Media Videogame thread

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
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didn't find a general videgame discussion thread, so here goes

Just played a game and want to share your opinion on it? Tempted to buy a game but want a second opinion from this community? Just want to express your hype for a game release? Then post here. The title should say it all, really.

Decided today to put Final Fantasy XIII on the shelf. Beat the game last week and was going to make an attempt at beating some post-game content, but after being mocked by Gigantuar (ie Jumbo Cactuar) and never ending needle outbursts, I think it's time to call it quits. Overall, this game is by far not one of the better FF titles on my list.

If you've played FF12, then the battle system will feel somewhat familiar as you're not controlling the actions of your teammates and instead need to setup things beforehand how they should act or behave. Except in this game it's called paradigms, where each paradigm has a certain classes set on your character and teammates, which affects what moves and spells they can use. Except you're entirely reliant on the AI to decide what moves are appropriate, and if your teamleader (character you control) dies, then it's game over even if the others are still standing. That last part has definitely caused some significant grief during the gameplay.

The battles feel very passive, since you're for the most part just using automatic suggestions made by the AI and instead focusing on what paradign is appropriate depending on the flow of the battle. It's just barely engaging enough to warrant your presence, but still uneventful to such a point that you feel you could spend your time multi-tasking something else. Coupled with how there are so many cut scenes in the game, along with the fact how you're pretty much expected to read pages of raw information in order to stay tuned with the plot (rather than weaving it into the dialogue (still don't get the plot tbh)), there were plenty of occasions where I didn't feel motivated to continue playing but continued doing so anyway just to say that I've beat it. There were some good moments, mostly when I got to explore new areas and just generally anticipating what I'd find. But since most of the new weapons only differed from your old ones through passive abilities, and most of the stuff you found where upgrade materials, you rarely felt excited to find a treasure chest.

Lastly, the post-game content is a complete grindfest. The last stage of the grid you're used to enhance your characters is only unlocked after beating the final boss (hence the existence of post-game content), but since the best grinding ground cannot be accessed after that point, you're stuck with beating low level foes or risk being pummeled to the ground by the foes that actually give good experience. And given the hardest opponents the game has to offer, well, you'll be spending a loooooooooong time either maxing everyone out or expanding the possible roles they can excel at.

I bought the game while it was on steam sale, so thankfully, I didn't spend that much money on it. Granted, I probably didn't grasp the full potential of the battle system, and there may have been easy grinding posts I've missed, but since I've played all other FF titles (FF11 excluded), this one certainly didn't leave me with any lasting impressions. I'm glad I'm done with it.


Today I started playing Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians. Initially couldn't remember why I bought it since the videos on the Store Page made it seem more complex than anything, but now that I've gotten into it, it's surprisingly entertaining. Have only beaten 2/6 levels though, so there's plenty more before making a final verdict, but currently, it feels fun. Which given my sour review above, is just about what I needed right now.
 

chimp

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What do you guys think of The Order?
Is having a 5-hour game okay? Is having a 5-hour game that is mostly cutscenes okay?

Personally, a 5-hour game is only fine depending on the genre and price. Arcade games or high action games with little dialogue/cutscenes is fine, if its priced accordingly, of course.

See: Cave Story.
 

aVocado

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What do you guys think of The Order?
Is having a 5-hour game okay? Is having a 5-hour game that is mostly cutscenes okay?

Personally, a 5-hour game is only fine depending on the genre and price. Arcade games or high action games with little dialogue/cutscenes is fine, if its priced accordingly, of course.

See: Cave Story.
I mean I haven't played it but it's short, full of cinematics, has QTE, and very generic-looking gameplay, soooo..

it does have an orgasmic setting though, the graphics look extremely good, and the atmosphere in general looks well-crafted, but yeah I wouldn't buy a 5-hour long half game/half movie.
 
