[Rant]Man, when did gaming become such a headache?

[misanthrope]

Well lately I was sitting here reading reviews and things on gaming, trying to catch up a bit since I have been uninterested for the past year or so and then it was mainly pc games.

So there are 2 full generations I missed, the PS1/N64 days and the PS2 and Gamecube days since I have been playing PC games trough all that time,they were good but I was a jobless kid that couldn't afford new consoles. My parents were no better off in the job department.

But well now I do have a job, im about to get married and me and the missus will be able to afford some manner of luxuries ( not planning on kids anytime soon, although who really "plans" anyway? ) So I have been looking at the things on consoles I missed and what I remember and missed as a kid too on my snes days. The DS seems like a perfect fit, backwards compatible with the GBA or as I like to call it the nostalgia machine and with some cool games on its own.

Except here is the problem: I love RPGs. From FFIV and then on Ive been hooked. I moved on to the PC for a good while and basically only played computer rpgs too. What frustrates me to no end is that precisely, how can loving a genre be a problem? When did it all go south?

First I never owned a PS1 or an N64. But other than casual action games like Mario 64 there is little on it that interests me save Zelda games, which I always find disappointingly short. The PS1 seems like a great place for RPGs and only now I can emulate it at least but well, its not the same. Still I picked up FF8 and I was more than a little bit shocked, you seen that guy from spoonyexperiment.com review it? My thoughts exactly.

I tried FF7 a while a go but I could not get pass how downright horrible it looks. I seriously think the technology was not there at the time, Final Fantasy 6 its about 10 times better looking and its 2D only. I might give it a chance later on an actual playstation and TV but I doubt it will get much better. Right now I settled on Final Fantasy 9 which still looks very bad but its tolerable, I can make up what characters and things are supposed to be at least. There are also many other classics I need to check out like Vagrant Story, Xenogears, the later Tales and Star Ocean games, etc. But I still can't believe people considered the N64 and the PS1 improvements in technology, it seems backwards to me.

Now the other generation I missed. This is when the xbox came into play. I already have 2 xbox systems in my house, 1 belongs to my sister and the other to my father, both avid gamers it seems. Only whenever I touch the best the systems have to offer I instantly get a "been there done that" feeling: I played all those rpgs or very similar ones on the PC already. It seems to me that the system cashed in introducing a half arsed version of PC gaming with lousy controls.

Then there is the gamecube and the PS2. The gamecube? Well there are a few games that look promising: Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Zelda games. I remember loving the original Mario RPG on the snes even if it was short and way too easy so Paper Mario looks promising too. I also see that there is a Tales game on the gamecube, and Baten Kaitos.

FF Crystal Chronicles? Well at first it was a little disappointed that they were action-rpgs, I much rather play the Mana Series or Zelda Series but then I said why not? Except the Gamecube its quite old. I feel I would be wasting my money not getting a Wii just like I felt that there was no point in getting a GBA when I could just get a DS while im at it.

But then I get a Wii.....to play mostly Gamecube games. Seriously any RPGs at all for the Wii? ( Zelda doesn't counts since the same thing its on the gamecube anyway ) I keep hearing about how hot the Wii is, how hard it is to find one, racks up $450-500 on any internet place you can find em ( so you pretty much have to stalk stores, luckily I know places where I can get one easily ). Yet there is still no RPGs or even Action RPGs for it yet? Come on what the hell? I was looking at the schedule for Wii games the first half of the year and there is ONE game I'd look forward too: a new FFCC. I just feel weary about investing on a Wii since for me it has about 4 games total that I might be interested in.

Now the PS2 and PS3...Same situation why get a PS2 when the PS3 plays all playstation games all the way back to PS1? It would be a waste of time and money, except im still not sold on the PS3 either. So it might have the upcoming FF13....that might be good but still no warranty. I played Oblivion on the PC already, the only good thing about it was mods and those are out of the question for the PS3 anyway. Most games ive seen for the PS3 closely follow the xbox formula: dumbed down PC games I am not looking to play anyway. This flat out makes me angry, who the hell thought it was a good idea to play First Person Shooters with a damn console controller? I am used to Quake 3, to Unreal Tournament, I am used to ultra fast games that require violent movements constantly yet enough accuracy to get a head shot the size of 4 pixels on a moving target while moving yourself.

