Video Game General v8.01D : PC Gaming Golden Age, Big Box (Part 1)

So After I finally did all the post game stuff in Trials of Mana like unlocking Class 4, Best Gear, a bunch of chain abilities (universal skills any character can equip and it effects the entire party), maxing out characters and unlocking new game plus I kinda don’t wanna play through it again. Or at least not for a while.

I just tried to start a new game plus with Kevin as my main protagonist and remembering all these issues I have with the story, world and pacing I decided not to go forward with the play through.

I feel like the concept of the game (playing through all 6 heroes to get the full scope of the story and world) was such a revolutionary concept at the time but now-a-days with how the game paces itself with the perspectives it feels like a horrible disjointed mess to the point of unplayable at times.

Despite not even putting in 45 hours into the game I had to take several breaks due to how frustrated I was to the disjointedness and aimlessness of the story and pacing.

I’ll meet people at random or events will happen with absolutely no context or reason why they’re happening and you just kinda have to accept it. There is no real lore behind Mana being in the world, why it’s in the world or why it’s important except Faerie constantly yelling at you about it being important. Also the plot twists towards the end were eye rolling due to not being explained, foreshadowed or even elaborated on why they happened.

The world also doesn’t even feel like a world until you get your first form of fast travel, the giant Kappa. Even then your exploration doesn’t really get better until you get your last traveling mount.

I know all this would likely change as I played more play throughs but I’m so frustrated and but also disinterested in the story that I don’t care to find out.

Lastly, I feel the characters are very wooden. I think this is due to how lazy Squee was with facial animations and how bad the biggest majority of the voice cast seemed to have little to no direction on how these characters should act. However, the few times they did show personality and the VA’s did show range in their acting it was really great. I absolutely love whoever voiced Charlotte.

All that said: here’s what I did like and the in-betweens

I really, really, really like the combat system. It flows perfectly when going in and out of it. Hitting feels good due to dynamic camera when you activate a class art as well as the Switch’s HD Rumble. Magic feels important due to casting time and you being vulnerable while doing so. The combat was easily my favorite part of the game. I played as Duran as my main protagonist but I consistently found myself switching to Hawkeye and Reisz due to them being just as fun to play.

I found the Item Pot mechanic very interesting. Getting various upper tier and ultimate equipment through it was a nice way to make getting these items not a total fucking chore via side quests, fetch quest and mini-games.

However, I really do wish there were some sort of side-quests, Fetch quests or something important to do outside of the main story. There are some like finding the right NPC’s to give you chain abilities, and the li’l cacti that you find to unlock perks like free inn stays, discounts at shops, etc and one Uber boss. But that’s about it.

All-in-all I don’t feel like the bad outweigh the good. Cause the game is there. It’s fun. It’s very engaging through the games character building mechanics and battle system mechanics. There is a lot going on, but also not enough to keep me wanting to play the game. Namely the disjointed story, lack of lore and pacing.

I think I feel so disappointed or underwhelmed with the game since I’ve never played the game in its entirety until now but have known since I was a teen that this is such a beloved game. Its consistently in top 5, top 10 lists of SNES RPG and RPG’s in general. So to get what I got while being great I was left wanting so much more despite loving what I got.

Verdict: low 7.

Edit: I’m actually going to start it when I wake up but I decided this will be my next game

I’m going to try to make it a habit of playing a short to medium length non-rpg “cool down” game in-between each rpg (or time heavy game in general) I play so I’m not continually playing time sinks and so I can shrink my backlog quicker.

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Shit I only now learned that Avengers beta ended two days ago. Welp.

That company is prob dead at this point. Mike Z may now be 100% owner of a company thats hemorraging.

505 games haven’t dropped them yet. He can focus on Indivisible with whoever he has left.

The weirdest thing is them not owning either IP.

I vaguely remembered some shit going down with Autumn Games on the original release. Which is why, through the magic of w/e nonsense happened, they lost the skullgirls IP.

Not sure why 505 would own Indivisible. If they do, then all Lab Zero had going for it was the amount of talent under one house. So you arw entirely right that without all that talent, there isnt much reason to hit up the studio.

Not sure what Mike Z does afterwards either. Who is gonna want tohire a guy spending his time bringing up his dick at work?

All of the Mike Z implosion took all of what, 3 months? That one George Floyd joke and then its been a rollercoaster ride.

Sadly,l is very common that in order to get your stuff published you work deals where you lose the rights over your creation.

Is like that in every industry.
At best you can work a co ownership deal, but that happens rarely (specially on western companies) and if you are big enough.

It is even rarer to be able to hold the total rights.

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That’s terrible.

I know its business but its one of those things that are weird to me. Sort of like when musical artists lose the rights to their music because of bad contracts.

Cant abide it.

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Copyright/IP ownership laws need a major overhaul. Not only were they created a long ass time ago, they are also not really up to date with the technological developments and clearly benefit the corporations more than they do individuals/creators

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It’s pretty awesome that nobody owns Phish. They’re one of the richest bands in the world and never made a top-ten record. They did it themselves through selling live music to huge crowds.

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Is like that in every creative medium/industry.
Music, movies, series, video games, comics, etc.

From what i know, the only ones where doesnt happen (often at least) are Manga, Books.
Also, smaller record labels for more niche genres tend to be more friednly with their artists.

Everything else, is more than likely that you wouldnt be holding the ownership from your work, unless you mae it big and renegotiate your contracts.

For example, did you know that not only no one on N Synch has rights on their music, but also, their contracts were so shitty that they ended in debt to their record label?

Shit is fucking wild.

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Yeah TLC went bankrupt because of a shitty contract.

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:rofl:

What the fuck?

Yup, i found out talking with my brother and sister some days ago.
They basically had to pay for everything themselves when on tour, and because of that they had to ask for loans to their record label.

It is why the band died so quickly despite being as popular as the Back Street Boys.
They didnt last more than 2 years iirc.

Meanwhile, the record label for the Back Street Boys was actually very protective of them.
It was a day and night scenario between both bands.

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Boybands are weird. Them mofos dont often write their lyrics or their music. They were basically put together through casting calls. That ish is super weird.

Whats even stranger is that the same guy who put together the Backstreet Boys, with whk they had a falling out over management and contracts, then went on to put together N’Sync to repeat that cycle.

The mid-late 90s pop world was nuts.

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As weird as it sounds, is very common, even today we have moder boy bands that were formed in similar way, like One Direction.

Even in genres that you wouldnt think that would happen.
For example, Bond was formed in similar fashion.
The label wanted to form a strings group with attractive women, so they held auditions.

Summary

https://youtu.be/j3nBuwOPu8A

https://youtu.be/HiaOFOMPOBc

And i Think Escala was something like that as well.

Summary

https://youtu.be/qn_wlkzW1ds

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Extra

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Fucking finally, i have been waiting for months for the release.

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Apple can’t stop epic from updating unreal on phones but they did uphold that Apple can block Fortnite.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-25/apple-defeats-epic-s-effort-to-restore-fortnite-on-app-store

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Im playing MM11 right now and I immediately hate the gear mechanics.

Edit: calling them
Handholding tactics was not what I meant, I guess. I just genuinely dislike how the gear system works.

You’re making a mistake if you think the Gear System is a hand holding mechanic. It’s really not. It’s baked into how the game works.

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