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| ONSLAUGHT 3267th Post
 
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
     
     
|  "Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Wed 16 Feb 09:40:
This thread might be pure nonsense, but I'm sick and bored, so bear with me.
What's that game you thought you wouldn't be playing if not for the wonderful or engaging storyline?
An example of this (for me), is Twisted Metal Black, with insane difficulty and repetitive gameplay, but with the most bizarre and sick stories I've ever seen in a videogame, I just love them despite the average gameplay and fun factor.
Other is not a game, but a series of games (someone is going to cut my balls for this comment). First is Silent Hill, then Resident Evil.
Seriously, what's fun about SH or RE? pathetic, stressing and repetitive gameplay, with little to no changes since their first game (a notable exception being Resident Evil 4, wich is tons of fun, but with an inconcluse story). Without the great storylines in these games, would you consider them anything fun? I know I wouldn't.
Post yours.
[this message was edited by ONSLAUGHT on Wed 16 Feb 09:42] |
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| ArrowedGuy
3th Post
New Customer
| "Re(1):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Wed 16 Feb 15:13
At the top of my list is definitely Disgaea. Before you flame, lemme just make it clear that Laharl is in fact my favorite RPG lead. But, the "strategy" part of it is lacking, in my opinion. In SRPGs like Fire Emblem and FF Tactics lower level characters managed smartly can overturn high levelled characters, but it's far less so in Disgaea with the bounding leaps in levels you have to make on some maps, especially the extra ones. (Made it to, but never defeated Baal...)
Then comes Vagrant Story, which I never even finished. I was very interested in the plot, but got absolutely sick of juggling weapons and keeping my RISK meter low. When I ran out of the item that lowered it, I stopped playing (and had to give it back to a friend that moved away before I could resume).
Also since Silent Hill was mentioned, I totally agree with it. Survival horror games aren't scary because of ugly monsters, they're tense because characters have such clumsy and unnatural movement... I was interested in Silent Hill, but got fed up before I could finish.
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| Juke Joint Jezebel 3324th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
|  "Re(2):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Wed 16 Feb 15:25
quote:
At the top of my list is definitely Disgaea. Before you flame, lemme just make it clear that Laharl is in fact my favorite RPG lead. But, the "strategy" part of it is lacking, in my opinion. In SRPGs like Fire Emblem and FF Tactics lower level characters managed smartly can overturn high levelled characters, but it's far less so in Disgaea with the bounding leaps in levels you have to make on some maps, especially the extra ones. (Made it to, but never defeated Baal...)
i don't know what to say about Disgaea. i have too many mixed feelings about it. in that one thread, i was gonna list it as one of my favorite ps2 games, then i was gonna turn it around and list it as one of the most disappointing ps2 games. on that note, the 'monkey difficulty' makes me incredibly sad
"The earth has become a grave of rotten sticks."
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| DarkZero 1107th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(2):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Wed 16 Feb 15:40
quote:
At the top of my list is definitely Disgaea. Before you flame, lemme just make it clear that Laharl is in fact my favorite RPG lead. But, the "strategy" part of it is lacking, in my opinion. In SRPGs like Fire Emblem and FF Tactics lower level characters managed smartly can overturn high levelled characters, but it's far less so in Disgaea with the bounding leaps in levels you have to make on some maps, especially the extra ones. (Made it to, but never defeated Baal...)
I think that after people spend hours getting to the extraneous, super-ridiculously-hardcore stuff like Baal, they start to forget about the strategy in the regular story levels. Don't you remember the ice level where you're being poisoned every turn, but in order to stop the poisoning, you have to spend more than one turn moving your team around in a wild Throw chain, leaving your team half dead and disconnected from one another? Or the really, really long level later on where you have to create a Throw chain so large and complex, that it leaves every single member of your team stranded for several turns, surrounded by winged monsters on geopanels that essentially say "You Are Now The Wrath Of God"? I thought Disgaea had a lot of uniquely strategic maps that just couldn't appear in other strategy games.
I also disagree about Suikoden 3, but I'm not going to spend time making a point that only Iggy and I will defend. :laugh:
Anyway, my vote for "Bad/average games with great storylines" is Knights of the Old Republic. The conversation mechanic of the game, which I think of as "the story", is really interesting, but the combat is pathetically boring. You rush the enemy, you use your standard string of force powers (Choke > Lightning > Lightning > Choke > Drain > Lightning > Lightning), and you command your backups to just spam their strongest attacks, especially if they're ranged attackers. No real strategy involved, especially since the D&D engine running the game reduced everything to a roll, which gave you a high chance of missing every attack.
