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99-605: X-Men Legends is an action role-playing video game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision . It was released on the GameCube , PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles in 2004. Barking Lizards Technologies developed the N-Gage port of the game, which was released in early 2005. Players can play as one of fifteen X-Men characters, with the ability to switch between four computer- or human-controlled characters at any time. X-Men Legends follows Alison Crestmere ,

198-523: A Final Fantasy game. However, the team concluded that players would prefer more action that allowed control of the character's super powers. The genre switch proved problematic to maintaining the team aspect of gameplay. The group experimented with several gameplay models, and opted for one that allowed players to freely switch characters. The final product mimics isometric dungeon crawling video games. Raven designed gameplay with strategy in mind; each character's abilities allow different interactions with

297-482: A Native American mutant whose power grants him intuitive talent for inventing mechanical devices. Danica McKellar voiced Jubilee , a young mutant who generates plasmoids from her fingertips. Veteran voice actors Steven Blum , Grey DeLisle , Dee Bradley Baker , Robin Atkin Downes and Dorian Harewood also lent voices as Wolverine, Mystique, Nightcrawler, Cyclops and Shadow King, respectively. Music for

396-437: A computer display ) is perceived as stable by the majority of participants in studies when the rate is higher than 50 Hz. This perception of modulated light as steady is known as the flicker fusion threshold . However, when the modulated light is non-uniform and contains an image, the flicker fusion threshold can be much higher, in the hundreds of hertz. With regard to image recognition , people have been found to recognize

495-428: A game over in the event one or more team member was defeated. Raven included flash back missions as an homage to the franchise and based some on specific comic book issues. Originally a single-player game, Raven eventually incorporated simultaneous co-operative gameplay. The developers chose to not create an online multi-player mode, stating that the gameplay was "designed around localized encounters". The game's story

594-624: A mutant with the ability to control volcanic activity. At the start of the game, Alison is abducted by the Genetic Research and Security Organization (GRSO). As GRSO soldiers take her away, Mystique arrives with Blob and takes Alison from the soldiers. She is in turn rescued from Mystique and Blob by the X-Men Wolverine and Cyclops , who take her to the Xavier Institute to explore her powers. As Alison trains,

693-446: A "role-playing shooter" due to the heavy RPG elements within the game, such as quest-based gameplay and also its character traits and leveling system. Half-Minute Hero (2009) is an RPG shooter featuring self-referential humour and a 30-second time limit for each level and boss encounter. Other action role-playing games with shooter elements include the 2010 titles Alpha Protocol by Obsidian Entertainment and The 3rd Birthday ,

792-423: A 10 ms red flash of light perceived as a single yellow flash of light. Early silent films had stated frame rates anywhere from 16 to 24 frames per second (fps), but since the cameras were hand-cranked, the rate often changed during the scene to fit the mood. Projectionists could also change the frame rate in the theater by adjusting a rheostat controlling the voltage powering the film-carrying mechanism in

891-593: A 1991 issue of Computer Gaming World criticized several computer role-playing games for using "arcade" or "Nintendo-style" action combat, including Ys , Sorcerian, Times of Lore, and Prophecy . In 1991, Square released Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden , also known as Final Fantasy Adventure or Mystic Quest in the West, for the Game Boy . Like Crystalis , the action in Seiken Densetsu bore

990-495: A character's abilities. Characters can combine attacks to create a combo , in which two or more players use their mutant powers on a single enemy at the same time. The characters' special abilities can be used to create a "Super Combo" when combined with an "Xtreme Power" which become available at level 15. The X-Mansion serves as a hub that the team returns to after each mission. While at the mansion, one player controls Alison Crestmere as she explores and learns about herself and

1089-831: A display artifact appearing on legacy black-and-white displays, showing up on highly-color-saturated surfaces. It was found that by lowering the frame rate by 0.1%, the undesirable effect was minimized. As of 2021 , video transmission standards in North America, Japan, and South Korea are still based on 60  / 1.001 ≈ 59.94 images per second. Two sizes of images are typically used: 1920×1080 ("1080i/p") and 1280×720 ("720p"). Confusingly, interlaced formats are customarily stated at 1/2 their image rate, 29.97/25 FPS, and double their image height, but these statements are purely custom; in each format, 60 images per second are produced. A resolution of 1080i produces 59.94 or 50 1920×540 images, each squashed to half-height in

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1188-573: A final battle. After an attack by Sentinels, the X-Men discover that the asteroid is on a collision course with Earth . In the control room of the asteroid, they fight the General Kincaid as he pilots Master Mold , a larger and more powerful prototype Sentinel. After defeating General Kincaid, the X-Men locate the Gravitron, the control mechanism of the asteroid. The Brotherhood's initial plan

