Final Fantasy 4 DS review.

Wow, my first game in a good while that I know people on this board have actually played. Too bad I hated it. :confused:


There are two different ways a video game can be hard, speaking in broad generalizations. One way is to make obstacles carefully around the rules of the game, which challenge you to either perform technically precise, or think of a clever strategy to succeed. The other way is to just make the obstacles absurdly difficult in spite of the player’s preparation, or perhaps due to sloppy game control. Guess what? Final Fantasy 4 on the DS manages to have intentionally absurd challenges AND poorly refined game mechanics.

A bit of a history lesson on FF4’s battle system: Final Fantasy 4 was the game which originated the Active Time Battle system (ATB), where all characters and enemies acquire turns based on how fast they are, rather than everyone on the field having an equal amount of turns. The charge time before acquiring a turn is usually indicated by a gauge which fills up over time. The Final Fantasy ATB systems have always given the options to allow time to stop while choosing spells, items or targets (called ‘wait’); or to have time run continuously (called ‘active’). The only other things you need to know about FF4’s combat are that some characters are fighter types or mage types, and you can have up to five party members at once. It might sound lame these days to talk about it as if it’s such an amazing thing; however, this was groundbreaking back in 1991 - bet it.

That being said, ATB has always been a fundamentally flawed system. If you grind too much, you get way too many turns. If you’re well-prepared, you can give orders faster, and the faster you give a command, the quicker a character gets their next turn. The bottom line is, it’s easy to steamroll any enemy in an ATB system. I challenge ANYONE to find an ATB-type system where this isn’t true.

…Except for Final Fantasy 4 DS. I suppose it’s only fitting that the progenitor of the ATB system would be the game to reinvent it. So, why, then, did I write such a hateful-sounding first paragraph? Simple: FF4DS has several minor annoyances in gameplay, and it went WAY over the top in creating most of its challenges.

Let me start by explaining the main addition to FF4DS’s gameplay: Augments. Augments allow a character to learn a new skill. You gain new augments by completing certain tasks, stealing them from enemies, and getting them from non-permanent party members after they leave you for good. You can get additional Augments from non-perma party members by giving THEM a specified number of Augments. This allows you to customize your characters to an extent. Augments, by the way, are one-time use.

There’s just one problem with the Augment system: The game does NOT explain to you how to acquire Augments. When you first learn about them, it says some vague crap like “Look around, you never know where you might find them!” That’s bull. You MIGHT think to steal them from enemies, or you MAY think “Maybe I’ll get an Augment from completing this task?” However, I can’t believe that ANYONE would think, “Man, maybe I’ll get more Augments from this character if I GIVE them some!” Part of the reason you wouldn’t think that is because that’s just retarded logic. Another reason is because you don’t know for quite a while that you can get Augments that way. If you’ve played FF4, you would even think to NOT give them Augments, because you’d just lose them!

The most frustrating thing is, the concept of giving non-perma members Augments to recieve more isn’t a bad idea. There are actually several mediocre-or-worse Augments that you could hand out to those characters, no sweat! But, let’s pretend you didn’t read this review before you played the game…you probably would have never tried that if you’ve already played FF4.

Now, onto the nitpicks about the gameplay. Let’s start off with the most comical trouble: You can get into random battles by walking into walls. This does get frustrating in a practical situation, however, when trying to navigate through hidden passages. You’ll be trying to feel your way through, and you’ll get into random battles very frequently without covering any ground.

Another thing that bothers me: Touch screen functionality. Or rather, that there is none. Normally, I think of touch screen functionality as a gimmick, but it could have been very useful in FF4DS. The reason? When two characters have acquired a turn simultaneously, you can press the Y button to switch characters without performing an action. However, you don’t choose which character it switches to. Imagine how obnoxious that is, if you have five people who have a turn at the same time, and you need to kick of your assault with a specific action…and it gets to the character you need last. This situation happens more than you might think. For example, how about when you get a preemptive strike? When you get a first strike, you really ought to strike FIRST, right? However, because of this archaic ‘Press Y all day to switch characters’ mechanic, it’s not uncommon to see your enemies attack you first, EVEN during a first strike. It would be so easy to implement, too: The touch screen already displays all the names of the party members in large boxes that would be easy enough to just TOUCH. Why didn’t they throw that in?

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the game is this: When your character acquires a turn, if you accidentally pick the wrong spell/item, and press the cancel button, it takes you back to the FIRST menu, and not the spell/item list! This really sucks, because spell and item lists are crazily long, and even though you can manually sort them, it takes a lot of time to select a spell. Mess that up more than once in a row on ‘active’ and you’re screwed. It’s easier to make that happen than it seems, too - mostly because FF4DS will not accept inputs from the D-Pad that are TOO fast. So, the game, in some strange way, actually PUNISHES you for trying to act as quickly as possible. Kind of ironic, huh?

The last unrefined-gameplay gripe I have is a very strange one. In FF4DS, some actions require charge time, like spells. Also, there are some actions, like physical attacks, that freeze every gauge until the action is completed, whether you’re playing on ‘wait’ or ‘active’. The strange thing is, though, there are some actions that DON’T freeze the gauge…like spell animations.

