Grefter Editorialythingstuffs, not all RPG related (I hate you)

[Sierra]

Have played it and would characterize it as a collection of great ideas with some awkward execution. If you are sympathetic to people trying off-the-wall ideas and not necessarily succeeding at everything they shoot for but still giving them props for trying then it's worth a look. I am fairly forgiving of botched implementation if there are novel ideas at the core of it, so I enjoyed it for what it tried to do, but I can't help but second some of the complaints I've read in reviews. Primarily that it's sloooow-moving. To some extent this suits the story since it's entirely about internal action, but when it extends to combat it's often needlessly so. Enemies spamming attacks that barely damage your character (okay, so I built a tank that deflects her problems via sarcasm) and eat up time with their repeated animations, some interface/navigation clunkiness, narration is so leaden and sedate that it's well past the point where one could charitably call it calm deliberation--there's a variety of first-time-developer hang-ups like this. Patches may have affected some of the mechanical stuff since I played it, not sure (I know they altered some battle conditions, at least).

Still worth looking at for people interested in quirky ideas for the sake of quirky ideas, though, as the core concept really is a standout one. The first episode shouldn't cost you much if you're not sure. It does enough right that I feel like the developers could really produce something great with more practice. At the very least, they succeed pretty well at atmosphere and that was obviously their priority anyway. The backgrounds have a lovely hand-drawn look that I never get tired of looking at even though it involves a lot of white snowy whiteness (which I can hardly say isn't fitting). There were a lot of times I felt like someone was trying to remake Haibane Renmei in game form. This isn't a bad thing. And I can't really praise the music enough, reminds me of NIN in a mellow mood at its best and picks up the slack in setting the scene when the writing isn't pulling its weight (hit-or-miss there, sometimes they do nail ominous foreboding and sometimes it's just overblown). Wish I could find a collection of it somewhere. It's what kept me going through the more annoying battles.

So basically strange game is strange. If you are too then you might get along. It really feels like a love-it-or-hate-it proposition to me, though. Takes a fair amount of patience to keep at it, but I guess if you can't find that at a site where people voluntarily compile statistics on fictional characters then you can't find it anywhere.

[Grefter]

At $5 an installment it can be forgiven for a fair bit I find personally.

Edit - Glad someone else has given it a look though.

[Fenrir]

Haven't even heard about this game!
I really like the more serious posts. Great reads.

[Grefter]

Gameplay and Plot segregation

On and off on the forums people will have heard me praise games for having characters gameplay abilities align to the abilities of the character shown in the plot of the game before.  This is another factor that I feel greatly helps contribute to what can make a game great, much like world building.  It is something that is entirely optional when building your game, there has certainly been a great many of highly praised games that don't really have gameplay abilities and plot abilities reflect each other, but as a story telling tool and a gameplay tool when it is leveraged well it empowers both the story teller and can be used to enhance gameplay.

I have talked about the ways that gameplay power being noted in plot previously help before in other parts of the site before so some of this may be old hat for some.  The primary effect that it has though is to help draw the player into the story somewhat.  It isn't a direct effect, certainly not a crutch to replace a good compelling story, but by showing that the things that you are telling the characters to do over and over again in player controlled sections actually correlates somewhat to the events that are happening in the plot adds to the overall cohesiveness of the setting.  The world is functioning by a consistent set or rules (or at least more consistent than if there is no overlap at all).  It also helps to give meaning to the players actions, it is a bit of a stretch to expect that as far as the core plot is concerned that every fight the player takes part in during your regular RPG play is canonical of the story, but it is a nice nod at least to this is how the characters are actually expected to have dealt with the situations that they are put into.  This takes a bit of the sting out of the lengthy sequence of events that are the hoops we jump through to get through to the next scripted plot sequence.  It doesn't need to be at a 1;1 ratio, that is going above and beyond for story telling, especially in an RPG where we are normally looking at fairly abstracted concepts for combat (turn based for a good portion of the genre first of all), but small links help and if you have enough of them you can get away with it.  A fairly minor example of it that is fairly cute is the way the main character in Dragon Quest 8 (from here on referred to as Watermelon) is immune to curses.  It explains how Watermelon survived the devastation of his native kingdom prior to the start of the game, gameplay wise it makes him immune to a rare almost never used status outside of the first boss fight of the game where Yangus can be hit by it and is kind of screwed over by it, but Watermelon shrugs it off.  It then is largely dropped until the aftergame dungeon where FUCK YOU WATERMELON IS A DRAGON plot happens, regardless of that it is a neat little nod. Wild Arms 4 is kind of my poster child for this, your platforming assistance tools are part of the plot, your combat abilities are part of the plot and so on.  It is far from perfect at it, but it is there from the outset and is repeatedly noted through the whole game.  It really all adds up to help make what is at heart a plot that is Kids Good Adults Bad still fairly compelling.  It is a ridiculous over the top plot that still keeps you engaged, it isn't all because of this stuff of course.  Some nice characterisation and completely embracing the silly goes a long way, but it certainly doesn't hurt either.

Wild Arms 4 is a useful example for how it can help you these same principles can enhance the gameplay as well as the story side of RPGs though.  There is the fairly obvious link where having the plot powers set out can help with character design and abilities or serve as inspiration for boss mechanics, that is fairly obvious especially for anyone who has read into general design principles before like Mark Rosewater's columns over at the official Magic: The Gathering website (always good reads by the way).  One other really key area that it helps though is that it helps clue the player into what they can expect with strange boss fight mechanics ahead of time.  While the mechanics of the boss fights in Wild Arms 4 are not completely telegraphed to you based on the powers of each specific boss, the mechanics are relatively self evident once you see them in action and part of this is from having seen them in action plot wise.  Hugo shifts away a panel instead of being hit if it is available, matching up with his powers you see in the cutscenes beforehand.  Lambda's premonition comes to the fore, Balgain is slow and will kill you in one shot if you somehow get hit by his slow wind up and so on.  You won't necessarily know the exact mechanics ahead of time, but there isn't really any that come completely out of left field.  This helps ease the player into the gameplay of your combat system and keeps them engaged, it loops back into being a benefit for the storytelling, the more invested the player is in the action of the combat rather than treating it as a separate intellectual puzzle to overcome the more you are going to be sucking them into the plot as well.  It is all a bit self reinforcing.  The more focus you put into it the more it pays off.

I really feel like I should elaborate on this more, maybe some other time, but that is a quick run-down on why I will occasionally ramble on about the benefits of not sticking to the classic plot and gameplay powers being segregated by big cast iron gates like we see in some games.  It isn't something that is necessarily important or required, but it is a nice little bonus and it is a little bit of polish to a game that will keep on giving if you follow through with it.

[Grefter]

Babbage

Oh hey there guy, I see you are a man who works with dangerous materials given the way you need to cover your legs up and tie the hems of your pantsto keep anything out.  I like that you role you sleeves up as well, it must get hot being all covered up like that.   Best be safe.  I also have no idea what the deal with this pose is.  One arm raised with knee raised as well, image taken mid step?  If so it is strange that your opposite shoulder to the raised foot is more forward than the other with the hand just kind of dangling back behind the top of the shoulder.  That shit cannot be comfortable.  You could almost guess it is lying on your back turned on its side working underneath a machine, but clearly gravity disagrees.  Are you walking backwards?  I don't know what is going on here.  Colours work, but whatever it is work clothes.  Also love that a guy that works with complex cog based machinery wers loose fitting clothes with one suspender strap loose.  That isn't asking for trouble.

Badeaux

Why hello there Badeaux I see your sly proposition with raised eyebrows and raised whip.  Not really interested, didn't you know that Fur is Murder?  You did?  You are a vegetarian you say?  Well that is a little suprising all things considered.  What do I mean?  Well lets just say that you are wearing more hide than your bear friend does.  No, I mean the one that lives near Green Hill.  No, I mean the one that is an animal.  No, I mean the one that is actually of the Ursidae familly.  Yes, the one that doesn't wear studded leather.  Okay.  I guess Tuesday is alright, but this isn't my kind of scene.  What have I just agreed to?

