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Post by Ex on Nov 23, 2021 2:20:49 GMT -5
We've got threads for talking about games you are playing, and another thread to talk about games you have beaten. This is the thread to talk about games you are dumping. As in a game you've put a decent amount of time into, but no longer care to play any further. So this thread can act as closure towards ridding yourself of a game that's no longer worth your time. Talk about the game and why you are dumping it, and move on to greener pastures. - I'll start this thread off with... Been playing this one for two weeks or so. Yeah, I can't stomach any more Super Paper Mario. I've got about 12 hours invested (haven't been using a walkthrough) and just finished the 5th chapter. I'm about 3/5ths of the way through the game now, something like that. But no, we're cutting this crud off here and now. I'm at the point of diminishing returns (have been for hours). I've been having to force myself to play this one... nah, I've got far too many games to be doing that to myself. A protip from Captain Obvious: "When you have to force yourself to play a game it's no longer worth your time." That doesn't mean forcing yourself through 15 minutes of a bad part, more like forcing yourself through more than one whole gaming session without reprieve. I knew my time with SPM was drawing to a close when I hadn't bothered to boot the game up in the past five days. Tonight's session reminded me why. Anyway: +The 3D->2D flip mechanic is innovative. +The OST is pleasantly eclectic. +The localization is zealous to say the least. +The meta humor can be legitimately funny. +"Sweet by cynical" tone is unusual. -Lackluster gameplay full of boring puzzles and banal platforming. -Considerably weak graphic design. -I don't care about this plot or these characters at all. -Dialogue often drones on and one well passed the point of being relevant. -Fighting the same bosses over and over.
-Having to constantly switch to 3D inspection for every new room becomes tedious fast. -Periodically inconveniences the player in blatantly trollish ways. Super Paper Mario feels like a good game that was rushed out the door too soon. It's half-baked and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. I still give Super Paper Mario props on its "swap from 3D to 2D and back to 3D" gimmick, which I don't think I've seen in any other game. Unfortunately, this gimmick is underutilized, and the rest of the package varies between "mildly amusing" to "vapidly annoying". The latter being more often the case. I just clicked through a Let's Play of this to see what was ahead of me... nothing much at all. I'll give SPM a 6/10 and that's being generous for its unusual gimmick. That said, games like SPM prove not every first party Nintendo game is gold, even if it stars Mario.
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Post by toei on Nov 23, 2021 12:20:45 GMT -5
Recurring bosses is something I hate, myself, unless there's a good reason for it. Maybe not if some guy shows up twice, but if it's the 3rd or 4th time, I start wishing the hero would just kill the guy or lock him in a cage or something.
Recently, I dumped two games. Resident Evil - Survivor and ...iru! Both horror games, both mediocre or even subpar, and I was pretty advanced in both. That can leave a bad taste in my mouth, and often I get the itch to go back, unless I've decided I really don't care for the game at all. That's why I went back to Parasite Eve 2 years all these years later, and I'm glad I did. I don't care about ...iru! though, it's a badly made game that forces you to check out every possible room after every bit of progression to reach the next bit. Survivor is nothing special, obviously, but I didn't hate it. I'd say it's easier for me to move on now because I no longer feel like I have all the time in the world, but I'm careful not to do it too quickly. There are too many games I'd rather play.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 23, 2021 14:17:25 GMT -5
You know, it's weird, I rarely remember when I actively dump games, unless it's really early on. I mostly just lose steam and forget about them instead. One I did dump (and maybe I could make more progress these days) due to a massive difficulty spike was this bad boy.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 23, 2021 17:00:23 GMT -5
Sarge : Could be nostalgia talking, but that game had one of the hardest final boss fights of my life. I stayed over at a friends and we got to the end, I told my friend I wasn't leaving until I beat it. I think it got so late he passed out, but I was determined to never give up and finally got it.
I keep track of stuff I invest more than an hour or two in and drop. I don't always consider these to be written off forever, maybe the mood wasn't right, but yeah. It's only a few games a year. 1. Suikoden Tactics - This game was just... so blah. So insanely "budget" in every way, you can immediately tell that Konami did not care about this IP at all anymore. I thought it would be more like standard Tactics Ogre / FFT fair and that would be ideal, but it had some weird systems with the magic usage and stuff. I love some of the Suikoden games but I could tell I wasn't missing much by quitting this.
2. The Outer Worlds 3. Tales of Berseria - These two are modern so I'm just going to simply say they were really boring. We have some mega fans of Fallout New Vegas here including myself. Let me just say, I assume most of the key staff behind that one at Obsidian, are no longer at Obsidian in Outer World's case. The writing was terrible.
4. Valkyrie Profile - We had some Club Retro theme while I played this. Got over 10 hours in, but I got beyond frustrated by the unbalanced difficulty. This is more than likely because I played on hard for a first run. Online, a lot of people out there will tell everyone else to play hard. I'm going to now assume that 90% of those people arguing such, are veterans of the game and know what they're doing. The presentation is excellent but in retrospect, the story was nonexistent up through what I played. There was enough there in that maybe I'll attempt to play it again someday, but I don't know.
5. Suikoden IV - This entry has the weakest reputation among the Suikoden games and for good measure. It at least seemed better than Tactics surprisingly, but this was a hardcore 5/10 at best. My PS2 had some issue loading a certain transition no matter what I tried. It felt like the world was just giving me a sign to save myself the 20 or more hours I probably had to go. A shorter PS2 JRPG... but so incredibly average.
6. Arc the Lad Twilight of the Spirits - This one seemed decent enough. Better than the low tier Suikoden's I tried this year. But it didn't blow me away or hook me in either.
