Are there games where RandomEncounters fit the plot?

Yeaaaaah, some JRPG use the "something is creating monsters/causing them to appear/became violent" thing rather often.

The main SMT games may not be big on YHWH(and Lucifer is very rarely portrayed as anything more positive than Chaotic Neutral), but the spin-offs tend to not mind him as much(Devil Survivor even portrays him semi-positively).

Persona usually doesn't even acknowledge mythological creatures/religious entities, since most of the enemies and Persona are products of people's mind.

The Exile/Avernum series usually tries to justify this, especially so in the third game, Ruined World, where the Random Encounters are the central focus of the story, since they're the result of a plot to… Well, ruin the entire world. Every city in the game is under siege, and is gradually reduced to rubble if you're too tardy in your mission, namely locating and shutting down all of the Mook Makers the villains have installed around the world.

An RPG that integrates random monster plagues so tightly it probably counts as a deconstruction is Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis. In it, subjecting each island society on the archipelago to unending monster plagues is the cornerstone of the Big Bad's social experiment to see what happens when different types of societies are forced to live in a state of fear.

Secret Of Mana - again, "world changing event that throws the natural order into chaos causes the wildlife to attack". It seems to be the case that some things in that world are basically animals but act like they're on some sort of steroids after the Mana Sword is removed from the stone at the start of the game - Rabites, Mushbooms and other fauna-type enemies being good examples - but that genuine demons and other sorts of evil monsters actually are out there. They just don't attack, and live in the wilds with a mutual understanding with people that neither ventures too often into the others' territory lest they be torn to bits.

It's common as dirt, but this thread is turning out to feature quite a number of clever twists on the concept. Check out Eric DVH's post. Madness.

That's good to know. I expect that I'd break my principle if the cosmic role reversal led to good plots. Few games seem to build something interesting on it, and the trope itself has gone from edgy to as trite as dying mentors. The evil churches all blur together and nowadays, when I see a beautiful being of light in a video game, I reach for the shotgun. It's really rather depressing.

edited 23rd Mar '11 5:04:14 PM by Kizor

Those aren't really random encounters.

Unless we're just talking about encounters in general now.

edited 23rd Mar '11 5:37:06 PM by JotunofBoredom

Metal Walker justifies it, as the enemies are Killer Robots and only you and a few other people even have Mons. Nobody goes outside, as even the towns aren't safe.

edited 23rd Mar '11 6:58:54 PM by lalalei2001