1287-650: A heart monitor to represent the player's Attack Power and Armor Class statistics. Another controversial aspect of the game involved taking drugs (instead of potions) that increase/decrease attributes, but with side effects such as heart-rate increase/decrease or death. Origin Systems , the developer of the Ultima series, also released an action RPG in 1988, titled Times of Lore , which was inspired by various NES titles, particularly The Legend of Zelda . Times of Lore inspired several later titles by Origin Systems, such as

1386-525: A lot of popularity on the 2010s with titles such as Warframe (2013), Destiny (2014) and Destiny 2 (2017), The Division (2016) and The Division 2 (2019). Frame rate The temporal sensitivity and resolution of human vision varies depending on the type and characteristics of visual stimulus, and it differs between individuals. The human visual system can process 10 to 12 images per second and perceive them individually, while higher rates are perceived as motion. Modulated light (such as

1485-538: A mission system and role-playing game mechanics, as well as MMORPGs with real-time combat systems. Allgame listed the following games released prior to 1984 as action RPGs: Temple of Apshai (1979) and its sequel Gateway to Apshai (1983), Beneath the Pyramids for the Apple II (1980), Bokosuka Wars (1983), and Sword of Fargoal (1983). Jeremy Parish of USgamer claimed that Adventure (1980)

1584-979: A more dialogue-heavy experience akin to the Baldurs Gate games and even older series like Falcom's Dragon Slayer/Xanadu series had its outing Xanadu Next with similar Diablo influences. The influences also come full circle when the first Diablo game was inspired by rogue-likes Umoria and Angband and in more recent years many games in the rogue-like genre are inspired by more classic dungeon crawler ARPGs that Diablo helped spawn. In this sub genre there are such recent titles as Path of Exile (2013), Grim Dawn (2016), Zenonia S: Rifts In Time (2015), Book of Demons (2018), Shadows: Awakening (2018), Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Gold (2017), Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition (2016) and its expansions Titan Quest: Ragnarök (2017) and Titan Quest: Atlantis (2019), Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (2020) and Minecraft Dungeons (2020). The prominence of Diablo 2 in

1683-483: A more traditional RPG-esque system, including experience points and levels with action game elements. Unlike its predecessor, Zelda II more closely fits the definition of an action RPG. Another Metroidvania -style action RPG released that year was System Sacom 's Sharp X1 computer game Euphory , which was possibly the only Metroidvania -style multiplayer action RPG produced, allowing two-player cooperative gameplay. The fifth Dragon Slayer title, Sorcerian ,

1782-471: A quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating "on ones", as "twos" are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye fooled without unnecessary production cost. Animation for most " Saturday morning cartoons " was produced as cheaply as possible and was most often shot on "threes" or even "fours", i.e. three or four frames per drawing. This translates to only 8 or 6 drawings per second respectively. Anime

1881-420: A specific image in an unbroken series of different images, each of which lasts as little as 13 milliseconds. Persistence of vision sometimes accounts for very short single-millisecond visual stimulus having a perceived duration of between 100 ms and 400 ms. Multiple stimuli that are very short are sometimes perceived as a single stimulus, such as a 10 ms green flash of light immediately followed by

1980-496: A story that would allow for players to change their active team throughout the game and not affect the overall flow of the story. The game's voice cast consists largely of television and film stars as well as veteran voice actors. Patrick Stewart reprised his role as Professor Xavier from the X-Men films , while Tony Jay voiced Magneto. Ed Asner lent his voice as Healer, a Morlock shaman . Lou Diamond Phillips voiced Forge ,

2079-580: A strong resemblance to that of Legend of Zelda , but added more RPG elements. It was one of the first action RPGs to allow players to kill townspeople, though later Mana games removed this feature. Arcus Odyssey by Wolf Team (now Namco Tales Studio ) was an action RPG that featured an isometric perspective and co-operative multiplayer gameplay. In 1993, the second Seiken Densetsu game, Secret of Mana , received considerable acclaim, for its innovative pausable real-time action battle system , and its innovative cooperative multiplayer gameplay, where

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2178-552: A young mutant who has the ability to summon and control volcanic activity. As Alison is taught to control her powers at the X-Mansion , the X-Men are sent on several missions. Eventually the X-Men learn of Magneto 's plan to cover the Earth in darkness from his base on Asteroid M . X-Men Legends received generally positive reviews from critics. The Xbox version was the best received, garnering aggregate scores of 83% and 82/100 on

2277-561: Is aiding the leader of the anti-mutant movement, General William Kincaid. Professor X , Emma Frost , and Jean Grey enter the Astral Plane to save Illyana. They succeed, but Xavier is captured by the Shadow King in the process. After Xavier's capture, the X-Men learn that General Kincaid is building upgraded variants of the mutant-hunting Sentinels . Magneto travels to his base on Asteroid M , where he reveals his plan to cover

