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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 11, 2020 12:10:06 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't get why more games don't do that? I get that it probably wasn't an option when, say, Chrono Trigger came out because of technology limitations. But now? I don't really see a reason why it's not defacto in branching games.
I might be more sensitive to it because of the time commitment* nowadays. I'm not sure I would have been bothered replaying an entire game for branching paths in high school, especially considering I played several JRPGs multiple times (I must have clocked about 400 hours on Abyss?). So maybe it's not a regularly offered feature because the target audience doesn't particularly mind.
*I initially wrote "less time," but then I decided that's not true. People always talk about how they don't have "enough time" to do X or Y thing, but invariably I think it's not that you don't have time--it's that it's lower priority. Thinking back on my junior and senior years of high school, I was at school from 8 to 6 between classes and required extracurriculars, I had homework, and, in my senior year, I worked a part-time job. What's my schedule like now? I work 9 to 6 or thereabouts and have no homework. I probably have more free time, all things considered. I have less time to devote to video games because I am doing other things I value more with my free time, like running or reading. I could absolutely beat an 80-hour JPRG in a few weeks if I really wanted to, but I don't.
(This line of thinking is also something that drives me crazy when it comes to exercising, incidentally. So many people will say they want to exercise, but they just don't have time! Let's be real. You do have time, because you make time to marathon on Netflix or whatever else you do. It's fine if you don't like to exercise, but don't pass it off like the only reason you're not doing it is you're just so crunched for time. You make time for the things you care about, and you're always too busy for the things you don't.)
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jan 11, 2020 14:28:16 GMT -5
To borrow a phrase that I've picked up over the years, time is not something you have, it's something you make.
As for branching paths in stories... Automata did it primarily because it has 27 different endings and 23 of them are memes. Even the remaining 4 aren't really 'endings', because you have to get 3 to get the fourth and final 'true' ending. So there aren't really any branching paths in the traditional sense: just a whole bunch of meme endings and side-content that will bug completionists more than it will anyone who was really invested in the story.
Likewise, SO2 doesn't have any branching paths aside from whom you chose as a protagonist, as well as the party members you decide to take along. Even then the story plays out in the exact same way, just with a few unique scenes here and there. There are different side quests you can take depending on which characters you recruit, but again they only flesh out that character and have no impact on the main story. Similarly, though the game boasts of 80+ endings, said endings are just 1-2 minute scenes with different characters depending on which PAs you do. They're neat little extras, but like with Automata, they're more like bonuses for people who already enjoy the game rather than something a casual player should stress over.
Time to be a bit controversial.
In my opinion, the option to returning to branching paths after completion of the game is a somewhat redundant feature. If you liked the game enough to care about the alternative paths, but not enough to play it again, it's easy enough to just look them up. We live in an era where entire playthroughs of games are streamed before the game even officially launches, even in its native country. If I wanted to go back and see all of Rena's specific scenes that I missed as Claude, I could just pull up a Youtube video.
I also think it damages the point of multiple choices to begin with. What you lose in terms of length and structure you make up for in replay value. Generally branching narratives are much shorter than linear games. The trade-off is that each time you can try something a little different. If I can just go back and experience everything the game has to offer in one go, then I have less incentive to think about it again. Also, because it sacrificed other narrative strengths in favour of choice, it makes it much less appealing. For instance, a game like Baldur's Gate has a lot of diversity in its choices, but as a result your MC is about as engaging as cardboard. Take away the diversity of choice, and all that's left is cardboard.
So yeah. If the game really spoke to you, you have incentive to replay it. If not, it's super easy to look it up.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 12, 2020 13:58:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I know SO2 doesn't change appreciably. Probably being able to go back to certain points wouldn't really make sense in that particular game. Still--and this is a me thing--I don't like knowing I missed content, and that becomes paralyzing for some reason. Watching on YouTube doesn't suffice for me, because it feels like I'm "cheating." (Does it make sense? Probably not, as I'm writing this.) I'm totally fine missing content I don't know about; if I beat a game and find out I missed something later, I'm not going to replay it to get that content unless I was planning on replaying anyway. But if I know there's content I am missing, then I feel obligated to go and trigger it.
I dunno. It might just be a "me" thing. I get what you're saying, and I don't think I disagree, but I still don't like the heavy sense of obligation FOMO that I get playing those games...
