Games Discussion Thread

[lurker]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

EA is fucking idiots...

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[Rule 34]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Spoilers about a hidden mini-boss in Dark Souls III:

Spoiler

So you know the Stray Demon that patrols the broken bridge above the Old Wolf Of Farron? I just found out you're able to shatter his legs to pieces. Afterwards, he crawls around pathetically. Kinda makes me pity him. But hey, I need his souls to get Havel's Ring.

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[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

If you think EA is idiots

Check out Konami
MSG as a series is going to move from computer games to...
Pachinko gambling machines, for Japan only

Because their CEO just plain hates videogames and loves gambling. And is pushing for gambling legalisation in Japan

Management and especially upper management really just don't have a clue what they're talking about, and they don't want to do the research. But they still do want to call the shots

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Just had a steam key for a game I bought on G2A revoked due to failed payment from the seller I bought it from three months ago. Had the 70 pence 'G2A Shield' insurance thing, so was able to get a full refund fairly quickly and easily via a live text-chat to support staff, but the refund does still only go into your accounts G2A wallet and takes 14 days to become usable.


Just thought I'd share that experience. If intending to use the site, weigh up the savings vs any potential hassle.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Yeah, G2A is sketchy as hell. GMG is legit though, at the very least, so there are still options for the third party market. And of course GoG and such too.

To many Gs...

 

[Zepheral]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

The day I'm wishing for Saints row 5 but a long version. Not like that short saints row 4.

 

[Paladox]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Most of the big game series have pretty much failed in the long run.
Why not another Castlevania: SotN?
Resident Evil 4 and 5 were OK, but still led the series to 6 (aka its death).
Mega Man X, X2, and X3 were all good, but then they started making them on the Playstation, which meant they felt obligated to include anime scenes. Anime Mega Man X is NOT cool. Fail.

Metal Gear Solid and Halo. Both of those never got a sequel that lived up to the original. Admittedly I have not played MGS3 or 5, but MGS2 and MGS4 weren't very memorable.

Some may feel differently, but I feel the same way about Final Fantasy as I do the Resident Evil series. Sure, FF 7, 8, and 9 were all OK, but still yet they led the series to what it's become today. No more turn based battles. Even the FF7 remake is going the way of live action fights. I thought Dirge of Cerberus fared rather poorly because of the lack of turn based fights in it. I wish they would return to their roots and make something like FF6 (aka FF3 on SNES) again. Go back to that art style, the mechanics, etc..

Mostly I feel like the classics are all failing. I would love to see another Zelda: Link to the Past or Super Metroid but I know in my heart that it won't ever happen. Technology of the future, you suck. You suck big time.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

FF13 and especially its sequels were utter tripe.

I tend to think that it's a bit naive to think that someone can just keep pushing out an endless series of sequels in a series without them failing in quality, or growing stale and repetitive, or conversely experimenting and fucking it up.

But then, I don't necessarily think that we need endless sequels to games either. Sure, I like seeing interesting universes keep going, but sometimes it might just be best to close the book and move onto to something entirely new. Tolkien didn't keep writing endless sequels to LotR, he knew when to stop, so to speak. Games aren't the same of course, but StarCraft 1 doesn't suddenly stop being a good game just because its graphics are outdated.

 

[Zepheral]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Ff 13 was ok, due to it no longer has an open word, weapon system was sightly off and the story was a little complex at first. I need to play 2x to fully understand it. I hope the 7 remake will be awesome. Square better not mess this up. XD

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

There's fairly simple reasoning behind this. The more popular a game franchise becomes, the more money gets involved in it. The more money that gets involved in it, the more clueless executives and investors get involved and insist on wanting to call the shots regarding their money. People that only understand games from the perspective of financial reports and market analysis graphs.

You obviously end up with a bigger budget too, and potentially greater things that can be achieved with the game, but you also need some strong leading personalities in the dev team that know both what they're doing, and how to fight industry meddling. Otherwise you can end up with your game receiving the treatment that so many do, of having to totally overhaul your game already past mid way through development, because your publisher suddenly decided that a colourful character/ability based shooter wouldn't sell in todays market, and that gritty and cover based was what people wanted. (Which is how a game formerly known as Overstrike became Fuse)

[Edit]

Most of the big game series have pretty much failed in the long run.
Why not another Castlevania: SotN?
Resident Evil 4 and 5 were OK, but still led the series to 6 (aka its death).
Mega Man X, X2, and X3...

