Previously we talked about the history of the WGRPG tournaments, and the Scenario + Card system we devised to shake things up. Today, we’ll talk about what makes a good tournament game, and then introduce the RPG we’re choosing for our next competition. We’ll end with some final thoughts on the Card system.
This blog post is part of a series on the WGRPG Tournaments.
“What Makes a Good Tournament Game?”
We put a lot of thought into this question, and came up with the following metrics:
● There should be a variety of Classes.
● It should be possible to set up the Scenarios. (I.e., “can we copy save files to the system this game runs on?”) This sadly rules out a lot of Switch games.
● The game should be affordable, and run on consoles we own.
● This should be a game we might want to play! (This is obviously subjective.)
● For the next tournament only, we wanted to avoid Final Fantasy games, as we felt our group had overplayed them.
I reviewed about 50 games according to these metrics, ranked them, and provided comments. A snapshot of the mega spreadsheet is provided below; not all rows or columns are shown:
We then prepared a list of top contenders, grouped by roughly defined genres. Here is the top contender for each genre:
● Darkest Dungeon (PC)
● World of Final Fantasy (PC)
● Bravely Default 2 (PC)
● Battle Chasers: Nightwar (PC)
● Etrian Odyssey 4 (3DS)
● Cosmic Star Heroine (PC)
● Dragon Quest V (PS2)
● Chrono Trigger (SNES)
“Ok, But What Should We Actually Play?”
Our methodology had two flaws: it failed to minimize the preferences of the person doing the analysis (e.g., I love Bravely Default 2), and it boosted games that matched our categories but people weren’t enthusiastic about competing in, such as Battle Chasers: Nightwar. We ended up throwing out most of the games in this list and just asking our team members which games they wanted to grind. Our new shortlist was as follows:
● Breath of Fire II (SNES/GBA)
● Cosmic Star Heroine (PC)
● Dragon Quest V (PS2)
● Earthbound (SNES)
● Etrian Odyssey 4 (3DS)
● Robotrek (SNES)
● Tales of Phantasia (PSX)
We then got together on Discord and each played a few hours of different games on the list. This narrowed our selection down to the following:
● Tales of Phantasia (PSX)
● Robotrek (SNES)
● Breath of Fire 2 (SNES/GBA)
● Dragon Quest V (PS2)
We chose to play Tales of Phantasia for the 2023 tournament, and keep the other games around for potential future tournaments. Once our Final Fantasy moratorium is over, we’ll add Final Fantasy 3 and Final Fantasy 5 to the list.
The Playstation version of Tales of Phantasia was chosen mostly because we liked the graphics (and English translation) better. There are also more difficulty modes available, which we will use to kneecap our highest-rated competitors. But seriously, just look at this beautiful game:
Scenarios and Penalty Cards
We’re still working out the details, but here are our initial thoughts on Scenarios and Cards.
Scenarios:
- Game Start to Pact with Sylph
- Venezia (before Demeter’s Island) to Pact with the Fourth Spirit
- Alvanista (before Mines of Moria) to Ymir Woods completed
- Olive Town (before Zodiac Tower) to Dhaos Castle completed
- Midgard (before White Birch Forest) to Volt’s Cave completed
- Alvanista (after completing Volt’s Cave) to Treant’s Wood completed
- Arlee (before Dhaos Castle) to Game Completed
Card Rules Changes:
● Card Tiers are now defined based on your performance in the previous Scenario only. So if you finish in 1st place for Scenario 5, expect a Tier 1 Card in Scenario 6.
● If a player finishes in 1st or 2nd for two Scenarios in a row, their difficulty will be increased from Normal to Hard. If that player then finishes 3rd or below, this restriction vanishes.
Sample Cards:
● No Items
● No Artes
● No Defensive Equipment
● No AI (all non-hero characters use Defend)
● No Shopping
● No Inns
● No Cooking
● X number of characters cannot equip new gear (once you leave the starting town).
● No Running (from Battle)
● No Dashing (fast movement)
Closing Remarks
The WGRPG tournaments began as a friendly rivalry, and even with all the added structure, that spirit of friendly competition persists. Leave a comment if you’ve got any ideas for tournament games, balancing mechanisms, or penalty cards for Tales of Phantasia!
With this series of posts, we tried to give you a look inside the culture of WGRPG Studios. Let us know if you’d like to see more of these kinds of posts –technical posts for Last Dream 2 take priority, of course.
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