Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@NEStalgia Well I mean, if I try hard enough I can complain about any game I want for over 30 minutes. Even my two favorite games of all time, Metroid Prime and Super Metroid: I'm going to complain about how bad of an area Magmoor Caverns is for being literally just a backtracky area and being the only way into Phendrana Drifts when putting an elevator that takes you to Tallon Overworld would have cut down on the actual tedious backtracking. And for Super Metroid, the run button being the way it is just plain flat-out sucks. Among more things.

It's not so much as a game being "flawed" as much as "what does this bring to the table" if you ask me.

@NEStalgia ROFL. It probably is true It's still very fun game though, definitely what pushes me into Monolith Soft believer.

(I can't wait for their next game! It looks very fantasy-like)

@NEStalgia Field Skills existed in X but were upgraded in a much more straight forward fashion, and were only used for opening treasure chests in the world. It was never a "HM to progress" like it is in 2 nor is it as awkward to upgrade.

But yeah, I dont enjoy fantasy settings much. Dunno why. Slap some scifi in there though...yum.

I think giving up on a game if it hasn't grabbed you within 6 hours is completely understandable. Just because it lasts 200 doesn't mean it doesn't have a responsibility to hook people in as soon as possible. Reminds me of people that justify FF13's flaws by saying it takes 30 hours to get to the "good" part. And I say this as a fan of both games.

@MisterPi At the same time, a lot of fantastic games are what we call "slow burn" games that need a bit of time to "click". It doesn't just apply to 50+ hour long games; take something like Bayonetta (a 10 hour game), where on your first playthrough you may fumble around button mashing and die a bunch, but once you get better and better you can start pulling off slick combos. The real joy of Bayonetta and other action games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden is going back to replay levels and get better scores, and the fun really multiplies itself on the second or even third playthrough.

Liking a slow burn is a different story and it's fine if people don't like it, but it is what it is.

@MisterPi I agree with this sentiment. I remember my buddy saying the same thing about FF15. If it takes 20 - 30 hours to get good that just seems like a colossal waste of time imo.

Tfw people saying certain games took X hours to get good, meanwhile XC2 hooked me in from the start (Fluffy cloud sea, I can't resist, and Titans definitely hooked my interest even more).

FF15 is also another one I enjoy straight from the start to the end (Although I can't say anything about the game before Royal Edition).

That's the interesting thing about games like those. Sometimes people are hooked in immediately, other times it just fails. XC2 couldn't hook me in but XCX and XC1 did within the first battles.

@MisterPi XC2 has deep flaws in its systems and instructions. FFXIII was simply bad for 30 hours. The systems were actually decent. The game was just bad.

@Knuckles-Fajita "But yeah, I dont enjoy fantasy settings much. Dunno why. Slap some scifi in there though...yum."

So...uhm...about that........

@darkfenrir @redd214 I agree about FFXV. I've been doing a "whitmans sampler" of trying the beginning, like a demo, of all the games I've collected on sales. FFXV is one I keep thinking often about and will probably be near the top of the list of games to go into fully.

@NEStalgia Nah, it was a good enough game. People just didn't like that it was linear. Granted there are plenty plenty of other flaws, but to call it outright bad is something that makes zero sense to me. It's not even a discussion I have the energy to have, so I'm just leaving it at that.

@NEStalgia Well, the science fiction has to outweigh the fantasy. Part of why I dont play western RPGs.

@MisterPi Xenoblade is linear. FFX is linear. FFXIII is on rails more than Doom which kind of breaks RPG encounters in general. The battle system was solid, but the idea that the game was more or less a sequence of battles like a mobile game before mobile existed is what made it "bad." Perhaps the game wasn't bad, but as an RPG it was bad. It was like a turn-based version of Infinity Blade. Not that Infinity Blade isn't fine for what it is, but that's not a game within reasonable expectations for FF.

@Knuckles-Fajita Well just extrapolate what you may know of the "true ending" of XC1 and go from there.... it's a sequel...

I don't know western does things like Fallout, Deus Ex, Mass Effect. I tend to think of Western when I think sci-fi more than JRPGs. It's just that Western fantasy is almost always high-fantasy (or dark fantasy.)

