If you grew up with SNES and Playstation RPGs like me, it was an era where you knew exactly what to expect heading into almost any game in the genre. When it came to combat, which was almost always turn-based, you would have basic attacks, and then special attacks and magic. The special attacks and magic generally consumed “MP” or some other acronym. Usually, this meant grinding through the standard encounters of the game with basic attacks and then unleashing all those powerful attacks when you got to a boss or a particularly tough fight. Items that restore MP are almost always expensive and hard to find in these types of games, so there is little incentive to use the best attacks unless you absolutely need them.
Of course, there was logic to this system. Boss fights aren’t fun if you can just keep spamming your best attacks with no additional risk/reward element. Also, your super special awesome attacks aren’t that cool if all of your attacks are like that. You need more basic attacks to make the “big” attacks stand out. Developers weren’t stupid for using this formula. It mostly worked at the time, and I’m sure it’s significantly less risky to use a proven formula over trying to rock the boat when making a new game.
However, as time has gone on, there has been more and more innovation within the RPG genre. Many combat systems that might have been controversial in the past have come to be accepted and embraced by the RPG community. I think, in general, the RPG community now craves innovation when it comes to both turn based and action combat. Despite this, MP seems to be one of those classic systems that continues to cling to life, even though more games are starting to either devalue it or do away with it all together. While I think there is still space for elements of the classic MP system in modern games, it has also clearly outlived its usefulness on its own. It’s time for even more modern games to adapt and recognize that traditional MP systems need to die.
Infinite Wealth Keeps It Traditional
A big chunk of my inspiration for this take comes from the two games I have logged the most time with this year, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. Infinite Wealth is a pure turn-based system, while Rebirth is an action game with turn-based elements. Both use MP, but it’s clear that Rebirth’s developers want to move on from MP to some extent, while Infinite Wealth’s developers completely embrace the old school.
This is funny because Infinite Wealth clearly did not want a purely old school turn based system. They have several tweaks that give it pretty fun combat on the whole. Your enemies’ and allies’ positioning on the battlefield matters a lot, and you have a lot of special moves that do “area of effect” damage depending on how everyone is arranged. Your basic attacks can also send enemies flying backward into walls, other enemies, and to your allies for additional attacks. This can be enjoyable, but the real fun with the game comes from figuring out how to use your skills to really maximize the damage you are doing. Your better “skills” can have massive areas of effect. It’s super satisfying to hit 5 enemies with the same attack or to send an enemy flying into a line of 2 or 3 more foes.
But unfortunately, I spend most of my time in Infinite Wealth not doing these things. 90% of encounters in Infinite Wealth involve me just using my basic attacks and hoping to get a little extra damage with one of the environmental factors I mentioned earlier. This is undoubtedly fun in spots, and still much better than playing a super by the numbers JRPG like say, Breath of Fire. But it still ends up being a bit of a slog sometimes. The game does give you opportunities to restore MP at restaurants in particular, but saving money in this game is important, and it is annoying to have to stop at them constantly. I am only using Infinite Wealth’s battle system to the fullest in 10% of my fights, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.
Rebirth Enters The Future
Meanwhile, in Rebirth, while there is MP, I rarely ever feel constrained by it. It feels like the developers are in alignment with me on believing that MP is mostly outdated, but they still wanted to pay homage to the original game as much as they could.
Both Final Fantasy 7: Remake and Rebirth focus much more on abilities than standard MP consuming magic attacks. You land basic attacks to build your “ATB” to either one or two bars. Once those bars are filled, you can use your abilities, which are generally your strongest attacks. Your ability bar resets after every battle, so there is no incentive to hold back. That means I can land a satisfying “Triple Slash” or “Braver” attack with Cloud in any battle I want to. These attacks feel special to use because you still have to earn them with your basic attacks.
Rebirth even lets you exploit elemental weaknesses without using MP by letting each character unlock special elemental attacks that work with that same ATB meter instead of with MP. The game also gives you “synergy attacks,” where you can attack with another ally, once again, without using MP.
There are magic attacks that use MP that are very useful in Rebirth, but I’m given so many other options in each battle that it doesn’t matter. In every single battle in the game, whether I’m facing a couple of random monsters or a gigantic boss, I am using the battle system to the absolute fullest. I am thinking about strategy and how I can best use all my abilities to win each fight in the most efficient way possible. While I like Infinite Wealth’s battle system a lot, I vastly prefer Rebirth’s. And it’s not because it’s an action system, but because I am able to enjoy any encounter on the game in an equal way, which I simply can not do with Infinite Wealth.
Chained Echoes Shows the Way
I’m aware that there are several RPGs that have done away with MP over the years. But for me personally, the game that really showed me the way the future should go was the fantastic Chained Echoes, which was released in 2022. Chained Echoes has “TP” (which functions like MP) in its standard battle system. This TP refreshes after every fight, so you can use all the skills you want in battle.
The game smartly prevents you from using all your best skills in a row, as you essentially get “overheated” if you do so. You need to take breaks from them to cool off and stay in the optimal zone. You don’t need to wait until boss fights to really feel like you are truly using the battle system in full in Chained Echoes. Every fight in the game is a fun encounter where you are balancing systems and using everything you can. This kind of consistent battle system fun is almost impossible to pull off with a classic MP system that forces you to constantly ration yourself.
I’m also not saying that having MP automatically makes a battle system bad in an RPG. I still like Infinite Wealth’s combat because of the ways in which it does innovate. I think with a little more innovation on MP, it truly could have been one of the best battle systems out there. I loved Octopath Traveler 2’s battle system a lot last year, even though it also retains an MP system (which it does de-emphasize in a lot of ways).
But the reality is, if you craft an interesting battle system and then combine it with the standard archaic MP systems of the past, that battle system will suffer. It will not be as good because I won’t be fully experiencing the system most of the time. There are plenty of creative workarounds to MP that are out there, and it’s time for RPG developers to use them. Traditional MP systems need to be put out to pasture once and for all.
Big Nerd Gaming 
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