Final Fantasy XIV, Rules, and Playful Design

I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV! Yes, I’m one of those! Blame my friends, they got to me at last. I had an interesting thought, the other day. If you haven’t played Final Fantasy XIV, hereafter frequently referred to as FFXIV, then you might not understand that its combat feels very different from the likes of more “standard” MMOs of the years’ past like World of Warcraft. There’s a number of certain somethings in the nuances of its design that piqued my interest, made me question what makes them tick. What’s more, the more I thought about these little nuances the more I found surprising parallels in other games that you might not expect. So, if only to satisfy my own curiosity, I’d like to try and break down what about FFXIV’s combat sets it apart, in my estimation, and what can be learned from how XIV does things.

Now, if I describe aspects of Final Fantasy XIV that come from different expansions that were released years apart, please do not be dissuaded. The entire development history of the game is characterized by slow and highly iterative adaptation to its changing goals and aspirations. Even the game’s own narrative reflects this, but all that’s a story for another day. Suffice to say, even though FFXIV took about a decade to come out, in a drip feed, it is presently very much a complete and cohesive product worth investigating on the whole of its merits, in addition to the individual merits of its expansions.

The Core Mechanics

First, to understand how Final Fantasy XIV becomes ‘playful’, as the title up there indicates, we need to understand, like all newbie players, the baseline that the game expects of you during combat. To start, each player has a combat job, who fills some sort of role. The primary roles are tank, who absorbs most of the damage and the enemies’ ire, the healers, who provide healing support, and the damage dealers, whose specialty is obvious, and are further divided into ranged, melee, and magic damage dealers. Each of these jobs need to maximize their effectiveness to get through the most difficult encounters. Managing their resources correctly, pressing the right buttons and casting the right spells in the right order, is all essential.

There is an optimal way to do this. There is not room for much personal expression through play in the combat of Final Fantasy XIV. I think that’s fine, as this MMO concentrates much of its avenues of personal expression elsewhere. The playfulness of its combat lies elsewhere than in the individual players, as well. But back to the subject, if a player is experienced, their performance will more and more approach this optimal sequence of player actions, that deal the maximum damage, absorb damage most efficiently, or heal most efficiently. This is their ‘rotation’. Players are expected to constantly be tending their rotations in combat for maximum efficiency.

However, the enemies in this game have special attacks that can hit multiple players, and not just the tanks. These are called Area of Effect attacks, or AoEs. These are (almost) always indicated by bright orange volumes on the flat 2D surface of the ground. Some players might humorously say “there are lines on the floor” when ribbing each other’s performance. And indeed, to dodge an AoE, one must step out of the bright orange shape, before it resolves. The orange AoEs are a rather ingenious way of injecting some more engaging movement to the otherwise rather static tradition of “tanking and spanking” enemies as was often said in World of Warcraft. The AoE markers are calculated server-side, meaning their mechanics must be communicated to the greater online sphere before they resolve on an individual player’s client, as AoEs are by definition meant to affect multiple players. If an enemy were to just swing his arm without such a warning in real-time, the differential between client and server could make for a rather inaccurately timed and unpleasant experience. So instead, the developers opted to essentially slow down the process of dodging attacks a lot.

A muscular lizard man with brass knuckles strikes an intimidating pose. A bright orange rectangle appears on the ground in front of him. After a moment, he strikes at the air, sending a shockwave over the highlighted area.

These bright orange “danger” volumes become go-to shorthand in combat.

This, obviously, makes FFXIV a whole lot easier than, say, a real-time game like monster hunter (at least at first, but we’ll get there), and itself not quite an action game. The developers were aware of this too, of course, so instead of relying on players’ reactive abilities, they test players’ predictive abilities. AoE attacks come out slowly. Usually. And they have very clear indicated boundaries. They always resolve a static amount of time after appearing. So what happens if there’s a large AoE, leaving only a small safe zone… but then, another AoE appears, a couple seconds later but before the first resolves, and covers that safe zone? Now you are tracking two timers, splitting your attention.

Remember this is all happening while players continue to triage their rotations. FFXIV is a game that demands multitasking as a core skill. You might have heard this, but the human brain is actually exceptionally bad at engaging in several activities at once. When you ‘multitask’, what you’re really doing is rapidly shifting attention from one activity to the next, and back, ensuring no one activity becomes too neglected, like spinning plates. In the example I provided, you must manage your rotation, but also be aware of the first AoE’s timer, and not be distracted by the fact that a second AoE is overlapping your safe zone. Because as soon as that timer goes off, you must concern yourself with the second, delayed AoE’s timer, and vacate from the initial safe zone. Oh, and don’t forget to keep up with that rotation. Don’t want to fall behind on damage.

So from what at first seems like a rather basic combat design basis, we get some versatility with basically… messing with player cognition to a great degree. Imagine barrages of AoEs, all different sizes and shapes, all slightly offset from each other in space and time. Maybe some AoEs that respond to player movement, and some that depend on player facing direction. Pretty quickly the demands of multitasking become quite frantic. I don’t have to imagine it, I’ve lived it. It doesn’t end there, though. With these basic rules in place, Final Fantasy XIV, instead of only intensifying the existing mechanics, constantly introduces entirely new ones, with their own demands of the player’s time and attention. So how can they keep the constant barrage of new information from overwhelming the player? If the rules are constantly changing, how does the encounter design stay intuitive?

“Intuitive”

To figure that out, we need to decide what’s “intuitive.” using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive. Thanks Oxford, but, hm. Okay, that doesn’t help us much. How do we know what our players will feel to be true “even without conscious reasoning”? Let’s hone in on that last word – instinctive. We can start by using signifiers that relate to general knowledge the average player in our demographic would bring with them into the game. This often translates to relying on real world “common knowledge” as a basis for gameplay mechanics. If there are two towers, one taller than the other, and lightning is about to strike, which tower should you stand under?

An army of adventurers pelt a giant flying centaur with weapon strikes and bolts of magic. The centaur throws two spears into the air, which land on either side of a large platform. One spear is much taller than the other, and this one is struck by lightning.

As you can see, in the chaos, following simple instructions can be challenging.

FFXIV is, once you’ve acclimated to the basis of its combat system, rather consistently good at this. Most of the time, it is possible, perhaps even feasible, to discern most of what an enemy might be capable of based on this sort of “common knowledge” intuition. When an enemy raises their right hand, it is likely unwise to stand on their right flank. A dragon will probably breathe fire in a cone in front of itself. If a boss is charging a massive attack, with tons of energized particle effects to accentuate, and a rock that is roughly the size of play character falls onto the ground, then it is probably advisable to put the rock between yourself and the enemy boss.

That last one is intuitive on a “common knowledge” basis, but it also overlaps with another kind of gameplay intuition, which is pattern recognition. Generally, human brains are very very good at recognizing patterns. When FFXIV introduces a new mechanic, it can be considered to be establishing a paradigm. As that mechanic may appear again, sometimes very frequently! In addition to the “core” mechanics of FFXIV combat discussed earlier, the game deploys additional mechanics with a particular kind of consistency of logic. For example, eventually a player working their way through the main story of FFXIV will find themselves fighting an ancient dragon. This dragon will use an ability called ‘Akh Morn.’ Prior to its activation, this ability is foreshadowed by the standard ‘stack’ mechanic indicator, meaning players must huddle together to split the damage. Akh Morn, however, hits multiple times – so if players scatter after the first hit as they’re used to, they must react to reconvene, if they’re to survive. Later, they will fight a dragon again, and Akh Morn will once again occur, and work the very same way. At this point, it will become clear that Akh Morn is an ability specifically associated with dragons, and players will be prepared for it any time they see one, even before the ability is used. This is also a kind of intuition, based upon a sense for the shape of the gameplay’s design and intentions, in recognition of established patterns. One might even call it gamesense.

FFXIV overlapping its mechanics makes players more predictive than reactive.

That’s all well and good, but this is all kind of fuzzy, isn’t it? Indefinite terms like “common knowledge”, and even pattern recognition will not be consistent across all players – each individual learns at a different pace. So how can you tell what is intuitive? There’s no real definite approach outside of using best judgment, and then playtesting. Playtesting playtesting playtesting. You’ll never really know how players will react to certain gameplay decisions until you see players react to those gameplay decisions. Seeing your players engage with your systems will inform your approach. This can be seen in how enemies and combat mechanics in FFXIV change gradually, but significantly over the course of its story quest – through many iterations across several expansions that came out over the course of a decade.

Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale Are The Same Game

I am especially fond of how FFXIV uses that “common knowledge intuition” to introduce its new combat mechanics. I have a history of playing MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft. I was even a rather hardcore raider – or in other words, a participant in high-end end-game content, the most challenging stuff saved for the most dedicated players. The way WoW designed its encounters was interesting, chaotic, engaging, and often quite complicated. However, I rarely felt the sense of intuitive sensibility I feel playing Final Fantasy XIV. The narrative and aesthetic building blocks of combat in Final Fantasy are all abstractions of actions one can make some sense of in the context of the fiction. WoW, at least when I played it, had some of that, but its more difficult encounters leaned much further into abstraction, with status conditions upon gameplay modifiers upon unique interactions disconnecting, at least for me, the experience of engaging with those systems from the experience of being in the fantasy world.

