Question for the JRPG nerds...

[Yuki Senoue]

By any chance do you know any more co-op rpgs?

Phantasy Star Online Episode 1&2 for Gamecube lets you play split screen offline.

 

[nobitakun]

I may go a little bit far in generations, but I really had a lot ot fun with Hunted The Demons Forge from 360 (I assume on PS3 it would work the same). It has a mode offline local co-op and, although the screen is downsized, it was a very funny experience. Not so many games implement offline co-op nowadays. But well, this game isn't a RPG, it is action with light elements. Just to talk about it as some western games were introduced in the thread.

 

[Ne0Griever]

Never player the FF7 reboot.

To my recollection STAR OCEAN on SNES is the earliest that i have seen it, here is a video for reference.

You will see the characters fight on their own and you can interject with changes on the commands

 

[MrChester]

I may go a little bit far in generations, but I really had a lot ot fun with Hunted The Demons Forge from 360 (I assume on PS3 it would work the same). It has a mode offline local co-op and, although the screen is downsized, it was a very funny experience. Not so many games implement offline co-op nowadays. But well, this game isn't a RPG, it is action with light elements. Just to talk about it as some western games were introduced in the thread.

I played Hunted the Demon Forge with a friend on PS3. I remember the game itself was complete ass but I enjoyed the experience. Now the only thing I can remember from it was the crystal that swaps who is playing which character that we affectionately named "the gender-bender". I get that these types of bro-ish over the shoulder 3rd person shooter games were way too popular during that period of time following the Gears of War series, but me and a friend have been really enjoying Resident Evil 5 lately and it's kind of a shame the style just got almost entirely dropped.

This is totally not relevant, I'm just gonna rant because I'm mad bitter after having scrolled through the entirety of Sega's publishing library but people need to stop mixing genre of RPG with the theme of Fantasy and I appreciate that you made the distinction. No-one ever refers to RE5's weapon upgrade system as RPG elements even though it is explicitly derived from tabletop RPG systems, but just about every game on that Sega list where the main characters picks up a sword was labbelled an RPG

To my recollection STAR OCEAN on SNES is the earliest that i have seen it, here is a video for reference.

You will see the characters fight on their own and you can interject with changes on the commands

You know I think this actually might be exactly it. A few other people mentioned SO1 but looking at screenshots and longplays on youtube (why is this game 98% static dialogue >:[ ) I thought they were barking up the wrong tree. In this clip though it looks pretty accurate to what I'm looking for.

I think this sort of clears up the timeline for me a bit. In my research I was very focused in on the progression of Square and sort of forgot about Enix. One look at Enix's library though and the progression seems to make a lot more sense - bridging the gap between action and RPG seems to be their thing.

So yeah case closed - the systems in Parasite Eve don't seem so out-the-blue any more and I can see how the idea developed across multiple years, titles and studios. Enix developed the system for SO1 after years of experiementing with real time systems. Square are pretty notorious for straight up ripping off Enix prior to the merger so them taking inspiration for Parasite Eve sounds pretty logical to me. As well, based on the similarities in aesthetic, gameplay, and the time of release, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the system that directly inspired Quest 64 as well. Obviously the games mentioned prior all had their place in the chronology of events but SO1 was the missing link I didn't know I was looking for.

TL;DR - The answer was Star Ocean (1996) all along

 

[nobitakun]

I played Hunted the Demon Forge with a friend on PS3. I remember the game itself was complete ass but I enjoyed the experience. Now the only thing I can remember from it was the crystal that swaps who is playing which character that we affectionately named "the gender-bender". I get that these types of bro-ish over the shoulder 3rd person shooter games were way too popular during that period of time following the Gears of War series, but me and a friend have been really enjoying Resident Evil 5 lately and it's kind of a shame the style just got almost entirely dropped.

Ohh, wow. It's been a long time I don't play Resident Evil 5, because I can't find anyone to play with, and I refuse to play with the dumb CPU, it's unbearable :(. The game itself is so-so, but with a partner is a lot of fun :)

 

[MrChester]

Ohh, wow. It's been a long time I don't play Resident Evil 5, because I can't find anyone to play with, and I refuse to play with the dumb CPU, it's unbearable :(. The game itself is so-so, but with a partner is a lot of fun :)

Lol you're totally right, it's honestly pretty weird that a mainline Resident Evil game is so dependent on co op in the first place but having to coordinate with a cpu partner as well... Ooft. Man, I miss Ashley.