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| hikarutilmitt 299th Post
Copper Customer
| "Re(4):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 00:06
I'll have to go with most of the Mortal Kombat series (the story is at least intriguing, what with all the characters changing sides for various reasons and dying when you don't expect it).
Final Fantasy X. Say what you will, but I enjoyed the story and how it worked, but the gameplay was pretty much average, if that.
Megaman X7 is a great example. the story was at least somewhat interesting with giving us a new character and having X finally realize he can't have peace by letting everyone else do the work, but GOD the gameplay is crummy. It's too slow, lacks good music and just isn't terribly well-done. Good thing X8 fixes that.
I'll also feel obligated to mention RE, since I like zombies and such, but hate the gameplay (controls are SHIT, especially).
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| Pollyanna 852th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(5):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 10:42
quote:
Personally, I thought that just about everything about the game was perfect.
See, now, you've crossed the line. I didn't want to say anything, because I liked Suikoden 3 and I can understand someone saying "the things you complain about didn't bother me" or "it had enough good points to overcome its weaknesses", but perfect is a powerful word.
So let me run down what is your idea of a perfect RPG.
1: No more than 2 actual mazes. "Mazes" that exist are gotten past by walking in one direction continuously until you reach your destination.
2: Fighting the same 3 bosses that have no relevance to the plot and are usually optional several times, rather than having a large number of plot-related, different bosses.
3: Renders where the faces are painted on and most of the characters have the same body render.
4: Only having control of half of your team.
5: Going through the same "mazes" multiple times. Some, as many as 6 (or more) times with the same enemies as before.
6: Fights that can be won 90% of the time by tapping the "confirm" button and looking away from the screen.
These are not opinion issues. I didn't like the environments or the music, but those are things I didn't LIKE, so that's not fair. I realize as well that you think the fight system worked and only controlling half of your team added an element of strategy. That's fine, but "perfect?" So in that respect it's your preference to control half of your team? If the game did actually demand more stategy, I would accept that, but I honestly spent a large portion of the game looking away from the screen.
As I said, I'll take it if someone says "I didn't notice these things" or "these things didn't bother me", but "perfect" is a different issue.
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| DarkZero 1109th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(6):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 13:04
quote:
So let me run down what is your idea of a perfect RPG.
1: No more than 2 actual mazes. "Mazes" that exist are gotten past by walking in one direction continuously until you reach your destination.
The difference here is that I enjoyed the battle system, whereas you didn't. Therefore, while you saw a boring trek through an uninteresting dungeon, I saw a dungeon blissfully unencumbered by braindead switch/elevator/gate puzzles that take no actual thought, but rather just give you the illusion that you're actually doing something between random battles. This would be why I liked Suikoden 3's dungeons significantly more than Megaten 3's, which are occasionally interesting, but more often just filled with switchy gate crap that is boring.
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3: Renders where the faces are painted on and most of the characters have the same body render.
I haven't actually cared what an RPG has looked like in years. It had an interesting art style that I sort of liked, but honestly, they could've been stick figures and I still would've liked it. If I can see my character and see what I'm hitting, that's good enough, and that applies to any game.
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4: Only having control of half of your team.
This is where I thought the game's battle system was brilliant, but I've explained this a million times before on this board. I thought it was really unique to have AI assistance that was predictable, but might not work with you. When forming your team, you had to put some thought into it and wonder, "If I actually pair this melee attacker and this fire magic user, is the fire magic user just going to set the melee attacker on fire?" I've always compared it to riding a horse: The horse has a mind of its own, but it's still fairly predictable, so you have to tailor your actions to get it to work with you. Rather than just throw my hands up and complain that I didn't have control, I found it more interesting and more strategic to be the leader of a group of characters that will, on occasion, actually make their own decisions, instead of just being a good little mindless chess piece and doing whatever the almighty Player commands them to do.
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2: Fighting the same 3 bosses that have no relevance to the plot and are usually optional several times, rather than having a large number of plot-related, different bosses.
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5: Going through the same "mazes" multiple times. Some, as many as 6 (or more) times with the same enemies as before.
This goes back to a discussion I've had several different times on this board, which is whether it's better when a game has a constant stream of new content or when it creates an actual world with characters and locations. Lots of people complained that Devil May Cry "recycled" enemies because it had you fight Phantom, Griffon, Nelo Angelo, and Nightmare two or three times each. Personally, instead of fighting two generic bosses and having two generic monsters chasing me, I found that it was really cool that for the first quarter of the game or so, Phantom relentlessly hounds you, making him more like a common fictional enemy that you'd find it a novel, a comic book, or whatever else, instead of just Generic Cool-Looking Video Game Boss #48 showing up, dying, and being replaced by Generic Cool-Looking Video Game Boss #49.
