MrPopo wrote:Yeah, that's the confusing part. They made The Second Encounter, which at the time we thought was 2, because it's the same size as the first. Then they made an actual 2, and it had a mixed reception (and the devs don't seem to be fans of it). It makes several tonal changes and level design changes that just didn't land very well. Right now the consensus seems to be that Second Encounter is the second game, III: BFE is the third game, and the game labeled "2" no longer exists.
I looked into SS2 and while yes its tonal is different but for the time looks like a fun and crazy shooter. If you want to just shoot guns in a crazy world it fits the bill, I don't know if there was such a silly FPS up until then
New Sonic game announced out of nowhere.
3D, and looks like it's not even crap. Sorta looks like Lost World, but without all the bad stuff that one suffered from.
Apple Arcade exclusive? Why tho?
I guess I've been looking for an excuse to build a Hackintosh, but still, that's a lot of work to play a 3D sonic game...
Unfortunately the Hackintosh route is getting less and less viable as Apple slowly weeds Intel CPUs out of their ecosystem. If you don't Hackintosh soon you may eventually lose the ability to do that at all.
Anapan wrote:New Sonic game announced out of nowhere.
3D, and looks like it's not even crap. Sorta looks like Lost World, but without all the bad stuff that one suffered from.
Apple Arcade exclusive? Why tho?
I guess I've been looking for an excuse to build a Hackintosh, but still, that's a lot of work to play a 3D sonic game...
well, same reason all exclusives are, because it makes a lock-in for the system and attracts new customers.
I wonder back in the day when consoles were architecturally different, did programmers have to rewrite the whole game to release it as cross-platform or there was a button in the game engine that said "Export to PSX" "Export to Saturn" .
You know there is something to be said for throwing too much at a player too soon
I started playing Star Ocean First Departure R and jesus frucking Christ I feel like I've just sat through like three fucking hours of dialog and cutscenes. CAN I PLEASE GO FIGHT SOME MONSTERS OR KILL A FUCKING BOSS ALREADY!!!
Jesus, I can't even remember how long it's been since the game last let me save my progress. This is fucking ridiculous.
Good rpgs strike a good balance between gameplay and story. The best ones even start off with a bang like how Final Fantasy 7 immediately throws you into an epic scenario with lots of combat ending in a boss battle. Then it finally slows down a bit and starts throwing lots of story at you.
Sigh, Star Ocean is testing my patience.
Blah, blah, blah, people turned to stone, blah, blah, we're from planet earth, blah, blah, there's another planet that's evil, blah, blah, let's go to earth to save your friend, blah, blah, friend makes dying request, blah, blah, let's go to earth, blah, blah, let's meet with an ambassador from the evil planet, blah, blah, planet is not really evil but is doing the bidding of a third party, blah, blah, hey let's talk about ANOTHER planet, blah, blah, it has a time gate, blah, blah, there was a monster on your planet 300 hours years ago, blah, blah, something about demonic wars, blah, blah, we can use the time gate to turn everybody back from stone, blah, blah, it's off limits though, blah, blah, let's escape on the ship and not tell anyone, blah, blah, the time gate has a guardian, blah, blah, let's see if it'll let us use the time gate, blah, blah, pointless unnecessary anime cut scene, blah, blah, hey you have magic blood that makes things invisible, blah, blah, girl trips on stone, blah, blah, where did everyone go? blah, blah, girl needs new clothes
HOLY SHIT. I can finally control my character again after like three years of story...FUCK!!!!! STILL NO FUCKING SAVE POINT!!!!!!
Do yourself a favor and never play Dragon Quest VII. It literally takes an hour to get to your first combat (as in, run a stopwatch, realize it's an hour after you hit Start Game that you fight a slime).
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
The only Star Ocean I've played is the first one on SFC. It's been a few years, but I definitely don't remember it being dialog heavy. I get really annoyed by that, too. When you end watching a game more than playing it. It's why I stopped playing Final Fantasy X, and why I have never played Metal Gear Solid 4 (I've heard it has several hours worth of cutscenes).
MrPopo wrote:Do yourself a favor and never play Dragon Quest VII. It literally takes an hour to get to your first combat (as in, run a stopwatch, realize it's an hour after you hit Start Game that you fight a slime).
Thanks! I'm about to start Dragon Quest III, sounds like I dodged a bullet!
Ziggy587 wrote:The only Star Ocean I've played is the first one on SFC. It's been a few years, but I definitely don't remember it being dialog heavy. I get really annoyed by that, too. When you end watching a game more than playing it. It's why I stopped playing Final Fantasy X, and why I have never played Metal Gear Solid 4 (I've heard it has several hours worth of cutscenes).
Either they changed things in the remake, or the game is just front loaded with story. There's literally a metric ton of story stuff that happens after the game's first official save point. I don't see why they couldn't have spread this stuff out a bit. It's like watching episode 1 of a show and they try to cram in what could have been five to six episodes (or more) of stuff. There's one minor combat encounter during all this, but then you're thrown right back into endless story stuff.
Between the first and second save point, you've toured a space ship, watched your primitive characters adjust to futuristic technology, learned about them having special blood that makes things invisible, seen the ship get attacked by aliens, visited two planets, seen the ship getting snuck up on by a stealth ship, went to a meeting with an ambassador, said goodbye to a friend who may be dying, learned about a demonic war, learned about an ancient evil from 300 years ago, learned about a planet that started a war, then found out that some OTHER ancient civilization is actually controlling them, then found out that they blew up a planet, then found out that your characters' planet is being attacked by them because of the magic blood thing, then learn about ANOTHER planet that has a time gate, see your characters leave planet earth in an escape since they weren't supposed to leave, then go to the planet with the time gate, find out there's a guardian, watch an anime cut scene, see a stupid character trip and fall on a loose step before being sucked into the time gate, which leads to two characters not appearing in the same spot as the rest of the party.
At this point, you FINALLY get control of your characters again, but there is not a save point in sight and the game now wants you to engage in some nonsense quest where you have to find clothes for one character to change into AND decide which of those clothes to actually give her.
It's like, um, game developers, did you forget that people have lives? Having like an hour of stuff happen before you can save again IS KIND OF ANNOYING. Plus, it's hard to maintain my attention for that long. Keep in mind, I come to video games primarily for GAMEPLAY. When all I want is story I can watch Netflix or read a book. At some point during all of this story stuff I'm just thinking, "Man, I wish I was having fun tinkering with my characters skills and stats right now, or exploring a dungeon and uncovering its secrets and puzzles, discovering some cool new enemies to fight, learning more about the combat system, or finding a good strategy to take down a big boss fight...sigh...oh my god...there's STILL more cutscenes?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
