My Action RPG Idea Pitch

I was on the PS Store looking at RPG Maker. It's a franchise that involved players creating and sharing their own RPG to the world. I would love to try it out and make my own RPG. But I am into action RPGs more. They have more content and more plots and vibes than turn-based RPGs. That's why I wanted to do this pitch for my action RPG idea, so that being said, it's time to begin my pitch.

First off, a open world perspective with 3D graphics in Unreal Engine 5. When the Trials of Mana remake was announced, it shaked up the gameplay by being open world rather than having the top down view to have the Class System and an improved combat system. For Unreal Engine 5, the coolest thing about it is that it uses Nanite and Lumen, two major features that produce realistic rendering and lighting.

Now, picture playing an action RPG game developed in UE5. When the characters are in a cave, you would experience better lighting on them and photorealistic rendering on the stalagmites. When in a rainforest, you would experience its photorealistic rendering on trees. And when in a desert, you would experience the photorealistic rendering on the sand, cacti and oasis. In an objective sense possible, UE5 reigns supreme and it's a superior version over UE4 because of Nanite and Lumen.

Now let's move on to the next thing. A party of six characters with an even composition. When we entered the PS2 era, one of the RPGs that have the party of six characters with an even gender composition was Wild Arms 5. Now, I love Wild Arms 5. The game has a party of six that is even by gender. Three male characters and three female characters. I remember playing this game from back in the day. It's a great RPG.

However, since this is my ARPG pitch and Wild Arms 5 is a turn-based RPG, let's think Ys: Memories of Celceta. And I don't mean follow it up to be similar in terms of having up to three characters in the battlefield and other three outside the battlefield. But imagine an ARPG where you would have more than three characters in battle like in the Last Story, Valhalla Knights 3 and Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. So again, while it would have all six characters in a party, the battlefield doesn't have to be limited to three characters. It would have all six characters in the battlefield and the player can switch between characters.

The next thing I like to see on my ARPG idea is dedicated combat system. Read my words carefully. Dedicated combat system. Let me explain about what do I mean by dedicated combat system. On the PS2 era, one of the action RPGs that have the dedicated combat system was Rogue Galaxy. What I mean is that outside of combat, the characters in Rogue Galaxy can't attack. And they can only attack during combat because of the attack gauge that depletes when attacking.

But to tone down the dedication, let's make it semi-dedicated combat system. Instead of thinking Rogue Galaxy. Let's think of something a little more in line with Trials of Mana because the player character can attack both inside and outside of combat and it involves earning EXP, money and items after defeating all enemies and bosses in area. That's what I mean by semi-dedicated combat system. That's why the two games that produced the best combat system were Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana.

A semi-dedicated combat system would also involve playing the in combat version of the map's music during combat to give regular battles the mood. Think of the original .hack games where the music plays the in combat version and gets out of the in combat state when outside of combat.

The next thing that I want to see on an ARPG idea that is admittedly an asset from Trials of Mana and that can be done in my pitch for the next Mana title, and that is one class on each character. Classes are specific to each character and they give them abilities, so this will be in my action RPG idea pitch. Each character would have one class that have up to four levels and each level would give you a Class Ability and each character would have their Class Ability gauge that can hold up to four levels. You can't level up a class until you have a special item required to level up classes.

For weapons, there are a lot of possibilities that characters can use weapons, so imagine if the male character that would be the main protagonist wields his greatsword like Val does. Maybe the first female character can wield her boots for kicking attacks like Palamena does. Maybe the 2nd male character wields his cards like Morley does. What would be cooler is that the 2nd female character wields fans like Careena does and a 3rd male character that is a young male character wields his umbrella like Julei does. But what about a magic wand? Is it gonna be left behind? Of course not! The 3rd female character would wield her magic wand, kind of like Angela.

The characters in a party of six are gonna play like that and the party of six is gonna work for sure. So would the class system. Which means the classes can be scale-agnostic and can bank off the fact of scaling as well.

Next up is interesting parts. You know that some RPGs have interesting parts. First off, the Johnny Appleseed bit from Wild Arms 5. If you aren't familiar with Johnny Appleseed, he was an American pioneer nurseryman, but in this case, the Johnny Appleseed part would be on my ARPG idea as a place like Wild Arms 5 has. The reason why I'm telling you this is because I enjoyed Wild Arms 5. I want to revisit that game and it's happening in the future because of PS Plus Premium.

