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Stark wrote:

Exhuminator wrote:Obviously it's time to have another SRPG thread.

4/1 PM me with what the next Together SRPG should be.

RHAPSODY!!!

potatoeman wrote:My unpopular opinion is mobile games have progressed 10x more than consoles in the past 10 years or so. It seems next gen consoles care about games being pretty rather than any sustenance. My evidence being look how long PS2 stories/campaigns were (Resident evil 4, Prince of Persia) and now look at em.

Plus look at how much mobile games have developed, they now run ports of PS2 games with little problems. Give it time before mobile replaces console alltogether

Mobile is interesting to look at due to how quickly the technology has developed. The progress since, more or less, the iPhone was released, has been massive, not just compared to consoles, but compared to PCs and such as well. With it being a somewhat new market (compared to the Palm/Windows CE style devices prior) there was a lot of room to grow.

Most are still operating under significant restrictions though - battery life while running games, meager storage, and so on. Plus, regardless of what they can actually do, there are a lot of new and not necessarily great monetization schemes in play for that market.

IMO, your complaint about modern game length or story really doesn't hold up. Per How Long to Beat your examples are a 16-20 hour game and a 9-10 hour game (I assumed you were referencing Sands of Time)...which would still be fairly typical for similar games today (and utterly dwarfed by things like Witcher 3). Others are longer - Deception IV is much longer than Trapt, Nioh than Ninja Gaiden Black, Drakengard 3 than the original, and so on.

Stuff like short single player shooter campaigns is nothing new. The original Call of Duty wasn't that long either.

If anything, we're seeing more open world style games that end up soaking up a lot more time than their more linear predecessors. Compare, say, MGS2 to MGSV.

Obviously, the reverse can/will be true in some cases too, but to lament it as a general trend just seems inaccurate.

Stark wrote:

Exhuminator wrote:Obviously it's time to have another SRPG thread.

4/1 PM me with what the next Together SRPG should be.

Man I will forget by then. I'll go ahead and say Front Mission, as in the series itself. It's the best SRPG series ever made in my entirely elitist and biased opinion.

potatoeman wrote:Give it time before mobile replaces console altogether

You're not wrong. Smartphones have already made great strides in replacing handhelds, consoles and PCs are eventually next. Eventually a smartphone will just wirelessly sync to your HDTV and controller, and there's your console. People cite battery life but there's some incredible technology being developed in that realm. And worse case, you'd just leave your smartphone sitting on top of its conductive wireless charging pad while you play.

Unpopular Gaming Opinion - mobile phones are a filthy plebeian platform for gaming and inherently inferior to real consoles and dedicated gaming handhelds. I DON'T CARE WHAT EXAMPLES TO THE CONTRARY YOU PROVIDE; I'M A CONSOLE SUPREMACIST.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Unpopular Gaming Opinion - mobile phones are a filthy plebeian platform for gaming and inherently inferior to real consoles and dedicated gaming handhelds. I DON'T CARE WHAT EXAMPLES TO THE CONTRARY YOU PROVIDE; I'M A CONSOLE SUPREMACIST.

Counterpoint, you preordered a Switch and a large pile of software for it...and it's basically a phone (and will need another phone for online services).

There are massive limitations of program file size on phone and those will not be changed any time soon. I do not think that phone games will replace anything. Instead, they are merely another alternative place to experience a particular type of game.

IMHO, we lack 2 main things for before we have complete mobile tech supremacy.

1. Battery technology - we kind of need a breakthrough here. Right now, games just chew up a phone battery to the point that it can compromise the usefulness of the device for its other primary functions. But a breakthrough in battery tech could solve some of these problems (and also some problems in the realms of solar power, electric cars, etc.). But it's not just games - better battery tech will sell the public on the idea of using their phones for a lot of other tasks that we currently don't think of phones as being well suited for.

2. Docking - we need some near-universal docking solution for phones. A Switch-like system where you just slide your phone into a dock and you're outputting through a nice computer monitor and have a full mouse/keyboard/gamepad/other traditional computer input devices.

Once those two things are figured out, it's going to get more and more difficult for desktop and laptop PCs to compete.

I think a large part of it is there being a demand for mobile devices like that. Generally speaking, the technology can be used for it, but efforts to do so have largely been niche at best. Logically, not all PCs are great for gaming either, but there's a sizable enthusiast market to cater to.

Far as I know, the driving reason for app size limits are making things work on cellular data. Storage size (and limits/restrictions on external storage) might be simpler for device makers, but I also suspect a profit area for them.

marlowe221 wrote:2. Docking - we need some near-universal docking solution for phones. A Switch-like system where you just slide your phone into a dock and you're outputting through a nice computer monitor and have a full mouse/keyboard/gamepad/other traditional computer input devices.

USB C is already more than capable of that, and it's already being adopted for mobile devices.

isiolia wrote:Counterpoint, you preordered a Switch and a large pile of software for it...and it's basically a phone (and will need another phone for online services).

It really is true. The Switch is a glorified smartphone in all but cellular service.

BogusMeatFactory wrote:There are massive limitations of program file size on phone and those will not be changed any time soon.

Phone's are starting to support terabyte class microSD. And terabyte class microSD cards are becoming very affordable. I don't think storage space is going to be an issue.

marlowe221 wrote:1. Battery technology

There are a lot of developments underway for this. Here's just a few:

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130380- ... er-the-air

marlowe221 wrote:2. Docking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductiv ... s_charging

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_HDMI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_controller

isolia wrote:the driving reason for app size limits are making things work on cellular data

That's true today. Tomorrow brings faster cellular networks though:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolutio ... g-pmp-cfps

Exhuminator wrote:Well obviously that ranking is not based on difficulty, 'cause Shining Force is a joke.

I found Shining Force III to be quite difficult, much more so if trying to accomplish the optional objectives. Can't speak to the first two, however.