Is having a 5-hour game okay? Is having a 5-hour game that is mostly cutscenes okay?
That depends on a variety of factors, but for me it largely boils down to cost, quality, and the style of game.

So basically a 5 hour game that's really well designed and tells a good story could be okay -- but it requires a lot of polish, and not at 80 dollars.

Any game with a tightly focussed narrative like Portal, Spec Ops: The Line, or Bioshock Infinite can't afford to be much longer for risk of making the story drag out, but something more broad like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or The Witcher can run longer without feeling padded.
 
I've been struggling with Lufia: the Ruins of Lore and either i fucking suck at it or the game does. god damn i just hate it more and more. granted, i go lenghts without playing it and forget about most stuff and don't really care much and my party probably just sucks but damn this game makes me wish i was playing lufia 2 instead.

in other news banjo-tooie is awesome. i wish i had played it when i was a kid. still not half-way through it though.

still can't beat dr. willy in megaman 2 :(
 

DHR-107

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What do you guys think of The Order?
Is having a 5-hour game okay? Is having a 5-hour game that is mostly cutscenes okay?

Personally, a 5-hour game is only fine depending on the genre and price. Arcade games or high action games with little dialogue/cutscenes is fine, if its priced accordingly, of course.

See: Cave Story.
Force Unleashed 2 is a five hour game. 4 levels disguised as 10 (3 sets of three and a single standalone). I was disgusted spending £35 on a new release that had so little content. One of those levels is basically an interactive cut scene too, no enemies or anything. So no, I would stay away from any game that is only 5 hours of content at best. In general I try and hit the £1 an hour mark (so if I buy a game at £15, I expect to spent 15 hours in it). That's usually over multiple playthroughs unless its a game like Skyrim which has like 80 hours and one save file. Anyone else have a money/hour limit they generally try and keep too?

I'm currently playing Evolve quite a lot and really enjoying it. I'm pretty shit at the game overall, but it's nice to melt some monster face. The characters seem genuinely interesting, and I'd like a bit more back story over what the intro to the game gives to fill in some of the gaps. People are "down reviewing" it because it came with some optional day 1 DLC... Which I don't really have an issue with. It's just some skins and shit. New characters and Monsters are coming which will be cool.
 
Force Unleashed 2 is a five hour game. 4 levels disguised as 10 (3 sets of three and a single standalone). I was disgusted spending £35 on a new release that had so little content. One of those levels is basically an interactive cut scene too, no enemies or anything. So no, I would stay away from any game that is only 5 hours of content at best.
Force Unleashed 2 is a bad game, and a really poor place to base any choices on. It's bad for a 5 hour game, but it'd have been bad at any length because it was crap in every possible way; combat sucked, story was worse, and level design and atmosphere were utter piss. Movie tie ins being about as fun as putting your balls in a vice is nothing new though.


In general I try and hit the £1 an hour mark (so if I buy a game at £15, I expect to spent 15 hours in it). That's usually over multiple playthroughs unless its a game like Skyrim which has like 80 hours and one save file. Anyone else have a money/hour limit they generally try and keep too?
I try and avoid that kind of thing as I see it as confining, Portal is a perfect example of why, unless you replayed it a few times I don't think you'd get one pound per hour on it (maybe on sale, idk how low it goes on sale), but it's easily one of the best games I've played and completely worth it despite that.


P.s. Day 1 DLC in full priced games is a flagrant a cash grab, the kind of things sold there used to just come standard with games.
 

Lemonade

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hmm not related to a specific game but I want to talk combat systems. IMO they are a core part of an rpg / adventure / etc. game's entertainment. For me, good story cannot overcome a boring combat system.

First a notes: I'm talking largely against AIs. When there are human players, usually there is actually strategy involved.

