Well mainly I want to point out to people that in the end I cover some really good games and I think people should play them, games like Front Mission 3, Tactics Ogre(and play Ogre Battle its way more unique too) and Vagrant Story, also play Suikodon even do I bash on it a lot here.
I am going at this mainly from a story perspective, I will completely ignore multiplayer focused games like League of legend who clearly are replay able as the game are just in matches between players. I also think that games like Diablo etc where the player has a unique talent tree of three. And the player can thereby replay the game going for different builds the next time is not very interesting.
First I want to go into some games I think failed on replayability for different reasons.
Lets start with analyzing what was good with Diablo 2 and what Diablo 3 lacked.
First I want to say that I actually enjoyed Diablo 3 and I think that overall the gameplay is much more smooth and more interesting classes. But dam, the game complete lost its replayability, when looking at individual classes. While the game can certainly be replayed again with a complete other class it really has zero value in playing the same class again(excluding hardcore if the other one has died) that was not true for Diablo 2 at all.
If anything Diablo 2 biggest strength was that it was always something you wanted to try again from the start. And Blizzard actually removed a lot of t hat in Diablo 2 with patches as well.
This topic I would say its super uber, for the Diablo design most of all as Diablo 3 really has better gameplay then Diablo 2 but it gains it mainly from sacrificing the replayability that Diablo 2 had. And thats one massive reason why a lot of old veteran players hate Diablo 3 and well they also hate it because it lacks the crazy in depth talent stacking that Diablo 3 does not have which is also directly related to the aim for more smooth gameplay.
The Diablo 2 replayability comes 100% from its talent build on the characters. The game clearly has no story what so ever or interesting other parts of the game then the characters. Not saying that I dislike the story of Diablo I think all the game got a pretty good story but its not like anyone replays th game which is 100% linear and has almost 0% story development on your character. The story is all focused on what Diablo and really most of the good story I think comes from the world, the lore backbone not so much the direct storyline in the gameplay.
Anyway its clear the replayability has to do with the characters. The game do also features gameplay at max level, farming best items, pvp etc. But like with WoW or other games that aims for that even more that is not the replayability at all. So while it adds game value, game time so to speak its not the same aim or gameplay feature so I wont go into that at all for any game. (However, I would say that games with the good replayability usually features little to no end game value).
so the replayability in Diablo 2 comes from the character development(combat). Its important to note that the player is able to stack talent points on skills and not just traverse downwards in the games talent tree like most other game does it.
This gives the player 2 genera options, put a lot of points in one skill or go further down for better more advanced skills. The game also has 3 different talent tree its quite ingenious design really, the player gets just the points they need
to put 1 point in each skill per stage level. I.e on level 1-5 the player has 5 skills spread in the 3 threes and on level 6 they gain 5 new spread around, if they put one in each before.
That means the player can exactly get 1 point in each skill when leveling up a character until theyr each the max new skill level of 30(note level goes to 99 but there is no new stuff after 30 just more points to stack with).
One way to play the game is to get each skill then later max, or stack all fire skills as they now days boost each other, or just stack all in skill etc. A lot of different options.
So its possible to do loads of different playthroughs with just 1 class. Really a lot of variation giving cause to great replayability.
In Diablo 3 on the other hand the player can constantly with no cost where ever they are in the game as long as they are not in combat change their skills!!!
This is a MAJOR difference between the games and quite different from most RPGs. The effect really if you ask me the playthrough is way more fun the first time in Diablo 3.
its a lot smoother, you can try any combos you want right away. Try each news skill with no penalty on what you done earlier, try new kinds of build all the time with 1 character and so forth.
However, there really is no reason what so ever to ever replay the game with the same class again. You have likely tested each skill a lot, choose what skills you like, which ones you do not etc.
So while the game is more fun right away and the player is never stuck on some boring gameplay forced by an earlier mistake there is no room to retest playing the game.
And thats just the general change from letting the player always change what skills they are using. As the game got ride of the talent tree and specially the stacking option to have this streamline experience
the player cant go for crazy strategies and that even more so removed the replayability. In Diablo 2 a player could put all their point in the first skill they got to go around 1 shooting everything but that skill would be useless late game
so that would be a payment for a quick leveling. A lot of those options are completely removed.
