I've been thinking about defense and defensive tactics in games.

Being on offense, in most every game, is inherently more fun. Madden defense is like a whack-a-mole sim, blocking in RPGs is a pretty bland affair, and its a rare moment that I'd go for block in Castle Crashers. Things die better when you atack them, and extermination is wicked fun.

But what about defensive capabilities as a main game mechanic? Its trivial and incidental, but I think its an area of gaming the could use some exploration and expansion.

RPGS make a great use of defensive ideas. I think Cover, the Final Fantasy spell, was one of my earliest memories of blocking really meaning something. When the paladin character was using Cover on a team member, he would snap on top of that team member to absorb the damage. Aside from helping to prolong a difficult encounter, it also worked to shape that character's personality and role in the party. He's the protector of the group, at the expense of his own life.




Looking more recently, Lost Odyssey has built its fighting system very heavily around the idea of maintaining a defense. This is almost jarring at first, as it became clear early on to me that I would spend alot of time blocking to maintain my party's Guardian rating. The effect of this compliments the characterization of the main players in the game. Kaim is depicted in many ways as a gentle yet calculating soul, listening to and absorbing the experiences of those around him, rather then interjecting himself into the world. Compared to other characters in RPGs, it feels very right for him to have to balance out his battles between defense and offense.

Most genre, however, don't put the act of damage mitigation into great pivotal use. In more FPS, its a matter of avoiding fire, rather than taking it in. Looking to the old side scrollers, the implication from design puts a greater focus on avoidance than taking in damage. Those side scrollers, like Castlevania, allowed for a certain amount of endurance in a player, but more often than not, encounters were designed around the ideal of avoiding hits for greatest success.



I think it would be interesting to build a game around the idea of taking hits. Considering the tenants of Aikido, a game expanding on the idea of taking and re-using the force behind an enemy's attach could be a transcendant sort of experience. Kirby and Yoshi follow something close to this idea: absorbing and transferring some matter, and expelling it back out. But even the absorbing is a kind of an aggressor move. What if a character had to take the brunt of an onslaught before ANY aggressive force could be used? Maybe taking the "bullet time"-like mechanic from XNA Community Game "Weapon of Choice" and using that to pull off an absorbing block combo.

What do you think, Destructoid? Would you want to put the shield before the sword? Is there any other example of excellence in defensive gameplay?