Question 1 : Choose a game franchise and trace the evolution of gameplay mechanics from the first to the current game in the series. How have the mechanics evolved over time?
One series that really gripped me was the Star Ocean game series, their use of game mechanics to draw the player into the characters and the worlds they interacted with made me a great fan of the series. It was interesting to see how certain gameplay mechanics that have been implemented since the series beginning grew and had new mechanics built upon the older ones, while some were discarded for newer mechanics.
The Star Ocean series is a set of role playing games that had a Star Trek familiarity to it. Each of the games was based upon world exploration, immersing the player into different environments and times in some cases. Though character development never lagged, as each Star Ocean game had private actions and character affinities that played roles in not only the story of the game but also in combat and in some cases determined which characters you could recruit. The battles in each game developed in leaps throughout each new installment, many gameplay mechanics were introduced from 2d to 3d.
The first game in the series started with private actions. Private actions start when your player is near a town on the world map, you are then prompted to press the action button to enter the town in private action mode, or if you don’t press the action button designated, you enter the town normally without private actions in play. This means that the main character that the player Is controlling goes into town alone, leaving the other members of your party to roam the town freely, so you can interact with them for special scenes that move the storyline along, create side quests, introduce new recruits, and affect the affinity or bond of the player’s character and teammates. Affinity towards your party members affects the way the story can progress and even cause the game to have different endings. In battle if a party member dies that has accumulated enough positive affinity, the player’s character goes into a rage that increases several stats temporarily.
Another great element to the series was the skill system or item creation, which let your party learn various skills like writing, cooking, composition, etc. to help develop character stats, new abilities, and items. These skills could be used only by earning skill points which were gained after battle, each skill needing different skill points to be upgraded and therefore used more efficiently or successfully. Each time a skill was used, there was an element of chance where the skill could fail, resulting in loss of an item. In Till the end of Time(Star Ocean 3) the player had to go to specific areas/workshops where only there they could use their item creation skills, as opposed to earlier games where items where created in the menu selection screen. Also in Star Ocean 3 the player is able to recruit non-playable characters to increase their success rates and also create more powerful items. They even added a mechanic where you could patent your inventions and publish them, then at random times during the game, you would receive royalties for your patents. It really rewarded the player for spending time perfecting their creation skills. In Star Ocean 4 the game let players search the world map for materials related to item creation by harvesting and mining certain areas of each world you visit. Harvesting and mining for materials are also character specific, the mining can only be done when a certain cyborg character is recruited into your party. And even then, the character must upgrade his mining skill by using his skill points. This helps to increase the number and potency of the items mined.
The battle system has gone through lots of overhauls each series. The first game started out with battles happening randomly on the world map or in dungeon areas, which lead the player to a 2d battle interface, eventually through the series battles weren’t random and players would have a choice to encounter enemies on the field. The player fought in real time with enemies, only controlling the lead character while the rest of the party was controlled by AI. You could switch your character to play whichever you liked, which gave the player a real variety in gameplay. Later on they created a game engine that used a 3d battle field with 2d character sprites, letting the player confront the enemies from any angle, not just front or back. When the Star Ocean series went 3d in Star Ocean 3, added mechanics of a fury gauge, bonus gauge, and battle trophies made players use more innovative strategies in order to get more rewards including experience, skill points, sound clips and soundtracks that were unlocked after earning certain battle trophies.
Battle trophies were awards for winning a battle under certain conditions. Some were winning a battle by using only special abilities, or by beating a boss under a time limit. These battle trophies let the hardcore player really dig into the game by trying to get battle trophies that were very hard to get without leveling the character up to a certain point, or using a certain string of abilities or characters. In Star Ocean 4 they had character specific battle trophies, which meant that each party member had trophies that you could only earn by using that specific character in battle. It made getting trophies harder and more time consuming, but there were more rewards to getting trophies than just soundtracks. If the player got a certain percentage of one characters trophies that might increase the level cap of that character, or increased the amount of special abilities that could be used during battle by that character.
Late in the series they created a versus battle arena, so that the player could battle their character against a computer controlled unit or have a friend battle them. Though the series had always had a coliseum area where they could battle their party against enemies in rounds for prizes and awards, this let the player have multiplayer battles.
I only smattered the surface of gameplay mechanics in the Star Ocean series, but just these examples show how the series evolved their gameplay over each game. Sometimes changing the mechanics completely, like having random encounters to being able to see the enemies you encounter. Some mechanics in the series were not replaced, but had gameplay mechanics built onto them, adding replay ability and an edge in some cases while still keeping the mechanics that are a staple in the series like the item creation and private actions. Some changes were a great improvement upon the series, and some changes weren’t necessarily good or bad, with each different set of gameplay mechanics gives a unique experience.
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