Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Except nobody's forcing you. If the boss fight is just plain hard and you're not losing due to faulty strategy I appreciate the option to save time. Cutting off that 5 minute period of restarting from the last save, walking to the boss and skipping the dialogue isn't going to have an adverse effect on my health. If I need a break I'll just get up and take it.

Even so, its still sugarcoating failure.

There are no mulligans in war. When you die, you die a dog's death.

[Armando]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Even so, its still sugarcoating failure.

Nobody's sugarcoating it. What do you want them to do, print "You suck for losing" on the screen when you bail out?

When I lose to a boss in Mega Man, where do I end up? Right before the boss. When I lose to a boss in Sonic, I end up right before the boss. When I lose to a boss in an RPG, I end up right before the boss. Except when I lose in Mega Man and Sonic I don't get a Game Over screen and have to dick around reloading my save.

Random battles aren't even worth mentioning, if this is like most RPGs you can run from those. And we've all run from random battles that we're losing at some point or another.

[Kailea]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

I have to agree with the "fail" people, I am sorry, but games are getting way to much "oh I am sorry let me wipe that for you" crap in it. and this is perfect proof. There must be a penalty for dieing, in RPGs its starting from your last save, and loosing what you had gained since them. In most MMORPGs its loosing EXP or something similar. In action games after loosing all your lives, your suppose to start over.

More and more games these days, are starting to dumb down, or full out right baby their gaming crowd.... and I hate it -.-

[Rostum]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

It's a form of entertainment, why would you get so angry about it? There are bigger things in life to worry about than an industry that is expanding past nerds and geeks to a much broader audience who's lives are busy and they don't have hours upon hours to sit down and waste their time.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

There's already plenty of shovelware for the unwashed masses.

[Malacite]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

It's a form of entertainment, why would you get so angry about it? There are bigger things in life to worry about than an industry that is expanding past nerds and geeks to a much broader audience who's lives are busy and they don't have hours upon hours to sit down and waste their time.

It's one thing to cut out a minor nuisance such as having to view the same god damn scene over & over & over (I was ready to break my PSP over the final boss fight in Chains of Olympus >_>) but the catering to all the mouth breathers really is starting to piss me right off.

Resident Evil being a prime example of this with the focus being shifted from survival horror to just being a bad action movie/arcade game. Instead of being rewarded for skill or careful planning (such as leaving several zombies untouched in a few rooms to conserve ammo) they just dumb down the experience for the cry baby newbies by making enemies randomly drop items, money or ammo. As much as I loved Dead Space it really did kill the immersion somewhat having a f'ing store on the ship that I could purchase ammo & weapons from.

And the only time I found it even remotely acceptable to find ammo on the dead bodies was when I was killing those super-fast stasis slashers since they were just moments before space marines (i.e. they actually had guns & ammo on them!)

The culmination of all this? What I deem to be one of the biggest sins in gaming in ages and SHAME ON YOU CAPCOM!!!


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8fpLem2-ho"]YouTube- Mega Man 10 Easy Mode[/ame]



^ a bit of an exaggeration perhaps by the guy from Dueling Analogs but I think he did a good job of getting the message across.

[hexx]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

It's one thing to cut out a minor nuisance such as having to view the same god damn scene over & over & over (I was ready to break my PSP over the final boss fight in Chains of Olympus >_>) but the catering to all the mouth breathers really is starting to piss me right off.

Resident Evil being a prime example of this with the focus being shifted from survival horror to just being a bad action movie/arcade game. Instead of being rewarded for skill or careful planning (such as leaving several zombies untouched in a few rooms to conserve ammo) they just dumb down the experience for the cry baby newbies by making enemies randomly drop items, money or ammo. As much as I loved Dead Space it really did kill the immersion somewhat having a f'ing store on the ship that I could purchase ammo & weapons from.

And the only time I found it even remotely acceptable to find ammo on the dead bodies was when I was killing those super-fast stasis slashers since they were just moments before space marines (i.e. they actually had guns & ammo on them!)

The culmination of all this? What I deem to be one of the biggest sins in gaming in ages and SHAME ON YOU CAPCOM!!!