That being said, original Diablo 2 mainly feature a lot of total different character builds but only a handful was good late game so not like it was actually that many options.
Another example of this is just how Blizzard changed Diablo 2 rules. They put in that the player now can talent respec. I think that was a horrible design for replayability. That just means now you can go and put all the points in a early skill max it, crush everything until
it gets useless then just respec and put skills in a newer talent, max that one get to max level and then do a proper late game build. Sure way less punishing but like with Diablo 3, that actually removes the major reason to replay the game.
Note: The player also has attribute points they can tinker around with for more options but they are not at all as clear as talents + they even more had only a few limited way it was good.
Tl:DR Diablo 3 offers a better gameplay the first time but sacrificed replayability to do so.
Side NOTE: What I found interesting on all this is to who did Blizzard do this design? Honestly I don't mind as I am to old to replay the game 30 times so I prefer Diablo 3 way more and the overall gameplay was much more fun through the game. But given that its was mainly old fans that wanted to buy Diablo 3 old Diablo 2 fans I guess it should be to no surprise most of them would dislike Diablo 3.
Diablo still does a very simple way to do replayability, its purely made from different options in character development.
The other standard way is from altered gameplay in the story and the game world.
Preferably you combine these 2 ways.
That being said I found its a myriad of games that does fake or horrible ways to pretend it has replayabiity when it comes the the paths the player can take in the game.
For example Suikoden 5 the player can decide to kill of one of their characters, this has no other effect on the storyline at all, except missing the true end when the game is over if the other requirement of having all characters collected. is set,why the goal is is failed as 1 is dead, the suikoden 2 has a character dying where the player cannot prevent it, which instead puts a timer on when to get all characters if the player has not found all 108 stars before that character dies the true ending cannot be unlocked.
However, in both cases that the character dies has no story impact what so ever. When it happens nor afterwards everything in the game will going exactly the same. While the True end is not unlocked all the other dialog will be the same in both paths of the games. All bosses the same etc. So the choice in Suikoden 5 does not actually matter. Its one of those false story importance a lot of game has. Still better then the complete illusion of choice as the player can get that character killed and it will be a cut scene of the character dying, some mourning dialog afterwards and so on(but after that the character is never mentioned again, regardless if its alive or not).
Complete illusion choices are common in the Visual Novels genre. While that genre should clearly invoke replayablity its pretty much one of its main goal. Try to get X ending and then try to get Y ending or unlock scene A, so the player replays and replays.
There is a lot of Visual Novels that complete fails on replayablity they just go for a lot of options a lot of times and actually most of the option gives absolute zero effect on picking. So for example it can be 5 Binary questions in a row and its only the last one that gives any change in the story, while the character will react slightly different to the picks in 1-4 the characters will not be effected by this later in the game so they really have no meaning.
The worst offenders are games where its no story change at all until the very bitter end of the game and its like 50 questions but the last 51 question has 4 different options and all the games 4 different ends are all decided by the last question. (Kinda like Dragon Age just saying....)
The only replayably these type of design offers in the is to load the safe file at the last question and redo them. Quickly realizing the games all option before was just lazy illusions of gameplay.
This type of design really annoys me is like they were to lazy to program the game to remember simple flags from choices before hand and just ignored everything that happened in the players options. When a Visual Novel does its just pick your ending type of game and pretty much removes any game from the game... well even worse are "Visual Novels" where it even on the end is not change and the game is not even a game but text and images, I don't consider that a game then anymore at all.
For example with Dragon Age, while not a Visual Novel the game features pretty much 100+ of illusion choices where the only effect a pick does is if it gives you + or - on the chance to fuck your companions. And in the end of the game its 2-3 choices that effects all the different outcome of the game. That really removes almost any reason to replay the game. But at least its game with combat systems and different talents to pick etc a visual novel that does this stops being a game more or less
But the real fail for Dragon Age if you ask me is the players to much open option to save.
Obviously I don't like that its pretty obvious no choices really matters to the grand story of the game. But the options do create different minor story-lines, effecting the current sub-story / quest etc. So while that should give the player a incitement to replay the game once more and pick different minor paths I really think it drop the ball completely, why? The player can just load.