The most boring type of combat for me is turn based without real positioning. And that "real time action" is included in this. Games include, sadly, FFVII (which I own and do not feel like going back to play), most of the main line Final Fantasies, Bravely Default (I have played the demo of this, I can't see the full game combat system to be drastically different), Chrono Trigger, Pokemon etc. These games basically turn into mashing A and maybe a few D-pad presses until the battle is finished, which for obvious reasons is unappealing. I'm sure the stories are great, but I'm never going to make it there.

Oddly enough, I enjoy turned based with position a lot. I guess they are tactical RPGs or whatnot, but stuff like Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem. The extra element of positioning adds a lot of fun to the game because now there are actually things to do.

Special shoutout to Tales style combat, because that is super fun.

Of course, if you play against other humans, turn based combat can be interesting because the playing field is equalized and your opponent is competent. See Pokemon.
 

vonFiedler

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The most boring type of combat for me is turn based without real positioning. And that "real time action" is included in this. Games include, sadly, FFVII (which I own and do not feel like going back to play), most of the main line Final Fantasies, Bravely Default (I have played the demo of this, I can't see the full game combat system to be drastically different), Chrono Trigger, Pokemon etc. These games basically turn into mashing A and maybe a few D-pad presses until the battle is finished, which for obvious reasons is unappealing.
This is textbook inability to think abstractly. Obviously you enjoy some games that aren't in real time and take intelligence to play, but the need for positioning is both selling these games and yourself short. To put it bluntly, no, none of these games involve mashing A. FF13 does, and that's why even FF fans hated it.

You already seem to understand that the problem of Pokemon is bad AI, and that the game system is incredibly complex and rewarding tactically. You'd be hard pressed to argue otherwise on a site like smogon. Most single player rpgs don't have this AI problem, so it's confusing that you couldn't see the same richness in other systems, esp from a game like Bravely Default. I played the demo, it represents the main game very well, if you were just mashing A you should probably go back and try harder to think about how different unique abilities interact just as they would in a game like Pokemon. I know that in the demo there are more than a few interesting combinations that reward intelligent thinking.

Final Fantasy games come in all different shapes in sizes. FF7 specifically is a more strategic game, the fun being in coming up with innovative materia combinations. If you want a more tactical experience, better suited FF games would be 4, 9, and 10. These all force and reward a wide variety of abilities in differing circumstances.

Chrono Trigger is explicitly positioning based so I don't know why you brought it up. It's not super tactical or strategic, but it's hard to exaggerate the game's amazing pacing and fun.

The playing field does not need to be even, it needs only be challenging. You say it is odd that you enjoy tactical rpgs, but it seems to me the only difference is that one game type absolutely forces you to not "mash a", lest you not move at all. But you can force yourself not to do this, and in the process you'll enjoy honing your skills until you face challenges that "mashing a" could never overcome.

Abstraction is absolutely important to video gaming, as it offers a counterpoint to the twitch based gameplay that has become wildly rampant whenever people talk about "how boring rpgs are" or "if resident evil were real life I could shoot 10 bullets in 2 seconds"; intelligence based gameplay with little to no mechanical skill to use as a crutch. Maybe that's not for everyone, but you could at least understand why so many people like these games lest devs continue to give into uninformed pressure and the genre dies completely. And it's certainly not "in spite of being boring".
 
Does anyone know about Monster Rancher? It's that one game where you generate the monsters with real-life discs, and you battle them in what seems to be a real-time style of gameplay. I haven't played it (I don't own it, either), but I want to, particularly the fourth installment.
 

Lemonade

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This is textbook inability to think abstractly. Obviously you enjoy some games that aren't in real time and take intelligence to play, but the need for positioning is both selling these games and yourself short. To put it bluntly, no, none of these games involve mashing A. FF13 does, and that's why even FF fans hated it.

You already seem to understand that the problem of Pokemon is bad AI, and that the game system is incredibly complex and rewarding tactically. You'd be hard pressed to argue otherwise on a site like smogon. Most single player rpgs don't have this AI problem, so it's confusing that you couldn't see the same richness in other systems, esp from a game like Bravely Default. I played the demo, it represents the main game very well, if you were just mashing A you should probably go back and try harder to think about how different unique abilities interact just as they would in a game like Pokemon. I know that in the demo there are more than a few interesting combinations that reward intelligent thinking.

