I've noticed that it has become more difficult for video games to capture my attention lately. I blame growing up. But actually, I blame only myself and my personal need for video games to offer me something profound. In fact, I think the only reason anyone would ever play a video game is to gain something spiritually satisfying. Yes, we play video games for fun, but the question I intend to answer is the following: what makes certain video games fun for some people and not fun for other people? Why do we personally choose to play the games we choose to play? I've been dwelling on both the question and its answer for a long time, and I believe the answer is "incentive".
INCENTIVE FOR THE PLAYER INCENTIVE FOR THE AVATAR
These are the two categories under which every single video game ever created falls.
So let's discuss each form of incentive separately:
Incentive for the player - "If you play this game, you will gain skill".
We know that there are some video games out there that require skill, practice, and repetition. We know there are games that are designed to force the player to improve their skills in order to overcome challenges. We know there are games that require us to become better at its end than we were at its beginning. If you, as a gamer, are drawn to these types of games, then you prefer games where the incentive is for the player. A game where the incentive is for the player is a game designed with the progression and fluency of the "player" in mind. These games can be identified as having minimal or no story, a multiplayer mode(s), a scoring/ranking system, or a competitive push.
Still don't get it?
Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Tetris, Super Mario Bros, Mortal Kombat, Guitar Hero, Bejeweled, Flappy Bird, and Angry Birds are all games where the incentive is "if you play this game, you will become better at it/ you will become better than your friends/ you will achieve a higher score than other players/ you will be the best player". The magic behind these games is that when they're being developed, game developers can devote more time to the game's ability to entertain instead of the game's cinematic appeal. The games mentioned above are all examples that are simple in concept, but are played aggressively and religiously. The best games where the incentive is for the player has players playing for dozens, sometimes even hundreds of hours as they each compete and practice and train in order to become the "best". The end goal of these games is determined by the player, not the game. Do you want to be the best Tetris player? If you do, that's awesome, but remember, no one told you that you had to - you set that goal on your own. The problem with these games though is that if the gameplay doesn't compel people to play, then nothing else will. No one will bother competing at a game liked by 0 people- a game that simply isn't fun. Why would anyone want to waste their time becoming good at a game about which no one cares?
Incentive for the avatar- "If you play this game, your avatar will gain skill".
Then there are some games where we fall in love with a character, or grow to loathe an enemy, or decide that we want what our avatar wants. If you are drawn to these games, then you prefer games where the incentive is for the avatar. The avatar is the character you play as on the screen, and these games involve the gamer pushing the character around from place to place witnessing what he/she witnesses and feeling what he/she feels. These games can be identified as having a deep story, deep characters, motives, and choices with an emphasis on progression or working from a beginning to an end. It is important to note that it may not be necessary for the player to gain any skill at all while playing these types of games. To elaborate, I am borrowing the term "avatar strength" from youtuber Egoraptor, which he describes as a technique used by game developers in order to create the illusion of progression- a game that becomes easier not because the player is becoming more competent, but because his avatar is becoming more capable (stronger, faster, etc.). For example, imagine you're playing a game where your character wields a sword that can kill a given enemy in 4 hits. You then reach a certain point in the game where the sword gets upgraded as a part of the story, and now you can kill that same enemy in 2 hits. YOU did not become better at the game, but your avatar did. Because you played the game, the avatar gained skill. The magic behind these games is that you get the chance to relate to a character in a world to which you would never ordinarily be exposed, you get to watch a story unfold, you get to feel empathy and patience and attachment to characters for a short while, which are all profound feelings! The problem with these games though, is that if the developers fail to create an avatar worth caring about, then the game probably won't be very good. I recently played Tales of the Abyss, a game where the incentive to play was exclusively for the avatar Luke whose purpose in the game was to fulfill his destiny as the chosen hero. Luke, though, was an asshole, refused to develop as a character, and was an absolute displeasure for me to have spent 12 hours with. Why the fuck would I want Luke to gain anything? I didn't care about my avatar, so I didn't like the game. Tales of Symphonia, Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, and the Paper Mario games, however, are all games in this category that established more likable characters, and were more popular because of it.