I have been playing quite a bit of Undertale and Undertale-adjacent content, lately. Such as Toby Fox’s other brilliant game Deltarune, and the charming fan-made Undertale prequel, Undertale Yellow. While dodging bullets shaped like flexing muscles, representing a monster’s outgoing personality, it occurred to me how starkly similar these two games – Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale actually are, at least in terms of their combat systems.

Okay hear me out, I’m not insane, I swear.

Both games are RPGs that represent enemy offensive actions with abstract shapes that denote areas on a 2D plane of danger, and safety. Entering a “danger zone” causes the player damage. The shapes these danger zones take abstractly denote the kind of action the enemy is taking. In Undertale, these danger zones are called bullets, and if they’re shaped like water droplets, they might denote the enemy crying, or causing it to rain. In FFXIV, these danger zones are called AoEs, and if it’s a cone extended from a monster’s front, it might denote the monster breathing fire.

I can see you’re not sold. Alright, consider this; both games feature two prominent methods by which tension, challenge, and surprise is weaved into gameplay. In Undertale you might run into a monster who cries tears down on you from above that you have to avoid. Then, you might run into a monster who sends a fly to slowly follow you, which you must constantly move away from. Neither bullet pattern is especially difficult to dodge. But then, you may run into both monsters simultaneously! Suddenly, you must multitask and interweave devoting attention to both bullet patterns at once. In Final Fantasy XIV, boss mechanics are deployed in a very specific way. Every boss will start by using one of its signature abilities – perhaps a simple barrage of AoE attacks at random locations around the players. Then, they’ll introduce a new mechanic, maybe forcing the players to a certain quadrant of the arena while looking in a certain direction. Neither pattern is especially difficult to dodge. But then, the boss will begin using both moves simultaneously! Suddenly, you must multitask and interweave devoting attention to both patterns at once.

The undertale character Asgore, a large horned furred monster in a warrior king's outfit shoots many bullets of flame out at areas indicated with a "!". He then swings a blue, then an orange trident.

Oh HMMM sure looks *exactly* like AoE markers and color-coded attacks with special rules, HMMM!

That is not where the similarities end, though. The other prominent method by which both games influence their interest curves is through the introduction of new rules, as previously mentioned. Think about it; The first time Undertale deploys the “blue heart” mechanic, the player is shocked, possibly confused, as their schmup-style 2D grid of bullet dodging suddenly becomes a 2D platformer complete with gravity and jumping controls. It completely upends the paradigm of how one must think of the spatial relationships of all entities in play. I really think the “blue heart” moment is undersold in how instantly it establishes Undertale’s playful nature, and the breadth of unique variety it is willing to explore. Meanwhile, in FFXIV, the first I remember of an equivalent “blue heart” moment is when I was introduced to the “ice floor” mechanic in the story content leading up to FFXIV’s first expansion. The ice floor forces the player to move a set, (large) minimum distance, if moving at all, most often coinciding with other, damaging mechanics that need to be dodged. This, and other mechanics like, “forced march”, which, as the name implies, forces your character to march in a straight line, changes the paradigm of how you relate your character’s spatial relationship to all other entities in play.

A decaying giant robot puppet spins like she is dancing, in an opera hall. A much smaller android in a black dress dexterously bounds over and around a stream of energy orbs unleashed from the puppet, then strikes her with a sword.

But perhaps I give Undertale too much credit. I am not, after all, extremely familiar with the shoot ’em ups and bullet hells which inspired it. In fact, it feels as though bullet hell-like mechanics have been infiltrating other genres for a while now, much like RPG mechanics started to do some years ago. I’m always in favor of that sort of diffusion, as it leads to a lot of cool new ideas that couldn’t exist otherwise. It reminds me of Returnal, or its inspirations like Nier and Nier: Automota. I do, however, think there is a certain something to how FFXIV and Undertale/Deltarune play with their rules, that *does* set them apart from other similar games. I just can’t shake the feeling that these two seemingly disparate experiences have a strong link between them.

Rules

A rather flamboyant character with shoulder-length hair and an official-looking uniform. He is "roulx kaard" from the game Deltarune. He is lying down, propped up on one elbow, rocking his foot and a finger-gun gesture back and forth in rhythm. His hair is sparkling.

Image unrelated.

These “paradigm shifting” moments are essentially the introduction of supplementary rules to the basis upon each respective game is built. Games are made of rules, so when you add rules, you change the game. Both Undertale and Final Fantasy XIV do this with some regularity, to the point that adapting to the addition of new rules is a prominent part of both games’ core skillset and identity. A combination of pattern recognition, rote memorization, and intuitive anticipation replaces the twitch-reactive mindset you might find in an action game. This settles both games into a certain mood, where anything can happen, because any new rule can simply be dropped in the player’s lap.

By utilizing intuitive design, presumably through extensive testing, FFXIV dodges the obvious pitfall of such an approach in most cases. That being, if a player settles into the loop of a comfortable and reliable ruleset, a sudden disruption can feel jarring and unfair – a new rule kind of implies that the player hasn’t been prepared for it, yeah? So that’s why it’s so essential to this sort of playful design that things always be intuitive. FFXIV has several vectors to achieve this – not just in its flashing indicators, AoE warning shapes, monster designs, and monster animations, but also through the text displayed on enemy UI when they use a special attack. “Forced March” sort of implies what it does, and those words are visible to you before you have to react. All these things form the language by which FFXIV communicates information and teaches you each new rule without teaching it to you. Undertale’s language for communicating new rules is through shapes. When the player’s heart turns green, the game becomes a bit of a rhythm-adjacent directional timing game. This is indicated by all the enemy bullets becoming arrows, and moving in regular intervals with the music.

A floormap with large, complicated orange "AoE" markers layered overtop. The entire map rotates counterclockwise, and two quadrants of the map are highlighted in red.

As you can see, once this stuff starts to stack up, it can really get quite taxing. Gif from here.

In both cases, if players are ever confused, they are never confused for long, and even may discern the nuances of a new rule before it’s engaged! Understanding game rules becomes a skill in itself, and experienced players are encouraged to discern the shape of the design through intuition. I find something so fascinating and appealing about this because it goes in the opposite direction of the typical wisdom that the hand of the designer needs to be invisible. The players play along as the designer plays – it creates a sort of Calvinball mentality, where the game can be anything you imagine, and every encounter can feel fresh. So many other RPGs I’ve played get so wrapped up in what the design of their encounters must be that they feel stifling.

I think this is what makes me distinguish Undertale and Final Fantasy XIV so closely in my mind, even compared to similar games in the MMO or Shoot ‘Em Ups genres. It’s the playfulness, the bending and manipulating of the very fabric of the game by bending, reimagining, or supplementing the very building blocks, the rules. This allows the designers so much freedom in what they can convey simply through combat mechanics, and if you’ve read anything of mine or spoken to me for five minutes, you may know that I love when gameplay and narrative synergize or better yet supplement one another. Undertale uses shapes to communicate gameplay obstacles, but also the shape of the opposing monsters’ emotions. The blue heart mechanic only appears while fighting the skeleton brothers, two fights that happen worlds apart but are connected by this, emphasizing their relationship to each other. When a character repeats the use of a forbidden power in Final Fantasy you hadn’t seen for a very long time, you understand their desperation. And so on.

A closeup of an elderly elf man. He looks contentedly into a blazing light that grows to encompass him and then the entire image.

All that aside, you’ll still find me looking like this standing in a basic-ass AoE

What Was I Talking About?

Anyway, I think I’m finally satisfied with what was causing an itch at the back of my brain while playing Undertale Yellow. It’s that the exact same parts of that brain, the same reflexes, pattern recognition skills, and adaptability I had trained in Final Fantasy were carrying over. And I think I’ve been able to suss out what about the two games feels so familiar to me. Playfulness in design, the willinging to recontextualize and reorient the ruleset has been employed often in games, but rarely is it such a central pillar as it is in Undertale and FFXIV. Wario Ware and Mario Party are games about playing smaller, bite sized game experiences, and I’ve heard FFXIV players joke that they’re essentially the same as their favorite MMO. I can remember a number of arena battles in Ratchet and Clank that randomly swap out your weapon, or give the enemies some absurd advantage, rotating rules in and out over time. I think I’ve found a lot to take away from this exercise, and it’s given me a deeper appreciation for the very different approaches there are to making combat in games both fun and engaging. Not everything has to be about fast and snappy reactions. There are a myriad of reasons a person might enjoy a game and a thousand avenues to accentuate that. So experiment with your design and your rules, and see what speaks to you.

Ifrit the fiery god from final fantasy XIV is shown in closeup, a horned burning lizard-like beast with skeletal claws and stony scales.

So – let us be about it, hero.

