OL wrote: GOD DAMMIT.
Now Drakengard 3 is just pissing me off. Been playing all day so I can beat it, but now that I'm just about to hit the final stretch... it tells me I have to acquire every single weapon in the game before I can proceed.
Fucking hell.
This is the single cheapest possible way to lengthen a game's runtime, and they just have to use it in a game as technically-unsound and brain-punchingly repetitive as this. In some games, it might not seem like that big a deal. In this one, there are tons of weapons, and many of them are hidden in secret chests throughout levels. Which means that in order to see the actual ending, I not only have to earn the money to buy everything in the shop, but I also have to suffer through the exact same repetitive crap all over again.
Don't get me wrong, there are things about the game that I love; the story is great, the music is excellent, the characters are memorable (though their sexual schtick got old quick), and it's got that overall endearing Cavia style to it. But there was a certain point where the gameplay just stopped being fun, and the only reason I kept going was for the story. Now the game is throwing up a roadblock and saying "Hey player, FUCK YOU, I'm gonna force you to repeat the exact same shite you've been doing since the beginning of the game even more before I show you anything new."
And it's not even just that it's repetitive; I love games like Ken's Rage, for example, so repetition is usually no big deal to me. But when it's as glitchy and choppy as this, there just isn't anything to be gained from it aside from frustration.
I don't think I've been so torn on a game in a long, long time. I want to love it for the creative aspects, but the gameplay and technical stuff is just rubbish. And now it's making me jump through hoops to see the ending.
Gaaaaaah.
That's exactly the same bullshit Cavia pulled with Drakengard 1. Want to see the final ending? Then you have to collect all of the weapons in the game. I'm honestly surprised they brought this one aspect back to the game. I get the feeling that they feel they're almost punishing people who 100% games. It's almost like a troll, honestly. I remember getting the previous endings of Drakengard 1 through arbitrary means (there was different paths after each ending like the case seems to be with D3) but then the last ending/boss battle is locked behind a "collect weapons that could be anywhere on the map, so you have to basically play through the entire game again" is complete nonsense; I was like "fuck that" and watched the boss battle/ending on YouTube and I suggest you do the same for D3, since fans are saying the last ending is a complete troll/waste of time.
Anywho, speaking of D3, I've been playing it too, the only problem is the sound kept cutting out on the voice acting and since I started it in English VA, I basically had to restart the whole game again (just after beating Five and doing side quests) this time trying it with Japanese VA and the difference between the two is pretty big in tone. The English VA basically dub the characters (at least up until that point in the story) so hammy and over the top, whereas the Japanese VA seemed to get different direction with the characters and are played distinctively differently, I think (Zero sounds a lot less mad and shouting far less). It's a shame really since Nier features some of the best English VA this generation.
Did you opt for English VA, Orange, in the end up?
I do like the game so far, but like Orange the game is a bit of a mess really - seems incredibly rushed and on a super low budget. And rushing a game developed by Access Games is a recipe for disaster. Glitches, slowdown, sound cutting out intermittently (literally all the English voices just missing aside from Michael's, weirdly), texture popping, enemy AI all over the place. The game is just obviously unfinished and poorly programmed. If Square provided Taro with a better developer and more time and money, I think the game could have been a whole lot better than what it is, so it's a shame. I like how different the game feels to his previous works though, completely different tone to both Drakengard 1 and Nier, which both felt different from each other also.
Also been playing through the Fatal Frame series again, beaten 1 and 2, now on to 3. Classics.
