Action Role-playing Game - Choices and Consequences

Choices and Consequences

While most action RPGs focus on hack and slash while exploring a world (often an open world) and building character stats, some non-linear titles contain events or dialogue choices with consequences in the game world or storyline. The concept of moral consequences and alignments can be seen in action RPGs as early as the 1985 releases Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu, with its Karma system where the character's Karma meter will change depending on who he kills which in turn affects the way other NPCs react to him, and Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness, where the player can be aligned with Justice, Normal, or Evil, depending on whether the player kills good/evil monsters or humans, leading to townsfolk ignoring players with an evil alignment. Cosmic Soldier: Psychic War in 1987 featured a non-linear conversation system, where the player can recruit allies by talking to them, choose whether to kill or spare an enemy, and engage enemies in conversation, similar to Megami Tensei. One of the first action RPGs to feature multiple endings was Konami's 1987 release Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which introduced a day-night cycle that affects when certain NPCs appear in certain locations and offered three possible endings depending on the time it took to complete the game. In 1988, Ys II introduced the unique ability to transform into a monster, which allows the player to both scare human non-player characters for unique dialogues as well as interact with all the monsters. This is a recurring highlight in the series, offering the player insight into the enemies, to an extent that very few other games allow to this day.

Some of Quintet's action RPGs allowed players to shape the game world through town-building simulation elements, such as Soul Blazer in 1992 and Terranigma in 1995. That same year, Square's Seiken Densetsu 3 allowed a number of different possible storyline paths and endings depending on which combination of characters the player selected. The game also introduced a class-change system that incorporated light-dark alignments. The following year, Treasure's Guardian Heroes in 1996 allowed players to alter the storyline through their actions, such as choosing between a number of branching paths leading to multiple different endings and through the Karma meter which changes depending on whether the player kills civilians or shows mercy to enemies.

Some of the earliest action RPGs to allow players to alter the storyline's outcome through dialogue choices were tri-Ace's Star Ocean series of sci-fi RPGs. The original Star Ocean, published by Enix in 1996, introduced a "private actions" social system, where the protagonist's relationship points with the other characters are affected by the player's choices, which in turn affects the storyline, leading to branching paths and multiple different endings. This was expanded in its 1999 sequel, Star Ocean: The Second Story, which boasted as many as 86 different endings, with each of the possible permutations to these endings numbering in the thousands, setting a benchmark for the amount of outcomes possible for a video game. Using a relationship system inspired by dating sims, each of the characters had friendship points and relationship points with each of the other characters, allowing the player to pair together, or ship, any couples (both romantic heterosexual relationships as well as friendships) of their choice, allowing a form of fan fiction to exist within the game itself. This type of social system was later extended to allow romantic lesbian relationships in BioWare's 2007 sci-fi RPG Mass Effect. However, the relationship system in Star Ocean not only affected the storyline, but also the gameplay, affecting the way the characters behave towards each other in battle.

In 1997, Quintet's The Granstream Saga, while having a mostly linear plot, offered a difficult moral choice towards the end of the game regarding which of two characters to save, each leading to a different ending. In 1999, Square's Legend of Mana, the most open-ended in the Mana series, allowed the player to build the game world however they choose, complete any quests and subplots they choose in any order of their choice, and choose which storyline paths to follow, departing from most other action RPGs in its time. That same year, Square's survival horror RPG Parasite Eve II featured branching storylines and up to three different possible endings.

Other games such as Orphen: Scion of Sorcery (2000), Ephemeral Fantasia (2001), Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003), Tales of Symphonia (2003), Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), Radiata Stories (2005), Steambot Chronicles (2005), The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006), Odin Sphere (2007), Fallout 3 (2008), White Gold: War in Paradise (2008), Alpha Protocol (2010), Dragon's Dogma (2012), and the Gothic, Way of the Samurai, Drakengard, Fable, Yakuza, Devil Summoner and Mass Effect series, allow the player to make many game-altering choices in dialogues and events, while still maintaining their respective action elements, whether they be in the first person or the third person.