Zero Punctuation: The World Ends With You

[Sylocat]

I just wish Yahtzee's fanboys would actually pay attention to his insights on the game industry rather than just focusing on the jokes and insults. In plenty of his reviews* he's had some incredibly interesting and insightful things to say on the gaming industry, but most of his fans are only noticing the one-liners that they abuse verbatim.

*(not so much this one, but only because he's already said just about everything he said this week in his Mass Effect and Super Paper Mario reviews)

 

[NotPigeon]

You know, I was planning to get the game before this review. Actually, I still am.
The overall thought seemed to be "I didn't like this game because I don't like JRPGs." I'm no JRPG junkie, but the genre's okay by me, and I know better than to make decisions based off of one person's opinion.

 

[Archedgar]

I have to agree with Yahtzee's review, I used to be a big fan of Japanese RPG's back when I was younger, starting with FF1 until about 10 years ago.

It's true that the majority of JRPG's are very VERY similar to each other, but I guess that's the style. I haven't played TWEWY nor do I intend to, I had never even heard of it before now, lol.

I was disenchanted with JRPG's after everyone started ripping off FF7(Which was great btw, though not as good as tactics) back in the day.
I outright abandoned them when FF9 was released and it was clear that FF7's influence would never fade.

Anyway, good review Yahtzee, I enjoyed it... and... OMFG, Yahtzee is only 25?! damn.

 

[Gutterpunk]

I am usually on the side of Yatzee, trying to wade my bigger penis in the threads of Nintendo fanboyism (which, granted, is a pool of small penises so it's easy)

I play (and still do) TWEWY and I love it. So when Yatzee started being negative, I though "Damn, I'll have to act like a fanboy, he is so stupidly wrong!", but then I realized that I don't actually try to get the brand bonus, that I told my gf just this morning how the amount of text was stupid, that it was the same company that released My Life As A King (which meant to say that I was complaining, because I always do when I play MLAAK), no way of skipping them, and that yes, the characters are androgynous JRPG regulars.

So is Yatzee wrong? Everyone with half a brain (ie : not a fanboy) will agree with him. And so do I. I still enjoy the game though, and I am not a JRPG fan (I didn't even play any FF after the 1st)

Thing is that, like many people who play TWEWY, it seems that Yatzee didn't get the point of the battle system. I get stars at every battles because I have sets of badges that works well (ie : that are similar in their strokes). I regularly change sets, but I find combination that work, and thats how the game was made. Also, I found a shape for the combo chain that suited me. So yes, I can watch the 2 screens, and yes, I can do 4-6 battles at the hardest setting and still get a star. And it's damn fun!

The food system should be adopted by every MMORPG out there, it actually gives an incentive to do battle other than quest/farming. The battle chain is a cool idea and the clothes abilities are better than the standard RPG "+1 hp +5 running" fare.

But a battle system does not make the game... The rest is pretty much your standard JRPG, and I might enjoy it too much because I went to Tokyo 4 months ago (Yes, Shibuya looks like the real thing, and "Shibuya 104" is actually "Shibuya 109" IRL but it's close enough)

 

[Chemfire]

I rather liked this game =D Which is weird, because I don't like JRPGs as well

But, Great review as always

 

[ShotGun01]

Sorry Yahtzee! but poor review this week, and u've got 2 many fan boys tht just want 2 kiss ur ...ahem! lol BUT i've LOVED all ur other reviews.

 

[Worm4Life]

Play Persona 3, all of you.

 

[miller483]

I just wish Yahtzee's fanboys would actually pay attention to his insights on the game industry rather than just focusing on the jokes and insults. In plenty of his reviews* he's had some incredibly interesting and insightful things to say on the gaming industry, but most of his fans are only noticing the one-liners that they abuse verbatim.

*(not so much this one, but only because he's already said just about everything he said this week in his Mass Effect and Super Paper Mario reviews)

^^ My thoughts exactly. While looking through the comments, it seemed like only 15% of people posting actually had reasons for disliking JRPG's, while the other 85% disliked them for the sole fact that they were Japanese.

P.S: I'm not really a big fan of RPGs (Western or otherwise) myself. I'll play one every now and then though.

 

[SilentScope001]

Come on zero I realised that after about a couple minutes of thought, surely you could of figured it out as well

Well, he did mention Okami in the LoZ review, so yeah, he is familar with it.