Speaking of paralyzing FOMO, I started playing Pokemon again. I had put in a measly 2 hours before last night, and I decided to pick it back up because I felt bad about how little time I had put into the game (mind you, that's different from "I wanted to play the game"). I am really so glad that they didn't put in all of the Pokemon into the games (yeah, yeah, DLC whatever*). There's so many Pokemon even in the first area alone...
Ultimately, I'm really not rushing to finish Pokemon. I kind of know the experience I'm going to get from it, which is the same experience as the last two decades. It's not a bad experience--obviously not if I've been hanging around for this long--but knowing it's the same as usual doesn't really create any sense of urgency...
*The wonderful thing about not being on gaming communities is I'm sure that DLC announcement was a total sh*tstorm, but I am none the wiser! I hate gaming communities. I hate fanbases in general. They're toxic. Well, they're not really toxic per se, as they just mirror a broader trend with the internet--people with strongly held negative opinions are obviously incentivized to make noise, and the remaining 99% of people who don't give a sh*t or are actually pretty OK with things say nothing, of course. I mean, who goes to Twitter to say "I have no opinion about [thing]?" If you don't care, you're not exactly incentivized to go and announce that everywhere, because you, you know, don't care. The net result is that noisy small group of people who give a sh*t dominate the conversation.
Incidentally, it'll be really interesting to see what nets out in the upcoming elections. I'm pretty sure the Democratic candidates are falling into this trap. Lots of outraged people on Twitter about any given thing, but I'm not sure the rest of the populace necessarily holds those same indignant opinions. The Democratic candidates are practically trampling over one another trying to be the most progressive because the noise online is progressive, but are most Americans actually that progressive? (Also note that Twitter skews young. Who doesn't vote? Young people.) I'm expecting that a lot of more moderate Americans are going to get spooked by, say, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and vote for Trump anyway or just stay home.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 12, 2020 20:47:05 GMT -5
ok, I am going to have to b*tch on the internet here and say I am pretty sour grapes that Pokemon Sword doesn't allow you to turn Exp. Share off. Pokemon is already an easy game, and Exp. Share breaks the mechanics horribly.
It was forced in Let's Go, too, which wasn't great, but I mitigated it by catching nothing (which sort of defeats the gameplay gimmick, but whatever, I don't need 30 Rattatas anyway). And hell, I've played the original R/B/Y games like 294737294739 times over; I could just play those again and still have fun if I really hated Let's Go's mechanics that much.
Sword... I can't really give it a pass there because I'm experiencing it for the first time. And yeah, I guess I could just have multiple teams I'm training at once (and to their credit, that's easy to do now), but I like having a consistent team I bond with. Otherwise, I'm just adventuring with a bunch of randos.
I'm not in the target audience, though, so suck it up, Youngster Joey.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jan 13, 2020 11:37:57 GMT -5
I haven't actually seen any s**tstorm around the DLC announcement. I can't say I've been following very closely, but I guess the people who were hating on the game before release got tired of it, and moved on. At least I hope that's how it is. Or maybe they are just happy with the Mystery Dungeon announcement and forgot Sw/Sh exists.
I think a lot of people don't realize that internet is itself a huge bubble, and it doesn't represent the actual population. Twitter and reddit (instagram etc. obviously as well) are both more popular with young people, and while Facebook probably has a lot more older users, there's still a ton of people who don't use any of them at all. So like you said, the noise online makes it sound like the general population is really progressive, but at least for me it's really hard to tell what the actual state of things are.
Since you both are playing some good old JRPGs, I decided to buy Tales of Graces f for my PS3 so I can join the club as well. Also, since this is a Tales fan board after all, I might post something to the Graces' sub forum.
I had something else I wanted to write about, but the download for Graces is almost done, and I can't wait to get into it.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jan 16, 2020 15:58:22 GMT -5
"I'm gonna play Tales of Graces!"
And he was never heard from again.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jan 17, 2020 13:58:26 GMT -5
The game is too good, no time to talk about it...
But seriously, I've had fun with it. I do have a pile of things I could criticize it for, like the fact that the combat system feels a bit inconsistent and how it has probably my least favorite cast in any JRPG, or how the story has points that make no sense to me, or how the music is mostly repetitive and sometimes plain awful, or how the artstyle doesn't seem to match the type of story they are trying to tell. But overall, it's a good old JRPG with a sense of adventure you don't get with Persona-style games like Cold steel, and while the cast is probably my least favorite, they still feel like individual characters and have some good moments. It's also fun to figure out what it does wrong, and how it could've been done better.
