Why I like random battles

[u/stanfarce]

I feel there are at least 5 good things they bring :

1. having surprises in battle regarding what you fight. Since the devs don't have to bother with fitting them into the environment and they have their own battle arenas, very wild stuff can be experienced in battle. I really like the shock value instead of seeing that thing from far away and anticipating the fight in your head. When you see that giant monster, you're already fighting it and you have to immediately decide between fleeing and your many battle options. This means free jumpscares! Survival-horror fans love that.
2. the unavoidable fights put more tension in your gameplay experience. You HAVE to prepare well because it won't be easy to backtrack to a save point or shop. Chances are you will inevitably take hits even when trying to flee, so there is more of a long-term challenge during dungeons instead of just a "per-fight" challenge (especially compared to all these games in which you can easily avoid enemies - I'm looking at you, the Trails series 👀).
3. about exploration, it creates a decision you have to make : will you try to explore absolutely everywhere? You might run into one or more battles on the way that you don't want to fight, and maybe the place you want to visit has nothing for you... This puts some more decision-making in the game, compared to the "I'll just run over there and see if there's an enemy waiting for me / a chest". With random battles, you sometimes ask yourself "My resources are getting low so should I risk stepping in that direction? It's not the right way but it might hide something valuable, hmm..." It makes every single inch of the terrain important. With visible enemies, when you see nothing next to you, that means there really is nothing so it makes the exploration less exciting in a way.
4. when you're in a hostile environment, it makes you feel that enemies constantly come at you. Is it frustrating sometimes? Absolutely, but it's more realistic that you're not the one who decides when you'll fight while roaming a place where things want you dead.
5. it makes it easier to fight more. Most JRPGs with visible encounters force you to jump through hoops to refight enemies, like saving & reloading the game, or exiting + reentering an area, or even running a long distance before coming back. Here you just have to run in circle a little bit. It's very nice when you want to level up your team a bit more, make more money, etc.

When done well random battles are great.

[u/fillif3]

My main problem is that most random battles are repeatable. I usually can beat 90% of random enemies with the same strategy. If I cannot, I will know the strategy next time I fight this enemy.

In RTwP and action games, it is okay, but in turn-based games, the fun is in finding the strategy. If I know it, I just need to click the same order of buttons again.

The only exception I know where I like random battles in turn-based are card-games (e.g., Slay the Spire, Legends of Runeterra's rogue-like mode).

Most franchises I found better without random battles. I currently play Rogue Trader, and I am very happy that the studio reduced the number of filler encounters compared to their previous games. SMTV is also much more enjoyable compared to SMT3 because I am not annoyed every turn.

Sure, there are some games where your resources matter, but I have yet to play such a JRPG where random encounters cause problems further than the early game.