YouTube- Mega Man 10 Easy Mode



^ a bit of an exaggeration perhaps by the guy from Dueling Analogs but I think he did a good job of getting the message across.

LOL and if in Dead Space, say you ran out of ammo at a critical moment, even when you were conserving ammo as much as possible, you'd be bitching about that too Malacite. Whiners like you can never be made happy to be honest. Better to please the larger (but often silent) majority than the usually smaller (and more vocal) minority. We are in the age of DLC for games, and if something needs to be removed from a game so it can ship on time, more than likely the decision was made so that in the end, the content can also be sold at a later time.

[Feba]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

your suppose to start over.

The English and concept of this sentence are equally wrong. You're "supposed" to do whatever the hell the developers want you to do.

Do you know why early action games don't have a ton of save points all over the place? Because the technology to save games didn't exist on those consoles. This doesn't mean being forced to play through an entire game for three hours straight is the 'proper' way to complete it, that means there's no alternative.

It's just good design. Consider this: You're playing a game that takes three minutes to load a stage. When you die, the stage is reloaded. Obviously, sitting through this reload would be incredibly annoying the third or fourth time you fail something. This is basically what RPGs force you to do most of the time, except it doesn't feel as long because you have to go back to the title screen, select load, pick your save, and wait. And what difference does it make? How does having to go back through things again make a game any more difficult or any better?

There are no mulligans in war. When you die, you die a dog's death.

By this standard, if you die, you should be forced to restart the game from the beginning. And this is totally possible; either you can simply not include a save system (There are no breaks in war!), or you can do what Steel Battalion did and delete saves when you GAME OVER. The thing is, even Steel Battalion, in all of its infamous difficulty, still gave you an eject button and time to escape when things weren't going your way.

Plenty of people played through NES games this way-- why shouldn't we? If the main character dies, why shouldn't he stay dead forever? It's only realistic. Pick a side, gentlemen.

[Malacite]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

LOL and if in Dead Space, say you ran out of ammo at a critical moment, even when you were conserving ammo as much as possible, you'd be bitching about that too Malacite. Whiners like you can never be made happy to be honest

Go DIAF, please. If I ran out of ammo I'd only have myself to blame, as I used to do back when I first got into survival horror. I loved Code Veronica for teaching me the value of knee-capping >.> oh man was that ever a sweet skill. Risky, but the ammo you could save by taking the knife to a zombie's knee was so worth it.

As for Dead Space, the only way you can really run out of ammo is on hard mode since there's less of it, or if you're just the worst shot in the world since dissmembering the Necromorphs was not only the most effective way to fight them but kept ammo use to a minimum.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Regardless of which side you are on, everyone has to admit that games have gotten easier. As the demographic of gamers expands to include different categories of people, they need to adjust how difficult games are to appeal to a broader spectrum. For some this will be a bad thing and for others it will be a good thing........and some just won't give a shit. I love seeing the industry develop, expand, and improve. I was around when it started and, as funny as it sounds, it totally PISSES me off that I have to die and miss shit eventually! lol Things change and its evident, but remember, history tends to repeat itself.

[Malacite]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

What's annoying though is the catering to the casual crowd, even though the hardcore crowd always has been and always will be the primary consumer of software. If you're going to dumb things down for the mouth breathers, either create some kind of optional mode (much as I loathe the idea of MM10 having an easy mode) or for the love of God, show the hardcore gamers who supported your fucking companies for 20+ years some love.

I can't be the only one who wants to beat Reggie's face in with a Baseball Bat (along with Jack Tretton & Boby Kotick)

[Feba]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

What's annoying though is the catering to the casual crowd, even though the hardcore crowd always has been and always will be the primary consumer of software.

Oh bullshit. Look at gaming ads throughout history. From the beginning they've been marketed towards kids, and sold to parents. The idea of fully grown adults playing games didn't really come about until PlayStation, when the Atari generation finally started to move out and start their own lives. Really, look at mature games before then-- other than the occasional M-rated-but-still-largely-aimed-at-kids game like Mortal Kombat, or the flat out pornographic, non-mass market game like Custer's Revenge, there's really nothing there. There are no Metal Gear Solids, no No More Heroes, no games that aim themselves at adults. Most people who think of themselves as 'hardcore gamers' are the people who've been playing since they were kids. There are very few people like TGM who haven't been playing since they were kids and who aren't part of the casual market.

