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Post by chibby on Feb 26, 2018 14:30:08 GMT -5
So, I beat Majora's Mask.
Or did I? What does it mean to beat a game?
As the title sort of implies, I wanted to start a discussion about the use of guides/walkthroughs/cheatcodes etc.
So, I'm playing Majora's Mask and I find the first Golden Spider House in the Deku Swamp. Naturally, I think, "dope a distraction from my usual quest, lets do this." But, after spending maybe up to an hour in there, it became clear that I wouldn't be able to finish this particular side quest without the hookshot (I think technically if you do it just right it can be completed with just magic beans, but it's clearly designed to use the hookshot). Similarly, I almost immediately stumbled upon and tried to finish the Kafei/Anju side quest. Those of you who remember LoZ:MM particularly well know that this can't be 100% finished until way late into the game.
At this point, I'm frustrated because I don't get a lot of time to play retro games, so I very much don't like to waste any time. I'm also 14 out of 15 faeries in the Woodfall Temple, and I snapped. I wasn't going to time warp and look for them all again, and if that meant consulting a guide, then so be it. Furthermore, if I'm going to "beat" this game, I want to get all the Masks. I want that sense of total completion. I don't want to feel like I have to come back to the game because I didn't do everything yet, but that I will only if I want to.
Moving forward, I pretty much employed a guide throughout. The way this guide was set up, it had independent sections for main story and side content, so pretty much whenever I'd beat something major, I'd find out what side quests to tackle/what faeries I'd missed and I wouldn't really read it word for word so much as skim for directions. Also, don't pretend like you never wanted to auto pilot a Water Temple (which is where I stopped playing last time I took a stab at the title).
So last night, I finished the game, and creamed the boss with the Fierce Deity Mask. Then I re-fought the boss without it, just so that I could feel like I was legit. I didn't use the great fairy sword either because I wouldn't have had all those faeries without a guide. I probably wouldn't have had as much health, but I never once dropped below about 5 or 6 hearts (and had all the back up fairy bottles one could need), and I suppose I also wouldn't have had as much magic, but I drank the milk that makes you have unlimited magic so I felt better then.
The question, though, remains: what constitutes "beating" a game? Is it just seeing the "The End" screen/credits? I realize that Majora's Mask isn't a particularly difficult game, Tatl will explain, more or less, how to solve whatever puzzle you're stuck on, and the combat isn't particularly tough. Honestly, the hardest part for me was Goron Sequence necessary to get the final mask (until I realized that all I had to do was stop holding down the joystick after the spikes emerge and you'll move in a perfect line). But if I'm not solving all of the puzzles/finding all of the finds myself, what is the value of taking the trouble to find/do them? Do I play games to personally triumph over them or just to experience them happening in my own home?
In a way, I feel more complete about games that I employ guides with. The rationale is that if I had the kind of time I did when I was a kid, I'd figure out everything eventually, I'd find all the ultimate weapons (looking at you every JRPG I've ever played) and so on. But how can I know for sure now that I've used the guide? Feeling like I've only recreated someone else's playthrough also gives the whole experience a hollow feeling. All the same, when I played Tales of Symphonia (for example) I wanted a Lloyd/Sheena romance and I wasn't going to test it out trail and error style over 50 or so hours of gameplay multiple times until I got it right.
Thoughts? I know I've seen people talking about the use of save states and whether or not that constitutes cheating. I realize this conversation also changes based on what genre we're talking about (I feel like no matter what guide I read, when I finally beat Castlevania Bloodlines, I will have triumphed, period, the end.)
Do you ever use a guides or walkthroughs and if so when/why? What does beating a game really mean?
