FMW
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Everything posted by FMW
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Dear forum. I need a new Metroid game. Or a new 2D Castlevania game. Why are these games not being made for me?
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Oh, I assumed you meant you wanted more like the bad ones.
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Have you ever played the Prinny games on PSP? Tough sidescrollers with shitty controls and static jumping. Should please any old school Castlevania fan.
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Get Shadow Complex if you own a 360.
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Question: Do Nintendo first party games count as AAA? I've always figured they did. You have a game like Animal Crossing: New Leaf and it's a game that a large company spent a lot of time and manpower creating, localizing, and marketing. And it's high quality. The graphics are polished and are in the upper echelon of what's possible on the hardware (you always need to add that "possible on the hardware" line because otherwise even AAA output on PS4 wouldn't count because it's getting shit on by high end PCs or Pixar or whatever). That's I think what's important here. Not the type/genre of the games on the Vita, but the development resources put towards those games. When a game is made specifically for the strengths and limitations of a system, that's evident to the consumer. When a game has enough time in development to be fully realized, that's evident to the consumer. When a game is superior to other games on the same hardware in terms of graphics, you tend to notice that. It's not unheard of for a game to be ported to a different kind of hardware (console to handheld in this case) and be just as good as before, but that's not the most common outcome. Game design for handhelds is different than game design for a home theater experience. Visual design is different for a screen measured in inches instead of feet. The best handheld games are designed around the strengths and limitations of a handheld experience. THAT is what the PS Vita is missing. Games that take advantage of it's more esoteric hardware features. Games that make the Vita a more compelling purchase than a competing system. Games that you can talk about with other people and count on them having heard of it. It sounds shallow, but money matters. Nobody is saying that the PS Vita can't attract quality games under the current model. It can and it has. I say that there are specific benefits to well funded, original software content for a video game platform. And Sony isn't really trying to secure that. They aren't even making any themselves, far as I can tell. And no, AAA has no particular correlation with quality. I mean, I think they turn out better than other games by a slight percentage margin just because of the time and development resources, but they turn out like that Thief reboot often enough that they're never a sure thing. It's ironic that the PS Vita was built to pack so much processing power into it but so many of the games make little or no use of it.
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AAA is dead on the Vita. Don Mesa (Director of Product Planning & Platform Software Innovation at Sony Computer Entertainment America) in the PS blog comments reports: "Thanks for your support. As for the big games: The economics simply don’t work with the traditional process. We have to do something different to get AAA games on Vita. We accomplished it to a certain degree by making PS4 games work on Vita via remote play. PS Now will be another way, streaming PS3 games on Vita. I can’t wait until PS Now is out on Vita – I hope you’ll try out the experience and let me know what you think." My Reaction: The Playstation Vita is in a really interesting spot. For the longest time the video game console mentality has been "software sells hardware". Secure the best, the most popular, and the most progressive software for your console and the consumers will follow. But the Playstation Vita is trying to forge an audience in a different way. It's almost "hardware sells software". The big appeal of the Playstation Vita is not the library of Vita games, it's the quality of the hardware and the robust services Sony offers to the users. Cross buy, remote play, Playstation plus "free" games library... eventually whatever gets worked out with Gaikai. PSN Classics. Rather than try to build a competitive software lineup for the handheld Sony has focused on making sure that Vita owners can get games cheaply and conveniently, that the games and saves can be played across the Playstation brand with a minimum of fuss, and that the Sony handheld and the Sony console each support the other encouraging anyone who owns one console to own both. I'm not really a big fan of this strategy. You can get the full Playstation Vita experience only if you also buy the Playstation 4 (and games for that Playstation 4). You can get the full Playstation Vita experience only if you pay a monthly bill for access to the Playstation Plus service and continue to pay that bill indefinitely. I'm not convinced that this is really consumer friendly behavior - it's more like a glorified upsell. On the other hand, this makes a lot of sense for Sony to do in the handheld space. The 3DS and iOS both have absolutely killer software linups, but neither of them is able to tie into an ecosystem like the Vita does. Apple TV never really became a big deal so they don't have a stake in home theater entertainment, and Nintendo just doesn't have the resources to try and create a multifaceted multimedia structure like the giant corporations Sony, Microsoft, and Apple can. So if the Vita can't compete in original software, maybe this is for the best? This way the Vita is at least differentiating itself from the competition. And also worth remembering: Sales-wise, their strategy doesn't seem to be working. The only place where they have decent sales is Japan, and guess what, that's because Japanese software has finally started coming regularly.
