True Gaming How is the Japanese indie game scene? Are there many games that we miss out on because they don't have the budget for an english translation? |
- How is the Japanese indie game scene? Are there many games that we miss out on because they don't have the budget for an english translation?
- Age of Wonders and games that go beyond good and evil
- Thoughts on the writing in some recent JRPGs (Nier, Persona, Berseria, Cold Steel)
- I'd like a BR without loot and on a small/compact map with little open areas, how about your BR?
- What game brings you the most sense of accomplishment?
- Why is there this recent outrage regarding loot boxes? Isn't it similar to, say, card packs in Hearthstone?
- Who is your favourite 'pretentious' or analytical game critic?
- With all of the negativity surrounding the AAA-Game industry, what game deserves to be bought at full-price right now?
- Yeah! It's a so silent place to be!
- The future of games as we know it, let us discuss micro transactions
- I need to game less
| Posted: 16 Nov 2017 03:48 AM PST Especially considering that one of the games that is widely considered "the father of indies" was japanese (Cave Story/Doukutsu Monogatari) it's odd that we never really hear much of the japanese indie scene in the west anymore. Did it never take off as much as it did here or are we just not aware of it much because they don't have the budgets for translations? [link] [comments]  |
| Age of Wonders and games that go beyond good and evil Posted: 16 Nov 2017 11:24 AM PST I've always been intrigued by choice & consequence in games, especially involving morality. But these days I'm constantly disappointed by games that treat morality as 'either angel wings or demon horns' (Infamous is a, well, infamous example of this). Recently I got to thinking which games that treated good and evil not as pre-destined fates, but as something intangible you may or may not dynamically progress toward. Apart from the obvious ones (ie. The Walking Dead), the one that comes to mind is playing the campaign of the first Age of Wonders game. For anyone who haven't played it, here's a summary: You start the campaign as a lieutenant of either the 'good' Elf princess or the 'evil' Elf prince in a race against the other heir to get to the Valley of Wonders and claim the throne of your dead father, but regardless of your faction, as the campaign progresses you will have to make serious choices. Much of the central plot revolves around the Humans, who are essentially a young, chaotic neutral race and were responsible for slaying the Elven High King to begin with. How do you deal with them - do you seek a path of revenge or tolerance? Of course, you also need to deal with the other pretender to the throne and the multitude of friendly, hostile and neutral races dotting the world. And then eventually, the pure good race of Highmen and pure evil race of Undead are added to the mix and manage to make the morality of two main factions seem even more grey in comparison. What's so great about the campaign of Age of Wonders is how fluidly the campaign adapts to your choices - in one playthrough I started out as a loyal servant of the 'evil' prince Meandor, but as the game progressed I - the player - grew frustrated with , so I decided to defy his orders and . This choice - which was brilliantly justified by my character in his diary, mind you - eventually spiralled out of control leading me - again, the player - to , forging my own path and eventually ended up completely breaking from Meandor's faction and fighting both him AND Julia in the endgame. The visual effects of the inter-mission diary even turned red and corrupted and my justifications for my actions slowly grew hollow the further I strayed from my original mission. What makes this so cool to me was that none if it was ever presented as a 'good/bad' choice. Hell, it was hardly even presented as a for/against Meandor choice, as my character insisted in his diary that he was still doing all this to help his liege and for the good of the cause he believed in. It was a really immersive tale of good intentions spiralling out of control and leading to bad - or at least unintended - results. Needless to say, I experienced similar scenarios playing for princess Julia. Another thing I want to touch on is the fact that the two campaigns intertwined - very early in the game the (good) Queen is killed by agents of Meandor, or, if you happen to have chosen his campaign - by you! Similar two-sided scenarios dot the entire campaign. Another overlooked game which I feel did this intertwining-campaign thing really well was the game Enclave - I remember in one mission as the light side you're helping an Elven princess, while as the dark side you're . As morality and narrative branching seemingly gets more and more binary, I just felt like I would remember an old gem which dared to portray good and evil in a refreshingly honest light. That, and I recommend everybody interested in good storytelling (and high fantasy) to try it out - it's available for peanuts over at GOG.com (they also have Enclave). Also, if anybody knows of other games with an innovative or otherwise interesting narrative that goes beyond good and evil, please say so! :) [link] [comments]  |
| Thoughts on the writing in some recent JRPGs (Nier, Persona, Berseria, Cold Steel) Posted: 16 Nov 2017 07:54 AM PST As a fan of the genre I just thought I would give some basic non-spoilery thoughts on these games. I think a lot of them have similar problems outside of Nier. Note: This is of course just my opinion. Not saying these games are bad or even their stories. This is just how I personally perceived them. Nier - The main problem is very similar to Drakengard. The story is unique and entertaining, but the characters and themes aren't necessarily explored very well. Too much can happen too fast in this game as well. Especially in the case of 2B and 9S's relationship, which really they should have devoted more time to considering the weight of it in the story. Also I don't think the cutscenes are really given enough time to breath, so they can feel too short to really make much of an impact. The story doesn't drag too much (well it makes you repeat a lot of content so in a sense it does) but at the very least no particular moment in the game goes on forever. So in a way I still prefer it to the other 3 for not being as boring. Berseria - The main problem with this game is it had like 0 budget and 0 time to be made. As such the story is very uneventful, cutscenes are far too short and few in number while skits are long and far too numerous. Also the story which is otherwise fairly simple is dragged out over 50 hours for really no reason, creating an insanely boring game. Admittedly the party chemistry and relationships between the characters (and the characters themselves) is definitely the best of these 4 games and probably the best of any tales game. Which is really what I would like to say with confidence, but the story makes such poor use of the characters and outside of laphicet they are very poorly developed I can't help but be disappointed in the cast in the end. A shame really this game should have been so much better than what it was. Persona 5 - Almost no JRPG