When I played Knights of the old republic, the MMORPG game from Bioware(same who did Dragon Age). While the game likewise features a lot,a lot of options which really just effects your Light side Vs Dark Side status. Literally its like 1000 choices and 980 of the just gives you points in what type of Jedi you are. Sure people speak to you differently and you looked a little differently, but it really don't affect the gameplay what so ever.
However, each pick is a lot more meaningful then in Dragon Age. As its a MMORPG you cant save so each pick its permanent, wanna kill this guy? Flirt with this women etc, not sure of the outcome. You have to bet to see what happens if it will fit your character, your companions etc. When playing Dragon Age, its just, "oh dam I want to fuck Morgana next and this pick gave me -5 with her, better load and pick the other option to get + instead".
Because of the super easy way to save before any option the player can just easily look at all outcomes right away and then pick the most beneficial for whatever they are aiming for. In KOTR you have to replay the whole game to get to those pick again to see the other outcome, well a little high on the time wise but a lot more reason to replay the game.
When I think on this I think on games like Dragon Quest warriors. The DQ version of Pokemon. A really good game and already in its first game you could mate different monsters(which pokemon later tried to make their version of this but the never went for such a complicate and good system like in DQW). This was the way to get new stronger monsters they would not only inherent their parent and some of their grandparents abilities(genes;) but also depending on the combo of monster it would create new better monsters. A lot of the gameplay in the end was to figure out how to get the best monsters by reading different books in the game, talking to people about myths. (this was before the Internet-- you did not just Google how to get X boss monster).
But it also had a very, VERY harsh no load button. So when pairing up 2 monsters to mate they would both die and you would lose them permanently. The child would never be known before what it would be(if you had not previously mated those 2 monsters) and the game would SAVE over its file when it mated. So no going back if it failed miserably. Hard but very rewarding system.
Anyway my point is at least in a replay value perspective Dragon Age would be 10x more replayable if the game saved over the game file after each pick in the story, thought this would charm Morgana, sorry she hated you for it. That would invoke a lot more desire to replay the game experience.
Of course games like DQ warriors and Pokemon definitely has a good replayabiity as well in how much different the playable characters are. Both those game franchises features 100+ of playable characters and the player can pick a lot of different characters right away to use. This is a small but good point I would say as while other games might feature a lot of characters to form a party with they might be way to late to get so its never really gonna effect the majority of the gameplay.
For example the Suikodon Franchise, as I mentioned earlier that game features 108 characters in each game but most of them can only be unlocked at given set times in the game story progression(some in the story and others cant be unlocked until you have reached chapter X then chapter Y etc)
So those games really don't have any replayabiity even do its so many characters as its not like the player can pick from all the characters like in Pokemon pretty early one. Its takes like 40 hours to get all character.
+ A side problem in suikodon is that the game also has clearly better characters then others, while Pokemon also has this at least the pokemon's have different element types and some unique move etc so most of them can still be used all through the game if they match the team. But Suikokden has very clearly better characters which are just straight a lot better then some others so its a very clear that in chapter X, these 6 are the best then in Y the player get 10 new characters and 2 of those are super good so they can replace the worst in the party, rinse and repeat for each stage of the game.
(Just FYI I love the Suikodon games I am huge, huge fan I got all the games even the ones who was released in my country and most of them in MINT condition. But they game really has no replayabiity, the story has like 3 endings, 1 super bad you get midway with immediate result, 1 normal good and 1 true good, the true good is always from getting all characters, which you always want to have so ts not like you replay the game to get another ending and the fun part of the game is to figure out how to get each character and the overall great story and most of the combat. So replaying the game is really not so inspiring as you know where all characters are and you know how the story will always go...so yeah I love the franchise but it really has more or less 0% value in replayability, still I have replayed most of the games(not 4 as it sucked) and I guess that is mainly from the games just being so dam good you play t over and over again. So saying it got 0 value I guess is not entirely true.)
Some of my favorite examples:
Front mission 3
Front mission 3 I found so, so special. First of all its super 100% linear game the player has only 1 choice to make right away at the start which will create 2 completely different games, story wise but also all the stages are different all the characters in you play with except the first 2 characters which are the main character and his best friend, still both the gameplays are extremely entwined I just find the games replayability a must. Basically when you beat path A, you gotta beat path B. Not at all to get the story or some crap like that, the player is not forced to play the B path to understand path A. Its just such an interesting and well done take on different side of the same coin, that if you like path A you will like path B even more. Thats be best part of its replayability, the second playthrough will be even better then the first.