A Heartfelt Review of Sonic Frontiers

So this is not a review blog. Reviewing things is not my usual thing. I’m making an exception for this, a very particular game. My relationship to the Sonic franchise is difficult for me to put words to. It is a property I am so profoundly invested in, I will watch all marketing and critical material for each new entry in this monolithic franchise like a hawk, and yet I can’t always bring myself to participate in new Sonic content. Lots of breath has been spent on the bizarre nature of Sonic as a media franchise, but for my part, the simple version is as follows. Sonic The Hedgehog is a franchise with identities as numerous as the stars. It is many things to many people, as it’s consistently accrued new young fans over the years with movies, comics, TV shows, and even games that are each often wildly different in tone, texture, and creative vision. Sonic seems to constantly be in a state of wanting to reinvent itself, and I’ve long been wary of this leading to games that are sometimes of questionable quality, and thus an a deep interest in critical and fan reception, despite my own desperate love of the franchise. I’ve just been disappointed by Sonic a number of times, but I desperately want to love each new game.

I’m pleased to say, Sonic Frontiers was not a disappointment to me. I love much about it, but I can’t say it’s exactly exemplary. Well, that’s for the conclusion. Like I said I don’t normally write reviews, but I don’t really care for letter or number grades on media. Art is just so much more than that could ever convey. So, I’m going to do my best, to give voice to my thoughts on the latest Sonic game.

Sonic Frontiers is the first ‘Open Zone’ Sonic game. What they mean by this is simply that the game is divided into several open-world style maps, with objectives, collectibles, points of interest, and characters to meet in each. These maps are not connected to one another as they might be in a full open world game, thus the distinction. This isn’t really an issue to me – I find I have a fondness for the unique strengths of linear game design anyway, so this is a bit of the best of both worlds for me. You can explore the zones as you wish up to a point, when the story kicks in, unlocking the next area.

You’ll find you need to collect a bevy of different objects to progress the story and proceed to the next map, by ultimately assembling the seven chaos emeralds to fight a big climactic area boss. In the mean time, these objects can be collected by exploring the many, many, small platforming challenges scattered about each island, by playing through the more robust ‘Cyberspace Stage’ platforming/speed challenges, by talking to NPCs in narrative sequences, or by simply interacting with various objects to find collectibles.

The Movement

The beating heart of any Sonic game, where speed is king, how does the movement system feel? This is something I always get caught up on. It’s also something that nobody can really seem to agree on, including the developers at Sonic Team! Sonic’s movement and gamefeel has changed so many times fans categorize the different systems like its a wildlife taxonomy, and there are categories within categories! To give you an idea of where I’m coming from, I think the best character controller in Sonic is Sonic Adventure 2, and I don’t think the games have felt quite as good since! Either too slippery, or too stiff, or some other oddity always throws me off. And of course the boost games which followed some years after the Adventure games had completely different design goals, and as such the character controllers departed drastically from what I had been attached to.

Before I get into, there is one strange thing. There are movement sliders. They feature the ability to adjust and customize things like turn rate, initial speed, boost acceleration, and even top speed! That’s a little wild to me. This may sound appealing to some, but me, I’m not fond. In a game about movement, like a platformer, the character controls and capabilities need to be fine-tuned to the environment to really excel at showcasing what a movement system is capable of. Design is decision-making, and a truly great movement system has to be deliberated on to a certain level of specificity such that it is as suitable to its place in the game as possible – you know, you need to design it. To me this is not of the same substance as, say, camera control options. It’s not even really a set of control options. It’s doesn’t affect the interface, it affects what Sonic is literally capable of as a game-entity. It’s strange. It strikes me as a lack of confidence, to have left your game’s de-bugging variable sliders in the options menu. Thankfully, there was at least some confidence here – the default ‘high speed’ style gives you, in my opinion, the optimal experience by default.

Sonic the blue hedgehog runs around a grassy plateau at twilight, sprinting in circles at high speeds with great grace and agility. — Left: The most responsive Sonic ever, Right: The same but… slower?

A slider labeled "top speed" is brought to its lowest setting, then the blue hedgehog Sonic runs across a grassy filed in midday at a very moderate speed. — Left: The most responsive Sonic ever, Right: The same but… slower?

The game opens with a prompt to choose your preferred control style – ‘High Speed’ style or ‘Action’ style, with the game noting that ‘Action’ is good for beginners. As far as I can tell, all this does is change where the default of the ‘top speed’ slider rests. All the other sliders remain the same! Action, uh, sets your top speed to the minimum setting. That’s all! High speed does the opposite, starting it at the max setting. I highly highly recommend choosing high speed, even for beginners. Maybe I’m off base here and as a long-time pro gamer sonic master, but I feel as though even someone relatively new to games is going to pick up a Sonic game… expecting to go fast? It’s kind of the main pitch of the character. I don’t really understand the inclination to undermine that for the sake of making the game allegedly easier. Although one would think nerfing the movement speed could also make the game harder. I just feel as though there were better ways to construct a ‘beginner-friendly’ mode.

Okay on to the actual movement. Sonic controls excellently, smoothly, without hitch. Sonic responsively turns nearly one-to-one with control stick input. He can very quickly achieve impressive speeds, while ducking and weaving around obstacles with an engrossing gracefulness. Sonic never slips and slides around, stopping pretty promptly when bid to stop. Sonic is very adaptable, capable of transferring from one activity to the next in short order, like hopping on a grind rail, hopping off midway to bounce off a balloon, then boost toward a cliff side in the distance. The fantasy of seeing a large landscape ahead of sonic and just dashing off into the distance is realized here, with a responsive and blazingly fast hedgehog.

He feels like Adventure Sonic to me. Which is to say I feel in direct control of Sonic. I don’t feel like I’m guiding him with a carrot on a stick, or wrestling against strict movement constraints. When I want Sonic to get to a particular spot, I can get him there, when I want to running around enemies with flourish and style, I can do that. This movement system really accels to me in its ability to directly translate the player’s self-expression through play onto the canvas of the game. The friction between player and Sonic is very low.

From a birdseye view, SOnic the blue hedgehog runs leaving light blue energy trail behind him, in a field of red flowers. Sonic writes the name "Ian" in cursive, using this trail.

Sonic grips the ground satisfyingly as you run. The homing attack is long-ranged and fast, although I feel it has a bit too much hit-pause, making it more disruptive to flow than it should be. Sonic has more options than ever, being able to slide, bounce, dash to the ground from the air, boost, and double jump! The latter really helps with making precision platform jumps, even at high speed.

To get into the specifics, Sonic’s boost ability has been given an overhaul. It is now a regenerating resource, rather that a purely expendable one, more in line with the stamina meter in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. I’m in favor of this change, as it makes the boost more of a strategic tool, a decision to make, rather than just a binary state of ‘holding boost down indefinitely’ and ‘not having enough boost power and walking awkwardly slow’. The boost can also be used as an air-dash to reach distant areas, which is great, because the game does not carry Sonic’s momentum much at all in midair.

It’s something you get used to, but it feels awkwardly wrong to jump out of a full sprint only to watch all of your speed evaporate. Obviously, the maps and levels are not built to accommodate a movement system that heavily transfers speed from one state to another. Every time you light-dash, homing-attack, or bounce, Sonic’s speed is totally reset, and you have to rely on the boost to pick it up again. Luckily, the boost is no longer a one-size-fits-all solution to every obstacle. It doesn’t damage enemies, for one thing, so it is possible to send oneself careening into danger at high speeds. This is the fun part though! Sonic has always been all about know when and how to leverage your speed, and Frontiers captures this through the versatility, though not omnipotence, of the boost function.

The new boost, like the old, effectively replaces Sonic’s spindash move, something I still sorely miss. I really feel as though it would fit quite well in Frontiers especially, given how much its movement seems to be inspired by the Adventure games which featured the spindash prominently. Its advantage over the boost is fine aiming, although there’s no reason the two mechanics could not coexist. Indeed, this is proven by the baffling inclusion of the dropdash, inspired by Sonic Mania. Sonic can spin up, but only in midair, and otherwise it functions exactly like a spindash, perhaps a bit more unwieldy than the one in Adventure and Adventure 2. You can’t use it for fine aiming since you need to jump into it, but the dropdash feels great to use once you get the hang of it, and although it’s by no means necessary to use in the game, it’s cool to have- and I feel the same about Sonic’s most iconic move! Please bring back the spindash. Anyway. The spindash feels like a glaring omission, if only for the sake of completeness, but most of its functionality has been distributed to other moves.

Sonic jumps into a blue spinning ball, and lands on the grassy hill as such, rolling down across the landscape at high speed, before unrolling into a jog.

Sonic plays mostly the same in the Cyberspace Stages, except his turn rate is more strictly throttled, as the stages are more racetrack-like. Interestingly, it seems as though the movement sliders don’t affect Sonic in these stages, at all. It seems there was confidence in how he moved in this context. And well-earned too! I honestly think Sonic handles better in Cyberspace than in any other ‘boost’ game that came before. Sonic still feels like a person, rather than a runaway car. Stopping, turning, readjusting for fine precision, is all intuitive and not a roadblock to some of the more platform-heavy stages. I do have one quibble, which is that Sonic has far less air control than in the Frontiers overworld, even while stationary. This is not ultimately very important to the core gameplay of Cyberspace, which wants you to go fast. The lack of air control while jumping at high speed is meant to be evocative of momentum, ironically, since the game doesn’t really express momentum in many other ways, and that makes sense. At low speed it doesn’t really make sense and feels awkward. It wasn’t a common issue for me, but occasionally, whether I wanted to look in every nook and cranny of a level, or was backtracking to grab a missed collectible, sometimes I’d miss a platform entirely because Sonic can barely move in the air in these stages.

