Never quite understood JRPGs myself, I normally let my fiance play one and have him explain it to me when i walk in and out of the room when something interesting actually does happen. I think I'll stay with my Assassin's Creed and Bioshock for a little while longer
Zero Punctuation: The World Ends With You
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
I wouldn't call 'Challenge Anneka' an obscure reference, well maybe for Americans but the world doesn't revolve around the US!
I've just discovered Zero Punctuation.
You are very intelligent, Yahtzee. The metaphors, parallels, and jokes you make are all very funny. The problem is I have no time to laugh. What's the point of comedy if I can't enjoy it and laugh at it? I don't think this pacing does anything for your content. Oftentimes I'll miss really good, complex lines or jokes because it went by at the speed of light. I know it's your gimmick but it's still just a gimmick and honestly I think it's numbing your creativity.
You are very intelligent, Yahtzee. The metaphors, parallels, and jokes you make are all very funny. The problem is I have no time to laugh. What's the point of comedy if I can't enjoy it and laugh at it? I don't think this pacing does anything for your content. Oftentimes I'll miss really good, complex lines or jokes because it went by at the speed of light. I know it's your gimmick but it's still just a gimmick and honestly I think it's numbing your creativity.
Happy Birthday.
Good review.
Shame about the nothing's-coming-out-y time of year but solid review nonetheless.
Good review.
Shame about the nothing's-coming-out-y time of year but solid review nonetheless.
I'd love to see Yahtzee tear apart a JRPG that's actually good, such as SMT: Nocturne. Of course that would never happen cause it's a niche game in a niche genre, not to mention rare as hell.
Now if only the camera was 100% focused on the main character's bum the entire time it would actually BE challenge anneka.
Was grinning throughout, and gave a burst of laughter at the "Spreadsheets are awesome!" because I do seem to subscribe to that mindset. It's mostly western RPGs that get me doing it though, namely NWN2 character builder and World of Warcraft damage calculator.
You raise a lot of good points about the genre, but as I enjoy reading as much as I like playing games, it's win/win for me. You're right that lots of things outside the main story need a strategy guide, though at least because it's on the DS you can carry it over to your computer and check out GFaqs or it's wiki!
As an aside, controlling both charas manually gives you more exp at the end of the battle, and is needed on the harder difficulties as otherwise the bosses will slap you silly. Also I find it weird that the main character knows like the square root of 3 (to like 10 s.f.) off by heart but can't add 30 and 74.
You raise a lot of good points about the genre, but as I enjoy reading as much as I like playing games, it's win/win for me. You're right that lots of things outside the main story need a strategy guide, though at least because it's on the DS you can carry it over to your computer and check out GFaqs or it's wiki!
As an aside, controlling both charas manually gives you more exp at the end of the battle, and is needed on the harder difficulties as otherwise the bosses will slap you silly. Also I find it weird that the main character knows like the square root of 3 (to like 10 s.f.) off by heart but can't add 30 and 74.
Yahtzee uses visual novel screenshots?
Excuse me, I have to go check for flying meat byproducts AND if the Mythbusters are launching meat rockets. The latter's absence may mean something significant.
Oh, and congratulations for getting one year closer to croaking you charismatic stallion you.
Excuse me, I have to go check for flying meat byproducts AND if the Mythbusters are launching meat rockets. The latter's absence may mean something significant.
Oh, and congratulations for getting one year closer to croaking you charismatic stallion you.
I just wanted to suggest the Shin Megami Tensei series in general while it's on my mind. The Press-Turn/One More systems are simple yet surpringly good.Archaeology Hat said:
I'll just spread a transcript across your thighs:
I know what you're going to say. "Yahtzee reviewing a JRPG? Perhaps I shall quickly look outside to make sure the sky is not falling and the seas are not running red with blood, haw hee haw hee haw." Well, you smarmy ****, I had heard that The World Ends With You does things differently to most JRPGs, and while I took that with mountainous piles of salt, I was intrigued when I noticed that it came out in the PAL regions before America, so I thought, "If the release dates are from Bizarro World, maybe the entire game is, too, and will turn out to be the first good JRPG."
