[Game Chat] VI: AGDQ 2013 Jan 6-12! Beat games and cancer!

[Dentrala]

Eventually you learn how to gloss over the handholding. Think of it as an interlude to listen to the music for a little bit and blindly tap x as the scene finishes.


(Don't actually play the game this way, but you essentially could)

[Superfrequency]

I can't forgive handholding, especially in a slightly puzzley game. It's a drain on my fun that lasts the entire playthrough. If I want help I'll consult a walkthrough.

It's like someone over your shoulder going "Go in there. Go in there. Go in there! C'mon! RIGHT THERE! God, you're so slow! Ok now get the thing. Over there. The round thing. Go get it. Now put it there. No, there."

JUST

SHUT UP AND LET ME FIGURE IT OUT

IT'S A PUZZLE

I HAVE PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER AND FIGURED OUT I NEED TO SHINE LIGHT ON THE THING YOU DON'T NEED TO SHOW ME THE MURAL AGAIN LIKE I HAVE BRAIN PROBLEMS

When I failed to draw a lily pad perfectly circular in the tutorial Issun seriously had the audacity to ask me if "I was sure I knew what a circle looked like" instead of just letting me try again until the brush stroke recognition was satisfied. That might be the most insulting thing a game has ever said to me.

[weirdguy]

i'm sure there's no actual way to broach the subject of asking if they know what a circle looks like without completely insulting the other party

[Ed]

Yeah i agree, the constant handholding just sucks, i like Issun as a character but totally hate him as the obnoxious little prompt he is. The game has a very lenghty intro cutscene which i utterly hate. It's also really frustrating how they tell you how to do every single simple thing but they don't bother with some other important stuff, i can't recall exactly what it was since it's been a while since i played it but i had to look up a walkthrough after hours of missing something extremely obvious that the game simply didn't bother to mention, it's a general thing that happens in every game with handholding.

Wander around until you find everything. It doesn't have a very strong flow to it.

But for some reason that's completely acceptable in SotC? At least it's fun to wander around in Okami, for one thing it's faster and oh you actually get to do shit while wandering around. Okami is flawed, i'll give it that, but without spoiling anything i'll say it has way more substance to it than just wandering around finding everything.

I guess I can offer some more thorough input if anyone wants it when I beat it. I'm like six hours in.

Fucking do it, i'm serious. I value your opinion on games very much and it baffles me how opinionated you are, yet you find everything in SotC fine.

E: I swear to god i tried my best to not sound rude. I was just trying to say Okami and SotC are kinda comparable and they were such polarizing experiences for me, i want to know your full input on Okami.

[Superfrequency]

I love Shadow Of The Colossus for deeper reasons than "it's beautiful". I think hardcoregaming101 hit the nail on the head calling it a poem to other game's novels. It's complex in gameplay and experience, but effectively concise in delivery. Although it must be said I find the visuals, setting and music gorgeous. The colossi look so cool.

You are not prompted to wander around even once in SotC. You are given a clear map marker of sorts for every colossus. It's a very goal oriented game. Mindless exploring to find all of the geckos and apples feels more rewarding to me because they are often a little hidden, because of the dearth of animals (which makes finding one feel more valuable than getting yet another +5 praise), and because there are no battles to avoid/your main quest never feels pressingly urgent (Dormin will never harass you to get back on track). It's a game that is enjoyable to me at any pace I choose to take it at.

I have said before it was a game that was made for me. I love exploration when it'd done effectively, I love golems, I love boss rushes and puzzle bosses, and I love the story.

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I can't think of another game that has a sad ending that is quite as good about it. Or another game with a sad ending at all. I love how Wander becomes more physically deteriorated as the game progresses. He's a monster and a fool. I thought it was brilliant how you briefly control Dormin!Wander in an unwinnable "final battle". It serves to underline your helplessness. All of Wander's ignorance came home to roost. Even though you have no choice but to be manipulated by Dormin, it never feels like the game is patronizing you or underestimating your intelligence. You know what Wander is doing is wrong after killing the first colossus. You just don't know how wrong.