So its pretty much the same story as the Wii but even worst: The PS3 costs a hell of a lot more money. And I haven't touched on the PS2 games: FF X looks promising but man, what the hell is going on with Final Fantasty X-2? Seems to be mostly all the bad things from FF8 all over. I havent even looked into 12 too much although it looks good. There is also sequels from all those other RPGs on the PS1 and beyond. So overall not bad but again, I feel like buying only a PS2 might be pointless if you can get a PS3 but then its all gone south on 3.

The 360 fails so much is out of the question, not only that its more of the same as the xbox and I don't really care for that.

So i am looking back at all this and im thinking that I should just use my DS but then again I am seeing an ancient problem I loathe coming back: Japanese only releases. This robbed my childhood of one of the best RPGs ever and my personal favorite on the series, Final Fantasy 5. Now we are waiting to see of Square has the decency to release FFIV DS in english, there is still no words o Tales of Innocence for the DS, Dragon Quests remakes are also up in the air, can Nintendo and Squennix ever give a little credit to non-japanese players? We like RPGS too you know...You already tried the waters with the GBA FF remakes and you know there is interest, why the hell wait and wait to release all this games in english or spanish or french or whatever? Im not demanding, I can play games on 2 different languages already only somebody in Japan thinks "Spanish" its only a good idea for Europe when there is a little thing called America where the majority of the entire continent speaks Spanish!

This is when I thought when did it become this difficult? Was it always like this? I remember having plenty to choose from as a kid, I remember Zelda, Earthbound, Mario RPGS FF 4 and 6, Secret of Mana games, Breath of Fire games, Lufia games. Then again back then non-japanese players were robbed of ( arguably ) the bests rpgs on the SNES: Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean. The playstation transition was to me not a smooth one, I can't get over how better its to look at the old snes games than the inexplicable acclaimed FF7 that looks as if I rub my eyes with square shaped dirt.

I think that It seems like I got out of the console gaming world on a high note, and at most I can consider a PS2 to get a few good games but there is little future in gaming. I see all this modern games and im thinking that there is little hope for RPGs unless you want to play more iterations of Baldur's Gate 2 from Bioware ( all Bioware based rpgs for the new consoles are basically the same thing: scripted linear gaming that gives the ( overrated ) appearance of open ended gaming, "romance", "moral" choices that are taken out of kindergarden, disney plots of evil witches and goodie idiots... ) or worst sandboxes devoid of anything other than fancy graphics than Bethesda passes out as RPGs. The possibly good games are still trapped on Square's pointless and stupid exclusive deals on the over-priced and otherwise gameless PS3, the actually decent console, the Wii, its still trapped outside of said respectable games and still has no complex, involving, long and rewarding RPGs. The DS might get some good games....games I won't get to play unless I spend 2 or 3 years of my life learning Japanese...

Can anybody make a decent RPG for a decent Console anymore? What went wrong really? When did this companies got caught up in stupid pointless wars, when did they stopped producing good games and decided to listen to their marketing department more than listening to their developers? When did it became about imitating impractical things like PCs that only boil up and burn and are handicapped on games never meant to be played on a controller? Why the hell do companies prefer to ignore the best selling and most innovative console out to honor stupid exclusivity deals and hold a 15 year old grudge about CDs instead of just making some freaking money now? Why does it takes more than a quarter of a century for chauvinistic Japanese guys to understand their games are appreciated worldwide and still develop Japanese first, other languages if we feel like it?

I am beginning to think the only way to turn this around is to form a company and develop games myself.

 

[Urza]

Summary:

"I DUNT LEIK ANY OF THEES GAEMZ BAWWWWWWWWWWWW WAI DUNT THEY MAEK BETTR GAEMZ BAWWWWWWW FUCK YOU GAIZ IM MAKIN MY OWN GAEMZ!!!!!!"

