Turn-Based Games: Dying to Thrive

In 2009, Square Enix released the game that would kickstart my love for turn-based gaming: Dragon Quest IX on the Nintendo DS. Not only did I love the plot and creating my own characters, but I adored the traditional turn-based battle system. I loved planning my moves against tough bosses, building my party’s repertoire of spells and abilities, testing out methods for bringing down enemies and the thrill when everything went according to plan. Playing Dragon Quest introduced me to a plethora of turn-based games I ended up falling in love with and turn-based RPGs remain one of my favorite genres to this day.

Dragon Quest ignited my obsession with turn-based games, but the series is turning its back on the combat style. Dragon Quest’s creator Yuji Horii has said that the upcoming Dragon Quest XII will be changing up the command-based style that has been a staple of the main series for nearly 40 years. Final Fantasy, another JRPG giant whose early entries were turn-based, has also tossed that style of combat aside, instead going for the more popular action-based system. With two of the turn-based juggernauts distancing themselves from this type of gameplay, it appears that turn-based games are dying out.

To many people, this isn’t a surprise. Turn-based games seem to have been going extinct for quite some time. If you type “Are turn-based games” into Google, one of the first suggestions will be “dead” or “boring”. Forums are flooded with people complaining that turn-based gaming is repetitive and dull, and social media regularly hosts debates on whether or not the genre is a thing of the past. They question how people can actually enjoy playing a turn-based game. It’s obvious: turn-based games are dead, and nobody wants them anyway. Right?

Back in the early days of gaming, turn-based combat was common because it had to be. PCs and consoles were not strong enough to withstand a large amount of input from the player as well as moves from multiple enemies in real time. This era gave us classics like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, as well as turn-based strategy games like the Worms series.

As consoles grew stronger with the release of the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, so did the games, making players and developers alike eager to push the hardware to the limit to test what was possible. This is where turn-based combat started to take a back seat, making way for the lesser-seen action RPG and action-adventure games to become the norm. Turn-based games were still released on these consoles, with Final Fantasy X, Dragon Quest VIII and Persona 3 and 4 being a few examples of highly successful turn-based games of the time, but more and more people were drawn towards real time action combat seen in Kingdom Hearts and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. Turn-based combat started to be seen by fans as dated – it wasn’t necessary if the hardware can keep up with the action.

But not everyone felt this way. In fact, despite the common idea that the genre has died, turn-based gaming is very much alive and well. Everyone has their personal preference in videogames, and a lot of people are happy to watch over battles in specified turns rather than being constantly in the action. Pokémon is a behemoth of a franchise, and even the most recent mainline games still provide players with the classic turn-based Pokémon battles we all know and love. Baldur’s Gate 3 offers players the turn-based action of Dungeons & Dragons and is still hugely popular right now, over one year after its release. It even scooped all of the major Game of the Year awards last year.

They may not be the standard anymore, but there are still plenty of turn based games series for fans to sink their teeth into. Atlus alone has Shin Megami Tensei, Persona and the new Metaphor: ReFantazio, which unites turn-based combat with action combat in beautiful harmony. The latest installments of the Yakuza franchise have provided turn-based battles, and the sheer volume of indie turn-based games is nothing to scoff at; Chained Echoes, Sea of Stars and Crystal Project are only a handful of the huge range of turn-based indie games on offer. Dragon Quest XII may be moving away from traditional turn-based combat, but that doesn’t mean fans won’t be able to experience it; the brand-new Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake updates the look of the classic game while maintaining its turn-based combat.

So, even though there are posts on Reddit as recently as this year asking about the death of turn-based games, there’s never been such a large selection of high-quality turn-based games for fans to enjoy. Some may be switching up the old format, but they’re still offering thrilling battles in the familiar style. Fans aren’t giving up on turn-based games – these games are as beloved as they’ve ever been.

———

Lizzie is a freelance writer and lover of JRPGs, visual novels and Ghibli movies. When she’s not gaming or playing world’s okayest cleric in D&D, she can be found on her blog, SweetieGames, or @lizzie_writes.