Scrolling Text

[Colemans_Ghost]

I've noticed in a lot of recent RPGs the relationship between games that are fully voiced and the old-school games that used scrolling text. I believe the two can comparatively achieve pretty much the same effects to one another.

I remember from series of games such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and that PS2 Wizardry jrpg how well they were able to set an even better mood than the best voice acting I have heard in games like KOTOR using scrolling text and a good music score during cinematic moments of dialog. When Dragon Quest games' dialog scrolled it usually made this beeping or ticking sound for every letter as well, it worked as a good filler IMO. The upside to this would be that you could code as much dialog as with a text RPG ala Planescape Torment, and could even include voicework if you really wanted to for specific characters.

So what I was thinking was, what if one were to use jRpg-esque scrolling text + CRpg-esque branching dialog + good BGM together? Has it ever been done? Is this a good combination? Why or why not?

Also, for the sake of munchkinism I suppose I should probably say something like

" new here lol, 'sup /codex/. lol"

 

[deuxhero]

I agree that the scrolling text can help add, for lack of a better term, "emotion" to dialog with proper pauses and speed (it tends to do this better than voiced stuff, as the subtitles spoil what is after a voice acting pause).

Strange Journey has an excellent example of music and scrolling text adding to the dialogue. One sidequest has you talk to a fellow crewman who has fallen in love with a demon (who, in fairness, is a humanoid that in mythology does indeed have sex with mortals) the ellipsis and sudden stop of the music really add to the mood (it works better in action)