 

[misanthrope]

No if you actually read it you'd realize that I do like some new games, im not just willing to spend anywhere from $350 to $500 or even more on failure prone consoles or worst, get several in order to play the handful of games that I like on each. Soon enough I'll have my bank account empty and my house filled with bricked consoles and blue-ray ridden monstrosities while still waiting for 1 or 2 games to play on each one...if they are translated that is.

For future reference Look up the meaning of the word Rant before reading one if it bothers you so much.

 

[.TakaM]

the problem is you skipped 2 generations and are jumping straight into one that has just started expecting a summary of the last two and huge improvements, which just isn't going to happen.

 

[Urza]

I look for rants specifically because they're so easy to mock.

If you don't like being mocked, don't rant online.

 

[Extreme Coder]

I see your point.
I partially agree too.
Too bad there's nothing we can really do

 

[Bitbyte]

You said you missed out on the PS2 era. What are you waiting for? It's the console with the best last-gen RPGs out there. Just do some, at least a very little, research on the PS2 and you'll find plenty of great RPGs. My favourite genre is RPG too and I'm very sorry you missed out on PSX. I understand how it's hard to go back to those graphics nowadays; I'm not a graphics whore myself but it isn't that easy to cope with those graphics when you are accustomed to next-gen graphics (or PC game graphics in your case). PS2 however, is still very acceptable.

Now go and browse through the Gamefaqs boards like a mad man and search around on the internet for those PS2 RPGs I mentioned

 

[Westside]

Oops, I misread the rant...

But, yeah, the PS2 and the Dreamcast (Let's not forget that

) were good in the Japanese RPG department.

 

[misanthrope]

You said you missed out on the PS2 era. What are you waiting for? It's the console with the best last-gen RPGs out there. Just do some, at least a very little, research on the PS2 and you'll find plenty of great RPGs. My favourite genre is RPG too and I'm very sorry you missed out on PSX. I understand how it's hard to go back to those graphics nowadays; I'm not a graphics whore myself but it isn't that easy to cope with those graphics when you are accustomed to next-gen graphics (or PC game graphics in your case). PS2 however, is still very acceptable.

Now go and browse through the Gamefaqs boards like a mad man and search around on the internet for those PS2 RPGs I mentioned

This does make sense and if you look at the post the PS2 is the one that would make the most sense to me ( PS2 games and PS1 if I can get over how they look ). The thing is: the PS2 right now is about the same as a DS lite, 130 bucks. Its not too expensive, but it aint exactly free. The PS3 its ridiculous, $400 the cheapest worth getting is just too much money. But later on, if the PS3 catches on and gets some better games ( FF13 and vs 13, Star Ocean 4, Fallout 3 which has a minute chance of not being a blasphemous Oblivion + guns, possibly 14 and 15 down the road ) it would end up being worst spending $129 bucks now and $300-400 later on when the PS3 can play all PS2 and PS1 games ( or does it not ? )

Then again there is the other side of the coin: the very real possibility that the PS3 fails or goes either way ( meaning west or east ). On one side its trying too hard to appeal to xbox gamers for some reason, on the other it has poor sales in Japan yes still has some traditionally eastern franchises while the Wii has sold really well on Japan but its still completely snubbed out when it comes to RPGS of either side of the world.

If the playstation 2 was cheaper or the PS3 had a better forecast, or at least a more defined one instead of trying to appeal to completely different markets and succeeding at none, id be an easier decision. This is one of the main points about my rant: ever shifting loyalties. First why do we need them anyway? Contrary to popular belief is not that hard to port games from one system to another, so exclusivity deals are only there to artificially boost the console makers. Second why do companies commit to such long term exclusivity deals? If you are a game developer it doesn't makes sense since you have no control over what silly decisions the hardware vendor might make ( i.e. 599 us dollars ) Look at Rockstar: They started on the PC, jumped over to the Playstation 2 but were smart enough to enter a deal that let them release to other systems later on, now they apparently changed loyalties again but again did not did something stupid like burning bridges and GTA games will make it to the PS3 eventually too.