Sadly, this uncharacteristic optimism started draining when I saw the box art, and noticed that all the characters are undernourished teenage androgynes who do their hair in the morning by sticking their heads in buckets of lead-based paint, and dress like they stepped on a landmine in a trendy clothes shop. But let's be fair; once I started playing, I found it does do things differently to most JRPGs, it just doesn't do enough things differently. Things started well when I immediately identified with the main character, a sullen, hate-filled misanthrope, but sadly, the developers seemed to think these were negative qualities, so before he could ascend the nearest clock tower, he was roped into a mysterious Challenge Anneka-esque game where he has to complete arbitrary challenges on the streets of Shibuya or die. And he has to team up with a partner, partly to make the most of the DS dual screen, but mostly to teach him a valuable life lesson about friendship, and acceptance, and everything else Sesame Street used to bang on about whenever Cookie Monster wasn't around.
A major thing that turns me off JRPGs, and a lot of games in general, is when I don't feel that I, as a player, am contributing anything to the story. All I ever seem to do is wheel the characters from one whingy boring dialogue to the next. Events are driven by their actions, not mine; all I am is a little angry id who takes over for the combat, spending the rest of the time jumping up and down in the back of the character's mind, yanking on nerve endings, trying to make him stop acting like a pillock. I'll show you what I mean. At one point in the second part of the game, I was given the clue, "30 + 74." Assuming your brain is located inside your skull, and not your rectum, you can probably hazard that this adds up to 104, which was the pretentious name of a pretentious clothes shop near my starting location, but I couldn't actually go there, because the street was closed off. It only opened after I went through another nearby location and sat through another dialogue-heavy cutscene in which I was bold-facedly TOLD the answer to the puzzle. This is not interactive storytelling, this is just reading.
I know Japan has a very different culture to the West, but I will never understand why they like the visual novel style of game so much. The porno ones I can sort of understand; at least there's the promise of titties to keep you motivated, but most of them play like Choose Your Own Adventure books, with half the pages ripped out, which kind of goes against the whole idea of gaming. What I'm saying is that I like games where the story and gameplay go hand in hand, while in most JRPGs, the story and gameplay are kept either side of a wrought-iron fence made of tigers. Getting through the cutscenes is like eating a bucket of wallpaper paste, but once you finally struggle down the last few spoonfuls and move on, the combat is probably the best thing about the game, mainly because it's not turn-based, and there are no random encounters. Two automatic gold stars in the special school that is the genre.
Before fighting, you select a handful of badges that represent different attacks, and activate them in battle by drawing on the touchscreen in their designated ways. The game does tend to frequently mistake one frantic scribble for another, and it seems to get really sniffy about what constitutes a circle, but chances are you'll find there's a handful of attacks that work well together that you can pretty much get through the whole game using nothing but, and that every other pin gathered dust in the green room. An aspect that doesn't work so well is the fact that the game expects you to switch rapidly between two screens and two entirely different control systems throughout the combat, and I couldn't get the hang of it.
Maybe my mind isn't as vast and evolved as JRPG fans, but it was just too much of a clusterfuck, and this is coming from someone who can beat Psychobilly Freakout on Expert. Fortunately, the computer will take over the other character if you can't be arsed, and you'll get pretty much the same results, which just hangs a big question mark over the point of it all. Speaking of which, there's also a fashion trend system that changes your stats a bit if you wear the right label clothing and badges in the right parts of the city. I never really noticed any of it making much of a difference to gameplay, but I want to rag on it anyway, because A) fashion victims are one step below nematode worms in the grand scheme of things, and B) like many ancilliary JRPG elements, you need a fucking strategy guide spread across your thighs to make the most of it, and the only thing I like spread across my thighs is Marshmallow Fluff.
But let's get down to it: is TWEWY a good JRPG? I have absolutely no idea; I feel like I'm on the edge of a frightening world I don't understand, treading water on the surface of a deep, deep lake full of weird-smelling creatures with a completely alien concept of fun, and a tolerance for boredom to rival the Man in the Iron Mask. There's too much dialogue, the characters are the same shallow stocks you get in every JRPG, and most of the gameplay outside the main story quest amounts to a big old grind sandwich. But working from the principle that these are all selling points for the intended audience; it's got an original aesthetic, and the combat is OK, so if you're into this sort of thing, check it out. Now I have to go play an FPS, before my body finishes absorbing my testicles.