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So I had this terrible experience yesterday. Normally when I play an online game I'm the worst person in the lobby. That's just something I've become accustomed to. I am crap at competitive video games and I never put in the time to become a master like some people do with their particular online favorites. But yesterday I was playing Mario Kart 7 online and I was kicking ass! I got first place in four or five races in a row. When you can do that in Mario Kart, rubber banding blue shell chucking Mario Kart, you KNOW you're good. I got hit by two blue shells in one race and STILL won. It was a heady feeling, going online and being "that guy". And I wasn't even playing like a scumbag! I don't even know where the shortcuts in this game are, I never even finished the single player content. I was just focusing on staying in the middle of the road and dodging obstacles. But I was still kicking ass! And then I realized "Oh. I'm a 22 year old man going online and beating little kids in Mario Kart." And that made me sad.
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Man, SMT IV is good. But I get mad playing it because it's SO close to being great. But it isn't. For now, it's recommended to genre enthusiasts only.
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But dat boss music tho.
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SMT IV is like one of the most unforgiving games I've played early on. If they wondered why many people stopped playing early on, that's why.
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Yeah, the difficulty curve is messed up. It's mega punishing for the first five hours, then slowly becomes reasonable. That's the OPPOSITE of a good difficulty curve :/
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3DS and Vita are interesting test cases. "Can a console survive in 2014 on only Japanese games" is the 3DS and "Can a console survive in 2014 without AAA games" is the Vita experiment.
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The Vita has basically no major western support at this point. Japanese devs still develop for it a lot, though. And we're starting to see some localizations for games that wouldn't normally get them, which is pretty cool.
So I'm not sure how the 3DS is surviving on Japanese games only while the Vita isn't. For the Vita to be worthwhile you pretty much need to love Japanese games. Otherwise you're left with indies, which are cool to have but are hardly system s...
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...sellers.
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As far as Japanese games go, I feel like the Vita gets the 3DS's leftovers. 3DS gets the "AAA" Japanese games and the Vita gets everything else.
That being said, I vastly prefer my Vita. I sold my 3DS a long time ago and I don't regret it outside of Mario 3D World. I like playing ports and indies on a handheld. I just wouldnt play them anywhere else. Plus, port or not, The Vita has the best game on both handhelds, Persona 4. My opinion of course.
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You know what? I miss blight town. Blight town didn't have lizards twice my size with twice my reach that flinch at nothing and travel in packs.
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dont forget the lightning spear. It's easily one of the upper tier weapons for a decent amount of the game after that.
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The lightning spear was no good for me. Black knight weapon drops are the best for late game PvE.
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The lizards that spit electricty flinch at halberd attacks, btw. Easy kills as one attach breaks their poise.
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Blight Town. Does it ever end? Current experiments point towards no.
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Well my sword broke so now I'm just trying to fight my way back OUT with a machete I picked up. It's not going well. Only ever upgraded one sword.
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Happened to me, too. Didn't bother buying ability to repair at bonfires and got stuck in blight town. You can run and dodge most enemies and escape.
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Blight town is a bitch, with those toxic dart shooting arseholes. Best advice, just keep going down, the messages should lead you to the bonfires, and watch your step.