Not only does it pisses off gamers ( this is already a bad idea financially ) but it doesn't makes financial sense either: What good is an exclusivity deal gonna give Square if simple math shows you that a FF game on the Wii, where your main market ( japanese ) is, would make a killing? Yes it might give the PS3 a much needed boost, but it might be too little too late. More over why doesn't Nintendo wants to take advantage of their hugely popular console? You can't tell me that with that many units sold only kids and families are playing, yet they don't seem to be willing to sponsor or develop anything other than 25 year old character rehearsals. They pride themselves on being innovative and waste all this great efforts on the Wii yet they take 0 advantage from it once they get what they wanted. You know why the SNES was their biggest success ? ( not counting hand helds of course ) Because they released things like Mortal Kombat 2 and Final Fantasy 5 no matter how many people it might have alienated, clearly not just kid games.

Since it seems more sturdy I might just get PS2 second hand and call it a day for now.

 

[DanSS]

Well, unfortunately, if you want to play PS2 games i recommend getting a PS2. The 40GB PS3's dont play PS2 games, the 80 does software emulation of the emotion engine, and the 20/60 have the emotion engine included, although they were discontinued. So, unless you can find a used 20 or 60gb PS3 (and since you're still debating on getting one, i doubt you'll find one when you make your decision), I would recommend getting a PS2. I'm a huge RPG fan, well I thought i was. I greatly enjoy them, although I don't really play them that much... or at least finish them. On the other hand, if you know someone who owns a PS3, i believe there is a way to load PS1 games onto a PSP legit, if you have a PS3. So, that's another option, if you can accept the graphics of the time.

-DanSS

PS. - I realize that you dont like the look of graphics from the PS1, but you have to realize that at the time, in 3D, that was amazing for a console. My first PC 3d game was star wars pod racer, which was better looking, but PCs always had better equiptment... and present hardware I believe can be debated. But i still think the PSX RPGs are worth playing... FF7-9, Xenogears, those are the only ones i've played. The Xenosaga games for the PS2 i also heard were pretty good. So like was mentioned in a previous post, go to an online site, read reviews of old PSX/PS2 games, buy a PS2, and go to the used section of your local GameStop/EBGames, and buy some RPGs :-P

 

[Psyfira]

PS. - I realize that you dont like the look of graphics from the PS1, but you have to realize that at the time, in 3D, that was amazing for a console.

What he said, if you're fussy about how games look than don't play anything more than 3 years old. Computer graphics move really fast, FF7 was already showing its age when I played it in 2000. Just because the PS1 hardware was capable of producing some pretty sweet graphics does not mean people knew how to from the start, but without those early 3D experiments we wouldn't have 3D technology developed to the level it is today. Everyone's gotta start somewhere, think of it as step along the way.

FFVIII's in-gameplay graphics looked awful and choppy but that wasn't the point; nobody minded because the FMV's were a completely mind-blowing breakthrough at the time. No-one had done anything like those video sequences before, the ballroom scene alone got loads of media attention just for having so many animated people moving at once in time to music. I know it sounds really daft now, but that was jaw-dropping stuff in 1999.

To tell the truth FFIX looked pretty damned good, the slightly childish character style took some getting used to but it worked quite well.

The Wii is aimed at casual pick-up-and-play gamers, if you expect to see epic 60-hour games on it then I think you're out of luck.

And finally, remember you played the SNES RPG's while looking through a child's eyes. You're older now, you've seen more games and your criteria for judging them is probably a lot harsher than it used to be. Never underestimate the power of nostalgia, those games hold a special meaning to you. If you were playing those games for the first time right now your opinion of them might be very different.

 

[xcalibur]

TL;DR


Going by Urza's summary though... Just play the previous gen till they work out the kinks in this one or get a PSP and play PS1 games on that, telling yourself its just a portable game when the graphics bother you.

 

[Issac]

True and false to your last statement psyfie, some games are pure nostalgia, but some are really good!
When I grow older, I will make games with the spirit of the OLD great games

even though these today can be good aswell!

