Q: “what are some other games like Dragon Force?” A: Honestly I can’t think of one. There are plenty of other real time strategy games that then stop the world time for battles (actually the possibly defunct Ogre Battle series is the only such one that comes to mind that I’ve played myself, supposedly Soul Nomad used a more interactive battle system that was similar to OB) and have RPG elements if you look around for them. But I can not think of a single other game, besides presumably Dragon Force 2 presumably which I never played (I wonder if they’ll ever remake that for the Sega AGES PS2 series? They seemed to have such a hard time with the original that they might not but DF sold out everywhere so you’d think that they would give it a try), which has the same “let 100 troops melee against another 100 troops while palate swapped generals cast not even palate swapped spells until one or the other side falls” battle gameplay. Maybe the similarly defunct Langrisser series was a bit similar, I only ever played the first one and that was a looooooonnnnnnggggg time ago now. The Langrisser series arguably morphed into the Growlanser series (at least both have art by Satoshi Urushihara) but that’s a pretty normal RTSRPG (real time strategy role playing game) if there is such a thing. Anyway if if you know of a game that’s really similar to dragon force, mostly the boring as hell battles, then please write in, I’d be very curious. I have however endeavored to come up with possibly similar games using a complicated scientific method that consisted of going to the website of an online game retailer, typing “dragon force” into the search box and seeing what results came up and whether or not they were any kind of SRPGs (it gets confusing when some use strategy for the s and simulation for the s, DF was probably more of the latter). For the most part it was normal rpgs like entries in the breath of fire and dragon quest series but a variety of games that I’ve never played came up which seemed like possibilities. They were ASH: Archaic Sealed Heart for the Nintendo DS that probably isn’t any good since it’s by Hironobu Sakaguchi; all kinds of games from Idea Factory like the PS2 Spectral Force and Rebirth Moon series, one of which is on Xbox 360; Dragon Shadow Spell from Flight Plan (developers of the Summon Night series which was published by Banpresto who has now been nominally absorbed by Bandai Namco games) which is probably a normal strategy rpg though I heard it was really good (and sold out) {edit: I managed to track down a copy, it’s an addictive game but I was right that it’s nothing like Dragon Force and more of a typical SRPG}; Grim Grimoire for PS2 which I’m pretty sure is a more or less normal RTS game; Operation Darkness for Xbox 360 which can’t possibly be any good; and possibly the Kessen series for PS2 which really wasn’t great but is the only one I’ve mentioned that I actually played and now occurs to me that it probably was pretty similar, only 3d, more interactive, and almost fully real time. By the way I had heard in the past that Idea Factory games were similar or otherwise related to Dragon Force in some respect, maybe they have someone prominent from that series at that company I’m really not sure. Maybe I’m just remembering that when I pre-ordered the limited edition of the dragon force PS2 remake it came up. I think one of the Spectral Force games might have been up for pre-order at the same time, or it came up in the search results then as it did now. Thinking about it a bit that’s probably what it is.

Game I had no idea about but want to play because I’m a Shadow Hearts fan: Chaos Wars. Game series that isn’t really very good but I enjoy it anyway: Summon Night. Series I have been a big fan of and sunk possibly over a thousand hours into but might never buy another game from again; Super Robot Taisen/Wars. [edit: later in the year I went on to buy SRT Original Generations and OG Gaiden on the PS2 as well as W on the DS, Z is on the horizon now and I’ll probably buy that] Next Generation game console I’m most likely to buy if I ever get around to buying one: a Japanese PS3.

With that out of the way, for the record, even though I played Dragon Force to death and it was a really great game when it came out, I do not think that it’s battle system was ideal. If anything it was well below ideal which is probably why it hasn’t been massively emulated and you don’t see games like it unlike the Shining Force series (which is now dead apparently and you have to wonder when SEGA will follow since they don’t make good games anymore). Anyway the battle system does have a big novelty factor but it gets pretty damn boring to just sit around waiting to cast a spell every 15 seconds or so. You can actually use the troop commands to give yourself a huge advantage over the shitty AI (like dispersing your troops every time the enemy is about ready to use a spell or surrounding the general with mages so that they get shot two times in a row and can’t attack back) but this gets really tedious too. So frankly to improve upon the system you would need more intricate commands and possibly direct control. I think that adding direct control to Dragon Force games would basically result in Dynasty Warriors where you have one supreme character mowing through fodder with a limited accompaniment… I think that series might have tapered off. I could imagine a dragon force esque game that used the prioritized automatic command system called “gambits” of FFXII. Something like “hold defensive position if: enemy out numbers you” followed by “advance on enemy formation if: you outnumber enemy” and ending with “when no enemy troops remain: move in on enemy general” etc. where the part followed by: would be somewhat variable actions (the gambits in FF12 were mostly targeting commands and then you’d choose the action). I think that kind of system, which could of course be overridden by direct commands, would suit an srpg more than a normal rpg. But just like my main complaint of how it’s pointless to play FF12 because you aren’t really playing it would be the same with such a game as this. hmph…. Never in all my years of gaming did I think that the evolution of video games would be games that played themselves like interactive demos of arcade games. But so it goes.

To take a different tack for a moment, humans have obsoleted themselves quite a bit already but it’s only going to be possible to make human action more and more unnecessary as time goes by. Already it’s possible for machines to produce things, including food, with very limited human input. If you created some kind of algorithm to create variances in the production process and then another that tried to improve efficiency and quality (I’m not sure if that’s possible, it would require a huge amount of base data and storage capacity that just isn’t something that’s a part of of manufacturing systems at this time, right now they just have settings that act as instructions) then you’d really obsolete humans for all but entertainment purposes. I mean hell they already are capable of creating automated combat machines and execution systems so people don’t even really need to kill each other anymore.

You know, I really enjoy the comforts of technology. Probably if things weren’t this way I wouldn’t even still be alive for various reasons. But I can’t help but wonder if technology might not be the worst thing to happen not only to the world in general, but people in particular. Of course you could argue that what has been created by humans isn’t separate from humans. Humans being the worst thing to happen to humans is probably about right anyway though. Well, perhaps it’s not too late in my life for me to start setting up technology that will eventually save the world. I can’t remember how long it is theorized to take for the heat death of existence but, if humans manage to survive until remotely close to that time, and assuming that matter doesn’t ever disappear, just convert, then it should be possible to avoid that.

How I went from writing about dragon force to preaching about how the worst thing people could come up with is true artificial intelligence (it will just kill us all, there’s no other way around it, people aren’t farsighted enough to come up with every possible safeguard) and how there’s probably no point to our existence but there it is. Really the only thing I can imagine people possibly contributing to the world in the face of all their destruction of it is if they come up with ways to save the whole world, or possibly the universe, from extinction. It should be possible. Well maybe not the “whole” part, you’d feasibly need to use up some sort of material in order to do something like that. Kind of like in Gunbuster where they set off BM3 in the center of the galaxy (or was it universe? I never remember the destinction) to destroy the STMC. Something like that is the only chance humanity has at redeeming themselves to their world. The rest of the universe might be pissed though don’t you think? Oh well. Self before love, love before family, family before clan, clan before city, city before nation, nation before continent, continent before world, world before galaxy, galaxy before universe. Or something like that, I needed to have thrown “species” and “existence” in there somewhere.