I love the attention to detail across the board. When you are separated from Agro in battle, Wander's call to her sounds frightened and panicked. He really doesn't know what he's doing. I love how the time trial could easily be boring in other games, but it rewards you for coming up with creative solutions to defeating the colossi extra quick.

I find the controls to be fairly responsive and cooperative. The only time they have frustrated me is when I am trying to do some super pro trick jump or something, and that's to be expected. I can't think of a single complaint I have with the game on a technical or artistic level.

I'm not interested in trying to convince you to like the game. That is just why I like it.

I don't think Okami is a bad game. It's a very good game. I just don't think it's a 10/10 as some people seem to. I would not have commented on it if it had not been pitched to me as an amazing game. Visually, it is, certainly. The intro did drag on a bit though yes.

Also understand I am playing Okami coming directly off of Finny The Fish & The Seven Waters, a game that explains nothing. Not even key game concepts. I've got handholding whiplash. When's the last time you had to guess what one of your stats did because it isn't explained even in the manual.

Semi-relatedly, there is a big difference between handholding and a game's difficulty. Okami would still be an easy game without it, but it would also be more fun and less patronizing. If the game just tells you what to do every time you encounter something new, there is no game. The process of discovery is so important to me. Okami tells you where to go, why to go there, what's going to be there and why aren't you there yet don't you dare get sidetracked with all of the side missions put in the game to sidetrack you. In SotC you know where you need to go, generally, but you have no idea what you're going to find. The game doesn't fucking spoil itself. I find little joy in games with a death grip on your hand that just ask you to follow orders and go through motions for it. It diminishes my ability to have a meaningful personalized experience.

Single player games are all about discovery for me. What's this do? What's over here? Oh wow! I didn't expect that! Oh, so that's how you do that! I figured it out! That was cool! I wonder if ...
It's frustrating to essentially have those little moments stolen from me because some producer thought Johnny Five Year Old isn't smart enough to finish the game. Perish the thought!

That actually reminds me of an idiotic logic hole in Okami. When you get the bomb brush power you are expected to figure it out based on the paper on the wall, which is maybe the only time the game actually let me solve a puzzle ..... but you can seemingly use the ability before you absorb Bakugami's spirit or whatever. Why is that. Why can I not just use any technique without actually absorbing the god tied to it. Lack of attention to detail.

[Ed]

Can you actually do that? That's dumb, by the way the bombs are like my favourite brush technique they're so cool. A lot of stuff i don't remember clearly, like Issun harassing you to go back to the main quest, i guess i just ran straight through the whole game. I really want to play it again when they re-release it on PS3, specially to try out the joystick controls since i found the wii ones really unresponsive.

I don't want you to convince me about liking SotC either, i've played the game and i have an opinion about it, i just thought it's 'perfect' status was unjustified, just like Okami's. I agree with what you praise about SotC, but i thought your complaints about Okami were similar to the problems i find in SotC, i now understand that they're not though.
I make it sound like i hate the game but i really don't, i appreciate it a lot for what it is but it's definitely not perfect. The vague objective exploration was really frustrating for me because i had absolutely no interest in exploring a silent, empty world and the colossi fights got kind of redundant, repetitive and frustrating at times. Like the ones you fall off and have to start all over again just because you didn't hold the button for half a second, that wasn't a very appealing challenge for me.
I'm just not a very patient person, that's why i can't get behind any rpgs either, but i understand there's people who have the patience for them, it's alright, and so are Okami and SotC.

[Superfrequency]

I stand corrected, apparently there are dungeons in Okami. It's just that the first one was like two rooms long.

Also, I have discovered that if you never O Examine objects, there is a lot less puzzle-spoiling. So that is nice. I am conditioned to examine objects because I am a gamer.