 

[misanthrope]

Well yes obviously I am nostalgic about old games and you made the comment referring to the Wii but riddle me this: How many games over 60 hours overall have you seen in the last year for any console or system? Yes RPGs are coming out indeed but these kinds of games have been positively ignored by the last generation of consoles so far. Even the computer RPGs out for them, regardless of whenever I like em or not ( some I do like some I don't like ) don't hold a candle to games of old: Things like KOTOR II are ridiculously short, specially if you have a grand dad as long as Baldur's Gate II, other bioware spawned games follow through on the shortness, Diablo clones are always maybe 2 Chapters of the Original diablo tops and Bethesda has apparently managed to make gamers think that just because you can spend 60 hours on a game looking at pretty grass its a long game when the actual content including all things is pretty damn short ( the sandbox syndrome ).

Even if its not a turn based story driven console rpg can you name a few games that came out in 2007 ( i.e. remakes do not count ) that are 60 hours long or more? DOM: Joker is my best guess and so far I got 60 hours ( about two weeks of gaming ) for the entire year...

 

[jumpman17]

Now the PS2 and PS3...Same situation why get a PS2 when the PS3 plays all playstation games all the way back to PS1?

Actually, new PS3s no longer play PS2 games if I remember correctly.

 

[The Teej]

Now the PS2 and PS3...Same situation why get a PS2 when the PS3 plays all playstation games all the way back to PS1?


Actually, new PS3s no longer play PS2 games if I remember correctly.

The 40 gigs don't, 80 gigs play about 65%, 20 and 60 gigs play 98% of all.

 

[MC DUI]

You are obviously a very hard person to please if you cannot find some games in the last few generations that interest you slightly.

Here is a tip if you are going to look backwards don't expect the graphical qualities of the modern consoles or PC's.
Now that you are ignoring the graphics go to a gaming review site find the highest ranked games and start playing.

The PS2 has some absolute gems, especially when it comes to RPG's. Try something like Disgaea (Forget the graphics!!!!) or Dragon Quest VIII.

If you can't find something to like then maybe console gaming isn't for you. Go back to pwning people on your PC FPS with headshots.

 

[Moots]

If graphics bother you this much, then maybe you aren't that big of an RPG fan.

I love the genre, Graphics are secondary to a good story line and gameplay. Hell I still have a go at text based games once in a while.

 

[misanthrope]

I don't mind old graphics, some of my favorite games are 2d. I can forgive a lot when it comes to graphics. That doesn't means they don't matter at all, unlike most people I am not gonna lie and say they don't matter at all. If they didn't why would I bother with video games? I'd go back to Pen and Paper RPGs which I also play with friends.

What I hate is graphics that are ugly not because of the resolution or the capacity of systems at the time. Its ridiculous that a 16 bit, fully 2D game looks better than FF7. Why? Because you know the playstation is capable of a lot more, it should be capable of at least producing something that you can distinguish. Why would it be a step backwards, looking worst than 2d games? You jump right ahead to denounce how the story is the most important thing. Well I guess FF7 could have been a text based game or dungeon hack then right? Except it did not have to be! It could have easily been another 2d game with FMV cinematics and all if you wish.

You know what else it could have been? At least as good looking as its most close cousin Final Fantasy Tactics. Looking at both games there is no excuse for the atrocity FF7 is graphically when they could have shared the same engine for different things. Yes is not as 3d as Final Fantasy 7, which is 3d characters on a 2d background. Its still a better idea. Keeping the cinematics on a predominantly 2d game or isometric game its perfectly ok, its what made Diablo famous after all.

 

[Psyfira]

What I hate is graphics that are ugly not because of the resolution or the capacity of systems at the time. Its ridiculous that a 16 bit, fully 2D game looks better than FF7. Why? Because you know the playstation is capable of a lot more, it should be capable of at least producing something that you can distinguish. Why would it be a step backwards, looking worst than 2d games? ... It could have easily been another 2d game with FMV cinematics and all if you wish.

It's not a "step backwards", you're just looking at it wrong. What part of "someone had to do it first" did you miss? Good 3D takes practice, you have to go through a few poor-looking iterations before you get something good out. Sure, 3D on a 2D background would've looked better, it will always look better. But that's not the point. If they'd stuck with 2D then we'd never have the good looking 3D titles that we have now. It's called "progress", go look it up sometime.