Although this game lacks momentum, the way one can string Sonic’s various moves together to achieve a similar effect can be very satisfying. You might backflip off of a grindrail to air-boost right across an enemy that would’ve slowed you down, and you get through the level a couple seconds faster. It’s amazing how well the systems can interact like this in subtle ways, and leaves a lot of essential room for mastery. Though I wish there was some measure of greater momentum, which would go a long way had the levels also been designed to accommodate it, I still think this is going to be a very repayable game. It’s one of the most immediate, smooth, and frankly playable Sonic movement systems we’ve had in a long time. I’d love to replay all of the old Sonic boost stages with this new movement system.

The Combat

It’s fluff. It’s style over substance that involves a lot of stopping and starting that feels quite at odds with the otherwise very free-flowing and fluid movement gameplay. Eh. I’m not happy to say that. I didn’t want the combat to bounce off of me. I don’t think an added focus on combat is totally incompatible to a Sonic game. I just think to make it work, the systems would’ve had to better play to its strengths. What we got, feels oddly disconnected from the movement systems whereas I had hoped for a pair of systems that interlinked in some way. What we got is rife with simplistic dominant strategies, and an apparent lack of depth. Suffice to say, for a Sonic combat system, I’d hope for an intricate dance of momentum, all about constant movement, situational awareness, and yeah, speed. This is not that.

I want to be clear; the combat is not a chore. It’s not egregious, or irritating, or even too frequent. It mostly just confuses me as to why it had to be there. It’s never challenging nor interesting to me in the way that combat depth usually is. Its best qualities are the spectacle, which seems to be the primary motivator behind the design of this combat. It is indeed very,, cool,, when Sonic kicks the air so hard it shoots laser crescents at his enemies. It is very,, neat,, when Sonic zigs and zags around in a finishing flourish to dispatch an enemy. It’s pleasant enough to watch enemy robots explode, and the combat never lingers long enough to feel like too much of a disruption.

Sonic’s combat options essentially include your standard series of punches chained together, and, in the style of other genres like fighting games and beat-em-ups, the option to string in alternate button inputs in the middle or end of a combo to extend the assault an deal more damage. The wrinkle is that Sonic can chain his homing attack into the beginning of one of these combos. The homing attack is ubiquitous in 3D Sonic and allows the hedgehog to zoom to a nearby enemy’s location whilst damaging it. It’s snappy, smart, and fits in perfectly with a game all about moving. Now though, with enemies gaining larger health pools to accommodate a larger-scoped combat system, Sonic can’t just zip by his defeated foes anymore. There’s a lot of stopping, wailing on a guy with lots of health, rinse and repeat. I found myself just bypassing a lot of enemies actually, because I always felt like that’s what I wanted to be doing as Sonic. The prospect of taking two minutes to button mash some randos to death never appealed to me here. Credit where it’s due though, the decision to change the homing attack from an air-only maneuver to one Sonic can perform from any state, including running on the ground, assigned to the same button as his punchy combo attack, was pretty clever. It essentially means Sonic will always zoom to an appropriate target when starting a combo. I just wish the act of building those combos was more fun.

Sonic repeatedly punches, kicks, and spins at a red light affixed to the back of a giant robot beetle.

Enemies caught in one of your combos will be mostly stunned until you finish. Other enemies can intervene, but all the AI in the game seems placid enough that I never really found it too much of a problem. Really I found Sonic’s defensive options- a dodge and a parry – nearly unnecessary. I say parry, but it’s more like a block with a reprisal attack. There’s no timing window. By holding the block input, Sonic stops in place (ugh), and prepares for an enemy’s blow. Once he takes the hit, the offender is stunned, and Sonic can follow up with his own attack. To block another hit, you must re-input the block, but after that it can be once again held indefinitely. It’s a little wild to me, that this system gives me no sense of speed, seeing as I’m playing as Sonic The Hedgehog. The parry and it’s stationary, time-agnostic nature is a prime example.

Not that you’ll need to be very defensive to begin with. As is expected by this point, Sonic’s life meter is his ring count. Rings being the common collectible in this game, the equivalent of coins. When you get hit, you drop some. If you’re hit with zero rings, you die. Same problems as always apply. There’s not much tension if I know I can always just pick up the rings I dropped, except in very specific situations. This knowledge makes a savvy player basically invincible, and draws into question the necessity of Sonic’s upgradeable defense level, which only reduces how many rings vanish from Sonic’s inventory when hit, as opposed to how many hit the ground. No matter your defense level some always do drop, and you can just pick them up.

Sonic is cut by a robot with blade-arms, and knocked onto the grassy ground at night. He drops some rings behind him as he falls on the ground, but quickly picks them up and beats up the robot.

Sonic has a good amount of brilliant blue eye-popping moves to use, and it’s all very impressive looking, but for me, to feel invested in a game’s combat I have to feel present in the shoes of the player character. I have to feel like I’m making decisions as though there are enemies attacking me. I think the primary problem here is that I don’t feel any of that. I feel like watching some pretty nice, but altogether non-interactive animations. Even then, some of the camera choices are pretty questionable. One camera animation in particular, during one of Sonic’s moves, I could easily see giving someone motion sickness. The whole framing feels off, too. Often you’ll see a reverse shot of Sonic, as if your perspective is meant to be from the target of the attack. But that is so incongruent. I’m meant to be playing Sonic, shouldn’t the camera frame me as Sonic, not a third-party observer?

The combo system seems to be catered specifically to stringing together Sonic’s various new tricks to maximize damage in one combo, with very little emphasis on ducking and dodging enemies, which are, in the majority, woefully unequipped to pose a threat to Sonic. Though I always enjoyed the nice crunchy audio-visual feedback of smashing robots, that was all underlined by my misgivings. I rarely found myself making interesting decisions when dispatching enemies. With the exception of one new mechanic.

I did mention that the combat mechanics and movement mechanics do not interlink in a way I find satisfactory. Well, that’s mostly true. Besides Sonic’s punches and kicks and dodges, there’s also the new cyloop. The cyloop is allows Sonic to leave behind a trail of energy as the player holds the cyloop button. If the player navigates Sonic into drawing a closed shape with this energy trail, he whips up a damaging whirlwind to lift and harm foes. This is fantastic. This is a combat mechanic, which is also a movement mechanic. This synergizes with what Sonic is about, and this tiny little thing has such great room for mastery and interactivity. You can run Sonic as fast or as erratically as you please while doing it – you can even combine the cyloop with Sonic’s new boost, for some insanely agile and stylish loops.

Sonic runs a ring around a group of robots so quickly, he whips up a whirlwind that knocks them into the air. He then dashes from one robot to the next in a series of homing attacks, bashing them to pieces.

One maneuver, that never got old for me was rounding up groups of enemies as they spawned. The most basic enemies usually teleport in, in groups of three or four. If you’re quick, Sonic can boost into a full sprint, cyloop around them, launching the enemies into the air, where they are helpless to stop Sonic from using his homing attacking to blast through each of them in turn. It’s great, and feels like a real execution of skill and strategy – it requires an understanding of how two disparate mechanics (cyloop and homing attack) interact, as well as the execution of a cyloop at a high, unwieldy speed. As enemies got stronger, it became apparent that I could no longer defeat them with just a cyloop and a single homing attack. It was kind of disappointment, to be honest, to use the rest of Sonic’s sluggish arsenal. Having to repeatedly wail on a robot to defeat it feels so much less smooth and flowing than a one-two punch of cyloop to homing attack. The enemies still rarely put up any opposition to me doing this, which I would’ve liked to see, but I enjoyed the cyloop so much more than every one of Sonic’s other offensive options that I’d use it whenever I could. This is a mechanic I hope to see return in the future, and expanded on.

Honestly, even the bosses I feel could’ve been designed largely the same way just without the combo system at all. All of them boil down to -do some Sonic related activity like run fast or jump over something, until my weakpoint is exposed, then wail on it-. Why the wailing though? Why not just expose the weakpoint and hit it, then we get on with doing Sonic related things. The following would work basically the same without a combos system. Run up his arm, sure, avoid the red rings, got it, then just homing attack the weakpoint. Why stop in place for all the extra punching?

A giant three-armed robot slams the ground in front of Sonic with its hand. Sonic boosts and dashes up the arm, before slimming into the hinge that connects the arm to the top of the robot, and punching it until it explodes.

For all of my complaining I want to reemphasize that the combat is a minor enough part of regular gameplay, or otherwise inoffensive enough, that I never felt like it was really disrupting my good time. It helps that so many of the encounters are so easy. I obviously care a lot about combat design, and I tend to have a lot more to say about a subject when I do really like it, the subject being Frontiers in this case, but it has just a few niggling problems that I can’t quite ignore. So if you’re wondering how I went on at such length about a supposedly ‘not that bad’ subject, that’s how.

