A Rant on Modern Gaming

[Antisocial_Worker]

I'd say you'd enjoy FFIX and XII then, which are great stories, but sounds like you didn't necessarily like those either.

Nah, I didn't much care for them... Although the reason why was a personal quirk. I really can't stand the notion of a hundred different races of "metahumans," which ruined 9 for me (and also Chrono Cross, because there was only one race of metahuman in Chrono Trigger, but suddenly anthropomorphized animals everywhere in Cross), and it also just seems that with the advent of Final Fantasy X (whiniest main character EVER), they devolved into style over substance in everything from the way the characters looked to the architecture of the buildings they explored. To this day, I still think the very best Final Fantasy was 6, because of the steampunk elements, the technological revolution, and the look and feel of the world -- which looked an awful lot like an English village circa 1890 deep in the throes of modernization. I loved that look and feel, and nothing since has come close, although I did also like the look and feel of VII with its modernity and urban decay.

Other games I especially like are the Shin Megami Tensei Persona series, Shadow Hearts, and the first and original Wild ARMs.

[Kheldarson]

I can dig the reason. I find the metahuman thing cute, personally, but I can get it.

Kabe loves FFVI himself. He can still recite the opera from memory.

And I enjoy the Wild ARMs series as well. The gameplay drives me batty sometimes, but I do enjoy their stories.

[Kara]

I really can't stand the notion of a hundred different races of "metahumans," which ruined 9 for me (and also Chrono Cross, because there was only one race of metahuman in Chrono Trigger, but suddenly anthropomorphized animals everywhere in Cross)

I didn't like the character designs of FFIX, but they kind of grew on my as I played the game. As for Chrono Cross, what killed it was them deciding to take one of the most whimsical-yet-awesome games ever, and give it to the Xenogears dev team so they could turn it into a dark tale full of angst and depressing outcomes for everyone. Oh, and all those beloved characters from Chrono Trigger? Yeah, they all died horribly. Somehow.

And yes, FFVI was the best and I am STILL waiting on my 3D, fully voiced remake like they did with FFIII and IV. Of course, now it will come with 10 million mandatory tutorials for every little thing :P

[jedimaster91]

I'd be ecstatic with a FFVII remake with an accurate translation ("This guy are sick" lol) and PS3 level graphics. The polygons were revolutionary for the time, but now they're a little creepy, TBH.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I don't think anything beats the translation issue from the NES game Metal Gear.

You move one screen down from your start position -yes at the very beginning of the game! - and immediately see this guard guy standing next a covered cargo truck. Instantly the guard screams, "I'M GETTING SLEEPY!!!" (yes! With exclamation points!) Then you see him fall asleep and can hop into the cargo transport.

I nearly peed myself laughing the first time I saw that.

[RayvenQ]

We just have stuff like Call of Duty which is just "Here are some differently skinned maps and weapons, and maybe a game play upgrade, have fun." Which to me is really annoying.

Money talks, and games like CoD sell really well. Black Ops 2 for example, made $500 Million in the first Week (or may have even been weekend)

For big publishers, it's about what sells, so if they can get away with rehashing something that was popular, they will. It's sad but true, Big publishers don't do innovation/new ideas all that well, since with it comes the risk of it not selling well.

But that gap is slowly being filled with indie developers, whpo are more willingto try something new, and with crowd funding becoming a popular thing, we'll see more of it in the future.

[Kheldarson]

I didn't like the character designs of FFIX, but they kind of grew on my as I played the game. As for Chrono Cross, what killed it was them deciding to take one of the most whimsical-yet-awesome games ever, and give it to the Xenogears dev team so they could turn it into a dark tale full of angst and depressing outcomes for everyone. Oh, and all those beloved characters from Chrono Trigger? Yeah, they all died horribly. Somehow.

And yes, FFVI was the best and I am STILL waiting on my 3D, fully voiced remake like they did with FFIII and IV. Of course, now it will come with 10 million mandatory tutorials for every little thing :P

Kabe would love to see, and I'd have to agree with him, a prequel game to VI. As in, let's see the War of the Mages. If they can do it for VII....

[Gravekeeper]

You move one screen down from your start position -yes at the very beginning of the game! - and immediately see this guard guy standing next a covered cargo truck. Instantly the guard screams, "I'M GETTING SLEEPY!!!" (yes! With exclamation points!) Then you see him fall asleep and can hop into the cargo transport.

It was worse than that, he yelled "I FEEL ASLEEP" as I recall.

I don't miss manuals. Saves some trees. They don't make manuals like they did back then anyway. Save for Blizzard who still approachs manuals as works of art. Besides, old console manuals use to be for the story since the games at the time weren't advanced enough to convey a ton of plot set up. Use to be that you read the manual so you knew wtf was going on. Because the game wasn't going to tell you beyond a couple lines of text at the start or a 10 second cut scene.