Final Fantasy games come in all different shapes in sizes. FF7 specifically is a more strategic game, the fun being in coming up with innovative materia combinations. If you want a more tactical experience, better suited FF games would be 4, 9, and 10. These all force and reward a wide variety of abilities in differing circumstances.

Chrono Trigger is explicitly positioning based so I don't know why you brought it up. It's not super tactical or strategic, but it's hard to exaggerate the game's amazing pacing and fun.

The playing field does not need to be even, it needs only be challenging. You say it is odd that you enjoy tactical rpgs, but it seems to me the only difference is that one game type absolutely forces you to not "mash a", lest you not move at all. But you can force yourself not to do this, and in the process you'll enjoy honing your skills until you face challenges that "mashing a" could never overcome.

Abstraction is absolutely important to video gaming, as it offers a counterpoint to the twitch based gameplay that has become wildly rampant whenever people talk about "how boring rpgs are" or "if resident evil were real life I could shoot 10 bullets in 2 seconds"; intelligence based gameplay with little to no mechanical skill to use as a crutch. Maybe that's not for everyone, but you could at least understand why so many people like these games lest devs continue to give into uninformed pressure and the genre dies completely. And it's certainly not "in spite of being boring".
I'm not seeing you on this. I don't see finding combos as that interesting when the setting to use them in is fairly consistent through the entire game. It's not interesting anymore when pretty much any non-boss battle can be completed however you want. Using this special move is not rewarding because using something else would accomplish the same thing. Sure you can impose your own restrictions, but like that isn't something I myself should be doing. The game should be providing the gameplay.

I also wasn't suggesting that these are boring period, I mean obviously people enjoy them or they wouldn't be around. For me though, I'm looking for a game that pulls me back pretty much every day of the year, which turn based just doesn't do for me. + they cost money
 

vonFiedler

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I'm not seeing you on this. I don't see finding combos as that interesting when the setting to use them in is fairly consistent through the entire game. It's not interesting anymore when pretty much any non-boss battle can be completed however you want. Using this special move is not rewarding because using something else would accomplish the same thing. Sure you can impose your own restrictions, but like that isn't something I myself should be doing. The game should be providing the gameplay.
This is how much we're not even on the same page here; I'm not using one combo and repeating it over and over again, I am using a variety of combos for a variety of situations. Any good rpg will do this, if you gave them a chance you'd know. You're arguing from a very stereotypical and false perspective of the genre. How would you even be prepared for difficult boss fights if regular monsters didn't challenge you with a variety of situations? And no, often "something else" does not accomplish the same thing. I'm not asking you to restrict anything, quite the opposite, I'm asking you to give a damn. You should be able to search out intelligent options and play using every option at your disposal to the fullest without literally being forced to. Given the assumptions you've created, "the game should be providing the gameplay" comes across as circular logic.
 

Lemonade

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This is how much we're not even on the same page here; I'm not using one combo and repeating it over and over again, I am using a variety of combos for a variety of situations. Any good rpg will do this, if you gave them a chance you'd know. You're arguing from a very stereotypical and false perspective of the genre. How would you even be prepared for difficult boss fights if regular monsters didn't challenge you with a variety of situations? And no, often "something else" does not accomplish the same thing. I'm not asking you to restrict anything, quite the opposite, I'm asking you to give a damn. You should be able to search out intelligent options and play using every option at your disposal to the fullest without literally being forced to. Given the assumptions you've created, "the game should be providing the gameplay" comes across as circular logic.
I didn't saying anything about spamming the same combo over and over.

