Games Beaten 2017

[Sarge]

Skies of Arcadia shows what happens when you take a well-worn formula, and execute it to near perfection. Many of the elements in the game are done better elsewhere, but there are so many above-average and good elements that the whole is far better than each individual part. My only gripe is the slowness of combat until you start getting the screen-clearing moves (generally Aika's stuff).

[Markies]

but Skies of Arcadia is the one huge epic 50+ hour adventure that just does everything right.

Congrats on beating one of the best JRPGs out there. The Legends version has enough extra content that I put 65 hours into it to finish everything. I hope someday you play the Legends version to experience the differences. But the Dreamcast version is of course still excellent.

Skies of Arcadia shows what happens when you take a well-worn formula, and execute it to near perfection. Many of the elements in the game are done better elsewhere, but there are so many above-average and good elements that the whole is far better than each individual part. My only gripe is the slowness of combat until you start getting the screen-clearing moves (generally Aika's stuff).

My friend and I played the game together for the past several months. He was playing the GameCube version while I was playing the Dreamcast version.

And I know one of the main gripes is the large random encounter rate and I did not see that at all. Maybe one area while I was searching for discoveries was getting annoying, but it wasn't too bad. Maybe I am used to 8 & 16 Bit RPG's with a large amount of battles to slog through.

But, I will be picking up the Legends port sometime in the future. There is enough distinction and what my friend mentioned in differences made me want to play that port as well. I just wanted to play the Dreamcast version first as a base before I go and play the enhanced port. Plus, I would say that the sound and graphics seem to be a little better on the DC version anyway.

I would very much agree in that Aika is the linchpin. Once you start using the screen clearing attacks of her, the game becomes much easier. It does take a bit to get going, but once it does, you are going full bore the entire way.

I have a HUGE soft spot for Square/Enix JRPG's as those are some of my favorite JRPG's. But, I would say Skies goes right up there with Lufia II and Suikoden II as some of my favorite Not Square/Enix JRPG's.

[ElkinFencer10]

Skies of Arcadia shows what happens when you take a well-worn formula, and execute it to near perfection. Many of the elements in the game are done better elsewhere, but there are so many above-average and good elements that the whole is far better than each individual part.

That's exactly how I feel about The Last of Us. Every element of the game is done better by other games, but no game (in my opinion) has ever done that much that well.

[Segata]

Hated TLOU. Mediocre gameplay with bad AI and typical AAA "cinematic" crap.

The Wierd story how I finally beat SOA summer last year. In 2004 I bought SOAL on Gamecube. I played RPGs before but this was the one that latched me into the genre wholly and I been there ever since. One problem. 55 hours into the game my save data got corrupted. I was livid but said fuck it and started a new save file. Once again 50 hours in when I was saving...my power went out. Corrupted again. So I bought the Dreamcast version. I got sidetracked with Grandia II (adore that game like no other) and was just so mad about the save files it took me 12 years to finally get over it and start a new game. Beat the game and took pics just so I could have a Kodak moment for a game and one long journey to get to the end. The only bummer is Gamecube doesn't have the DC DLC and you can no longer get the DLC..easily anyway. Probably a fan hack out there somewhere.

[ElkinFencer10]

Segata, do you like anything, or do you just go out of your way to be contrary?

[dsheinem]

TLOU is probably the best PS3 game, period.

No matter how hipster it is to shit on “AAA games” many of them are still technical marvels that bring together the best and brightest artists, writers, and designers in the industry. The best ones push the needle forward for all of these elements of game creation. Most people’s favorite classic/retrogames were the AAA titles of their time.

Yes, AAA devs sometimes offer safe cash-grab titles...but TLOU was anything but that. An opinion that it is “typical AAA ‘cinematic’ crap” with “mediocre gameplay and poor AI” is not really one that can be substantiated in any reasonable way.

[Segata]

TLOU is probably the best PS3 game, period.

No matter how hipster it is to shit on “AAA games” many of them are still technical marvels that bring together the best and brightest artists, writers, and designers in the industry. The best ones push the needle forward for all of these elements of game creation. Most people’s favorite classic/retrogames were the AAA titles of their time.

Yes, AAA devs sometimes offer safe cash-grab titles...but TLOU was anything but that. An opinion that it is “typical AAA ‘cinematic’ crap” with “mediocre gameplay and poor AI” is not really one that can be substantiated in any reasonable way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZQDFO2KEPo

Then the Human AI which at E3 was promised to be adaptive. When the game released the human AI was stupid. Often running straight at me. Other times crouching right next to them and they don't see me. I mean literally right next to them. In fact, I'm not the only one. There really wasn't anything special about the gunplay. It was just there.