2376-506: Is also usually drawn on threes or twos. Due to the mains frequency of electric grids, analog television broadcast was developed with frame rates of 50 Hz (most of the world) or 60 Hz (Canada, US, Mexico, Philippines, Japan, South Korea). The frequency of the electricity grid was extremely stable and therefore it was logical to use for synchronization. The introduction of color television technology made it necessary to lower that 60 FPS frequency by 0.1% to avoid " dot crawl ",

2475-544: Is considered the first example of an immersive sim , a genre that combines elements from other genres to create a game with strong player agency and emergent gameplay, and has influenced many games since its release. The engine was re-used and enhanced for Ultima Underworld ' s 1993 sequel, Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds . Looking Glass Studios planned to create a third Ultima Underworld , but Origin rejected their pitches. After Electronic Arts (EA) rejected Arkane Studios ' pitch for Ultima Underworld III ,

2574-400: Is flashed on screen three times. In drawn animation , moving characters are often shot "on twos", that is to say, one drawing is shown for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frame per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However, when a character is required to perform

2673-494: Is repeated, playing twice, while every even frame is tripled. This creates uneven motion, appearing stroboscopic. Other conversions have similar uneven frame doubling. Newer video standards support 120, 240, or 300 frames per second, so frames can be evenly sampled for standard frame rates such as 24, 48 and 60 FPS film or 25, 30, 50 or 60 FPS video. Of course these higher frame rates may also be displayed at their native rates. In electronic camera specifications frame rate refers to

2772-542: Is why the industry chose 24 FPS for sound film as a compromise. From 1927 to 1930, as various studios updated equipment, the rate of 24 FPS became standard for 35 mm sound film. At 24 FPS, the film travels through the projector at a rate of 456 millimetres (18.0 in) per second. This allowed simple two-blade shutters to give a projected series of images at 48 per second, satisfying Edison's recommendation. Many modern 35 mm film projectors use three-blade shutters to give 72 images per second—each frame

2871-860: The Princess Crown series, including Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade . Princess Crown had a more cartoon-like visual appeal. It still had quality visuals due to the George Kamitani style. LandStalker's 1997 spiritual successor Alundra is considered "one of the finest examples of action/RPG gaming", combining platforming elements and challenging puzzles with an innovative storyline revolving around entering people's dreams and dealing with mature themes. Ultima Underworld ' s influence has been found in BioShock (2007), and that game's designer, Ken Levine , has stated that "all

2970-521: The 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated X-Men Legends for " Console Role-Playing Game of the Year ". In 2011, GamePro retrospectively listed "the melee combat, ability to customize your stats, and multiplayer" among the strong points of X-Men Legends , adding that the game "was so successful that it created a well-received sequel and paved

3069-616: The Dragon's Crown Artworks foreword: "The motif within Dragon's Crown is all the fantasy works that has affected me until now: the PC RPG Wizardry that I first came into contact with as a student; Ian Livingstone 's gamebooks; games like Tower of Druaga , Golden Axe and The King of Dragons ." He also cites his early 20s work on Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom as "truly something that I had aspired for". Dragon's Crown

X-Men Legends - Misplaced Pages Continue

3168-717: The Legends series reached 2 million units in the United States by July 2006. A sequel, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse was released for all major platforms in the fall of 2005, and the N-Gage later that year. Barking Lizards again helped port the game, this time to mobile phone devices. Vicarious Visions ported the game to the PlayStation Portable (PSP), and Beenox developed the PC port. The success of

3267-790: The MMO vehicular combat game Auto Assault (2006) by NetDevil and NCsoft . Other action RPGs featured both hack and slash and shooting elements, with the use of both guns (or in some cases, bow and arrow or aerial combat ) and melee weapons, including Cavia 's flight-based Drakengard series (2003 to 2005), and Level-5 's Rogue Galaxy (2005). Other RPS games include the Mass Effect series (2007 onwards), Fallout 3 and subsequent Fallout titles (2008 onwards), White Gold: War in Paradise (2008), and Borderlands (2009). Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has dubbed it as

3366-482: The President of the United States thanking the X-Men for their service. It was basically Final Fantasy with X-Men. Over time, however, it really started to evolve. As development moved along, we added more and more elements of action and combat to it. One thing that remained a consistent mantra through development of the game over the last few years has been the team. To be able to bring something like this to

3465-537: The X-Men Legends series led Raven Software, Marvel, and Activision to create the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance , which was released on several consoles, handheld devices and the PC in 2006. Barking Lizards, Vicarious Visions and Beenox handled the ports for different platforms. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was followed by Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 , jointly developed by Vicarious Visions, n-Space and Savage Entertainment . Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

3564-498: The action game and role-playing genre. Action role-playing games emphasize real-time combat where the player has direct control over the characters as opposed to turn or menu -based combat while still having a focus on character's stats in order to determine relative strength and abilities. These games often use action game combat systems similar to hack and slash or shooter games . The term "action role-playing game" may also describe action-adventure games , which include

