FFs 1-5 were fairly generic DnD style worlds. It wasn’t until 6 that the cyberpunk/fantasy mix came in then I’d argue 8 was the first one where some of the designs in the world looked very Japanese.
Seeing Nier Automata on this list makes me think the author hasn’t finished it. I’m not sure how you finish a full playthrough and come away with “2B’s combat was kind of basic” while ignoring everything else it was doing.
When I bough Bayonetta 1+2 for the Wii U I was expecting something close to Devil May Cry (They share the same director and almost the same developing team, after all) but it was a huge disappointment everything is so dumbed down and simple that is not even fun. People only likes it because they are satisfied with the over-the-top action and Bayonetta one-liners and that's all.
My main complains with Bayonetta are the following:
All the weapons feel the same, where the only change is the attack speed, their cosmetic appearance and in some cases some minor and useless changes, like if you hold the attack buttons and the weapons you have equiped are fireweapons, they shoot (with this I mean combos, like PPPK, KKKPK, etc... do the same with every weapon, except maybe the Kulshedra, the extremely basic whip, the weapons do not feel unique in any meaningful way, they all have the same moveset and combos. In Devil May Cry each weapon is unique, with their own moveset and combos, and their moveset changes depending on the style you have active, for extra depth)
Finding the secret stuff is too easy (except for some verses and Alfheim, that require some backtrack at specific points, but finding the vinyls to get new weapons is too easy)
Speaking of the Alfheims, they are not even chanllenging (compared to the Secret Missions in Devil May Cry)
Bayonetta 2 is even worse, everything is way more simplistic and easy than the first one, I haven't bothered with Bayonetta 3
Karlach’s chest glowing from the Infernal Engine she uses as a heart
And that’s it. They’re not particularly good looking or anything. Other than Karlach, the nudity is quite generic and unsexy.
I feel like having full nudity is just a cheap gimmick that doesn’t add anything of value. The only mainstream game I’ve played that even uses nudity as a mechanic to do something special is Elden Ring and you’re not even totally nude in that game.
I'm not sure I'd trust modern CA to do Med3 justice. The new style of Total War is just a different beast from the sublime RTW/Med2 era.
Lots of little things changed, and it just 'hits different'. Probably the biggest difference is just that every single fight after the first 20 turns will be a 20 stack vs a 20 stack, and every single battle is life or death for that army. It makes the campaign much faster paced - declare war, wipe stack, capture cities for 3 turns until the AI magics up another 20 stack.
In the original Med2, since there wasn't automatic replenishment, there were often battles between smaller stacks, even in late game, as they were sent from the backline to reinforce the large armies on the front. Led to some of my greatest memories trying to keep some random crossbowmen and cavalry alive against some ambushing enemy infantry they wandered into. The need for manual reinforcement led to natural pauses in wars and gave the losing side a chance to regroup without relying on the insane AI bonuses of the modern TW games - and I do mean insane; they'll have multiple full stacks supplied from a single settlement.
The change that I always notice whenever I jump between earlier and later TW is the addition of hit points and how it really feels line it blunts a lot of impacts.
I mean, compare a heavy cavalry charge in Medieval 2 to one in Total Warhammer. A properly formed unit of Teutonic Knights is a devastating hammer blow that can shatter an enemy army since the charge bonus massively increases the chance to kill. Meanwhile, Empire Knights can get a proper rear charge against basic infantry and despite how far those rats get flung, they’ll all get back up because all the charge does is make the line go down faster.
The other big impact I find with this change is it makes the rout really annoying to deal with. In early total war, you always want some cavalry to pursue fleeing enemies since once they’re broken it won’t take much to capture or kill them and preventing those armies from regrouping really matters. Meanwhile, in modern total war, pursuing fleeing enemies never seems to result in significant damage because instead of capturing fleeing enemies you’re just making the line go down again.
I am not sure how one gets that far into an analysis of RPGs, J or otherwise, without even once mentioning characters, stories or themes.
Those games have never really been about mechanics to me. Sure, since they’re usually so long, they’d better try to keep things entertaining enough, but there’s a lot more to them (good ones, anyway).
I honestly don’t care much about the J, and even “RPG” seems so broad to me, because many, many games have blurred the line. Starting around end of the 90s when “RPG elements” became a thing. I don’t think it matters much.
The author sounds like they just dislike action games and are judging the games solely based on that. The fact that they call an attack timing minigame in a turn based rpg “one of the most unique gameplay systems in the market” says enough.
A windows PC with a custom shell is surprisingly good for gaming. I modified my gaming machine to skip sign in, windows explorer, and a multitude of other services so it boots straight into steam big picture. My Epic, EA, and gamepass games are automatically added to Steam with proper artwork. Feels like SteamOS but with some nice things from windows like working anricheat and lossless scaling support.
I was quite satisfied with Alone in the Dark. It could have used some polish, but it was delivering more Resident Evil 1 style gameplay in a way that even the Resident Evil series refuses to do.
I'm old enough to remember these terms developing. I can remember when the first Diablo came out and called itself an 'ARPG'. There was some controversy over this term and simply the use of the term RPG. As video games developed, there was some prestige around the 'RPG' label. By the late 90s, you were looking at a lot of well loved and top games using the term. Gold Box Games, Bard's Tale, Ultima, JRPGs like Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, etc.
Diablo is the first game that I can recall that really prominently advertised itself as an ARPG. They did this of course because it wasn't really as deep as the rest of them. There weren't a lot of 'choices' to be made in this game. You set up your character and ran through the dungeon. They wanted to use the 'RPG' label because it was well regarded at the time and helped move units. It was a lot like calling an RV a sports car because sports cars have wheels, doors, can drive on the road. ARPGs had RPG mechanics, in that there were things like stats and you could choose abilities/spells on level up. But they really weren't RPGs.
Around that time in PC Gamer there was a great column about what made an RPG an RPG and it was clear that games like Diablo weren't it, the key from that was an RPG had players making meaningful choices that had a lasting impact on the game world. Whether you threw fireballs or lightning bolts wasn't exactly a meaningful choice that had impact on the game world.
When it came to JPRGs vs RPGs, the difference was always fairly clear. RPGs were of the D&D variety. While they featured magic, the system itself was somewhat grounded in reality. JRPGs had a distinct style. Big numbers, wild combos, certain aesthetics, etc. To me the JRPG label makes sense, because it is a different style of game. I would note that JRPGs though really didn't fit the definition of RPG for the most part, a lot of 'RPGs' didn't because there was very little decision making. They were quest style games where you had a party that levelled up, but you weren't making many decisions in the game that had much an impact.
I think the labels are absolutely important for distinguishing the type of game it is. People want to know what they're getting into when they play it. If I'm expecting Baldur's gate and get Diablo, I'm probably going to be a bit disappointed.
How would star wars even work in a total war game?
I can see the hero characters like jedi and such fit with how they work in the WarHammer games. Things like tanks and walkers filling the space of single and low unit count monster troops.
But would regular troopers be standing in lines of 50? I suppose it’s not a stretch of the imagination to think they could make smaller infantry units, but I have always associated the total war games with dragging out the lines of my spears and flanking cavalry rather than flicking small teams of shooters into cover positions
The Battles of Naboo and Geonosis basically play out as line battles with massive groups marching in formations at each other, not to mention most of the Tartakovsky clone wars, so I could see CA approaching it like Empire Total War with hover tanks.
Honestly, I doubt whether CA are even willing to adapt their formula enough to actually have small teams of shooters flicking into cover positions.
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