This seldom came up until a few years after the release of the Playstation, a few months after we saw Final Fantasy VII. Suddenly RPG's were cool again, thanks in no small part to Square. Suddenly the genre had wider recognition. Hundreds upon hundreds--even thousands--of new fans flocked to the interactive excitement such titles provided. Then a lot of those new players started complaining. Why do RPG's have to have those random battles? What's the point? Some have even wondered why there have to be battles at all, I believe. They were quick to complain about many aspects of the genre, in fact, but nothing became their target so much as random battles.

If one looks back throughout console RPG history, he can see that random battles are nothing new. They have been an expected part of the RPG since the early days with titles such as Phantasy Star, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy. Hardly a franchise hasn't featured them. They're that old. But does that make them essential?

I think maybe you can tell already that I think they're rather important. A part of me resents that thousands of people without a real appreciation for the console RPG heritage are trying to elbow their way in and change things around. It reminds me of one theatre company buying out another and saying, "I'm sorry, but that popcorn stuff has got to go. Who needs that anymore? We're in a new millenium!" And a lot of other gamers--let's call them 'old school' while appreciating that the term does bring with it a few things which are irrelevant to this editorial--love their random battles as much as a movie-goer enjoys popcorn. But there's a point to the complaints about random battles. This is the year 2001. RPG's have come a long way since 1986 or so. That's 15 years and we now see full-motion video, orchestrated soundtracks that make the midi's sound downright pitiful, speech, and a bunch more. We see titles spanning multiple discs. Text is gradually becoming outdated for dialogue, even if that area still has a long way to go. And so I ask again: are the random battles still necessary?

Yes, I would say. They are. But while I say that, I also remember that some games drive that into the ground. Perhaps to understand why random battles are such an issue--and why I would state that they're often necessary--we should take a look at just what purpose they serve.

In an RPG, your characters go from one place to the next, uncovering a little piece of story. Newer games have more story to uncover, but it's the same basic concept. Now, there has to be something between those chunks of story. After all, where's the game? And that something isn't ever a walk through daisy-filled fields. It's going to have to be dungeons or caves or something to put the player at risk. Other genres already cover the idea of jumping from pit to pit or what have you. That leaves only one real option: encounters with enemies. Many players, then, don't like the random battles because one can't avoid them. The trend is now to show enemies on the map and give the player a way around them. That's what gamers love. And why? Because they can get back to the story more quickly, and perhaps another FMV.

The complaints about random battles and the advent of FMV, then, are tightly connected. And how many times have you heard someone whining in a chat room and saying, "Why play this game when it's just an interactive movie?" Maybe I was one of those whiners you heard. You see, I believe that there is a difference between videogames and movies. One forces you to act, the other doesn't. So I'm all for the random battles. I think most of the people who belly-ache about random battles shouldn't bother with the genre at all. Seriously. They should just watch movies instead. In fact, the only reason I don't mind these people too much is that they represent a larger user base for the genre, so we get to see more cool titles from Japan. I just wish they would shut up about the random battles.

Okay, now I've probably managed to piss at least someone off. Let me make myself clearer. I think some of the people who like no random battles have a legitimate claim. A game like Dragon Warrior, in the old days, was a heap of fun. I remember the thrill of striving to reach that new dungeon, knowing if I hadn't planned my resources properly, if I didn't use them frugally, I would run out and would be dead meet. That was more exciting than a hundred rounds of Mortal Kombat, if only because it meant the last half-hour of playtime would be a waste if I died. There was an adrenaline rush, there. Nowadays, though, you can just stock up until you're a veritable item shop, then traipse through any dungeon without breaking a sweet. Even games like Final Fantasy IX suffer from this, to some extent. In cases like that, the random battles are a true waste. What's the point of random battles if they aren't dangerous? They truly are a waste of time. Only the complete idiot will now die from a random encounter.

There should be a balance, then. Random battles should be tough to survive, and they shouldn't happen frequently. That's the other important point. No one is really saying, "Oh, I hate seeing battles in RPG's." Instead, they're upset by the number of such encounters. Essentially, a random battle is an ambush. And no one likes to see a lot of those. A huge number of them aren't even realistic. A game like Suikoden, I think, handles this wonderfully. The dungeons aren't terribly large, and encounters are fairly rare. That was perfect. Then there's a game like Final Fantasy VIII, in which you take 5 or 10 steps and face a battle every time. Not good.

So, then, why not just give up on the random battles altogether and go for the enemy-on-screen method? Because that's just... boring. Sure, some games do it well. Chrono Cross and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete are two good recent PSX examples. But there are also games that do it wrong. And gamers take advantage of this because they're in a rush to see the next FMV.

Now it's time for me to finally wrap this up with my closing points. It's probably obvious that I could go on about this for quite a while. I'm going to try and provide a written scale so you can compare the advantages of random battles and on-screen enemy alerts:

Random battles, when properly executed, make dungeons dangerous again. They give the player a sense of adventure and danger that can heighten the overall experience of dungeon crawling. Now it's a thrill to explore a dungeon's depths more completely, because each step taken might mean one encounter more than the player can handle. However, random battles often occur too frequently, which wastes time and often isn't even all that exciting because the game's developer lets the player go into such caves as loaded as any good item shop.

On-screen enemy alerts, when properly executed, allow the player to see where enemies lie in wait, frequently, and to avoid battles. This saves on time taken to pass through a dungeon and onto the next scene. However, all of these aspects might well be viewed as negative. Players are likely to abuse the privilege and try to avoid battles, which means they'll reach the end of the game in weak shape and have to spend hours to level up enough for the boss encounters. Additionally, they'll miss the excitement of exploring the dungeon, because there's really no need to, anyway, and they just want that next FMV. They might as well just watch a movie.

There you have the comparison, as I see it. My final impression is that neither style of enemy encounter has been perfected. Both have a long way. However, the random battle is being rapidly shoved aside in favor of other approaches, even though it has yet to be proven less valid than other techniques. A true shame.

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