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Post by Ex on Feb 26, 2018 15:22:21 GMT -5
Do you ever use a guides or walkthroughs and if so when/why? It is very rare for me to use a walkthrough or strategy guide. I think of those as artificial aids, and a form of cheating if used consistently. If someone is playing through a game (adventure or RPG for example) via closely following a strategy guide, at that point the strategy guide is practically playing the game, not the player. I'd hardly think I defeated a difficult boss myself, if I was following the strategies to do so laid out from someone else's walkthrough. That said, there are times I do find myself referencing a walkthrough once in a while. When solving an illogically obtuse puzzle in an adventure game, or figuring out where I'm supposed to go to advance the plot in an unintuitive JRPG, for instance. But in those rare instances, I'd only be seeking the answer to a singular question, not dogmatically following someone else's pre-planned road to success for the whole playthrough. I do often consult a walkthrough's table of contents, only to gauge my progress in a given game. (Many walkthroughs will list areas or levels of a game in a linear fashion via the table of contents.) Checking your current progress against said table of contents reveals the approximate completion percentage. What does beating a game really mean? For me it simply means reaching the ending credit scroll via one's own volition. I don't concern myself with doing 100% completions of games (like finishing every optional mission, finding every hidden collectable, getting every achievement/trophy, or leveling every stat to 999, etc.), as I just don't have time (or the personal impetus) for busy work like that. I do see a difference between "beating" and "mastering" games. Like if you finish a game on normal difficulty, but it costs you some lives, that's beating it. But if you finish the same game on the hardest difficulty, and never lose a life, that's mastering it. I tend to be happy just beating games on "normal" difficulty. I do not like playing on "easy" because it hurts my pride to do so (and is often boring due to little challenge), and "hard" is typically "player has less life, does less damage / enemies have more life / do more damage" which is boring also. I'm fine playing the finely tuned "normal" difficulty as the developers intended the core experience to be. |
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Post by chibby on Feb 26, 2018 16:18:16 GMT -5
I tend to be happy just beating games on "normal" difficulty. I do not like playing on "easy" because it hurts my pride to do so (and is often boring due to little challenge), and "hard" is typically "player has less life, does less damage / enemies have more life / do more damage" which is boring also. I'm fine playing the finely tuned "normal" difficulty as the developers intended the core experience to be. Same. Newer games I'll usually play on hard (this tends to apply to shooters like the Gears of War/Halo games that I can talk about). Easy is a slap in the face. I suppose I'm using the term guide pretty loosely. When I can find it, my preferred situation with an RPG is something that only warns me when I'm about to miss something that I can't go back and fix/do later, not something that spells out an entire game from beginning to end. If I were to break down when and why I employ a guide it would be as follows. 50% Avoiding Tedious Trial and Error. A perfect example of this would be when I played Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. There's a prison break section where you lose the option to unlock a character if you're caught. In order to avoid being caught you have to place your troops on keenly specific squares to avoid enemy line of sight. In a perfect world, I would draw maps for each enemy movement and figure it out step by step, but as a grown man with a job, a spouse, and a needy dog, I don't feel guilty for using a guide. Along with this category are things that are easy to miss. If I find out that I can't save Sally on Disc 3 because I didn't get a beer with Jim on Disc 1, I am infuriated. Trial and error is one thing, but if there's no feedback that I've made an error until 30 some hours of gameplay later, that to me is too overwhelmingly punishing. Another element of Fire Emblem that comes to mind is the Bond System. Some characters are only set up to have minor bonds whereas others have multiple bond stages. Without consulting a guide, there'd be almost no way to know that you'd bonded two relatively incompatible characters. So whereas I'll look at who pairs with who, I based my team off of the characters I liked, and tried to pair the ones that would pair. 25% Things that I would otherwise have missed. In keeping with Fire Emblem, there are a number of characters that are stupid easy to miss. Stefan comes to mind. You have to move one (or maybe one of two) very specific character(s) to one specific area of one specific map in order to unlock him or you're shit out of luck. 25% Obtuse Puzzles/I got lost. I think this is your only category Ex. 0% Do this, then do that. Barring extreme circumstances, I never read how to beat particular boss and I'm usually engaged enough in my own personal roleplay that I wouldn't be able follow the suggestions of a strategy guide anyway (using the technically strongest/most balanced party members is way less important to me than using the characters I like). And these percentages fluctuate. If the game isn't particularly long, I'm less likely to read any outside materials. The longer the time investment the game takes (and ergo the more tedious I perceive the trial and error element to be), the more I am liable to make sure I'm getting it right because I don't want to go through the whole thing over again. At it's core, what I'm realizing about myself is that I play RPGs for very different reasons than I play platformers/shooters. If I get invested in an RPG it's because I want the experience of the story/world first and I want the gaming challenge second (as a writer, the idea that half of the content you create will never be experienced by most players is maddening). To that end, I don't usually 100% a game (sorry Tales of Symphonia, you have way too many "styles" for that nonesense) but I do want to make sure that I don't cut myself off from additional characters/character side quests just because I didn't do the cha-cha correctly or something nonsensical that you couldn't have otherwise known would have (what I consider to be) massive consequences. Outside of the RPG genre, I pretty much never read a strategy guide/outside materials. Sure there are secrets to be found, for example, in Sonic the Hedgehog, but to me that's like taking a figurine off the mantel, not like cutting a chapter out of a book. Does this make sense? And part of why I posted this in the first place is because I accept the criticism/question for myself if the way I play RPGs means I'm not really "beating" them. Maybe if I actually spent the countless hours it would take replaying some of these 50-100+ hour titles over and over and actually found all of the secrets myself, I would have a divine sense of accomplishment that was unparalleled (I certainly feel a sense of attachment to the games I mastered on my own, I like how you put that Ex). Maybe I don't deserve the additional story content because I didn't put the work in myself to find the needle in the haystack. But ultimately, I don't have that kind of time, and it's a game after all, it's supposed to be fun first and foremost. Missing out on story content makes it less fun for me, but so does spending way too long trying to find it all. So I try my best to find a happy medium. |
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Post by toei on Feb 26, 2018 16:20:44 GMT -5
My basic rules:
-Wait until you're near the end to look at a FAQ, if you think there might be stuff you might have missed. Exception if I'm stuck and out of stuff to try.
