Rock Paper Fire

Rock-paper-scissors is the ultimate game of weaknesses and advantages. No matter how many times you play rock will always smash scissors, scissors will always cut paper, and paper will always cover rock, somehow resulting in paper winning. I never figured that one out, either. Regardless of the source of paper’s rock-crushing ability, the triangle of destruction will never be compromised. Rock-paper-scissors, though too simple on its own to go much further than a quick problem-solving method, has its core principle used in many other games.

It's a vicious cycle

Weaknesses, and thus by association advantages in games are a long-standing mechanic that creates a need for strategy, and I have yet to see a game that did not get better when it made the player think a little. Tactics games, both real-time and turn-based, usually have the most clear and straightforward weakness/advantage systems. Fire Emblem has a perfect rock-paper-scissors analogy with its weapon triangle system. In all but the earliest games in the series, different weapon types give characters an increased hit chance against another weapon type and an increased miss chance against the final. For example, swords are good against axes, but bad against spears. Axes beat spears, and spears beat swords. Because of this system, anyone not wanting to lose a character would never pit a swordsman up against a spearman. Almost every time, the swordsman would lose, and his turn or life would have been wasted. Spells worked in much the same way, as three of the elements used had a similar triangle system going. Plus, special characters like pegasus knights had their own strengths and weaknesses–being able to fly over any terrain and hard to hit up close, but were doomed if faced with even a single archer. The weaknesses of characters forces players to pick and chose their actions carefully, as pitting something up against its weakness would rarely if ever end well. Imagine a (modern) Fire Emblem without the weapon triangle. The tactics and strategies would be far different, and level and stats would be the primary factor in deciding who goes in and who does not. The variety of sorties would be diminished, and the game would not be nearly as engaging as it is with the triangles in place.

What always come to my mind first at the mention of weaknesses is Pokemon. The seventeen types of Pokemon and all their resistances, immunities, and weaknesses are what make combat in it so unique. No, it is not the only turn-based RPG with weaknesses and resistances, but they are far more important than in, say, Final Fantasy or Y’s, and just like in Fire Emblem, pitting a pokemon up against something it can only be not very effective against is almost always a bad move, as is challenging something strong against you. There are even a couple of type triangles in Pokemon, like the fire-water-grass starters in every generation. Players pick their teams and moves around countering weaknesses as much as if not more than they do around dealing damage, but unless the counter is a switch out, trying to hold one’s own against a weakness is still a gamble.

Only 17 types and it's made billions of dollars

If Final Fantasy had more influential weaknesses, the series would be much more tactical, would require more thought, and thus would be stronger as a whole. The series does have weaknesses and resistances in its elements, but unless all you fight is flans,  they usually have little to no consequence. I like the Final Fantasy franchise as much as the next Jrpg player, but it has always bothered me that they went through all the trouble of integrating an element system only to use it for one or two enemies or as an excuse for more flashy animations. If enemies took more noticeable damage or had an extra penalty for being nailed by their weakness, the need or desire for elements goes up. FFX, while not applying to all foes, had many enemies that had to be hit with the weaknesses or a certain status ailment or a specific strategy in order to be dealt reasonable damage.  Lulu, the black mage character, was by far one of the most valuable because she could target weaknesses, and doing so made fights noticeably shorter.  Weaknesses played a major part in FFX compared to many of the others, and for that I applaud it.

Now I have been doing a lot of talking about turn-based games, but even the adventure genres (be it action adventure, adventure RPG, point-and-click adventure, the list goes on) has been unable to escape the use of weaknesses. What makes for a good adventure game? Let us start with a classic: hitting dudes with swords. Always fun. You can even get more sword abilities or different weapons or tools as the game progresses. Even better. All the enemies can be different, with different attack patterns and such, but when it comes right down to it you are still doing little more than avoiding attacks and hitting dudes with a sword, or an axe, or a bow, or whatever smiting tool you brought with you that day. What if, though, all the enemies have a specific weakness or way to beat them, like they’ll block all attacks from the front but have a vulnerable back, or they fly around fast so hitting them with your sword is difficult, or they do not drop their guard unless they bounce off your shield, or you have to send their attacks back at them from a distance, since they hide if you get close. Any of this sounding familiar? It should, since they are all enemies from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In OoT, most of the enemies could only be defeated by exploiting a weakness–be it a weakness of the enemy like bombs or arrows, or a weak point like most of the bosses, OoT and nearly every other Zelda title are adventure games based around weaknesses. For another, rather different example of a franchise about exploiting weaknesses, Megaman and its bosses are perfect. Each boss has a weapon they are cripplingly weak against, but all of these weapons must be obtained from another boss.

I wonder what her weakness is/

Something I would like to see more of, though, is a game where you as the main character have a crippling weakness, and not something like he/she cannot swim, because apparently most protagonists never learned how. Perhaps something that, if fought, will almost certainly kill you, and unless you come back with something specially purposed for overcoming this weakness, you will not stand a chance. Of course this new weakness-beater has a weakness of its own. Game protagonists seem to have a distinct lack of weaknesses, probably so that players do not fear taking anything on, but I want a game where you as a player are genuinely afraid of this weakness being exploited,  just as we as players have done to so many of our enemies.

Though again a turn-based example, Persona 3 and 4 have a weakness systems that encourages caution and has personally resulted in more than a few moments of sheer horror. Being hit by your weakness means not only taking extra damage, but you also risk losing your turn and give the enemy that hit you an extra turn. Sticking your weakness out for the enemy to strike is asking to die. Persona is only half of what I want, though, as you can change your weaknesses at will. Zelda Majora’s Mask also has a few crippling weaknesses with the transforming masks. The zora, for example, goes down if touched by fire, but there is usually little stopping the player from simply avoiding zora form around fire.

To me, the ideal weakness game is one where you play as paper. You have a reliable way to topple rocks, but when a pair of scissors shows up you best start running. Perhaps you can switch between rock paper or scissors at save points or by beating that kind of enemy (beating a rock lets you become a rock), but not at will. Rock-paper-scissors is the perfect game of weaknesses. Why not make a more complex game out of it?

Besides this one.