Funny that it's all RPG's in my big RPG 2021. That's even more reason why I felt no remorse dropping a lot of these to in turn, play Phantasy Star IV, Front Mission 4, Dragon Quest 6 & 8, and Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne. Ummm, I don't even want to speak of those RPG's I mentioned above in the same sentence as these gems.
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Post by Ex on Nov 23, 2021 17:07:51 GMT -5
Interesting reads gentlemen.
I'd been considering making this thread for a while. Fairly often in recent years I'll invest a few (or more than a few) hours into a game, only to realize my return on the investment is dwindling, and I'm falling victim to sunk cost fallacy. So at least this thread provides an out with some tangible merit by way of a cathartic write off.
I'll likely add some recent dumps to this thread while they're still on my mind. But I'm short on time right now.
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Post by toei on Nov 23, 2021 17:20:31 GMT -5
I've heard that PS2 Shinobi's boss is indeed one of the hardest ever made. It's funny cause I love 2D Shinobi and hate 2D Ninja Gaiden, but I suspect I'll like 3D Ninja Gaiden a lot more than 3D Shinobi.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 23, 2021 17:26:57 GMT -5
I suspect you will as well. While Ninja Gaiden is indeed tough as nails, it's also fantastic. Very much cut from the same cloth as Devil May Cry - better in some ways, even.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 23, 2021 18:50:55 GMT -5
I'd been considering making this thread for a while. Fairly often in recent years I'll invest a few (or more than a few) hours into a game, only to realize my return on the investment is dwindling, and I'm falling victim to sunk cost fallacy. So at least this thread provides an out with some tangible merit by way of a cathartic write off. Perhaps unconsciously in ways, I think this is why I started to write down games I played/dropped without finishing. It is kind of like an official declaration of moving on, without walking away leaving it like unfinished business. Especially when I get a dozen hours into an RPG like I did this year with Valkyrie Profile, falling off that is one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming. But I find some peace on making it official on paper.
Here's some others I can maybe elaborate on more later:
2020: 1. Crisis Core
2019: Adventures of Lolo 2 (this is actually awesome, I just remember playing it directly after beating Lolo 1 which is taxing. Bad idea heh) DreadOut Super Cyborg Sonic Colors Wario Land Shake it Turok 2 Radiant Silvergun Haunting Ground Get Even
2018: 1. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (SNES) 2. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (PS4) 3. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (PC) 4. The Metal Warriors (SNES) 5. Nightshade (PS2) - since we're talking about Shinobi PS2 and this is a spiritual successor, the only reason why I fell off this one was because you can't invert the Y-Axis!!! I haven't played Shinobi PS2 in 20 some years but I guess it has that issue and I somehow adapted back then. However, I just realized if that is the case I could emulate them and remap the joystick. 6. Urban Reign (PS2)
2017: 1. Sly 3 HD 2. Horizon Zero Dawn 3. Turok HD 4. Mighty No 9 5. Homefront
2016: 1. Fear Effect 2 (PSX) 2. Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z (PS3)
2015: 1. Final Fantasy X2 2. Kingdom Hearts 3. Fatal Frame 3
2014: 1. Kirby's Amazing Mirror (GBA) 2. Lightning Returns (PS3) (hah, 2021 was running it back) 3. Lost Planet 3 (PS3)
2013: 1. Genji Dawn of the Samurai (PS2) 2. Onimusha Dawn of Dreams
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toei : Honestly it's kind of hard to even compare Shinobi PS2 to the character action mold. It's such a strange and unique game. It has this mechanic where you chain enemies and attacks, as the combo gets higher the more damage you do, to eventually be able to one shot stuff... which actually kind of becomes necessary throughout the game from what I recall. It's uniquely level based without any central hub and there's instant death pits, especially in the end. Oh boy, one of those last few levels. If you don't know how to master wall running + chaining enemies in the air, you can't continue. In a strange way I would say that Shinobi PS2 is still like a 2D action game in the 3D perspective, but it's been too long for me to try and further elaborate.
It was cool to finally play the NES Ninja Gaiden games a few years ago but yeah, it's the Xbox 3D entry that's legendary to me. It's crazy. The biggest most interesting difference between it and the DMC series to me, is that you can actually block in Ninja Gaiden. You can only do that with a rare move/ability or so in the DMC's with Dante generally, so those games are more about just straight up dodging stuff for your defense. I think Ninja Gaiden leans more into countering too and some grapple-like maneuvers. They both perfected the "character action" mold but yeah, they're pretty different when you really dig into them. I still don't know if I have a definite favorite.
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Post by toei on Nov 23, 2021 21:05:15 GMT -5
I've played a bit of PS2 Shinobi before. The only game I'd compare it to is Code of the Samurai, also on the PS2, in that they're really hard 3D action games that revolve entirely around an unorthodox, gimmick-driven battle system. Code of the Samurai's was very timing specific, QTE-ish combos (I don't remember the exact details), and a lot of the difficulty came from the fact that the only English release was the slowed-down PAL release, which completely messed up the timing. Ironically, slowing it down made the moves harder to execute because I'd always press the buttons too fast (I tried the Japanese version and it worked so much better...) Shinobi is chaining hits together, which is almost a puzzle. And those levels are all 10-15 minutes long and you can't save. I don't know that I see how it's like a 2D action game, though.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 23, 2021 22:34:44 GMT -5
Well, that, and like Xeogred mentioned, Nightshade. I believe they're using the same engine for both, but Nightshade is a much easier game from all I'm told.
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