Defend a Game Thread

[Gloves | 11,827]

20 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

 

 

Oh you mean Sony's painfully generic "cinematic" Final Fantasy ripoff with incredibly tedious gameplay, incomprehensible lore, and paper thin characters? That Legend of Dragoon?

It's so terrible. I challenge anyone to read even just the prologue summary without smacking their head on the desk in front of them. Seriously, it's jibberish. https://legendofdragoon.fandom.com/wiki/Story

Next thing you know, @Gloves will be saying that Beyond the Beyond is better than Chrono Trigger.

Also, I can't believe anyone would ever defend Spirit Tracks. Where Phantom Hourglass was everything a portable Zelda should be, Spirit Tracks took the worst elements of every prior game and doubled down. It's easily the worst LoZ game I've ever played and I hated everything about that damn train.

Just to be fair, I tried to think of some terrible games that I actually like, so you guys could come back at me, but I really couldn't think of anything. Not sure if this is because I'm a pretentious snob who only plays highly rated games or if I'm boring. I'm gonna go with pretentious snob, but I'll update again if I remember a bad game I love.

I see nothing wrong at all with the prologue summary of LoD. It's a fairly typical tree of life origin story on par with some FF origins, e.g. 9 - Life sprung forth from the crystals, the game has a literal tree of life, and a god of destruction style final boss which is itself neutral and whose only purpose is to end all life just kinda "cuz" (inspired by Kuja lol).

I enjoy the combat in LoD, it keeps things fresh and each fight is earning you not just XP, but if you play well you also earn points towards new and better attacks. Small details like each new attack actually being worse than the skill you used to obtain them by the time you obtain them is a decent risk/reward tool - you have to work on literally learning and leveling up the new skill to be proficient at it. Far preferable to sitting pressing "Attack" over and over again.

I find the characters in LoD also to be decently fleshed out for the most part. Tolstoy it is not, but I enjoyed the group dynamics. Funnily enough, my favorite way to play the game is to bash shit with Kongol - my man gets SO strong once you equip him with the item that makes him nigh-immune to magic, that I've soloed large portions of the game with him just for fun when the other characters in my party died (ironically putting me in a position where I hardly use the Dragoon mode at all).

It's a game that is itself not really "great" per se, it's objectively sitting somewhere in the middle. It might deserve overall a pretty average 6.5-7.5/10. IMO it's a pretty good first foray into the genre for Sony. I fully admit to putting stock into it through a nostalgia lens. But I personally enjoy it a lot, and I'm clearly not alone; you and Reed are the outliers on this, and I'm happy to point and go "neener neener!"

[Sumez | 2,989]

Now I really need to add Legend of Dragoon to my next backlog and settle this debate for you guys...

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

23 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I see nothing wrong at all with the prologue summary of LoD. It's a fairly typical tree of life origin story on par with some FF origins, e.g. 9 - Life sprung forth from the crystals, the game has a literal tree of life, and a god of destruction style final boss which is itself neutral and whose only purpose is to end all life just kinda "cuz" (inspired by Kuja lol).

I enjoy the combat in LoD, it keeps things fresh and each fight is earning you not just XP, but if you play well you also earn points towards new and better attacks. Small details like each new attack actually being worse than the skill you used to obtain them by the time you obtain them is a decent risk/reward tool - you have to work on literally learning and leveling up the new skill to be proficient at it. Far preferable to sitting pressing "Attack" over and over again.

I find the characters in LoD also to be decently fleshed out for the most part. Tolstoy it is not, but I enjoyed the group dynamics. Funnily enough, my favorite way to play the game is to bash shit with Kongol - my man gets SO strong once you equip him with the item that makes him nigh-immune to magic, that I've soloed large portions of the game with him just for fun when the other characters in my party died (ironically putting me in a position where I hardly use the Dragoon mode at all).

It's a game that is itself not really "great" per se, it's objectively sitting somewhere in the middle. It might deserve overall a pretty average 6.5-7.5/10. IMO it's a pretty good first foray into the genre for Sony. I fully admit to putting stock into it through a nostalgia lens. But I personally enjoy it a lot, and I'm clearly not alone; you and Reed are the outliers on this, and I'm happy to point and go "neener neener!"

Now this is the kind of defense I came to this thread for!

Just to be clear, I strongly support everyone playing and loving whatever games they want. Anything can be a 10/10 to anyone. My criticisms are only meant to be good-natured ribbing. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,577]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

Now I really need to add Legend of Dragoon to my next backlog and settle this debate for you guys...

Doc Encore already let us know what pretentious snobs think of this game 

 

...no, but seriously, I'm totally kidding.  And I PS it up myself more than occasionally 

I think LoD and ST are two prime examples of games where mileage is gonna vary greatly.

With ST you really have to have a high threshold for questionable mechanics and minigames and the ability to avoid comparisons to other (better) Zelda games.  And a willingness to forgiven that godforsaken flute 

Whereas support for LoD seems primarily nostalgia driven, though I will admit the game does present a lot of things to appreciate (at least, on the surface).  But I couldn't ignore (what I felt was) the excruciating pacing, bad dialogue, plain Jane characters, on-rails linearity (imagine FFVII never opening up), hopelessly drawn out battles that depend on the even more drawn out additions and transformations that only serve to slightly increase your power, other inane mechanics that Gloves already mentioned, grindiness, incoherent story, padded length, and typically slow PS1 load times.  It's the Breath of Fire 1 of PS1 JRPGs.