First of all the setting is important to get about this game. The genre is general the best games I have played over the years who are the best to give the players true meaningful choices n the games narrative.
And that is Tactical RPGs with War / Political storyline. Which almost all of them have and why maybe the war part is what is important and not necessary the TRPG. My Second example of great replayability is also a focused war and political type of drama story just like Front Mission. I think its a lot of reasons for this but the general idea I have is because the choices are much more clear and can be vastly different. Their effect can hit on a grander scale but mainly that most other games the choices hit on a very low scale.
Think about it, most games focus to much on the intermediate story of a bunch of characters or 1 character even. So the main choices that can happen is simply between them, which wont ever effect the grand schemes in almost any game as no matter what they will still always end up beating the evil that threatens the world. So the biggest difference that can happen is to gain or lose a character and then alternative endings. All other stuff is usually just minor details in dialogs etc. If 2 different person plays the same generic game, do different decision they will still re-tale the same overall storyline for a third person, as all the minor details is not really the major story but just subplots.
So Front Mission 3 then just like all other FM games is a heavy focused on war and political power battles between countries on earth but in the near future. The player controls cahracter which battles in the latest war too, Wanzer. A mecha type of unit which can utilize bunch of different Firearms. Note that the game takes a very realistic theme, while its Japanese and its mecha they are dirty and cant fly on rainbow colored clouds and so on.
That Wanzers are actually quite important for the overall replayability as the game has a great character system where the player can modify and change, arms legs, body and head of the wanzer plus use 0-4 different weapons so its a lot of customizability and the characters gain experience points in different weapons, this is not the major part that makes the game have good replayability but its definitely a sub reason. The later games like FM 4 improves on this part even further with repair wanzers, backpack that can jam signals, or be a jetpack etc. Further more options for different wanzerr and pilots.
However, its not just that the player can play Path A and then replay Path A and do it very differently with the characters. As the player gets around 10 different characters on the different paths. The first 2 extra are exactly the same, same weaponry, skills etc just so its a good start team for the player(good design) but the other 8 are completely different sure they are overlapping but not the same. For example Path A has a girl in a Wanzer with Hover legs focus so she can fight and travel over water, while Path B hardly even gives the player the option to ever get a Hover Legs but instead the player can get Powerful Burst focused legs so they can jump higher to get on top of buildings.
All that are just subtle way to give the different paths different gameplay, the player in the end can customize their party to be pretty much the same as either path regardless. (except mid-late game special part)
No the real major thing in the game is the story. How its so close and still completely different so that the redo is an amazing new gameplay experience.
NOTE: An important note is here, If you ask me, FM4 is way worse then FM3 solely that it missed this amazing replayability that FM3 had. In that game the story would jump between an american team in south America(a part of the new USA) and an European team(EC(war version of EU)) their story was entwined and the battle system was quite better then in FM3, even do FM3 has great combat as well but FM4 simply has really, really good. However, there is no reason to replay it. The game is pretty hard but while the 2 different stories have different character and wanzer it was more limited the player get to experience both sides on the same playthrough and there is nothing to discover on the second so it really has no replayability except changing some wanzer parts here and there but that if anything was just annoying in that game because you have different shops and economy for the 2 sides but you frequently swap in between them etc...
I really want to emphasize that there is nothing in the game the player misses if they don't do both paths in FM3 etc is just a great replayability second way to look at things. So its not like in FM4 where both stories effect each other. In FM3 the stories are overlapping but without you on the otehr story so its different but similar.
Its basically hard to explain, FM3 features the same start story and the same last enemy faction so the first stages are the same and the last 5 or so are the exact same. (enemy/story wise you got different characters and weapons to combat them). Its very interesting very well done.
Ok lets go into the story details then.
The story of FM3 is about 2 Japanese young adults who are training to be Wanzer pilots, to no suprise as the main character father is a big time general in the army. Just before the game starts someone steals a new type of nuclear weapon developed by the USC(new USA which also control south America as new states,(the fourth game covers this a lot)). A prototype of this bombs goes of in the military base where the mc trains and he and his friend Ryoga of course gets the blame.
