Every fighting game should have a brawler mode or spin-off game a la Guilty Gear Judgement or Tekken Force. The lack of Tekken Force in Tekken 7 fills me with so much disappointment and despair. Fuck Death by Degrees! Does not count!
I guess that might be the appeal of Dark Souls' implementation of player choice; you often have NO idea you've made a substantive "choice," and can gate off significant portions of the game. So choices are actually a bit more... realistic?
Point in case: Pyromancy in DS1. The first Pyromancer [most] people encounter is an amicable chap who offers you the pyromancers flame for nothing. Fast-forward a bit, and you might find a pyromancy he'd never seen before from a specific place; talk to him again and he'll ask essentially "Oh, where'd you find that?" Since he's the nicest guy you've met in world of horrors rife with cackling psychos, most people will tell him. Doing so sends him on a quest to search the area you mention, and he goes hollow, becomes aggressive and you're forced to kill him and lose access to everything he sells, but you're never told outright that your casual, affirmative response perhaps HOURS earlier put this chain of events into motion.
And the most powerful pyromancer in the game is gated behind seemingly unrelated criteria, and even then, you're never told that your particular choices have "unlocked" her. Hell, it's not even suggested that she exists or that certain actions/choices might reveal her. Once the criteria are met, she just pops up in a remote spot of the least desirable area of the entire game meaning most people won't return there after completing it without a very specific reason so will never know she exists with researching online.
I've always hated that about DS "quest lines;" even when you know they're there, you don't know what actions at which points will potentially end or continue them, i.e.: talking to person X before beating boss Y, or vice versa, has substantive consequences... maybe... perhaps... I think... I dunno.
Perhaps "hate" is too strong a word. I'm not so much offput as I am completely baffled by the lack of intuitive cause/effect correlations, how a seemingly innocuous action "now" somehow effects something entirely unrelated HOURS "later." Like Seigmeyer's questline; how am I to know he has to survive our final encounter with +50% health, and THEN how would I guess to return to Ash Lake, a place I might not have even found (and even if I did, there's no reason to return there,) to complete the quest?? It all just feels so random.Imagine how much more offput you’d be if the game laid all the parameters of its choices out for you from the onset. *Insert Jackie Chan confused face meme* > *uninstalls*
This has become a problem in a lot of media; TV and anime especially. Anime lately seems to have complex of making anti-heroes who fail on both scales and are anti-hero in name only due to bad writing and not being intentional. Or the protagonist(s) is/are such jerks early on and you're forced to like or find sympathetic, it all fails hard. Video games have kinda gotta better about this in some regard, but it still pops up time to time. LOUS Pt. II. Though everyone is unlikeable and unsympathetic in that one.Quality of the content is separate in my opinion, I'm just talking about her motivation. They try to make her out to be an anti-hero, conflicted villain, but good enough that we empathize with her, and silently root for her to win, even if it means Spidey loses. Or, for her to finally take that last step to be a full Hero, because she's Really Not That Bad. But intentionally playing on Peter's sense of responsibility, and traumatic homelife (which I don't know if she knows about or not depending on the iteration), JUST to make money? Sorry but no. I mean she knows Peter well enough that even just mentioning a child would be enough for him to turn the city upside down to help, adding that it's maybe his is just cold and callous. Especially when she just galavants away after the reveal, laughing, and everyone just treats it like it's a funny joke.
Yeah, I don't mind if the whole arc is about them starting out an asshole, and learning to not be an asshole. While I've never seen it, that's the entire setup for The Emperor's New Groove, which a lot of people love. So it CAN work, if done well. And I can even empathize with a villain/anti-hero if the time is taken to justify their actions and motivations. The problem is they usually don't bother with that, so you get 1 dimensional, paper-thin motivations and rationalizations for why a bad guy is a bad guy, and I don't have any sympathy, or empathy for their situation.This has become a problem in a lot of media; TV and anime especially. Anime lately seems to have complex of making anti-heroes who fail on both scales and are anti-hero in name only due to bad writing and not being intentional. Or the protagonist(s) is/are such jerks early on and you're forced to like or find sympathetic, it all fails hard. Video games have kinda gotta better about this in some regard, but it still pops up time to time. LOUS Pt. II. Though everyone is unlikeable and unsympathetic in that one.
I legit can't tell if both the tweet and the post are sarcasm or not...I agree with this statement from a fellow Breadtuber
We have never lived in an industry more blessed and woke despite the last 4 years being a living hell of conservatives and alt right trying to turn back the clock and fail miserably. Now we have more down to earth designs, games like Disco Elysium and TLOU2 has gone woke and became bespoke despite being dragged down ny detractors and the weebs are forced out of the PlayStation as it tries to shed it's shameful past of games like Neptunia and Criminal Girls.
It is genuine, Shaun is a known Breadtuber.I legit can't tell if both the tweet and the post are sarcasm or not...
