Good Design – Towns in JRPG

18Apr/090

Good Design – Towns in JRPG

I was a big fan of Japanese RPG's during the SNES and Playstation-era, and somewhat during the last generation of consoles.

Today I don't nearly play them enough, mainly because I don't have the energy to invest that amount of time into one single game.

I was a Huge Suikoden and Suikoden II-fan. Suikoden II being one of my favorite games of all time. Therefore I've made sure to try out the new Suikoden game for the Nintendo DS; Suikoden Tierkreis.

An overall, what seems to be, good game. This far I've invested about 5 hours into it and I'm not bored yet.

One thing I greatly appreciate with this game is how it handles navigating in the cities. With menus! "Yuck", you might say. But I'm very pleased.

I hate running around in cities, villages and whatnot in games. The places where there's never any action. Sure, I admit that the very first time you visit a new town it can be exciting to run around in it and explore, but after that novelty wears off, it's just a plain bother to run around there, looking for the local weapon shop, inn and key-NPC.

In Tierkreis I just have a menu, with different choices depending on town and where you are in the story: Inn, Store, Alley, Town Hall, Exit Town, etc.

I say: Thank you!

This saves me both time and temper!