Here the story is the exact same and depending on if the player picks to go and shop a birthday present for his sister the game will take 2 vastly different path.
Path A. The scientist Emma from the USC saves the player who is man hunted by the Japanese government for the bomb incident she is the original inventor of this new nuke midas and know the player is innocent, she enlists the player to help her track down the Midas which is somewhere in the Oceania countries (Japan,Australia etc has made a new type of union in the future)
The player will overall fight vs Japan and its allies and will here and there come in conflict with China who wants to steal the Midas technology, midway through the game it will move to different parts of china. Here the player will join up with rebel forces against the super evil china government, safe villages take down giant fortresses etc. In the end a new hidden enemy will appear in china which will be the true last boss and they will go back to japan kinda closing the circle of the game.
Clearly I just wrote a very super general story part but the overall story change really from B is.
Your sister Alison will instead be playable over Emma(they fill the exact same role in the combat) and Liu a Chinese operative will be the one saving you from the Japanese army instead. So on B path the player is instead working for China vs working for the USC.
So some of the story parts are the same you will always attack a Philippines ocean base to try and get the midas from them no matter what side you are on.
However mainly when in china the game will really present 2 major different stories. And its really well written, on the USC side helped the weak rebels vs the evil government, classic storyline. But on B path we learn that the rebel kills innocent people ruins dams to further their agenda etc and is actually the government who is the nice side.
One of the big battles in the game is when to attack a huge mobile fortress n china that travels around well on B side you of course instead defend that fortress from the rebel scums.
The game design here is important to note, its not only just a simple switcharoo where its th exact battle but you are either on side A or B. While its the same map, the game does it a little differently, on A you attack the superior fortress vs their huge army etc. But on B you arrive just after the army been wiped out and you have to use a small force utilizing the fortress defense systems instead. So that is also very well done.
Overall the story touches on a lot of philosophical points by showing the 2 side of war. Its a very gray type of characters, they are evil when you are the other side versus them but with them they are heroic and good people.
Still the story does not get overly preachy if you replay it,its not like all characters are just the reverse of them self on the other side. For example path A has a recurring boss battle vs 4 mercenaries which are very unique boss battles as they are just 4 wanzers otherwise the game like most other TRPG goes for 20 enemy + 1 boss in the end type of stages. These guy are super annoying and appear as bosses a few times on path A.
On path B, they are still EVIL. They work for china so they help you, save your party etc. Sales their wanzer parts to you for the highest cost in the game. However, they are doing everything for a profit they state very clearly they will aid you solely for money and that they don't care who wins or loses and they are doing as much as possible to not end the civil war. Thats another great point with the games characters, yes some of them are portrayed entirely in reverse as you now are on their side but others are just plain evil or good hearted no matter what.
But the best part of the games amazing other version of the game play is stuff like these mercenaries, they are bosses o path A with super unique wanzers and they beat the living shit of you. Not only do they save you on Path B they will even give you access to those wanzers for that playthrough.
Liu is your guide on the NB path, a classic type of character that helps the player. Not just in the storyline but he explains most of the game mechanics, how the shop work etc. hes that standard older adventurer who has been around and can guide the new adventure(main characters are almost always young and inexperienced in RPGs).
Well on Path A. Hes the most recurring villain of the game. He attacks you relentless over the whole game, being a thorn on each country you fight in. Hes now the classic henchman to the main villain(chinas president) and will gather new forces and new plans to try and kill you and kidnap Emma.
SO the game really punches you with that as a surprise play through Path A first like I did and when starting path B suddenly your most annoying villain is gonna be your most trusted companion. Now I did not play B first but I would imagine that would be quite a weird feeling as well the common guide character suddenly being the never pursing villain.
Its a lot of these tings in the game that makes playing it twice is so worth it. Also yet again they really surprise in how not black and white it is or not lazy 1-P, where P has to always be the max of difference.