Now for the surprise category: the games that consider both types of incentive, games that emphasize the progression of the story AND the acquisition of skill to the player. Examples? Some of the best games out there: The Halo games, Legend of Zelda games, The Last of Us, Resident Evil 4, the Metroid games, Pokemon, and the Final Fantasy games. These are all examples of games where the skills acquired by the player contribute just as much to the gaming experience as the game's characters do. I care about Link in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess because he is a good guy, looking after the children of his village while harboring affection for the mayor's daughter. At the same time, though, I feel personally empowered as the player when I find the double claw shot item and am able to spend hours zipping around Hyrule as a character who at that point becomes essentially Spider-Man with a sword. Both Link and I experience the same thrill by riding Epona the horse through the open fields of Hyrule, and we both feel the same grief when our partner Midna has to return to the Twilight Realm at the game's end (SPOILER HAHAHA). The perfect video games consider incentive for both the player and the avatar.
So why did I write this essay? I don't know. To arrogantly exhibit my comprehension of the video game world? I suppose. But really, I hope that someone finds this essay and it makes them realize that the formula for what definitely makes the perfect video game will become cracked soon enough as long as we keep asking the right questions. At the very least, I hope it gets you guys to consider what you love most about your favorite video games and learn to appreciate them for things you never saw before. And maybe, just maybe, reading this essay has helped you guys realize your own gaming preferences and in the future will now have a better understanding of what you look for in a video game. Time for me to get back to Smash Bros. Thank you!
Nintendo Consoles
Showing posts with label Tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tales. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Why I Don't Like Open World Games
A year ago, I watched my friends foam at the mouth as they murdered thousands of innocent, hard-working, married pedestrians on the streets of "Grand Theft Auto Anything Goes Who Cares It's Just A Video Game City 5: About 3 Games Too Many". Conversation eventually led to the declaration by one of my friends that no person ever has been disappointed to hear that a game was to be made "open-world". I secretly disagreed with him but couldn't figure out why. Turns out the only thing that would render me sedimentary enough to sit down and develop my thoughts on the topic would be eating two colossal pieces of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory back-to-back, then sitting down to finally catch up on the internet's newest series "Selena Gomez Has More Nude Pictures: About 3 Galleries Too Many".
I don't like open world games because I think they are hardly ever done right. Open world games only ever do 1 thing in a variety of different ways: provide the illusion of choice- essentially a lie that the game is giving you "choices" when really, it is not. Let's examine each variation of the deception separately:
The first variation of the illusion of choice gives players the following two options:
A) Complete missions necessary to beat the story
B) Complete missions NOT necessary to beat the story
So let's begin. You are given a game with an open world. Right off the bat this means one of two things: You will be given permission to do things you are not required to OR it is a bad game.
You are free to abandon what the game demands you to do, granting you permission to do almost whatever you want. Let's assume though that what you want is to complete the story. Open-worldedness is a liberating freedom, but how much this freedom contributes to the game has yet to be determined (as far as this article goes). Think about this: Let's say that the developers of a game take their time to write out a story with great characters, twists, growth, and plot BUT they give you side missions that are completely optional. Why? Why give players the option to NOT play content that you spent valuable time creating? This is the same as having them tell you that you only need to play 60% (or whatever percent of the game is required) of the missions to experience 100% of the game. VALIDATION YOU ASK FOR: If you complete Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time but you don't get the Biggoron's Sword (an optional mission), can anyone tell you fairly that you HAVEN'T played OoT? No. Giving players optional missions is the same thing as me telling you that I have written an incredible book and it's fine if you skip 40% of the pages, as long as you get to the end. Having optional missions, even creating parts of the world that don't NEED to be seen, is the developer's way of admitting that they know not every player will want to play everything on the disc, instead of insisting that every player should. I wouldn't be very convinced by Nintendo that some Super Mario game is worth playing if they gave me the option to not play half of it. The way I look at it, open worlds are the developers admitting that at least some of the game is not worth playing. And also, if you have an open world game WITHOUT optional missions, then why have an open world at all?
The second variation of the illusion of choice is giving the player the next duo of options:
A) Explore the World
B) Don't Explore the World
Now this is a good one that basically boils down to a simple question - Do you HAVE to explore the world in order to beat the game? We have to discuss incentive for a second - Question 2: WHY would I want to explore a world? Well there are a lot of reasons! Let's start with a good one - In order to find optional weapons. Optional weapons or items are usually things that make the game either easier or funny. They, however, seldom make the game more fun. Think about this: If a weapon existed in the game that made the game generally more fun, why would the developers make that weapon optional? Wouldn't developers want something that makes the game more fun to be experienced by everyone playing it? But I digress (not really). Optional weapons are things that make the game either easier or funny but do you need them? Can you complete the game without them? If you CAN complete the game without them, then it would seem that developers wasted time designing items that some people will never see, and (**this is important**) if you CAN'T, or it would be extremely difficult to, complete the game without them, then they aren't optional! The whole idea behind the illusion of "choice" is that you really never have one, and if you never have any real choice, then what the fuck is the point of an open-world?
