Final Strike- Good or Bad RPG Concept?

[RATED-RKOFRANKLIN]

Final Strike is a RPG concept in MegaMan X Command Mission. I've never seen this concept in any other RPG game. What's that? You don't know what Final Strike is? Let me explain it to you!

Final Strike is a finisher move. All active party members will attack the enemy or enemies. Final Strike is activated when an enemy or enemies lose at least 75% of their HP. Final Strike can only be done in a time limit. All active party members can attack an unlimited amount of times within the time limit. If an enemy's HP decreases to zero the enemy is defeated.

Go to 5:49 in this video to see for yourselves.



Is this a good concept?

Cons:

Players can put less work in battles. You actually defeat the the boss by giving it 75% of damage. Final Strikes defeats the reminding 25% unless you really suck at using Final Strike. Picture this concept in Final Fantasy. Boss battles will be less epic.

Pros:

Final Strike looks pretty damn cool. It's taking out the enemy in one final attack.

 

[Gomi Boy]

If I remember this game right, Final Strike also has a habit of triggering during random encounters once you become strong enough to one-shot whatever you're fighting. Over and over again, like. It easily doubles the length of throwaway fights in a game with an already-bizarre encounter rate, and the magic of seeing everyone gang up on a Met fades quickly.

It looks nice, definitely, but looks should never take precedence over how things work in practice.

 

[Reynard Frost]

Persona 3 / 4 had a similar system called an "All Out Attack!" Enemies could be knocked down if you hit their weaknesses, and if all enemies were knocked down, the player would be able to use an All Out Attack. An All Out Attack caused all party members to jump the enemy and do insane amounts of damage (without having to spam buttons). It encouraged strategy and focusing on an enemies weakness to make the battles easier (asides from doing increased damage). Personally I find All Out Attack to be a more polished version of Final Strike, since it doesn't guarantee a destruction of the enemy but instead just rewards the player for using strategy (instead of being insanely powerful).

Final Strike just seems like a cheap copout, personally. I'd rather avoid button mashing if I could.

 

[RATED-RKOFRANKLIN]

If I remember this game right, Final Strike also has a habit of triggering during random encounters once you become strong enough to one-shot whatever you're fighting.

It doesn't work this way. The enemy(random or boss) must have lost at least 75% of HP. It has nothing to do with being strong enough to kill an enemy with one-shot.

 

[Gomi Boy]

Regardless of the exact mechanics of it, what I was talking about happened virtually any time you got into a random encounter you were a little too strong for. It was a pretty terrible oversight.

I think Reyn has it right with the All-Out Attack. It was an interesting way of handling weaknesses in the absence of the Press Turn system, and it could be triggered at any point if you were good enough or lucky enough rather than having the game just up and say "well okay you hit it hard enough I guess I'll give this one to you". In that way, it actually influenced the flow of battle, rather than just speeding up (or more often actually delaying) a foregone conclusion. The All-Out Attack does significant damage to every enemy you're currently facing. The Final Strike does what two regular attacks can do in the time it would take to make four or five.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

hmmmm... that will kill the fun... I mean boss fights where you can still lose easily even when the boss is only at 25% hp is much more fun than having a sure kill at 75% hp loss...

"Players can put less work in battles. You actually defeat the the boss by giving it 75% of damage. Final Strikes defeats the reminding 25% unless you really suck at using Final Strike."

where's the point in the remaining 25% hit points if the damage output of FS can knock it out in one go?

 

[amerk]

It's a cool concept, but one that could wind up being over-used. A bit of randomness should have been thrown in for good measure, and initiated by the player so it's not done for ever random encounter.

Maybe it could have been done as a sort of high-end Overdrive Skill that can only be reached after several encounters, assuming the energy to use the OD is carried over in each battle (similar to how you can carry over TP in Ace). Unless this was carried over from countless other fights, you won't be able to use this in normal fights and normal boss battles.

This way, you might be able to use this against tougher boss battles, and it should be assumed the player will store this for tough-as-nail fights, but in those cases the boss stats could have been tailored to be higher than they were so this doesn't do a cheap kill.

Or have it activate only when certain conditions are met, like all the characters must be alive but with less than 30% health. This forces the player to be a bit more conservative and skilled in order to gain such a high reward. Something like that would make a move like this more rewarding.

 

[Probotector 200X]

For the record, Final Strike only triggers when you press a button when prompted. When it can trigger, you are giving about a 4 second countdown to activate it, if you don't, it doesn't happen. There's also a Force Metal you can equip that stops it from happening at all (that's not a very good use of a Force Metal slot though)

Also, it's not right when they get to 25% of their total health. It's when you take away 75% of their remaining health during one character's turn. Which can make it happen sooner, but usually not.

Besides finishing off the enemy...the Final Strike also restores WE (the games MP sort of) to the initiator, based on how many enemies you beat with it. WE starts at the same level every battle, so this doesn't mean anything if it finishes the fight, but it's helpful when facing multiple foes. There's one boss fight in particular where it's really useful, he keeps making weak drone type enemies, if you final strike them with a group attack, then...you get a bunch of WE back, and can use a powerful hit all enemies attack that requires half or more of your WE to activate. So, the boss is basically fueling your attacks!

Furthermore, Final Strike also gives you extra Force Metal Energy (a secondary currency used to refine equipment) based on how much damage and how many hits you got. So it's not all about just finishing off a foe, extra dramatically.

It also is another method of getting "achievements" in-game, which unlike achievements, actually give you something in-game!

Also, normally you can't see how many HPs and enemy has in battle. The Final Strike feature sneaks in a way to gauge how many HP the enemy has left.

Lastly...using a Final Strike to beat the final boss is just soooo satisfying!

 

[Kaelan]

Persona 3 / 4 had a similar system called an "All Out Attack!"

Personally I find All Out Attack to be a more polished version of Final Strike, since it doesn't guarantee a destruction of the enemy but instead just rewards the player for using strategy (instead of being insanely powerful).

I agree with this, All Out Attack is a better version of this. It did good damage, but it still wasn't that much more than everyone's regular attack combined, and it was only really useful against regular enemies and early game bosses. On harder bosses you'd usually actually get more from just not doing it and letting the boss stay in the "weakened" state that is required to trigger the All Out Attack. It was useful, but it was still just another tool you had; there were times to use it and times to not use it.

This is also pretty similar to Valkyrie Profile's Soul Crushes.