3663-503: The first installment of its Ys series in 1987. While not very popular in the West, the long-running Ys series has performed strongly in the Japanese market, with many sequels, remakes and ports in the decades that followed its release. Besides Falcom's own Dragon Slayer series, Ys was also influenced by Hydlide , from which it borrowed certain mechanics such as health-regeneration. The Faery Tale Adventure offered one of

3762-488: The projector . Film companies often intended that theaters show their silent films at higher frame rates than they were filmed at. These frame rates were enough for the sense of motion, but it was perceived as jerky motion. To minimize the perceived flicker, projectors employed dual- and triple-blade shutters , so each frame was displayed two or three times, increasing the flicker rate to 48 or 72 hertz and reducing eye strain. Thomas Edison said that 46 frames per second

3861-563: The "optimal" frame rate for smoothly animated game play. Video games designed for PAL markets, before the sixth generation of video game consoles , had lower frame rates by design due to the 50 Hz output. This noticably made fast-paced games, such as racing or fighting games, run slower. Frame rate up-conversion (FRC) is the process of increasing the temporal resolution of a video sequence by synthesizing one or more intermediate frames between two consecutive frames. A low frame rate causes aliasing , yields abrupt motion artifacts, and degrades

3960-414: The 1990 games Bad Blood (another action RPG based on the same engine) and Ultima VI: The False Prophet , based on the same interface. Also in 1989, the enhanced remake Ys I & II was one of the first video games to use CD-ROM , which was utilized to provide enhanced graphics, animated cut scenes, a Red Book CD soundtrack, and voice acting. Its English localization was also one of

4059-563: The Brotherhood and was involved in the attack on the nuclear power plant. Wolverine, who arrives at the facility on his own, stops the brothers from fighting each other. Together, they work to rescue the mutants that are held captive at the facility. After accomplishing these missions, the team discovers that Colossus's sister, Illyana , is in a coma from a psychic hold placed on her by the Shadow King . The Shadow King reveals that he

X-Men Legends - Misplaced Pages Continue

4158-527: The Earth in asteroids to darken the surface. Havok tries to fight back but is imprisoned. The X-Men must prioritize their resources on three separate missions: rescuing mutants from Sentinels at New York, stopping Juggernaut's rampage on Muir Island, and protecting the Morlocks from a GRSO invasion. Afterwards, the X-Men free Xavier, who defeats the Shadow King in a psychic battle. The X-Men travel to Asteroid M, where they rescue Havok and defeat Magento in

4257-728: The Morlock Healer , who provides health and energy packs as well as training disks for use in the Danger Room. Forge becomes available after Alison contacts him accidentally from the X-Mansion, and Healer can be accessed following the third mission. The N-Gage version of X-Men Legends contains most of the features found on the console versions. However, the game is played from an isometric point of view. Characters are two-dimensional sprites based on their three-dimensional console counterparts, and levels are redesigned to meet

4356-600: The PC-8801 computer in September 1984, it abandoned the command-based battles of earlier role-playing games in favor of real-time hack-and-slash combat that required direct input from the player, alongside puzzle-solving elements. In contrast to earlier turn-based roguelikes , Dragon Slayer was a dungeon-crawl role-playing game using real-time, action-oriented combat, combined with traditional role-playing mechanics. Dragon Slayer's overhead action role-playing formula

4455-607: The X-Men investigate an Alaskan research facility being attacked by the Brotherhood of Mutants , then rescue Gambit from the Morlocks . They then try to stop the Brotherhood from rescuing Magneto from captivity aboard the U.S.S. Arbiter, a submersible aircraft carrier. Mystique is able to penetrate the defenses and free Magneto, and the ensuing damage caused by the Brotherhood leaves the X-Men to rescue several Arbiter crew members. With Alison's training complete, she takes

4554-420: The X-Men universe was very important to us. Even when moved to action, we went into it with the idea that you are controlling a team. —Co-project lead Patrick Lipo on the development of the game X-Men Legends was announced in a press release by Activision on April 23, 2003. The game is Raven Software's first console title; after a number of successful titles for personal computers, it wanted to expand into

4653-467: The X-Men, including using their New X-Men uniforms as well as removing the cel-shaded look from the characters. In contrast, the back stories, relationships and personalities of the X-Men were taken from Marvel's mainstream universe . Angel was also to be included in the game, and was to be voiced by André Sogliuzzo , but was cut from the final build. The game's marketing budget was $ 5 million. X-Men Legends received mostly positive reviews, with