I might write some sort of "early impressions" kind of thing when I've gotten all the party members and Asbel gets over his existential crisis (if that ever happens).
In other news, it seems nintendo is getting pretty good at disappointing their fanbase. Announcing the protagonist of FE:3H as the last Smash DLC fighter (for the first set) is probably the worst way to end a streak of unique fighters from third party games.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jan 17, 2020 17:52:11 GMT -5
I was going to make a post on the Smash thing, but then somehow I figured it would give the appearance that I care more than I do. All I know is, a lotta Smash fans are salty, and I got a good laugh out of it. Also, didn't Sakurai say specifically that all new characters were going to be third party? Seems like they might be liars too.
-edit-
Oh yeah, I guess the Tokyo Mirage Sessions (was that the name?) port comes out... came out... uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh....
So yeah. I'm seeing a lot of the usual 'boycott' stuff about censorship. Honestly this is pretty much the easiest boycott I've ever participated in because I had no intention of buying it in the first place. I feel like some kind of boycott champion right now. Saving money. Fighting for a cause. I'm such an amazing person. Go me.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 18, 2020 10:32:47 GMT -5
I don't play Smash, so I don't care, but did Smash really need another Fire Emblem character?
After 65 degree weather last week, we're now down at 20 degrees with snow predicted. Bummer. I hate cold weather. Not sure how you manage it, Derman. But I guess it's all relative, isn't it? I know winters don't have to suck because I've lived elsewhere where they did not*. Conversely, winter could be worse, I suppose; I grew up further north where winters were not as mild. I was going to say that every year, I'm shocked because winter isn't as bad as I remember, but then I remembered I read that it was the second-hottest recorded winter on record. So maybe it's not just me.
I'm going up to hike in New Hampshire next weekend. I've never hiked during winter before, but I'm fully expecting to freeze my a** off. I've also never hiked for more than 1 day at once, so if I don't like it on Saturday, well, suck it up, I've got another day to go! In all seriousness, I'm sure it'll be fun.
*I've asked myself this question often recently--would I swap North Carolina weather for New York's? (North Carolina being my basis here of not-terrible winters.) North Carolinian winters really are pretty mild. In college, I forgot to bring my winter coat my first semester, and so I just sallied forth without one for the semester and was fine. If you've gotta have winter, it's really not all that bad. And spring happens very early. But then... North Carolinian humidity. New York humidity gets pretty bad, but the South is something else. I don't know if I would take North Carolinian weather in that case, mild winters or not...
The best would be if it was dry and hot. Like California. Except not California, because LA sounds horrible and you couldn't pay me to live there.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jan 18, 2020 12:53:48 GMT -5
For JET (oh yeah Joey, I made it to the interview phase) there are a lot of things I'd be willing to give ground on. Would prefer more urban to rural, but if rural is the only way to go, fine. I would prefer to be somewhere where I don't need a car, but if it's the only way to go, fine.
But cold? That might be the only major hang up.
Having spent my entire life in a desert, I am laughably ill-adjusted to it. On top of that I don't own a 'winter jacket'; or gloves, ear-warmers, or any pants with any kind of insulation what-so-ever. I mean, ffs, even right now in the dead of our 'winter' I frequently have to turn on the fan because the computer makes the room overheat when playing games. So I would not do well somewhere cold on principle, but what really concerns me is that one bad season in the cold can have permanent effects on your health. My dad spent a year in Austria, and as a poor college student there were some nights where he had to rough it. One night he happened to get sick as a result. Now nearly every year he gets bronchitis when the weather changes.
So if I happened to get accepted and happened to get placed somewhere in Hokkaido, I'd have a serious predicament. Although honestly, I'd probably end up taking it in the end anyway.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 18, 2020 13:10:50 GMT -5
Oh, nice! Congrats. Is the interview phase the final phase?
I would take it anyway, irrespective of the cold. It sucks, but whatever, it's not forever, and Hokkaido isn't some year-round blustery place. Just not as temperate as the rest of Japan.
I would hate living somewhere like Iceland, though. I went there in the summer, and it's usually around 40-50 degrees. Nooooope. I just find that depressing. I'm sure it's even more depressing in the winter, when it's dark out most of the time and ridiculously cold.