You know I actually have my own beef with the game in single player. They force you to play as Chris and Chris is right handed. Sheva is left handed. This means the camera is naturally on the other side and because guns are normally made right handed she has unique (and really impressive) animations for reloading the unorthodox way (you probably won't get it if you're right handed but left handed people feel a kinship towards one another whenever they see them operating a bolt action rifle). I shoot left handed and they made all this effort to include a left handed system... but I'm not allowed to choose it until I beat the game??

 

[UnDubious]

I think this sort of clears up the timeline for me a bit. In my research I was very focused in on the progression of Square and sort of forgot about Enix. One look at Enix's library though and the progression seems to make a lot more sense - bridging the gap between action and RPG seems to be their thing.

TL;DR - The answer was Star Ocean (1996) all along

Star Ocean does nothing that Magna Braban didn't do first. Or even Dragon Knight III, aka Knights of Xentar. Both are earlier RPGs where the battles play out automatically and you can interrupt to give orders. There is no turn-based aspect to Star Ocean btw, it's real-time. Like Tales of Phantasia before it. Except it plays itself.
How and when did Enix "experiment" with real time? They were strictly a publisher, btw, with no internal development team, unlike Square. Star Ocean was made by Tri-Ace, a company founded by former member of Wolf Team, which made Tales of Phantasia just before. Enix did publish action RPGs, like Quintet's, but they were best known for Dragon Quest, the most turn-based series there is, and not for mixing action with turn-based at all.

 

[MrChester]

Star Ocean does nothing that Magna Braban didn't do first. Or even Dragon Knight III, aka Knights of Xentar. Both are earlier RPGs where the battles play out automatically and you can interrupt to give orders. There is no turn-based aspect to Star Ocean btw, it's real-time. Like Tales of Phantasia before it. Except it plays itself.
How and when did Enix "experiment" with real time? They were strictly a publisher, btw, with no internal development team, unlike Square. Star Ocean was made by Tri-Ace, a company founded by former member of Wolf Team, which made Tales of Phantasia just before. Enix did publish action RPGs, like Quintet's, but they were best known for Dragon Quest, the most turn-based series there is, and not for mixing action with turn-based at all.

For a start, if Star Ocean has no input outside of commands then I was mistaken. I'm gonna give it a go right now to form a better opinion on it but based on what I saw I assumed the more active character was being directly controlled by a player and in the LP I skimmed, the guy made it sound that way. If you do literally just let it play out then case reopened - it's not what I'm looking for.

Tbh I totally overlooked that Enix wasn't a dev team - I do know about their history, I've literally been to like a conference meeting thing involving them, I'd just been looking through a lot of game lists and made an error in judgement on the specifics. However, it's a little closed minded to assume a publisher wouldn't have any creative integrity for the products they put out. Just looking at their library it's pretty apparent that certain themes, genres of game, and even console platforms are being considered with all of their releases. Whether they know it or not a lot of people will likely see "Enix" and make a lot of preconceptions about what the game should or should not be - these same people will also likely be disappointed if a product deviates too substantially from that. As you said, Enix was popular due to Dragon Quest (which is what I was referring to about Square pilfering ideas) but I think during 92 and 93, there seems to be a conscientious effort to diversify the IPs they publish without alienating people who might recognise their name. That's actually kinda what threw me off, Enix seem quite consistent with their identity.

I'm gonna look into Star Ocean - if it is more like digimon then I'll consider it discounted from the lineage, if it is player controlled I'll look deeper into Tri-Ace.

I think the bulk of the primary question has been answered now anyway though. Unless I can find something that I think inspired Parasite Eve and Quest 64, it seems they're probably the first examples of that kind of system that both happened to release at the same time. Also, fun fact - Quest 64 has some wildly varying release dates between regions and each having different publishers. This could possibly mean it went into development before Parasite Eve but got held up during the final stages

Edit: I shouldn't say "inspired" P.E and Q64. I mean the system they are expanding upon in the same way something like FFVIICC exapnds on P.E

 

[UnDubious]

For a start, if Star Ocean has no input outside of commands then I was mistaken. I'm gonna give it a go right now to form a better opinion on it but based on what I saw I assumed the more active character was being directly controlled by a player and in the LP I skimmed, the guy made it sound that way. If you do literally just let it play out then case reopened - it's not what I'm looking for.

