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The Thread That Never Was - N4A Chat Thread - February 2019


Tyranogre

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If you want to create a villain who's just mustache-twirlingly evil for no reason, that's perfectly fine.

 

But if you're going to do that, the least you can do is make them entertaining to watch.

 

Maybe they're batshit insane. Maybe they have a sense of humor. Maybe they have a personal vendetta against the hero. Maybe their voice actor is a large ham.

 

Just as long as they're not boring.

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If we’re still talking about Twilight Princess, I don’t see your point. He wasn’t that boring in that iteration, in my opinion. Not very deep sure, but that doesn’t automatically make him boring. He still had his usual Ganondorf personality (lust for power and revenge, bit of charisma, cocky, etc.).

 

If we’ve moved on to Calamity Ganon now though, I think that a god-like evil entity with only an inkling to destroy leaves much to be desired in terms of grabbing my interest, sure. Then again... it did largely succeed in that goal, which is a point in BotW’s favour.

 

 

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@Ares

 

Just finished Tales of Vesperia.

 



From my limited experience with the series, it seems to me like the goal of each Tales game is to deconstruct or explore a certain "theme" that's common in other RPGs. Symphonia was about what it means to be the chosen one, and the value of human life. Abyss was about the difference between blindly fulfilling your own destiny and creating your own path to follow. Dawn of the New World was about courage being the magic that turns dreams into reality (repeated ad nauseum).

 

For the first two "acts", Vesperia was about vigilantism and doing the right thing even if it's against the law. And the conflict between Yuri and Flynn was the focal point of this message, which was very well-written.

 

But then the final act threw that all down the toilet in favor of a typical "TECHNOWOGY IS BAD FOW THE ENVIWONMENT! UwU" aesop.

 

That's not to say that's a bad message; it's just that it had so little to do with the themes that were brought up during the first two acts that the sudden tonal shift was very jarring.

 

Aside from that, though, the best thing about a Tales game is the memorable cast of characters, and Vesperia had the most overall likeable cast out of what I've played of the series so far (except for Karol. Fuck Karol.). Pretty much my only gripe is that you can tell that Patty wasn't originally supposed to be in the game because her character arc has almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot. Patty herself is perfectly fine as a character, though.

 

tl;dr: I enjoyed the game; just think it should've ended after Act 2.

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vesperia and abyss things:

 

 

Every Tales game is about deconstructing a theme. In fact, every Tales game as an epithet ("characteristic genre") that says what that theme is, and I'll go ahead and copy/paste them for you (per wiki):

 

  • Symphonia: To Resonate With You RPG
  • Abyss: RPG to Discover the Meaning of Life
  • Vesperia: RPG to Enforce "Justice"

For Abyss, the authors probably wanted the Asch/Luke relationship to be the focal point to understand the fact Luke's life was value and finding your own value in life (which is where the 'find your destiny' vs 'blindly following destiny' theme ties in). Vesperia's is about justice, and while I don't think it helps exonerate the awkward third act, I do think it's useful to consider that.

For the first two acts, the whole Yuri/Flynn thing is basically can you change a brazenly corrupt government from within. Turns out, when dealing with terrible people, sometimes violence is the answer. That's what I got from the whole Yuri/Flynn thing, since Yuri's moments of murder took care of the problem. In act 3, you have Duke who's upset that the adephagos actually manifested and basically feels human deserved this. Duke is using violence to enact justice. So what made Yuri's use of violence good but Duke's use of justice bad? I think that's the point of arc 3 anyway.

That said, arc 3 does feel tacky af. Go get your summons after discovering some big secret. Beat duke. cure vesperian global warming. hip hip hooray.

But anyway, it's been too long since I played the darn game I can't really give more specific than that. When I eventually move in with Iri, we're going to go through the game together.

Edited by Ares
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15 hours ago, Youngster Joey said:

Is Yo-kai Watch 1 for the 3DS worth a try? I'm seeing it for $20 these days.

I tried beating it... i thought it was okay but not great?

 

The combat just doesn't do it for me, since it's a little too passive. Your yokai auto-attack for the most part, with your goal being to keep them healthy (status effects are cured by doing a quick minigame, so this actually does divert a lot of attention), choosing which "three" yokai to have in at a time, and timing when to release specials. The method for "capturing" yokai is bad; if you beat a yokai, there's a chance it'll want to join you. If you feed the yokai their favorite "food" that chance goes up.

 

I seem to recall I got like 80% of the way through the game and I didn't reach a wall per se, but it was clear that I wasn't going to progress without gaining more experience (e.g. through sidequests) and I just sort of got bored doing sidequests. Especially since a good chunk of them involve 'find this particular yokai' in which case you're back to the awful catching mechanic.

 

But if you want something Pokemon-ish and sick of Pokemon, it's decent for that.

Edited by Ares
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It continues to amaze me how Funko Pops manage to drag even the most stylized characters through the depths of the uncanny valley.

 

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Pikachu looks like he just snorted the world's longest line of cocaine while simultaneously smoking a blunt made from a rolled-up page of the Necronomicon.

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15 hours ago, Youngster Joey said:

Is Yo-kai Watch 1 for the 3DS worth a try? I'm seeing it for $20 these days.

It's decent enough. But I'm of a similar mindset to Zora in terms of the catching mechanic. It's a pain in the butt. But for $20 or less, it's worth picking up.

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