Even then, a lot of the difficulty people remember in games is because they were fucking children. It's like all of the "wah wah I want my simpler, wholesome, safe America back" stuff-- things were never as great as you think they were, we just idolize the past. Seriously, how many of us couldn't play games for shit when we were a kid, even though they give us no problem now? I remember playing some PlayStation demos way back when-- the ones that came from Pizza Hut, or included with the console? Metal Gear Solid, I managed to clear the demo once. For those that haven't played it, the MGS demo is the regular game, up to the point you get to the jail cell. It was incredibly difficult for me; I usually couldn't even make it to the elevator. Playing it a couple years ago, I didn't run into any major problems beating the game. Same with FF8's demo. When I played FF7, I got stuck at the gas chamber scene and had no option but to stop playing. Years later, I looked it up and realized there was an easy solution to my problem.

Too often people forget that not only do kids tend to suck at things, but playing games for years would kinda help to make you better at them.

Even so, there are still tons of challenging games hitting the market. Are they flashy, popular, and well invested in? No, because games like that need to be popular to survive, and like it or not making the game impossible to beat only serves a few fanboys with self-esteem issues, while screwing the game over to everyone else. You don't like easy mode? Play on hard mode. Only one difficulty? That not hard enough for you? Impose limits on yourself to make it harder. People have been doing low level runs, 1HP runs, speedruns, and whatever else for a very long time; if you need the e-peen, find some way to do it without ruining the game's enjoyment for thousands of other people. If you crave the sense of accomplishment, either create one for yourself from the popular games, or play the less popular ones that can afford to be hard. Play the unloved roguelikes like BBQ-- ask him if you want to hear about some hard fucking RPGs. Start joining fighting game tournaments-- you could ask Armando about those. Give bullet hell a shot-- I recommend rrootage; google it. Set record times on games other than racing titles. Make it through a game without dying. Play the arcade games and indie games and freeware games and games made on shoestring budgets because that's all they can afford with their tiny fanbase. But don't think that just giving enemies bigger guns is going to make the industry any better.

And if you loathe the idea of a game having an easy mode, maybe you should consider why. Is it because you loathe the idea of someone who hasn't spent years of their life playing games being successful at them? Is it because you loathe the idea of a series being 'lowered' to the point where beating it doesn't bestow you with INTERNET POINTS? Is it because you're afraid you'll use it? Is it because you had to suffer when you were a kid, so goddamn it so should everyone else starting out? Is it because you want the game to only appeal to hardcore gamers, that way the company will be forced to bend to the whims of the market they've limited themselves to? Is it because something is special when it has a few fans, but mass market crap when it has many?

Really, consider what it is that bugs you about the idea of someone being able to enjoy a game with a level of challenge appropriate for them, even if that wouldn't be challenging to you.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

You can impose artificial challenges, but you can't fix dumbed down level design. Just sayin'...

[DakAttack]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Go DIAF, please. If I ran out of ammo I'd only have myself to blame, as I used to do back when I first got into survival horror. I loved Code Veronica for teaching me the value of knee-capping >.> oh man was that ever a sweet skill. Risky, but the ammo you could save by taking the knife to a zombie's knee was so worth it.

As for Dead Space, the only way you can really run out of ammo is on hard mode since there's less of it, or if you're just the worst shot in the world since dissmembering the Necromorphs was not only the most effective way to fight them but kept ammo use to a minimum.

If you wanted to conserve ammo on the hardest mode you'd limit yourself to only a single weapon. That way, they'll spawn ONLY ammo for that weapon and there really wouldn't be a problem. Coincidentally, it makes upgrading the weapon easier as well.

[Absentia]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Even so, its still sugarcoating failure.

There are no mulligans in war. When you die, you die a dog's death.

So what you're saying is that when we die in a game, we should no longer be able to use that character ever again, or characters if multiple die. If all of the playable characters die, well then I guess it's time to pick up another game.