AAA games are not the brightest or best just the biggest budget aimed at the mass mainstream audience which is often the lowest comment denominator. Why Call of Duty still exists despite being not very good games. They typically aim for microtransactions. BS DLC practices. Realism which ages poorly. They overspend and give less time than needed then complain when 4 million copies aren't enough (Tomb Raider Reboot on 7th gen systems) A time where budgets are not planned well and one game can literally bankrupt a company. The game that is likely going to win most the GOTY awards is Botw. A game that only needed to sell 2 million to profit. meanwhile, some of these companies are spending hundreds of millions when they don't need to. Most games aiming for realism start to blend in with about every other game. (Same can be said for generic Moe anime as well I know..many issues there for another time) Who gives a fuck if our fave games were AAA games in 1988 or 1995 or whatever? This is a different time where we have NBA2k18's and Star Wars Battlefront II's of the world. So many AAA games have the "Gold" and "Legend" editions of up to 150 bucks. Skins for 5 bucks on guns in Evolve. You have Final Fantasy XV which 1 year later still adding stuff to the game that should have been there day 1 and this took 10 years to make. What we got was just kinda ..eh. Better than XIII at least. A lot of these games despite having too many cooks in the kitchen huge budgets are still rushed and a good amount of them are riddled with bugs but these days people just accept it when we shouldn't. Not that we never had bugs in polished games of yesterear but not to the degree we see these days.

AAA games basically release the same few types of games yearly. Thier E3 trailers are structured the same way every fucking time. Either CGI that tells us nothing or a very scripted showing on stage with the fade to black title/date at the end. You know the kind. They have two characters walk and talk then say whats that then bang bang shoot. Then reveal of something big and fade to title screen/date. The Nice thing about Indie games is they are bringing back that mid-tier. The Midways and the THQ's were the bread and butter of gaming with the mid-tier stuff. Those faded out mid last gen. Thankfully indies are bringing it back from the bottom up rather than the top down. I do like some AAA games but the majority of them just are more spectacle than good game design. Ass Creed even tho I love and Adore ACII they just never got much better and also just got worse and never fixed major issues. Just renamed new place same problems every year until they took a year off. Since every game these days comes with a CE and an art book. Just look at something like Darksiders II or Xenoblade X and then look at that CoD one or Division. Yup, that's a boat...that's a rifle all right. You look at Watchdogs or Mafia III and aside from tone..it's the exact same formula. If I play Witcher 3 or Dragon's Dogma despite similar setting they are vastly different in formula. At least with the piles of shitty low budget anime games...they are low budget where spending 200 million one something that isn't much different than a lot of other things out already. AAA is loaded with issues it's not cool to hate AAA. I don't hate AAA but AAA is the one with the most issues from an industry issue to the actual game design itself.

It's not about hey man it's not artsy enough for me to jack off to. It's extreme greed and little risk-reward anymore.

[ElkinFencer10]

Yeah, sure, the AI is stupid in The Last of Us on low difficulties, but that's part of what makes them lower difficulty; set it to high difficulties, and the AI is a lot smarter. Also surely you can see that whether AAA games are greedy cash grabs or genuinely well done and creative experiences (even if not always 100% original) is dependent on the publisher more than anything. Call of Duty, Battlefront, Madden? That's EA. No shit they're greedy. Call of Duty and Destiny? Activision. Again, of course they're greedy. Assassin's Creed, For Honor, Tom Clancy? Ubisoft. Another notoriously lazy and greedy company.

Sony Computer Entertainment, though? They've given us The Last of Us (which is an amazing game no matter what you say), Uncharted, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Gravity Rush, Shadow of the Colossus. A lot of Nintendo's games are considered AAA (because it's more than just budget - advertising and consumer reach are part of it, too) - Metroid Prime, Legend of Zelda, Mario, and arguably even Splatoon are all Nintendo published AAA games, and they're all fantastic and definitely no lazy cash grabs.

The issue isn't AAA; the issue is what studio or publisher you're looking at.

[noiseredux]

I mean EA can be greedy and yet still put out a "genuinely well done" game such as Madden 18. Just saying.

[ElkinFencer10]

I mean EA can be greedy and yet still put out a "genuinely well done" game such as Madden 18. Just saying.

Fair, that was an overgeneralization on my part. Perhaps it would be more fitting to say compelling and diverse single player experiences?