The second incentive to explore a world is to find Side-quests. These are popular in RPGs and I can already hear my friends yelling at me, justifying the inclusion of side-quests in RPGs. Often, in RPGs, you need to complete optional side-quests in order to gain experience to level-up your character so that you can more easily defeat certain bosses. But that's the thing- if you NEED to complete optional side-quests in order to make progress, then they aren't optional! You are once again being tricked into thinking that you have a choice, when really, you don't. The residents of open-worlds are always the providers of optional side-quests, but if you MUST complete the side-quests in order to increase the strength of your character in order to progress, then all the open-world does is trick you into thinking that you've accepted a task you didn't have to, when really, you did, and the only real option you have is to accept the mission, or use an avatar that cannot ever win ever. All I ask is that the game doesn't lie to me! Don't tell me I have a choice not to do a certain side-quest if I am going to undoubtedly regret it later! Game devs could alternatively distribute appropriate amounts of EXP during the main story so that side-quests become redundant and obsolesced, or just include the side-quests as part of the main story, eliminating the "option" entirely. Now I can certainly think of linear games with optional side-quests, Sonic Unleashed and Lost Kingdoms II come to mind, but the optional missions in those games are once again hardly optional, and now that I think about it, I don't remember the game ever telling me that they were. There is something to be noted about the difference between additional levels that help you progress and side-quests that compensate for what the main story could not provide.
Finally, we have to discuss The Legend of Zelda. Do I mean to suggest the Legend of Zelda should be linear, and relieved of its open world? Well...let's think about this. The game Dark Siders II was essentially an angry, M-rated LoZ game. Exactly the same way Legend of Zelda is, it has a nonlinear (open) world, but a linear story, so all you ever did in the impressively enormous open world was move from point A to B to C to D, etc. until you beat the game. There was about as much incentive to explore as there was in a Legend of Zelda game (not much), so I ask the following: If you're spending an entire game moving in a straight line through an open world, then WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF THE OPEN WORLD?? Having an open world is certainly more impressive to look at and experience, but it's all for nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. As a side-note, this issue is actually addressed 100% perfectly by a game called The Last Story on the Wii. I'll talk about it some other time.
It would seem that I've spent this entire article writing objectively, assuming that everyone plays games for the same reason I do, but remember, this article is about why I, James, don't like open-world games. Now there are some that I like, even love. Pokemon works because the game functions around the idea of exploring a world, and the game just literally wouldn't work without it. Zelda: Twilight Princess is another that just works well, mostly because despite it being an open world, it is small and doesn't overwhelm the player. I am brutally aware that giving the player an option, even if it is a sham, creates a more personal connection between the player and his/her avatar, resulting in a greater sense of immersion, which is the very state that powers the video game industry itself. Open world games can be fun just because they create a greater sense of control, but it should be noted that the only aspect of a game controlled by the player in an open-world game is the pacing of progress, NOT what is required of them. A Sonic the Hedgehog game (not open world) can only be played by either making progress or losing. Open world games are unique in that they can be played without making progress or losing. They allow the player to complete the missions (over which they, once again, have no control) whenever they want. But honestly, I think you get it. Open-world games don't do it for me, except for Spider-Man 2, which is essentially the only reason why I bothered to use the words "mostly, often, and seldom" in this article, as opposed to "always, never, and never", which would have forced me to title this article "An Abundance of Words That Make Me Sound Ignorant: About 3 Adjectives Too Many".
I don't like open world games because I think they are hardly ever done right. Open world games only ever do 1 thing in a variety of different ways: provide the illusion of choice- essentially a lie that the game is giving you "choices" when really, it is not. Let's examine each variation of the deception separately:
The first variation of the illusion of choice gives players the following two options:
A) Complete missions necessary to beat the story
B) Complete missions NOT necessary to beat the story
So let's begin. You are given a game with an open world. Right off the bat this means one of two things: You will be given permission to do things you are not required to OR it is a bad game.