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Dark Souls is the action game for me. I'm not normally into action games. I do not have very good reflexes, and I do not do well with particularly complicated controls or extended combo strings. But Dark Souls actually moves at a pretty measured pace, and there are like only three inputs that matter. I'm also a big fan of how small scale most of Dark Souls is. Most video games have issues with scale. Sometimes enemies become entirely trivial as the player becomes too powerful. Sometimes it's because they throw "THE END OF THE WORLD" around as if upping the stakes will save an otherwise rotten narrative. Dark Souls does pretty well with keeping the animations grounded, keeping every fight relevant, and making "THE END OF THE WORLD" actually matter by showing the decay of this universe in every area and enemy. This is the best depiction of the end of a world in a video game since Metroid Prime, and I think it's probably even better. Lastly, the art is just awesome. It's like the Japanese development team started out with a bucket of western fantasy tropes but didn't know how to use them right. So we ended up with all these wonderful/grotesque variations on boring standards like skeletons or dragons or whatever. So I could do without some of archaic design (Oooh, I got a key! Time to do a sweep of the entire world to find the one locked door I can go through now. Again.) and I REALLY wish this game came with a manual that explained how the stats and mechanics work (I just tried kindling and as far as I can tell it did nothing for me) and it's a super hard game to get into. But now that I'm in I'm pretty happy with it. Probably my favorite action game. Combos suck.
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Better than Bravely Default? Any Final Fantasy Tactics game. Gonna replay A2 for the third time brb
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<3 A2
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Funny, I had Tactics for the PSP and never really got into it all that much, but Bravely Default, I almost can't put down. I get that they both have a lot of similarities, but I don't think Tactics is a good game to compare it with. Just because both have similar art direction and both have job systems, doesn't mean they stack up against each other. Then again, maybe I just need to go and replay Tactics when I've got this over me.
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I gotta completely disagree with Frosty here, the game is amazing so far. I hear later chapters becoming a hassle with go to x then y then x again, but the charm of the game plus the battle system and social stuff have made me keep coming. I highly recommend it, it might end up as one of my top 5-10 favorite jrpgs.
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So, should GOH get a 3DS just to play Fire Emblem? I think... no. See, Fire Emblem is one of those games that's greater than the sum of it's parts. The strategy is good, but it's made better by managing the friendships between your soldiers for maximum synergy. The plot is passable, but it's elevated by the fact that the player is attached to all the characters involved because of the heavy emphasis on character bonding. The date sim stuff is kinda just a giant pile of anime cliches, but because the player is free to engage with it as much or as little as he chooses. That's the real sneaky bit - dumb anime melodrama that's forced on you? That's the worst. Dumb anime melodrama that you discover and create through your own strategy? That's a lot more compelling. So the strategy feeds into the characters which feed into the plot which feeds leads you on to the next mission. It's a pretty compulsive cycle. But if you don't buy into part of it, then the whole thing falls apart. None of the elements on their own are worth buying a 3DS for. And I don't see GOH buying into the anime melodrama side. He was always too cool for that stuff. And without that it's just a sequence of strategy game missions. GOOD strategy game missions.... but you can get those anywhere. He could just play Skulls of the Shogun.
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It's pretty much the savior returned
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Any Europeans here playing Bravely Default? Can you tell me about it?
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Bravely Default brings my list of games I want for the 3DS up to 3, the other two being SM3DL and Pokemon X/Y (technically two games, but I would only get one).
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Fire Emblem: Awakening should be on that list if you like RPGs at all. It's a grand time. Not the savior returned people are making it out to be, but worth your time anyway.
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Generally speaking I don't like JRPGs. I know Bravely Default is a JRPG, but for some reason it appeals to me, and it being by the same people as 3D Dot Game Heroes certainly helps.
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Yo, I have an amazon gift card that has "old DS game you missed when it came out" written all over it. Of my current list of candidates, does anyone here have particular preferences or reservations? I can afford exactly one of the following: Dragon Quest IV Dragon Quest V Dragon Quest VI Dragon Quest IX Lunar Knights Kirby Canvas Curse Kirby Mass Attack
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Really FF VIII? The ENTIRE PARTY is orphans? And we ALL were in the same orphanage? And we ALL had amnesia about it? You suck.
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Yeah...I enjoyed FF8 at the time, still like dipping in to play a few hours here and there...but everything goes down hill after the first disc :/
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When a game's story is that shit it's fair game for spoilers.
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True. I now have no desire to play it. A guy I work with repeatedly says it's his favourite Final Fantasy. I will now make fun of him next time I see him.
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Dudes. Guys. Girls. I'm like more than a decade late on this but Final Fantasy 8 is kind of great. I'm mad hooked.
