So school me on Vagrant Story.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Rogue-likes like Shiren. You died? Too bad, you're starting from zero.

That said, it doesn't have you repeating the beginning.

[KaioShin]

That's not at all what I'm saying, you are quoting me out of context, see even half of the first sentence is missing!

The COMBINATION of both in BoFV is bad game design, that you get punished NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. There is no right way to play it (= not dying like in Dark Souls).

[Talbain]

That's not at all what I'm saying, you are quoting me out of context, see even half of the first sentence is missing!

The COMBINATION of both in BoFV is bad game design, that you get punished NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. There is no right way to play it (= not dying like in Dark Souls).

There's also no right way to play Dark Souls.  Or Demon's Souls.  Or most rogue-likes.  There's just the way you choose to play it, and the consequences that result from those choices.  Games should be about hard choices, not easy ones.  I'd certainly think anyone who participates in sports would agree.

Put a tl;dr way, clear-cut choices are boring.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

That's not at all what I'm saying, you are quoting me out of context, see even half of the first sentence is missing!

The COMBINATION of both in BoFV is bad game design, that you get punished NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. There is no right way to play it (= not dying like in Dark Souls).

Basically, in BoF5, even if you play the game "correctly", you are still punished in terms of lack of story development, therefore beating the game in one go has you missing out on content. On the flip side, you die a lot, and now you have replay massive sections of story that you have already gone through. So no matter how well you play the game, there is no real reward.

Dark Souls (and Shiren),  you aren't punished for playing the game correctly, and thus are rewarded to more story segments than if you're constantly dying, since dying means punishment without any rewards.

Death means more in Dark Souls and Shiren than in BoF5... I'm pretty sure this is what you meant right (I mean, I practically paraphrased you...).

[DankPanties]

I have to agree with Kaio about BOFV's apparent design.  Play "right" and miss the story, or play "wrong" and repeat parts over and over again.  That doesn't sound like good game design to me.  If your choices are walk over broken glass or walk over burning coals, freedom of choice is kind of moot.  There must be something else mighty special about BOFV that's not obvious, or some of you may have a masochistic streak.

[KaioShin]

tl'dr coming from you is funny since you seem to have trouble with understanding what's said versus making up things that weren't said. More like "didn't read at all, here is some shit I just made up:".

Edit due to heavy ninja posting: Above sentence is @ Talbain.
@Garoth: You understood me mostly correctly. That dying means more in DS isn't my main point either though (it does however), my main point is simply BoFV is badly designed and Dark Souls is hardly the same unlike Trollbain said.

[DankPanties]

This is the kind of comment I have read about BOFV that worries me:

"But to start an RPG from the beginning just to save your experience is overly tedious. And starting from a save points at a loss of your stats is equally lame. "

"This game is nothing like its predecessors. It's monotonous, and guarantees that you will have to restart the game. If you die, you are given the option to restart the game, which you must to in order to keep getting strong enough to tackle the next obstacle. This is fine, however you are limited on how many times you can save! Your saves are as limited as the amount of save coins. The battle system is interesting. You move your characters around like a SRPG, but it doesn't have much function. You will find yourself running over a lot of traps and just dying.I had no desire to continue this game after getting the game over screen 5 separate times. This game is an insult to the Breath of Fire series. It feels incomplete. Worst RPG game I've played."

From Metacritic.

Save coins?  Really?  What is this, Resident Evil?

[Talbain]

If missing out on story is considered a punishment, then the same is definitely true of Dark Souls and Demon's Souls.  No matter how you play them, it's impossible to get the full story of the game in one go.  I don't really consider playing the game multiple times a punishment if it illuminates more of the world.  Difference of opinion I guess, but it happens in more games than I think people recognize (happened in Chrono Trigger too).
May 10, 2012, 09:16:24 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

This is the kind of comment I have read about BOFV that worries me:

"But to start an RPG from the beginning just to save your experience is overly tedious. And starting from a save points at a loss of your stats is equally lame. "

"This game is nothing like its predecessors. It's monotonous, and guarantees that you will have to restart the game. If you die, you are given the option to restart the game, which you must to in order to keep getting strong enough to tackle the next obstacle. This is fine, however you are limited on how many times you can save! Your saves are as limited as the amount of save coins. The battle system is interesting. You move your characters around like a SRPG, but it doesn't have much function. You will find yourself running over a lot of traps and just dying.I had no desire to continue this game after getting the game over screen 5 separate times. This game is an insult to the Breath of Fire series. It feels incomplete. Worst RPG game I've played."

From Metacritic.

Save coins?  Really?  What is this, Resident Evil?

Using Metacritic as a metric of quality is like asking a 6-year old for their insights into metaphysics.

Seriously, ignore Kaio.  Ignore me even.  Just play it.  A great game is going to be difficult to understand from written descriptions, no matter how apt.

[DankPanties]

Using Metacritic as a metric of quality is like asking a 6-year old for their insights into metaphysics.

A huge variety of gamers go there and put down their opinions on games.  You're just being dismissive because that's the easy way out.  That's like saying there's never any intelligent replies on Youtube, just because many of the replies are not.  It's about reading and being selective.  The quote I chose was one which seemed reasonably informed.

ANYWAY

Dragon Quarter is certainly a divisive affair.  I will refrain from judging it any further until I actually get around to playing it someday.  There may be a spark to it I don't see outright, and who knows I could enjoy it and feel very silly.