What are the ramifications of this? I’ll give you an example of when this comes into play: In the final dungeon, there is a boss that casts Reflect (a spell which causes other magic to bounce off of a target) on itself, and then all your party members. This enemy is also susceptible to the spell Stop. So, how do you cast stop on it? Easy: Wait until the monster casts Reflect on your party, and then bounce Stop off of one of yourparty members. So, you wait until you see the monster cast Reflect, and immediately cast Stop on one of your party members.

Now, after casting Stop, if you don’t perform ANY actions with ANYONE, your caster with be 3/4 through the charge time for casting Stop, all which happened during the spell animation for Reflect. However, if you then take actions with all your characters during this time, your caster’s gauge will freeze multiple times, making it so that they will be 1/4 through the charge time or less by the end of the Reflect animation. This is yet ANOTHER instance where the game PUNISHES you for acting swiftly and decisively.

Think about that for a second. FF4DS, a game with the ATB system, has measures in effect that punish you for acting as quickly as possible. Now, this isn’t necesarily a bad thing, either. In fact, as I will tell you in a minute, FF4DS has some COOL measures in effect that encourage you to stop and think before making actions. However, three of the four points above feel like a bunch of (in)convenient accidents (let’s face it, they probably were), rather than deliberate attempts to make you strategically stop and think about what you’re doing.

You wanna know the craziest thing, though? I haven’t even gotten to the worst part. Everything I’ve mentioned so far can definitely take a game that would otherwise be great and make it mediocre; but, I must concede that none of the things I’ve listed are truly deal-breakers. If this next point doesn’t dissuade you from playing the game, then nothing will:

In Final Fantasy 4 DS, the most bosses have specific counter-attacks to physical and magic attacks. This, in my opinion, is AWESOME. Bosses have a certain probability of counter-attacking, and they usually have two stances where it will be safer to attack in a certain way than it would usually be. This is undermined, however, by one small problem: Magic in this game is too powerful. What a small problem, but what a HUGE impact it has on the game! You see, at around the halfway point of the game, most bosses have some sort of ultimate (magic) attack that hits EVERYONE, and will KILL everyone in one hit except the main character, Cecil. It doesn’t matter if they’re at full life or not, they’re GOING to die.

This was intentional, and here’s why I know this: Near the end of the game, you get a character in your group for a short while. This character’s stats do not raise at ALL when they gain a level. This character also gets one-shotted at max HP by both of the bosses you fight during their tenure in the party. That, to me, is a clear admission that somebody thought this was a GOOD idea.

Even worse? Sometimes, the ultimate attacks aren’t even counters; they can just USE that attack! There were a few bosses that kick off the fight by doing their ulimate attack, killing off four of my five party members before I did ANYTHING. As soon as they got another turn, they’d use it again. I don’t even want to recount some of the STUPID shit I had to do to beat bosses like this, but suffice it to say I probably shaved a year off my life by just being to stubborn to stop playing the game.

To wrap up my feelings about the gameplay: It’s crap, and they almost single-handedly ruins the experience. It sure as hell wasn’t the graphics or the music, which were certainly up to snuff. A lot of sound effects, graphical effects, and music were carefully crafted to remind you of the original game in the best way possible. This was, without a doubt, the best part of FF4DS.

Because seriously, it wasn’t the story. The story always had a cool premise to it: You’re Cecil, the captain of a fleet of flying ships run by Baron, a strong military nation. Baron is seeking out the world’s four elemental crystals for some reason unknown to Cecil, and they’re taking them from other nations by force. Anyways, some things happen, and as a result, Cecil is relieved from duty, and is eventually forced to confront the terrible actions being commited by his kingdom and joins the fight against Baron.

Now, this hasn’t changed one iota; however, the localization sports some really haughty (for lack of a better word) English that would be hard for a child to read. What’s wrong with this, you say?

FF4’s story is very childish. I played through it when I was six and understood perfectly what was going on. And seriously, so many tragic scenes in this game that are painfully contrived. Who do you think would would be affected the most by these scenes, regardless of their quality? A child, who won’t say “Well, the emotional appeal of this scene was diminished because this character wasn’t developed, and bla, bla, bla.” Just as well, many of those said ‘tragedies’ were miraculously (i.e illogically) reversed, in ways that would make you cringe if you saw it happen in a modern RPG. Who do you think that’s going to have the best impact on? A kid, who wouldn’t be so critical of such things. And who will best appreciate that the ending of the game has all the characters get together for a happy party? Yep. Final Fantasy 4 is a children’s story, through and through. For that reason, the haughty dialogue feels really contradictory, as if they’re trying to make it into some dark affair that it clearly isn’t.

For someone who wants a reasonable, exciting challenge, Final Fantasy 4 will eat you up and spit you out, because it was made for the ‘hardcore’ audiences. Even still, I think it’s tragic that people will overlook all the above gameplay hiccups, simply because it’s a Final Fantasy game. In my professional opinion, you should take the 40 dollars that it costs to buy this game and use it to buy ice cream; it tastes better than FF4DS, you can enjoy it with your girlfriend.

