How do you guys feel about Random Encounter in old jrpgs.

[legsrjust4show]

Unless it's a Battle Network or Star Force game, I prefer visible encounters.

oh god you reminded me of the crazy high encounter rate of Mega Man Star Force 2

That game was bananas with that

 

[Ikagura]

I like to imagine that JRPGs are meant to test gamer's endurance and perseverance.

 

[MetHy]

I think a lot of the hate can be explained by the difficulty, when RPGs are mind numbing easy the result is that the random encounters feel like a pointless aggravation.

But when the balance is tight, they can be engaging. If you play the original versions of Dragon Quest 2-3-4 or Final Fantasy (1), within a dungeon every single random encounter matters, every player decision matters and a single wrong decision can be costly. There is also the luck factor, even if you're always making the right calls there is no guarantee that something won't go terribly wrong and that keeps things interesting. Playing Dragon Quest 2 can feel like playing a high stakes poker game with the odds staked in your favour (compared to poker), and that keeps things satisfying because you know that once in a while something went your way that could very gone the other way. Random encounters are supposed to wear the player down little by little and the player should have to make the right decisions and use his ressources well in order to make the most out of his progress through the dungeon, which he may not clear on the first attempt. All this, after proper pre-dungeon preparations.

I have so many fond battle memories from playing those games, like that time in Final Fantasy when Cockatrices at the bottom of the Earth Cave stoned 3 of my characters only leaving the white mage alive, who proceeded to singlehandely flee from every battle back to town, or randomly encountering the Warmech after a single step on the platform before Tiamat in the space station and deciding to give it a shot (it didn't go well...).

Now if you dumb the difficulty down too much, all that is gone, leaving only a mindless chore, only amplified by the load times and long animations in the late 90's/early 00's. For me, this is where the problem lies. Now, every single video game genre ended up having easier and easier difficulty over time, but RPGs and JRPGs specifically was probably the firsts and quickest genre to go down that road due to its popularity and story orientation.

 

[sannya]

my impatience always takes over me and i turn on cheats to turn them off

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

It depends .
Random Encounters in a more open world-ish JRPG that isnt bound to an overarching story , with high shop prices and more designed to explore instead to wander through aint a problem but maybe a smaller annoyance . Every money drop and EXP is welcome when the efficiency allows it and the combat ends in few seconds .

But if its more story-focused (which most JRPGs are) and the combat is tedious and boring while nothing of value is to gain with these fights , its utter suffering at this point.
Combine this with loading times and a high encounter rate , its the videogame-form of hell .

 

[Cantarella]

I think a lot of the hate can be explained by the difficulty, when RPGs are mind numbing easy the result is that the random encounters feel like a pointless aggravation.

But when the balance is tight, they can be engaging. If you play the original versions of Dragon Quest 2-3-4 or Final Fantasy (1), within a dungeon every single random encounter matters, every player decision matters and a single wrong decision can be costly. There is also the luck factor, even if you're always making the right calls there is no guarantee that something won't go terribly wrong and that keeps things interesting. Playing Dragon Quest 2 can feel like playing a high stakes poker game with the odds staked in your favour (compared to poker), and that keeps things satisfying because you know that once in a while something went your way that could very gone the other way. Random encounters are supposed to wear the player down little by little and the player should have to make the right decisions and use his ressources well in order to make the most out of his progress through the dungeon, which he may not clear on the first attempt. All this, after proper pre-dungeon preparations.

I have so many fond battle memories from playing those games, like that time in Final Fantasy when Cockatrices at the bottom of the Earth Cave stoned 3 of my characters only leaving the white mage alive, who proceeded to singlehandely flee from every battle back to town, or randomly encountering the Warmech after a single step on the platform before Tiamat in the space station and deciding to give it a shot (it didn't go well...).

Now if you dumb the difficulty down too much, all that is gone, leaving only a mindless chore, only amplified by the load times and long animations in the late 90's/early 00's. For me, this is where the problem lies. Now, every single video game genre ended up having easier and easier difficulty over time, but RPGs and JRPGs specifically was probably the firsts and quickest genre to go down that road due to its popularity and story orientation.

was playing quest 64 the other day (and then the hard mode hack on another day.) there's a cool degree of tension you get when you're underpowered in enemy territory and actually have to make some real decisions on how to use your resources. Or have few resources left and suddenly have to enable coward mode.

pretty hard to replicate that with overworld enemies since, in every implementation of them I've ever seen, you can just dodge all of them for however long you need.

 

[Zeroskill]

In certain games it was needed to level up. Going off the road in a few of the NES era games would be instant death until you hit level 5. Now, fighting sometimes feels like a waste of time. In modern games, seeing the enemy on the field and running around them is more proficient.

 

[SpikeSlania]

lol the difficulty spike in the US version of lunar 2 when you get to the epilogue is incredible. all of zohar's power must have dispersed into the local wildlife because suddenly all these slimes mathematically more powerful than God show up. a true 'activate gameshark codes' moment

I couldn't get past the first phase of Zohar :P When my friend looked at my party he was like wtf, you don't even have their final moves unlocked, no wonder why you keep dying. Go grind and unlock their final moves and try again, never did :P

 

[Esidemoken]

One of the things that kept me away from RPGs in my childhood was just the random encounters and screen changes when you enter a battle, I feel that they interrupt the flow of the game, so when I gave a chance to Chrono Trigger my world changed completely, it corrected those two things that I did not like and made me appreciate the genre more to the point of giving a chance to other RPGs, but to date it is still complicated to play them when you just finish a battle and immediately enter another one.