You are free to abandon what the game demands you to do, granting you permission to do almost whatever you want. Let's assume though that what you want is to complete the story. Open-worldedness is a liberating freedom, but how much this freedom contributes to the game has yet to be determined (as far as this article goes). Think about this: Let's say that the developers of a game take their time to write out a story with great characters, twists, growth, and plot BUT they give you side missions that are completely optional. Why? Why give players the option to NOT play content that you spent valuable time creating? This is the same as having them tell you that you only need to play 60% (or whatever percent of the game is required) of the missions to experience 100% of the game. VALIDATION YOU ASK FOR: If you complete Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time but you don't get the Biggoron's Sword (an optional mission), can anyone tell you fairly that you HAVEN'T played OoT? No. Giving players optional missions is the same thing as me telling you that I have written an incredible book and it's fine if you skip 40% of the pages, as long as you get to the end. Having optional missions, even creating parts of the world that don't NEED to be seen, is the developer's way of admitting that they know not every player will want to play everything on the disc, instead of insisting that every player should. I wouldn't be very convinced by Nintendo that some Super Mario game is worth playing if they gave me the option to not play half of it. The way I look at it, open worlds are the developers admitting that at least some of the game is not worth playing. And also, if you have an open world game WITHOUT optional missions, then why have an open world at all?
The second variation of the illusion of choice is giving the player the next duo of options:
A) Explore the World
B) Don't Explore the World
Now this is a good one that basically boils down to a simple question - Do you HAVE to explore the world in order to beat the game? We have to discuss incentive for a second - Question 2: WHY would I want to explore a world? Well there are a lot of reasons! Let's start with a good one - In order to find optional weapons. Optional weapons or items are usually things that make the game either easier or funny. They, however, seldom make the game more fun. Think about this: If a weapon existed in the game that made the game generally more fun, why would the developers make that weapon optional? Wouldn't developers want something that makes the game more fun to be experienced by everyone playing it? But I digress (not really). Optional weapons are things that make the game either easier or funny but do you need them? Can you complete the game without them? If you CAN complete the game without them, then it would seem that developers wasted time designing items that some people will never see, and (**this is important**) if you CAN'T, or it would be extremely difficult to, complete the game without them, then they aren't optional! The whole idea behind the illusion of "choice" is that you really never have one, and if you never have any real choice, then what the fuck is the point of an open-world?
The second incentive to explore a world is to find Side-quests. These are popular in RPGs and I can already hear my friends yelling at me, justifying the inclusion of side-quests in RPGs. Often, in RPGs, you need to complete optional side-quests in order to gain experience to level-up your character so that you can more easily defeat certain bosses. But that's the thing- if you NEED to complete optional side-quests in order to make progress, then they aren't optional! You are once again being tricked into thinking that you have a choice, when really, you don't. The residents of open-worlds are always the providers of optional side-quests, but if you MUST complete the side-quests in order to increase the strength of your character in order to progress, then all the open-world does is trick you into thinking that you've accepted a task you didn't have to, when really, you did, and the only real option you have is to accept the mission, or use an avatar that cannot ever win ever. All I ask is that the game doesn't lie to me! Don't tell me I have a choice not to do a certain side-quest if I am going to undoubtedly regret it later! Game devs could alternatively distribute appropriate amounts of EXP during the main story so that side-quests become redundant and obsolesced, or just include the side-quests as part of the main story, eliminating the "option" entirely. Now I can certainly think of linear games with optional side-quests, Sonic Unleashed and Lost Kingdoms II come to mind, but the optional missions in those games are once again hardly optional, and now that I think about it, I don't remember the game ever telling me that they were. There is something to be noted about the difference between additional levels that help you progress and side-quests that compensate for what the main story could not provide.
Finally, we have to discuss The Legend of Zelda. Do I mean to suggest the Legend of Zelda should be linear, and relieved of its open world? Well...let's think about this. The game Dark Siders II was essentially an angry, M-rated LoZ game. Exactly the same way Legend of Zelda is, it has a nonlinear (open) world, but a linear story, so all you ever did in the impressively enormous open world was move from point A to B to C to D, etc. until you beat the game. There was about as much incentive to explore as there was in a Legend of Zelda game (not much), so I ask the following: If you're spending an entire game moving in a straight line through an open world, then WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF THE OPEN WORLD?? Having an open world is certainly more impressive to look at and experience, but it's all for nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. As a side-note, this issue is actually addressed 100% perfectly by a game called The Last Story on the Wii. I'll talk about it some other time.