I always felt the GBA version of this game was better. I just finished playing it, and… I thought it was okay. And in the scale of Val’s Low Standards of Gaming, that means most people would probably dislike it.

I definitely agree with you on the total cheapness of those total annihilation spells. it pissed me off to no end, since sometimes, I even had them use the exact same attack twice in a fucking row!

I dunno, I loved FFIV, but I guess most of it was jsut nostalgia, and my love for the characters. This version didn’t seem to add too much to it at all.

Oh, and did you ever complete the namingway quest? I just happened, by the msot incredible luck, to get a Rainbow Pudding on the moon before getting FusoYa.

SINISTRAL HACKING A POST:

I think your review is blowing things out of proportion. I personally thought this was the best reiteration of FFIV yet and I welcomed most of the gameplay changes. I felt the boss battles actually required a strategy beyond throwing everything that does any damage forward. You had to perform specific actions, not perform specific actions and adjust to the problems that popped up. The only problems I had were the first time I fought the bombs on Mt Hobbs, and when I fought Lugae (fucking reverse). Otherwise, the battles are actually pretty fucking good as long as you’re not completely stupid.

I actually liked the fact they made the game almost grind proof because that is the lazy man’s way of dealing with things. The grind proofing is demonstrated with your complaint about the level thing. Of all people I would’ve thought you would’ve liked the strategy aspect. I even didn’t have dual cast to save my ass with healing spells. I had to compensate in a variety of ways, which added to my challenge.

What I will agree with you on is not that the augment system was bad, but how it was not intuitive (how I missed double cast). I agree it is fucking stupid. But when you actually use it, I felt it added customizability to the characters in a useful way. You don’t have a choice but to use Cecil as a tank, for example. I will also admit on the gameplay end that physical attacks should’ve been stronger. Rydia was my powerhouse and that left Kain doing mostly nothing. At least Edge could throw things for big damage (but was otherwise mostly useless).

I also think it is silly for griping at the story. Its a JRPG. All JRPGs have stories like this. Simply admit you’re sick of JRPG fantasy save the world stories and we’ve all seen it a million times. I felt they did a superb job redoing the script, the voice acting was mostly very good and the game looked pretty fucking good for a DS game. I play on the subway with headphones and the music recreation wasn’t badly ported as I expected it to be. I thought the celtic moon twist was interesting.

If you want to talk about bad gameplay, let’s talk about FFIII DS. Now THERE is a total lack of balance and strategy.

SK HACKING A POST:

Hot damn, this is fun!

I wouldn’t have minded if most attacks that bosses had didn’t kill everyone but Cecil. [SPOILER]Barbariccia’s lightning counter killed everyone but Cecil and Yang. Lugae’s shitty cure attack killed everyone but Cecil and Yang. Rubitcante’s Inferno attack killed everyone but Cecil (when I fought him in the Giant of Babil, it really did kill EVERYONE - including Cecil). I had to come back to kill Leviathan much later, because Deluge killed my whole party when I first reached him. The stupid defense system in the Giant of Babil was the most retarded boss ever. Laser Barrage killed everyone, and it just did Laser Barrage again before Cecil could do anything important.

I don’t feel like those fights required any sort of REAL strategy. My favorite fights in the game were Scarmiglione and Caignazzo. Most fights devolved into two strategies for me:

  1. For bosses that counter with powerful attacks: Cure everyone to max HP, cast Protect and Shell on them, and then hit the boss with your strongest attack. Prepare for the horrible repercussions afterwards.

or

  1. For bosses that just USE their powerful attacks: Cure everyone to max HP, cast Protect and Shell on them, and hit the boss very slowly while always curing back to max HP. Get ready for a Phoenix Down fest when everyone but Cecil dies.

This may be manageable (after all, I did beat the game), but this is by no means fun, nor does it feel like I’m really being challenged to come up with clever strategies. FF4 just forces two similar strategies down your throat.

And I don’t even want to talk about Lugae or the fucking computer system boss. Those have to have been the most retarded fights on earth.[/SPOILER]

I actually liked the fact they made the game almost grind proof because that is the lazy man’s way of dealing with things. The grind proofing is demonstrated with your complaint about the level thing. Of all people I would’ve thought you would’ve liked the strategy aspect. I even didn’t have dual cast to save my ass with healing spells. I had to compensate in a variety of ways, which added to my challenge.

Sure, I enjoyed that the game was grind proof as well. The example I used was meant to prove a point that the game developers meant for all these attacks I mentioned to kill you in one hit. But, yes, I completely agree about the grinding. More games should do this…they should just do it better, I think.

What I will agree with you on is not that the augment system was bad, but how it was not intuitive (how I missed double cast). I agree it is fucking stupid. But when you actually use it, I felt it added customizability to the characters in a useful way. You don’t have a choice but to use Cecil as a tank, for example. I will also admit on the gameplay end that physical attacks should’ve been stronger. Rydia was my powerhouse and that left Kain doing mostly nothing. At least Edge could throw things for big damage (but was otherwise mostly useless).

