The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

[Icemage]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Yeah i'm strongly considering picking up a copy if i go to the mall tomorrow to meet a friend. I'm going to do a quick online search for every EB/Gamestop in my area to see if at least 1 has Xenoblade. I've had a craving for good RPGs lately. ME was filling the void nicely until 3's ending soured it all.

Wouldn't mind finishing skies of arcadia but I don't have my dreamcast anymore... can't find any copies of the PS2 version of Grandia 2 either (though Grandia 1 is pretty cheap on PSN)


Not sure if I wanna buy Resonance of Fate. It's another game I can't seem to find anywhere except online, and my 360's storage is getting severely low (plus I'm moving soon and I don't want to incur too many expenditures as I'm still job hunting as well).

Resonance of Fate is worth your time. Huge steep learning curve but the gameplay is really interesting and elegant once you wrap your head around it.

Also: NIER. Everyone should play NIER.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Really? Nier looked a bit too weird to me.

But other than Infinite Undiscovery (which should be purged from this world) I'm a complete sucker for anything Tri-Ace - especially the Star Ocean series.

[Icemage]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Really? Nier looked a bit too weird to me.

It's a bullet hell shooter disguised as a 3rd person action RPG. Plus all of the characters have more charisma than the entire ensemble cast of FFXIII - even Grimoire Weiss, the talking magic book. It's not the prettiest game in the world, but it makes up for it in good storytelling and cool gameplay.

But other than Infinite Undiscovery (which should be purged from this world) I'm a complete sucker for anything Tri-Ace - especially the Star Ocean series.

Resonance of Fate isn't your typical Tri-Ace thing. It's not your usual save-the-universe spiel. Just a trio of likable somewhat-young people trying to make a living and getting involved in silliness along the way.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

I don't care if it's not their usual brand of story, I care more that they have a great delivery method and usually employ fun/useful crafting mechanics (MOST of the time - the crafting in So3 was a bit of pain)

[Raydeus]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Also: NIER. Everyone should play NIER.


Icemage

Which version? <_<;

[Icemage]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Which version? <_<;

North American version. Nier Replicant is the same thing but with a Japanese shonen protagonist. Gameplay is the same, but the story is creepier in the JP version.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

That whole game looks creepy.

[Icemage]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

That whole game looks creepy.

It's not supposed to be sweetness and light. It's a tragic story. That story is told with great voice acting and great gameplay, without resorting the usual stock tropes.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

That whole game looks creepy.

Simon Templeman voices a sentient, floating book - your opinion is irrelevant.

Don't tell me - it was the cute half-demon/half-human hermaphrodite that scared you away.

I've not gotten around to this one, it often slips my mind - but perhaps I will in the next few weeks, I hear it has a pretty killer OST. SE sure seems to love releasing more music CDs based on the two games, so they must really like it.

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

All the screenshots & trailers I saw just didn't do it for me.

[Icemage]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

All the screenshots & trailers I saw just didn't do it for me.

Come on, Mal. When's the last time you saw me champion a game that was bad? NIER isn't a pretty game by any stretch of the imagination, and it that's what makes the promotional materials look unimpressive. The genius in the game is the gameplay mechanics and attention to storytelling.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Oh I believe you really, I'm just telling you what my impressions were.

I'll have to give it a whirl eventually, but it's not at the top of my list right now.

[Aeni]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Come on, Mal. When's the last time you saw me champion a game that was bad? NIER isn't a pretty game by any stretch of the imagination, and it that's what makes the promotional materials look unimpressive. The genius in the game is the gameplay mechanics and attention to storytelling.


Icemage

To temper the enthusiasm I saw this review:

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

It gets better, but still not great, June 1, 2010
By
Kenneth McCoy


= Fun:
This review is from: NIER (Video Game)
Playing this game was a rather different experience for me. When the first part of the game ended, I was praying that it was actually the end of the game, because quite frankly, I just wanted it to be over. I found the combat bland, the graphics average at best, the sidequests were ridiculously bad, and story was weak.

However, the second half of the game was much better. First, the story got MUCH better, even moving at some parts (Emil and Kaine were great characters). Perhaps more important for the overall enjoyment of the game, the combat got more fun once I was able to upgrade my weapons and my magic spells to satisfying levels. The sidequests were still horrible (well, the fishing was kind of cool), but the more enjoyable combat made them tolerable.

I had two main problems with the game. First, I love RPGs, but this game felt like an RPG that the developer went out of their way to make it less RPG-ish. Leveling up made you more powerful, but you didn't have the opportunity to tune your character by spending XP on specific stats or anything like that. You could use "words" to upgrade your weapons and spells, but it felt pretty generic. As a matter of fact, I played through the entire game with only the first two spells that we were granted. I tried the others, but never really found anything special about them in relation to the first two. So in general, it looks like an RPG, but it really didn't play like one, which was a disappointment to me.

The second problem was the save system. In some cases, it was downright sadistic. A couple of times I had to waste over an hour of progress because I had to quit, and there was no save point in sight. Just be sure to get comfortable and have a large block of time before you enter the Barren Temple for the first time!

Had the game ended when I initially wanted it to, I would have given it a 1-star rating. However, it got much better, and I ended up enjoying it. It's not great, but it's pretty good. If you get it, just be prepared to get through a very slow start.

[Icemage]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Oh, no objection here; the game does have its flaws. It's not pretty - like, at all, ever. The early part of the game is pretty slow, and there's a lot of nuisance side-quests that don't do a whole lot. But the first time you enter one of the major boss battles and the game turns into 3D Ikaruga? Totally worth the price of admission.


Icemage

[Aeni]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

The game is only $18 so it's worth the 3 stars to definitely try. It's in my queue over at Amazon to purchase and with your own review, I'll gladly pay that price of admission. Just that I wanted to head off any potential "Mal hates this game" topic