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Comments
And then you have stuff like Cave Story and Chrono Cross, where the guidehounds are the only ones who know how to get an ending that isn't horribly depressing.
The other problem is that the reward is best kept meaningful. Most of the time the bonus content is either harder than the main stuff in the first place, the rewards from the bonus content trivialize the main stuff so it becomes easier than what you went through to get it, or you can only access the bonus content in the first place after doing the entire rest of the game and there's nothing left to use its rewards on.
It's like, have fun using your new Doomcrusher Killsat Xtreme on stuff you can already kill in five seconds with minimal risk by swording it in the face a few times. It's like in Golden Sun -- the bonus bosses gave you some amazing stuff, but they're the only thing in the game you'd care enough to use said stuff on because the endgame story bosses were already kind of a joke.
I hate secret content for one reason.
Sometimes even the guides/walkthroughs don't have anything on the subject.
Anyway I don't think it's really necessary to have difficulty "feel natural" or "blend in normally" to be honest, since it just seems kind of like a hassle to figure such things out instead of just switching the difficulty level manually or something. In the case where there are events that make later events harder/easier, in my opinion it would be best for the game to make it obvious that doing X will make Y easier or harder by saying it straight out or something.
But that's just because to me, accidentally getting into bad situations is a pain, so meh.
I didn't like how I have to guidehound to get the good ending in Cave Story, but the rest of the game was good enough that it made up for that.
This is kind of off-topic, but I've never understood the love Cave Story gets. I've played it, and it's a perfectly good game, but there isn't really anything memorable about it beyond the shitty design of the good ending and the fact that it was made by one person.
I think it's the really emotionally-intense story and the great music. The game itself isn't the best thing ever but is solid at least.
I...really wouldn't describe the story as emotionally intense. Not even a little bit.
Metroidvania fans are easy to pander to perhaps?
^^ I guess your tastes are different from mine.
It was a pretty solid game when it came out? I don't believe the indie scene was that big by then (2004. Wow this game's old.), so a game like that was pretty impressive. While it didn't do anything new per se, it had pretty solid gameplay. And I really wouldn't call the game a Metroidvania, the game's quite linear. The way to get to the good ending was indeed, bullshit.
Of course now, Nicalis seems to have turned it into it's personal cash cow. Ugh.
Is Pixel getting properly compensated?
Anyhow, what sorts of indie games since 2004 do you think are equally as impressive?
And yeah, it's not a metroidvania game. It merely has a hub.
WiiWare and PC rereleases were enough, the 3DS remake not only sounds dumb, but it's overpriced at $40.
^^Looking around on the internet into Nicalis' shady practices would lead me to believe no, but there's no way to know. In fact, I suspect Pixel didn't know exactly what he was getting into and just how much he might've been giving up when he signed the contract to let Nicalis handle stuff. (I think that was his first contract.)
^Oh you think that's bad? They're coming out with a 2nd release for the 3DS. An eShop version. (No, it's not a digital version of the 3DS version. It's a separate thing.) This is as bad as Capcom's business practices of updating the same game over and over.
Nicalis is worse than I thought?
Shit. I thought that since Nifflas is at least one of the people running that show that it would be a decent place.
So I guess we can expect Super Cave Story Turbo Hyper Exploration Arcade Edition.
Studio Pixel vs. Capcom please.
Also, obligatory easymodo.png
^ Oh god, Studio Pixel and Capcom doing a game together
I'm starting to feel that the more elaborate and story-rich games are the more "casual" games in a way. Lots of fans play them not for the game play, but rather to watch a story unfold.
There's a significant time investment, but it's not often that they have complex or difficult gameplay, as the developers want to make them as accessible as possible.
I don't really think so. I think investment itself is the key. Time investment can get that, but the sheer length of a game does not automatically invoke it. Time investment is a different thing to investment.
Pokemon is quite a long game, easily spanning a full forty hours or more, but it is very much a casual game. That is achieved through a few tricks, not through a long story, yes; but in the end, it means that most people who play the game play it very casually.
Yes, but it is not through the length of the story that they invoke that- it is through investment in the story. That is the primary reason behind Mass Effect's dialogue wheels; giving the player some measure of choice in the storyline, and thus creating significant investment in the story by making it their story.
And I am disagreeing with that assertion.
They are not designed for people who can only play for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, but they are often designed for people who are 'casual' gamers- people with minimal experience with video games and without the drive to master a complex game engine.
This is to say:
Dark Souls is not a casual game, because playing it requires a lot of investment in mastering the game's mechanics. Mass Effect is not a casual game, because playing it invokes investment in the story. Pokemon is a casual game, because playing it requires minimal effort. Etcera, etcetera.
A casual game most definitely can have a long story. The problem is that many ~casual gamers~ (sorry) like to pick up games for short sessions at a time, so the story cannot be involved.
I have only a limited experience with games, as I have mostly played RPG's, so I cannot really offer a game which has done this. It most certainly can be done, though.
And, well, that's getting kind of sidetracked from what I was originally trying to say.
Games like Final Fantasy have very long stories. They are not 'casual' games, as they require you to sit down and play for long periods of time, but they are very casual games because they are not involved. They do not require you to master the gameplay, they do not require you to think about what you're doing, for the most part. They are designed to be very easy to play, with most of the game being padding- the entire purpose of random battles in RPG's, most of the time.
A non-casual game which you can pick up and play for any amount of time would be Dark Souls. The game does not require you to play for more than five minutes at a time, just long enough to kill a group of enemies or whatever, but to actually play it, you have to master some pretty complex mechanics.
Bluh, I'm still not saying it well.
This all boils down to how you define a 'casual gamer'. If you mean 'A gamer who only plays for ten, fifteen minutes at a time', then yes, by definition, a game with a long story cannot be focused to this crowd. If you mean 'A gamer who does not want to sink significant investment into a game', then a game with a long story can be focused to this crowd, in the same way a game like Angry Birds can; give them a game with simple mechanics that can be put down and picked up at leisure (so, no saving only at certain places).
ADERA is intended to be exactly that.
In fairness, I won't deny that it's possible, but striking a balance isn't easy.
Haven't played (or even heard of) ADERA, so can't really comment on it.
Honestly, I think we're working under a narrow definition for a really obfuscating and vague term.
Yeah, I think the main problem is that casual is a style of play rather than a style of game (though some games encourage or discourage it).