I'm saying you don't need a variety of combos for a variety of situations because those situations are nearly the same. A mob in one part of the game is not different enough from that in another part to where there is any fun trying to find the 'right' combo. What part of the game motivates you to do so? I've not come across this in any of the rpgs I've played. The fundamental tools remain the same, that's fine, but the situations you are put in don't change enough. I don't want to build a chair 100 ways, I want to build a chair 5 ways, and maybe one of those is also good for building a table, so I'll build a table and then find 10 more ways etc. I'm just saying, I haven't encountered a turn based rpg that is like this. I'm not even talking about all rpgs.

Sry to hijack, bummer
 

vonFiedler

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A mob in one part of the game is not different enough from that in another part to where there is any fun trying to find the 'right' combo.
You keep saying this, and I keep saying it isn't true. It's more untrue in some games than others, and I can't say there aren't bad turn based rpgs that it might be true about, but it's a very poor generalization that doesn't hold up in comparison to even the tactical rpgs you mentioned. With those games the "differences" from battle to battle are almost entirely map based. But at the same time, both Fire Emblem and Tactics have far fewer unique enemy types than typical rpgs. Mobs change and often require different tactics or strategy to overcome.

It seems to me that a game like Final Fantasy 10 would overcome each of your specific complaints, while games like Persona 3/4 would overcome most of them. FF4 is hard enough quickly enough that it might just suck you into its depth. Grandia 1/2 have a lot of depth when it comes to positioning AND time, so you might enjoy those as well. If you do get to like them, you might go back and see other games in the genre in a different light. If you don't, that's your own business, but you're rationalizing and making generalizations that don't apply to most of the genre. Not every party you aren't invited to is lame, that's a big annoyance I have with people when it comes to video game generalizations.

I don't think you derailed anything though, this is a general games thread and we might as well talk about meaty stuff.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
This is how much we're not even on the same page here; I'm not using one combo and repeating it over and over again, I am using a variety of combos for a variety of situations. Any good rpg will do this, if you gave them a chance you'd know. You're arguing from a very stereotypical and false perspective of the genre. How would you even be prepared for difficult boss fights if regular monsters didn't challenge you with a variety of situations? And no, often "something else" does not accomplish the same thing. I'm not asking you to restrict anything, quite the opposite, I'm asking you to give a damn. You should be able to search out intelligent options and play using every option at your disposal to the fullest without literally being forced to. Given the assumptions you've created, "the game should be providing the gameplay" comes across as circular logic.
call me lazy, but i think a game needs to force me to think. I do not find arbitrarily imposed difficulty to be very fun. I end up not only disliking the creators of the game for sucking at balancing, but myself for forcing myself to play in a limited way. Oftentimes a battle system provides enough options to potentially be deep but is poorly balanced enough that it doesn't end up being so. Two examples of this are metroid prime 3 and Final Fantasy VI.

In Metroid Prime 3, you're given missiles and a charge shot, which between the variety of enemies and terrains should hopefully give some strategy to the battle system. Except they don't. Every attack option you have except uncharged beams is too slow to be accurate, and since your enemies are for the most part much faster than you, you can't really use terrain to your advantage. Except for the few boring gimmick enemies that force you to use a different mechanism, almost every battle becomes jumping back and forth across flat ground while firing uncharged shots. Those that aren't are of the "stand far enough away that you aren't noticed, then obliterate with a single charged shot" variety. Fortunately, the bosses (the only enemies for the most part who actually force you to do not this) occur frequently enough that the battle system seems fairly fun up until the end, and fortunately the game is a lot more than its battle system. But it could truly have done so much better if they put more effort into making missiles and charge shots more useful (i mean seriously, missiles were so shit i didn't even missile the guys with the glowing yellow armor, it was more effective to just shoot it till it broke off).