@NEStalgia Yeah the true ending to a game I never played because low and behold if 2 aint grabbing me I'm not booting my Wii up for the first one.

And yeah, western RPGs do a lot outside of fantasy, but then THOSE games all kind of fall flat on the gameplay part for my tastes. I am very particular with RPGs.

@NEStalgia Haha, All I can say is I heavily disagree. That's not what makes a game bad for me. But this conversation has happened on countless message boards. People that don't like 13 won't be convinced, and they shouldn't have to be. It's all besides my initial point, anyway: If a game doesn't grab you quickly, you're completely justified in not continuing it, despite any "it gets good later" promises.

@EvilLucario That's how I feel about XC2. The game is SO flawed, and I could sit around for hours talking about all the things wrong with it (and I believe I did a good deal of complaining on here as I was playing it, especially about field skills gating me off from completing side-quests), but the strength of the music, characters, story, combat, exploration, etc. really won me over in the end.

I guess the difference is that the problems in XC2 just irritate me, whereas my issues with XCX kept me from enjoying the game as much as I wanted to.

Although both games are better than the original Xenoblade Chronicles. I just don't get the love for that game at all. Exploration is mostly pointless. It's ugly. I hate the constant visions from the Monado. I dislike the characters.

Bleh.

@Knuckles-Fajita Suffice it to say there's a lot of sci-fi in 1 that then becomes more direct sci-fi in the end. 1 was 50% fantasy, 50% sci-fi, with a sci-fi ending. You move from fantasy Bionis to sci-fi Mechonis in the second half (which the game tells you will happen right at the start.) 2 Mostly plays as fantasy & steampunk but turns back to sci-fi in the last quarter with a sci-fi rationale for the rest of the world's state. But if you actively dislike fantasy, then yeah you still have to play a lot of fantasy, but there are parts you'd find more appealing than you think.

@Ralizah sounds like you and I agree on the good & bad of XC2. We agree on many things that aren't controller shaped.

XC1 I agree, it's overhyped in terms of gameplay....the gameplay sucked and the characters were 1 dimensional. It was the story that gets it love. It would have been a better anime than a game technically. It was incoherent at times. But the sheer amount of surprising plot twists and the epic concepts and environments make it legendary. You suffer the game to play the story.

@ReaderRagfish Hmm, there didn't seem much to love about the gameplay of XC1. The combat was pretty basic and repetitive, and exploration wasn't really meaningful and quests were just MMO quests. X, and 2 I can see loving for gameplay regardless of story, but 1 seems like story was the main point, and the gameplay just facilitated it.

@NEStalgia I played about 3/4 of the way through the game, and the story was pretty poorly paced. I could go long stretches of time without too much of significance happening in the plot. Doesn't help that it starts out like some weird robot version of Attack on Titan, with lots of pathos, screaming, threats of revenge, etc.

I also hate the way heart-to-hearts work in the first game.

Oh, and Satorl Marsh. That was the first point where I quit playing the game. God, I hate that place with a passion.

But yeah, the pointless exploration is the kicker for me. The game feels ridiculously, needlessly big. It's not like there's anything to do in all that space other than collect blue orbs and occasionally fall off the side of a mountain and have to spend ten minutes getting back to where you were beforehand.

@ReaderRagfish I still really love XC1's combat, but X and 2's combat really kicked things up a notch for me. While XCX and XC2 does indeed have less character diversity than XC1 (a big reason why XC1's combat is still really good for me), individual character diversity is much better and the active offensive play is better than XC1, where Overdrive and Blade/Fusion Combos make things a bit more interesting than just countering visions and using your Talent Arts. XCX gives you unlimited amounts of builds to toy around with, demolishing any fools with gimmick sets like reflect, defensive builds, or just one-shot "I win" builds, and XC2's in-the-moment combat is pretty damn fun and can only potentially get beaten out by Melia in XC1, and even then not that much.

@Ralizah Wow what polar opposites. I'd actually say that the area right before Satorl Marsh, the Ether Mines, was worse. THAT is the worst part of the game that causes people to stop playing. If anything Satorl Marsh's beauty and music reinvigorated me on my first playthrough, and that's also where you get Dunban so combat can get much more interesting. I'd say that's the turning point of the game kicking into high gear.