I’m torn about them. On the one hand they free up the combat design to be as wildly different from the exploration as it wants. Which can result in really creative stuff. Favorite examples are Undertale, MegaMan Battle Network series, and Tales series.
But on the other they interrupt the flow of exploration, the music, you forget where you were by the end of combat and they can be very annoying if they happen to be common or just as you’re about to leave an area. The consolation prize of growing stronger with every battle only helps so much.
my favorites were in the fallout series, if you were good, bad guys came, if you were bad, good guys came. nice random fights in new places.
even in BOTW the ninjas showed up periodically
The good thing about the fallout series is that unless you’re in survivor, you can generally carry enough to deal with the encounter. It’s not like far cry where you’re just like “FUCK! WORST possible timing!” And it was always like a stupid fucking badger or something. I don’t even mind coming across death claws. I’m carrying 15 mini nukes, 120 stimpacks, leveled up power armor and enough ammunition to make lead poisoning a bigger environmental threat than the rads.