And I feel the same way about Suikoden 3. I thought it was nice that instead of throwing a bunch of outlandish boss designs at me, it created a horde of monsters that were a real, recurring problem in certain areas, along with a group of villains who hounded you repeatedly throughout the game. And instead of creating a whole bunch of short little dungeons that were nothing but a segue between different areas, the game had you go back through the same little dungeons for the five minutes or so that it takes to pass through them, which I felt gave the game a real feeling of space and environment, as if it were an actual world instead of just an endless path from the start of the game to wherever the last boss shows up. I guess the best analogy would be that it reminded me of games like Symphony of the Night, where all the moving backward and forward across areas gives you the feeling that you're in an actual space, instead of just progressing linearly through a video game.
Sure, all of this was much easier for the designers than creating new content, but I don't really understand this mentality of "OMG they recycled!". Just as with movies, sometimes cheaper actually equals better.
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6: Fights that can be won 90% of the time by tapping the "confirm" button and looking away from the screen.
Yes, the game was a bit too easy, I'll give you that. The only real challenges were the optional fights against Yuber. Then again, much like the graphics, I find this to be a problem with most games right now, mostly because the idea of selectable difficulty seems to have almost disappeared from gaming, so I couldn't really point out a single game and make that complaint about it.
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| Pollyanna 853th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(4):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 15:39
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play it anyways. despite 'monkey difficulty' and the sugary dialogue that made me convulse, i still had a lot of fun with it. my advice, though, is to let things go. if you get too obsessive about the game, it can ruin your life. i wasted three months doing nothing but training gods. i wish i had that time back
Very true.
Also...
DarkZero: I mistakenly assumed that you were like most other gamers. Most people care about graphics (to a degree), having control of (all) their characters and variety (in bosses, environments, whatever). You're not just in the minority for liking the gamplay in Suiko3, you're in the minority for your unusual value system.
I don't mean to sound insulting or anything, I just took some things for granted. I think I could have forgiven Suiko 3 if it implemented its battle system well...to provide challenge or an outlet for strategy in any instance but the final boss.
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| Iggy 5814th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(6):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 18:00
Sorry if I'm late to the discution.
quote:
1: No more than 2 actual mazes. "Mazes" that exist are gotten past by walking in one direction continuously until you reach your destination.
Like Darkzero said about the impression of a living world. Also, I like Megaten's dungeons as you know, but most games don't have this inventivity and throw you endless corridors again and again. Oh, now I think of it : I think I played FF10 shortly before or after GS3. FF10 had poor maze design, plus it just felt like dungeon X, then dungeon Y. No matter what the scenario was saying, it didn't felt like visiting different parts of the world, just playing a badly designed videogame. RPGs that make you go through the same place again and again create the feeling of an existing world, it also occurs in Megaten. Yes, in this case, cheaper=better.
Oh god did FF10 sucked.
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2: Fighting the same 3 bosses that have no relevance to the plot
They were just wild beasts living here, I think ?
I prefer those to "I'm general red, and I'll never forgive you for killing general blue aaah I'm dead general yellow how could you". cheap but good again, the place felt more real.
Also, since most RPG are too easy for their own good, it's a good thing they were just wild beast and not actual characters, because having a new plot-related boss appearing just to have his ass kicked in 4 turns doesn't do a lot for the general credibility of the bad guys. See FF10.
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3: Renders where the faces are painted on and most of the characters have the same body render.
Yes, but the designs were good, and that's what mattered. You know how I can be a charage ota, and having a Gensui with good characters (including the main characters) was a nice change.
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6: Fights that can be won 90% of the time by tapping the "confirm" button and looking away from the screen.
I don't have much hopes about the current state of difficulty in videogames. If you except Saga and some Megaten, most RPG series were dead easy from the start. It has just gone worse recently, and this game didn't felt like a major offender to me because the easy battle didn't distracted from the other good points of the game. FF10 again.
Also, the best thing in GS3 was the 4 teams that allowed character development of several guys, unlike the other boring GS (and I'm not even talking of GS4).
