When the Western world was introduced into RPG gaming in 1997 thanks to Final Fantasy VII, many RPG games adopted the "Active Time Battle" system.
It was still essentially a "turn-based" system, but each character had a specific amount of time to execute a certain move until it was the opposition's turn.

From then on, many RPG games adopted this style of gameplay including the next two games in the Final Fantasy series. It wasn't until the release of FFX that the old turn-based style was brought back thanks to popular demand.

The turn-based RPG system is liked by many RPG veterans because it involves more intricate thinking, strategy and planning. Unlike the "Active Time Battle" system where you may make a quick snap decision which may prove costly to the battle.

Detractors of this style of RPG games are gamers who were brought up playing more action-orientated video games. Final Fantasy XII went to a different approach and borrowed elements from World of Warcraft.

The gameplay changed dramatically with no random battles and gamers only controlled one character at a time. The other characters were controlled by the A.I. whose actions were determined before-hand by the player. It was a bold and novel approach which was lauded by critics, but sadly fans of the Final Fantasy series, disliked the way their favorite RPG series was heading.

Fast forward to 2010, and the long waited FFXIII made its way onto the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Needless to say, the style of gameplay changed once again but this time, the gameplay borrowed the no random encounters from FFXII along with the "Active Time Battle" system seen on the RPG games in the PSOne era.

Although the system was considered to be the best thing about the game, sadly the game itself failed to excite the veteran RPG gamer with its lack of towns and very linear style of gameplay.

It's funny though that a high budget game like FFXIII has very linear gameplay while some of the RPG games seen in Bestonlinerpggames.com, as they offer a plethora of games with both turn-based and action style of RPG gaming.

The future of the Final Fantasy series looks to be going to the route of the action-RPG genre with the next games adopting a more hack-and-slash approach as seen in the Kingdom Hearts games. Whether or not this is a good move remains to be seen. Considering the Call of Duty series offers linear gameplay and spontaneous action it doesn't affect the sales of that franchise. Sales of Call of Duty have never been better.

Although Final Fantasy XIII may not have been received as well as its many predecessors, the game still managed to sell close to 6 million copies worldwide.

If you're want to play old-school style of RPG games then Bestonlinerpggames.com is is for you. It may not be as flashy as Final Fantasy but the games still offer hours of fun.