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Negative. It has the presentation, the music, and the min/max stat shuffling of a great rpg. The story is melodramatic as all hell. The menu layouts blow though.
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Story and characters were boring, the battling was stupidly grindy, and the art was bland. One of the worst FF games.
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Ya, but it introduced the jumbo cactaur with the awesome mustache. That has to earn the game some props right there.
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You might be able to find other stuff to do while you level up by taking quests from the bar or just poking around the map a bit. Only once in that game did I get hung up and actually need to grind - before the first boss was not that moment. My team comp is actually quite different - there are more than 5 starting classes to choose from you know. I've got Fortress and Swordsman in front, Medic Runemaster and Nightstalker in the rear. About 65% of my party damage output comes from the mage alone. I haven't messed with the classes you unlock later in the game though - once you get that far in it's kinda hard to change the party up.
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What party setup did you decide to go with? Also: "The sluttier dressed anime girls ALWAYS have big bro love issues" Yes WaS, that explains quite a bit about Nanako-chan. Just wait until you see her in Persona 4 Dancing All Night
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For what it's worth, this is the first Zelda game I feel this way about. At least the other games are trying to be something worth remembering. They don't always succeed, but the ambition is there. This game perfectly executes a mission of zero ambition.
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I beat the new Zelda. It is crap. It is a cowardly regression from everything Zelda has ever tried to achieve beyond the common video game. I hope lapsed Zelda fans are fucking happy with this. Everything that could interfere with slashing bad dudes and spelunking through dungeons has been excised. Just the absolute barebones framework of what Zelda is as a formula. Did we really need another game that had nothing to recommend it beyond the caves and the bad guys? The game even LOOKS the most generic of any Zelda these past 10 years.
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As someone who appreciates both, Fire Emblem is definitely the superior product of the two. Etrian Odyssey does what it does really really well, but what it tries to do is so modest! Fire Emblem is not only more ambitious an endeavor than Etrian Odyssey, but the game actually achieves most of those ambitions. Not only does Fire Emblem have a story, but it's a pretty good story! Not only does Fire Emblem allow for a wide variety of approaches to each encounter, but it's the good kind of player choice that actually rewards creativity. Not only does Fire Emblem use some polygons instead of just 2D art for everything, but (finally) it actually looks pretty good in polygons. Fire Emblem has the strengths of Etrian Odyssey (tough but fair difficulty, excellent soundtrack, long run time, polished game systems that have been iterated over the course of the franchise) and has much more besides.
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I know a fair bit about this game! It reviewed well in Japan and outsold Square Enix's expectations leading to an instant sequel greenlight. There's also a rerelease of the game with additional content, some bug fixes, some interface improvements, and some tweaks to the game systems to try some things out that they wanna play around with in Bravely Default 2 (or as it was recently announced to be called: Bravely Second). This rerelease is what released in Europe recently and is coming to North America in February. Dual audio voice tracks are another improvement. This game did begin it's life as Final Fantasy 4 Warriors of Light 2 before transitioning away from the brand mid development. But we've still got airships and crystals so... yay? Much more importantly, the wonderful class system and character art from FF 4 Heroes of Light is back. Though Mr. Amano, the illustrator who did Bravely Default (and FF Tactics and FF XII and the FF III and IV DS remakes) left Square Enix this past week, he's committed to continuing work on the Bravely Default franchise through at least Bravely Third. Maybe what's most interesting about these games is how much player feedback is being considered. There were 4 or 5 demos leading up to release in Japan with online suggestion forms that actually led to changes in the final game. Maybe a month after full retail release there was a 100 question survey the director put up for players to give feedback. Some of it was basic stuff (which classes did you use most. Which did you never use, etc) but some of it was really big picture questions. Would you like to see a sequel show encounters on the map, or random encounters? Should those encounters be turn based or have a real time element? I'll be super interested to see where they take these games since I can't think of another game in the genre that's kept quite such a close eye on the mood of the consumer base. Oh yeah, and I totally want to play it. Because FF 4 Heroes of Light with more ambitious storytelling and more expensive production values sounds good to me!