I think you just gotta accept MAIN branching paths aren't really something that is very doable. You can do major decisions that occur on a branching path (outside the main plotline) that do affect the main plotline with minor differences. I think Mass Effect did this well most of the time. Anyone thinking the ending was going to to branch out in like a million different ways based on all your decisions was basically pie-in-the-sky thinking. You gotta bring everyone to a certain point, even GMs in pen and paper games do that. One thing I do feel you're overlooking is the role-playing of said decisions. Everyone's Shepard was different, it was their Shepard built upon all the dialogue decisions and choices along the way, it's why people were obsessed with recreating their physical appearance just right every game, it's also why people were a lot more adamant about the ending than other games with shit endings that happened that very year (like AssCred 3). You can say the same thing about the Telltale games with regards to role-playing even if they had even less illusion with regards to story choice than Mass Effect.I don't think I've played a game yet where decisions and branching paths actually paid off (at least in AAA, I'm not an indie game kinda guy). Either the decisions end up not really mattering (Mass Effect) or they matter too much and you begin to feel like you're missing out by not choosing certain options (The Witcher).
I don't know, I just don't think its worth the effort at all. And these days, where the silent protagonist is rarer than ever, the effort needed is ridiculous. Just give me well crafted story and good characters, I make plenty enough bad decisions in real life.
So there's this weird example of branching path. In front mission 3 (PS1) in the first hour of the game your asked an innocuous question (a friend of the MC ask him to help him with some chore). Depending on how you answer this question you go down two completely different paths, each lasting close to 40 hours (essentially you play as either side in a conflict). This was possible because the game was before voice acting and didn't feature fancy cutscenes, instead doing cutscene with in game engine model.I think you just gotta accept MAIN branching paths aren't really something that is very doable. You can do major decisions that occur on a branching path (outside the main plotline) that do affect the main plotline with minor differences. I think Mass Effect did this well most of the time. Anyone thinking the ending was going to to branch out in like a million different ways based on all your decisions was basically pie-in-the-sky thinking. You gotta bring everyone to a certain point, even GMs in pen and paper games do that. One thing I do feel you're overlooking is the role-playing of said decisions. Everyone's Shepard was different, it was their Shepard built upon all the dialogue decisions and choices along the way, it's why people were obsessed with recreating their physical appearance just right every game, it's also why people were a lot more adamant about the ending than other games with shit endings that happened that very year (like AssCred 3). You can say the same thing about the Telltale games with regards to role-playing even if they had even less illusion with regards to story choice than Mass Effect.
That's the catch with multiple pathing, especially with voice work. You have to account and record all those variable dialogue options. With text games, or at least text communication, it's WAY easier to allow for tons of optional dialogue, when it's just text files, instead of hours of voice recordings with minimal variations.So there's this weird example of branching path. In front mission 3 (PS1) in the first hour of the game your asked an innocuous question (a friend of the MC ask him to help him with some chore). Depending on how you answer this question you go down two completely different paths, each lasting close to 40 hours (essentially you play as either side in a conflict). This was possible because the game was before voice acting and didn't feature fancy cutscenes, instead doing cutscene with in game engine model.
So I think it's possible to do big difference in branch, but you need to accept big loses on things that would be time consuming for the dev to do.
Everything should at least run at a stable 60fps. Enough of this, "It's more cinematic!" bullshit. Or at the very least, keep a game at a locked 30fps if you the know game can't handle an unlocked frame rate.Bloodborne deserves way better than 30fps on the PS4
One of Playstation's greatest exclusives needs a new lease of life.www.pcgamer.com
Just yes.
Now that IS a hot take.I agree with this statement from a fellow Breadtuber
We have never lived in an industry more blessed and woke despite the last 4 years being a living hell of conservatives and alt right trying to turn back the clock and fail miserably. Now we have more down to earth designs, games like Disco Elysium and TLOU2 has gone woke and became bespoke despite being dragged down ny detractors and the weebs are forced out of the PlayStation as it tries to shed it's shameful past of games like Neptunia and Criminal Girls.
3D will always be a niche thing, even in two or three more decades. Because at the end of the day, the common gamer just want to sit on their ass and play with a regular ass controller.I swear, 3D games can be great. Eventually. Right now you're pretty much going to be playing in VR to see acceptable to good games without braincrunching eyestrain. But its improving right? I own a 3DS and I hate the 3D, but I own an Oculus and I kind of like that 3D. So... come two or three more decades maybe no pain to play?
I'm cool with that. I fully recognize that being willing to put physical effort into playing a game is a hard sell for anybody - I was using beatsaber + wrist weights as a substantial workout for a while there and it was honest to god putting some definition on my shoulders, so its clear that this is not for chilling after work.3D will always be a niche thing, even in two or three more decades. Because at the end of the day, the common gamer just want to sit on their ass and play with a regular ass controller.