4752-641: The Xbox version receiving the highest aggregate scores of 83.36% at GameRankings and 82/100 at Metacritic . The GameCube version was rated next highest, scoring 81.98% at GameRankings and 81/100 at Metacritic. Though the PlayStation 2 version received the lowest scores of the console versions, it still fared well, scoring 80.50% at GameRankings and 79/100 at Metacritic. The N-Gage version garnered scores similar to its console counterparts, receiving 76.13% and 79/100 at GameRankings and Metacritic, respectively. During

4851-522: The budget lines for all three consoles on which it was released: PlayStation 2's Greatest Hits , GameCube's Player's Choice , and Xbox's Platinum Hits . By July 2006, the Xbox version of X-Men Legends had sold 800,000 copies and earned $ 28 million in the United States. Next Generation ranked it as the 74th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2 , Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country. Combined sales of

4950-535: The camera to some degree. As such, these are often grouped with other "isometric RPGs". The popularity of the Diablo series spawned such franchises like Divinity , Torchlight , Dungeon Siege and Sacred . Commonly, these games used a fixed-camera isometric view of the game world, a necessity of the limitations of 2D graphics of early computers; The Diablo series spawned many terms like being referred to as "dungeon crawler" "slasher RPG" "hack and slasher",

5049-450: The characters are cel-shaded, the environments are not, making them easy to distinguish. The gameplay was lauded for its role-playing elements, character powers and melee combat. Eurogamer praised the Xbox version's control system for character powers and melee attacks, as well as the "fluid" combat. Reviewers found that the artificial intelligence (AI) was lacking, and recommended the game's multiplayer. Opinions were generally mixed on

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5148-456: The characters, setting the standard for first-person computer RPGs for several years. It inspired many other developers to make real-time dungeon crawlers, such as Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos . Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss , released in 1992, has been cited as the first RPG to feature first-person action in a 3D environment. Ultima Underworld

5247-497: The codename Magma . The X-Men travel to Russia to help Colossus prevent the Brotherhood from obtaining weapons-grade plutonium from a nuclear power plant. After the team defends the X-Mansion from GRSO infiltrators, Cyclops goes alone to investigate the old Weapon X facility in Canada , where Wolverine had been experimented on before joining the X-Men. There, Cyclops meets his younger brother, Havok . Havok reveals that he has joined

5346-419: The console market. The company developed the three console versions simultaneously, and used Vicarious Visions ' Alchemy engine as a base for the game. After deciding to make an "X-Men RPG", staff began brainstorming story, gameplay and design ideas. Raven wanted to feature a team-based dynamic, something it felt was absent in previous X-Men games. The original concept featured turned-based gameplay, similar to

5445-582: The console versions, up to four players can play in the cooperative campaign , with the ability to add or remove players at any time. Cooperative play features a refined combat system and the ability to interact with non-player characters . The game also features a skirmish mode, which allows players to fight against each other or against waves of computer-controlled enemies. As characters gain experience points , players can upgrade their four main powers and other abilities unique to that character. Items found during gameplay can also be equipped to further enhance

5544-489: The environment and other characters. For example, a physically strong character like Colossus can break walls but is unable to reach certain areas that require the ability to fly, and Iceman is able to freeze enemies so that other characters can easily defeat them. Staff hoped that the differences would force players to switch characters regularly during missions. Extraction points, specific locations that players can switch characters, were added to allow players to continue without

5643-487: The first to use voice dubbing . The game received the Game of the Year award from OMNI Magazine in 1990, as well as other prizes. Another 1989 release, Activision 's Prophecy: The Fall of Trinadon , attempted to introduce "Nintendo-style" action combat to North American computer role-playing games. Action RPGs were far more common on consoles than computers, due to gamepads being better suited to real-time action than

5742-448: The game is played from a third-person perspective. Players can customize their player character , which learns to cast spells, brew potions, and master combat abilities, eventually developing their own special combat style. In late 1987, FTL Games released Dungeon Master , a dungeon crawler that had a real-time game world and some real-time combat elements (akin to Active Time Battle ), requiring players to quickly issue orders to

5841-552: The game was composed by Rik Schaffer of the Los Angeles -based Womb Music. Characters were selected from different time lines in the X-Men universe. Art lead Brian Pelletier said that they took the most memorable characters from the last 40 years and grouped them together. X-Men Legends uses cel shading to give the characters a comic-like appearance. However, Raven cited that they opted for then-high resolution textures to stay away from "cartoony looking" characters. The process

5940-565: The game's graphics were "very strong" and that "everything looks amazing". The presence of voice acting in the N-Gage port was also praised, with GameSpy reviewer Justin Leeper stating the audio clips seemed to be "lifted right out of other versions". He criticized the AI, however, for being "[a] bit stupid at inopportune times" and for failing to use the game's healing abilities at important moments. X-Men Legends sold enough copies to be inducted into

6039-409: The game's mouse-based combat were mixed. In 1997 Blizzard's Diablo was released and became massively successful. It was an action RPG that used a mouse oriented point-and-click interface and offered gamers a free online service to play with others that maintained the same rules and gameplay. Diablo ' s effect on the market was significant, inspiring many imitators. Its impact was such that