 

[Tatter]

3. Saving the World. This is a problem that stretches beyond the JRPG genre, but honestly it seems to be the worst here. No matter who you are and no matter what you start out doing, you can be effectively guaranteed that at some point in the course of the game you're going to find your own particular variation of the Invisible Time Wizard floating around in the space between dimensions and plotting to destroy the world because his neighbor's dog told him to or some other such foolishness. You will then stop this person. All RPGs manage to get bogged down in this sort of wrote pattern, it seems, but it doesn't really have to, and in JRPGs sometimes the reasoning is just truly, fundamentally stupid. Here's an idea - maybe instead of trying to save the world, my motivation is that I'm sick of having to run up two hundred flights of stairs every night and risk my life in combat with these weird things that look like hands and tables and curiously agile ink blots and live my life as a normal freaking human being. Maybe my motivation for adventuring around the world in my multi-part ship with my immortal friends is because I just want to freaking die already. Why does there always have to be a villain tenting his fingers and lining out his plan to crack the Earth in half so he can host a family reunion with his grandfather?

It's a way to immerse the player, believe it or not. There needs to be some logical reason the player can't just say "screw you guys, I'm going home" to The Plot, and the world being destroyed is the simplest way to do it, because it represents a hazard the player can't run away from. Most players *cough*Yahtzee*cough* get frustrated with the role they're playing if it takes control from the hands of the player for any reason less than "the game (world) ends if you do that."

That said, there are RPG-like games with other goals... The Sims, Harvest Moon, and so on. Most people call them "sims" rather than RPGs, though.

 

[Tatter]

Drawing things in order to attack people huh?

Wait a minute this isn't original, in fact it sounds like they did the EXACT same thing in Okami a while back.

Come on zero I realised that after about a couple minutes of thought, surely you could of figured it out as well. Methinks you're starting to slip, (either that or you've never heard of okami in which case buy it because it's a great game (and it doens't qualify as an rpg in my opinion)).

It's a DS game. Would you rather attack enemies by yelling into the microphone really loud?

Whoa. Condemned 3, on the DS. Somebody stop me before I unleash something terrible.

 

[kendrakirai]

FPS does have its problems and ocassionally stale genres, but its suprising how often it can pull off far better stories and characters than any JRPG. While Timesplitters was a great game i wouldn't call it a shining example of fps excellence.

Better far stories and characters? We're talking about FPS's, right? C'mon, with only a very few exceptions, what you do in an FPS makes no difference to the story, it's just more visceral than an RPG. The vast majority of games are like JRPGs the way Yahtzee described them; Action, then story. In nearly every case, it's controllable, then cutscene. You may have a branching story point here and there...but you can get that with most games containing a story.

I wonder if everyone in japan wonders about with retarded hair and swords big enough to be considered penis extentions?

I don't know, do all Americans wander around in cowboy boots and hats, going 'Y'all', while eating Big Macs and shooting people?

Christ.


Yahtzee (and others) have made the point that JRPGs expect you to do lots of math to divine the ultimate build...except...that's not entirely true. It's typically American-style RPGs that do that. Especially games based on D&D, like Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights. Elder Scrolls is quite bad at this, including the ever-so-popular 'Your stuff breaks' mechanic.

Turn-based RPGs...that's pretty much ALL RPGs except for 'action RPGs'..and even some of THOSE are turn-based. Even games that hype 'real-time battles' often have a hidden turn system.

i tend to stay FAR far away from anything Jap/anime centered so I guess it's a good thing I shunned this.

Good to see you're keeping an open mind. I presume you're having a lot of fun playing your sports, NASCAR and F1-based racing, FPS, and casino games. Oh, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. The vast majority of every other genre draw heavy influence from "Jap/anime".

I like the ZP reviews, I quite often agree with them, and I always find them funny...unfortunately, some of the comments they spawn...Geez. Don't be such pricks about game types you don't like, guys. I don't like sports games...I find them boring and pointless. But I don't insult people who DO like them.

Oh, and to the person who wrote about separating 'sweaty otakus and their money'? Come see me the next time you spend 60 bucks for the same EA Sports title you bought the year before, differentiated only by the date and an 'updated roster'. Or sit in line for Halo 4, or GTA 7, or the newest gadget hyped by Steve Jobs at MacWorld. Then we'll talk about who is the bigger fanboy/sheep.

 

[meisnewbie]

Remember, it's only acceptable to like your own country. It's an unspeakable and unthinkable idea to like or prefer anything from any other country.

Especially America.

Since America has been here for all of two hundredish years.

That's like before the fertile crescent and stuff.

And that's HARDCORE

 

[Ozz04]

I wonder what he'd think of FF6 or Odin Sphere, as there the best J-RPGs I can think of that boldly avoid almost all of what he considers typical problems. Yes,FF6 does have random encounters and turn based combat and Odin Sphere has a few pretty looking men and overly cute bunny things, but there really fun and they have one two of the best plots I've ever seen in a game, also OS is a Brawler RPG, how often is that seen?