The Levels and Spaces

One of the collectibles Sonic needs to complete the game are obtained by doing Cyberspace levels, which are bite-sized chunks of intense gameplay reminiscent of “boost” games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces. In these stages, Sonic’s movement is more restricted, and there’s a focus on completing them fast. In fact, there are several objectives in each, and you receive more of the required collectible the more challenges you complete. One such challenge is to beat the level in a minimum required time.

Most of these times are pretty generous, but some of them really push the movement system to its limit, demanding the player squeeze every last second they can out of Sonic’s ability to cut corners, boost over obstacles, and bounce off baddies. It’s really quite exciting, and the smaller levels had me a lot more invested in trying to get good times than more open-concept levels in past Sonic games might have. I still miss Sonic Adventure style stages, but the refocus on speed running is a good fit for these narrower experiences.

The Cyberspace levels lack the spectacle and narrative context of boost games from previous games, using only a short list of visual elements, recycled across many stages likely for the sake of development scope. That aside, this may be the most I’ve enjoyed boost-style long-corridor Sonic levels in a long time. With the updates to Sonic’s movement, I find them a lot more approachable, and my playstyle a lot more freeform.

The reduction of level themes to a rather sparse and measly handful certainly there’s a lot less visual variety than I might be used to in a Sonic game. For what it’s worth, I can’t honestly say that I got tired of the repeated patterns by the end of the game, as the levels themselves are engrossing enough as bits of challenge and play. They’re pretty sizeable, too. They’re not primarily what you’ll be doing in the game, but nor are they purely optional side-content. You do indeed have to play at least some of them, but they are fun, and I found it pretty breezy to complete every single one. The levels are fun to play, but that’s all. I will never have the same sort of visceral, emotional connection, or immersive sense of place to these nearly context-free spaces as I do to some of Sonic‘s classic locations. Speak of which…

For many of these cyberspace levels, the physical platform layout, obstacle placements, and overall design is borrowed largely or in-part from existing Sonic levels from previous games in the franchise. While this may seem off-putting to some, it’s actually kind of refreshing, to retread familiar ground with Sonic Frontiers‘ new and frankly quite competently put together movement system. Some of these stages haven’t been in the spotlight for literal decades. While you do need to do at least some minimum number of cyberspace stages, you do not need to do even nearly all of them, so the presence of reused content doesn’t feel like much of an imposition to me. Their presence is largely explained away by cyberspace being ‘constructed of Sonic’s memories’ or somesuch, even though certain stages that are present such as Radical Highway are not levels that Sonic himself ever ran through. It’s neither here nor there.

Ultimately, a curated list of tried and proven stage designs alongside a handful of originals and remixes makes the Cyberspace level design quality feel quite consistent overall. The stages also being bite-sized allows the designers to explore gimmicks for the levels that might be tiresome otherwise, like a series of suspended boost rings you have to jump between, for example.

When it comes to the overworld, we have a repeating pattern of context-free grind rails, bounce pads, and booster pads littering a mostly naturalistic environment dotted with high-tech ruins. The ‘context’ to these is that they are bits and pieces of these ruins, but they don’t really read as that. Their presence faded into the background for me as I simply began seeing them as gameplay items, though I wish they could be that and a more natural part of the world. The open zones themselves to me feel pretty uninspired. Grass place, volcano place, desert place, etc. I’ll remember the Starfall Islands well for a number of reasons- the events that took place here, the fun I had running around with Sonic, the conversations I had with his friends – but I won’t remember them because of my sense of place while visiting them. They feel honestly, kind of generic.

The Music

I probably don’t need to tell you this, but Sonic Frontiers‘ soundtrack is out of control. It’s bursting with levels of palpable passion and energy such to be bordering on unreasonable. The way I feel when listening to some of these songs is how I should be expecting to feel listening to a sold-out rock concert in a stadium. To experience the same sitting in my living room playing a video game for children about a cartoon hedgehog feels almost surreal, but this has always been the case. The consummate strangeness of this franchise is a feature, not a bug. You can’t quite replicate this exact experience elsewhere. This is the kind of energy that got me invested in the hedgehog in the first place.

The high-energy stuff is kept close to the chest, for a bit though. The overworld is rather ambient, chill music just capturing the vibes of nature. It seemed in marketing to me like it would be an ill-fit for sonic, but the overworld really is more about vibes than action and adventure. The heart-pumping electronic stuff starts to kick in with the Cyberspace levels, which utilizes some short-looping but very catchy and cool tracks.

It’s pretty much tradition at this point, Sonic’s got good music. No matter what you think of any given Sonic game, there is a weird, infectious bug at Sega that convinces each and every person on their audio staff that they need to compose and perform music like they’re going to die tomorrow. The energy flows, and every Sonic soundtrack inexplicably has a song powerful enough to crack a mountain in half. Lesser game soundtracks would settle for a profoundly powerful endgame boss theme that rolls with a thunderous buildup of swelling instrumentals before awashing you in a tidal wave of heartfelt lyrics which tie together the themes and the game and steps along the way the characters had to complete this journey together with you. Sonic Frontiers has at least four. Four lavishly produced lyrical tracks that put most of what I hear in other games to shame. The Metal Gear Rising: Reveangence comparison early was foreshadowing. There was clearly some inspiration here, these songs kick ass, and in similar fashion, blast you in the face with some of the most earnest lyricism you’ve heard since you first discovered what music was when you turned fourteen, just as each boss enters their climactic final stage. Blaring guitars accompany dual vocalists utterly convinced they’re creating the coolest thing of all time – and they’re right. I feel like I could crack a mountain in half with my fist listening to these.

Weird side-note: The main credits theme for this song, Vandalize, which is also very good, has an original edit not featured in the game. This original edit pretty heavily features the F**K word, in the context of its traditionally 1st definition. Kind of funny, having that officially closely associated with a Sonic The Hedgehog game. Y’know I’m not a prude for that sort of stuff, not at all. Just crossed my mind that actual children will probably be googling this song once they finish the game. It’s nothing that’s gonna ruin anybody’s life or anything, just. Funny? Strange? I dunno. Side-noteworthy, I guess.

Sonic is sliding across a grindrail, offset from a cliff overlooking the sea. He jumps off the rail to reach the cliff, but in midair, the camera shifts perspective to focus on a distant menacing robot labeled "Tower". This shift in perspective has killed Sonic's momentum, and he falls into the ocean like a sack of bricks.

The Narrative

Sonic fans made a big deal about the new head writer for this game, Ian Flynn. He’s been heading up the new run of Sonic comics lately, and apparently is much beloved for that. I don’t read the comics, and video games are a very different medium, even aside from the fact that game development is often messy and solid writing can get mangled for any number of unforeseen reasons. I was cautious going into the story of Frontiers.

Narrative for Sonic has been as divisive and chaotic as his gameplay, for much the same reasons. Seems like no one can decide what Sonic really should be, or if he should even be anything. Maybe Sonic can occupy any tone or style at any time. Who’s to say? Before Frontiers Sonic’s games have given up on much of the melodrama and outlandish plotlines that defined him for some years, focusing more on child-skewing comedy and such silliness.

Frontiers sticks more to the old dramatic model. Sonic’s friends are in real trouble, trapped in Cyberspace, and he’s got to rescue them. A new antagonistic force in the form of the mysterious AI-hologram girl Sage has appeared. I have to say, the plot of this one is rather thin. It feels as though Flynn was brought on quite a ways into development, to post-hoc fill out the narrative beats to fit in with Sonic’s adventure across a series of islands. Not much happens other than Sonic getting beat up by big monsters repeatedly as he slowly gets closer to his friends’ release. Then you fight a bigger monster at the end.

That said… though the plot didn’t do much for me, there’s a lot more dialogue and character writing going on here than Sonic has had in a long time. You know, there’s like, some real growth and personal introspection on the part of these cartoons between some of their conversations. It seems Ian Flynn has a real talent for character voice, as Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Amy haven’t felt so much like fully fleshed out characters for a long, long time. They have opinions of each other, senses of humor, dreams, and desires. They aren’t caricatures. Where the plot feels thin, the story is consistently carried by these character interactions, and I constantly felt compelled to find the next story cutscene, because I just wanted to see these bozos interact with each other more. There’s a lot of one-on-one dialogues between Sonic and one other character, and I would’ve liked to see more group interactions, or interactions sans Sonic, and perhaps a more robust plot would have been able to accomodate that.

Another highlight is the subplot of series archenemy Dr. Eggman, which happens mostly off-screen, but is recorded in a series of obtainable voice recordings from him. Eggman as an example here, we really see some new takes on these characters, sides that logically work, but have never really been explored before. How does Eggman feel about the, like, by all accounts, actually alive machines that he’s created with his own hands? Maybe Tails, though he values Sonic as a best friend, has feelings a bit more complicated than that. What does Amy think of Sonic, having chased his affections for so long, but been rebuffed at every turn? There’s a lot here.

That’s to say nothing of the new character, Sage. She’s adorable, entertaining, and even packs a bit of a pathos punch. I wouldn’t say she’s terribly deep, or anything, but she’s obviously got some emotional complexity to her, and her relationships to the other characters are super interesting. Her visual design is really cool too. I really, really, hope we get to see more of her in the future.