Tbh I totally overlooked that Enix wasn't a dev team - I do know about their history, I've literally been to like a conference meeting thing involving them, I'd just been looking through a lot of game lists and made an error in judgement on the specifics. However, it's a little closed minded to assume a publisher wouldn't have any creative integrity for the products they put out. Just looking at their library it's pretty apparent that certain themes, genres of game, and even console platforms are being considered with all of their releases. Whether they know it or not a lot of people will likely see "Enix" and make a lot of preconceptions about what the game should or should not be - these same people will also likely be disappointed if a product deviates too substantially from that. As you said, Enix was popular due to Dragon Quest (which is what I was referring to about Square pilfering ideas) but I think during 92 and 93, there seems to be a conscientious effort to diversify the IPs they publish without alienating people who might recognise their name. That's actually kinda what threw me off, Enix seem quite consistent with their identity.

I'm gonna look into Star Ocean - if it is more like digimon then I'll consider it discounted from the lineage, if it is player controlled I'll look deeper into Tri-Ace.

I think the bulk of the primary question has been answered now anyway though. Unless I can find something that I think inspired Parasite Eve and Quest 64, it seems they're probably the first examples of that kind of system that both happened to release at the same time. Also, fun fact - Quest 64 has some wildly varying release dates between regions and each having different publishers. This could possibly mean it went into development before Parasite Eve but got held up during the final stages

Edit: I shouldn't say "inspired" P.E and Q64. I mean the system they are expanding upon in the same way something like FFVIICC exapnds on P.E

The original Star Ocean is commands with a reduced interface, I think the remake is direct control as the series moved towards that eventually.

 

[Cantarella]

You can move around in Battle in Star Ocean 1. It's just kind of awkward and also... kind of a command? Like, you press Y and a little cursor comes up and you direct your character where you want them to go. I also don't remember if there's ever really a real reason to do this.

I was thinking about Star Ocean 2 and why it didn't feel like it fit into this category for me and SD3 does. Been trying to figure out why that is besides the turns "feeling" really obvious in SD3.

At first I thought that maybe it's because the cooldowns are so fast in SO2, but I don't think that's it. I think it's actually because the action elements are far more pronounced and emphasized in SO2. Your ability to maneuver/dodge actually plays a way bigger role in how the battle turns out, and coordinating an effective offense will deny even bosses the ability to act entirely. These two things both kind of work to erase the 'turn-based' quality from the game, whereas in something like SD3 it's inescapable. Iunno though, not really married to that position. I guess there's just a really murky line when you start quantifying this sort of stuff.

 

[UnDubious]

So it's not direct control. It's like a RTS almost, you point with a cursor and they go there. IIRC you can go around and hit enemies from behind that way which is advantageous.

 

[MrChester]

So Star Ocean 1 is a little dubious. It's kinda borderline.
I think you made a good point though, Cantarella. Maneuverability and positioning are important in differentiating this system from something like Digimon World or as Undubious says, an RTS (sudden realisation Digimon world 1 is actually just an extremely small scale RTS).

I'll be 100% as well - you did make me think I was a bit too hasty earlier and it's got me rethinking some titles that have already been mentioned. So I always thought the remake of Trials of Mana was this style of game but upon looking I actually think it looks more like a brawler with RPG elements but it got me thinking about FFVII (remake). In that game you pretty much spam sword slashes between turns but to me that always felt like busy work. Some guy earlier on in this thread said that it was something to keep the adhd players entertained, or something to that effect, and like, I probably wouldn't put it the same way but I don't disagree. I don't really know how to articulate what I'm getting at but I think minor discrepencies in how the turn system and actions work is fine so long as the most important "non-postition-based" actions are still rigid (???)

Bruh idek if what I just said makes sense. I bet there's a word for this exact type of game in Japan and if you asked someone they'd be like "oh, jihogi style games? yeah man everyone knows the first one was ____"

 

[nobitakun]

Lol you're totally right, it's honestly pretty weird that a mainline Resident Evil game is so dependent on co op in the first place but having to coordinate with a cpu partner as well... Ooft. Man, I miss Ashley.

You know I actually have my own beef with the game in single player. They force you to play as Chris and Chris is right handed. Sheva is left handed. This means the camera is naturally on the other side and because guns are normally made right handed she has unique (and really impressive) animations for reloading the unorthodox way (you probably won't get it if you're right handed but left handed people feel a kinship towards one another whenever they see them operating a bolt action rifle). I shoot left handed and they made all this effort to include a left handed system... but I'm not allowed to choose it until I beat the game??

I didn't mention it because it's not something people cares about, but you're totally right. When playing co-op I was always Sheva for two reasons: she's female and I always prior female characters, and she's left handed, because I am left handed as well :)