-only use savestates to practice really hard parts, or to replace something cumbersome like password systems / leaving the game on to go to work.
These are not principles, and I don't think everyone should adhere by them. Rather, they are rules I've come to for my own enjoyment. I enjoy discovering things too much to spoil it with FAQs; I enjoy improving too much to spoil it with savestates.
oh, and I always play on Normal, because I consider it to be the "real" game.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 26, 2018 21:59:59 GMT -5
Damn chibby, don't let Majora's Fetch Quest City Mask end you like that, haha...
I'll admit, not beating games sometimes bothers me. It makes me feel like I can't be a real authority of opinion on it or in turn take a friends opinion seriously if they haven't finished it either, which can be entirely unfair on my end if they gave it hours of time and whatnot. There's just something about seeing it through to the end for validation to me though. I just alluded to it in another discussion here, but I have played a lot of Dino Crisis 1-2 and Parasite Eve 1-2, but didn't finish any of them... and it bugs me in ways. At the same time I never force myself through a game if I don't want to and I'm never afraid to drop something entirely if I'm not enjoying it. It's those 7/10's that fall somewhere in the middle, that bug me most probably when it comes to not finishing games. Maybe others here kind of get what I might be getting at. In general I'm the same way about shows and other hobbies. I want to see the beginning, middle, and end.
I was a completionist growing up but not so much anymore. I don't want to bother with menial tasks that might be a waste of time and as an adult I have more game options now. I like to knock games out and keep rotating in the next ones. I generally only play 1-2 games at a time which helps keep me focused. Seeing the credits is all I need. I like how Backloggery separates them, "Beaten" is basically that, you saw the credits and got through. Whereas "Complete" is when you shoot for 100%, though I tend to say 90% or give it some replays/etc to qualify.
Missing story/side content isn't a huge deal breaker to me, depending on the context and scale of what's missed. I think missing game mechanic centric stuff is more crucial... FFX-2 being a case from a few years ago when I tried the HD version. It's easy to flat out miss key items and even jobs/classes to use in the battle system, for an entire playthrough. That's outrageous and only fueled my immediate distaste for the game quitting it with no regrets. I'm all for secrets, side content, extras, and replayability in general, but yeah if you're missing key items that can reshape core mechanics of the game or big things like characters, etc, I think that's just flat out bad game design now.
I think FFX or FFXII is the last strategy guide I bought. I liked using them as a reference for hitting that 100%, but yeah I rarely read into them that deeply. I was in the 4th disc of FFIX when I bought the guide just to get all the cards, didn't want it for anything else. I have one friend that uses guides for literally everything he plays no matter what the game or genre and I just don't even know how to react to that. I want to experience and explore the games myself, not follow a grocery list of chores. Nowadays I will reference a FAQ if I'm lost in a game or stuck on some part, etc, singular issues to get over then I'll refrain and if it happens multiple times... that's a bad game. I also sometimes find myself looking up some games that might have points of no return... which can also be frustrating if they aren't blatantly obvious. That's a tricky one as you'll really have to dance around spoilers. I do like looking up a list of chapter names or whatnot, to get a sense of how my progress in a game is going and how much longer I might have.
I'm sure this applies for everyone but when I beat something, then anything goes. I don't mind looking up other endings or all the secrets, using guides another time through, etc. But anything that I replay basically becomes favorite tier material and are games I want to fully explore in most ways.