I don't think there is any relation to cold weather and your health, really. It's more likely that your father just happened to have caught something while in Austria by fluke. If one bad season in the cold could do that much damage, then all us New Englanders would be dead. (And Derman, too, for that matter.). I've seen hypotheses instead that certain illnesses, like the flu, are more common in winter because people tend to stay inside more, which means there's more of a confined space for viruses to propagate.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jan 18, 2020 14:06:44 GMT -5
I'm gonna probably sound dumb here, but if you pass the interview you're good to go, so I'm guessing it is indeed the final phase. Although it's not just a 'yay/nay' system: you can also be put on a reserve status to fill in if someone drops for whatever reason.
I was meaning more that cold can have long-term consequences if you aren't prepared for it. Most New Englanders are familiar with cold and how to live in freezing temperatures. However, as I said, I don't have a single jacket that would be even remotely viable were it snowing. Why would I, when we only need consider a light jacket for maybe three months out of the year? I have no idea how to cope with snow, since I've seen it maybe seven times in my entire life. The idea of wearing multiple layers of socks is as foreign to me as the idea of owning an umbrella. So it's not so-much the cold itself as it is being ignorant of how to live with it.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jan 19, 2020 8:44:40 GMT -5
Proper winter where the temperature is consistently under -5C or something is fine. I can handle cold weather just fine, I actually like it when it's just around -5 degrees and the wind isn't blowing too hard. What I don't like is what we are having right now, where we occasionally get snow, then it gets warmer and the snow melts and everything is wet and slippery when the water starts freezing up agan. Also Usually (for as long as I can remember) the ground has been covered with snow everywhere here in january, and you'd have to dig a bit to see bare ground. But this year there's patches of bare ground everywhere. So yeah, definitely the mildest winter I've seen this far.
My hiking experiences in winter are limited to the stuff we did in military service. There are some stuff you need to consider (sweating too much will be a problem when it gets cold) but it will probably be a lot more manageable when you are doing it for fun. As long as you keep moving you are probably not even going to feel the cold. Although walking in half a meter deep snow without snowshoes would be a pain in the arse, but don't know how it is there. I really want to go back to northern finland for some casual hiking sometime, it was pretty nice and I did enjoy some of the days during our longer training camps around there.
I was going say grain would be fine with colder temeperatures, but when I think about it I probably couldn't handle the extreme heat he's going through in summer very well. So it'll probably take some time to get used to different climate, and it won't be that easy.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 20, 2020 10:06:38 GMT -5
I'm gonna probably sound dumb here, but if you pass the interview you're good to go, so I'm guessing it is indeed the final phase. Although it's not just a 'yay/nay' system: you can also be put on a reserve status to fill in if someone drops for whatever reason. Ah, cool! Well, good luck to you. When are the interviews? Hm, I'd figure you'd figure it out pretty quick, after a few painful days... Proper winter where the temperature is consistently under -5C or something is fine. I can handle cold weather just fine, I actually like it when it's just around -5 degrees and the wind isn't blowing too hard. Yeah, I think that's actually what I hate more than anything--the wind. If it's below freezing, but there's no wind, that's fine, not my preferred weather, but you can dress for it and be fine. New York City is actually quite windy, especially during the winter--I think it's because of the structure of the buildings, sort of creates wind tunnels--and that can make walking outside much, much worse than the temperature would indicate. Interesting that it's a really mild winter for you, too. It's been super mild here, too. We haven't even gotten snow. Saturday was the first snowfall of the season, and it was all completely melted away by Sunday. Usually, we'd have gotten a few snowfalls by now, and the snow would still be around in the form of nasty brown slush. It's been so warm that it didn't even have the time to turn into that nasty stuff... Yeah, having the right type of clothing is really important. Certain types of clothing capture the moisture and get wet, which has some predictable consequences when you're outside in freezing temperatures. Luckily, most of my family is really into hiking and skiing, so I was able to bum off the appropriate clothing from them for the most part. I've found some activities I hated doing with my family growing up, I actually like doing with other people. We used to go hiking every year growing up as part of our family vacations, and I'd rather have been tortured. I still wouldn't want to go with them, even now, honestly... but it's fun when I go with other people. I didn't even think I liked hiking until I did it with others.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jan 20, 2020 16:22:47 GMT -5
The Saga of the Pain of Programming:
4 hours in oMG WHY WON'T THIS WORK i want to throw my computer out the window and myself with it ... oh my god IT WORKS thank god i'M a GENIUS
4 hours later ... aghijdgksjgkldsjgkldsjgkldjs NO NO NO NO. i want to give up, but i can't. hate life. this isn't worth the time i'm investing in it ... solved! it finally works! everything is golden. life is beautiful, and every hour i've invested into this has been worthwhile.
4 hours later cries
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