First off, I could have made this a poll, but I felt like I wanted a little bit more than a yes/no answer.
Alright, so lets talk turn based strategy.
Recently, we have seen the return of many prolific strategy gaming series. Xcom made a big return, Fire Emblem was saved as a series by its latest installment, and the most recent expansion of Civilization 5 has made the game more popular than before. With these games has come a lot of favorable critical praise. Civ 5 is said to have been fixed after all, Xcom: Enemy Unknown made many game of the year lists and finding a dissenting opinion about Fire Emblem Awakening is like a needle in the proverbial haystack. So it would seem like strategy games are doing just fine.
But...
All of these games have major design problems. Civ 5 is horribly skewed towards expansionist players, to the point where attempting to play any other style is just a waste of time. Not only that, but the fact that the game took expansions to reach the point where it would comparable to Civ 4 is a sign of some poorly thought out choices. Xcom: Enemy Unknown, is a mess. Not only does it feel rushed in general, what with the graphical fuckups and many cutscene errors, but the game itself relies on putting the player in situations with no escape. The idea of strategy is presenting all obstacles and having the player work around them. But Xcom goes against the most basic tenant of design. Turn a corner, find some aliens? They get the first move, good cover, your turn is up, and if they are those Crhyissloid things, don't even bother. The darkness stops you from having the ability to make good choices and adds an unneeded aspect of randomness to a game that already thrives on giving you shit chances of succeeding.
And Fire Emblem: Awakening. Don't even get me started. To sum that one up in a nutshell, one of the difficulty modes, Lunatic, is so unplayable and poorly designed that the only way that numerous internet walkthroughs, both fan made and professional, can advise you to beat it is to pay $2.50 for a DLC that allows you to grind levels so you can actually get past some of the worst designed, poorly planned unbalanced levels I've ever played. And this from a series that prides itself on well designed difficulty.
Now, these are just three examples, and there are signs of improvement from recent games (see Bravely Default demo). But help me out Escapist. Did I just dream this, or did numerous major releases just get by with some absolute bollocks for game design? And do you think that the title of the thread is true?
Alright, so lets talk turn based strategy.
Recently, we have seen the return of many prolific strategy gaming series. Xcom made a big return, Fire Emblem was saved as a series by its latest installment, and the most recent expansion of Civilization 5 has made the game more popular than before. With these games has come a lot of favorable critical praise. Civ 5 is said to have been fixed after all, Xcom: Enemy Unknown made many game of the year lists and finding a dissenting opinion about Fire Emblem Awakening is like a needle in the proverbial haystack. So it would seem like strategy games are doing just fine.
But...
All of these games have major design problems. Civ 5 is horribly skewed towards expansionist players, to the point where attempting to play any other style is just a waste of time. Not only that, but the fact that the game took expansions to reach the point where it would comparable to Civ 4 is a sign of some poorly thought out choices. Xcom: Enemy Unknown, is a mess. Not only does it feel rushed in general, what with the graphical fuckups and many cutscene errors, but the game itself relies on putting the player in situations with no escape. The idea of strategy is presenting all obstacles and having the player work around them. But Xcom goes against the most basic tenant of design. Turn a corner, find some aliens? They get the first move, good cover, your turn is up, and if they are those Crhyissloid things, don't even bother. The darkness stops you from having the ability to make good choices and adds an unneeded aspect of randomness to a game that already thrives on giving you shit chances of succeeding.
And Fire Emblem: Awakening. Don't even get me started. To sum that one up in a nutshell, one of the difficulty modes, Lunatic, is so unplayable and poorly designed that the only way that numerous internet walkthroughs, both fan made and professional, can advise you to beat it is to pay $2.50 for a DLC that allows you to grind levels so you can actually get past some of the worst designed, poorly planned unbalanced levels I've ever played. And this from a series that prides itself on well designed difficulty.
Now, these are just three examples, and there are signs of improvement from recent games (see Bravely Default demo). But help me out Escapist. Did I just dream this, or did numerous major releases just get by with some absolute bollocks for game design? And do you think that the title of the thread is true?