And I'm someone who can put up with a lot.  My backloggery says I've cleared 1200+ games, and the vast majority of those left positive impressions.  And I played LoD back in the day, so this is an opinion formed when I was still young and impressionable and ready to be nostalgia-ized.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

17 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Doc Encore already let us know what pretentious snobs think of this game 

 

...no, but seriously, I'm totally kidding.  And I PS it up myself more than occasionally 

I think LoD and ST are two prime examples of games where mileage is gonna vary greatly.

With ST you really have to have a high threshold for questionable mechanics and minigames and the ability to avoid comparisons to other (better) Zelda games.  And a willingness to forgiven that godforsaken flute 

Whereas support for LoD seems primarily nostalgia driven, though I will admit the game does present a lot of things to appreciate (at least, on the surface).  But I couldn't ignore (what I felt was) the excruciating pacing, bad dialogue, plain Jane characters, on-rails linearity (imagine FFVII never opening up), hopelessly drawn out battles that depend on the even more drawn out additions and transformations that only serve to slightly increase your power, other inane mechanics that Gloves already mentioned, grindiness, incoherent story, padded length, and typically slow PS1 load times.  It's the Breath of Fire 1 of PS1 JRPGs.

And I'm someone who can put up with a lot.  My backloggery says I've cleared 1200+ games, and the vast majority of those left positive impressions.  And I played LoD back in the day, so this is an opinion formed when I was still young and impressionable and ready to be nostalgia-ized.

Maybe you and I should play LoD and we should force @Gloves to play something we love, but he hates. Turn this defend a game topic to an attack with a game topic.  Only downside is that I can't wipe away my biases to truly give LoD a fair shake.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Bomberman Hero definitely isn’t great but its single player is better than probably anything else in the franchise I’ve played. (Which admittedly does not include Saturn Bomberman or anything from this century.) It kinda needed to be, since there is no multiplayer and all, but still! Bomberman 64 felt super janky and for most of the traditional games “creating memorable and unique levels using Bomberman mechanics” was not something they even tried to do, instead going with “this level will have these enemies and these variables, randomly generate some of the fine details, and call it a day.” Whereas Bomberman Hero actually has levels with notable stuff in them and generally doesn’t feel awful!

Edited July 11, 2022 by MagusSmurf

[Sumez | 2,989]

10 hours ago, MagusSmurf said:

Bomberman Hero definitely isn’t great but its single player is better than probably anything else in the franchise I’ve played.

Super Bomberman 2, Super Bomberman 5, Bomberman World (the arcade game, not the PS1 one), and GB Bomberman 3 all have great single player modes IMO. I agree Bomberman 64 is painful, but doesn't really feel like Bomberman at all either.

[Tanooki | 4,950]

@MagusSmurf Totally agree Bomberman Hero is good, quite good, better than the other 3D outings really for the franchise.  I've always enjoyed it and replayed it even. While BM64 (US, not the 01 Japanese) is pretty stiff, bad camera, controls aren't the best...it was like a failed learning example for them, very failed.  It's why I have BM Hero and 2nd Attack, that one, sadly too expensive big time now, it plays well.  But if you get away from 3D, going to have to agree if you pick something Nintendo Super Bomberman 5 is amazingly good, recently just got it and it works so well.

[inasuma | 1,203]

Pokemon Sun/Moon (NOT Ultra) are the some of the best, most original takes on Pokemon in its history. This isn't to say they're exceptionally by any means, but they're original enough to have made for very enjoyable games having been a long time fan of the franchise. 

In contrast, Sword/Shield are the most boring entries apart from the music. I was pretty disappointed to see how uninteresting 8th gen was after sun/moon.

[360collector | 289]

On 7/7/2022 at 12:55 AM, Brickman said:

The biggest ones for me are probably Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hour Glass. I really enjoyed both, but people will always avoid them because they aren't like other Zelda games.

Me too, these are probably the most mainstream games I really liked and was surprised by all the negativity the recieved. Good times indeed

[Tanooki | 4,950]

I'd go with Ultra, but either way the base game the sentiment is there.  I was so bored to hell with the wash rinse repeat of pokemon I'd get less and lesser into playing a version I'd randomly pick up to the point with how poor X/Y were I gave up on the franchise as the overly long early slog going just to gym 1 or 2 was a put off and I played something else (then sold it.)  The fact they dumped the idiotic thin story with wash (catch), rinse (level), repeat (yawn another samey gym) and went with islands, no actual strict gyms, a multi-layered story that is oddly engaging (not filler), the totem mini-boss pokemon, and various other changes made it amazingly enjoyable for the first time in a long time (soul silver) to me.  The only part I didn't like was the hold over of random battle but that's minor.  S/S on switch...ugh, boring, wild sucked, didn't care for the whole team online battle, story wasn't that good, your rival was this boring obnoxious entitled douche.  I went as far as that town with the giant ancient wall with the S/S legend/story painted on it and never continued, then sold it, which my kid hated since she kept hers (finished it too.)  For me Arceus was the switch apology tour and big change up I was looking for, very fantastic.