Like a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest? Random battles that go to a second screen, turn based combat, leveling up, upgrading weapons and alt modes over time, linear story with minigames? Instead of summons, your party can call in combiners for a super attack? Special attacks from your weapon take the place of magic? Instead of using an airship or chocobo on the world map, you show up as your alt mode and drive? Vehicle/alt mode based attacks take the place of limit breaks/damage build up attacks? Just a thought I had.
Walking along the world map would be a lot speedier if you can literally transform into a vehicle, or at least a small item that can ride with your vehicle party members.
Oh definitely, I love JRPGs and Transformers have plenty of great characters and classes to choose from
That is what I meant. You can walk along the world map or transform to go faster(like getting progressively faster Chocobos in FF VII). The way I picture it, it would have a huge open world. You would start on one planet, and the first quest would involve repairing the Ark. Once you repair it, you can start planet hopping. No set order to finish, but each planet would have its own quests and bosses and mini bosses. Like 100+ planets. I would go with 107, because I like arbitrary numbers. And as is tradition, there would be an annoying recurring sub boss. Or several. Like a duo of Knock Out and Breakdown. Instead of enemies being visible on the world map, how often you enter into random battles depends on how well you are disguised in regards to that planet. Alt modes would also work akin to a mix of the job system(e.g. ninja, summoner, etc) and the dress grid from FF X-2. If you are on a jungle planet with little technology and you are rocking your hover car alt mode, you will hit random battles a lot and vice versa. There was a game that was part dating sim and part RPG called Thousand Arms where your upgrading of weapons depended on how well you did on dates with various women and the items you found. Instead of buying weapons, you would upgrade your weapons by finding equipment and giving them to Wheeljack(a non-playable character) who is the armorer on the Ark. There would however be ultimate legendary weapons that cant be built or bought but found. The story would revolve around the Infiltration Protocol concept, having to clear Decepticons off of worlds with a larger story behind you slowly find out. Leveling up would be slow going as it would be such a large world, and leveling up would be a version of the FF X sphere grid where you can customize your characters to your own liking. You want Optimus to be a healer and Ratchet to be a powerhouse? Have at it. Summons would exist as calls for help, with their own special animations. A rampage from the Dinobots led by Grimlock who talks crap to your party, an attack from Superion. Certain Decepticons would be able to do the same with say Devastator. Option bosses/quests would be like taking out the Fallen before he regains full strength and things along that line. Your party would start out patchwork with just a few members of the Ark who were coming to reinforce the Autobots defending that planet. Like Jazz, Afterburner, Sideswipe, and Hound. With every planet you clear you add some of the Autobots defending it to your party. Wow sorry for the long ass rant.
Play it? I would buy it the first day it came out on Steam. If it was on steam. It would most likely be Lit. Would it have specialized characters representing classes? Ironhide like a heavy weapons type ect.
Alt modes should be integrated into the combat as something other than animations or special attacks. Maybe something like the chase battles in FF6, but they actually change what abilities you have? Or maybe a system like the TCG, changing modes and thus abilities and weapons at will?
So I have given this more thought and this is how I would do it, some additions to what I typed before, more streamlined(some of this I mentioned, some tweaked a bit)... 1. The playable cast would be quite large. Stalwarts like Optimus, Bumblebee, and Hot Rod, but other lesser known like Bulkhead. 2. I mentioned the sphere grid, but instead of being overencompasing, each character would have to fill theirs individually. 3. Doing that, you can really customize how characters behave. Hound could be a healer and Ratchet a powerhouse, for example. 4. Instead of a world map there would be a galaxy map, with 122(up from 107) unique planets. This is where the job system would really come in, as how often you get into random battles and how effective you are against the local enemies depends on how well disguised you are to said planet. 5. Instead of always having access to the entire character list, it would be broken up into several 4 character squads, making the story progress in what I call a linear non-linear way. 6. You would be able to switch characters between squads, but they wouldn't be immediately available. They would have to travel, leaving said squad(s) shorthanded. 7. There would be multi-area boss fights, like the Decepticons springing traps simultaneously, on different planets. It would randomly switch between fights and the fight you left, characters would go on autopilot. You might be doing well and it flips to another fight and when you get back to it your autopilot characters have bungled it and you are in dire shape. 8. The story would be based on the IDW "Infiltration Protocols". 9. Squad building and strategy would be paramount. You don't want to go into a planet that has a Shockwave bossfight with a squad of Jazz, Sideswipe, Fixit, and Mirage for example. You are going to want a heavy hitter in there. 10. There would be hundreds of side quests and optional boss fights, to unlock new characters, special weapons, etc 11. Even with special weapons, most weaponry and armour upgrades would be done by collecting material and sending it to Wheeljack to make. Wheeljack and each squad has a small space bridge only large enough for weapons and materials. If you want armour upgrades, you have to go to his workshop, leaving you with the same problem of switching squads. 12. Each character would need to be close to fully leveled up for the final boss fight against Unicron, where the planet hopping campaign is over and your entire force is in one place. 13. First half of the game ends with a Megatron boss fight, who is then turned into Galvatron. A dark mirror of Optimus Prime, Nemesis Prime, would be the final sub boss, and Optimus would have to fight him alone. Nemesis stats and attacks would be the exact same as what you have Optimus at that point so it would be entirely fight strategy. 14. Unicron would have 7.52 billion HP and be capable of one hit kills and temporarily controlling characters to attack you. But you also have your entire Autobot force available at this point.
2 companies tried this. One failed to get it started. The other changed it from an RPG to something completely different and lost a lot of their support due to it (failed miserably). As much as I *want* to see something like this, the genre and that game style do not mix well. I wish whatever company that attempts this much success, but I am not holding my breathe.
Hmmm. I'd like it. Maybe have one character as yourself, totally customizable. Think of the possibilities. You choose an alt and can manage add on parts (better wheels, more aerodynamic forms), weapons (knee cannons anyone?), and of course, wild TF only type upgrades (Pretender shell, Headmaster, Targetmaster, Triple changer). Would be awesome.