Whoops, didn't notice the other one above. Oh, well. Twice the Yahtzee for ya.
I know what you're going to say. "Yahtzee reviewing a JRPG? Perhaps I shall quickly look outside to make sure the sky is not falling and the seas are not running red with blood, haw hee haw hee haw." Well, you smarmy ****, I had heard that The World Ends With You does things differently to most JRPGs, and while I took that with mountainous piles of salt, I was intrigued when I noticed that it came out in the PAL regions before America, so I thought, "If the release dates are from Bizarro World, maybe the entire game is, too, and will turn out to be the first good JRPG."
Sadly, this uncharacteristic optimism started draining when I saw the box art, and noticed that all the characters are undernourished teenage androgynes who do their hair in the morning by sticking their heads in buckets of lead-based paint, and dress like they stepped on a landmine in a trendy clothes shop. But let's be fair; once I started playing, I found it does do things differently to most JRPGs, it just doesn't do enough things differently. Things started well when I immediately identified with the main character, a sullen, hate-filled misanthrope, but sadly, the developers seemed to think these were negative qualities, so before he could ascend the nearest clock tower, he was roped into a mysterious Challenge Anneka-esque game where he has to complete arbitrary challenges on the streets of Shibuya or die. And he has to team up with a partner, partly to make the most of the DS dual screen, but mostly to teach him a valuable life lesson about friendship, and acceptance, and everything else Sesame Street used to bang on about whenever Cookie Monster wasn't around.
A major thing that turns me off JRPGs, and a lot of games in general, is when I don't feel that I, as a player, am contributing anything to the story. All I ever seem to do is wheel the characters from one whingy boring dialogue to the next. Events are driven by their actions, not mine; all I am is a little angry id who takes over for the combat, spending the rest of the time jumping up and down in the back of the character's mind, yanking on nerve endings, trying to make him stop acting like a pillock. I'll show you what I mean. At one point in the second part of the game, I was given the clue, "30 + 74." Assuming your brain is located inside your skull, and not your rectum, you can probably hazard that this adds up to 104, which was the pretentious name of a pretentious clothes shop near my starting location, but I couldn't actually go there, because the street was closed off. It only opened after I went through another nearby location and sat through another dialogue-heavy cutscene in which I was bold-facedly TOLD the answer to the puzzle. This is not interactive storytelling, this is just reading.
I know Japan has a very different culture to the West, but I will never understand why they like the visual novel style of game so much. The porno ones I can sort of understand; at least there's the promise of titties to keep you motivated, but most of them play like Choose Your Own Adventure books, with half the pages ripped out, which kind of goes against the whole idea of gaming. What I'm saying is that I like games where the story and gameplay go hand in hand, while in most JRPGs, the story and gameplay are kept either side of a wrought-iron fence made of tigers. Getting through the cutscenes is like eating a bucket of wallpaper paste, but once you finally struggle down the last few spoonfuls and move on, the combat is probably the best thing about the game, mainly because it's not turn-based, and there are no random encounters. Two automatic gold stars in the special school that is the genre.
Before fighting, you select a handful of badges that represent different attacks, and activate them in battle by drawing on the touchscreen in their designated ways. The game does tend to frequently mistake one frantic scribble for another, and it seems to get really sniffy about what constitutes a circle, but chances are you'll find there's a handful of attacks that work well together that you can pretty much get through the whole game using nothing but, and that every other pin gathered dust in the green room. An aspect that doesn't work so well is the fact that the game expects you to switch rapidly between two screens and two entirely different control systems throughout the combat, and I couldn't get the hang of it.
Maybe my mind isn't as vast and evolved as JRPG fans, but it was just too much of a clusterfuck, and this is coming from someone who can beat Psychobilly Freakout on Expert. Fortunately, the computer will take over the other character if you can't be arsed, and you'll get pretty much the same results, which just hangs a big question mark over the point of it all. Speaking of which, there's also a fashion trend system that changes your stats a bit if you wear the right label clothing and badges in the right parts of the city. I never really noticed any of it making much of a difference to gameplay, but I want to rag on it anyway, because A) fashion victims are one step below nematode worms in the grand scheme of things, and B) like many ancilliary JRPG elements, you need a fucking strategy guide spread across your thighs to make the most of it, and the only thing I like spread across my thighs is Marshmallow Fluff.