I think you misunderstood: I also really liked the Augment system. What I didn’t like is exactly what you said - they don’t explain properly how to get new Augments. This put a damper on what I feel was otherwise a really cool idea.

I also think it is silly for griping at the story. Its a JRPG. All JRPGs have stories like this. Simply admit you’re sick of JRPG fantasy save the world stories and we’ve all seen it a million times. I felt they did a superb job redoing the script, the voice acting was mostly very good and the game looked pretty fucking good for a DS game. I play on the subway with headphones and the music recreation wasn’t badly ported as I expected it to be. I thought the celtic moon twist was interesting.

Hey, I didn’t say I had a gripe with the story, either! Sheesh :confused: I said that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the story. I think that the localization makes it feel like it’s trying to be something it’s not. To me, FF4’s story and Blue Dragon’s story (to pick a recent example) are of roughly the same ilk. The only difference I think is that Blue Dragon really owns up to it, where I feel that the FF4DS’s localization doesn’t.

And yes, I definitely agree 100% about voice acting, graphics, and music. The music especially caught my attention, because they didn’t drastically change most of the songs; the composers responsible for arranging the soundtrack were careful to make it sound as close to the original as they could in almost every respect.

If you want to talk about bad gameplay, let’s talk about FFIII DS. Now THERE is a total lack of balance and strategy.

Heh! Actually, I did talk about that!

http://www.rpgclassics.com/reviews/read/ff3ds_sg.shtml

Anyways, I think perhaps you misunderstood what I was saying in my review. I think that pretty much everything FF4DS tried to do was good. I just think they were pulled off poorly. The difficulty is over the top, and doesn’t really require you to think of very good strategies (conversely, I think the random battles usually do). The Augment system is good but they fucked up big time by not explaining properly how to get more. I’ve always enjoyed the story (FF4 is what got me hooked on RPGs, So I’m perhaps even biased in favor of it), but I think the localization doesn’t compliment it at all. These factors, along with all those shitty nitpicks I mentioned, made FF4DS unenjoyable for me.

It was just easier to Haste Cecil and attack Cura attack Cura than go for a desperate Phoenix Down rally. As a result, about five or six boss battles have caused the Cecil in my save go about 8-9 levels higher than the next character. :<

But still, eye and ear candy. Can’t beat audiovisual goodies. Well, unless the game makes me want to destroy the cart again with insta-death boss battles…

I probably would have liked this game a lot more if they had carried the Lunar Ruins from the GBA version over to the DS. As it was, it was still fun. it was nice, having a game that I knew so well, finding new ways to kick my ass.

-------Sinistral-------

SG: I guess we’re a bit on the same page. You just ended up having a lot more difficulty than I did. Valvalis was TOUGH but I got her the first time. The stupid computer boss beat me once because I was lazy and Rubicante screwed me once with a well timed cape ice spell counter attack that I had no control over because of the casting time thing you mentioned. I only really got frustrated at Lugae though, where I used an elixir and an x-potion. God that was irritating. What really actually was tougher for me was the start of almost each dungeon. It was always surprising to get almost wiped on the first or second battle (Zot and Bab-il flame tigers come to mind). They make you play a loooot more cautiously. You’re right to say that yeah you don’t have that much more strategy than you would otherwise since you go from being forced into 1 strategy into another, but I think that’s good still. Its a good transition, I see it as a start. When I think of games now, I have my WoW experience where people have set roles that need to be fulfilled and I like to think and act in those terms and in a flawed way, the new FF4 did that. It makes sense to me to have attack plans like that.

The reason that blue dragon seems like it has the same story is because of Sakaguchi. When Sakaguchi made Mistwalker , which led to BD and Lost Odyssey, I understood that Sakaguchi’s way of thinking hasn’t changed in over 10 years and there is a lot of redundancy to what you do and how its done. A few years post-Sakaguchi / Square, I actually think its a good thing for SE. I’m worn down on Sakaguchi’s way of doing things overall. But I did like their new script though. I can see how it can irritate people to whom it might seem a bit obtuse.

There have been a few interviews discussing the lack of innovation of the Japanese in video games nowadays and I think this is becoming esp apparent when we’re playing JRPGs compared to games like Mass Effect and GTA. As good as Tales of Vesperia is, it is the result of years of polishing and past Tales game production. They’ve milked this baby hard and they learned from their mistakes. It is nevertheless heavily criticized simply for its lack of originality.

While I haven’t gotten the game yet (waiting for the DQ games instead) I’ve heard that they made debuffs like Slow, Stop, and Poison far more useful than in past versions of the game.

Also I had little difficulty with FF III DS compared to the original. The only bosses to really challenge me were Dorga and Scylla.

