Comments on: Planning your Playing

By: Zashkaser

Zashkaser — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:01:28 +0000

All the best for your future.

By: shoinan

shoinan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:35:03 +0000

That’s the nail in the coffin that certifes my never ever playing this game. That sounds horrible.

By: Games Journalism Or Bust! » Blog Archive » The Best Laid Plans…

Games Journalism Or Bust! » Blog Archive » The Best Laid Plans… — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:39:27 +0000

[...] Re: Viera’s Planning Your Playing [...]

By: James

James — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:35:58 +0000

Like you, I absolutely adore RPGs (although they take far too long to complete so I haven’t played as many as I’d like) but this issue is possibly one of the biggest barriers to an otherwise all-encompassing genre: you have to read up on the game before you play.

If you want to complete an FPS or Platformer properly (100%), you don’t need any form of prior knowledge. You simply dive headfirst into the game, train yourself up and apply yourself to the necessary areas, whether it’s completing a mission in less than three minutes or finding those elusive last Macguffins in each level.

With RPGs, you have to read up on how the mechanics of the game work before you can truly enjoy it, which completely ruins the enjoyment for me. It lowers the sensation of actually playing to feel more like work. Like you’re studying, and then playing the game is the exam. That’s not the way it should be!

Oblivion’s beasties level up at the same time as you, meaning if you focus on certain stats, you’ll find yourself at a disadvantage at a later stage. Likewise the quests give you different rewards depending on your level, and the only way to know which to do early and which to save for later is to read up on it. Surely, in a game based on complete freedom, I shouldn’t be punished for not completing things in the order the developers intended?

Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are incredible gaming experiences, easily standing out from the crowd of other RPGs, but unless you read up on then, you’ll be blissfully unaware of the fact that, once you’ve beaten the final boss, you can’t return to finish the side-quests without starting again. I still had half a galaxy to save!

RPG developers need to appreciate that because of the time, effort, sweat and blood players put into their games, they need to be more lenient than other genres would be. They need to let the player discover the game in their own way, or at least warn/guide them if they need to follow a certain path.

By: Mr Bwem Bwem

Mr Bwem Bwem — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 11:28:32 +0000

You should see the leveling system on Final Fantasy VII – Crisis Core on the PSP, basically its all about luck, You get a slot machine popping up on the screen every now and again during a battle and if you get a 7 7 7, you Level-up. Its pretty lame how RPG creaters nowadays just can’t bring back the normal battling and leveling up system just like Final fantasy 7 – 9. And after seeing the trailer for FFXIII, i think that Square-Enix Epic Fails because they yet again use a crappy battle system i dislike, i hate constantly bashing X X X X X X to attack, i prefer choice and turn based battling. Then again, thats my personal opinion :P

By: Nessie

Nessie — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:08:32 +0000

ouch!! I try to complete certain things in games, I usually don’t do a lot of replaying. But I once wanted the “good ending” to Suikoden2 (and it was my only game when i got my PS at the time) and set out to get all 108 stars… and halfway through realized I totally missed out on one of them. *oops* For some reason I thought I could pick him up later/didn’t realize he was a star! >.< Either way I gave up on that one cause I didn’t want to replay a 3rd time.

But I have been successful in other endeavors~ Like getting the Knights of the Round in FF7, 150 Pokemon in Blue, and helping my ex in Kingdom Hearts 2 to get the secret video. Once thing that sucked about Kingdom Hearts 2 though was the last bosses didn’t scale according to your level, so they were quite trivial compared with the side quest stuff we chose to complete.

But that seems really misleading, that really stinks!! :x