Turn-Based Combat
Strategic pacing
Combat resolved in rounds after the player commits every character's action. Described for Wizardry in 1982 ("Encounters are fought in turns"), sold with Dragon Warrior in 1989, and named "turn-based" by the British press in 1994-95 to say what Secret of Mana and Super Mario RPG were not.
Turn-based combat is the battle system in which the player commits an action for every character before the computer resolves the round. The first magazine review of Wizardry described it in exactly those terms in 1982, without giving it a name; “turn-based” as a label is a 1990s press coinage, used mostly to say what a newer game was not.
Fast facts
- Model: Dungeons & Dragons, “with the computer assuming the role of the Dungeon Master” (Computer Gaming World, 1982).
- First described: Wizardry (Sir-tech, 1981), reviewed May 1982: “Encounters are fought in turns”.
- On consoles: Dragon Warrior (NES, 1989), sold by Nintendo Power as “an era of deductive reasoning”.
- The label: “turn-based, menu-driven combat” — Super Play, November 1994, describing what Secret of Mana had dropped.
Wizardry, 1982
Mark Marlow’s review of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord in the May 1982 Computer Gaming World is the earliest description of the system held here. The game was “modeled on the Dungeons and Dragons game concept with the computer assuming the role of the Dungeon Master”, and the combat round came straight from the tabletop:
Several things can occur during an encounter. You could surprise the monsters and have one round of unanswered combat. If the monsters surprise you, then they get one round of unanswered combat. If you both run into each other at the same time, the computer will randomly pick who gets to fight first, though high agility or luck could swing things in your favor. Encounters are fought in turns: you determine what each character in your band is going to do, then the computer gives you the result in rapid sequence.
The result display could be slowed “from a fraction of a second to five seconds”. The advice that followed is the party-composition thinking the system rewards: “The strongest initial group consists of three fighters, two priests, and a mage”, and “Hit points can be lost quickly so use your priests to heal during combat.”
It was not the only way to do a fight on an Apple II. Computer Gaming World‘s first issue had praised Automated Simulations’ Dragon’s Eye for “their satisfying portrayal of individual combat”, in which “a player with a scimitar might enter a rapid sequence of orders that will cause his character to leap forward 6 steps, bring a smashing downward blow upon the monster’s head, parry, duck, then back away”. Wizardry’s menu of party commands, not Apshai’s blow-by-blow choreography, is the line the genre followed.
Dragon Warrior, 1989
Dragon Quest reached the NES as Dragon Warrior in 1989, and Nintendo Power introduced it as a change of direction for the console: “mere finger-speed and sweat are no match for the challenges which lie in wait for every player. Now more than ever before, an era of deductive reasoning is challenging us all to excel”. The strategy feature two months later described the battle menu as a reasoning problem: “Selecting the best command takes full knowledge of your strengths.” Spells appear in a window, some useless in battle; “Before choosing a Spell, consider your status—your HP and MP—and the type of enemy”; and of the items, “only the Herb helps in a fight”.
The label
The phrase “turn-based” arrives in the British press when there is something to contrast it with. Super Play’s November 1994 review of Secret of Mana explained that its “action-based combat system (‘motion battle’, as those Square folk call it) is similar to that of Zelda”, which made it “far more accessible than the turn-based, menu-driven combat of RPGs like Final Fantasy”. A year later Edge used the same construction for Super Mario RPG: “Rather than taking Square’s usual turn-based approach to RPGs, Super Mario RPG is an action affair with familiar Mario game mechanics.”
The same Edge issue reviewed Chrono Trigger and put the Western complaint in one sentence — “basic graphics and random battles with stop-start gameplay” — before noting what Square had changed: “Although the game’s battle engine is still turn-based, Square has made an effort to rework it. Not only can characters combine their powers to create a super attack, but their opponent’s position on the screen is now also important”. Square’s own earlier answer to the pacing complaint, the Active Time Battle gauge, has its own entry.
Edge’s strategy feature in the same issue gives the wargamer’s version of the argument: “Turn-based games are (at their most basic level) easier to play and control because you can sit back, examine and contemplate your next course of action before moving”, and “It’s ironic that the most hectic simulations of real life — wargames — feature the most regimented turn-based structure of all.” The complaint there was multiplayer, and Peter Molyneux is quoted on it: “Every programmer agrees that the turn-based system is inadequate” when the other players have to wait.