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6138-585: The gaming market and its influence on the MMORPG genre later popularized the strongly used mouse-oriented point and click combat. While in the Diablo series this type of combat does not have a lock-on key, World of Warcraft and most MMO games uses some kind of key to target an enemy, usually TAB, to lock into it, usually referred to as "tab-target". In tab-target combat the player's character automatic do attack animations with some kind of regular attack, while

6237-521: The keyboard and mouse. Though there were attempts at creating action-oriented computer RPGs during the late 1980s and early 1990s, very few saw any success. Times of Lore was one of the more successful attempts in the American computer market, where there was a generally negative attitude towards combining genres in this way and more of an emphasis on preserving the purity of the RPG genre. For example,

6336-448: The largest worlds at the time, with over 17,000 computer screens without loading times. In 1988, Telenet Japan 's Exile series debuted, and was controversial due to its plot, which revolves around a time-traveling Crusades-era Syrian assassin who assassinates various religious/historical figures as well as 20th-century political leaders, The gameplay of Exile included both overhead exploration and side-scrolling combat, and featured

6435-409: The limitations of the isometric point of view. Cutscenes were reused from the console versions, but are rendered at a much lower frame rate . Players can link with other N-Gage systems for four-player cooperative gameplay using GSM cellular technology. X-Men Legends is not set in any particular Marvel Comics universe . It is played from the perspective of a teenage girl named Alison Crestmere,

6534-423: The maximum possible rate frames that can be captured (e.g. if the exposure time were set to near-zero), but in practice, other settings (such as exposure time) may reduce the actual frequency to a lower number than the frame rate. In computer video games , frame rate plays an important part in the experience as, unlike film, games are rendered in real-time . 60 frames per second has for a long time been considered

6633-582: The other X-Men. Here players can also view loading screen art, cinematics, and comic book covers acquired during gameplay. Biographies of the X-Men and their enemies can be accessed on computers located in the mansion. Players can participate in an X-Men trivia game, which rewards experience points for correct answers. Additionally, players can access the Danger Room 's computer to play challenge missions unlocked during gameplay. The players have two vendors available to them: Forge , who sells equipment and

6732-439: The photographic process and stretched back to fill the screen on playback in a television set. The 720p format produces 59.94/50 or 29.97/25 1280×720p images, not squeezed, so that no expansion or squeezing of the image is necessary. This confusion was industry-wide in the early days of digital video software, with much software being written incorrectly, the developers believing that only 29.97 images were expected each second, which

6831-746: The player can focus on activating other skills and items by pressing other keys. Usually this type of combat is not heavily based on aiming or hit boxes thus the player can hit enemies from different distances and even from a far. Some tab-target MMOs have other targeting options such as an "Action mode". Shooter-based action RPGs include Strife (1996), System Shock 2 (1999), the Deus Ex series (2000 onwards) by Ion Storm , Bungie 's Destiny (2014), Irem 's Steambot Chronicles (2005), Square Enix's third-person shooter RPG Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (2006), which introduced an over-the-shoulder perspective similar to Resident Evil 4 , and

6930-426: The player's stats, or as a currency to purchase items, and penalizing player deaths without imposing an outright failure state. It also incorporated online features allowing players to leave messages in the overworld that can be read by other players, to temporarily join other players' sessions to assist them cooperatively, or "invade" another player's session to engage in player versus player combat. Especially after

7029-514: The release of its spiritual successor Dark Souls (2011) and its sequels, other action RPGs emerged in the 2010s that incorporated mechanics influenced by those of Demon's Souls , which have been popularly referred to as " Soulslike " games. In 2013, Vanillaware released the fantasy beat 'em up ARPG Dragon's Crown , a spiritual successor to Princess Crown and a "deeply moving product" of Vanillaware director George Kamitani. Kamitani cites many classic RPGs as his inspiration, stating in

7128-431: The review aggregating websites GameRankings and Metacritic respectively. Reviewers praised Raven's variation on cel-shaded graphics. Due to the success of the game a sequel was made, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse . X-Men Legends is an action role-playing game . Players choose a team of up to four characters from a larger group of X-Men. As players proceed through the game, additional X-Men are unlocked. On

7227-610: The same year. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com argues that Japanese developers created a new brand of action role-playing game; these new Japanese games combined the role-playing genre with arcade-style action and action-adventure elements. Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade also traces the genre's roots to Japan, noting that the "Western game industry of the time had a tendency to treat action games and RPGs as separate things for separate demographics". Jeremy Parish argues that action RPGs were popularized in Japan by The Tower of Druaga . It