It's old new, but just in case you missed it, if it's a Castlevania game you want, keep an eye on "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" being developed by Koji Igarashi, who left Konami to found his own studio because Konami believed that people no longer want Castlevania style games, and refused to support any, but also refused to lease anyone else the license.

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[super_slicer]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I rather liked the castlevania re-boot we got, sure it's a little trite that dracula is the first belmont but that's castlevania for you. The only thing I really couldn't get behind was the final battle of the first *derp, switch colors to run over lines* was an awful gimmick to have placed on the final battle. I do concur about the Iga-vanias though, people who bitch and piss and moan about Iga ruining castlevania and wanting a return to 'classic' castlevania are annoying as all hell. Because, yaknow, doing a jump wrong and having to start the game over WAS SOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING FUN, WASN'T IT?

Final Fantasy however... They really just chose the WRONG game to make sequels of. XIII was one of the MOST HATED titles to come out of the series, mostly because of the shit mechanics choices they made. Wanna get stronger because random battles are kicking your ass? NOPE THERE'S A LEVEL CAP ON EACH AREA. Want to explore some of the world, go to locations at your own pace? NOPE FREEROAM IS LIMITED TO A SMALL LATE GAME AREA.

Funny thing is, XIII-2 fixed these problems and was a far better experience because of it. Unfortunately they made the horrible decision to keep time flowing while you were in menus during a character's turn in a fight, and with the speed of fights it was far more useful to just let the damn computer decide what moves to use, add in enemies that take forever to beat (there must have been some internal friction, because a faster ATB system really doesn't make sense if you're just going to give all the enemies bigger numbers), and you've got a pretty dull experience for the player.

Then lightning returns was released, and damn I gotta say: Throwing out the old ATB system was the best choice Squenix has made in 3 games. However, yet again what could have been a really great title was hamstrung by a few shitty decisions, the intention of the game is that you don't have enough time to win on your first play-through. FUCK THAT. I'll sink a hundred hours into a game without batting an eyelash, but NO WAY IN HELL am I going to watch the same cutscenes and do all the same quests and manage every second I play perfectly 3 or more times to see the good ending. Which oddly enough was a great ending for the FFXIII setting!

To anyone who says Squenix isn't trying to breathe new life into FF by taking risks and looking for alternatives to classic formula I say: You're blind.

. Some may feel differently, but I feel the same way about Final Fantasy as I do the Resident Evil series. Sure, FF 7, 8, and 9 were all OK, but still yet they led the series to what it's become today. No more turn based battles. Even the FF7 remake is going the way of live action fights. I thought Dirge of Cerberus fared rather poorly because of the lack of turn based fights in it. I wish they would return to their roots and make something like FF6 (aka FF3 on SNES) again. Go back to that art style, the mechanics, etc..

First: They made a sequel to one of those pre-7 FFs, it was not good from what I hear.
Second: NO, to everything I just quoted. If you want to play the games of yore, just grab a rom and emulator off the net. If you want to play games like them, you will find a MULTITUDE of indie/small dev team games JUST LIKE THEM. Hell, you don't even have to go very far from this page to do so, just go into the Hgames section, there's at least a thousand turn-based JRPGs there plus they also include porn! This is the exact same mentality Squid just mentioned industry execs having: churn out more of the thing that made us money last time.

I, for one, would rather be a little disappointed by something new and innovative than to pay 60$ for a 30 year old fuckin game I've played over a dozen variations of. Sure FFXV has a shit-ton of product placement, and that saddens me a bit, though from the footage I've seen it's rather tastefully implemented and you know what? I'm DAMN EXCITED for Final Fantasy: DELUXE BROMANCE CAMPING GOODBYE SHIT TURN-BASED BATTLES EDITION 2.0

As an aside: Capcom is horrible at making decisions about what to do with their series, one only needs to have played Megaman Legends to know this, why the fuck would they return to pushing out the old side-scrolling crap in 2.5d?

 

[Paladox]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

TLDR: Real-time Allies = The Death of Gaming

Bla bla bla:

Spoiler

Any RPG where you have allies in active time is just not going to work. I had fun playing FF12. Then I got another party member. Mind you, I did go on to finish the game, but it was really only fun before I had to assign/program my party members.

FFXV and FF7: Remake are both going to be doing the same thing. Why should I bother playing something I know I won't enjoy? I might, MIGHT grab them at the $20 or less mark, but I definitely won't be getting them at the initial price.