In the meantime, this thread is about Vagrant Story I think.

[LostTemplar]

I don't get it. I played through BOFV on my first try with no guide and I didn't have any problems, without grinding. And you can do that, it's just different in execution from other games (you have to exploit the rollback system or whatever it was called, otherwise the enemies don't respawn). You can then still replay (a bit like New Game+, but you don't keep everything) it to see the missing scenes. The game's pretty short so it's not that bad. I myself thought I was rewarded plenty, because it actually felt like I had accomplished something, namely beating a difficult game. But it wasn't unfair, I didn't have to replay large portions of the game or anything, at least not in a worse manner than in your typical JRPG.

EDIT: About that quote from Metacritic. That guy definitely had no idea what he was doing.

[KaioShin]

He wasn't even using it as a metric of quality, he was using it as a source of information about game elements that are factually in the game. That's a typical Talbain post, missing the point and ranting about something completely unrelated to avoid responding to the actual criticism. Though at this point I'm not even sure if that's intentional or just major reading comprehension problems.

[Nightcrawler]

I think we spend a lot of time in our lives being disappointed by media (books, movies, games). The subjective nature of the beast makes it impossible to truly know whether or not you will like something until you experience it. Since we are finite beings, we do not have the time to experience everything. The best we can hope to do is collect informative statements and attempt to predict how they will translate into our enjoyment to determine potential worth of time. The translation process is difficult to get right and we probably end up predicting wrong more than we predict right.

[Talbain]

A huge variety of gamers go there and put down their opinions on games.  You're just being dismissive because that's the easy way out.  That's like saying there's never any intelligent replies on Youtube, just because many of the replies are not.  It's about reading and being selective.  The quote I chose was one which seemed reasonably informed.

The quotes you have use "lame" and "Worst RPG game", and not in a joking manner.  It's like they're written by twelve-year olds (or more likely, written by high schoolers who are having their first experience with how to write the five paragraph essay).  Also, most "gamers" (particularly those who ascribe such a title to themselves) are idiots.  I don't mind reading bad writing every now and then, but I do it for a laugh, without intention of taking it seriously. 

Do you honestly consider the quotes you used "reasonably informed?"

[Garoth Moulinoski]

If missing out on story is considered a punishment, then the same is definitely true of Dark Souls and Demon's Souls.  No matter how you play them, it's impossible to get the full story of the game in one go.  I don't really consider playing the game multiple times a punishment if it illuminates more of the world.  Difference of opinion I guess, but it happens in more games than I think people recognize (happened in Chrono Trigger too).

Chrono Trigger does not force you to *lose* in order to unlock more story segments. It doesn't even require you to beat the game (for the most part, anyway). All it requires you to do is to be strong enough to defeat the final boss at different stages of the game. Granted, there is an ending you can get for losing once you find out the main villain of the game, but you can get it at any time without compromising your current progress. There is no true punishment for losing and no real reward for losing.

[LostTemplar]

The quotes you have use "lame" and "Worst RPG game", and not in a joking manner.  It's like they're written by twelve-year olds (or more likely, written by high schoolers who are having their first experience with how to write the five paragraph essay).  Also, most "gamers" (particularly those who ascribe such a title to themselves) are idiots.  I don't mind reading bad writing every now and then, but I do it for a laugh, without intention of taking it seriously. 

Do you honestly consider the quotes you used "reasonably informed?"

It's the internet, not an academical paper. Do you never use any of those words or phrases? While I still think the author of that comment clearly had no idea what he was doing in BOFV, he has valid points. Save Tokens definitely are limited, and if you're - whatever the reason - too weak, you have to exploit the rollback feature to build up your levels.

Chrono Trigger does not force you to *lose* in order to unlock more story segments.

BOFV doesn't do that either. You can just play it multiple times, without having to lose once.

[DankPanties]

Do you honestly consider the quotes you used "reasonably informed?"

Yes Talbain, I do.  I do because I pointed to factual evidence they spoke of, when I spoke of the "save coins".  If you'll look back you'll see that's the only part of the quote I was concerned with.  I didn't edit the entire quote down to the base element because it would look out of context if I did that.  Let's highlight some bits here:

start an RPG from the beginning just to save your experience

starting from a save points at a loss of your stats

Your saves are as limited as the amount of save coins

You will find yourself running over a lot of traps and just dying

All factual things which are not opinions merely.

If you want people to have reasonable discourse with you, you need to stop cherry picking unrelated aspects of their responses and inflating them as the primary points of contention.  Also refrain from using ad hominem based attacks to discredit a source you know nothing of personally.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

The quotes you have use "lame" and "Worst RPG game", and not in a joking manner.  It's like they're written by twelve-year olds (or more likely, written by high schoolers who are having their first experience with how to write the five paragraph essay).  Also, most "gamers" (particularly those who ascribe such a title to themselves) are idiots.  I don't mind reading bad writing every now and then, but I do it for a laugh, without intention of taking it seriously. 

Do you honestly consider the quotes you used "reasonably informed?"

First off, jeez this thread is moving fast.

Second, a lot of people who play games will not be English professors or even old enough to marry or think of such things. :/

Third... You can still learn from someone who is illiterate.

[Talbain]

Since I'm just a demon, maybe let's take someone else's opinion as to why what I'm talking about is a problem.

http://extra-credits.net/episodes/game-reviews/

[KaioShin]

Still off-topic and missing the point

[DankPanties]

Third... You can still learn from someone who is illiterate.