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| I give up. (or Wild Arms 3, redux) by Lizard_King 08/27/2003, 4:35pm PDT | ||||
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| Fucking console RPG's. I don't know if there is simply a part missing in my brain (WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO THIS TOPIC), but whatever it is that makes people enjoy Final Fantasy and all its offspring has finally been revealed to hold no appeal for me. I think I figured this out around the time FF7 started making play minigames right off the bat that had no option to replay and relied on poor instructions and control schemes for their difficulty. At every step of the game.
Look, I liked the combat. I liked the character development. I found the spin on character powers mildly entertaining. The plot, of course, was a write off, but they all pretty much are. But I know there is something seriously wrong when I am getting nostalgic about Wild Arms 3, which will be the focus of the remainder of this rant. In fact, I went back and played that, and after playing FF7, FF9, Grandia II, Suikoden III, and the abomination that is Shadow Hearts, and WA3 starts to look pretty good in comparison. Perhaps its blatant catering to completists (no item is lost forever, no quest is unreachable before you finish the game, you can replay the game with most of your cool shit when you complete it fully) appeals to me more than FF's raw sadism. Perhaps, in that same vein, having reasonably completable (ie once you have a walkthrough, you'll be alright, not like FF, where once you have a walkthrough, you are simply made aware of the miserable task that awaits you) platformer like nonsense in every level is far preferable, as WA3 does, especially since they do break the monotony of random encounters. Which are mostly by choice, by the way, and more avoidable the more you advance. Also, I enjoy the dynamic approach to combat, with all of your characters having different roles that you still have a great influence on despite their initial proclivities, not to mention all four of them from the prologue on are ALWAYS TOGETHER. Can I just say how refreshing that is? Does it have bullshit? You bet. How about not being able to "find" a map location until you find the fucker who gives you vague directions IN RED TEXT to it, after which you must wander the world map clicking search? How about plot dialogue that occasionally feels like a self-help guide for ugly women (note...all in text, so a turbo controller with x held down works wonders for repeat cutscenes, which are unskippable in and of themselves)? And, of course, the inevitable returning enemies which your characters continue to fail to finish off no matter how often or hard you beat the shit out of them, all because the "plot" requires your characters to make stupid choices regardless of what you do. IE: Why yes, mister villain-who-has-repeatedly-fucked-me-over-in-the-past, here's a super powerful item I just went through a big hassle to obtain, just so you can use it in our upcoming fight. Of course, I am doing this because you are threatening NPC's I care nothing about, and with the same weapon you have shot me with 9999999 times in the past and apparently failed to kill me (the FFX oh no the palace guards are pointing guns at us syndrome). But overall, I think my original disillusionment with WA3 had to do with my failure to accept what Japanese console RPG realities are. Once those are taken into account, I think it is a safe choice, at least as good as any other tv based lobotomy available now. PS: I stated earlier RPG plots were a write-off to me. I really mean that. I know there are exceptions, but it is simply not a big deal to me. Someday, they'll find creative ways to make players do things that don't involve gay plot twists or false choices in a game other than Planescape and occasionally Fallout. Maybe even on a console, though it doesn't look good. But I doubt it. |
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