I did enjoy Kingdom Hearts despite this system, but that's because Donald and Goofy are support characters. They're never capable of doing more damage than Sora. You hardly notice them because they're usually incompetent. FFXV and FF7: Remake might be OK if they went this way, but I doubt it. A weaker Barret? A summons style Barret? How is that going to work out? No. We'll be having to program our characters again.

So it's basically the same as the old turn-based system you hate so much, but 10x worse because you can't decide to use ice, fire, lightning, or a summons on the fly. Your character is going to be set to use only the strongest spell, or only ice, or whatever. Worse yet, it might even be like FF12 where you program your main character too.. and you just sit there, and watch. What's the point? It's not even a game anymore. You just sit there and watch it.

I might have had some hope for FF15 if you just played with one character, but with those goons following you around it just doesn't look like fun to me. If that's your cup of tea then have fun programming and watching them kill everything for you. They might at least allow you to pick up the loot from their kills, which you can use to buy them more tonics.

It's old new, but just in case you missed it, if it's a Castlevania game you want, keep an eye on "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" being developed by Koji Igarashi, who left Konami to found his own studio because Konami believed that people no longer want Castlevania style games, and refused to support any, but also refused to lease anyone else the license.

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I remember that... Shouldn't that game be out by now? Seems like that KS was years ago.. but I guess nice things take time to make.
5.5 million is a lot. I hope they will make something nice with all that money.
I know what the "vania" part means, but what does the "iga" stand for? I'm more used to the term: "metroidvania".

 

[Zepheral]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I think ff 13 would've been a hit if it was more like

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.

Getting to the topic at hand, square need to remake chrono trigger and cross to a vita or ps4. Lately it's about money with them that's why their games lately are a little lackluster especially FF 14. I can't stand the game anymore, this mmo has a linear progression and the community (depending on which server) is toxic at times.

MMO plus elitism don't mix in the long run, least I escaped the mmo life for now. >.>

*also would anyone recommend Uncharted? I never played it, wish there was a trilogy.

 

[Twisted]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

TLDR: Real-time Allies = The Death of Gaming

Bla bla bla:

Spoiler

Any RPG where you have allies in active time is just not going to work. I had fun playing FF12. Then I got another party member. Mind you, I did go on to finish the game, but it was really only fun before I had to assign/program my party members.

FFXV and FF7: Remake are both going to be doing the same thing. Why should I bother playing something I know I won't enjoy? I might, MIGHT grab them at the $20 or less mark, but I definitely won't be getting them at the initial price.

I did enjoy Kingdom Hearts despite this system, but that's because Donald and Goofy are support characters. They're never capable of doing more damage than Sora. You hardly notice them because they're usually incompetent. FFXV and FF7: Remake might be OK if they went this way, but I doubt it. A weaker Barret? A summons style Barret? How is that going to work out? No. We'll be having to program our characters again.

So it's basically the same as the old turn-based system you hate so much, but 10x worse because you can't decide to use ice, fire, lightning, or a summons on the fly. Your character is going to be set to use only the strongest spell, or only ice, or whatever. Worse yet, it might even be like FF12 where you program your main character too.. and you just sit there, and watch. What's the point? It's not even a game anymore. You just sit there and watch it.

I might have had some hope for FF15 if you just played with one character, but with those goons following you around it just doesn't look like fun to me. If that's your cup of tea then have fun programming and watching them kill everything for you. They might at least allow you to pick up the loot from their kills, which you can use to buy them more tonics.

Try Ys7, or Ys: Memories of Celceta. They're action RPGs that have a very well-done party system that involves you having an active party of three where you switch between the them depending on who you want to control, what sort of monsters you're fighting, their abilities, etc

I know what the "vania" part means, but what does the "iga" stand for? I'm more used to the term: "metroidvania".

Here:

Koji Igarashi (五十嵐 孝司 Igarashi Kōji?), also known simply by the nickname IGA, is a video game designer and former producer of the Castlevania video game series.

It's the guy in charge of Bloodstained, and the main reason why 2D Castlevania games play as they do. He was majorly involved in SotN and brought forth the changes to that game that they're still using

 

[Paladox]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Getting to the topic at hand, square need to remake chrono trigger and cross to a vita or ps4.

Chrono Trigger was fantastic. I'm also a fan of Secret of Mana. I couldn't get into Chrono Cross so much. I guess some of the newfangled Playstation aspects just didn't sit well with me (plus there were too many characters, which meant little to no character development for any of them).