SG: I guess we’re a bit on the same page. You just ended up having a lot more difficulty than I did. Valvalis was TOUGH but I got her the first time. The stupid computer boss beat me once because I was lazy and Rubicante screwed me once with a well timed cape ice spell counter attack that I had no control over because of the casting time thing you mentioned. I only really got frustrated at Lugae though, where I used an elixir and an x-potion. God that was irritating. What really actually was tougher for me was the start of almost each dungeon. It was always surprising to get almost wiped on the first or second battle (Zot and Bab-il flame tigers come to mind). They make you play a loooot more cautiously. You’re right to say that yeah you don’t have that much more strategy than you would otherwise since you go from being forced into 1 strategy into another, but I think that’s good still. Its a good transition, I see it as a start. When I think of games now, I have my WoW experience where people have set roles that need to be fulfilled and I like to think and act in those terms and in a flawed way, the new FF4 did that. It makes sense to me to have attack plans like that.

Yeah…I feel like I had a harder time than most people, too. Like, things didn’t let up for me until the last dungeon (of all places). The way I had to beat the computer boss was fucking retarded: No one ever survived Laser Barrage but Cecil, but Rosa was the next closest. So THANKFULLY, I hadn’t used ANY Silver/Golden Apples throughout the entire game. So, I used them all on Rosa, upping her max HP by 400. This way, Rosa would survive the attack too, and I could spam attack with Cecil and Curaja with Rosa until the Attack Node died. I feel like this was more or less my experience with the game after the second half. (Oh yeah, and fuck Lugae, too; I beat him the same way, except I used two Elixirs just to be safe)

And yeah, I agree that it’s always a surprise when you first walk into a dungeon. There’s always a few enemies that are really troublesome, and it forces you to figure out how to fight them. I really loved this part of the game. But yeah, the fucking Ice Dogs in the Tower of Zot was like, the first warning sign for me. Their magic attack did the usual ‘kills everyone but cecil’ deal. I have no fucking idea how they expected me to kill TWO Ice Dogs, lmao. Other than enemies like that, I think the random battles were done perfectly.

For sure, though, FF4 is a step in the right direction for ATB systems. I just felt like some of it was a bit too much. I think if they do another one or two games like this, it’ll be perfect. Or maybe, god forbid, some company that isn’t S-E will take notice of this, and do it themselves. I don’t care how it happens, I just want to see this take on the ATB system perfected, because I really liked it.

The reason that blue dragon seems like it has the same story is because of Sakaguchi. When Sakaguchi made Mistwalker , which led to BD and Lost Odyssey, I understood that Sakaguchi’s way of thinking hasn’t changed in over 10 years and there is a lot of redundancy to what you do and how its done. A few years post-Sakaguchi / Square, I actually think its a good thing for SE. I’m worn down on Sakaguchi’s way of doing things overall. But I did like their new script though. I can see how it can irritate people to whom it might seem a bit obtuse.

I agree on that. Nothing to add.

There have been a few interviews discussing the lack of innovation of the Japanese in video games nowadays and I think this is becoming esp apparent when we’re playing JRPGs compared to games like Mass Effect and GTA. As good as Tales of Vesperia is, it is the result of years of polishing and past Tales game production. They’ve milked this baby hard and they learned from their mistakes. It is nevertheless heavily criticized simply for its lack of originality.

I’m always at odds with the whole innovation argument. On one hand, I like that Tales series tries to continually refine their old system (Although admittedly I just don’t like the Tales games that much, I respect what they’re trying to do). I think this is a great thing to do; if you have a great idea that was poorly realized, make it better.

On the other hand, I feel the pain of JRPGs growing stale because they don’t try anything new. I actually read in the newest EGM (they had a big article about Dragon Quest) that when DQ9 originally appeared with screenshots that looked action RPG-esque, there was a HUGE backlash, which pressured them to immediately release new pictures/footage that showed traditional RPG play. From this, I inferred that maybe the Japanese appreciate the familiarity of the genre. It’s really old-fashioned, but think about it from the business perspective; DQ9 showed the possibilty of changing the combat from turn-based to Action RPG, and an uncountable number of people said they wouldn’t even consider buying the game. This mentality probably keeps a lot of Japanese games locked into a specific formula.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that most every RPG that tries something really out there gets terrible reviews (at least in america). Think of some of the more out-there JRPGs of the last ten years:

SaGa series (Though Unlimited SaGa’s criticisms were certainly founded)
BoF Dragon Quarter
Legend of Mana
The World Ends With You

The SaGa games, Dragon Quarter, and Legend of Mana were all pretty harshly disliked at their release (Dragon Quarter and LoM especially by longtime fans of their respective series). The World Ends With You was the only game out of all of these that did well (Although I’ve heard conflicting reports of how it did in Japan; I’ve heard that it was a huge success and I’ve also heard that it tanked). And yet, people have wet dreams over shit like Golden Sun? What a fucking joke. The thing is, all of the above games were excellent, and not just because they were original; they took their new ideas and pulled them off really well. It feels like RPGamers complain about how unoriginal everything is, but are too deeply-rooted in the routine of the ‘unoriginal’ games to appreciate something new half the time. It’s a no win situation.

Originally Posted by Skankin’ Garbage
I’m always at odds with the whole innovation argument. On one hand, I like that Tales series tries to continually refine their old system (Although admittedly I just don’t like the Tales games that much, I respect what they’re trying to do). I think this is a great thing to do; if you have a great idea that was poorly realized, make it better.

