I just watched the trailer for Lost Odyssey. It occurred to me how well the central concept plays to empathy... the immortal hero having to face the mortality of his peers and homeland. I don't know how Sakaguchi-san is tying that in, but it could make for some uniquely powerful drama gameplay and not just powerful cinematics.
Imagine a single-player game in which you, the protagonist cannot be physically harmed (meaning not just that you don't experience permadeath, but that you don't fall at all) and, consequently, the goal of gameplay is save and preserve the NPCs, monuments, factions, and other personally relevant objects in the game.
Imagine a dynamic threat system in which the things and character you love can be under attack simultaneously in different areas; and you, the player, must decide which to save as the other falls. Each play through the game could result in a different set of preserved objects and ideals. In a way, it would be kind of like the movie Groundhog Day.
The trick would be figuring out how to allow the player to lose so much but still feel like a winner in the end (though not without still feeling pangs of loss).
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It could also be a good idea to combine with a replay game. You could go back in time repeatedly and slightly modify your actions to try and save more stuff in a different chain of events.
ReplyDeleteThat Orbox is a cool little game.
ReplyDeleteBefore I followed the link, I thought you meant a big replay game, like Deus Ex. Replay of story elements, like in that game, can work well, but only if the story dynamics aren't the only dynamics (dynamic combat AI is particularly useful for that).