In FFVI on the other hand, there's a battle system which I bet actually has incredible tactical depth to it. But do you know how many times i used the row button? literally zero. I never used gray magic outside of the cultists' tower either, where i only used the one that absorbed their MP. and again outside of cultist's tower, my strategy was as simple as adding the most powerful boosting item i had to each character and using their strongest attack option, with the occasional healing magic, and i never had to grind. Fortunately, this didn't dampen my enjoyment of the game hardly at all, because the story was still extremely good, the art was beautiful, the music was kick-ass, and the combat system managed to stay above snooze-level. But i feel like the combat definitely could have been better.

I think why lemonade. likes Fire Emblem is because the combat systems are incredibly well balanced. Not only is there (typically) no clear dominant strategy like there was in MP3 (some games definitely manage to stretch this, but), the games are also difficult enough that you are forced to use your brain to work with and interplay your units in order to win, as opposed to being easy enough that you can coast by on suboptimal strategy like in FFVI.

Pokemon, on the other hand, I'm convinced has deep enough flaws that its single-player battle system will never be enjoyable. Nothing wrong with being a multiplayer-only game, but it sure has an annoying amount of baggage to it before you can unlock that part.
 

vonFiedler

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call me lazy, but i think a game needs to force me to think. I do not find arbitrarily imposed difficulty to be very fun. I end up not only disliking the creators of the game for sucking at balancing, but myself for forcing myself to play in a limited way.
I am baffled how you guys can take what I said and think I am talking about restricting myself. I'm talking about playing the game better, which makes them easier. It sounds an awful like you guys are not investing yourselves at the stages of the game that are all about learning, and leaving before the games would road block you when they get difficult (and most final fantasy games gets VERY difficult). Of course same people even complain about games having such learning curves, rpgs are just not different in this regard (maybe longer? They are long ass games with lots of cutscenes and story). You talk about balancing, but one game brought up, Chrono Trigger, always amazed me because I won each boss battle right when I was almost out of resources and hope. That's rare for the genre, but lots of these games are involve a ton of math and playtesting to ensure that most players will be able to handle adequate challenges without needing to grind. Well, it seems like in any new game that has exp I'll always overlevel, but this used to the case anyway.

In FFVI on the other hand, there's a battle system which I bet actually has incredible tactical depth to it. But do you know how many times i used the row button? literally zero. I never used gray magic outside of the cultists' tower either, where i only used the one that absorbed their MP. and again outside of cultist's tower, my strategy was as simple as adding the most powerful boosting item i had to each character and using their strongest attack option, with the occasional healing magic, and i never had to grind. Fortunately, this didn't dampen my enjoyment of the game hardly at all, because the story was still extremely good, the art was beautiful, the music was kick-ass, and the combat system managed to stay above snooze-level. But i feel like the combat definitely could have been better.
To be fair, FFVI def has the weakest tactical and strategic options in any FF game. There's a lot people who would lynch us for saying that but it's true. Every other game has and requires more interesting tactical or strategic options, though 2, 8, and 13 are still far inferior games in general.
 
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Layell

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Oh god Stratos let me chime in a bit on MP3 while we are there. I've been playing it again since it's on the Wii-U (and having lost the original), I also forgot a lot of the game, so I went in with mostly fresh eyes. First off the command visor for your ship is so pointless, for me it's a mobile save and warp station, I never use the grapple upgrade out of the one fetch quest, and the ship missiles are pointless. When I'm in a fight I'm not considering when I can use my ship missiles, most of the time I am not in any place where I even can use them. Hyper mode also has a ton of flaws when some enemies just auto go into hyper mode. You are forced to lose HP to kill them because blasting at them to infinity, it's just such an extra hassle. Also the initial hyper mode beam is really the only useful attack, your last hyper upgrade however is really useful in the last area.

Other than that though the art design is fantastic, and how you slowly corrupt over the game. More alien worlds are also stellar.

