Tactical role playing games are a sub-genre known for a frightening form of punishment: permanently losing party members. Of late, I've been playing Valkyria Chronicles and while I've greatly enjoyed the game I fear my play style shows me to be a butcher. I've lost five militia soldiers from my squad so far and that number would have been higher if you counted casualties from times I've had to replay a level due to a loss.
In games like this, the classical approach to losing someone is simply to reload from a start of battle save. RPGs in general can encourage completionist, indeed sometimes obsessive compulsive, tendencies. Game mechanics can encourage this through the tyranny of victory: the reward of winning makes future victories easier while the cost of losing results in a reduction of resources that makes future losses more likely. Pyrrhic victories are fairly uncommon, unless demanded by the plot. It's often possible to learn from losing, so why not immediately apply the lessons of the loss via replaying and gain the benefits of victory?
I think excess use of loading leads to three problems. First, it's one of many ways to allow players to substitute time for skill. Second, replaying a section of the game, particularly via use of quick save and quick load, allows one to simply learn the map and the patterns of the AI rather than the fundamentals of game mechanics. Innovative AI and randomized maps can both help with that problem, although games with large libraries of non-plot levels provide a way around that conundrum. The third problem is that loading erases defeats; the hubris of success remains but the shame of loss is retconned and quickly forgotten.
My admittedly inconsistent experiment with failure is a result of my worries on the third point. I've often felt myself to be good at games only to be shown up in versus mode or when seeing multiplayer score boards. I'm hoping that by making the consequences more real I'll change my play style so that it no longer combines arrogance and aggressiveness. It hasn't quite worked yet, but I've had a few decades of overwriting my failures using saved games. I'm rather grateful for Valkyria Chronicles for making this possible by offering a fair, challenging game that makes me accept the justices of the system while at the same time using solid voice acting and writing to make sure I feel every death.
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