I’m playing Star Ocean: The Last Hope right now, and it’s the first JRPG that I’ve played in a good long while. After playing some games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect, it really feels childish and completely ridiculous in comparison, and really got me thinking a bit about the choices that designers sometimes make in games.
The reason for this is that while I’m overall enjoying the game, there are some things about it that really irritate me, and lead me to ask “why would they do that”. For instance, the game starts with a 30 minute battle tutorial followed by both a 20 minute cut scene and a 2 hour dungeon. How does that even make sense in terms of not boring the person playing it to tears? In addition, there are some minor character and script issues that bug me, such as the annoying item creation character and adding a six year old to the party that ends all her sentences in “kay?”.
Like I said, overall I’m having fun, but there are some simple things that keep this game from being great. What’s the last game that you’ve played that you felt that way about? Solid mechanics, but if it wasn’t for one or two things, you would have loved it? Go!
I played a PS2 Star Ocean game for a little bit too, but I forget which one it was. Honestly, I couldn’t get past the introduction. The main character was likable enough, but his female compatriot was pretty grating. And when a game goes from resort hotel to space ship being assaulted before chapter 1, it’s a pretty convoluted story even for a JRPG. I’m sure it would have been rewarding to put some more time into it, but it was a rental and I just didn’t have the time. I’m more at home in Western RPGs anyways. The main problem with JRPGs as I see it is the lack of moral ambiguity. There’s a right, and there’s a wrong, no way about it. It’s one reason I found Xenogears so refreshing.
Well if it was enjoyable but flawed, I’d say Assassian’s Creed. Repetitiveness is the biggest flaw of that game and it began to grate after a while. FFX-2 was another. Good ideas, but flawed in places.
Eddy, I really think you forgot one factor in the game that really does answer most of those questions or at least some. You are American, the game is Japanese (unless Im mistaken) While that sounds stupid it makes a lot of sense. There are plenty of things that they do that we look at and say are weird. It really explains the little 6 year old I think.
Far Cry 2. The game was good except one thing, enemy re spawns. Terrible. You would clear out an area, leave and come back in 2 min and it was fully re spawned again with annoying guys. Also things like ammo and guns were shooting for realistic but it got annoying. Same with travel. There was no fast travel and on that huge map…annoying.
I’ll have to agree with Sean. There were even things about MGS that didn’t really make sense (maybe they were tied up in the last game) but just playing the first 2, it was pretty difficult to understand some things. But that’s also why it was so great.
I’d also have to agree with you on Far Cry 2 man.. I gave it a real chance, really did. but I got about 66% done and couldnt handle its repetitiveness.
I hated that fallout 3’s ending prevented me from doing anything else, and I had no idea it was about to end.. there were so many places I hadnt explored. So now I’ve loaded a previous save game, taken Fawkes with me, and used the console to add the Map Explorer perk so I can see all the unexplored areas…
If you guys played the game and didn’t discover Oasis… go do it… Beautiful, I have no idea why it isnt part of the main quest…
World at War is amazing except for Second Chance. That goes for CoD4 and Last Stand, too. Other than that, those two games are incredible.
As for JRPG’s, I pretty much only play JRPG’s made by Squenix and Atlus. Other times, the anime games are either horribly voiced, the characters overact with their gestures and stuff, and usually there’s just too much fan service getting in the way.
mirrors edge was great until you get to the combat parts.
Star Ocean: The Second Story was one of my favorite games of all time. You could control a guy who was possessed by two dragons. Awesome.
Geeze, it’s tough to pick a game that hasn’t already been mentioned here. All the games I’ve been playing have been pretty solid. Maybe fix the bugs in inFamous so it doesn’t hard lock my buddy’s PS3?
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Far Cry 2. The game was good except one thing, enemy re spawns. Terrible. You would clear out an area, leave and come back in 2 min and it was fully re spawned again with annoying guys. Also things like ammo and guns were shooting for realistic but it got annoying. Same with travel. There was no fast travel and on that huge map…annoying.[/quote]
Enemy re-spawns and no fast travel were annoying. By God were they. But I never got why, in an industry where people want more realism in their games, some people complained abut how it was too realistic. I myself love the gun jams.