the same graphics have somewhat different patterns. Different areas in the game also have different platforms, which is sometimes useful for avoiding enemy attacks or getting to flying enemies.
So, basically, Villgust is a neat game that is often overlooked. I like to think of it as sort of the ancestor of the Tales series (and therefore the only Tales game I like). It's really short for a NES RPG, though. You can beat it in just a few hours. It's also pretty linear and doesn't really do anything interesting on the RPG side. Still, I wonder how games like Villgust would have done in the American NES market. Would the hybrid gameplay help them break into a market that still hadn't developed a taste for RPGs?
Anyway, you can see a full playthrough of it (no commentary) here.