It would seem that I've spent this entire article writing objectively, assuming that everyone plays games for the same reason I do, but remember, this article is about why I, James, don't like open-world games. Now there are some that I like, even love. Pokemon works because the game functions around the idea of exploring a world, and the game just literally wouldn't work without it. Zelda: Twilight Princess is another that just works well, mostly because despite it being an open world, it is small and doesn't overwhelm the player. I am brutally aware that giving the player an option, even if it is a sham, creates a more personal connection between the player and his/her avatar, resulting in a greater sense of immersion, which is the very state that powers the video game industry itself. Open world games can be fun just because they create a greater sense of control, but it should be noted that the only aspect of a game controlled by the player in an open-world game is the pacing of progress, NOT what is required of them. A Sonic the Hedgehog game (not open world) can only be played by either making progress or losing. Open world games are unique in that they can be played without making progress or losing. They allow the player to complete the missions (over which they, once again, have no control) whenever they want. But honestly, I think you get it. Open-world games don't do it for me, except for Spider-Man 2, which is essentially the only reason why I bothered to use the words "mostly, often, and seldom" in this article, as opposed to "always, never, and never", which would have forced me to title this article "An Abundance of Words That Make Me Sound Ignorant: About 3 Adjectives Too Many".
Thursday, September 19, 2013
I Put This Down: Tales of Symphonia
Mkay so as you all know, I acquired about 20-22 new Gamecube games over the summer. God damn. I haven't even opened all of them yet. I had to develop a strategy in order to quickly play and/or beat all of these games so that I could talk about them here. Typically, I would figure out which games were short, and I tried to blast through them, while allowing myself to spend weeks on longer games, such as Metroid or Wind Waker. Among these longer games was, and still is, one REALLY damn long game. With a typical playthrough occupying at least 80 hours of your life, this next title really had me baffled as far as how I was going to go about playing it quickly. Do I play it every day for a month until it's done? Do I allow myself to take 1000000000 years on it while playing other games in between sessions? Well Ill tell you, what wound up happening was me putting this game down. "Ill play it later" I would tell myself. But days, weeks, maybe a month went by before I finally picked this game up again; this is where our story begins.
Tales of Symphonia
Recently, I've been going around saying "Most of Gamecube's best games came from Dreamcast." It's a hyperbole, not a lie. Tales of Symphonia is a JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game) that came out for the Sega Dreamcast maaaaany many years ago. Despite it's age, it has made a pretty remarkable impression on Gamecube and RPG fans alike. There are many notable qualities this game has. From it's adorable graphics, to it's deep story, this game really kicks ass from beginning until...you put it down. Notice I didn't say "end". It's true- I haven't finished this game yet, but I will. Don't worry. The question today is the same as it always is with I Put This Down:
Why did I put it down? Why did I pick it up again? What do I think of it now?
Why did I put this game down? Well let's see. I suppose the answer is that I simply didn't have time to play this game. Believe it or not, between my band, school, sleep, friends, working out, getting mad chicks, getting beefy, buying Red Bull, and donating large sums of money to charity, I didn't have a spare 80 hours of my awesome life to designate to this game. It is a shame too because I really do enjoy this game. Tales of Symphonia is the first real RPG I've ever played, so the new gaming experience was very exciting. This game is often praised for it's amazing character development, graphics, fighting style, and soundtrack. The dungeons are fun because the 1 item you have that pertains only to dungeon exploration changes with every dungeon, affectively creating as many different puzzles as there are dungeons. These are all claims that I found too awesome to be true while reading about the game, but it turns out that they are, in fact, true. Those were just a few reasons why the game was all the more difficult to pause. Unfortunately, in the end, the amount of fun the game was to me was not enough to keep me going for more than 20 hours at a time. Ultimately, I put this game down.
But then I picked it up again! I think I just missed playing it. The thing about Tales of Symphonia is that the story makes you want to play the game. It's like reading a good book - you may not love reading in general, but what the hell, are you just going to put down the damn book without fucking finishing it? You're already 20 damn hours into it you scumbag! Just finish it and learn what happens. The game is fun to play and the ever-growing story counteracts the sometimes repetitive gameplay. Maybe you find yourself pressing the same buttons over and over, but the reason WHY you're pressing those buttons changes, and so does too your feelings towards the repetition. Considering the game has 80 hours to god damn do it, the character development IS really flawless. You got some dudes betraying you, some people dying, some friends destined to become enemies, some unlikely alliances, all while optional cut scenes take the development one step further by providing you with windows into the personal lives of each of your team members. Is the viewing of these scenes essential for the understand of the story? Not at all, but they are a good example of the steps game designers can take in order to ensure that those who may put this game down pick it up again. As you guys know, this isn't a review, so I can't talk about gameplay that much, but I will say that the fighting is fun as hell, as it takes place in real-time akin to Viewtiful Joe or even Super Smash Bros., and navigating the open hub world is very fun and rewarding. When a developers give you a big map, they want you to get lost. They want you to appreciate what they have created, and I do. I so do, Namco.