I like the bombs a lot. At first they were a little too good, but now enemies are a bit harder. I always open with a bomb when the enemy is vulnerable.

[BRPXQZME]

hwha

Can you please elucidate that opinion. Watching gameplay footage is almost exclusively how I determine if I am interested in a game.

warning: a haven’t-slept-in-weeks-stream-of-consciousness reply follows. read at your own risk.

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Well, I personally determine most of whether I’m interested from word of mouth (hey, that’s why I read/post in this thread!) or from writings. I find it important to be able to deduce or inquire after the relative merits (or demerits) of a game rather than be taken in (or put off) by the audio/visual elements. In other words, my interest or non-interest in a game is not so much in the inputs and the outputs, but in the play.

I suppose I may have worded my original statement inartfully; “tell” would probably be a better word than “show”, although I also suppose I meant both in that I am simply referring to the epistemology (he bloviated, eschewing obfuscation); that is, how one comes to know a game’s play. I really don’t think a video does a good job of this. Back in the day, I was a bit duped by Sonic, really, when he bumps off a spring and goes all whoosh through tunnels and stuff; it would be really cool if you had more than a passive role in how that works, but now I know it is an empty illusion that has taken my childhood hero down a peg.

Okay, there are exceptions, I’ll admit. For example, I was never sold on BG&E until I saw it in action, and I think that’s because not that many people elevator pitched it as “Zelda meets everything else” at the time (not to me, anyway). And some games will simply be offensive to every sense I have no matter how much it’s hyped.

I was asking BRP, Buttinski. Also, he said it's not the best way to show how a game plays, not the best way to experience it. There is obviously no comparison between seeing someone play and playing it yourself.

I think Hatman understood what I meant. When you look at a gameplay trailer, you don’t really get the benefit you get when you see someone play; namely, I almost always find it necessary to observe and/or ask questions about how it plays (I try to only do this to people who don’t mind, of course). It’s because for a lot of games (in unfamiliar genres, at least) it can actually be kind of hard to tell whether something is genuine gameplay unless you’re right there (well, at least you have a fighting chance. because sometimes even then...)!

the moral of the story is that sometimes i can’t string together two thoughts to save my life and as a matter of fact i kind of lost track of where i was going with this. popcorn pineapple pickle.

(sorry about the delayed response; I don’t mean to leave people hanging every time. But I’ve been intentionally avoiding threads that would take more than a few seconds to read and respond to lately, due to midterms gobbling up every last spare second, and oh god I still have two more yooraagh)

[Superfrequency]

I find looking at a video to be a much better indicator as to whether or not the gameplay looks appealing than trying to analyze somebody else's opinion and decide whether or not it would apply to me (in fact, my best friend whose judgement I mostly trust strongly dislikes many of my favorite games). I don't rely on tastemakers or recommendations to find new media I enjoy, because I actually enjoy the act of discovering it on my own. But that is just me. And again, that sort of approach really doesn't help with older games. I'm never going to hear about something like Elemental Gimmick Gear word-of-mouth because nobody played it. I imagine most people don't go through a master release list for a console one-by-one and find all of the gems, but it works for me.

Thankfully, it's very easy to find candid gameplay of almost anything on youtube. I'm not the sort of person tripping over themselves to get something on release day unless I know it's going to be unavailable later, so even for new releases I'd probably wait to see some footage.

The best thing about Okami is how much I want to play Okamiden now. I bet the brush thing is way great on the DS.

e: OK

FUCKING STOP WITH YOUR LOW ANGLES

JUST FUCKING STOP

GOD

The camera in this game is so GOD DAMN stupid. It's not even that it's bad, it just insists on the most inconvenient camera angle possible at all times. Why would I ever want to zoom out so I can actually see THE CHARACTER I AM CONTROLLING in a boss fight. No, low angle shots that make it hard to see anything, that's much better.

[Dentrala]

My best game advice comes from this forum because we have enough people with opinions that you see multiple sides of the issue - as seen with SOTC. People will give their opinions but not for the point of arguing.


