Active Time Battle - Where Has It Gone?

The Active Time Battle system, or ATB, was a staple of RPGs back in the '90s. Where did it go? Why have games regressed to a pure turn-based battle-system paradigm?

The ATB was the perfect middle-ground between tacticalness, and action. I do not like strict turn-based action, nor a pure action-based system. I actually find the ATB-system to be the most fun, because I do not have to worry about moving around like a bunny-rabbit and just worry about the tactics I will employ during a battle; and the element of time and turn-orders getting jumbled up and/or overlapping adds tension and randomness.

I also liked controlling a whole party of characters, not just one and have the others on auto-pilot. This is why I'm not really interested in FFXV, and I found FFXIII disappointing.

When I think about the games that most greatly utilized ATB, I immediately think of FFVI and FFVII. Especially in FFVII, you could manipulate time and be really creative with the way you played the game.

Please, developers, bring ATB back.

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