Secondly in the interesting parts department is what I experienced on Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is getting into a cave located at an island. There is some degree to this when it comes to exploring dungeons. Like we know that we had to go inside the Pirate's Grotto. So what if we go into a cave located at an island on my ARPG idea? That can be a good idea to me, as long as it's not gonna be as tedious as the one in Enchanted Arms.

And speaking of tediousness, this is definetely one of the things I don't want in my ARPG idea. Annoying parts. Parts like these were always a struggle and the Enchanted Arms-style cave is not the only thing I don't want. There are other annoying parts I don't want implemented. First off is tedious puzzles. There has been one game that has the part where we must complete the puzzle in a limited amount of time. It's Genma Onimusha. I loved the game, but what I hate the most is solving the puzzle while a countdown is present. It became a tedious struggle. That's why I don't want any and I mean any bullcrap on my ARPG idea.

Second one under the annoying parts department is tedious directions in dungeons. Now that's another annoying thing I do not want to see in my ARPG idea. Take Tales of Graces f for example. The dungeon in the game is annoying to deal with. You just have to walk around in the dungeon until you finally make progress. To have annoying parts in an RPG is just a hassle to deal with and it's a waste of time. But there is one thing to alleviate that. The icon to represent your destination.

And last but not least, giant creatures for characters. If you played Final Fantasy XIII, it handled all six characters beating their Eidolon to earn it. And a TV cartoon that aired back in 2008 on Cartoon Network that involved teens using giant elemental creatures is Gormiti: The Lords of Nature!. Don't get me wrong. I do love me some Gormiti. Now, the characters have to summon their Gormiti in battle, so I thought that an ARPG would have that. But they would use it during giant battles and I think it's gonna be more Final Fantasy XIII than Gormiti in terms of giant creatures not being elemental.

If I were tasked to develop an action RPG, this is how I would do it by bring assets from other action RPGs to this one. But this one is just on paper and there might be some check boxes that can be left unchecked. So if this gonna convert the Mana fans into buying this game, will they want this? If it was greenlit and the trailer to this game dropped, then people would dislike bomb the trailer to show that they wouldn't want it because their action RPG would be deemed a lukewarm Mana-infused action RPG with its bland cast of characters because of what I said about their weapons, like the 1st female character would wield her boots for kicking attacks like Palamena does and the 2nd female character would wield her dual fans like Careena does, male character 2 would wield his cards like Morley does and so on and the combat.

To my knowledge, Concord became a perfect example of a flopped game. After two weeks, the game has flopped hard and was shut down in favor of Astro Bot, critically acclaimed game. What has happened is that the game has a bland and uninspirational cast of characters having their Guardians of the Galaxy style, slow-paced gameplay and the pricing of $40 on a hero shooter game. Fans are personally glad that Concord has flopped and shut down that they will never want to play this game since both trailers were dislike bombed and instead, wanted to play Astro Bot since its trailer has exploded with positivity. Guardians of the Galaxy is great, but in hindsight, if they planned to keep the Guardians of the Galaxy-infused mindset when Concord returns as a free-to-play title, they could literally make the characters and maps unique and inspirational.

However, if you catch my drift and have been living in a pineapple, any respective company can make an action RPG that would be inspired by Mana, the Last Story, Star Ocean and Valhalla Knights 3 to have several assets from the mentioned action RPGs. Besides, the company made a turn based RPG that was inspired by Final Fantasy, and that is Blue Dragon for the Xbox 360. Great RPG. I sort of want it to be remastered, but the company behind it is no longer on the console gaming business. They are on the mobile gaming business.

Also, this action RPG game I dreamed of may have Mana-infused characters in a party, but the companies must give the characters a lot of inspiration they need. They don't need to copy and paste the coding and physics from Visions of Mana and start from there as Square Enix can file a lawsuit against the outside developers that do. They can develop this game from the ground up and can be just on par with not just the mainline Mana games, but also other action RPGs as well.

I have a pitch for the next mainline Mana title coming soon, so stay tuned for that.