2012-07-02, 04:09 PM
Realized a few reason for my recent hesitance since the last post.
Still, getting out of another little rut, so things are improving again. Progress should return to a reasonable pace soon.
Starting with a side rant
Missables & Consequences
I'm a collector; I shouldn't have to restate that fact. Recently I've been trying to get around it thanks to practicality and budgeting, but it's still there.
It shouldn't come as any surprise that people who like to collect things dislike permanently missable content within a game. But I've been hearing counter-arguements about difficulty, and allowing players to never feel like they've missed something is being viewed as "too easy". Now, previously, I would have disputed this because it was about my interests, but thinking about it; most RPGs are. That much I'll give them, and I suppose that much can drive the market. But what gets to me is why have a 5 minute segment within a game with no direction to the player to find that has an effect on the end of the game without affecting the remainder of the story? In games that can take over 100 hours per completion in cases?
I find that consequence too harsh personally. Why repeat a game for one minor task? If you are going to make it pivotal within the game, how about you branch the story along with it? Change future dialog, enter different areas, gain different affinities? If all it is going to do is alter some "point score" used to determine the ending, just don't do it. Unless it is a short enough game with a good enough reason to be replayed. I can't say that most traditional RPGs can validate that on gameplay mechanics alone. Divergent story paths, perhaps, but I can't really want to go back and play say Dragon Quest 4 just for it's mechanics since they are often repeated and have newer variants that are more appealing.
Another more obvious point of this is missable items within the catalog of the game needed for 100% of something. I can definitely understand that there should be consequences for not paying enough attention within the game; more-so for intentionally doing the wrong thing. But to make that one thing entirely unavailable for the duration of the game causing a restart for that reason alone is again, way too harsh for longer games.
In cases like these, I am perfectly fine with such content as long as it is made available post-game. Heck, make it 10 times harder to emphasize that you could have gotten it easier before; just don't take it away permanently. It really ticks me off, and makes me feel like to get the best out of my time, I HAVE to follow a guide; at which point I'm not really playing the game, now am I? It winds up just following the motions and completing a task set about in an instruction manual. Quite frankly, developers need to stop doing that unless they can truly justify it with multiple endings (pushing it), multiple story arcs, or multiple ways to approach a task. This hit me a little in Valkrye Profile (stopped) and Star Ocean 4 (slow, but still playing)
It shouldn't come as any surprise that people who like to collect things dislike permanently missable content within a game. But I've been hearing counter-arguements about difficulty, and allowing players to never feel like they've missed something is being viewed as "too easy". Now, previously, I would have disputed this because it was about my interests, but thinking about it; most RPGs are. That much I'll give them, and I suppose that much can drive the market. But what gets to me is why have a 5 minute segment within a game with no direction to the player to find that has an effect on the end of the game without affecting the remainder of the story? In games that can take over 100 hours per completion in cases?
I find that consequence too harsh personally. Why repeat a game for one minor task? If you are going to make it pivotal within the game, how about you branch the story along with it? Change future dialog, enter different areas, gain different affinities? If all it is going to do is alter some "point score" used to determine the ending, just don't do it. Unless it is a short enough game with a good enough reason to be replayed. I can't say that most traditional RPGs can validate that on gameplay mechanics alone. Divergent story paths, perhaps, but I can't really want to go back and play say Dragon Quest 4 just for it's mechanics since they are often repeated and have newer variants that are more appealing.
Another more obvious point of this is missable items within the catalog of the game needed for 100% of something. I can definitely understand that there should be consequences for not paying enough attention within the game; more-so for intentionally doing the wrong thing. But to make that one thing entirely unavailable for the duration of the game causing a restart for that reason alone is again, way too harsh for longer games.
In cases like these, I am perfectly fine with such content as long as it is made available post-game. Heck, make it 10 times harder to emphasize that you could have gotten it easier before; just don't take it away permanently. It really ticks me off, and makes me feel like to get the best out of my time, I HAVE to follow a guide; at which point I'm not really playing the game, now am I? It winds up just following the motions and completing a task set about in an instruction manual. Quite frankly, developers need to stop doing that unless they can truly justify it with multiple endings (pushing it), multiple story arcs, or multiple ways to approach a task. This hit me a little in Valkrye Profile (stopped) and Star Ocean 4 (slow, but still playing)
Emotional Ties
Lately, I just haven't had the emotional stamina to handle story driven games so I've been crawling back to task driven ones to tie me over in the meanwhile (Disgaea 3, Kairosoft Cell Phone Games). I want to get back to them, I just can't handle most good story elements right now.
Pacing
This is why I think I had such a problem with Star Ocean 4, and I don't believe it is exclusive to the game (pretty damn sure Xenosaga had the same problem), but just the same, it's a hindrance and I don't have the patience I used to. What I mean here is that there are hours of cutscene/peaceful town actions, then hours of fighting (often without save points throughout). This led me to be overly critical of each element, since they were forcing it in your face for a period that seemed a bit too long. If they had managed to break it down a little better (more checkpoints/peaceful areas: less 5 cutscenes in a row), I probably would not have been so hard on the characters themselves. And as of now, I still haven't bothered trying to grind each area for missable database content and quests that happen in each fighting area that would likely triple duration of time I'd have to spend in them. And as it was I experienced a dungeon area going 2 hours before finding one save point from the last. Improve the split, and all of the other points I made probably wouldn't have been noticed.
Beyond Good & Evil HD
100% Completion except for mdisk 13 which required registration with Ubisoft's website. Have a separate save in case I decide to do that though. There was no platinum for this game.
Ratchet & Clank: Crack in Time
Platinum gotten.
Star Ocean 4
Still in En II. I misunderstood the quest dialog for getting the wind ring and wound up doing a quest for an NPC who shared the name making me beyond broke (bought all the skills beforehand). When I finally got it, I was confused since I had spammed the X button all around the area for around 20 minutes before and nothing happened. Will likely be finishing soon.
3D Dot Game Heroes
There's really no other way to describe this than a Minecraft inspired (when was this released again?) hybrid between Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest with intentional parody.
At first I was confused as to why they had taken the full power sword beam from Zelda and made it ridiculously overpowered. I mean, to make it silly, even the upgrades you pay for at the blacksmith ONLY APPLY to the full health version. It was like there's no point to even be alive if you aren't at full health to overkill everything. And then I found out about spelunker mode (1 hit death).
So yeah, this is one of those very, very easy games with stupidly hard challenges. Here's one to try: Play spelunker mode with no deaths using only the Gladius and secondary items. The Gladius in this game is about the length of the swords in 2D Zelda games versus the better ones in this game which are about 12 times that size.
At first I was confused as to why they had taken the full power sword beam from Zelda and made it ridiculously overpowered. I mean, to make it silly, even the upgrades you pay for at the blacksmith ONLY APPLY to the full health version. It was like there's no point to even be alive if you aren't at full health to overkill everything. And then I found out about spelunker mode (1 hit death).
So yeah, this is one of those very, very easy games with stupidly hard challenges. Here's one to try: Play spelunker mode with no deaths using only the Gladius and secondary items. The Gladius in this game is about the length of the swords in 2D Zelda games versus the better ones in this game which are about 12 times that size.
Still, getting out of another little rut, so things are improving again. Progress should return to a reasonable pace soon.