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Disappointments in gaming [roundtable]
 
I'm playing Devil May Cry 2 right now and it's a pretty horrible game. I'd stop playing it but I want to finish it at least once and be done with it, since I want to play the entire Devil May Cry saga. The graphics are boring and so is the gameplay. The music is lazy and can hardly be heard over the guns. The story? What story? It's just some cutscenes interconnected in between boring easy battles. This game is pretty disappointing, especially after having played Devil May Cry 1 immediately before.

What are some of your gaming disappointments?

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04/04/13, 06:48  
 
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GameDadGrant said:
I mean c'mon, it's a game that revolves around an amnesic girl that happens to have super-powers she doesn't know about? And it takes place in a steampunk world that used to have magic, but OH MY GOSH magic still exists? Yeaahhh... NEVER HEARD OF THAT BEFORE. [/sarcasm]
Don't get me started on Cloud, the pathological liar/amnesiac/I-wanna-be-cool-like-Sephiroth-but-I-didn't-really-do-any-of-that-stuff-Zack-did-it-really-truly-sorry-about-lying-to-everyone-in-the-party .

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this thread into a "which was a better Final Fantasy thread".
04/05/13, 19:06   
@Zero

I played it in 1996, after I got into RPGs thanks to Chrono Trigger.

And yeah, that story stuff is boiler-plate stuff for tons of manga and anime and stuff. Wasn't really treading new ground, IMO. And yeah, the music was generic. Not BAD, but typical from what I'd expect out of a game like this. I wasn't blown away by it like I was with Chrono Trigger's soundtrack. (though to be fair, nothing really is favorably compared to Chrono Trigger's soundtrack - except maybe Symphony of the Night, or Chrono Cross's)

I dunno, Final Fantasy 6 wasn't my cup of tea. But I was overjoyed at how well Final Fantasy 7 turned out. Disappointed with 8, was pleasantly surprised by 9, enjoyed 10....and then I kinda stopped playing console RPGs at that point. Final Fantasy 7 was the high point after Chrono Trigger though, for sure.

@ludist210

Cloud's personality was a first for its kind back in 1997. The "emo-good-guy" trope in RPGs didn't start until AFTER Cloud made it popular. Don't blame Cloud for all the terrible, generic, wanna-be-Cloud-characters that came afterwards!
04/05/13, 19:16   
Edited: 04/05/13, 19:18
GameDadGrant said:

I mean c'mon, it's a game that revolves around an amnesic girl that happens to have super-powers she doesn't know about? And it takes place in a steampunk world that used to have magic, but OH MY GOSH magic still exists? Yeaahhh... NEVER HEARD OF THAT BEFORE. [/sarcasm]

FFVI was a character drama. The overarching story wasn't nearly as important as the individual stories of each of the characters. This is back when Square actually tried to do character development, unlike, say, FFX, where Tidus evolves from "whiney bitch who brags about a shitty fake sport that no one cares about" to "whiney bitch who accepts his fate as a whiney bitch."

But the overarching story was still damned good. Yeah it was a steampunk post-magic-but-not-really world, however, how many RPGs, exactly, or games at all, had you played where the bad guy wins and the world is destroyed? And that's like not even the halfway marker of the game. That's what happened, the world was destroyed, it didn't go back to super happy town just because you won later on. People getting slaughtered, suicide attempts, a villain that didn't just hide in the shadows as some vague name but would come down and personally kill people just for the fun of it. It dealt with a lot of interesting ideas that just weren't and to an extent still aren't common in a lot of RPGs.
04/05/13, 19:17   
@Xbob42

I never got to the halfway point of the game - where the world is "destroyed" or whatever. I got to the part where the girl - whatever her name was - turned into a glowy fairy-thing and flew off into the sky. I always got bored and quit shortly thereafter.
04/05/13, 19:20   
Edited: 04/05/13, 20:35
GameDadGrant said:
@Xbob42

I never got to the halfway point of the game - where the world is "destroyed" or whatever. I got to the part where the girl - whatever her name was - turned into a glowy fairy-thing and flew off into the sky. I always got bored and quite shortly thereafter.

...

...

You. Never. NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN.
04/05/13, 19:21   
@GameDadGrant

Dude, you didn't play HALF THE GAME. You missed a lot of story by not playing past that point.
04/05/13, 19:25   
@GameDadGrant That's a half fair point with anime / manga, but I also think it doesn't make complete sense to call something generic in one medium because it draws heavily from others. It's still pretty unique to that medium. Like, when I say Okami has a unique art style, I don't mean it invented that style, really all it did was take a very, very prevalent art style and put it into a game. I just mean it was the first video game (that I know of) to do it right.

Whatever the case, that's just the story. Musicwise, no one was doing what Uematsu was doing, anywhere.

Of course, Chrono Trigger is the apex of sprite-based RPGs, so playing Final Fantasy VI after that dulls things a bit. This is probably a part of why Final Fantasy VI doesn't resonate with me quite as much as it does others. I played it years after the fact.
04/05/13, 19:28   
One of these days I'll probably go back and play through Final Fantasy 6 (I've been sitting on the GBA port for years now) and maybe I'll enjoy it. It may be one of those games that you had to play AT THE TIME in order to really, really enjoy. Or maybe I'm just weird. (likely) As of right now though, I don't agree that it's the *best* game in the series. IMO, that recognition goes to Final Fantasy 7.