showcases how to get paid by the word better than Persona 5. It's funny how these character probably spend like 3 times as much time with each other as the Berseria cast, but don't have a fraction of the chemistry. Also the characters in general are underdeveloped outside of Morgana because they don't develop enough as the game goes on as their development is more tied to their social link (much like Persona 4 and less like Persona 3). Thankfully characters like Sojiro and Goro help spice the game up, but otherwise the cast is far too shallow for how long the game is (this includes both villains and protagonists). I'll admit the social sim elements and slice of life moments are still fun and have a lot of charm, but its amazing how backwards we've gotten since Persona 3 (also a flawed story mind you, but at least it used its time more wisely). Cold Steel - It's mind boggling how this was written by the same person as Sky. I don't even know how you go from writing a protagonist like Estelle to Rean. Also I have to say I've played 100+ Jrpgs and I can't think of an intro more terrible than this one. It Introduces far too many characters at once, does a flashforward at the beginning which is crap and tells you almost nothing, and is basically one generically written situation after another (alongside some pandering to make matters worse). Even after that the game is slow and while I would probably say the characters are better defined than Persona's, They still aren't intriguing enough to carry the game as the plot is almost non-existent for a good while. Hard to really fully judge without playing the full trilogy, but as a first impression it doesn't make me want to play more. [link] [comments]  |
| I'd like a BR without loot and on a small/compact map with little open areas, how about your BR? Posted: 16 Nov 2017 01:07 PM PST The idea is to have a faster pace BR or at least one that has you engaged in more conflicts. No loot, no downtime. Without loot you could introduce loadouts and if you wanted a bit of a grind, a leveling system. And a smaller map would have you run into players way more often more. As you see in fortnite and PUBG, a shit-ton of people immediately drop, so I'm inclined to think players want it a bit more fast paced. I'm pretty excited for the future of BRs as it's probably my favorite genre right now. What about your ideas? [link] [comments]  |
| What game brings you the most sense of accomplishment? Posted: 15 Nov 2017 09:41 PM PST I haven't had the passion for gaming in a long time. I don't want to play something that feels like a waste of time. The motivations are subjective to me, of course. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2017 06:32 PM PST Not defending loot boxes. I'm just curious why there has been this huge outrage regarding this business model recently while the business model in a game like Hearthstone for example seems similar, yet, there has been no outrage over it to this magnitude.
I'm interested to hear how they are different and what argument against loot boxes can't also be applied to the Hearthstone business model? [link] [comments]  |
| Who is your favourite 'pretentious' or analytical game critic? Posted: 16 Nov 2017 10:59 AM PST I don't know how else to word it - I know pretentious has negative connotations but I mean it in a playful way. I'm talking about YT channels like Superbunnyhop and Errant Signal, or some of the deep dives you might see on Polygon or Kotaku. I've noticed that many game critics aren't really proper critics - most of their reviews give a rundown of features, say whether or not they thought it was fun, then give a score between 7 and 10. To me, this isn't really a proper view because I could get the same experience from a friend who has played the game before me and is giving me a recommendation. There isn't any insight that most game reviewers give that is outside what an average Joe may know about gaming. Now I understand that that's part of the appeal for some of these gaming channels and critics. They're down to Earth and kind of play on the same level as most of their fans. But I feel like even the ones that are regarded highly - like ACG or Easy Allies, for example - are still giving product reviews, not critiques of artwork. So who's your favourite game critic who provides analysis? Someone who can dig into what a game actually sets out to achieve and critiques it based on that? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2017 05:13 PM PST I'd like to celebrate the launch of Battlefront II by purchasing a game or multiple full-priced games with $60. Where would you put your hard-earned cash right now? What developer gets your support? [link] [comments]  |
| Yeah! It's a so silent place to be! Posted: 16 Nov 2017 01:03 PM PST Nobody discussing a new Star Wars game, it is really unusual place i think) [link] [comments]  |
| The future of games as we know it, let us discuss micro transactions Posted: 16 Nov 2017 02:41 AM PST I want to discuss and hear from the community on this subject. Thank you for your time Dear Reader. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2017 04:09 PM PST So basically all my life, since I got a PS1 at 5 years old, I have loved gaming... Maybe a bit too much. When I was young, I guess I used to play whenever I could. Whenever I visited friends, we would play games together. As I got older, things didn't really change. In highschool, when other kids were busy going to socials and stuff, I would go to LAN parties with my friends. At school, we would talk about games all the time... We sort of have an unspoken rule to not talk about our personal lives. We liked it just fine, talking about how we'll approach whatever game we were playing, or just watching random YouTube vids... I only really realized what was going on after school Point is, gaming is a huge part of my life. I wouldn't be surprised if I spend 25% of my waking hours gaming throughout my life... I very rarely went through more than a few days without playing a game. But I think I need to stop... I moved in with my boyfriend about 6 months ago. I promised myself I would game less... But even going a few days without a game, I start craving it... I think I am an addict or something Problem is, with the amount of time I spent gaming, I never really had many other interests. My boyfriend likes cars, and talks about them a lot, but I just can't get into it. We watch series and stuff together, which is fun, but I always find myself wishing I could be playing a game instead... I want to play games with him, but he's not very into it. He playes games like Kerbal Space Program, Simpleplanes, Cities Skylines or Sims... I can play those games for a bit, but always get bored pretty quickly... I struggle to make friends. All I really know about is games, so striking up conversation is always hard... I want to expand my interests, but it's hard, so I think I should play games less... It's just hard. When I'm not playing games, I'm browsing gaming stuff on reddit... It's really all I am enthusiastic about, I guess. So, yeah. I guess I want to hear if anyone else has this problem. Also, need some advice Thanks for reading [link] [comments]  |
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