Bahram Luger

Bahram Luger's Sad Face is catching   Nice coat with some very fancy embroderty on the cuffs and collar not to mention the shirt that matches.  Pretty trendy (for the 1800s) low slung sabre sheath and swordbelt.  Accessorizes very well and has the figure to pull off those tight linen pants, nice shapely calves as well.  The shoes and knee high hose confuse me though.  This guy spends most of his time on a ship?  Those hose and shoes must be a total bitch to keep in order, the hose really could do to be a few inches shorter, cut off just below the knee rather than above works much better, will accentuate thse shapely calves all the more good sir.  Also suprising the loafers don't have any ornamentation to them given how extravagant the coat and sabre are it is a little stunning to say the least, no buckle?  Not even a brogue?  Fine, there is an elegance to simplicity I suppose.  I do have to ask though, just how hard are those shoes to walk in?  I mean they have next to no heal in them at all and start about half way up the foot of where I would expect a loafer to.  They must be amazingly easy to step out of.  You sir are fortunate that you can rock such an amazingly manly stache and such an outrageous part with that brutal Widow's Peak.  It works for you though, lucky man indeed.  Could proooobably use a bit of codpiece though given the trends of the era this outfit is taken from it leaves the trousers a bit underwhelming.

Bang

Bang.  How appropriate, I would shoot you as well.  Gods you are a boring old man.  You even manage to make a Toothbrush moustache boring. Your hair badly needs a wash as well by the looks of it or is in bad need of some extra body, so flat and dead.  I have praised the use of Earth Tones before, but there is such a thing as going to far.  You even fail to make your accessories remotely interesting, a vest and a headband and you are still about as interesting as week old semen stains on a hotel carpet.  That is to say you should have been cleaned up after whoever spawned you checked out, but no one could be fucking bothered.  Die in a fire.

Barbara

Oh hey, we see a return of Orange and Green with Red hair to die for.  Amazingly this doesn't immediately make me want to gouge my eyes out.  The difference between Suikoden 1 and 2 is that vast, even using the same ill advised pallete Suikoden 2 characters are somewhat tolerable.  As a pattern the dress is pretty nice and given that you are in a kind of management position I can let you get away with the nice slippers.  Olive shoes with a pale green scarf and skirt is confusing.  The Green scarf really needs to go, you don't need it with hair like that.  I do like that the artist kind of didn't seem to know what to do with the mouth.  It is a deep red everywhere but the teeth like has a mouth full of strawberry jam.  I hope it is tasty!

Barbarossa Rugner

How do you ruin a set of platemail?  Give it pansy elf booties.  I presume they exist entirely just to kick dudes in their package.  Just totally ruin people's day with that kind of shit.  Why is the lining of the cloak a boring grey?  This is an Emperor, line that shit with red velvet or something.  On the topic of the cloak, ignoring the horrible lining it is pretty amazing.  I mean the colour pallete here ruins it with the bright purple, but if it was a darker purple?  Man those shoulders on it ould be fucking intimidating as shit.  Big fuck off rubies on it with presumably gold wire lining worked into a wite fur shoulder?  Damn man just damn.  The armour shows to have a pretty elaborate working in it on the chest and knees, nice and extravagnt.  The legs freak me right the fuck out though, we have another dude who's torso makes up less than half of their height, Scarlet Moon Empire apparently just has guys with huge legs.  Then there is the leg armour as well.  The leg plates go up past the groin plate.  Presumably they are so well crafted that they cut off just where your legs move and provide some coverage for the hips?  I have no idea, that is what the waist of the armour is for.  Now lets talk a little about personal hygeine mister Emperor Guy.  You really need to brush or at least comb your hair once in a while.  Also the Stache is totally bitching, you should keep it up, but it is no wonder Windy never puts out.  It isn't so much that you have one, it is that you don't appear to ever trim it.  There is parts of it that stick upwards.  You really need to start looking after yourself a bit more if you want to let Windy take you to paradise with her "Gate Rune" if you will.   Also of course we must note cool popped collar bro.

[Grefter]

Reasons to play bad games, or why I hate fun.

There are a lot of reasons to play bad games.  Certainly not as many reasons to not play them, after all they are bad and you are probably not enjoying yourself.  Considering how often I rant on games I hate on the internet I figure it is probably about time I actually put it into words why I do it other than just sort of figure people have picked up on it by now.  This is going to be delving into the psychology of a stupid stupid man, so enjoy it while it lasts because I will start swearing at you by the end of the week.

The primary reason I play games I know I won't enjoy is egotism and paranoia.  I am paranoid and want to know how everything works and egotistical enough that my primary concern is understanding how I work.  This certainly has its advantages it has lead me to discovering all kinds of new things that I do in fact enjoy and need to expand upon.  This recent advent into Fashion?  Turns out after 2 decades of being a total nerd and not caring about personal appearance that I still don't care about personal appearance, but do have a strong appreciation for fine clothing and classic concepts of style.  Same goes for music, but we are talking games here.  I play bad games so I get a better understanding what I dislike about them and what I like in good games.  Not really a shocking new revelation, introspection is the nature of the introvert after all.

It goes a bit deeper than that.  Specifically my need to understand how things work.  A good game is fantastic and is a beautiful puzzle to put together, you see each specific thing that makes it work and in some cases it is a chunk of perfection carefully engineered to endear itself towards me, like Portal was a few years ago when it was released.  It certainly did a good job at it with me and every other nerd in existence.  A bad game on the other hand isn't really an amazing wonderland to run through and delight as you overturn each new design concept as it becomes apparent while looking back on it and seeing how it was applied earlier and only just now strikes you at the depth of the work gone into it (Valve commentaries are great showing you everything you missed as well).  Instead you turn over disgusting horrible things and marvel at how badly put together they are.  It is still essentially the same exercise as with the good game, just it isn't discovering nearly as interesting things.  It is the analysis, not the subject that I enjoy.  So that is one answer, a reason to play bad games is because they are a game there to play.  It is something to do, something to look at and something to analyse.  Why did you stick your dick in the lightsocket she asks?  Because it was there he replies. 

The concept of there being a game outside of the game is something that doesn't really seem to spring to mind to people when I get really worked up about a game that I am busy hating one.  This concept of there being a meta level to games is far from new or remotely interesting, there is enough drinking games for bad movies and books around the place that it is certainly not just me that undertakes this kind of endeavour, there is a whole wiki for it that destroys your soul (TV Trops of course).  Now how much they completely miss the mark is a discussion for another time (I will be fair to them, it is a Wiki and video games is by definition not their forte).  It isn't just me, it certainly isn't everyone on the internet everywhere ever, let alone all the world wide over, but analysis is a big nerd past time.  Especially you English majour types out there, they study this shit and then decide to hang around a bunch of math nerds and then don't play Deus Ex and totally fail to recognise a great game when it is right in front of them, but will rant on and on about game design just for fun because it is like right there (which is why you should write more often Alex or at least discuss it even if people will disagree.  Forget other people's feelings, this is fun and life is but a game and we nought but players in it.  CHECKMATE!  King me and that is Uno.)

From talking of critical analysis we move into far more dull base reasons, but there is a good chance that if I am playing a game I have payed good money for it.  It may not be as great as replaying something I like, but the fact of the matter is that I crave new stimulus and I have forked out $50 for yet another abomination, I may as well milk it for all the joy I can.  It is infantile and stupid, but again like many a nerd, I am a bit of a completionist.  Not all that much of one, I will do it until it stops giving me something fun to do.  If the analysis falls through or the game is dreadfully repetetive it stops being fun and giving me things to rip on then I will tend to dump it like a sack of shit.  A good example of this is probably why I am so amazingly harsh on N1 games.  They fall into very repetetive traps that bore me to play them and each successive game seems dead set on milking that same basic failure in design.  Sure they are certainly for some people, but I am sure some of you think purple chalk is tasty.  I prefer my bad games to reach a bit more than retreading, unless of course we are talking about catastrophic failure to change anything, but that is less enjoying a game and far more seeing how long Camelot can keep putting out the same game for and get 8 or 9/10 reviews for the 12th time.  One of these days they will stop making games that still mimic something from Shining Force.

Yet another reason, it seems that I like to rant about things on the internet.  There is a small group of people that like to read me swearing at them for not having a clue how great Arcanum is and why they should play horribly buggy games that have all the sense of balance and fairness as Judge Doom.  Especially when they have the gall to like boring kind of balanced games that play themselves.  So yeah I like to entertain even if it is at times naught but infantile provocation.