This is what I kept saying to myself back in the day every time a new Mana game came out (Though truthfully I’ve yet to try SD4, but I’m still waiting for the price to drop a bit further before I dive into that one). Though I won’t say that LoM was a mistake (though it’s combat system is another matter) I felt that SD2, while not a perfect game, did have some serious potential in terms of it’s combat system. Potential that was sadly ignored for more clumsy mechanics in games like Sword of Mana (like the broken class system, which was even worse due to the lack of any meaningful gains from acquiring classes, and that charge gauge which replaced the Will gauge).

It feels like RPGamers complain about how unoriginal everything is, but are too deeply-rooted in the routine of the ‘unoriginal’ games to appreciate something new half the time. It’s a no win situation.

Originally Posted by RPGamer’s Reviewer of DQ IV
The final issue is the absolute exclusion of the touch screen. While some players prefer the buttons, the DS has been out for too many years with too many great software titles making use of the touch screen to refuse the option altogether. It doesn’t work to press the ironically thumb-sized menu buttons. It doesn’t work to scroll through text. The touch screen is the loser kid in the corner of the Dragon Quest remake party, which is too bad because the other kids don’t realize what a cool guy he could be if they just gave him a chance.

Lol ^this. The rest of it is worth a read too just for the lol.

I haven’t picked up FFIV DS yet, it’s one of those ‘to get eventually’ games. My biggest gripe from what I’ve heard about the game is the lack of addition of the bonus dungeons from the GBA port, and the ability to take whatever party you wished into the final battle. Those were great additions and now it’s difficult to say which version of the game is the definitive one.

Chances are I’ll be picking up DQIV DS before FFIV DS. I’m still sore about Enix’s reversal about releasing the PSX port of DQIV in North American and this game should finally put that bitterness to rest.

Also, dammit Sinistral, stop possessing forum members like some kind of sweary poltergeist and make your 10000th post already.

----Sinistral----

Shrink your sig a bit. Your image is gigantic.

I think the backlash against DQ is specific to DQ. DQ is sort of a hallowed cultural icon in Japan. If I recall correctly, when a new DQ is released schools get a day off; the lineups go several blocks. (Although I dunno if people just buy online now). I don’t think all series suffer the same way. Look at Wild ARMs, for instance; it reinvents itself almost every game.

The problem is not games that try to do new things. Trying to do new things is an experiment; it can succeed or fail. Just because something is new doesn’t make it good. IMO, the first three games you mention simply didn’t add up to enjoyable experiences, whereas the fourth (which I haven’t played yet) apparently does.

Look at FF12 - a lot of people praised the gambit system while decrying the many other flaws of the game. That doesn’t mean that the innovation that went into the game is bad, just that it needed a lot of tweaking, combined with the elimination of other bad design decisions, to make a good game.

Haha yeah, I don’t even really read RPGamer reviews that often anymore. I just look at the scores and go “I’d probly mark everything down two ranks” and that’s what I get out of their reviews. :stuck_out_tongue:

I suppose that’s true, especially for Dragon Quest; but on the other hand, there are a lot of games that stay the same from game to game, for better or worse. Also, Wild ARMs usually gets substandard reviews, I think?

The problem is not games that try to do new things. Trying to do new things is an experiment; it can succeed or fail. Just because something is new doesn’t make it good. IMO, the first three games you mention simply didn’t add up to enjoyable experiences, whereas the fourth (which I haven’t played yet) apparently does.

Look at FF12 - a lot of people praised the gambit system while decrying the many other flaws of the game. That doesn’t mean that the innovation that went into the game is bad, just that it needed a lot of tweaking, combined with the elimination of other bad design decisions, to make a good game.

I agree with what you’re saying, even though my opinions of the games mentioned are the complete antithesis of yours (I loved all the games I mentioned but hated FF12).

Another commonality between two particular games I mentioned (Dragon Quarter, SaGa series) is that they’re judged unfairly due to their innovation.

In the case of Dragon Quarter, there’s a lot of misinformation about how the game works all over the internet (especially the ‘if you die you HAVE to start over’ deal), which I’ve seen people admittedly say they opted not to play the game based on these things.

In the case of the SaGa series since the PSX era (Unlimited SaGa excepted), SaGa Frontier got the worst critical response out between SF1, SF2, and Romancing SaGa. SaGa Frontier 2 got average to good scores, and Romancing SaGa got pretty excellent scores. However, the funniest thing about this to me is the big reasons why people don’t like SaGa Frontier: Very little character/story development, gameplay is too confusing with no help in figuring it out.

SaGa Frontier 2 has probably the most developed characters of any game in the series; but, if you can even imagine this, the gameplay is probably MORE complicated than SaGa Frontier, and has a much higher chance of “Didn’t prepare right so I have to start the whole game over” syndrome. It was also a hell of a lot slower than SaGa Frontier 1.