Another fun quirk of the writing is that is seems almost religiously committed to reaffirming the canon of Sonic The Hedgehog as a series. Nearly every game is referenced in some way, its story being incorporated into Sonic’s personal history, no matter how absurd or bizarre the events would seem to be in retrospect. I honestly have to respect the hustle. For a long-time fan like me, I found it amusing, and even somewhat compelling, the persistent callbacks and connections.

The storytelling technique and presentation, as far as games go, is nothing you haven’t seen, for the most part. You go from game objective to game objective and occasionally trigger a cutscene conversation between Sonic and an NPC. As I’ve mentioned, it did keep me continuously motivated to find the next one though, it’s certainly not bad! In terms of presentation, when the game wants to build excitement, it delivers, with that insane music and some absolutely gorgeously boarded animated action scenes.

The plot, like it begins, ends somewhat underwritten, with a dearth of real context or answers for what’s happening. There are bits and pieces that suggest a grander narrative that may follow, but I could see this leaving people cold in some respects. And yes, I got the real ending. Still, the character writing remains strong-throughout and I’d be excited to see what this new writing team can do with perhaps more leeway.

Conclusion

Sonic The Hedgehog once felt like every creative involved through they were creating the coolest thing in the goddamn world. For a long time I didn’t quite feel that anymore. Maybe it was a sign of growing up, or maybe something was lost. It’s hard to say. From the music, to the visuals, the ambition and scope of the story, the style you’re capable of in gameplay. It was all just so cool. And you know what? Sonic Frontiers is far from a perfect game, it’s full of baffling decisions and strange inconsistencies that feel as though someone should’ve been on top of, stuff that feels obvious to me in hindsight. And yet, I feel shades of that same feeling again for the first time in maybe a decade. Sonic is cool. Sonic has always been cool but this is different. This is like, advanced cool. This feels like every creative involved is convinced that they are creating the coolest thing in the goddamn world. The passion is palpable. And it’s fun! I breezed through the game 100% with basically no desire to stop. The gameplay may not have as much ‘momentum’ as I hoped, but there’s momentum in the energy of this game. Like it’s the first step of a mountainous surge of creativity. Sonic Frontiers is good. Go play it.

The blue hedgehog Sonic runs at high speed through a field of red and white flowers, wind whipping past him as he goes. He hops over a rail, and ducks to slide beneath another one.

They’ll Know Your Name, Burned Into Their Memory…

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Active Time Battle Finally Comes Home

There was a lot that impressed me about the Final Fantasy VII Remake, released 2020. For me, it set the standard for the full revitalization of an old game. Or rather, it would be if it weren’t only part one, a game that covers a fraction of the story of the original. Repackaging the story of one game into several full-sized, full-priced games, re-imagining the combat systems completely, expanding and rewriting the story. These are all controversial decisions, though they are assuaged somewhat by the existence of Ever Crisis, another full remake of Final Fantasy VII that is a more traditional, more faithful remake using updated assets. Indeed, there are so many interesting questions surrounding this game one could discuss. For now, let’s talk about the changes to Remake‘s combat systems, what experience they’re trying to accomplish, and why they are the way they are.

A girl in a plush animal-shaped hood and a stoic man with a staff team up to beat the ever-loving-stuffing out of an ostrich-like carnivorous bird. — ATB: The gentleman’s method of abstracting physical altercations with wildlife

One feature of Remake‘s combat that I find most interesting is the presence of the ATB bar. For those unfamiliar, Final Fantasy has employed at various points since its fourth installment the Active Time Battle system, or ATB for short. For the folks who may have been riled by Square Enix’s recent efforts to bring Final Fantasy more into the realm of action games, and deployment of increasingly arcane systems combining action with turn-based combat, rest assured that this is not a new trend. They have been trying to do this since the 90s. In its traditional use, the ATB bar is a timer that counts down to when a player character can act in battle. The faster that character’s speed stat, the more often they can act. When action is not possible, characters stand idle. So essentially, it’s a traditional turn-based combat, but with the wrinkle of an active timer.

At the heart of the ATB system’s ambitions, successes, and failures, I think is this tension a lot of combat-oriented games experience between their action elements and strategic elements. There advantages in verisimilitude, theoretically, as a real-time element brings with it less abstraction, but also a loss of many of the advantages that turn-based represents.

Turn-based games are inherently strategic in their foundation. The benefit of having combat play out over an indefinite amount of time is giving the player the space to make informed and meaningful decisions to gain an advantage over the opposition, which is where the challenge in turn-based combat comes from. Enemies need to be powerful enough to require critical thinking and problem solving in order to be engaging. Problem solving and critical thinking requires time to think. On the other hand, action combat is often all about twitch reaction, muscle memory, and being present in the moment as developments unfold around you. This is why you often finding me describing real-time game systems as ‘action’ ones. Now, action games can and often do have strategic depth as well, but the strategy of a game like soccer exists on a different state of mind than a game like chess.

There is an inherent friction between these ideas that can crop up in any system that aims to combine the two experiences. If action is meant to be all about the pressure of events happening in real-time, when do you get the time to develop your strategy? If that space for critical thought and puzzle-solving is needed for a turn-based game to have its strategic depth, how do you provide that space without disrupting the flow and rhythm of an action game?

In the ATB system’s early uses, the main advantage I can see is its ability to offer variable turn frequency through the speed state. It’s an interest dimension to scale character power, not one that is super frequently employed in turn-based games. Usually enemies and players only get one turn each, in even ratio to one another. Allowing that ratio to change can create some very interesting scenarios. There are disadvantages though. Personally, I love taking my time to formulate the perfect strategy and course of action in any given situation in a turn-based game. It’s a big part of the draw for me. The ATB system, which allows enemies to continue acting in spite of the player, demands that one keep taking actions or quickly become overwhelmed. Older Final Fantasy games would often have a mode to address this, but the wait mode of of old Final Fantasy is effective the same as regular old turn-based, kind of defeating the purpose. I believe Final Fantasy VII Remake has an optional mode akin to this, though I would argue Remake’s combat is a fuller realization of ATB’s design goals regardless. The argument that the wait mode represents a lack of confidence in the ATB systems early on is stronger I think, when one examines Final Fantasy X, a game in which the speed stat still exists in the form of agility, but represents the frequency of turns for an actor within a non-real-time system. Static turns are simply queued up in an ordered list, with faster characters getting more turns. The real time element here, was unnecessary, and therefor not included.

A girl in a plush animal-shaped hood teams up with a stoic man wielding a staff to pummel a leopard-like monster. Time stops after a moment while a UI element is navigated, after which both characters unleash powerful flashy moves. — In *FFVIIR*, real-time actions fuel strategic resources, which fuel combat advantages

What are those design goals then? Well going by the nomenclature it seems the Active Time Battle systems was meant to make turn-based combat more actively engage the player with its time-sensitive elements. Final Fantasy, like Dragon Quest before it, utilize turn-based combat akin to the tabletop games that inspired them. Turn-based combat was developed as a way to create an abstract representation of combat for the safe environment of a game. There aren’t a lot of practical ways to really play out hitting each other with swords while gathered around a table, without this layer of abstraction. Nowadays, I think there’s a lot of appreciation for the unique experiences possible only through a sophisticated turn-based system. I get the sense that even in the 90s, all the way up to now, some at Square Enix felt as though the turn-based system imposes limitations on what the combat can be, and imposes a barrier between the player and being immersed in the game’s world.

I think that last point is debatable, but what isn’t, so it seems to me, is that the ATB system wants the player to feel more pressured, with a more present sense of danger and action playing out in real-time. The problem for me, is that the simplicity of the ATB system feels like somewhat of a half measure. It’s a little at odds with the strategic systems of Final Fantasy combat, but also doesn’t fully create a sense of urgency or action for me. It’s kind of just a turn-based combat systems where you jump through a few extra hoops. The first real exception to this for me… is… not Final Fantasy VII Remake, which would come a lot later. Chrono Trigger is a vary notable instance of a game taking the ATB system and pushing it in an interesting direction.

A red-haired swordsman is accosted by a pair of blue goblins. One kicks him. The swordsman then spins his blade around in a cyclone, hitting and dispatching both goblins at once. — Wait for the opportune time to use the right move, and this real-time element makes a lot of sense

The key for what makes the ATB system work for me in Chrono Trigger is the importance of player and enemy positioning. Some of the Final Fantasy games had shades of this, but it was very digital and binary. IE: If you’ve ambushed enemies you have an advantage, if they’ve ambushed you, they have the advantage. In Chrono Trigger though, the relative position of enemies is analogue, constantly changing, and an ever-present strategic element. This element is often just a small, simple detail. For example, when several enemies are close together, you may be able to hit all of them at once with a single special attack, but not if they’re spread apart. If an enemy is too close to the player character when attacked, they may immediately respond with a counterattack. That sort of thing.