「とにかく、それは愛のムチよ。
愛しいXXX先生は君を愛弟子として愛するがゆえの厳しさよ」だって。
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| Pollyanna 854th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(6):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 18:01
Adon: Everything you said, are indeed, good points of Suiko 4 (well, excluding the combination attack thing, but that's just my opinion). Regardless, I think everyone here certainly knows my opinion on the game and it has NO PLACE in a topic about good storylines. There were good elements of the storyline, but it didn't drive the game or...do...anything.
I'm a member of the "Suikoden 2 is best" school, as most people are. I can still understand why Iggy wouldn't understand what's so great about it, because, quite frankly, I don't know. I felt as if Suiko 2 had everything together. It was a really solid, well put together RPG. I liked everything about it (in varying degrees), but I agree that nothing about it was especially impressive. Well...no...the strategy battle song and the flashback piano song were quite impressive.
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| DarkZero 1111th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(7):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 18:19
quote:
Also, the best thing in GS3 was the 4 teams that allowed character development of several guys, unlike the other boring GS (and I'm not even talking of GS4).
This is one thing that I wanted to ask about. Since a lot of us have played GS3, but only Iggy and I seem to really like it:
Does anyone disagree that the Trinity System was probably the best way to tell a story with that many characters? By the end of this game, I had actually become endeared to all five teams in the Trinity System, which means that I had come to know and become attached to something like... what, forty main characters? At least?
Did anyone actually not like the Trinity System?
quote:
DarkZero: I mistakenly assumed that you were like most other gamers. Most people care about graphics (to a degree), having control of (all) their characters and variety (in bosses, environments, whatever). You're not just in the minority for liking the gamplay in Suiko3, you're in the minority for your unusual value system.
Ummmm... thank you?
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| Burning Ranger 1064th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member
| "Re(9):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Thu 17 Feb 22:17
quote:
Eternal Darkness has to be up there for me. The story was pretty interesting, to say the least... I thought most of the characters had interesting, yet short and simple tales to observe. I was not a fan of the gameplay, though... amount of types for enemies were very sparse, combat got a lot easier once you start to realize which body parts to hack off of enemies, and replenishing sanity and health meters get too easy to do when you get halfway done with the game.
The game got rave reviews, but wasn't really popular... I felt it had a great story but was a bit undeserving of the high ratings it got from video game sites and magazines.
I liked Eternal Darkness too, but eventually, I too saw it as a standard Survival Horror game. The only thing that set it apart from others was the genuine English voice acting and the sanity meter. Hell, you never really needed any of the guns to fight your enemeis, since the melee weapons worked very well.
Advanced Cyborg E. Branger AKA Burning Ranger
"In the brightest day in the darkest night..."
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| Iggy 5819th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(10):Bad/average games with great storyline" , posted Thu 17 Feb 22:33
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Man, I want to play U:Saga some more but I... I just have no motivation. Is the story really that good in the end? Is it really really worth it?
Errrrr... no.
For me, it took the kaitaishinsho and the hypnotic power of 40 hours to make me really enjoy the game, but I can't really say "YOU HAVE TO DO IT, IT'S SO GREAT OMGFTF". If the story of Laura (and there is nothing beside the sequence in her ending, and no other character will be developped beside Henry in a minor way) doesn't interest you enough to continue during several more hours, then you can forget the game without thinking twice.
Also, Laura was one of the best character of the 7, so don't think "it's because I took a rotten character", it's just that... the game doesn't like you. It happens. A lot.
U:Saga is a misanthropic game.
「とにかく、それは愛のムチよ。
愛しいXXX先生は君を愛弟子として愛するがゆえの厳しさよ」だって。
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| Adon 1482th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(7):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Fri 18 Feb 04:39
quote:
Adon: Everything you said, are indeed, good points of Suiko 4 (well, excluding the combination attack thing, but that's just my opinion). Regardless, I think everyone here certainly knows my opinion on the game and it has NO PLACE in a topic about good storylines. There were good elements of the storyline, but it didn't drive the game or...do...anything.
I'm a member of the "Suikoden 2 is best" school, as most people are. I can still understand why Iggy wouldn't understand what's so great about it, because, quite frankly, I don't know. I felt as if Suiko 2 had everything together. It was a really solid, well put together RPG. I liked everything about it (in varying degrees), but I agree that nothing about it was especially impressive. Well...no...the strategy battle song and the flashback piano song were quite impressive.
Well I can tell you that I enjoyed all 4 Suikodens but as for a favorite difficult to say. Yes I think 2 is really excellent. That could be my favorite but then it also could be number 1. I definitely don’t need no selling on part 1 and 2. To me those games flowed so well it was like they were one for me. I would love to see them remade again someday. I will tell you at 1st when they switched from 2D to 3D I did not like that but after going through 2 well almost 2 in 3D I can now say I appreciate GS in the 3D world. I am taking guess the only 2D Suikoden adventures we will ever see again will be for a portable like PSP or DS. As far as your opinion on the story since I have yet to see it in it’s entirety I will wait on that issue.