I wish I could have good opinions about videogames but I know they are tainted because of too much of a bias in my tastes. Curse you, blinding teen years.

[BRPXQZME]

Having a bias doesn’t really stop an opinion from being good. It just stops it from being any other opinion.

[Superfrequency]

Why can't I bite Mrs. Cutter.

Why.

Why can't I bite her.

The moonlight is right there. She is asleep. You want me to drag her into it.

Why can't I.

Why.

Why.

Why can't I bite her.

Is this a glitch, what.

[Dentrala]

Having a bias doesn’t really stop an opinion from being good. It just stops it from being any other opinion.

*reasonable

[Superfrequency]

You use the divine wind before you free Kazegami, too :T

This game plays fast and loose with its internal logic.

And Jesus H Christ do I hate Issun. Worst helper in ANY GAME. The SECOND I get wind and have already figured out where to use it hours ago with my massive brain, Issun has to make me stop and power through yet another insulting, pointless tutorial. Yes. Who would have imagined that the wind power could put out a fire. I just never would have tried that on my own. Spoonfeed me some more as I go downstairs to try and take some solace in solving the obviously rotating room I saw on my way in by showing me a room I have already seen in a cinematic shot that spoils the puzzle for me that I already knew the solution to.

Whoever decided the game needed such an infuriating amount of handholding really, really needs to be stabbed. A lot. The game just keeps getting prettier the longer I play it, and it keeps making it irrelevant by destroying my immersion by patronizing me every two minutes.

Are you sure you know what fun looks like, Clover?! ARE YOU?!

I think anyone who is of the opinion that this game is near perfect has just been conditioned to accept condescending handholding as good game design through overexposure. It's not good game design. It's bad. The whole fucking point of a game is to present a challenge for the player to overcome. If you spell out the solution every time there is. no. challenge. This game could have been so much better. Video games are better than this. They are capable of more than this. It might have been one of my favorite games if not for that one stupid design decision. It actively tries to ruin my enjoyment by ruining all of its own puzzles. There is no pleasure in solving something you figured out if the game refuses to let you even attempt it without telling you the solution unsolicited. I've never played a game where the handholding was this oppressively repugnant.

e: and Okami's QTEs can get fucked, especially when they rob me of a satisfying boss right.

Oh yeah and he steals the thing at the end of the dungeon too and Ammy just fucking stands there and lets him fucking take it yeah great yeah hey FUCK you Clover

Could there be a developer that understands emotional reward worse

ee: Why are these imps guarding the door inexplicably immune to all of my attacks? Because they don't take me seriously? I'm Amaterasu, not Santa Claus.

eee:

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You don't even get to kill Orochi

A-

Are you serious?

Just urinate all over me the entire game. No, it's cool, I didn't want to kill the villain you set up over the course of 100 years. I'm sure I'll have a chance to kill this new villain I have no emotional commitment to.

Seriously?! Are you serious. I can't believe that shit.

[Dentrala]

that was a lot of bolded words



and methinks we overhyped it for you???

[Superfrequency]

The more I play this game, the more frustrating it becomes. And oddly enough, never because of anything to do with difficulty.

There's really no point in picking this game apart every 12 hours. Everything that isn't the combat is frustrating. Everything. I fail to understand how anyone could call this game excellent. My disappointment goes far beyond my expectations being too high. I stopped having positive expectations six hours in and it just keeps finding new ways to annoy me.

Man. What a complete disappointment of a game. What a waste of potential. I still really want to like this game because of its good parts but it is just not letting me.

[toxicGhostshroom]

At least you get the most bad-ass music in the game during the final boss, though. I guess that's something to work towards :I (Maybe it's just my opinion)

[Nocturne]

I've had the privilege to bear witness to a few Superfreq-outs in my day, and that was a good one. I remember feeling exactly those feelings playing Okami, with the exception that I was younger, and therefor less articulate and less vehement in my disapproval. "Uggh, will you stop talking at me and let me play, jesus christ on a cracker."