I'm also playing through Kirby Rainbow Curse, and oh man this figurine collection thing is going to drive me up the wall.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
To be fair, FFVI def has the weakest tactical and strategic options in any FF game. There's a lot people who would lynch us for saying that but it's true. Every other game has and requires more interesting tactical or strategic options, though 2, 8, and 13 are still far inferior games in general.
FFVI is the only FF i've ever played so yah, that could have something to do with it. I also have never played chrono trigger, so i cant comment on that. I will say that I enjoy when a game gives me difficulty and learning curve. I'm just saying that a lot of games never give you incentive to learn, or that you learn that they're badly broken around a single optimal strategy.
 
I mean I'll be honest, my thoughts on MP3 were and will always be "at least it's better than MP2".
I love Metroid Prime 2, but it always annoyed me that the beam upgrades had limited ammo.

There was a certain satisfaction in the first Metroid Prime in being able to fire off the plasma beam haphazardly, unworried about rationing out some arbitrary number of shots.

I guess it was supposed to contribute to the difficulty level, but I always found it to detract from the gameplay.
 
call me lazy, but i think a game needs to force me to think.
wut

anyway i don't get what the previous exchange was about? "i don't like rpgs that i can beat just mashing A"? uh sure, that is fine and i commend you on it but you can't beat chrono trigger by mashing A. if you honestly think you can, you haven't played the game. case in point: dragon tank (literally the first boss).

i've only played one tactical rpg (fire emblem 7 i think) so i have a very loose grasp on the genre. i get that you like moving the peons and approaching the enemy the best possible way but how is that very much different from choosing the appropriate attack, be it meelee, attack spell, heal spell, in a conventional rpg? sure, the scenario changes constantly but after a while you are wont to reuse the same tactics that have been working and engaging advantageous combats (say mounted units are good versus foot soldiers or some shit). as far as strategy goes, how is that not like "use atk up spell > smash face". it seems to me you perceive the moving of units on the battefield as more rewarding intellectually than moving a cursor to select an action, which is totally fine by me. but don't tell me you can beat chrono trigger with one button.
 

DHR-107

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I try and avoid that kind of thing as I see it as confining, Portal is a perfect example of why, unless you replayed it a few times I don't think you'd get one pound per hour on it (maybe on sale, idk how low it goes on sale), but it's easily one of the best games I've played and completely worth it despite that.
Agree with your point on FS2, it's not a great game at all. The second time I played the game I did it on the hardest difficulty. This is coming from someone who plays a lot of games, but I don't usually play them for difficulty. Only got stuck in two places, few resets on the Gorog and then on the final boss. Rest of the game was easy :(

Portal on the other hand was totally worth the money. I played that through a good few times (more than making it under the £1/h mark). I actually had it on 360 as part of the Orange Box, and then bought it again on steam, and I've still played plenty of it and its sequel.

My favourite genre is RTS style games. Command and Conquer/Sins of a Solar Empire and the like. I recently started going back and playing through the various CnC games because of the CnC Ultimate Collection on Origin. I am honestly surprised how well Red Alert 2 has aged all things considered. Pretty disappointed in CnC4 though. Man, it could have been really good except for the failings in unit design and story telling...
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Sry to hijack, bummer
Yes and no. This is definitely relevat to the topic, but if the discussion cannot be resolved with a few posts, then you might wanna consider making your own thread so that you can post your thoughts without feeling that you push away other posts unrelated to your discussion. vonFiedler Stratos Yuri

"To the moon" is the best story to ever be put in game form.
I watched a Let's Play of it, so sadly I've now botched any attempts of getting any enjoyment from playing it myself, but I will agree that the story was good. The parts where they had to collect mementos or whatchucallit to boost their memory jumps seemed tedious though, but I suppose they had to involve some manner of gameplay that made the player interact with each new environment.
 

lighthouses

Inordinary
is a Tiering Contributor
Yea, I watched a let's play of it, too. I agree that they had to put some sort of gameplay in there although I think I wouldn't mind it just being one huge cutescene.
 

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