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| Variable Savior 254th Post
Copper Customer
| "Re(8):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Fri 18 Feb 11:36
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By the end of the game I was so fond of my created characters (Kenshiro, Gatsu, Deedlit, Linna, Kenshin...) that I kept being surprised when they weren't involved in the cutscenes. Oops, I'm going OT.
Ohh I can totally relate to this. I got so attached to my characters that I was saddened to watch them become obsolete as I focused on Laharl and my Majin (so they could tackle Baal). It was kind of like watching your childhood dog grow old and feeble.
I also agree with whoever said Disgaea was an incredible time-sink/waster. As much as I loved it, the 300 hours or so I spent with it just can't be justified. It's so bad that I'm actually rather hesitant to play my copy of Phantom Brave - I don't want to be drawn into that kind of compulsion again.
Back on topic: I'm sure this will go over like a ton of bricks, but I always found Tekken's storyline to be much more interesting then it's gameplay. Mind you, that's probably not so much a testimonial to Tekken's narrative as it is a condemnation of it's gameplay. Still, it was nice to have a fighting series that actually offered a definitive winner for the previous tournament.
Blood marks heaven's path
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| DarkZero 1113th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(9):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Fri 18 Feb 13:30
quote:
I also agree with whoever said Disgaea was an incredible time-sink/waster. As much as I loved it, the 300 hours or so I spent with it just can't be justified. It's so bad that I'm actually rather hesitant to play my copy of Phantom Brave - I don't want to be drawn into that kind of compulsion again.
Phantom Brave is a really good, really addicting game, but it's nowhere near as much of a time sink as Disgaea. Once you finish the main story, which I believe only lasted forty or fifty hours, there are only like seven bonus maps, and I think that only four of them were interesting enough for me to level up for them.
And while the Item World-like random dungeons are fun, you'll spend nowhere near as much time in them as Disgaea, because they're not really that good for grinding for levels, and Phantom Brave doesn't really require you to grind very often, anyway. I'd say that altogether, I spent maybe 60 hours with Phantom Brave, and I didn't really feel that there was that much that I didn't complete. Maybe another ten hours to grind up to the final maps, but that's it.
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| Phoenix 725th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(10):Bad/average games with great storyline" , posted Sat 19 Feb 05:12:
quote:
Back on topic: I'm sure this will go over like a ton of bricks, but I always found Tekken's storyline to be much more interesting then it's gameplay. Mind you, that's probably not so much a testimonial to Tekken's narrative as it is a condemnation of it's gameplay. Still, it was nice to have a fighting series that actually offered a definitive winner for the previous tournament.
That is true, I always wished VF had the same interesting characters and storyline as Tekken. Oh well =P
The character who won each VF tournament was based on the character of the winner of the real tournament. So I guess that's interesting...
What I don't understand is why Sega sucks so badly with their storylines. I mean it's cool that they're hardcore about gameplay and all but didn't they also make games with great storylines like Phantasy Star, SOA, Shining Force? So what's with the stupid ass storylines on VF, Fighting Vipers, (and partly PSO I guess cuz no story there either)...? Sigh, come on Sega Sammy Holdings- you can do it! ...right? And to think Shining Tears got such crappy reviews. I bet Shining Force will bomb...prove me wrong Sega. I really enjoyed Sega's Macross and Initial D adaptions so I know they got what it takes.
Variable Savior: "Ohh I can totally relate to this. I got so attached to my characters that I was saddened to watch them become obsolete as I focused on Laharl and my Majin (so they could tackle Baal). It was kind of like watching your childhood dog grow old and feeble."
Wow, so a Majin can stand toe to toe with the great Overlord?! I've been transmigrating my characters dutifully like Rugal suggested way back when. But lately I've been too lazy to transmigrate everyone so I've been focusing on making Laharl invincible. (too easy) I must have transmigrated him almost 7 times and he's around level 67. I sometimes wonder what the ultimate party's classes would be. But yeah, too much time sinker to build that. (But I'm so tempted...and the ultimate party is probably Laharl plus 9 Majins but no fun...no variety =P) And I'm sooo OT again.
[this message was edited by Phoenix on Sat 19 Feb 05:22] |
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"Re(1):Bad/average games with great storylines" , posted Wed 16 Feb 11:20