One strategy I plan to start employing for open world/big RPG's going forward, is focusing much harder on the main story initially. Knock that out earlier and then I can do whatever side content I want while being able to walk away from it all and feel content when the time comes. In the past it's bugged me getting lost in side content for these kinds of games, getting burned out, and then not finishing them. I hate unfinished business! It's probably no surprise that I am no fan of MMO's at all.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Feb 26, 2018 22:31:36 GMT -5
To be perfectly frank, I used to "care" about this sort of thing and now I..... don't. No disrespect to those who do; I get where you're coming from.
I use guides because I don't have the free time to stretch a 20-hour "guided" RPG into a 40-hour "guideless" one.
I use save states, but typically as a substitute for legit saving, or as an extended pause. I try to avoid save-scumming.
For me, gaming is mostly a solitary activity. And a fun one. I don't like to feel beholden to any sort of "standards" - I'd rather just go with the flow.
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Post by Ex on Feb 26, 2018 23:18:05 GMT -5
I use guides because I don't have the free time to stretch a 20-hour "guided" RPG into a 40-hour "guideless" one. I get where you are coming from with limited free time (really I do). And in Bone's case, he plays a lot of obscure retro JRPGs, which go out of their way to be unintuitive to make progress. I totally understand using a walkthrough to make sense of progression pathways there. However part of what I personally like about video gaming is that it represents a challenge. If I'm playing through a game and it offers little resistance (as in playing on Easy, or using a strategy guide the whole way through) I simply won't have as much fun with said game. I enjoy that feeling of overcoming resistance / climbing the mountain. In that key way assertive games offer a unique aspect which passive mediums do not. Remove the challenge aspect, and it dilutes the medium. This is just how I feel about it mind, I'm not trying to snub anyone who thinks differently. People certainly can enjoy aspects of a video game that have nothing to do with the inherent challenge level of a video game itself. I get the "content tourism" thing. That's the word I was trying to remember. Save-scumming is certainly cheating. |
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Post by chibby on Feb 26, 2018 23:35:39 GMT -5
That's a tricky one as you'll really have to dance around spoilers. The spoiler dance is perhaps the most frustrating part of using any sort of guide. I HATE spoilers. With any other medium, the moment something is spoiled (and I mean even slightly) I'm out completely (sorry Game of Thrones, but never again). This is less true with video games, but I still try to avoid them at all costs. If I decide to break down and use a guide while I'm playing a game, it's almost always reading backwards over the content I've finished to see if I missed something and almost never reading ahead. If I'm only convincing myself to use the guide to make sure I can find more story content, there's not much point in spoiling that exact content. |
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Post by Ex on Feb 27, 2018 2:17:44 GMT -5
The spoiler dance is perhaps the most frustrating part of using any sort of guide. I HATE spoilers. That's part of why I've never played through an RPG while closely following a strategy guide / walkthrough. Doing so means you always know what's coming next. Even "spoiler free" walkthroughs will still tell you what areas or bosses you're about to be in. I just don't think it's worth having the surprises spoiled just so you don't miss some hidden weapon or optional sidequest, personally. Maybe if the RPG is SUPER AMAZING then yeah, play through it again sometime with a walkthrough so you don't miss anything. If the RPG isn't good enough to do that, then it's probably not good enough to worry about missing stuff in the first place. |
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Feb 27, 2018 11:37:53 GMT -5
It's worth acknowledging how much strategy guides have changed over time.
One of my oldest guides is the Dragon Warrior one that came with Nintendo Power. It contains dungeon maps, which are literal screenshots so the chest and staircase locations are shown. But there's no indication as to what's in each chest or where each staircase leads (no "A connects to A" etc.).
I was never able to beat The Legend of Zelda until I acquired the NES Game Atlas way back when. This is literally just maps with labels. The locations of hidden dungeons and shops are indicated by "coordinates" but you're not told specifically where to search.
A Link to the Past is another guide I obtained in my youth. It's pretty fleshed-out and specific, but optional stuff like Pieces of Heart is given a dedicated appendix. The player is never told "Now you have X weapon, so head back to Y to get a Piece of Heart..." and so on.
I like these older print guides the best.
The internet, GameFAQs specifically, seemed to popularize the idea of "walkthroughs" where the minutia is painstakingly laid out for the reader/player. "Do exactly this, now do exactly that." It's too much. This philosophy eventually spilled over into print guides as well. A "recent" BradyGames guide I obtained is the one for Ys VI. Anyone who has played this can probably recall an underground watery cave that consists of a huge series of tiny interconnected rooms. Not only is a map provided, but there are also instructions that literally read like "Go in the western door, now go in the northern door, open the chest for a herb, now go in the eastern door." Yikes.
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