They’re not the worst thing ever, but I’m happy when a game finds another way to challenge the player that isn’t “throw an enemy encounter at the player every ten steps”.
Nowadays I particularly enjoy games where the encounter is fought on the map itself instead of having a transition screen and a separate map. Games like Sea of Stars, or Yakuza Kiwami for example. I find that removing the transition screen also removes much of the tedium I feel with enemy encounters in video games.
I’m in the “if I can’t avoid them, I’m not playing the game long” camp.
I don’t hate them, and they can be fun. But most of the games that do them make them impossible to bypass. Like others have already said, when you’re questing, they just derail the gameplay experience. There’s times that’s okay, but if a game has them often enough, it ends up making me hate the game and quit.
It’s why I don’t go back an replay the final fantasy stuff.
This is a ridiculously good good with insane amounts to do, character development, and story. It’s wild to me how much the original game had and wasn’t DLC or a separate game.
Its odd, because I played the crap out of VIII, but hardly got into Monstrum Nox and am not even sure if I’m getting Nordics when it comes out on Switch. I probably will, but I feel like the series peaked with Dana.
Tap for spoilerDana technically shows up in Monstrum Nox, and that game kind of continues alluding to themes from Lacrimosa, depending on your interpretation.
I think most Ys games are slow to start and easy to let go of, but if you hang in there, the stories eventually reach a point at least for me that I can’t stop.
IX wasn’t nearly as good as VIII, IMO. The movement and combat felt good but the pacing was awful (too Trails-like) and the story and characters were nothing special.
Plot: The Ezio trilogy.
Core Gameplay: Black Flag/Rogue.
Replay value: Odyssey.
I just want to chill out after a long day: Odyssey.
I actually want to get sucked into the setting and characters: Black Flag.
Treat it objectively and ignore that it’s a Final Fantasy game.
I loved it. Everything from the story to the music to the combat. I bought and played through both DLCs as well. For me, it is the perfect mix of a great movie and great video game.
I think, it works kind of well in games where you’re able to enslave/recruit the random encouters (Pokémon, Shin Megami Tensei and such), as it’s then a surprise what you’ll find, somewhat like a slot machine.
But the way the more recent entries work in these series, that you find out what creatures roam the world by exploring, that kind of works, too.
More generally, I don’t particularly like the problem that random encounters solve. Which is that you’ve got sections of gameplay where nothing happens, so you throw enemy encounters into there. That also goes for non-random encounters.
RPGs do this and I used to enjoy RPGs as a form of escapism. But now that I’m doing more stuff in real-life, I want it condensed down in roguelike form, or I’ll just play other genres…
I’ve come around to really liking them. In short, they vastly improve dungeons in my opinion.
Most RPGs don’t manage to create interesting battles outside of boss fights. Heck, an increasing amount of RPGs fails to create any kind of challange. However, random encounter can add another layer to dungeons: resource management. You have to plan out how to tackle fights in order to get through the dungeons with your limited items/MP - do you sacrifice more HP or do you go for your strongest attacks? How much exploration can you get in? Do you need to be extra careful and plan for stronger rare encounters? Maybe even plan around lvl up healing.
Sadly, this layer is easily removed. Overworld encounters? Just dodge everything. Adjustable encounters? Grind just enough, go heal and disable encounters. Non-challanging fights? Just use basic attacks. Healing stations? No need to plan anymore. Ideally, the dungeons provides no healing at all - especially not before encountering the boss.
If you’re interested in a game with great dungeons, I’d recommend every single Etrian Odyssey.
The good thing about the fallout series is that unless you’re in survivor, you can generally carry enough to deal with the encounter. It’s not like far cry where you’re just like “FUCK! WORST possible timing!” And it was always like a stupid fucking badger or something. I don’t even mind coming across death claws. I’m carrying 15 mini nukes, 120 stimpacks, leveled up power armor and enough ammunition to make lead poisoning a bigger environmental threat than the rads.
After a while, you kinda start to recognize the sneaky ninjas, standing around in the middle of nowhere just looking back and forth. Then, if you do finally talk to them, their names are just a generic title.
I personally love the Ys stories. They pack tons of character development and story into single games. The gameplay is primarily why I love it. It’s some of the best action hack n slash for me. I know some of it is trophy and typical but I don’t care. The stories usually have fun twists and memorable moments with all the characters. Every game is pretty different too, making them feel fresh each time.
One thing I like about Ys, is while there’s a little bit in the games of romance or sexy girls, it is actually pretty astonishing how these games never force romance between the main character and all the women. Especially this game Ys VIII, there’s so many moments where you’re sure they’re going that route, and they don’t.
No, the Ys games truly focus on an adventurer and his friends building rapport and saving the world. I’d argue these games have tons of teachable and wholesome moments.
And as the other person said, all the Ys music is brilliant. I have all the music for almost all the games. Love it.
Well, over the past week I finished my second full Hard run of EDF6 with a modded class, and I updated several mods on other games. Got the updated Shutoko Revival Project on Assetto Corsa, the new Gran Turismo 4 Spec II, which I’m enjoying a lot, feels like a new game. And the Dawn of War Unification team pushed out a minor patch for the 20th anniversary of the series. I am also considering upgrading my old build of STALKER Gamma from late last year to the current one. My setup is working but they added a lot of new things since then that I want to check out, like new early game guns.
I’m trying to get into shmups. Just playing whatever I can find on sale on Switch. Mostly Raiden IV x MIKADO Remix on loop. I think I might be getting better!
I've been finishing off Assassin's Creed: Odyssey on my Xbox One X. I mostly enjoyed it but many of the RPG mechanics were quite tiresome. I hear Valhalla is even longer, which doesn't bode well. Odyssey was already hitting the upper limit for me and the mechanics were starting to grow stale.
Still, the world was fairly pretty and it had a surprising amount of comedy in it. The fighting mechanics were mostly fun, although the lack of hidden blades and stupid auto-leveling content rather worked against the demi-god power fantasy.
I should probably get my Steam Deck RMA'd so I can play something else, but that requires more mental effort than I can handle right now.
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