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Comments
It's like Skyrim all over again. You just want to go to this one place that looks cool but three hours later you are in charge of some town in bumblefuck nowhere.
KoA, to a great extent, kinda is Skyrim with a more linear area progression, a brighter design and combat that isn't point-and-click.
The Court of Ballads is... somewhat different to just being in charge of a town. :V
^ And better-written quests, for the most part.
Yeah, that too.
And blacksmithing is just as broken~
Honestly, in Skyrim, pretty much everything is overpowered. 100 Blacksmithing just happens to be even more of a god stat than, say, 100 Destruction.
Anyway, working more on my review plans, and actually registered the blog. I won't link to it just now because there's nothing on it yet, but I will say that I went with blogspot because I didn't really see tumblr fitting what I was going for in terms of look and feel and because the name I wanted was taken on Wordpress (by a blog with no posts except a "hey, I'm going to be posting really deep thoughts and stuff here" from 2011).
Yeah. It kinda brings to light the fact that Skyrim really isn't built around combat, even though it's... built around combat.
I've always thought of Bethesda as somehow managing to be really good at making games despite being really bad at game design.
They're really good at making games despite being really bad at making games. It's weird.
Bethesda and Hideo Kojima share notes on how to succeed despite not being good at what they do.
Idunno, I'd argue that they're good at what they're doing, but what they're doing isn't what they're supposed to be doing. If that makes any sense.
The funny thing is, I don't think MGS is really a bad game in terms of gameplay. It's just that Kojima likes jamming exposition down your throat in the name of sacrificing gameplay. Which is specially stupid in games like 3 or 4, where the gameplay sections tend to be able to tell stories and expound on the world created by Kojima way better than the cutscenes.
not like i'm complaining because as far as i'm concerned MGS is the best action movie never filmed.
Man, the thing about MGS is that I always found it much more expedient to just beat the crap out of everyone than deal with the awkward stealth controls.
I never found the stealth controls awkward after a certain point. Namely, MGS3. 2 and 1 had a fair share of issues.
Remember that Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games thing?
Because Jesus Christ internet, what the hell are you doing?!
Playing more Dragon's Dogma.
This game seems like it was made on some sort of dare to find out how many terrible, pointless, facepalmingly bad design decisions can go into a game and still have it be one of the funnest games to come out in ages.
Here's what prompted that thought.
A few days ago, I was trying to get to a quest location. The enemies on the way were a lot tougher than I was accustomed to; at one point I went off the path a bit and got attacked by a more powerful version of the endboss from the tutorial, which you fight while playing as a much higher-level character. Needless to say, I got killed and the next time I stayed on the damn road. Even then, I lost one of my pawns and had to expend most of my healing items on the way to the fort I was trying to save.
So I get to the fort. At this point, it's far too late to go back to the city, even though I only have what few healing items I found around the entrance. So I go into the fortress through a tunnel. Several battles later (fortunately, I can save between them), I'm at the switch to lower the gate, but the lever is missing. It's in what appears to be a prison across the fort. On my way there, I'm attacked by a bunch of goblins and some ballistae shooting exploding arrows that can kill me in two hits, with unfailing accuracy, so I have to constantly stay moving. Oh, hey, there are some on this side too, so I can shoot back...oh, wait, it takes like fifteen seconds to actually aim at something, and because I have to stand still for that period, I'm dead before I can get a shot off.
Then I get to the prison and...it's guarded by two cyclops and the door is locked. I'm not going to be able to fight these guys until I get reinforcements. So I have to leave one of my pawns unconscious and break into the prison by way of the roof, kill all the goblins inside on my own and take the lever. Then I leave and run back to the lever slot, and open the door. Then I join with the reinforcements and fight the cyclops and goblins. This takes me a lot of tries. Probably ten or twelve or so.
Incidentally, while the pawns are quite intelligent in some ways, my healer doesn't seem to grasp that after I revive her, she should probably get away from the cyclops before starting on spells that take forever to cast. Especially when they're healing spells that I really need right now.
So, eventually I manage to kill both cyclops and all the goblins, and try to save...wait, no, I'm still being attacked by those ballistae, so I can't. So I storm the fort and head up to the ballistae...and there's another damn cyclops up there. It kills me, and I reload back at the damn lever. This was infuriating, and I did quit at this point, but only because I needed to go eat.
So...why did I keep playing for so long, even though I was hugely frustrated by a lot of horrible design decisions? Because the game is fucking awesome. I mean, when I say "kill a cyclops," what I mean is "climb up a tower, jump onto its head, grab it by the back of the neck, trick it into pulling its own helmet off, stab its eye and then slash up its neck until it dies." The combat in this game is really amazing, and it's more than worth playing, despite a huge number of flaws.
That experience might have been frustrating due to underleveling; I got through it pretty much fine, although I had to pick my pawns up off the ground a fair few times. The game doesn't let you know which quests are appropriate for which character levels, either, which seems like a backwards step. This is kind of what I like about the game, though.
In many ways, it resets the clock and uses design decisions from previous generations of titles to great effect. We're currently in an era of gaming where convenience is all-important, from auto-saves to regenerating health to quick travel. Dragon's Dogma decides not to use some of this "no brainer" modern design elements and is a much better game for it, because everything is much more immediate this way. Getting around in Skyrim, despite its incredible environments, isn't a particularly big deal. You can catch a carriage to any major city and then take a relatively short walk to whichever location you need to be at, and once you've found it, you can quick travel there. The result is that as the game progresses, you experience less and less of the world and more quest-based set pieces. That is, the game essentially becomes more linear with your progression through it, since the game sets objectives and then gives you the tools to achieve those via a shortest known possible path.