Romancing SaGa for the PS2 had (finally) a much-needed tutorial system that you could access at any town. But, RSaGa is even more complicated STILL than either SaGa Frontier game! And there’s STILL a ton of stuff that isn’t even explained in the tutorials - like, for example, there are certain types of combination attacks that, if you use them too much, can affect what ENDING you get. WTFMate? To top it off, the characters are perhaps even less fleshed out than SaGa Frontier 1.

And yet, with every new SaGa game, each one getting more and more complex (the character development of SaGa Frontier 2 is probably never going to happen again), they get better and better reviews. To me, this is an indication that more people are becoming accostumed to this type of innovation - not necesarily that SaGa Frontier was a bad game I’m not saying it’s perfect, but by comparison to the other SaGa games, it wasn’t nearly as confusing as the games that followed.

I found it you turn down the battle speed all the way you can get way more turns, although it takes forever. I killed Leviathan before his second Deluge and Bahamut before he could attack once.

WA games usually get fairly average reviews (7’s and 8’s). Not “awesome”, but good to decent.

I actually really like RPGamer reviews. I tend to ignore the score and concentrate on the content. They’re very good at not only saying what about a game is good and bad, but what audience they are talking about. They’ll tell you if a game is unusually difficult, requires a lot of grinding, is very open-ended, etc., meaning that if you enjoy or dislike those things, you can make your own choices about those individual games.

That’s why I tend not to put much credence in review scores; RPGs are already such a diverse group of creatures that one man’s awesome is another man’s suck.

The bad reviews of SaGa games aren’t about the complexity. Valkyrie Profile 2 was insanely complex but garnered pretty good reviews. There are other aspects to the games that affected people’s like or dislike of it. For me, SG1 was a bad game because it forced you to redo many of the same dungeons several times; learning techniques was a question of randomness rather than skill, and I just didn’t find the battles fun. YMMV.

I just remember 4, 5, and whatever new one getting not so hot ones. Maybe 5 did okay. Oh well.

I actually really like RPGamer reviews. I tend to ignore the score and concentrate on the content. They’re very good at not only saying what about a game is good and bad, but what audience they are talking about. They’ll tell you if a game is unusually difficult, requires a lot of grinding, is very open-ended, etc., meaning that if you enjoy or dislike those things, you can make your own choices about those individual games.

That’s why I tend not to put much credence in review scores; RPGs are already such a diverse group of creatures that one man’s awesome is another man’s suck.

I think they tend to crap on things that don’t matter all that much. Like, an Originality score? Originality matters SOMETIMES, like if someone releases an archaic turn-based RPG in the year 2008. But really, my opinion of the Tales series aside, giving it marks down for its originality seems like such a stupid idea, when the whole point was that they were taking the gameplay concepts of the Tales games and perfecting them. I also think they (and most reviewers in general) are too nice.

Also, that’s a big part of why I don’t even put numerical scores. The idea of being able to boil a game down to a numeric value is such a stupid concept to me.

The bad reviews of SaGa games aren’t about the complexity. Valkyrie Profile 2 was insanely complex but garnered pretty good reviews. There are other aspects to the games that affected people’s like or dislike of it. For me, SG1 was a bad game because it forced you to redo many of the same dungeons several times; learning techniques was a question of randomness rather than skill, and I just didn’t find the battles fun. YMMV.

Nevermind that you actually don’t have to redo many dungeons more than twice, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that criticism. I can believe it though. In any case, there’s a lot of the same in SaGa Frontier 2 and ESPECIALLY Romancing SaGa (In fact, learning skills is done the same way but it’s even HARDER in SF2 and RSaGa), but as I said, those games got remarkably higher praise.

I would jsut like to say that I’m gonna play through this game a third time, just so I can put the +50% MP augment on Tellah, giving him more than 90 MP, and thus, enough to cast meteo in a regular battle. Just because I feel like it.

RPGamer’s overall score is specifically not made up of the individual minor scores. A game’s originality might be zero but it could still get a perfect mark. And I like to see the reviewer’s overall score while still reading how he or she got to it.

WA4 didn’t do so well, I think, but WA5 got generally positive reviews. WA:XF got middling ones, because while it has some amazing ideas it’s an incredibly shoddy game.

Gaming reviews are generally “nice”, perhaps, because RPG gamers tend to be a forgiving bunch. It’s not like we need to be jaded snooty critics. 8p Although I have to say I’ve never seen that shortcoming myself… then again, RPGamer is practically the only site I ever read for RPG reviews. It’s only let me down once so far (with Rogue Galaxy). I can usually tell from the review whether I’ll like or dislike a game.

Nevermind that you actually don’t have to redo many dungeons more than twice, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that criticism. I can believe it though. In any case, there’s a lot of the same in SaGa Frontier 2 and ESPECIALLY Romancing SaGa (In fact, learning skills is done the same way but it’s even HARDER in SF2 and RSaGa), but as I said, those games got remarkably higher praise.

True, you don’t have to do anything in SG1, but I remember there being two or three dungeons which either contained really good treasure, or were required for recruiting a really good character or getting magic or something which I ended up doing at least three or four times. It’s been a long time since I played it though. And that experience made sure I never even tried the others in the series, so I can’t comment on the later reviews. I did try RS3 but found many of the same issues I’d originally had with SG1, minus the colorful characters.