Uh... anyway! Back on topic, while still kinda talking about Final Fantasy...I'll admit I was a little disappointed in Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on Gamecube. It was a fun dungeon-crawler when played with friends, but it was an absolute drag when playing solo. IMO, anyway.
04/05/13, 20:41   
@GameDadGrant You have the GBA port? Play it. It has weaker music due to the GBA's sound chip or whatever, but it has a vastly enhanced translation. Play it. Don't play it trying to like it or hate it, just play it! Don't stop midway through like a jerk, either! It really does tell a great story.
04/05/13, 21:07   
I didn't like FF7 because it took my favorite NPC from FF6, Cid, and turned him into a wife-beating drunk.* I was already not enjoying myself because Cloud seemed like a whiny nobody and I just couldn't care that much about Marlene despite the constant appeals for me to do so. When I finally ran into Cid, it just crushed me.

I enjoyed FFX-2 quite a lot in spite of the opening hour. And it is a painful hour indeed. I pushed through because I was a bored college student. I thought the job system was very good, and the story grew on me a lot once some of the goofiness wore off. It was the last FF game I played, as I did not want to do the MMO thing, and after skipping a game, I didn't really have that FF itch anymore. I was still playing DQ8 (with zero disappointment). My favorite FF game is probably VI, but VII was the only one I played that I hated.

*No, the realization that they were not married did not help.


EDIT: as pointed out below, I might be remembering incorrectly. Per Wikipedia, he was verbally abusive; it does not state if he was physically abusive as well. I wonder where I got that impression. Nevertheless, he wasn't a person I'd want to be associate with, let alone save the world with.
04/05/13, 21:31   
Edited: 04/05/13, 23:01
@VickiL
It was definitely an abusive relationship but did Cid outright beat her? I don't recall that.
04/05/13, 21:37   
I'm kinda surprised so much hate is being poured on Ff7's characters. I thought that was the one thing most everybody agreed on - that those guys were cool.

I don't remember Cid being a wife beater, either. But it was a long time ago.
04/05/13, 22:28   
It was the impression I got, but perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly. Looking it up, it says he was verbally abusive, so I guess he was indeed a worthy hero. My bad!
04/05/13, 22:52   
Edited: 04/05/13, 22:53
I think the only character from Final Fantasy that people almost universally agree is cool is Auron from FFX, one of the saving graces from that game.



Dude was brutal. You've got characters like Cloud who are too whiney for some, and then you've got characters like Vincent who are a little too flamboyant for others. Auron seems to have struck a good balance.
04/05/13, 22:53   
@GameDadGrant

Go sit in the corner.
04/05/13, 22:53   
What about Balthier and Fran? They were cool.

04/05/13, 23:18   
I thought they were kinda boring...
04/05/13, 23:23   
@kriswright

To me, most of the characters were second fiddle in VII. Once their stories were done, there wasn't much purpose for them other than having extra party members.

Barret's story wrapped up (for the most part) after the Golden Saucer incident, Cid's was over after coming back from outer space (he never physically abused Shera (not his wife), just verbally...but that was brutal), Red XIII didn't really develop after Cosmo Canyon, you could completely miss Yuffie's story entirely and it was pretty easy to miss Vincent (as a character) altogether unless you knew where to go. Even then, his story was interesting, but over quick. Cait Sith was...well, he was present.

The only characters that had any lasting impact, in my opinion, were Aeris (or Aerith if you thpeak with a lithp), Tifa, Sephiroth, and Cloud because their stories unfolded over the course of the game, not just over a short span.

The game could use a redo. If it had a fresh translation and updated visuals (because of the differences between field models, battle models, and CG models), it would help, but Square Enix can't win because they'll somehow botch the remake and make a lot of fans cry foul. Hence why I think we'll never see a VII remake.
04/05/13, 23:38   
I too have never finished FF6, despite getting to the big plot twist twice. It's not that I didn't like the game, nor was I disappointed, I just kind of got burned out on it. I guess I'm just flighty when it comes to traditional JRPGs.

As for the rest of the Final Fantasy mainline, the only one I've ever completed myself was FF1 (the remake on GBA). I didn't really care for it. I've also dabbled in FF2 (remake), assisted others with parts of 7-10. And 7 seemed like the most interesting one of the glimpses I had. It was pretty mind-blowing at the time, but I guess it was also my first epic RPG.



Another disappointment: Star Fox Command. Dogfights only? Lame. The tactics gimmick was lazy, too. And all those endings and storylines...Star Fox doesn't need more plot development. Worst of all, the enemy AI was absolutely terrible. They wouldn't even shoot at you unless they were visible on screen. Kind of making the whole dogfight setup pointless. Also, it was personally disappointing because, when I saw the first trailer where you draw lines on the map to get around, I kind of assumed the player was making his own on-rails stage, which I thought was a really cool concept.
04/06/13, 00:21   
Oh, Grant..
04/06/13, 00:28   
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