Most importantly though?  Sometimes I will play terrible games I hate just to be able to enjoy conversation, even if it is conversation where I have to hold back the bile and hate that I feel for such wretched games.  Man one time someone even thought I liked Final Fantasy 13 because of it.  I may hate the game with a fiery passion, but I can talk to you about it for a good hour or so before I start dreaming of glassing you in the eye to make the conversation go away.  It is fun to be able to talk to or at least follow a conversation between people who are so heavilly invested in games.  I mean to put it into perspective, I flunked out of complex mathematics in high school, I passed your more regular need this for science maths, but failed horribly in the fields that expand into imaginary math and all the stuff that explains the fun shit with Euler's number and whatnot.  I was more than capable of understanding the concepts, but lacked the drive to be able to pass the exams.  So take that 2 years of senior high school study for it and it is worthless to me as a student. As a human being though?  It kept me involved at least at a basic level with a discussion between two of our resident math nerds on a long car trip to DLC3 and it was fantastic.  Hands down one of the reasons I continue to travel to the US is because of encounters like that.  So I play terrible games so I can listen to nerds talk about imaginary numbers and rub one out to it a few years later.

1500 words later, why do I play bad games?  Because I am a complete and total nerd and I hate fun.


Tuesday nights are bowling nights so don't expect much more than a Suikoden post.  The day after that is when Dragon Age 2 comes out, so I wouldn't hold your breath for much particularly inspired new writing for a while after that.  We are either going to see fanboy posting or a lot of Suikoden FASHION.  If I have the sense to do it I will do screenshots and a fashion log for it while I play.  Or shit just a play log of something I hopefully love.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I think my relationship towards the things you write is much like your relationship towards the things mc writes. It's just fascinating.

[Grefter]

Hating on classics and embracing genetic throwbacks in RPGs.

So I have been realising an odd little running theme in my modern tastes in RPGs.  I am liking fewer of the modern action influenced JRPGs that are floating around or not liking the strange weird ones that are still trying to turn completely random events into an interesting and compelling method of play (SaGa turned the Last Remnant here, dude, give up, you keep making it worse and it only gets good when you remake your original work but substitute 8 bit characters with midget trannies), it is really strange, I am far more in favour of the throwbacks like Dragon Quest 8 and 9 even though they do bother me a little in and of themselves by not doing something new or interesting, but I certainly reject them far less aggressively than their contemperaries.  They have something of a benefit of timing, both games were released at a time when that kind of game was something I wanted pretty badly.

There is more to it than just good timing though, they have a polish to them that some of the other games don't.  They take an old point of game design and refine it to a fairly slickly put together little package, sure there is points where they completely go off the rails into batshit stupid, but both are pretty much aftergame.  It is even in Square games, of the newest generation of Square games the one I reacted least violently to was Lost Odyssey, which if pretty much a straight rip of old turn based games with front and back row and add in a way to break down that back row.  It is a largely safe and by the numbers game.

Yet oddly enough the throwbacks of these games are the ones that I so vehemently lay in the boot with regards to.  Early Dragon Quest?  Don't make me laugh, I did my time in 6 and was thoroughly unimpressed, it was the stock standard combat system I had seen in Lufia 2 which itself was incredibly stock standard, but Dragon Quest just did it worse in almost every way.  It even reaches far more recently into the middle parts of the Playstation 2 era, Shin Megami Tensei games?  Don't make me laugh, I tried them for the style and was almost consistently repelled by the combat system.  What point did it change?  I am not really sure.  I think it was the point where more action oriented systems began to feel pointlessly gimmicky, they weren't adding something strategic to it, it was just another hoop to jump through to do the same shit you could do in real time.  I would probably pinpoint it somewhere around the release of Shadow Hearts 3.  Hell I could even blame the whole thing on Wild Arms 4 reminding me that Turn based wasn't completley devoid of new ideas and that it was really my home territory.

Where Shadow Hearts 3 was a boring retread of the earlier combat systems refined slightly I stopped caring so much about perfecting my timing, I played through with the standard ring and got more fun out of just playing it more laid back than I had Shadow Hearts 2.  It let a game which almost tried sometimes, but still let you one round bosses fight back that little bit more.  Right about the end of that game where I was tired of jumping through the same hoops just for a minor stat boost.  Why did I care that much?  Wooo I have rhythm , can I go back to playing my RPG now?  The irony of how much I enjoy Guitar Hero/Rock Band games is not lost on me.  I suppose 60 hours or more over three games tired me of tapping out the same 5 beat pattern over and over that is Yuri's attack chain.  It kind of stops being anything special at that point.  It probably didn't help that I found the more different or experimental systems there were in that patch the less polished I found them or the more infuriating, star Ocean 3 for example was a game I enjoyed, but felt was crippled horribly by the barrier system.  It didn't need to be there and didn't really add much to the game.

That doesn't really address specifically about the old games that really rubbed me the wrong way.  I mean I was always all about the turn based strategy games, never has there really been a turn based game that I regretted the lack of a Real Time variant of.  I suppose it really comes down to just how easilly I am swayed by a bit of polish or conceding difficulty to the player with the benefit of increased user friendliness.  Save points before bosses and the like make games easier, but I appreciate that they are there, it saves me time and effort.  Variable text scroll speed, more options in menus for bits and pieces to let me tweak the play session to how I want it exactly.  The more modern games definitely have these in spades over their older counterparts.  Does this mean I prefer easier games?  Well yeah honestly it does.  There is certainly room for punishing games in the market, but a flood of them or an uncompromising position of only making games in that vein is not something that endears me towards a product.

So I guess the heart of the matter was I was primed and ready for a revival of an old favourite system that was polished and didn't punish the player for failing a dull repetetive task that they have performed over and over again.  On the other hand, from the where I picked up the SNES era games through to the middle of the PS2 era, I was also more than open to the idea of having the chance to fail at a game because of my own lapse in skill compared to randomly losing to instant death spells.  Do I want a happy medium?  Yeah probably and it is getting there so long as some key studios don't go totally belly up.

What does this rant say?  Not much of anything really.


Not really happy with this one, but it is something.

[Cmdr_King]

I promise this will be the only time I say it directly, but... PLAY RADIANT HISTORIA

I cannot guarantee you'll like it, but it definitely does some things in line with your comments here and at a minimum I am curious what you make of it.

[Grefter]

I won't be holding my breath.  Not because I don't want to but as an Atlus release that doesn't seem to be coming to Aus it might be a bit hard.  I mean it has been out for 2 or 3 weeks.  Last time I tried to import an Atlus DS game that had been out for that long I wasn't able to get it because it was already discontinued.  Will certainly try though after Neph's review, your reccomendation and a few other positive things.

Edit - Yep already unavailable on Play-Asia.

Edit 2 - Okay it worked with Amazon of all things and I picked up DQ6 as well.

[Nephrite]

I think Atlus did a second run of RH.

[Grefter]

Alpha Protocol, a broken fun game of cheese and awesome

Alpha Protocol was a strange point in the middle of 2010.  It is a bit of a mess as far as balance goes and has a strangely overly punishing stealth system for a spy game.  It received fairly cold reviews from gamers and critics in general, it just felt fairly half baked.  Looking back on it though and having recently replayed it for a while it really does shine through as better than the general response to it was at release.  Everyone just was hoping for a bit more than it delivered and that hurt the response to the final product, pretty much the story of every Obsidian release so far (though New Vegas has had a fairly strong response quite deservedly for everything but the horrible engine which is not their fault, but certainly didn't hold back the mindless praise for games that aren't even half as good).

One of the things that Alpha Protocol goes out of its way to address is the lack of a strong voice to the main character, you don't have the same level of customisation that mroe modern PC RPGs have given you character wise in a trade off.  You do control dialogue, but regardless of the options you choose Michael Thornton has a fairly clearly defined character, is always a bit of a smarmy smart arse douche even if you play a by the books agent.  You certainly have control over the way the conversation flows, down to being able to just cut off communications early in many points which even then still effects character responses.  Which brings into the next strong point of the game, there is a fairly crazy number of permutations to choices that you can make in this game.  Most choices in the game have a long term effect on who survives, who is friendly and who is an enemy.  This extends on to the availability and cost of weapons and intel on the black market that you purchase equipment through and ultimately changes who you can call for help on at the end of the game and provides many different endings for the game as well.  It really does feel like playing a pretty epic spy movie with double crossing and covert ops all over the place on the whole spectrum of low fi spy movies, to your gritty realistic modern movies spiralling all the way out into your full blown crazy Bond style characters and events.  It is a pretty amazing cross section of the spy film genre and my favourite example of the whole thing is pretty much Sie and G3.  Sie is an ex KGB mercenary that you can side with in Moscow, she is a Bond character, she single handedly leads and dominates a group of mercs or something, but they may as well not exist.  It is mostly Sie.  She is a hard woman that likes it when you are aggressive, she wears a pair of bright pink plastic glasses, cammo pants, a boob tube with her bright pink wonder bra poking out the top, a beret and combat boots.  Otherwise she is rocking an M60 and various ammunition carrying peripherals.  She is pure Bond and of course has a thick Russian accent.  Siding with her will earn you the ire of G3 a clandestine reincarnation of an old black ops group, much like the agency Thornton is part of at the start of the game.  This would be your Bourne style modern spy movie group.  They are all about appearing out of nowhere, being nearly untraceable and unidentifiable and getting out again quickly, cleanly and quietly.  Having these two things in the same world and actively competing with each other is fantastic and a lot of fun.  On the topic of long term changes and effects, the outcome of the opening mission sequence lets you spare, execute or arrest the target of your mission.  Letting him go free opens up an entirely new option during the end game.  Unforseen consequence, but one that makes sense in the context of the game and just empowers the player.  This is exactly how you can and should do choice and consequence.  You can do it without the player knowing exactly what will happen but do it without punishing the player.