This simple extra dimension was like a missing link for me. Real-time is only one element of what makes action games engaging. In a traditional turn-based game. Things such as multi-hit attacks and counters are often very static and abstract. A multi-hit attack might always hit three enemies, or always hit enemies adjacent to one another, though they never move. In Chrono Trigger, and games influence by it, enemy positions are organic and ever-shifting, a natural and intuitive extension of the world. This ingredient alone makes the ATB bar make sense, as the dynamics of battle change in real-time along with the turn order. As I’ve often said elsewhere, relative position and spacing management on the part of the player is also an essential element. Chrono Trigger had a great commitment to holistic nature of its world. There are no random encounters. There are no battle transitions – the combat takes place in the same physical space it is initiated in. And, of course, battles occur in real-time. The game works to minimize abstraction in the broad strokes to make the game as seamless and cohesive as possible. Chrono Trigger brings these elements together in the context of a turn-based game, and was the last real evolution of the ATB system, in my opinion… until…

A red-haired young swordsman teams up with a blonde young woman with a crossbow to fight a large red robot in a festival courtyard. The swordsman strikes, but is immediately countered by the robot, who unleashes a spring-loaded boxing glove fist from a compartment in his chest. — Disadvantaged Positioning

A red-haired young swordsman teams up with a blonde young woman with a crossbow to fight a large red robot in a festival courtyard. After a moment, the robot wanders a little ways away from its opponents. The swordsman runs up to strike, then jumps back to his starting position, and the game's UI reads "Too far away to counterattack." at the top of the display. — Disadvantaged Positioning

Well okay, there are a couple of other Square Enix games I want to talk about that finally lead us to where we are today with Final Fantasy VII Remake, but first I’ll finally talk about Remake. Remake‘s primary conceit in its combat is that you can run your player characters around a 3D space and directly command them to attack in real-time, taking after the likes of a Kingdom Hearts or Devil May Cry. While not as robust a system as those, Remake‘s action makes for an effective stopgap of realism to reinforce what is being represented by the more abstract strategic decision making that takes place between – the action forms an important bedrock of context. Kingdom Hearts is another series that initially attempted to marry turn-based combat’s strategic elements to an action system, but ultimately fell head-first into the symbolic dream-ocean of full-on action game by its first sequel. The wrinkle for Remake, though, is the player’s ability to pause the action at any time to assess the situation and execute specific commands for the party members, commands which are invariably a lot more powerful than the standard real-time attacks.

A lot of games have tried this ‘stop and go’ sort of combat. Most prominently I think of old CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, or Dragon Age for a more recent example. These games take direct inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons or are indeed, even licensed games tied to the property. Weirdly though they’d often not employ turn-based combat at all, unlike the actual tabletop game they’re based on, almost as if turn-based is this inherent limitation to be overcome. I wonder if the developers at Square Enix ever played these games, or were inspired by their indifference to turn-based combat, haha. Suffice to say I think turn-based combat has almost always been underappreciated for its merits in many spheres of video game development. What made combat for a game like Dragon Age a little dull for me, was in how the real-time segments and paused segments, the player characters’ capabilities are exactly the same. So ultimately, I just felt like I was disrupting whenever I needed to pause the game to line up a spell, and since all characters are only indirectly controlled through commands, I never felt fully engaged during real-time either.

A girl in a hood shaped like a plush animal summons mystic runes around her to launch magic attacks at a soldier. Her partner, a stoic man with a staff, dashes up alongside the soldier at the same time she does, to do a combination attack. — Satisfying action, satisfying strategy, but most importantly the two modes **support one another**

This is where Final Fantasy VII Remake really accels, I think. It’s built on the solid foundation of an action game, with a full suite of direct control for the player, from blocking to dodging to parrying. And you’ll need those options, as the enemies take full advantage of their freedom of movement while the game is un-paused. Engaging with this action system builds up your ATB gauge, no longer a mere function of time, it is a function of engagement with the core systems. At certain thresholds of ATB, you can command a party member to unleash a powerful attack, and are given the ability to pause the action to carefully consider how and where to employ these ATB abilities. This pausing never disrupted the flow of the game for me, because they’re always big moments I was building to – rewards for effectively playing the game. The barrier between what can be done during real-time, and what cannot be, also very effectively delineates the two modes, so I never felt as if one is intruding on the other. I have to pause the game to heal a party member, or to unleash a skull-cracking dive kick. These actions are not something I can just do on the fly. They require strategy and consideration, so their presence within a pause sub-mode of the game feels natural. The ability to pause is a godsend too, as the player characters each have very intricate combat mechanics unique to them that, when used in tandem with careful consideration, can have some devastatingly powerful results.

Cloud, Tifa, and Barret from Final Fantasy 7, beat the stuffing out of a soldier in a sci-fi wearhouse. The action pauses mid-fight, in dramatic slow-mo fashion, then the beatdown resumes. — It’s also all very pretty to look at.

Another key to this is the stagger system, which is also an ongoing iterative system featured in many Square Enix games. It creates a long-term goal in any given combat encounter that the player can build up to. By using the right moves at the right times, enemies can be staggered, opening them up for massive damage. A balance of micro-goals and long-term goals is essential to a compelling combat system. From not getting hit, to setting up an enormous combo. It’s these interlaced interest curves, build ups and releases, that keeps combat from getting stale.

This makes for a sophisticated system of setups and payoffs, where every party member is instrumental in stringing together combination maneuvers. Cloud can easily set up a stagger on an enemy with his powerful counter attacks in real time and big sword strikes from the command menu. Meanwhile, Tifa can empower her abilities by stringing together a series of strikes. At the same time, Barret, who can take a lot of punishment, is safe to set up some buffs like haste to increase the party’s speed. Once the target is staggered, Tifa can unleash her built up power to fully exploit in the enemy’s weakness, and Cloud can finish them off once they’re low on health. The fantasy that Remake really delivers on for me is twofold; One, it creates this delightful scenario of being able to pause and survey a complex battlefield, almost like stepping into a freeze-frame of an action movie, owed to how well the real-time segments of the game operate in isolation to create impressive spectacle and compelling scenarios. I can survey these wild combat engagements with a strategic, discerning eye without fear of reprisal. Secondly, the way all of the character’s complex mechanics mesh together creates for me the sense that they are a real, team, working together to accomplish incredible things they could not do alone.

Cloud, Barret, and Tifa team up against soldiers in a futuristic warehouse. Barret, a man with a gun for an arm, casts a spell empowering Tifa, a woman who then punches a soldier dozens of times in a second, before the action pauses again, then resumes as Tifa knocks him over with a dropkick. — Buff up, wear down the target, knock em down. Just as planned!

This schema didn’t appear fully formed in Remake from thin air or divine inspiration, though. Many might not realize Final Fantasy has been trying to achieve this awakening of the ATB system’s dream for years. I can think of three major stepping stones of this journey: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns, and Final Fantasy XV. All three of these games have bits and pieces of the puzzle that would make up the combat system of VII Remake, each containing the germ of an idea that you can see grow into what we have today.

XIII established party-wide strategic command overlaid upon action that exists in a different mode from that strategy. There’s been a lot of criticism over the lack of player engagement for this in-between mode, but the basis of VII Remake started as far back as this game. It became an example how combing two modes of play without disrupting pacing could work, although the quality of the pacing of XIII‘s combat is debatable. The later sequel Lightning Returns did away party dynamics, but intimately explored the stagger system, and how indirectly controlling player characters in real-time could work.

XV was an interesting beast. The result of an overlong development time, branched off from a very different design concept that leaned more on action gameplay. XV shows signs of its troubled development, but I think none is more prominent than the combat system. It isn’t bad, per say, but it feels very underdeveloped. A lot of the ideas that shine in VII Remake exist here in a sort of primordial form. Optional wait modes exist alongside a limit-action systems that puts emphasis of enemies positioning, and party-wide combination attacks. Everything is just a little off. A lot of those micro-goals I mentioned don’t feel as though they are totally in-sync, and long-term goals within combat aren’t totally clear. Nothing quite meshes like it feels as though it should, but all the ideas are there. Whether you actually like these games or not, the long and short of this is that Final Fantasies XIII, XIII: Lightning Returns, and XV walked so VII Remake could run.

The old lessons from Chrono Trigger live at the heart of Final Fantasy VII Remake as well, with the relative positions of enemies and party members in 3D space determining how actions resolve. A big sword swing might hit a dozen enemies at once if you’re careful about positioning! This is taken further than Chrono Trigger even, with the ability to finely control exactly where each party member is standing, and a third dimension to play around with. It’s an intricate dance of set ups, payoffs, and strategic positioning wrapped in a solid-as-stone action game bedrock crafted by old hands when it comes to hack-and-slash ARPG gameplay.

A girl in a plush animal-shaped hood, wielding a giant ninja star, runs up to a group of giant ratlike monsters. The action pauses for a moment, then resumes as she places a magic rune on the ground, which sucks in all the rat monsters, dispatching them all at once. — Real-time danger is the risk one can weight against the reward of advantageous positioning

So Final Fantasy VII Remake does not have turn-based combat, and that is an understandably big loss for some people. What it is not, however, is a turn-based combat system trying to masquerade as a hybrid of action and strategy. Rather, it is the realization of that decades long dream to create an engaging hybridization of strategy and action RPGs. It is at last, finally, the ATB system come home. It is the design goals set way back then finally pushed to their apex, at least so far. Fully realized, the ATB can shine in accomplishing what it’s struggled to do for years. I’m also pretty impressed, and thankful, that a second completely differently imagined remake of Final Fantasy VII is due in the form of Ever Crisis, which seems to retain the old combat system, as a companion piece to Remake. Remake‘s redone combat aims to capture its predecessor’s strengths in a heightened form. It’s a brilliant system to build off of in that regard, and has become one of the biggest reasons I remain very excited for the future installments of Final Fantasy VII Remake.