The problem is designing an in-game alternative. Some companies do it right, some do it wrong ( Square Enix, Nintendo in some cases ). Square Enix is particularly inept in this regard. I had more tutorial cut scenes than battles in the first hour of Kingdom Hearts 3DS -.-

Nevermind what they've done to Final Fantasy.

[Kara]

Yeah, when I made the mistake of playing Final Fantasy XIII, they tried to make it part of the story but failed utterly because I only thought I really understood the mechanics of the battle system and I didn't find out until a major boss fight that I had missed something important somewhere. Plus they made the characters look like slobbering idiots. In fact, the main character acted like it was a complete waste of time and an a total annoyance to have to teach the secondary character how to play the game. Protip: If your own game is irritated at having to teach us how to play, if the character you have conducting the tutorial sighs and rolls her eyes at having to do so, you're doing it wrong.

Better implementation can't be as hard as they seem to think it is.

[Eevie]

Personally, I liked something that was present in the game "Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs". For those like me who aren't strangers to the series and have played since the beginning, you are given the option of completely skippable tutorials, aside from some new aspects introduced. It would be awesome if more games could have something like that. It would definitely make replaying a game a lot less annoying.

[jedimaster91]

The problem is designing an in-game alternative. Some companies do it right, some do it wrong ( Square Enix, Nintendo in some cases ). Square Enix is particularly inept in this regard. I had more tutorial cut scenes than battles in the first hour of Kingdom Hearts 3DS -.-

Nevermind what they've done to Final Fantasy.

KH games ALWAYS have a ton of tutorial/exposition cutscenes at the beginning. KH2 Prologue, anyone? >.< At least DDD wasn't that bad, although the New Game+ should let you skip the Dream Eater creation tutorial.

[RayvenQ]

My personal peeve is in RTS games when they have unskippable cutscenes that not only put your view half way over the map and then even worse when they leave you over there and dont move you back, that on higher difficulties the second or two you waste moving your view back can be the difference between winning an losing.

[Dilorenzo]

Honestly, I've found myself moving away from most Triple A gaming recently. Indie games tend to take more risks and have more interesting, emotional stories or experiences for me. I haven't been able to stop hyping To The Moon, Journey or Lone Survivor quite enough, to the point I am actually forcing my wife to play To The Moon right now.

That's not to say I don't play some triple A - I just find myself less excited about a lot of the larger games. Next big western title I want is Bioshock Infinite, and I just picked up Ni No Kuni - but that's about it.

Regarding manuals, it's a 50% "money saver" and 50% "being green" thing. Packaging less paper in their less plastic boxes is a big checkmark for when they get audited for their environmental output.

And, to be honest, I don't really miss the manuals, except, like GK noted above, for the ones that actually had something to them. I can't remember the last time I saw an awesome manual.

May have been Grim Fandango, actually...

While the constant tutorials do annoy me, it's nowhere near as bad to me as "hey, we're going to highlight every handhold you can use when you're climbing so you don't go the worng way" thing that's going on right now. Can't have us exploring, so everything should be nice and spelled out. Sometimes I like going the wrong way, damnit. I like to learn not to go that way again, because of spikes or whatever.

Prince of Persia is a great example of the above. While the original, and the PS2 version (Sands of Time, I didn't play the others) were challenging and rewarding to explore and experience, the one with Nolan North was just terrible. You literally could not die. I tried quite a few times, to see if I could make it happen, but couldn't.

Story wasn't even that good.

*sniffs and pushes glasses back from point of nose*

[Andara Bledin]

The old Atari Lynx games all had on-card manuals. As in, there was a screen you could go to to learn how to play the game that was entirely independent of the actual game.

As for in-game teaching, The Bard's Tale strikes a good balance, although it could be a little more informative for a couple of things that I still don't know what they do, despite having reached the final boss. >_<

^-.-^

[wolfie]

While the constant tutorials do annoy me, it's nowhere near as bad to me as "hey, we're going to highlight every handhold you can use when you're climbing so you don't go the worng way" thing that's going on right now. Can't have us exploring, so everything should be nice and spelled out. Sometimes I like going the wrong way, damnit. I like to learn not to go that way again, because of spikes or whatever.

That's not a new phenomenon. Back in the late '80s, "Ford Simulator" (basically a non-scored driving game put out by "blue oval" where you could use any of their then-current products) took the "hand-holding" route. Want to go off-roading in the Explorer? Sorry, it guides you back to the road. Pick something with a stick, get it up to 60 MPH, and do a 5-1 shift? Nothing - given the state of the art in home computers at the time, I can understand not having an animated engine fly up through the hood, but not even a message "In a real car, this would destroy your engine. Press ENTER to continue." There's always someone who will try to push the limits - anticipate this.