The gameplay is a bit of a sore point, it isn't overly hard, but it is a bit overly punishing for some play styles.  If you are trying to be a sneaky type?  The system is way harsh.  Being seen as a stealth character is pretty brutal, this is a kill a few guys and the game acts like you went on a rampage kind of game.  You get spotted and you are probably going to set off an alarm.  It is perfectly fine as an option to be super stealthy and highly lethal, but the game reacts differently if you are stealthy and non-lethal.  It gives you plenty of tools to bypass guards when you take the stealth skills which is good, but early on it is rough.  You get used to it and it is pretty fulfilling when you do it.  The real problem is the save system, it uses a checkpoint system.  So you have to keep going back to it when you get spotted.  Early on where the game is at its most polished, this isn't much of a problem, but as you get further in the checkpoints get to be a bit less forgiving and you can go for long stretches just to be spotted before a checkpoint, alarm goes off, stealth approach killed off.  You can turn off alarms and so on, but it isn't quite the same thing.  How much this rubs the wrong way will depend how much of a perfectionist you are.  As a whole though the stealth path is really well layed out and you are given a lot of skills to use to bypass direct fire fights, it is a lot of fun.  This however leads into one of the games biggest problems.  It has boss fights.  So you can make your way through the introduction sequence then get set loose on the world with three areas to choose from that you want to approach.  You pick one and sneak your way through with the game praising you for doing so, then you get to the last mission of the area and have a boss fight.  Wait where did that come from?  Okay you still have a gun and some explosives, lets put them to use.  No that won't do you any good without sinking points into a weapon skill, even if you invest in an expensive weapon it just won't be nearly as effective as if you sunk some points into Pistol or something.  It is a little disappointing and certainly miffed me my first play through where I specialised in stealth and tech right up until I couldn't penetrate the bosses regenerating shield stat and do more than a sliver of health worth of damage to him (player has that shield as well, it is Endurance, works like pretty standard regenning health meter from a cover based shooter).  So I went off to another area and built up weapon skill, finished off the last two areas and their bosses before coming back.  Yeah with some skill the fight wasn't nearly as bad.  I didn't have to fiddle with ways to trick the AI and try to plant bombs up his arse to do no damage.  Sadly I chose poorly in weapon skills.  Shotguns are hands down the worse choice of weapon in the game.  I think hand to hand might even be better.  SMG, Rifle and Pistol are all head and shoulders better than Shotguns.  They do damage slower, punish misses far more and has the weakest special shot in the game along with special ammo that is pretty much worthless against bosses as well.  Fun choice to play with when I didn't want to stealth kill dudes, just sneak up behind them and blow them in half.  To kill bosses though?  Not so crash hot.  So the games skill balance is a bit lacking and it doesn't exactly go out of its way to tell you that you really really want a fighting skill.  After the three area bosses there is only more boss fights to go as well.  So you had best get good at them.

Topping it all off with the choices and so on is the skill system, you have 5 combat skills to pick from, each playing differently, stealth, tech skills for hacking (Sabotage) and whatnot, toughness for those who are going to just be shooting some dudes and a sort of catch all skill called Technical Aptitude which boosts your healing skills, lets you get more ammo and generally make all weapons and armour better in one way or another.  You have enough points over the game as a whole to max out pretty much 3 of these skills.  So you have fairly good skill choices for replay to make it differently, on top of the ever changing plot options with how you handle situations.  You can gear yourself up to handle the situations in the game completely differently than you otherwise would have. 

Rounding out the whole replayability thing that the game has going for it is one part of character creation that I haven't covered yet is that the game has Background for how you got into Alpha Protocol as an agent.  There is three main ones, Army guy, Tech guy for the CIA or a Freelancer that got around the world.  They each specialise in combat, stealth/sabotage and general all rounder types with these choices unlocking different dialogue and effecting the plot in their own minor ways.  There is a fourth option though which is to be a rookie, which makes you have less starting skills, which overall makes you weaker throughout the whole game (a few points really adds up!), it even has its own dialogue options to go with it.  It is a nice touch to add a minor hard mode that is rewarding to the player plotwise.  Play through the game once as Rookie and you unlock Veteran, which again has new dialogue options and is honestly just straight up broken with the skill choices.  With all of them I believe you can reshuffle the skills they start with if you choose.  The best part of this implementation is that you have a game that rewards for replays and is pretty clearly designed with replayability in mind without trapping the player into it just to see content.  No Breath of Fire 5 having to play the game multiple times to unlock the plot thing or even Nier's honestly interesting sounding replay mechanic for completely different plot experiences for an overarching metaplot of zaniness and file deletion.

So it is a game with a lot of promise that badly needed a bit more polish in its combat (which is a big part of the game).  It is kind of a more focussed Deus Ex and it is lesser for it, but explores a lot of interesting things that Deus Ex couldn't or didn't.  One of my first summaries for it was Deus Ex Light and it holds up pretty well, which is more praise than the game is worth, but it is better than the reception that it got at release.  So if you see it in a bargain bin somewhere I suggest you check it out.  Obsidian do good work, just need the budget and schedule to work with.

[Fenrir]

I haven't played Deus Ex, but it seems to be about choices that mostly affect gameplay while Alpha Protocol is about choices that mostly affect plot, so they're not really the same thing.

I agree with the good points and didn't care about the bad. (except for the overpowered bosses) This game's cool.

I'm going to 1000/1000 this even though this will take like 10 playthroughs. There's one achievement you can get if you can piss off an important character enough to get him to fight you, but I've screwed it up. one playthrough ruined.
By the way, I found SMGs to be as bad as shotguns. They eat ammo like crazy and don't do enough damage to compensate. Might just be hard mode though.

The zero punctuation review sums this up pretty well I think (like every zero punctuation review it is overly negative, of course) http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1801-Alpha-Protocol





You can't go wrong with this.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm going to 1000/1000 this even though this will take like 10 playthroughs. There's one achievement you can get if you can piss off an important character enough to get him to fight you, but I've screwed it up. one playthrough ruined.

It's actually really easy to accomplish. Just make sure you go Bond every choice. He HATES it.

[Fenrir]

You need to get some info on him too. My reputation with him was abmysal at that point, something like -8, and it wasn't enough.
I knew that he congratulates you if you buy a ton of intel, so I didn't get any.

When you storm his house, you can go to a secret room if you know enough about him, then you learn about his secret daughter or something and you can taunt him about that. Then he maybe fights you. If I remember correctly. I need to try that out.

Being suave in the most inappropriate situations is the most fun I had with the game actually. You look like a complete moron if you try it with Alan Parker at the beginning.

[Grefter]

Digital Misery, why it feels so good to be so bad.

More frequently these days games are presenting us with a nice branch of faux morality in games.  From the classic Shin Megami Tensei series to your more modern Mass Effect series there is something of a burgeoning market place for having a sliding scale of morality in video games, RPGs in particular but they are getting around in others.  It is certainly not as all encompassing as say cover based shooters have been to your third person shooter, but it is a change in pace.

Now a fairly common first reaction to this is that people tend to play it as a good guy up front and maybe play the alternate path on a replay.  There are some peopel out there that flat out refuse to play the evil path and that is an admirable goal I suppose, but it is a bit naive on the grand scale of things.  It does beg the question of where this push to have an "evil" path through games stems from though.  A fairly common dismissive one is that it is for the kiddies or the jaded old men who want GRIMDARK stories or some such, but I think in most cases this is missing something a bit deeper going on here, even in the cases of poorly implemented approaches to the style of story telling.  Yes I will concede that there is a portion of the audience that craves this kind of thing, but there is other games out there that you can get that kind of thrill without dragging through 30 hours of RPG combat or dialogue to do, Bulletstorm just came out and that kind of entertainment is prepackaged and right there for the taking.