7326-459: The second or third players could drop in and out of the game at any time, rather than players having to join the game at the same time. The game has remained influential through to the present day, with its ring menu system still used in modern games and its cooperative multiplayer mentioned as an influence on games such as Dungeon Siege III (2011). Most other such games, however, used a side-scrolling perspective typical of beat 'em ups, such as

7425-411: The series was also heavily criticized by players and media for not being a proper RPG due to it being focused more on fighting enemies and creating character builds than following a proper narrative and dialogue-heavy journey. After its success many other games tried to mix its influences with different structures and narratives, there are multiple games like Divine Divinity that were an attempt to have

7524-506: The studio instead created a spiritual successor : Arx Fatalis . Toby Gard stated that, when designing Tomb Raider , he "was a big fan of ... Ultima Underworld and I wanted to mix that type of game with the sort of polygon characters that were just being showcased in Virtua Fighter ". Ultima Underworld was also the basis for Looking Glass Technologies' later System Shock . The 1988 Origin Systems title Times of Lore

7623-402: The subject of voice acting. X-Play reviewer Russ Fischer called it "purely average", though he made an exception for Patrick Stewart's portrayal of Professor Xavier. IGN noted that while some voice acting fit the characters well, others seemed out of place. The N-Gage version was praised for the ability to play cooperatively using the N-Gage's bluetooth technology. Reviewers also found that

7722-495: The target intermediate frame to the input frames. They also propose flow reversal (projection) for more accurate image warping . Moreover, there are algorithms that give different weights of overlapped flow vectors depending on the object depth of the scene via a flow projection layer. Pixel hallucination-based methods use deformable convolution to the center frame generator by replacing optical flows with offset vectors. There are algorithms that also interpolate middle frames with

7821-620: The template for many future action RPGs, even though it does not strictly fit the definition of later action RPGs. In contrast to previous action RPGs, such as Dragon Slayer and Hydlide, which required the player to bump into enemies in order to attack them, The Legend of Zelda featured an attack button that animates a sword swing or projectile attack on the screen. It was also an early example of open-world, nonlinear gameplay , and introduced new features such as battery backup saving. These elements have been used in many action RPGs since. In 1987, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link implemented

7920-427: The temples to refuse to level him up. Xanadu Scenario II , released in 1986, was an expansion pack , created to expand the content of Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu . Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness (1985) also featured a morality system. Eurogamer cites Fairlight (1985) as an early action RPG. An important influence on the action RPG genre was the 1986 action-adventure The Legend of Zelda , which served as

8019-468: The term "action RPG" has come to be more commonly used for Diablo -style games, with The Legend of Zelda itself slowly recategorized as an action-adventure. Very commonly, these games used a fixed-camera isometric view of the game world, a necessity of the limitations of 2D graphics of early computers; even with 3D graphic engines, such point-and-click games are still presented from a similar isometric view, though providing options to rotate, pan, and zoom

8118-713: The things that I wanted to do and all the games that I ended up working on came out of the inspiration I took from [ Ultima Underworld ]". Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski also cited it as an early influence, stating that it had "far more impact on me than Doom ". Other games influenced by Ultima Underworld include The Elder Scrolls: Arena , Deus Ex , Deus Ex: Invisible War , Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines , and Half-Life 2 . FromSoftware 's Demon's Souls (2009) emphasized unforgiving enemies and environments, combined with risk-and-reward mechanics such as limited checkpoints, collecting "souls" that can be consumed as experience points to increase

8217-553: The third game in the Parasite Eve series, features a unique blend of action RPG, real-time tactical RPG, survival horror and third-person tactical shooter elements. Shooter-based RPGs include Imageepoch 's post-apocalyptic Black Rock Shooter (2011) , which employs both first-person and third-person shooter elements, and Square Enix's Final Fantasy XV (2016) , which features both hack and slash and third-person shooter elements. The online live service version gained

8316-476: The video quality. Consequently, the temporal resolution is an important factor affecting video quality. Algorithms for FRC are widely used in applications, including visual quality enhancement, video compression and slow-motion video generation. Most FRC methods can be categorized into optical flow or kernel-based and pixel hallucination-based methods. Flow-based methods linearly combine predicted optical flows between two input frames to approximate flows from

8415-484: The way for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series". Critics generally praised the game's use of cel-shading . IGN 's Hilary Goldstein stated, "to capture the 'comic book feel', Raven Soft chose to go for a cel-shaded look with Legends . It's not that the characters look two-dimensional, but they have very basic textures and a cut-out look". GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann pointed out that though

8514-440: Was accomplished by creating a second copy of the model, inverting the normals , then increasing the size of the model slightly. Character costumes were inspired by Marvel Comics' Ultimate X-Men , but some of the X-Men playable in X-Men Legends had not appeared in the comics at the time of its release so, with permission from Marvel, Raven created unique looks for those characters. During development Raven tried visual formats for