A blonde young man with a huge sword, an unarmed, long-haired woman, and a large man with a gun for an arm team up to battle soldiers in a futuristic warehouse. Time slows to a crawl as a menu of options is manipulated in a game UI. When time resumes, the party teams up to unleash devastating attacks on the soldiers.

Attack while its tail is up! It’s gonna counterattack with its laser…

Undertale: Combat Where Nobody Has To Die

Much ado has been made about the prevalence of violent combat in games, how it is a much-trodden space with an overabundance of focus on the damaging and killing of enemies in games. It’s worth interrogating how we make games and what the systems we put in place represent. ‘Combat’, as a gameplay system takes the form of abstract tasks meant to represent a conflict. Conflict doesn’t have to be violent, or even involve fighting. When you think about it, a lot of the standards and practices that are common for designing ‘combat’ conflict in games can be abstractly applied to a wide variety of real-world situations that don’t directly involve violence. There’s an adage that action or fight scenes in narrative is like a conversation, and I think this broadly applies to all sorts of interpersonal conflict. All this to say that Undertale takes extremely familiar RPG combat design traditions in an extremely nontraditional way to represent its conflict, which can take the form of violent struggle or extremely peaceful, yet tense conversation. I want to talk about this, in particular, the space where the bulk of Undertale‘s gameplay can be found, in the peaceful ‘pacifist’ style of playing Undertale.

A similarly large quantity of ‘ado’ has been made of Undertale‘s underlying morality system, which allows the game to read and react to player actions across save files to drastically alter the story and how characters react. I’m sure there’s not much more I could add to that well-worn conversation, but what I don’t see talked about near as much is the actual mechanics that make up Undertale‘s combat system. Undertale is ostensibly a turn-based RPG, and it has many of the trappings you’d expect of traditional RPG combat. The player and AI take turns taking actions, there are character statistics such as health or defense, and there are the usual available actions such as attacking or fleeing. Compared to the traditional turn-based RPG formula, however, Undertale leans a lot less on strategy, which is to say forethought and formulating a plan of attack. Success in combat in Undertale is much more contingent on one’s ability to navigate enemy attacks, which take the form of ‘bullet’ patterns in a shoot em’ up or shmup styled dodging sequence. Now, that all sounds rather violent, but all this really means is the player must move around a little icon representing themselves (in this case a heart) so it doesn’t collide with any objects on screen. In this way, Undertale works to make defending, in other words passivity, a more engaging and fun mechanic than attacking. Undertale also loves to borrow from genres outside of RPGs to accomplish this, like incorporating elements of text-based adventure games.

Have fun fighting and/or dating a skeleton, no explicit violence involved

When monsters randomly encounter the player, as they’re wont to do in RPGs, the monsters will be naturally on the defensive around you, a human, a member of the vile people that attacked and banished monsters underground. The goal for a pacifist player will be to simply exit the encounter unharmed so they can reach their next story chapter. You see, when it comes to the player’s form of ‘attack’, their agency in all of this, the problem Undertale faced was making the act of de-escalation as interesting and satisfying as the act of chopping dudes in the face with a sword. The solution to this problem was found in three ways. First, the act of defending is made into a compelling game in and of itself. Secondly, the player is given short-term and long-term goals in every encounter. Finally, the incentive for the player to not perform acts of violence is made to take the form of exploration into interesting characters.

We’ve touched on that first item. Undertale’s defense or ‘bullet hell’ sections involve dodging the magical attacks of your opponents. The conceit here is simple, but a time-tested one, utilized in tons of classic games like Galaga or Space Invaders. The player is represented by a small heart, and obstacles will move around the screen which the player has to avoid by moving freely in two dimensions. It’s among the barest, simplest forms of spacial and temporal awareness as gameplay one could think of, but that’s why it’s so effective. Some of the best games are those that start with an extremely simple base that can be built upon, and Undertale certainly builds upon it. Bullet patterns become increasingly elaborate and difficult towards the end of the game. Bullet patterns can take the form of obstacles that are abstract shapes, obstacles shaped like characters, obstacles along vector lines, any of which can move in a variety of patterns. The game will also iterate on these basic designs using new rules and wrinkles that change up the variety, such as adding gravity to the player’s avatar, a controllable shield, or a controllable projectile to destroy obstacles.

These ‘bullet hell’ sections get **very** creative. Here I have to redirect the enemy’s own attacks at them to pacify them!

This makes up the player’s short-term goal in every combat encounter. Each turn, the player has to focus on the imminent danger of enemy bullet patterns. Lots of RPGs have incorporated real-time gameplay into turn-based actions. Integrating short-term goals like this sort of action gameplay with longer-term goals keeps the player’s attention engaged and the tension subsequently high. There will always be something in the back of your mind that you’re working toward, while immediate concerns keep you constantly engaged. In Undertale‘s case, the long-term goal for each monster encounter is trying to figure out how to make them passive, and amenable to ending their attack against the player. Each one is different, and like a little puzzle or text adventure encounter where the player has to figure out how to spare their opponents. The need for dodging enemy attacks, is essentially your payment ticket for each attempt made to pacify the opponent. A wrong answer means needing to dodge more attacks. There is some strategy in Undertale’s combat in how you approach multiple opponents. Sometimes more than one monster cannot be pacified in the same turn, so a consideration of the order in which they are tackled is added to the player’s long term goal achieving process.

Not every puzzle solution is a brain-teaser, but they engage you with the monsters’ personalities. Get it? Don’t **pick** on your eyes.

The final and I think most important of how Undertale solved for nonviolent ‘combat’ is its methods of incentivizing the player. The typical pattern for any game with combat is to reward the player for killing or defeating enemies, increasing the player’s power as they accumulate more and more victories. So it is with Undertale, when you choose to kill. When sparing foes, however, the game goes out of its way to makes sure there is no direct material reward of in terms of player power. Undertale did not have to do this. In a vacuum, there’s no reason a nonviolent victory cannot reward and empower the player. In Undertale it was very important that external rewards like player ‘LV’ be tied exclusively to killing. Undertale is trying to justify its thesis of pacifism by making that path entirely implicitly motivated by narrative elements, or in other words the process of pacifism itself. ‘Not killing things can be fun too, no reward needed’ it seems to say.

The ‘bullets’ players must dodge can take a wide variety of forms from the tear drops of a depressed ghosts, to the flexing muscles of a pompous weight-lifting horse. If those sound odd to you, it’s by design. Undertale‘s first boss throws magical flames at you, but very little afterward will ever be so typical. Undertale uses the contrivance of ‘magic’, a power which monsters can use to express their emotions as power, to explore the character of the enemies you fight, as you fight them. In what other game can you expect to be attacked by the excited barks of an overstimulated puppy? These attacks are used as subtle characterization of each and every monster you encounter. The act of play is characterization in and of itself. In the world of Undertale magic is an outward expression of emotion, and this carries through gameplay as well. It’s not always a direct metaphor, and it’s often subtle, as reading emotion is in real life, but the attack conveys the emotional state of the monster which used it. You can get a sense of monster personalities just by playing. The dialogue does heavy lifting in this department as well, through hilariously absurd and weird scenarios. In this way, your ‘prize’ for victory is often a hearty joke, or an emotional catharsis. It can engender an intense curiosity to see more out of these monsters, more you won’t get to see if you kill them.

The player is ideally motivated by the desire to explore interesting and compelling characters. This, entwined with the short and long-term goals I mentioned earlier. The player’s long-term goal is usually discovering exactly how new monsters will react to their various actions. The monster Shyren loves to sing but is too timid, needing gentle encouragement from the player humming along. The monster Woshua is obsessed with washing things, so asking for a cleanup and successfully intercepting its healing water will make it very happy. The monster Aaron will become so swept up in out-flexing you if you try to match his style, that he’ll flex himself right out of combat. Keying in on visual indicators like the enemy’s emotional state, the personality in their dialogue, and the queues of their overall physical appearance all work as hints to solving the ‘puzzle’ of connecting with them socially and deescalating conflict. One can trace subtle changes in expression even, in certain encounters. The game, as it were, becomes one of determining your conversation partner’s wants and needs. It becomes a game that teaches empathy.

Here our hesitant mentor Toriel refuses to kill us, it’s clear here what emotions her gameplay are meant to convey

Combat, as it is typically designed, in all of its many forms, is fun. That’s just simply true, and it’s probably the biggest reason violent conflict remains so prevalent in games, as it’s the most obvious way to explore this form of play. This form of play was invented to represent violence, after all. Undertale is refreshing in how it explores a world where such play can be representative of all manner of other forms of conflict. Lots of conflict occurs in our daily lives every day that doesn’t end in death or grievous injury. There’s clearly a lot of space yet to explore how to adapt our design conventions to the task of representing these nonviolent forms of conflict in fun and interesting ways. I think part of the reason Undertale made such waves is that there’s a huge appetite for that as-yet only slightly explored space.

Even when you ran away, you did it with a smile…