What is it that an evil path in an RPG gives you as a player?  Primarilly it lets you see the story unroll from a different perspective.  Sure in some games it is from the perspective of a complete and total thug, but it is different than the shiny good two shoes that these games tend to represent as their counterpart.  Does the game play out in the exact same way or not?  Some people really lay in the boot without having a completely branching plot for good and evil, but I actually don't mind having them converge together.  If a story is well written enough that it makes sense coming at it from either end then that means you have written a fairly decent coherent logical story.  If you can do that and have the exact same dialogue from the NPCs and still make it coherent?  More power to you I say.  Yes the game loses some of its magic on a replay.  40 hour RPGs that you see this in are not commonly designed with high replay in mind for the special kind of player that is someone who is unforgiving of that but so obsessive that they will play through the game twice and not enjoy it on the second run through.  On the other side of the coin if you don't make it make sense, you run a good risk of making a completely hilarious script or horribly painful dialogue, all of which is a win for me personally as someone who likes to play games to laugh at them.  One great example of the branchign plot however is Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.  You play through the majority of the game without there being a great divergence of gameplay for the good or evil paths, you get about 3/4 of the way through the game though and there is a huge schism in the things you are doing, if you are going down the path of evil you essentially get a reprimand, do this thing and in doing it you are damned completely.  Arcanum is a really flexible game that will let you do almost anything you want, but at the end of the game when it comes down to the ultimate point of morality there is no turning back.  You are either all in evil or you are going down the other path.  Best of all at the end of the game it turns it all on it's head and nothing was quite what you were lead to believe.  It is delightful and something I haven't really seen done again.  It tricks you into thinking it is a simple split path choice and it is is no such thing.

Not everyone is in it for the storytelling though.  Some games like Knights of the Old Republic or inFamous go straight for the gameplay rewards.  Want to be evil?  Congratulations you are a million times better at shooting lightning at people and making them explode.  That is above and beyond the more textbook example of getting more gold or better rewards that are common.  It adds something to the good/evil dynamic, it is fairly shallow, but it is there at least.  These kinds of rewards tend to be split into two kinds, permanent rewards that you can choose to pick up along the way (sacrifice the baby at the altar for +4 HP type deals) or they can be the reward for filling up that good/evil meter by unlocking bits and pieces as you go along the sliding scale and unlocking the ultimate goody bag of good/evil power, commonly again a kind of stat buff.  The former is quite easilly abusable from a metagame perspective of picking up the stat buff and being good later to make up for sacrificing the baby.  Ultimately though it is nice to have the flexibility in telling your character's story as you see fit if you are into the role play side of it, is it worth sacrificing the baby?  Sure why not.  As one of my go to games for examples here, Mass Effect 2 handles this quite interestingly in that part of its streamlining of the game in general was that instead of having your Paragon/Renegade meter unlock a boost to a stat that made you better at your conversation skills (the bonus it had associated to it in the first game), they just used that scale as basic statistic itself.  So the more you acted in the different archetypes the more convincing you were acting that part.  Simple but very effective and generally fairly representive of the kinds of changes made going from Mass Effect 1 to 2.

Specifically building off of the example of Mass Effect 2, a big reason to play the Renegade path (essentially victory by any means, so the "evil" path of Mass Effect) is honestly?  It is just plain fun.  Not in a juvenile gorefest lets see how much we can totally ruin this world kind of way, but it manages to keep you entertained in the varying ways that the archetype goes around solving the problems presented to the player.  Plenty of it is refuge in audacity, considering the other path resolves issues fairly directly and commonly with violence the only direction that Renegade can go is more over the top.  Other games do this also to some degree, whether intentionally or not is going to be something you decide for yourself.  I don't really have any specific examples here other than everything else that uses a fairly bad morality system.  The more poorly implemented the morality system then the higher the likelihood that the sytem will devolve into this unintentionally, for me Knights of the Old Republic is definitely like that.  Regardless of the game you are doing it though, if this is the reason you decide to be evil then it is pure spectacle and it is good fun to just run around being a complete and total douche just because you can.

This does beg the question though of what does this actual mean for the morality of the player.  Does the actions of the player in game reflect in any way on the player themselves?  Well to be blunt the answer is no.  To elaborate, the answer is no, not really.  The actions of a player in an entirely virtual world that has no interaction with another player or living entity is devoid of any real action or meaning so as to mean nothing on the real character of the player.  There is a correlation between depictions of graphic violence and viewers being desensitized to it, but that does not effect the morality of the viewer inherently.  Just as someone working customer service is going to lose some of their difficulty in dealing with people and get better at dealing with conflict if they work in a more hostile customer facing department, it does not make a customer service worker more extroverted or seek out conflict.  Playing as a morally bankrupt character in a fantasy world will have no impact on the player's own morality, it may aid them in the day when they get to choose between sacrificing the baby for 4 more HP or getting a better cash reward, but little else because the whole thing is entirely made up.  

Which brings home something I really want to harp on a bit.  The world you are interacting with is not real and most well adapted people can tell the difference there.  The rules of morality are different here, for a start they are black and white and clearly defined, that is a pretty big difference right there.  The things you do don't have any kind of long lasting effect, they will go away when you stop playing.  Well adjusted people know this and can differentiate between the things they do in game and those they do outside of the game.  If you run into anyone that argues otherwise then you really need to be questioning just how tight a grasp they have on reality.  Do they see morality as absolutes right or wrong?  Do they have trouble differentiating between the things you or they do in a game with what you do in your every day life?  That is the makings of a psychotic break right there.  Be afraid of people like that, they are unwell and should be kept well away from video games and other forms of interactive entertainment.  If they are making laws then you might want to think about how you can convince someone that they should be kept from interactive entertainment and also ways that you can convince them that human contact is a form of interactive entertainment.

Now having rambled on about how it isn't real and you can all chill out and shoot some dudes, why exactly is being a total douchebag to made up people so entertaining?  Well if you generally are a pretty decent human being who isn't into ritualistic murder it can be many reasons.  All the reasons I gave above can tie in to a great many reasons.  It could be a cathartic release for the player, you would never do these things in reality, but sometimes it would be nice to do them even if only to people you deem deserving of it.  Another could be just an academic interest, throw a character into a scenario, how do they deal with it?  The developers have this set piece, how do they provide a route for the evil character.  One of my favourite examples of why I replayed as evil much sooner than I expected to was Knights of the Old Replubic.  Not because I thought the evil path would be particularly interesting, but I wanted to see how exactly they justified training up the main character as a Jedi when they have consistently shown to be a completley irredeemable even shit.  For some they will do it just to do it.  It is there, it is a thing to see, it is a thing to do.  Why would you not?  As sad as it may sound it is something else to experience everything that you can in a game.  It helps give perspective the next time you see it done again if you want to get intellectual about it, for others it might just be milking every last bit out of the game they have payed money for.

I think that covers most of the thigns I think are reasons people choose to be bad people in video games, it is obviously because they are mostly bad people in real life.




That brings me back up to speed with my 1000 words a day I think.  Maybe a bit behind.  Oh well,  might do 1500 words on Suikoden fashion before I get back into Dragon Age.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

You need to get some info on him too. My reputation with him was abmysal at that point, something like -8, and it wasn't enough.
I knew that he congratulates you if you buy a ton of intel, so I didn't get any.

When you storm his house, you can go to a secret room if you know enough about him, then you learn about his secret daughter or something and you can taunt him about that. Then he maybe fights you. If I remember correctly. I need to try that out.

Being suave in the most inappropriate situations is the most fun I had with the game actually. You look like a complete moron if you try it with Alan Parker at the beginning.

I never did that. I just had his intel on his relationship with Halbech and his service record and heckled him about how he retired from field work to be someone's bitch, and then killed him.