But let's get down to it: is TWEWY a good JRPG? I have absolutely no idea; I feel like I'm on the edge of a frightening world I don't understand, treading water on the surface of a deep, deep lake full of weird-smelling creatures with a completely alien concept of fun, and a tolerance for boredom to rival the Man in the Iron Mask. There's too much dialogue, the characters are the same shallow stocks you get in every JRPG, and most of the gameplay outside the main story quest amounts to a big old grind sandwich. But working from the principle that these are all selling points for the intended audience; it's got an original aesthetic, and the combat is OK, so if you're into this sort of thing, check it out. Now I have to go play an FPS, before my body finishes absorbing my testicles.
Whoops, didn't notice the other one above. Oh, well. Twice the Yahtzee for ya.
Well, you've convinced me even more to stay away from JRPGs. I tried to play Final Fantasy 7 once, upon hearing that it was 'TEH BESESESET GAEM EVAR!' and found it really boring. I then played Fallout and all other RPGs just seemed rubbish.
-An RPG rant condensed into 3 lines by Livi70590.
-An RPG rant condensed into 3 lines by Livi70590.
well since mostly everyone here HATES JRPG's (I'm not a huge fan of them either, but I don't dislike them by any means) let me just state something so that I can vent a little; I HATE FPS's! just as much as Yahtzee hates JRPG's. There, I feel better now.
Well, those are some good points raised. I usually don't really read and i already think this is complex to me.
But what i do dislike is what you said, you have to be able to look at both screens in order to win a fight. This is all nice and dandy, but if you get to the later days, you'll find yourself that your partner, doesn't matter if it's manual or auto controlled, is getting in the way.
They both share the same HP bar. On the top screen, you don't have as much control as on the bottom one. Your partner can only stay in one spot.
What i'm trying to get to, is just one thing, and that is the enemy attacks. I think they weren't thought out very well, to keep it somewhat fair. Especially in the later ones. I'll expand on this.
Yo uare concentrating on that green light puck most of them, trying to make it go fast between you and your partner. The more it went between those two, the more damage the finisher does. But doing it this way, you don't have enough time to look at that porcupine thing, or a shark, for example. especially the porcupine thingie, it shoots out 'bombs' that explode over time near that partner. Your partner keeps taking damage, and this is where it all falls apart. Your partner is just something that's in the way, a big obstacle, so to say.
That's my main gripe with the battle system. No matter how hard you try, you always end up getting hurt on the top screen, most of the time. Now, this doesn't matter if there is only one enemy there, but if there are more, it will go into cluster fuck mode.
If they redo that system, i'd be happy to buy the sequel of it. If the battle system is redone...
But what i do dislike is what you said, you have to be able to look at both screens in order to win a fight. This is all nice and dandy, but if you get to the later days, you'll find yourself that your partner, doesn't matter if it's manual or auto controlled, is getting in the way.
They both share the same HP bar. On the top screen, you don't have as much control as on the bottom one. Your partner can only stay in one spot.
What i'm trying to get to, is just one thing, and that is the enemy attacks. I think they weren't thought out very well, to keep it somewhat fair. Especially in the later ones. I'll expand on this.
Yo uare concentrating on that green light puck most of them, trying to make it go fast between you and your partner. The more it went between those two, the more damage the finisher does. But doing it this way, you don't have enough time to look at that porcupine thing, or a shark, for example. especially the porcupine thingie, it shoots out 'bombs' that explode over time near that partner. Your partner keeps taking damage, and this is where it all falls apart. Your partner is just something that's in the way, a big obstacle, so to say.
That's my main gripe with the battle system. No matter how hard you try, you always end up getting hurt on the top screen, most of the time. Now, this doesn't matter if there is only one enemy there, but if there are more, it will go into cluster fuck mode.
If they redo that system, i'd be happy to buy the sequel of it. If the battle system is redone...
I've come to a conclusion about comparing WRPG's and JRPG's... it's like comapring kinds of cheese. Sure, both are cheese, but in the end Cheddar tastes NOTHING like Mozarella and hence they aren't remotely the same thing, there are different kinds of Cheddar and Mozarella that stack up better being compared to each other than different kinds of cheeses, as if you hate Cheddar, it's not gonna make a lick of difference to you whether its smoked applewood or white american.