This is why I think Portal 2 was so much fun, especially the co-op. GLaDOS is there for color and flavor at the beginning of a level, and then she fucks off and lets you play. This is also why I think Skyward Sword was so lackluster (so lackluster, in fact, that it's been almost a year and I still do not feel motivated to finish it). Every time I go to play, I think about that godawful chime that plays every time Fi feels the need to tell you your hearts are low, just in case you can't see the clearly marked health display that has been in the upper left corner of the screen for the last 25 years' worth of franchise.

[WordsHere]

I've never beaten Ookami. I keep meaning to, but first I'd have to go turn on my Wii. Ugh. Second I'd have to figure out what the hell is going on since it's been so long and the game doesn't do much to help with that. :P

[ikkonoishi]

A 100% run LP of Okami.

If you can't be bothered to actually play it.

[Dentrala]

So I replayed Bastion because

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I wanted to see how the restoration ending turned out and AHHHH ZIAAA WHY DO YOU RIP OUT MY HEARTTTTT

Now because I have newly fell in love with the game, I'm gunning for New Game +, Full Pantheon. Not gonna lie though, once you hit the wilds it is a cruel and heartless mistress. I've been Hammer+Carbine but given a lot of the idol's adverse effects, I may ditch the hammer for something that doesn't hurt me every time I swing.

[Superfrequency]

Finally blew through all of the arcade Metal Slugs. I rank them thusly, from best to worst:

X/2, 3, 6, 1, 5, 4

Similar to how I would rank Mega Man. And as with the classic Mega Man series, they're pretty much all good. 5 and 4 are just really bland. Although in 4 the final boss is coincidentally and inexplicably Dr. Wily. SNK could never return to their pre-bankruptcy days of greatness and top 2 and 3, so I forgive them for 5. But 4 is meh, and they should have waited to develop it themselves.

As was previously noted in this thread, it took a dedicated speedrunner over a year to 1CC 3. I don't think that is a feasible goal for most humans. Part of the challenge of the game is actually killing enemies in the right order so you don't get overwhelmed with bullets ... if I can 5CC X I will be pleased. Metal Slug is not a game you 1CC.

I also forgot 7 exists, so that will be a nice pickup when I get my DS~

Free play is a much more fun way to experience the game "casually" with a friend, but it also makes learning boss patterns and levels less important. It's a tradeoff.

[Softspoken]

So I replayed Bastion because

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I wanted to see how the restoration ending turned out and AHHHH ZIAAA WHY DO YOU RIP OUT MY HEARTTTTT

Now because I have newly fell in love with the game, I'm gunning for New Game +, Full Pantheon. Not gonna lie though, once you hit the wilds it is a cruel and heartless mistress. I've been Hammer+Carbine but given a lot of the idol's adverse effects, I may ditch the hammer for something that doesn't hurt me every time I swing.

Yeah, I tried a couple levels with 10 idols, but it never ended well. So my personal limit is around 6 or so, and trying to get through the level without dying. Olak and Garmuth are just too frustrating for me to deal with. (Turn invincible and reflect projectiles, respectively)

[Dentrala]

Yeah, I tried a couple levels with 10 idols, but it never ended well. So my personal limit is around 6 or so, and trying to get through the level without dying. Olak and Garmuth are just too frustrating for me to deal with. (Turn invincible and reflect projectiles, respectively)

Those are fine and I can deal with them, but the regeneration one is impossible by the higher levels. When there's a bunch of pincushions that have been Pith'd, Damage+Defence boosted, it is near impossible to actually get the hits needed on each individual enemy, between blocking and positioning to avoid being wrecked by the other four.

[ikkonoishi]

Artillery helps a bit with the invincibility and reflecting. Fire the artillery at point blank and then shield. Even if they reflect it they still take damage when it hits your shield and explodes.