[Grefter]

Bartholomew

Why hello there Suikoden 4.  You continue to be confusing.  Those shoes, why is the heal constructed from a distinct piece of leather from the rest of it?  That is a structurally unsound shoe.  Frayed ends on your pants is a good sign that you need to replace them and why do they kind of bunch up just below your arse?  I get it at the knees with them slightly bent, but these are clearly loose pants, why do the bunch up there?  Confusing.  Purple and Orange, no matter how often you try iit does nothing for you, especially with brown hair.  Accentuate, not blend in my friend.  I don't get what is happening with this pose.  It is like he is getting ready to throw the spear, but he is lifting it perpendicular with the ground?  It looks like he is holding it by his finger tips with like two fingers and a thumb.  Does not compute.  Also OH MY GODS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR FACE.  The headband is stupid and you should lose it, this is Suikoden not Naruto.

Barts

Yo my name is Barts, I am a just chilling with my hoe and rocking a crazy anachronistic bomber jacket.  Ignoring the jacket that is actually a pretty nice getup. Nice pants, functional work boots for a farmer, nice shirt and the orange trim even works pretty well.  There appears to be a black undershirt that is long enough to extend out of the ends of the jacket?  I don't quite get what is going on there, but whatever, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it isn't completely ridiculous because generally speaking Suikoden 3 is winning the shit out of character design here.  Hair that long must be a bit of a bitch to keep clean as a farmer, but what are you going to do with a face that pretty and all these hoes.  That certainly is a bandana that you are wearing there.  Seriously the only real problem I have with Barts is his profession, if he wasn't a farmer this whole thing would work.  As one?  Damn son you must do no work at all if you can keep a pair of cream pants (jeans probably?) that clean.  I really don't think I need to address the bomber jacket and how silly they are as a piece of fashion or how silly it is in a temperate climate like the grasslands.

Bashok - No image

Basil (Suikoden 1) - No image

Basil (Suikoden 4)

Ladies and gentleman we have our second contestant in Boy or Girl.  The name says boy, but that top says girl!  The face says "I don't even know what the fuck I am or what is going on.  Am I angry?  Am I happy?  Am I determined?  I am confused."  Now good... person shoes and pants work, although they appear to be work a bit low on the waist given where the fork in the pants is, which given the fact that the hems are to far up your leg makes it look like you are trying to pass off a pair of 3/4 length pants as real pants.  That top.... that top is ridiculous.  It is wider than your shoulders.  I know why you walk around with your hands on your hips like that, because with a top like that being wider than your shoulders if you don't have your arms jutting out from your body that tip will just fall right off you.  It is a really stupid shirt.  Horizontal stripes are terrible and you have colours all over the place and then finish it off with spots.  Wow, that whole thing is just fashion disaster central.  At least it is earth tones so doesn't draw the eye to it.  Maybe people will get to wrapped up in guessing the sex to realise how dumb that shirt is.  There appears to be a singlet underneath the shirt, so hey at least you won't be naked when it falls off.  Holy Jesus!  What is that? What the fuck is that?   WHAT IS THAT, PRIVATE PYLE?  That junk you have around your neck, it is the most amazingly stupid piece of accessorizing we have seen.  It might be the worse one yet.  It is a piece of cord.  Looped around your neck twice and left dangling like the cord on a hoodie.  Congratulations, you managed to find a piece of clothing that is even more likely to fall off than your shirt.  I guess it is okay though, since with the shirt you aren't able to move your arms much, so not much is going to cause movement around your chest.  Yes it is even worse than your red and green headband.  No I can't work out the pattern on it, at first glance it looked like it was leopard print, but for everyones sake I will guess that I just can't see it properly and decide that you haven't completed your ludicrous outfit with a red and green leopard print headband.  You are a disgrace.

Basil is also male.

Bastan

Oh hey there Bastan.  I see that the curtains don't match the drapes, brown stache and white hair?  Clearly a wig, but that is obvious.  Functional outfit I suppose, it is a constistent look although the belt is worthless, that isn't holding up shit.  I am not for the low slung useless belt fashion style.  The sleeves could go either way, a bit longer or a bit shorter.  really the shirt in general is like 6 sizes to big for the poor guy, you can see the point where the sleeve and torso connect, it is a good ways down his arm where that should be close to the shoulder, that would make the shirt be a lot better if it was a better fit.  The red and yellow vertical striped tunic is not particularly flattering, change the yellow to a duller colour maybe?  I am not really sure, it is hard to make work with those brown trousers.

Also that decanter thing is really fucking weird.

Bazba

YOU ARE A LIZARD.  YOUR SHIRT IS ALMOST SILLY LIKE BASIL'S BUT AT LEAST WILL STAY ON YOUR BODY.  LIZARDS ARE BORING.  SPOTS ARE BAD.

Beechum

Check me out, I am the most generic Karayan ever.  Right down to the fingerless gloves, the black undershirt and the sandals.  I need to break out of the mould, everyone just sees me as dull and boring, something that has been done better by like 4 other characterss.  I know, PARACHUTE PANTS ARE THE SOLUTION.

Seriously though Beechum looks like a someone's dad who was a wicked cool surfer dude in the 70s and then the early 90s came along, he got divorced and wanted to become hip, relevant and cool again.  So he bleached his hair and beared just like in the old days, watched MTV for half an hour and saw the greatest performer all time and wanted to emulate him.  This is what all the ladies are into right?  This will help him now that he is back on the meat market?  Oh I know, kids are all about piercings right?  I will get BOTH my ears pierced!  You are a genius Beechum, you still totally have it.  All the poon in the world will be yours.  The belt is stupid as well and must be like just above your junk.

Belcoot

Belcoot dresses like an 8 year old.  I like blue!  I will just wear blue!  Fine mum I will wear SOMETHING else as well.  I know Orange is good, I will put orange on my sword hilt and wear an orange shirt under my totally sweet orange jacket.  Harsh joking on the colours aside, this dude fucking loves his pants.  A carefully maintained pleat in a pair of pants you are going into a fight with?  Dude is styling.  In all other things it is pretty much a functional outfit, padded armour with some chest protection, a bit kidney belt and scabbard, so I can't make fun of the belts.  Functional boots, hope they are steel capped for some face stomping.  The hair is long and unruly, really needs to look after his pony tail better because those bangs are going to be an absolute pain in the arse.  Yes I am going to link to that song every time it comes up.  To top it all off?  Cool popped collar bro.

That finishes off today and think that brings me up to speed on my targetted word count.

[Grefter]

So in my never ending quest to please Djinn without ever touching his penis (Because neither of us wants that to happen) today I am talking about Grandia 2.


Why it is important to be incredibly vain if you like shitty games.

I am just going to put it out there.  I am incredibly awesome and super cool fantastic great.  I really enjoy Grandia 2.  It is a stupid game with a plot that takes itself incredibly serious while having the big plot twists be, in this order.  The Devil wear's a miniskirt, posessed a Nun who totally wants some cock, is really made up of lots of different parts and the first thing that the Devil wants is a good tonguing.  Ultimately the Devil is unable to become Horny becaues her boyfriend is Horny instead.  Then the Devil got eaten by a fat guy who became the Devil.  In a suprise twist God is also dead, but it is okay, Excalibur is really a spaceship.  The Fat Devil Guy turns into a moth.  Curtain call, game is over.

There is far more wrong with Grandia 2 though.  It is stupidly easy.  As in like you can setup one character to be the target for almost all attacks and make them take no damage from the pathetically weak attacks of the enemy.  Alternately you can easilly cancel almost every remotely threatening move in the game.  Worst of all you could just heal any damage through the multitude of cheap healing methods.  Shit you could even like just wipe out the enemies before they get a turn with a series of basic attacks.  Suffice to say there isn't really much at all to make Grandia 2 stand out as a challenge.  That said the gameplay is exactly why it is great for vanity.  The simplicity of the combat mixed with a fairly varied character development system gives you that feeling like you are putting a lot of work to completely and totally destroy this shit.  Sure it is rejoicing that you effectively kicked a baby for a field goal, but who cares?  You totally wrecked their shit and they never even touched you.  Take that Melfice.  Go cry into you stew you punk bitch!  Pure fuel into the fire for how totally awesome you are.  Vanity is spoon fed by games that are ridiculously easy like this.  As a counterpart I suppose I should note that bad games that are hard have the same effect.  Oh man you totally sat down and beat Deadly Towers? Congratulations that was a clearly positive life affirming good thing to do.  Yeah bro you are totally showing all those nubs how to rock it hardcore and old school.

