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

[KaiserMk7]

One thing about Pokemon that I don't really see people talk about is how it is also smart enough to have both random encounters AND on-field encounters. I can't think of another franchise that has the mix of the two.

Try the Etrian Odyssey series.

 

[Lena CE]

Try the Etrian Odyssey series.

Oh yea! Etrian definitely does this to some degree! I've only played 1 and 3 though, really need to get on the rest of the series. I've replayed 1 so many times I probably could have finished the series by now if I spent that time on something new haha

 

[rinkachi]

it's very usefull for grinding but often a pain if you are underleveled or bad. I think if you could see them beforehand like in legend of zelda 2 its much better

 

[Mechmainiac]

Oh man, I actually love them. I kinda annoys me that I get to choose the encounter in some RPGs the battles in the wild from Random Encounters is way more immersive to me.

 

[Segadude113]

finding a shiny in the wild by random encounter is the best kind of surprise.

 

[KaiserMk7]

Oh man, I actually love them. I kinda annoys me that I get to choose the encounter in some RPGs the battles in the wild from Random Encounters is way more immersive to me.

Do you feel as if you would appreciate the option to avoid certain encounters if they're roaming minibosses that can curbstomp you when you first enter a region and are meant to be fought slightly before the area boss when your party is more developed?

 

[Mechmainiac]

Do you feel as if you would appreciate the option to avoid certain encounters if they're roaming minibosses that can curbstomp you when you first enter a region and are meant to be fought slightly before the area boss when your party is more developed?

Not really I mean I played FF2 and there's this infamous fork where you run into an Ogre or Witch lol and when I get strong enough to beat them I get maximum satisfaction, or it can be an interesting early challenge but either way it's a satisfying checkmark of strength.

 

[elwynd16x]

I feel like there's a ton of innovation to be had with random encounters, otherwise I don't really have the patience for it nowadays. It's really funny that we have 3D Bethesda RPG's with a barely functioning economy, resource management, potion-crafting, faction battles, weather systems, etc. but nobody has really taken the time to translate that into a 2D turn-based RPG that operates on the scale that Bethesda advertises.

 

[lonelyrollingstars]

I think my favorite way of handling random encounters that I've seen personally was in the ROM hack Final Fantasy IV Ultima, which just had a toggle switch in the options menu for random encounters. You'd think it would make the game too easy, but you still have to level up so turning encounters off was something I only did if it was going to be a huge pain in the ass to run back and do something simple, like if I forgot to grab something in town (which happens all the time thanks to my godforsaken ADHD).

 

[Dyne]

I'd say they don't really bother me (although its not my favorite).
But thats probably because I grew up with that being the norm.

There's a good way and a bad way to do them though. Every 3 steps is bad.
But if done right they can make resource management actually matter in dungeons; thats not bad.

 

[rattabletapping]

Tales of games kind of spam that whole random encounter thing, but I don't really mind it sometimes. (It gets to a point, Luckily there's holy bottles)

 

[Turbo Kid]

If you don't like random encounters, then you don't like Japanese rpgs as it's one of the foundations the genre was built on. Some games work better without them though, typically games that have some kind of pre-emptive strike gameplay mechanic like Grandia, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, or some of the Legend of Heroes games. You need to be able to see your enemies on the map so that you can ambush them.