8613-478: Was also one of the earliest action RPGs. Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu , released in 1985 (billed as a "new type of real-time role-playing game"), was an action role-playing game including many character stats and a large quest. It also incorporated a side-scrolling view during exploration and an overhead view during battle, and an early "Karma" morality system where the character's Karma meter will rise if he commits sin (killing "good" enemies), which in turn causes

8712-508: Was also released that year. It was a party-based action RPG, with the player controlling a party of four characters at the same time in a side-scrolling view. The game also featured character creation, highly customizable characters, class-based puzzles, and a new scenario system, allowing players to choose from 15 scenarios, or quests , to play through in the order of their choice. It was also an episodic video game , with expansion disks later released offering more scenarios. Falcom also released

8811-433: Was an action RPG with an icon-based point-and-click interface. Bad Blood , another Origin Systems game from 1990, would use the same interface. The designers were inspired by console titles, particularly The Legend of Zelda , to make their interface more accessible. The 1994 title Ultima VIII used mouse controls and attempted to add precision jumping sequences reminiscent of a Mario platform game, though reactions to

8910-610: Was an action RPG. Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton claimed that the Intellivision games Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1982) and Treasure of Tarmin (1983) were action RPGs. Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade notes that Adventure lacked RPG mechanics such as experience points and permanent character growth, and argues that Gateway to Apshai is "the earliest game I'd feel comfortable calling an action-RPG" but notes that "it doesn't fit neatly into our modern genre classifications", though came closer than Bokosuka Wars released

9009-483: Was an ongoing rivalry developing between the Dragon Slayer and Hydlide series over the years. The Tower of Druaga , Dragon Slayer and Hydlide were influential in Japan, where they influenced later action RPGs such as Ys , as well as The Legend of Zelda . Falcom's Dragon Slayer , created by Yoshio Kiya, is "the very first action-RPG ever made" according to GameSetWatch. Originally released for

9108-482: Was incorrect. While it was true that each picture element was polled and sent only 29.97 times per second, the pixel location immediately below that one was polled 1/60 of a second later, part of a completely separate image for the next 1/60-second frame. At its native 24 FPS rate, film could not be displayed on 60 Hz video without the necessary pulldown process, often leading to "judder": To convert 24 frames per second into 60 frames per second, every odd frame

9207-417: Was penned by a group of former Marvel writers known as Man of Action, consisting of Duncan Rouleau , Joe Casey , Joe Kelly , and Steven T. Seagle , with Stan Lee consulting. Man of Action chose the character Magma as their lead because she was an "appropriately blank slate as a character". Man of Action also stated that the script for X-Men Legends was in excess of five hundred pages. The writers created

9306-575: Was re-released with a PS4 "Pro" edition in 2018. Assassin's Creed , a long-running Ubisoft franchise, also shifted towards the action RPG formula, inspired by the successes of The Witcher 3 and the Dark Souls series, with its titles Origins (2017), Odyssey (2018) and Valhalla (2020). Avalanche Software released Hogwarts Legacy in 2023. Set in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and its surrounding areas,

9405-454: Was released for arcades in June 1984, and was intended as a "fantasy version of Pac-Man , with puzzles to solve, monsters to battle, and hidden treasure to find". Its success in Japan inspired the development of Dragon Slayer (1984) and Hydlide (1984). Dragon Slayer , Hydlide and Courageous Perseus (1984) "vie for position as genre precedent" according to John Szczepaniak, and there

9504-603: Was released on several consoles and handhelds in the fall of 2009. Vicarious Visions developed the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, while n-Space developed the Nintendo DS , PS2 and Wii versions. Savage Entertainment ported the version developed by n-Space to the PSP. Action role-playing game An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG ) is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both

9603-413: Was the minimum needed for the eye to perceive motion: "Anything less will strain the eye." In the mid to late 1920s, the frame rate for silent film increased to 20–26 FPS. When sound film was introduced in 1926, variations in film speed were no longer tolerated, as the human ear is more sensitive than the eye to changes in frequency. Many theaters had shown silent films at 22 to 26 FPS, which

9702-494: Was to use Magma to control the device if Magneto couldn't be rescued due to her ability to manipulate rocks in a similar fashion to magnetism. Magma uses her powers to steer the asteroid back into space. The X-Men's victory on Asteroid M is watched by Apocalypse , who makes his upcoming plot from his base. In the game's epilogue, a television news anchor reports that Magneto is still at large and that General Kincaid has been arrested for crimes against humanity . The game ends with

9801-571: Was used in many later games. T&E Soft 's Hydlide , released in December 1984, was created by Tokihiro Naito, who was influenced by The Tower of Druaga . It was the first action RPG with an overworld . The game was immensely popular in Japan, selling 2 million copies across all platforms. According to John Szczepaniak, it "cannot be overstated how influential Hydlide was on the ARPGs which followed it". The same year, Courageous Perseus

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