The best part about a game that takes itself far to seriously when it is completly ridiculous is that you have two easy ways to defend the game.  If people take it seriously themselves and hate on it then they obviously didn't get the joke.  I mean seriously I just flew Excalibur into the Moon that is really the Devil.  Of course that is a joke oh my god what are you five?  On the other hand if someone just keeps making fun of it as a joke?  I mean seriously I just flew Excalibur into the Moon that is really the Devil.  THAT IS SO EPIC, WHY DO YOU HATE FUN?  Of course those snarky douches amongst you are going to start crying hypocrisy now now, but I think you are missing a little important point of vanity here.  Of course the vain can be hypocrites, they can't be wrong.  That would be dangerous to a carefully structured fortress that is ones perception of reality and ones self in it.  I can't be wrong I played this game for 60 hours, of course it is great and totally meaningful in every way.  It isn't that I enjoy it, it is that it is great and I am great for being great like this great game that is so bad that it is awesome like me.  The worse a game the easier it is to defend playing it because duh have you even heard of irony?  I like this game because it is SOOOOOO bad, but seriously you should try it out it is awesome.

Back on topic of Grandia 2 though, it is a great game for feeding vanity through both these parts.  At its core it is a fun little game that is easilly broken.  The core ideas behind it are fairly carefully constructed.  You have a fairly limited resource in the points you spend to level up moves, skills or spells.  Regardless of where you spend them though you are spending them well because everything bends this game over and greases it up ready for action.  At the same time the plot just keeps escalating in scope and scale, even to the point where that little runaway homeless kid is really royalty.  The Devil and the Nun totally decide to have a threesome with the main character.  You fight the Heart of the Devil and it is only half way through the game.  All kinds of nonsense.  The bigger and louder it gets the more it fuels the escapist fantasy fetish that you are totally rad, which you obviously are because duh.

So vanity just helps you appreciate these shitty games, because no one else can see the true charm and beauty of them.  It is totally a self fulfilling prophecy here, you like good things, so everything you like has to be great in its own special way.  Vanity definitely helps with that.  Of course if enough people hate it you may have to reconsider your position, it might be an ironic thing then.

That or I could just be talking complete and total bullshit.  Yeah lets go with that.  Honestly there isn't anything wrong with liking bad games.  I honestly do enjoy Grandia 2.  It is pretty bad, but it is really a big pile of potential fun and a stupid plot with some tropetastic characters that are around long enough that you do get something of an emotional attachment.  It isn't great, but it laid ground work for one of the best/worst/best/worst/BEST/WORST FUCK OFF games ever in Grandia 3 which does the amazing job of having a far more compelling combat system, an even tighter balanced resource system and one of the worst plots ever written.  For that I am thankful.  I do think Grandia 2 in some ways is making the best of a bad situation.  It was trailing on after an even more ridiculously easy game, so it couldn't push it overly much without alienating what fanbase the one other game in the series had made.  The game's combat system is complex enough to throw new players on a bit of a bender at that.  The system was still fairly fresh and greatly refined from the original, so they couldn't turn the balance knobs up to 11 just yet.  If you pushed the skill system even further in this game I think it just would have bred a habit of grinding for skill points honestly, as it is the game never really ruins its flow by making players feel like they have to do that.  Sure it has a stupid amount of filler dungeons which kills the point of the argument there, but it is another carry over from the original.  It is something of a compromise, but it one for the best.  The game is light fun fluff, certainly never destined for greatness.  None of this makes for a particularly great game, the only real reason I call it shitty is because the points where it drops the ball are pretty big fumbles and I am a picky bastard.  As a game?  Sure it is worth a look.  You probably won't come away from it feeling that it is was an abject waste of time.

Being a vain douchebag certainly helps the appreciation of it though.  It is just a shame the ball is dropped so hard in the third act of the game, otherwise the vain douchebags would be idolising Ryudo with his stupid box hat thing which would be great fun to make fun of.  Instead they just go and idolize Melfice who just dresses like a gay stripper crossed with a unicorn.



Actually you know what?  I can live with that.

[Fenrir]

Late, but:
It's just part of human nature to be interested in conflicts more than peace. It's why stuff like Extreme makeover, which was about nice people doing nice things for one hour and being happy all the time, lost steam fast while reality shows, which are about people being locked up with other people during two months and slowly going insane, worked for so long. The main difference between Dragon age and those reality shows is that watching virtual people suffer instead is less wrong.
One more good reason why it's good to be a douche (for me it's mostly about seeing where the writers wanted to go)

There's also a big difference between being a standard chaotic evil asshole who kills a ton of innocent people just cause (boring) and being some sort of selfish thug who would do anything for money and has sense of right and wrong (fun).

[Grefter]

Belle

Platform elf booties and stripy socks.  Cyan and blue pantaloons.  Bells attached at the collar (ergh horrible pun).  Crazy huge cuffs on that well fitted shirt, puffy shoulders.  Zenormous collar that appears to be really old school as it is a seperate piece of clothing.  Everything about this girl absolutely screams Mechanical Genius.  Oh wait no she just looks like a clown.  In a game that actually has a set of clown party members.  Belle is thoroughly confusing.  It should be noted that at least here other interests include playing with metal reading books and eating strawberry pie.  Note the complete and total lack of clowning or clown related past times here.

Bergen - No image

Bergen - Suikoden 5 character

Wow, the stitching on those shoes is crazy.  The soles of those things must peel off like once a week.  I really hope he can teleport around.  So much green.  With pink on the shoes, why is there a purple undershirt.  Everything about this is terrible.  Even the pattern on the cloak.  It is like Theodore was dropped on his head at birth and forgot how to dress in solid consistent colours at least.  Just terrible.  Also why in the fuck is the shovel carried around underneath the cloak?  Kill it with fire.  Also note the way the ears stick out completely sideways.  Maybe he is some kind of fucked up half dwarf half elf abomination.  I don't know, this whole thing just needs to be killed with fire for its own good.

Beril - No image

Bernadette

Whoa wholely fuck, I have seen Bernadette's art before.  I didn't realise she was on the menu at IHOP though because damn does she come stacked.  With padded armour designed to cup and display it seems.  I don't really have much to say about the clothes, they are just a confusing mess.  Is that a dress?  Are those pants?  It is like some kind of hybrid native attire mixed with a peasant dress and a maid outfit with that chest getup and the high colour and the puffy shoulders.  I just don't even know where the fuck to start with that shit.  Let us count the colours instead.  1 White. 2 Red. 3 Blue. 4 Green. 5 Brown. Then there is black hair on top of it.  Speaking of hair, wow that is unruly hair for something that you have tied into various chunks.  To finish it off, that pose looks amazingly uncomfortable.  Wrist completely twisted to face inwards, elbow extended out beyond the hand that is kept down just below the chest.  You can certainly hold your hand like that, but not for extended periods.  Couple it with the way the back is twisted to the side with the other arm hanging down the side where I can't work out if the arm is meant to be beside/behind/in front of the left leg?  Just ow.  The light sourcing isn't helping there, there is no shadow on the front of the left arm, so it should be in front of the body, but try standing like that and keeping your left arm straight in that position.  Again, not a pose I would want to be holding for long at all.  Completely indecipherable what is meant to be going on if it is an action shot.

This isn't really a bad outfit?  But I have no idea what the fuck is going on.  I will give her the benefit of the doubt that those are full old greek style sandles (another strange culturaly mix) and not fucking boot sandals.

Bernand - No image.  That is a fucking horrible name.

Bianca - No image.  Is a cat.

Billy

This is Billy.  Billy is a treasure hunter that wears skinny jeans that hug every conture of his well toned thighs and calves.  His jacket is similarly tight only really being loose around his for arms, it is so tight it doesn't even close up properly so he needs to keep it tight with draw strings.  Underneath that he has an even tighter titting vest.  Underneath that he has a flannel shirt.  Top it all of with a Kerchief, a cowboy hat, a rugged cleft chin and a willing smile.  Consider this, he comes with his own rope as well.  I am thoroughly confused here.  It is like someone was describing Indiana Jones to someone over the telephone so that they could draw a picture of him to represent the greatest treasure hunter of all time.  However instead of actually describing Indiana Jones they decided they would search for images of gay cowboys instead.  Billy scares the everloving fuck out of me.  I mean seriously if you haven't played Suikoden 3 you could almost guess that Billy is soliciting.  Where is he going to put that thumb?  ALTERNATE INTERPRETATION.  He is hitching and knows the rules of the book.  When hitching you have to pay for your travel somehow.  Best of all?  His wife left him because of his gambling.  He is single boys/girls/gents/ladies/OK so you can settle for him when you find out that Guillaume is already spoken for.