... mmo ...

I don't much care for any MMO really. The way the games are set up just doesn't sit well with me. One of my biggest problems with them is the fact you can't play them offline (both because they don't allow you and because later monsters require a big party to kill). MMO's basically turn you into a nobody or a soldier rather than making you feel like a hero, which is usually the best aspect of any videogame, but not in an MMO. They're more about socializing, and I'm not really into that.

*also would anyone recommend Uncharted? I never played it, wish there was a trilogy.

Well it's like the new Tomb Raider remakes. It's an unreal adventure where you're constantly making a jump, dodging bullets, climbing mountains (and climbing anything really) by the skin of your teeth. If you don't mind unrealistic scenarios where the hero would have actually died 10x over (especially due to exhaustion from climbing nonstop) then you should like them. If you've ever played any 3rd person adventure game where you climb, then it's like that. If you like that, then I would recommend it.

Also like the new Tomb Raider games, it's littered with profanity, which is their way of saying, "Poop on all those little kids that played Crash Bandicoot! We hate you!"

Also, you mentioned a trilogy. Is this what you're looking for?

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It's for PS4 though.

Try Ys7, or Ys: Memories of Celceta. They're action RPGs that have a very well-done party system that involves you having an active party of three where you switch between the them depending on who you want to control, what sort of monsters you're fighting, their abilities, etc

Sounds a lot like Trine. Actually I recently played the first Ys, and I while I thought it was mildly entertaining, it was quite horrible toward the end (crappy maze tower, obscure backtracking just to talk to NPCs about stuff you should have already been able to talk about, and a ridiculous end boss that relies heavily on luck to beat).

I hope the rest of the series doesn't have those problems. I wouldn't mind playing them all if they don't.

Iga-
It's the guy in charge of Bloodstained, and the main reason why 2D Castlevania games play as they do. He was majorly involved in SotN and brought forth the changes to that game that they're still using

Ah. Not sure why that term exists, but I'd imagine the primary difference between igavania and metroidvania would be the inclusion of RPG elements (like leveling and changing equipment). Still, I would argue that it's more of a sub-type of metroidvania. I'm not entirely sure why they're called metroidvania considering many of the earlier castlevania games (super castlevania included, which is actually my favorite of the series) had no exploration elements.

Speaking of SotN and Super Metroid, there are actually several official clones of them on the handheld systems (such as Metroid Fusion and Castlevania: Circle of the Moon both for the GBA). Unfortunately they'll never see the light of day outside of those systems. I wish they would release a collection of them on the PC (or newer Nintendo systems, since Nintendo thinks PC is the devil).

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I remember that... Shouldn't that game be out by now? Seems like that KS was years ago.. but I guess nice things take time to make.
5.5 million is a lot. I hope they will make something nice with all that money.
I know what the "vania" part means, but what does the "iga" stand for? I'm more used to the term: "metroidvania".

It's kickstarter launched in May 2015, so 13 months. So not that long at all really, in game dev terms. You've got to remember that even copy-paste conveyor belt produced games that have used the same engine throughout the series like Call of Duty, each took almost three years each to complete, and often are in small scale pre-production for up to a year before that even. The only reason they managed to get them out virtually one per year was because they had three full sized studios plus sub-contractors all working on the games simultaneously. So that at one point, whilst one CoD game was releasing, the next two were already roughly 33% and 66% completed. And many games take far longer. Watch Dogs for example, despite complaints of being unfinished on release, was in development for seven years. And that's not at all an uncommon number.

And in modern terms, $5.5 million isn't actually a huge amount either to be honest, keeping in mind he's had to set up a new studio. Even back in 1997 when SotN was released, game budgets between $2 to $10 million weren't uncommon (Which is roughly equivalent to $3m to $15m if accounting for inflation), and often with the same ammount again spent on marketing. Although given the nature of the game, and with Igarashi's expertise having hopefully rounded up a good team, I'm sure it's more than enough to deliver on his plans.

Excuse the mini game development lecture. I just see people underestimate what's involved in it so often. '-';

 

[Paladox]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

If you can't make a game with $5.5 million then that would be pretty sad and incompetent. Almost as sad and incompetent as Interplay when they failed to make Fallout Online.

I'm still not sure why people keep buying Call of Duty, Racing, and Sports titles. I guess it has more to do with the online aspects than anything else. Socialites. Blegh.