For example while Liu is a very important character on both A and B path. Emma who is the guide on Path A(shes is quite young but super intelligent scientist/spy so she knows everything in the world type of character). She is hardly seen in Path B. She is still here and there in the story as she is the inventor and the target of the true villain in the end etc so she still appears every now and then but she never combats the player. Liu does a complete turn around as a character in the A and B. while Emma is pretty much the same character you don't have much interaction with her personally on B path but she is leading a search for the midas so some of the other A playable characters is with her and appear sometimes as well.
So the player don't know what to expect for changes on the paths. The paths gives the player a very deep view of war, good vs evil. I also want to just emphasize on as I mentioned the player does not at all have to play B or A, the start end the ending is the same the player will understand the main story completely regardless of path. The paths are just extremely different but showcase most of the same character cast. This create a really drive to play the game twice, it takes rouhgly 35-40 hours each playthrough and many of the same stages are reused over but with completely different gameplay(as mentioned not just from swapping side). Its mainly as how the first 5 or so are the same and the last 10 or so and then its another 40 stages in the middle who are different and about 10 of them are on the same but on different sides, so its a way to really reuse assets but to really extend the games replayability
Tactic Ogre - Let us Cling together.
So I talked earlier about games who have a lot of choices but they are meaningless. Tactics Ogre an old cult classic to Super Nintendo is pretty much the exact opposite the game only has like 10 choices all together but they are extremely important each of them. Not only do the game have like 10 different endings the gameplay to them the paths on way are split into like 20 different or so as well. So taking decision A at question 1 does not just make people react differently, like in many other games it sends you onto a completely different story path then what path B is. Like with Front Mission 3.
However the game does then let the player re-change the path again at different part of the story.
Its like a Binary Tree were node 1 i split to A-B and then from A you can split of into C-D. And in B node you can slit into D-E.
So very simple explained if Going left in the Tree is going to the evil path the player can go evil-evil. Or Evil-Good which is the same result as Good-Evil. the game is quite complicated it does this several times and also create outskirt of extreme sides. However, different characters are recruited different battles etc at the different paths, so path D is not entirely same going from A or B and in the end of the game the different endings are different then depending on all the different decision all through the game(and nto just the last dam decision). + what character are alive / dead.
A character die in combat they die permanently so that is actually a big thing also characters can be miss on the recruitment depending on how one does in certain battles and like when you reach certain points in the story.
For example the game got a hardcore storyline...also I played the game in Japanese like 10 times and its been a while but the story is something like this. The fire Shaman, its 4 shamans one per element. And they all have to be recruited to get the true, true ending.
Playing on the Chaotic path(which is the good path, lawful is the evil one) the player at like th 8-9 decision can choose when to go her island base. This actually does not change anything else in the story is just one of those, do you want to fight this battle first or this other battle. So it does not even look like a real story important choice and it wont affect your main characters alignment etc. But, the fire shaman will have been killed of if you go to her island as the second battle(its stated in the games chronological that she was raped to death by enemy forces). Both battles is the exact same but she will be dead if you go to her to late(I actually think its like 3 minor battle on each side with no rest(heal) in between something like that). But like I mentioned tis is not a evil/good/neutral decision.
So the game has a lot of myriad of different game paths. And its extremely gray to.
The first decision in the game is to either follow your lord and under false flag and kill al civilians in a border village so you can declare war on the neighbor country or refuse.
Killing them all makes you a lawful good character and your best friend creates an army with you to battle the evil neighbor country.
Not killing them makes you a fugitive, your best friends hate you and promise to kill you and your sister. You still end up getting the blame(you try to go to village and stop your bet friend) and you run away with a small elite force having war with both your home country and the evil neighbor country(which are always evil no matter you do). You end up Chaotic Good player.
The main character alignment and his element picks from the start also defines what classes the main character can play as. This is the same for all other human characters and dragons as well but they just gain alignment from battle, the mc is stuck on his alignment based from storyline decision.
Basically, the game has few but super important decision that truly do change the game. Its a bunch of unique characters on all the different paths which also affect how at least can be done. Coming to like path x you can have up to 10 different characters if not even more and that clearly vastly change the battle on path x. So even same battles can be very different and then its a lo,t a lot of different battles that unique to each path.