So what do I think of it now? I love it. In the end, Tales of Symphonia offers an exceptional gaming experience. Nothing is too challenging, nothing is too annoying. Everything is perfect as far as I am concerned. The idea of playing an 80 hour game is daunting to me, as, like I've said, I've never played an RPG before (I know this isn't even the longest RPG out there, dickhead, so don't yell at me), but I anticipate feeling really good when I beat it. It will be rewarding and I look forward to it. I do feel like I will wind up putting it down in increments of 20 or so hours, but that's fine by me. If spending 80 hours on this game is inevitable, then I might as well enjoy every last second of it. Seashells. Forever.
Tales of Symphonia
Recently, I've been going around saying "Most of Gamecube's best games came from Dreamcast." It's a hyperbole, not a lie. Tales of Symphonia is a JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game) that came out for the Sega Dreamcast maaaaany many years ago. Despite it's age, it has made a pretty remarkable impression on Gamecube and RPG fans alike. There are many notable qualities this game has. From it's adorable graphics, to it's deep story, this game really kicks ass from beginning until...you put it down. Notice I didn't say "end". It's true- I haven't finished this game yet, but I will. Don't worry. The question today is the same as it always is with I Put This Down:
Why did I put it down? Why did I pick it up again? What do I think of it now?
Why did I put this game down? Well let's see. I suppose the answer is that I simply didn't have time to play this game. Believe it or not, between my band, school, sleep, friends, working out, getting mad chicks, getting beefy, buying Red Bull, and donating large sums of money to charity, I didn't have a spare 80 hours of my awesome life to designate to this game. It is a shame too because I really do enjoy this game. Tales of Symphonia is the first real RPG I've ever played, so the new gaming experience was very exciting. This game is often praised for it's amazing character development, graphics, fighting style, and soundtrack. The dungeons are fun because the 1 item you have that pertains only to dungeon exploration changes with every dungeon, affectively creating as many different puzzles as there are dungeons. These are all claims that I found too awesome to be true while reading about the game, but it turns out that they are, in fact, true. Those were just a few reasons why the game was all the more difficult to pause. Unfortunately, in the end, the amount of fun the game was to me was not enough to keep me going for more than 20 hours at a time. Ultimately, I put this game down.
But then I picked it up again! I think I just missed playing it. The thing about Tales of Symphonia is that the story makes you want to play the game. It's like reading a good book - you may not love reading in general, but what the hell, are you just going to put down the damn book without fucking finishing it? You're already 20 damn hours into it you scumbag! Just finish it and learn what happens. The game is fun to play and the ever-growing story counteracts the sometimes repetitive gameplay. Maybe you find yourself pressing the same buttons over and over, but the reason WHY you're pressing those buttons changes, and so does too your feelings towards the repetition. Considering the game has 80 hours to god damn do it, the character development IS really flawless. You got some dudes betraying you, some people dying, some friends destined to become enemies, some unlikely alliances, all while optional cut scenes take the development one step further by providing you with windows into the personal lives of each of your team members. Is the viewing of these scenes essential for the understand of the story? Not at all, but they are a good example of the steps game designers can take in order to ensure that those who may put this game down pick it up again. As you guys know, this isn't a review, so I can't talk about gameplay that much, but I will say that the fighting is fun as hell, as it takes place in real-time akin to Viewtiful Joe or even Super Smash Bros., and navigating the open hub world is very fun and rewarding. When a developers give you a big map, they want you to get lost. They want you to appreciate what they have created, and I do. I so do, Namco. So what do I think of it now? I love it. In the end, Tales of Symphonia offers an exceptional gaming experience. Nothing is too challenging, nothing is too annoying. Everything is perfect as far as I am concerned. The idea of playing an 80 hour game is daunting to me, as, like I've said, I've never played an RPG before (I know this isn't even the longest RPG out there, dickhead, so don't yell at me), but I anticipate feeling really good when I beat it. It will be rewarding and I look forward to it. I do feel like I will wind up putting it down in increments of 20 or so hours, but that's fine by me. If spending 80 hours on this game is inevitable, then I might as well enjoy every last second of it. Seashells. Forever.
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