I rarely like to read one review. I generally like reading a multitude, even from reviewers of whom I hate their style or have a tendency to disagree with their opinions. Also, I think it’s important to be highly critical of a game, cos that’s what critics do. This is something I actually love about snooty, obnoxious movie critics - they’re opinionated, so they always have a strong, outspoken opinions. This makes reviews not only fun to read, but the most make-or-break points are always outlined clearly.

True, you don’t have to do anything in SG1, but I remember there being two or three dungeons which either contained really good treasure, or were required for recruiting a really good character or getting magic or something which I ended up doing at least three or four times. It’s been a long time since I played it though. And that experience made sure I never even tried the others in the series, so I can’t comment on the later reviews. I did try RS3 but found many of the same issues I’d originally had with SG1, minus the colorful characters.

I could argue that, but it’s kind of off-topic. My point to begin with is that gamers really fear this kind of innovation, and SaGa Frontier was a good point because a lot of the things that people griped about in SaGa Frontier - the things you mentioned, as well - are still present in all the following games of the series, yet recieve much higher reviews than SaGa Frontier - which is strange, because they’re a lot harder, more complicated, and altogether kind of slower in pace (SF2 has more in-depth characters because the story is linear, but imo SF1 trumps it in every other aspect).

The problem is that I can’t respond to those points since I’ve neither played the games in question nor read the reviews in question.

I reiterate my own feelings that innovation is not frowned upon; only when innovation is done badly, or coupled with other bad design decisions, do these games get bad scores. TWEWY is a shining example of this. It’s a game practically unlike any other, yet it got astoundingly good scores and was sold out quickly. That’s because it did what it did very well. tri-Ace games generally have unusual systems, but there are almost always one or two giant flaws that make them less enjoyable, which is why they tend towards more average scores.

The problem is that if you have an innovative game with bad design decisions, you stand to lose a lot more than if you have a traditional game with bad design decisions, because there’ll always be a certain contingent of people buying it because they like other games similar to it. Innovation is always risky, but that doesn’t mean that gamers as a whole frown on it.

As for reviews, I prefer to read the opinions of people who are likely to agree with me. Why should an RTS fan care if, for example, someone who hates RTSes gives Starcraft a bad score? The kinds of things he hates wouldn’t matter to an RTS fan, and indeed might be a plus in its favor. That’s why I like RPGamer’s reviews: they do a great job of enunciating the general points in a game which can go either way as well as things that can be objectively considered good or bad (voice acting, graphics, usability, balance).

I’m not talking about reviewers who don’t like a genre - I would hope someone reviewing a game is a fan of the genre they write about (for example, I don’t put much weight on Zero Punctuation’s RPG reviews; or like, I would never write a review about a FPS cos I’m not into them very much). But in the realm of any one genre, there’s always people who value different things. You and I both love RPGs for example, but our opinions at almost every turn are so diametrically opposed. There’s nothing wrong with that; I still read your reviews and appreciate what they have to say, even if I’m positive that I’ll disagree with them :stuck_out_tongue: But between reading a few different reviews you can create a very accurate picture of the game.

For example, let’s take Golden Sun, a game that you and SK have both reviewed (and a game that I am slowly but surely edging towards completion on).

Your opinion, in a nutshell (correct me if I’m wrong): Pretty standard RPG with a nice visual aesthetic and cool puzzles, but a slightly antiquated battle system and lame story.

SK’s opinion: There’s nothing bad about Golden Sun, mostly because the game doesn’t try to do anything groundbreaking, save for the puzzles related to spells.

My opinion: Thoroughly boring; painfully slow and boring story progression and random battles, with high encounter rate to boot. The puzzles are usually obvious, or nothing more than using the right spell at the right place.

Now, notice that we all pretty much said the same thing, but our overall opinions differ: You really liked it, SK found it mediocre, and I pretty much hate it.

Yet still, someone can read all three reviews and get a much better depiction of the game than if they just read three people who though like you, me, or SK. From reading all three, they can see that the graphics and music are at least not bad, the story is mediocre at best, and the battle system is very, very old-school. If anything will draw a player in, it will be the puzzle element - be it the puzzles themselves, or the fun in figuring out which spells to use at which places.

From there, you can make a more educated guess as to whether or not you’ll enjoy the game.

I wouldn’t say I “really liked it”, not in hindsight. If I’d have reviewed it now as I did then I wouldn’t have given it the score I did. I was also rather cheating by using savestates. 8p

In any case, as I’ve said before, one of the great things about RPGamer’s reviews is precisely that - they tend to lampshade the various aspects of the RPG without necessarily saying whether they’re “good” or “bad”, except for the things which are objectively good or bad (like graphics or usability). There is an overall score, but it’s understood that one’s mileage will vary and that it isn’t necessarily meant to be a definitive description of the game. Lately there are even little lists of pluses and minuses which do an even better job of delineating what one may or may not like about it.