A quick note is to the game predecessor to. Ogre Battle. In Ogre Battle there is no different paths, its a few hidden extra stages but that game also got like 100 different decisions, 20+ unique secret characters and like 30 different endings....but its freaking hard to get how it works. Its definitely a high replayability game as the first playthrough likely ends with you dying at the end. That game has not very clear decisions so I don't think its the best way to design replayability but its also another interesting way to do it, each battle is instead giving you repetition and/or characters so its all about doing the correct thing. Protecting innocent villages etc not killing some enemies and so forth to get the true ending......but yeah its an amazing game just to complicated.
Tactics ogre on the other hand really delivers a great role playing game where choices matters.
Vagrant story
Lastly I want to talk about Vagrant Story and how it produces replayability in a to honest retarded mechanical way. I love the game but its character development system really is evil, well it does give you replayability.
First of all the the crafting system in Vagrant Story is actually very similar to Dragon Quest Warriors mating system for monsters. You take 1 sword and 1 crossbow if you are at the right workshops that can handle their metal(on big point of the game is to find different workshops, some can handle bronze and iron other bronze, iron and silver. The super secret one can handle all kind of metals and even wood etc so it can combine any weapon or armor)
If the sword is good vs lizards and the crossbow does high holy damage, you know get something that is both good vs lizards and does holy damage, if the sword did good dark damage it will cancel out the holy + and just be good vs lizards. Like in DQW its a secret what you get, how different weapon of not the same type what they can create and so on, so its a lot of experiment. Well the game don't save over you file otherwise it would be almost the exact same as DQW.
Thats one thing for the replayability if you don't want to sit and reload all the time its a massive importance to do the right choices in crafting, the weapons get experience both and you can move that over to other type of weapons and so on. But even if the weapon looked good as a result, you still lose it hen and it might been better to create another type of weapon for 2 bosses later on and so on. Its not entirely hard to have more save files and go back etc but its kinda harsh.
But the character experience system for Ashley(manliest name ever, when I grew up I did not even know there were any girls named Ashley until like 5 years after playing this game.)
Its actually quite horrible, like pure evil.
Ashley cant get any experience points, his weapons skills can. Not only the weapon itself but also learning new weapon arts by kills. But he himself cant gain attributes by killing monsters.
He has Health, Mana, Strength, Agility and Intellect. And you cannot improve these by farming experience or similar endeavors. Int makes your spell do more damage, Str improves the damage of your normal attacks, nothing complicated with the stats.
The complicated part is to get them.
First the player can get seeds, these seeds can be gained by killing bosses, mini bosses etc stuff like that but mainly found in different chests(which are not randomized, can only be open once). The seeds gives a RANDOM boost to 1 set stat, e.g seed of power gives 1-4 strength.
That randoms how much total str,int etc you will get one game.
But what really makes the game unique on this is that the bosses when killed gives the player a roulette.
And this roulette can random any stat from 1-5 +. I can say right away getting either mana or health sucks as in like all other game 1 health is not equal to 1 strength. Well you do start with a 100 in each so in this game its more similar value but still far from the same worth.
Without going into to much details its clear that the player at random on playthrough one be a really good fighter from getting a lot of str, next game a magician focused play from all the int.
The game do also features a new game +. Which is different from game+. Game +is where when having beaten the last story boss the player can start from usually the last save location before entering the final dungeon or at their home base and now they can access new places in the game, challenge some extra bosses etc. For example DQ8, after beating the last boss the player can start again before entering the last dungeon and now go and beat the dragon dungeon which s much harder that he story last one.
But thats different from new game +. New game + starts of the player from scratch again but they have something with them or some games nothing at all except that its the second playthrough. Some game gives the player a lot of stuff to carry from their old game file and they can then do a lot of new stuff, or just further super level their characters etc. Other games do like Vagrant Story where its more like this new game has the game+ effect, basically there is more dungeons and extra bosses to battle which couldn't be done before beating the last boss but the player is then in this case started from scratch again so they have to beat the whole game again to reach the new stuff anyway.
Is actually kind of a cheap way to add in replayability, because its mainly a game+ aim but you have to then spend hours to farm up levels again get items etc to have a chance versus the extra challenge.
Well its another way to add replay value I suppose. (the player do get some stuff, the main thing is that they can now open special doors which was locked before and already at start that brings the player to the ultimate workshop).
Well there is lot of ways to add in game value, next article I will analyze minigames.
