I do agree with that. Three words : Miang and Grahf
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH
I didn’t get stuck in there, but the up-and-down-and-up-and-down-twist-and-turn-and-change-boots-and-up-again-and-down-and-where-the-fuck-am-I-anyway drove me INSANE ::dekar!::
Movie: Transfromers the Movie
Okay, now that that’s over… remember FFX? If you like long games, go play that piece of junk. Or try making a shrine (complete with pics, walkthrough, enemy stats and maps for every area) and you’ll be taking that comment back. If any of you have wondered why I don’t post it’s because maps take so flipping long to make (I hope no one has noticed that my shrine hasn’t been updated in two months).
Also, the length doesn’t make or break the game. I know we’re discussing RPGs, but remember the original Doom? Also, I think the American video gaming crowd leans toward easier games. Super Mario 2 wasn’t released in the USA because it was too hard. Maybe you’re playing too much; if you beat a thirty-hour game in a week, that would be about 5 and a half hours a day. Maybe a little too much?
I do agree, though, that on the large scale, games are getting easier; but, then again there’s Batallion Wars and Mario Strikers…
FFX isn’t a good example, since a good portion of the game isn’t gameplay and there’s really not much in the way of exploring that you can do unless you have a complete Al Bhed dictionary. And bitching about your inability to make a shrine for it is pointless since he’s complaining about the length of RPGs not making shrines.
I think that level gave me vertigo as a kid when I played it on the genisis. By the time I got past it I was to drained to continue on with the game.
I agree it is just perception. The kids growing up with the rpgs now will in 10-20 years probably saying the same thing about whatever kind of rpgs are coming out then. They will also go back and play the games from our childhood like DW and FF and think how easy we had it since they would be able to beat those in a day.
Console-type rpgs are incredibly hard to balance because of the leveling up thing, but there are good and bad ways of adding difficulty. You sometimes can’t make the game harder without affecting gameplay and alienating some people. The best kind of difficulty is the one that comes as a choice to the player. This is why they don’t usually make the main quest overly difficult.
Types of added difficulties I generally hate:
[ol]
[li]“Forced removal or use of certain characters” I adore the suikoden series, but it is notorious for this. They purposely incapacitate a character so you can’t use him or they force members into your party (I’m looking at you Gremio and Nanami) that you want to replace with someone a whole lot better.
[/li]
[li]“Mass HP % reduction or instant mass death” I don’t mind this as much and I actually like some % reduction. I mainly mean the attacks in FF game that will bring you down to 1 hp no matter what. I just find them annoying rather than a desired added difficulty.
[/li]
[li]“Restricted Leveling” This one I hate the most. My favorite part of rpgs is leveling weak characters and watching them get strong. When they don’t allow me to do this at will I get disgruntled. I don’t mind spots in the game where you can’t level, but they should be a minority in my opinion.
[/li]
[li]“Increased Encounters and/or slow movement” I am looking at Suikoden 4 with this. I hate games that artificially lengthen the game by making the characters move really slow to increase the amount of encounters you have to go through.
[/li][/ol]
The type of added difficulties I tend to like are
[ol]
[li] “No-Losses Playthrough” where you can’t get the the best-of-the-best items/characters if you mess up. Like in Growlanser where you had to finish each battle with a perfect score to accomplish everything in the game.
[/li]
[li] “Near-impossible Sidequests/bosses” FF7 is the obvious, monst common example with this and I think it is the best way to go. It allows those that just want to finish the game to do it and gives those that like maxing out stats and such a reward for doing so. I am rather surprised all rpgs don’t do this.
[/li][/ol]
Sometimes I am bothered by final bosses being too easy and making it feel like a waste, but if there are sufficiently difficult sidequests to test my abilities against I don’t mind. Many games have these.
On game length I always shoot for around 40 hours for the first play through on an rpg. If it is less than that for the main quest and a majority of the side quests then I do think less of the rpg. My favorite rpgs are typically ones that took upward of 80-100 hours on the first playthrough.
I always played RPGs for the story, not how hard or easy it is. Doesn’t anyone else? D:
Yeah same here.
SMB2 also wasn’t released in the US because it wasn’t well received in Japan, it wasn’t very original, and because Nintendo and Miyamoto really wanted to bring Doki Doki Panic to America, but knew that the characters would keep the game from selling.
While, in the past, many games were kept from America due to difficulty, or changed, now we’ve seen the exact opposite happen; many Japanese games are made <I>harder</I> for the US release. For example, the first Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan) was changed drastically for the US release to make it harder (less Ink Ribbons, less ammo, harder zombies, etc). The main reason for this is that game rental (and, I believe, movie rental) and reselling is illegal in Japan, so the games can be short and easy and people will still buy them. In America, if a game is short enough that one can beat it during a single rental, they often won’t buy it.
If you’re looking for a nice, hard, long RPG (lol), three words:
Shin.
Megami.
Tensei.
Pick up a copy of Nocturne for PS2 (Lucifer’s Call for you European folk) and play through it. It’s kinda rare (here at least), but very good, although brutal at times. Normal mode will have you seeing the Game Over screen with suprising consistancy later on, and I shudder to think of Hard mode.
Gotta love random encounters that can kill you before you can act <_<
Okay, I’ll bite, the skills that add half turns to the enemy are annoying, especially if you have to fight more than one of said enemy.
No way. It’s awesome to use that AGAINST the enemy and get like 11 press turns.
Play Tales of Symphonia on the hard difficulty without any of the bonuses, like the 2x EXP or 10x EXP. It’s nigh impossible to beat because even bosses early in the game are amplified in terms of difficulty (the bonuses make it easier for obvious reasons).
In Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, there’s a fight where you fight two Uruk-hais or something, and there’s only one of you. If they go first, you have no possible way to win the fight because they’ll use Stunning Strike (makes you lose your next turn, and does damage) over and over till you die. Fun!
Beating RPG’s for me takes a few weeks so that I can enjoy it fully. As for thinking video games are becoming too easy, it all depends among the player. Consider the old, old, old, old, old, old, 1 trillion words later, old, old, old, old, NES game, Blaster Master. If you want more info go to GameFaqs or just use your imagine about a boy and his huge frog jumping into Radio-O-Active Material in the boy’s backyard to produce a strange story in a video game. Many people say that they beat this with no problem, and I say bring on the proof because either they use:
- Use Genie Codes
- Lie
This game is impossible to beat without no saving feature, my father is the only person that came close to beating it with my brothers in second. I play and beat many games but this is beyond the reaches of impossible gaming.
They use an emulator with save states.
I approve of your avatar
Word. I don’t work 60 hours per week, but I spend about 10 hours each day devoted to work or to commuting. There’s just not much time left for me for games. I also agree with the learning of strategy… we’re just that good now. 
I say the real decline of video games was when Vicki Mints stopped coming into the chat.