Black - No Image

Blackman

Okay I say this with the deepest and most overwhelming respect for this great man.  Blackman is VERY happy to see you in his full body art.  The portrait is actually much better, one of the better Suikoden 1 art pieces you can find, he is in perspective, dresses functionally, stares into your very soul and knows your deepest darkest secret.

We aren't here to talk about good art though.  We hare here to talk about Blackman with a raging hard on.  Green booties and overalls that need to be rolled up at the hems because like all Suikoden 1 characters, Blackman suffers from a sever case of dwarfism.  I seriously don't quite get the cause for majour difference in the art here, it is polar differences.  One is a rugged handsome man who could kill you without blinking and is glorious.  The other has a look on his face like he could rape you behind a milking shed and looks like he is just about ready to do it.  This is seriously terrible and it pains me to have to say these things especially when the great prophet of Blackman has returned.  I am so sorry Fenrir, but there is no denying that he is cracking a fat here.

[Fenrir]

This artwork is officially non-canon.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Oh Billy, I could totally get into the tight-fitting-clothing-gay-cowboy-thing if I wasn't so sure that you're molesting your son, you sick fuck.

[Grefter]

An analysis of Breath of Fire 1 bosses.

So going by request when putting people on the spot makes for some strange topics, today we are talking about Breath of Fire 1. As an old game it does actually sprout up some surprisingly interesting bosses. That is to say maybe three or so? Still that is more than be said for some games. This was done browsing through Meeplelard's Breath of Fire Statistics Topic in our RPG Stats Forum here.

Probably the most noteworthy addition to Breath of Fire is a mechanic that the game calls Second Wind that bosses use. It isn't really something I have seen anywhere else, I suppose it could be seen as spinning out into form chains for bosses in later games (FF4 beat it to form chains really if not other games). I think that is giving it a bit more credit than it really deserves though. The basics the system is that the bosses health bar shows only a portion of their health pool. You chip down that and the boss has their Second Wind where they have a second portion of health to get through before they die. When a boss has their Second Wind they end the turn directly after it. So effectively you have two separate health pools to get through, any excess damage to the first HP pool doesn't loop over into the second one, but because it ends the turn you don't really lose out on all that much damage. Now in a game with some really fast bosses like Breath of Fire 1 likes to have this could honestly be incredibly punishing and some seriously horrible design, but because Breath of Fire 1 is a really silly game it actually bypasses it with another mechanic that is totally out there and still stuns me that it was thought to be a great idea for balance, buffs and healing always goes first. It has crazy good initiative. So the Second Wind isn't even that punishing if you are on low health, you aren't going to be stuck waiting for the heal. It can actually play to the player's favour if they have abused the crazy broken Idle spell (check the stat topic for more details), you are likely going to be cancelling out the boss' turn if you know what all the spells in the game do.

I honestly don't quite know what to think of this taken as a whole, I don't think it is a particularly good mechanic, it isn't terribly interesting, but it isn't offensively bad because of the other choices made in the game. If you are going to balance something as strange as this then I am all in favour of you handing the advantage to the player, that is fine to me. It is mostly just that it doesn't really DO anything that bugs me. Not many of the bosses have different AI between parts of the fight based on health levels and those that do seem to are just things like healing spells at low health, not completely different attacks or anything. It is just a baffling design choice, but that is what we get with relatively early dipping into a genre for a company.

For the interesting bosses? Well the two Dragons aren't a bad start. Zog and Sara both take 50% more damage from all magic. For a game that doesn't really have a magic defense stat, it was neat to have enemies that were just thematically weak to magic. Not exactly ground breaking, but it is something.

Next up there is really Myria who is probably one of the earlier bosses I can think of to have a secret hard mode real ending deal going on that was unlocked by optional content. Prototypical example of that kind of thing is Unlimited Indalecio of Star Ocean 2 fame, which this predates by 7 years. I kind of have to respect that to be honest. The only other thing Myria really brings to the table is crazy stupid longevity and some mediocre damage, but it definitely is an interesting dot point in history regardless. Her mediocre damage is the real surprise really.

Jade is the next most interesting one in that he is the boss that really just messes with the player's expectations the most of any boss in the game. As you go through Breath of Fire 1 you tend to have a pretty easy time of the game, there isn't really overly much that stands up to you for very long. The start of the game is overly harsh, but once you get the E.Key everything settles down to nonthreatening damage that is handled by your initiative healing and you are generally pretty cool. Then you get Zog and Sara and they just pack in the HP. Complete and total damage sponges. They are just a trial in longevity more than anything else, but it does make for a pretty exciting climax given that the game is pretty much a mega snooze after the first quarter of the game after your awesome golem dude jumped into a volcano and killed himself because they didn't want you having an awesome golem to stomp on shit. Not surprisingly that is the point you get Dragons for Ryu as well. Not that they are the turning point in the game, it is just the point where shit gets mind numbingly easy for a while, partly because of the Boomerang but mostly the filling out the party roster really.

Gettiing back on track though, Jade just fucks shit up totally. After slogging through Zog and Sara you get to the final dungeon and have a decent size dungeon that escalates fairly well, the random encounters there are a bit of a step up from memory. Then bam along comes Jade. He totally ruins your day. He looks pretty normal at first. Then he likes to randomly throw out Bolt X which outside of rare exceptions just straight up overkills your dudes. Not just kills them in one shot, but kills them by a good margin. That shit is uncalled for and is out of nowhere. If you are really unlucky he will hit you with Instant Death as well. Seriously some rude shit. Then to crown it off? He is still packing in that HP, it just keeps escalating at the end of Breath of Fire 1. He really does one interesting thing though, he completely and totally fucks with the Second Wind system. For the whole game you have got used to bosses using it at low health and it being a sign that you just have to hold it together for a few more rounds at most. Jade has 25000 HP and he gets his Second Wind at 21500 HP. If you aren't going into this fight well aware of it you are dealing with randomly huge spikes in damage to a character that will ruin your day with a health pool that you have no gauge on. Normally you can see boss HP pools on a bar in this game and then you guess another 10-25% for Second Wind. Jade just fucks with all your expectations. It is a boss fight to remember really. Then as above, you get to Myria and she is either not really much damage and only a bit more HP or a bit more damage with stupid amount of health. Jade is all kinds of crazy wacked out bullshit and I respect that.

Finally the most interesting boss in the game is Mote. You won't remember Mote. He is a boring side villain during the boring boring part of the game where they decided it was cool to make you fight flowers, slime, roaches and flies along with a dull boss that they make you fight a pathetic boss twice with two shitty bosses in between. Regardless, Mote is pretty cool. Mote starts the fight huge and massively pixelated so that you can barely make him out at all. He is noteworthy as being one of the few bosses to resist magic. Each time you hit him with Magic or a Physical he will get more and less pixelated respectively. The more pixelated he is the more damage he takes from physicals, the more in focus he gets the more damage he takes from magic. It is a concept that has been used elsewhere, but this is a pretty early example of it in a game with nothing else really like it. Closest thing to it is taking more damage from magic normally. Mote is somewhat unique in that unlike other examples I can think of he starts off massively resistant to magic in his fully pixelated form. The other reason you won't remember his that because of this he is completely and totally rolled by physicals. To top it off he comes just after you unlock Puka as well. I don't quite know what they were thinking, but Puka will 10HKO him by himself if you throw some weak spells at him with someone else. It is pretty crazy. As a fight in an early 90s Console RPG from a company with not much history in the genre? It is pretty fascinating and well worth a look to be honest.

So there we go. Breath of Fire bosses, they are mostly boring, but has some minor stuff of note. Enjoy.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I really do like Second Wind, not so much as a mechanic, but for the psychological fuckery it lets the game do with some of the lategame bosses. As a mechanic, it principally exists to do what many RPGs do, hide true boss HP so late in a fight things get tense since you never know if you should try for that one last hit that will win the battle, or focus on defence. Psychologically though, it makes for good fun. Final Myria's probably the best example with the "haha second wind after 2000 damage, have fun guessing the rest of the way", though Jade deserves note for being the opposite, you hit him with your 400-damage Bolt X and watch his HP barely move and you're all "WTF". I also liked how Sara had no second wind at all, made good sense with what her plot was.

Pretty much agree with the post otherwise. Not really the most fascinating bosses in the world (certainly no Chrono Trigger, even sticking with the SNES) but there's some scattered interesting stuff in there and it has a nice big endgame spike to make you feel like you're earning your victory over the game. (I also think Zog is better than you're giving him credit for, Char is seriously rude and Gale's pretty scary too, but milage variance and such.)