 

[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

That, and advertisements/marketing

Marketing is great at convincing people who are new to a series or just plain don't know better that they want to spend 60 bux or more on a mediocre game. That, and a lot of people are fairly easy to impress by just having decent polish and shiny graphics

Some sports and racing games are genuinely done well, but I think one of the main draws is an easily explained ruleset- It's easy to say "Be the first guy over this line" compared to say...Explaining someone the intricacies of medieval European market trading and city politics in the Hanseatic league

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

If you can't make a game with $5.5 million then that would be pretty sad and incompetent. Almost as sad and incompetent as Interplay when they failed to make Fallout Online.

Whilst Igarashi certainly isn't going to be trying to assemble a full "AAA" studio, and more likely to be working with a small group of a dozen or two staff, modern games are increasingly starting to push over the 100$ budget mark now. Starwars: The Old Republic totalled approximately $200 million. Even the original Final Fantasy 7 way back in 1997 cost $45m to develop ($67m in 2016 money). And then more still on marketing.

With the size of the teams involved in most games these days, you're looking at multimillion expenses yearly purely on wages, and that's entirely ignoring office space and maintenance, all the expensive hardware and keeping it upgraded, the often exorbitant licence fees for the specialist software they need. There's also the fees for using an existing engine, if they want to avoid spending years and hiring on extra expertise building a new one themselves. There's the insurance and legal hassle involved in running any kind of business, that can quickly pile into tens or hundreds of thousands in any larger company.

I just think you're grossly underestimating what's involved.

 

[super_slicer]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

If you can't make a game with $5.5 million then that would be pretty sad and incompetent. Almost as sad and incompetent as Interplay when they failed to make Fallout Online.

...? We're not talking about pasting custom assets into RPGMAKER here, we're talking about funding a company of people creating a game from the ground up.

And WTF? Fallout Online? Weren't you JUST bitching about MMO's and how they make the player feel like just another 'soldier'? So you think it would be a good idea to take a series where a large aspect of the fun comes from the player being the fuckin heroest of heroes and MMO it? Look at Elder Scrolls Online and see how well that worked.

As for the new FF's battle system, (I did just fine with 12 aside from not knowing I had to steal from gilgamesh multiple times to get all the genji gear) I've already played the precursors to it and had plenty of fun with those!

FF Crisis Core: Loved the expansion to the 7 universe, it was PSP only and you only had one party member, was pseudo ATB and still gave you access to all the abilities you had.
FF Class 0: Was poorly ported to main consoles after being JAP PSP only, but was overall quite fun, bit too large of a character selection that didn't all level up with the team of three you were playing as but eh. Was a little short but considering it was PSP they got alot out of it. This one you WERE very limited with what abilities you could assign to short-cuts in battle, and sometimes your allies would get in the way but for the most part they did as they were told, if they didn't you could just switch to them and make 'em do what you wanted.
Lightning Returns: Was on main consoles, only one party member, your actions used up the ATB guage and it would refill when you weren't doing stuff. Lacked the free movement that Class 0 had. Could switch between several builds you had made each with 4 different actions you could assign, so even though you were a little limited on each class overall you had a lot of diversity in what you could bring to a fight, and spells were situational, single strong enemy? Spam the base form of your spell (fire let's say), multiple enemies in small groups? Use Fira on them. Multiple enemies scattered a bit? Use Firaga. Along with that the casting times and ATB consumption varied so there never came a point where you would end up just using Firaga for the rest of the game.

My point here is: If Action RPGs aren't your thing, that's fine. But don't make them out to be chaotic unplayable messes where the player is stone-walled into a specific strategy because they don't suit you and you're unwilling to adapt.

P.S. You're not going to like summons in XV at all, from what I remember they're basically a grand last resort and you don't get any XP from the fight if you use them. So no worries about needing a command for them!

P.P.S. Igarashi basically pioneered the metroidvania, I'm only using the term Igavania in reference to the title's he actually worked on however. I am beginning to doubt your actual attachment to 'classic' titles... for someone who's campaigning for their resurgence, you seem to have quite the lack of knowledge about them.

P.P.P.S. I was serious about getting an emulator and downloading ROMs for it, there are literally hundreds of classic JRPGs out there that I'm betting you haven't played through on the SNES and SEGA. Add in the ones for the Playstation and Dreamcast and you'll be sick of the damn things before you're done.