I don't know why the RPGs in that era didn't copy that characteristic of CT.

 

[SolarSpectre]

I'm not a huge fan of visible encounter systems where you have to sneak up on enemies or hit them at the right time to get an advantage. I just want to battle and grind numbers, which is really what JRPGs are about at their core. Yeah random encounters are better. There, I said it.

 

[DanCalibur]

I enjoy it both ways, for me what can really ruin the experience is a bad/slow battle system like being forced to do nothing for three turns so you can do some damage in Xenosaga 2 or when you get surprise attacked by a big group of enemies in Blue Dragon and have to watch your party take hits for five minutes before you can do anything.

 

[SolemnlyDoc]

I think it's fine in an old game like Pokemon Red, a product of it's time. I will say that I prefer the modern style of being able to see the enemies in the world and moving towards them to fight them (a la Pokemon Sword/Shield)

 

[Leo-Dash]

I think it's fine in an old game like Pokemon Red, a product of it's time. I will say that I prefer the modern style of being able to see the enemies in the world and moving towards them to fight them (a la Pokemon Sword/Shield)

As much as I dislike the Switch pokemon games, that was a good quality of life update!

Even Modern Romhacks and Fangames have implement it
wild pokemon on overworld! It's so refreshing

 

[Ikagura]

Even Modern Romhacks and Fangames have implement it
wild pokemon on overworld! It's so refreshing.

It ruins the surprise of being caught by wild pokémons in the herbs imo.

Seeing wild pokémons should be for open areas but not high herbs where they are supposed to be hidden in.

The fact Pokémon decided that you had random encounters only in these areas was a great game design idea. Changing it would simply mean you could avoid any fights altogether when they had a repel item...

 

[Denmdm]

HUGE FAN of random encounters, unless I'm in a situation where I'm getting beaten to a pulp and I have to walk out a dungeon as soon as possible. I think latter RPGs did it better in the sense that enemies were visible in the world so you could evade them if you didn't need more experience and stuff.

 

[Ikagura]

I think modern JRPGs aren't punitive enough about players rushing the game so they'd be under-leveled.

 

[SkaaTerminator]

It depends on the game, usually im not a fan of them but as long the encounter rate is balanced then Im okay with them. But sometimes you get games like this

Then that's when I start to absolutely hate them, this game made me want to claw my eyes out with how many encounters that were thrown at me, literally 1-2 steps for the vast majority of the game, Best ost on the famicom though, the battle theme sort of helped with it.

 

[Fray Guillermo]

Grew up with random encounters, but nowadays they can feel frustrating, especially in games like FF6 where the encounter rate is off the roofs or when the save points are pretty far inbetween. FF9 is pretty tedious also with the long ass loading screens in/out of combat

 

[Poltergeist]

I'm generally okay with random encounters, but I must admit, some old RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have very high encounter rates of enemies. Gladly, you can use spells to reduce the encounter rates in those games, but only on the overworld maps, not in the dungeons.

It is understandable why some people hate them, but it's important to keep in mind that it's a gameplay-balancing moment, because developers need to take into account that you might be over-grinding your characters.

I also noticed, when I play Action RPGs (e.g., Tales of Symphonia), because of the action combat system, it is much more easier to bare with.

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2025

But sometimes you get games like this

The most miserable thing for me is that you can encounter up to 3 (!) rows of enemies in SMT games. This is just too much and too annoying, and this is why I dropped SMT1 on SNES.

 

[Leviafen]

Im cool with random encounters, but i love seeing developers find fun ways to change how they work entirely. My favorite example is the Blue omen demo and how the more you run the more the screen starts to get covered with an effect, but will start to fade if you walk or stand still. It wasn't perfect but i liked the concept a whole lot.

 

[SkaaTerminator]

I'm generally okay with random encounters, but I must admit, some old RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have very high encounter rates of enemies. Gladly, you can use spells to reduce the encounter rates in those games, but only on the overworld maps, not in the dungeons.

It is understandable why some people hate them, but it's important to keep in mind that it's a gameplay-balancing moment, because developers need to take into account that you might be over-grinding your characters.

I also noticed, when I play Action RPGs (e.g., Tales of Symphonia), because of the action combat system, it is much more easier to bare with.

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2025

The most miserable thing for me is that you can encounter up to 3 (!) rows of enemies in SMT games. This is just too much and too annoying, and this is why I dropped SMT1 on SNES.

Oh no trust me Megami Tensei 2 is astronomically worse than Shin Megami Tensei 1. You think 3 plus waves of enemies is bad, try 10 plus waves of enemies consistently throughout the game with a good amount of times 1-2 steps, you are going to hear this song alot

but then you hear a legendary banger like this

 

[Poltergeist]

but then you hear a legendary banger like this

The music is indeed great, but I don't know if it's enough for me to sit this game through. I'm gonna die of boredom probably.

 

[SkaaTerminator]

The music is indeed great, but I don't know if it's enough for me to sit this game through. I'm gonna die of boredom probably.

It honestly isn't if you want to experience the game, just play Kyuyaku Megami Tensei since they heavily reduced the encounter rate and added a map to the L button iirc.

 

[Poltergeist]

just play Kyuyaku Megami Tensei

I tried that game as well, and if I recall correctly, it has the same 3 rows of enemies problem.

 

[SkaaTerminator]

I tried that game as well, and if I recall correctly, it has the same 3 rows of enemies problem.

yeah I cant validate that since I played the original game, but I did play the first one and it's nowhere near as high as the original game but I honestly just finished the original megaten 1 and 2.