Dragon's Dogma has no quick travel, and the difficulty of a quest is tied to how far you have to travel in order to complete it. This means you have to consider your objectives and prepare for every major outing, and this results in the major city truly feeling like a resting place. To me, it most powerfully recalls open world JRPGs of the SNES era, where getting about in the world wasn't automated, and so familiarity and knowledge were extremely powerful tools that have, in part, been lost in the transition to modern, convenient game design. Much like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma demands more and rewards its audience in kind, and the overall experience is that much stronger for all the blood and sweat it requires. Quests don't feel like small errands, but actual journeys into the unknown where the day/night cycle is actually against you. The last time I actually recall feeling like this was in Ocarina of Time as child Link, where the Stalchildren attack you in the field at night.
I've been replaying Tales of Phantasia over the past few days, and it's striking how powerfully Dragon's Dogma relates to that game as opposed to Oblivion, which is one of its most major and obvious influences. Both games give you free run of the world after a point and, while providing you with all the tools required to succeed, refuse to spell solutions out to you except under particular circumstances. Both games are heavily dependent on how you set up your party and what skills are in use at the time, as well as the conservation of resources and playing the "long game" -- a concept pretty much entirely gone in an era of regenerating health. The concept of the long game relies on a limited set of resources being available to the player when they're set against a task. Healing items are probably the best example, as they make up a big part of the longevity of a character or party. That is, one can roughly measure how much a game will forgive small failings on the basis of how many healing items they have. Armour and magic points (for healing) are other factors that can be taken into consideration for this purpose.
The long game sets a player against a task that, when started, does not provide them with further resources or provides them with a limited set of new resources until completed. A dungeon is a traditional example in the realm of adventure games and RPGs. If you're going into a dungeon and know it, you prepare for it in order to increase your longevity. One of the great things about Dragon's Dogma is that each quest is attached to a journey through the general landscape, which may very well consume resources in its own right. In this way, each journey is its own part of the long game that is each quest. You might be delving underground for a while, but that's not the extent of the dungeon -- the journey there and the journey back are important factors, especially as you get further from the central city.
Dragon's Dogma is a master of the lost art of the long game. Few other games demand such attention to resource management, and those that do seldom match Dragon's Dogma at the task. This kind of long game design is what makes every quest in Dragon's Dogma feel like a relevant, dangerous journey. While there are some basic, common side-quest-type missions, the majority of one's play time will be spent in the service of surviving the world through resource management, character management, combat and often avoiding obstacles altogether.
It's certainly a flawed game, but I feel that's to do with a general lack of polish rather than inherent gameplay design flaws. If anything, the entire game feels deliberate, with each element supporting the others. It has this wonderful internal synchronicity. After all, if your objective is simply to talk to someone in a different location, then your essential objective is to reach said location. Ergo, one must plot a course and acquire the necessary resources in order to safely survive the journey. To this end, your performance in combat determines how many or how few resources will be consumed while on the way, as well as the efficiency with which you make it to your objective. Cursed is he who the sun sets upon during an escort quest.
Probably a combination of that and being underprepared. And arriving just as night fell.
Story-driven: good.
Difficult to tell a compelling story if too much freedom is given: I agree with his assessment. However, you may disagree with the intention this implies.
Characters are most important: Fair enough. Depends on the game experience you want.
Game to be like watching a film: I don't like this.
FPS as inspiration for RPG battles: Interesting.
Not basing heroines on real people: I don't really have an opinion; I tend to base characters (of both genders) on other existing characters.
Needs to fall in love at first sight with a character in order to have motivation to complete game: Oddly enough, I've occasionally found myself experiencing this with games and their characters. Not sure if good thing.
Played some Crusader Kings II. Over 30 or so years, I killed one of my children for being an idiot, imprisoned my half-brother for planning to kill me and left him to rot, killed my wife for planning to kill the heir created by the first murder, and then, as the heir, killed one child for being of the wrong dynasty, and my husband for the same reasons.
...Yeah, good ruling is hard.
Playing through more of BlazBlue Continuum Shift EXTEND. Working my way through Tsubaki's gag reel. Holy shit. I mean, the series as a whole is not exactly subtle with its fanservice, but dear god.
Is that the one where Litchi gets drunk and forces her to wear different cosplay outfits?
Yeah.
Well, there was something similar with Noel in the first game, but I don't think that involved Litchi essentially threatening to masturbate on the spot as incentive to dress up.
only forty more riddler trophies
yay
both advance wars and fire emblem are kicking my ass
i'm not sure if this means i should play megaman zero or just try to continue planescape torment
^^^ Speaking of Tsubaki, what is even the point of her drive, maaaaaaan. She's kind of underwhelming. Not as much so as Carl, but still rather so.
I still can't do well with Tsubaki which is a shame because I like her character. Such a weird playstyle.
That said, Noel's didn't bother me because it was cute to me with the whole 'I'll-play-dress-up-if-you-let-me-play-with-the baby-panda' and I was too busy d'awwwing.
Well, I just played the last story mode match with her, and it was easy enough to chain special attacks together, and it actually sorta worked. But her drive seems poorly implemented. Oh, sure, I'll sit there and charge this - nope, got smacked. Oh, eat this attack - wait, there goes my gauge. And I have trouble activating the Distortion Drive that doesn't use that gauge. And the one that does use it doesn't seem to do much damage, and I don't get how it ties in to her whole stealing the light motif. Or any of her attacks, really.
Noel's cosplay scene was pretty adorable, though.
EDIT: Holy hell, why do I have to do Distortion Finishes with Tsubaki, of all characters? Not to mention the first match is against Carl, whose stupid Nirvana blocks attacks for him.
EDIT 2: Okay, so maybe I just had to lose to Noel. blazbluewikia, you lied to me.