Tactical role-playing game
Players are able to build and train characters to use in battle, utilizing different classes, including warriors and magic users, depending on the game.
The game revolves around a king who must recruit soldiers and lead his army against overwhelming enemy forces, while each unit gains experience and levels up along the way.
Master of Monsters also added experience bars for the character units, a concept which would be adapted and popularized by later console-based series like Fire Emblem.
Unlike many other early titles in the genre, Master of Monsters made its way to the west via a port to the Sega Genesis in 1991, albeit only in North America.
However, the genre did not become prolific until Nintendo published the game that set the template for tactical wargame RPGs, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi.
Combining the basic concepts from games like Dragon Quest and simple turn-based strategy elements that the development team gained experience with in their 1988 release Famicom Wars, Intelligent Systems created a hit, which spawned many sequels and imitators.
The latter mechanic was used to introduce a non-linear storyline to the genre, where different multiple endings are possible depending on which characters are alive or dead,[26] a concept still used in recent games such as Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor,[27] and Final Promise Story.
[28] It was not until the release of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade for the Game Boy Advance, many years later, that the series was introduced to Western gamers, who until then were more familiar with localized precursors like Nobunaga's Ambition, as well as later tactical RPGs partially influenced by Fire Emblem, including the Shining and Ogre series and Final Fantasy Tactics, and Nippon Ichi games like Disgaea.
Shining Force used even more console RPG elements than earlier games, allowing the player to walk around towns and talk to people and buy weapons.
The game is notable for introducing a moral alignment system that not only affects the gameplay but where tactical and strategic decisions influence the outcome of a non-linear branching storyline, which is affected by factors such as the moral alignments of the troops used to liberate a city, whether to keep certain liberated cities guarded, making popular or unpopular decisions, concentrating power among just a few units, making deals with thieves, and a general sense of justice.
Another feature was "Warren's Report",[34] a type of database on the land, people, encounters and races of Valeria (similar to, but much more expansive than, the troves of knowledge in Mass Effect).
[38] The success of Sakura Wars led to a wave of games that combine the RPG and dating sim genres, including Thousand Arms in 1998, Riviera: The Promised Land in 2002, and Luminous Arc in 2007.
[41] On sixth-generation consoles, a loyal American fan-base has been established by Nippon Ichi, makers of the PlayStation 2 games La Pucelle: Tactics, Phantom Brave, and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.
La Pucelle: Tactics and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, which Atlus re-released due to high demand, have become cult hits for the PlayStation 2.
[49] In early 2006, Idea Factory's Blazing Souls featured nonlinear gameplay that allows the player to progress through the game and the story in whatever order they wish.
This mechanic allows for, among others: free movement to a certain range, manual aiming with extra damage for headshots, a limited cover system, and real-time hazards, such as interception fire and landmines.
[51] In 2004, Konami released Metal Gear Acid, which combined the stealth game elements of the Metal Gear series with turn-based tactical RPG gameplay of games like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Disgaea, along with the random-draw, forethought and resource management appeal of card battles like in Konami's own Yu-Gi-Oh!
[53][54] The Atlus title Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (2009) blended together both traditional and tactical RPG gameplay along with non-linear adventure game elements.
Imageepoch's title Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari (Final Promise Story) for the PlayStation Portable has a strategic command-based battle system where enemies learn from previous skirmishes.
Western games tend to have stronger military themes, without many of the fantasy elements often found in their console (and mainly Japanese) counterparts, as well as greater freedom of movement when interacting with the surrounding environment.
[77] Incubation: Time Is Running Out (1997),[69] part of the Battle Isle series, was one of the first strategy titles to use fully 3D graphics and support hardware acceleration on the 3dfx Voodoo.
Shadow Watch (2000) is a video game adaptation of the Tom Clancy's Power Plays novel of the same name developed by Red Storm Entertainment.
[93][94] Paradise Cracked (2003),[69][95] COPS 2170: The Power of Law (2005), Metalheart: Replicants Rampage (2004)[96][97][98] and Shadow Vault (2004)[99][100][101] are poorly received[98][102][103][104] tactical RPGs by MiST Land South, Akella and Mayhem Studios of Russia and Slovakia, respectively.
The tactical isometric cyberpunk/fantasy RPG, Shadowrun Returns (2013), was funded via a successful crowd-sourced Kickstarter campaign that raised a total of $1.9 million for development.
[130] The game is based on the popular Shadowrun pen-and-paper setting by Jordan Weisman, and features tactical combat in a world filled with cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures.
In March 2017 the German indie developer Overhype Studios released its tactical RPG Battle Brothers out of Early Access to generally favorable reviews.
Avalon Hill's Squad Leader (2000), a man-to-man wargame utilizing the Soldiers at War engine, has also been compared (unfavorably) to X-COM and Jagged Alliance.
Jagged Alliance 2 features a country sector map with fortified towns and roving bands of enemies that must be defeated before entering the capital city of Meduna.
Examples from the classic era of CRPGs include parts of the aforementioned Ultima series[152] beginning with Ultima III: Exodus (1983);[11] SSI's Wizard's Crown (1985) and The Eternal Dagger (1987);[153] the Realms of Arkania (1992-1996) series based on the German The Dark Eye pen-and-paper system;[153] and the Gold Box games of the late '80s and early '90s - many of which were later ported to Japanese video game systems.
Partly due to the success of Wasteland 2, Divinity: Original Sin, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Blackguards and Dead State, 2014 has been labeled "the first year of the CRPG renaissance".
