21st April 2013, 9:00 PM
The mystique escaped me completely for years. I knew that the game was bigger than pokemon in Japan, and had a fair following in the US, because most of my friends play this game, and I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND why.
They tried to get me into the series with Tri, but after being shoveled through a few kills, the appeal still escaped me. It just seemed so boring.
Well, with Ultimate, my friends once again wanted me to get into this game. I gave it one more try, and this time I told them NOT to expect me to join their group online until I had a chance to play it by myself for a while instead of being led by the hand. The first DOZEN quests are AWFUL. It seemed like this would just be a repeat of my first foray into the series. I can learn more than one thing a quest Capcom!* So after... a quest for mining, carrying eggs, and a few other incredibly boring things, I eventually got a quest to kill a Great Jaggi, basically a pack leader for some raptors. Then I killed a big bear, and then, only then, did the game suddenly "click". I "got it", and was all like "killing monster is FUN!". The combat system is very well designed. Not many moves, but everything is set up to give weight to everything you do, so if you use an item when you aren't safe, you'll pay for it. The entire game from the ground up is all about big monster fights. Kill them, get their parts, make more armor and weapons, then kill stronger things. That's the whole game. Are there problems? Oh yes, there are a lot of things they really need to fix, but the core gameplay is solid enough for me to put up with it all JUST to keep driving wildlife to extinction.
If you've fought the big guys and still didn't really "get" it, I can understand that. I played the demo, killed two things, then stopped, still not getting it. Now I do, and I've been doing the REALLY fun thing, playing the game with friends. Solo was fun, multi is more fun. I really don't know how to describe what "clicked" but it did. Maybe it won't for you, and that's fine.
<img src="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-b3JXw78/0/950x10000/i-b3JXw78-950x10000.jpg"> This comic makes the two viewpoints pretty clear. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll see JUST the right episode of "Adventure Time" and that show will finally "click" for me and it'll suddenly be hilarious, or maybe not.
*(It is the long standing "tutorial problem" in modern games. They don't trust us enough to figure things out on our own these days. Link to the Past still sets the bar for natural introduction to game mechanics for me, having the perfect balance of teaching players the basics, getting right into the game, and making sure that the tutorial doesn't feel like a "break" but instead flows naturally with the game. For example, want to know what a button does? Pause the game and they simply group every single item in the game under which button you press. It doesn't get much easier to understand than that. When you first get an item, it gives a basic and quick description without telling you everything, leaving you with discovering how it works in real time by experimenting right there in the room you got it from. Yes, Link to the Past is still one of the greatest games of all time. Link's Awakening is also absolutely incredible, but as far as game tutorials, it actually seems to be the very start of the "heavy handed" style of teaching. It isn't really that bad, but there's only so many times I can find out that "This compass has a new feature!". It would have been better to simply find out what that beep meant on my own. By Skyward Sword, tutorials in Zelda have gotten out of hand. The game isn't too easy like Wind Waker, and the puzzles are still tough, but wow that early hand holding is one of the few flaws in what is otherwise the best Zelda game in years.)
They tried to get me into the series with Tri, but after being shoveled through a few kills, the appeal still escaped me. It just seemed so boring.
Well, with Ultimate, my friends once again wanted me to get into this game. I gave it one more try, and this time I told them NOT to expect me to join their group online until I had a chance to play it by myself for a while instead of being led by the hand. The first DOZEN quests are AWFUL. It seemed like this would just be a repeat of my first foray into the series. I can learn more than one thing a quest Capcom!* So after... a quest for mining, carrying eggs, and a few other incredibly boring things, I eventually got a quest to kill a Great Jaggi, basically a pack leader for some raptors. Then I killed a big bear, and then, only then, did the game suddenly "click". I "got it", and was all like "killing monster is FUN!". The combat system is very well designed. Not many moves, but everything is set up to give weight to everything you do, so if you use an item when you aren't safe, you'll pay for it. The entire game from the ground up is all about big monster fights. Kill them, get their parts, make more armor and weapons, then kill stronger things. That's the whole game. Are there problems? Oh yes, there are a lot of things they really need to fix, but the core gameplay is solid enough for me to put up with it all JUST to keep driving wildlife to extinction.
If you've fought the big guys and still didn't really "get" it, I can understand that. I played the demo, killed two things, then stopped, still not getting it. Now I do, and I've been doing the REALLY fun thing, playing the game with friends. Solo was fun, multi is more fun. I really don't know how to describe what "clicked" but it did. Maybe it won't for you, and that's fine.
<img src="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-b3JXw78/0/950x10000/i-b3JXw78-950x10000.jpg"> This comic makes the two viewpoints pretty clear. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll see JUST the right episode of "Adventure Time" and that show will finally "click" for me and it'll suddenly be hilarious, or maybe not.
*(It is the long standing "tutorial problem" in modern games. They don't trust us enough to figure things out on our own these days. Link to the Past still sets the bar for natural introduction to game mechanics for me, having the perfect balance of teaching players the basics, getting right into the game, and making sure that the tutorial doesn't feel like a "break" but instead flows naturally with the game. For example, want to know what a button does? Pause the game and they simply group every single item in the game under which button you press. It doesn't get much easier to understand than that. When you first get an item, it gives a basic and quick description without telling you everything, leaving you with discovering how it works in real time by experimenting right there in the room you got it from. Yes, Link to the Past is still one of the greatest games of all time. Link's Awakening is also absolutely incredible, but as far as game tutorials, it actually seems to be the very start of the "heavy handed" style of teaching. It isn't really that bad, but there's only so many times I can find out that "This compass has a new feature!". It would have been better to simply find out what that beep meant on my own. By Skyward Sword, tutorials in Zelda have gotten out of hand. The game isn't too easy like Wind Waker, and the puzzles are still tough, but wow that early hand holding is one of the few flaws in what is otherwise the best Zelda game in years.)
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)