Feeling alienated by modern games

[Mirage]

I guess you don't buy a lot of digitally distributed games .

I mean sure, they come with digital manuals, but they're even more bleh to read than actual manuals.

[Polnareff]

I'm right there with the people who mentioned the hand-holding trout. It's downright insulting. The games with mandatory tutorials need to die in a fire. Especially if the tutorials are things like "press B to jump" which actually does happen quite a lot (yes, in Ni no Kuni as well). What's worse is when they take up any more than 2 hours of your time. The Fullmetal Alchemist game for PS2 did this and it was a pain in the ass. By the time the hand holding was over, the game had already been 1/4 of the way over.

These new games also have the side effect of making people worse at older games in general. This is why I love games like Street Fighter. You can play SFIV for a good amount of time and STILL be able to play the older games decently. You can't really do this when you play the new Nintendo stuff for a while, for example, and then go back and play the old trout. You're gonna suck. There's no real tutorial given for games like SF and Demon's Souls. But they're still fun to play. That is the point of games, to let you figure out how trout works. But most developers have lost their way with how to do that. If a game can't do that, it automatically fails. Games are supposed to be compelling. To make you WANT to learn how to do things.

Now on the subject of newer games not being as captivating, I can agree with that. Most games this gen are extraordinarily hard for me to finish, because a lot of them lose their luster after about 5 or 6 hours. It also sucks that there are mostly shooters this gen. I have no idea where people are getting that there is more variety now, unless they're talking only about indie games. Even there it's mostly platformers. Handheld gaming is where it's at for me really. That's where the fun and variety is now.

I hear that, I went back to the first Devil May Cry game after playing Darksiders. That was an interesting week. Devil May Cry is very unforgiving of game rust.

The same thing happened to me, just about. At the time DMC came out, I beat the game on Normal in one go, using no continues. Now going back to it a generation later, I can't do it anymore. Games like the newer God of War games and Darksiders 2 have made it kind of difficult.

Also, yes, Mirage, I'd rather it just be an option. Mandatory tutorials are lame. If you haven't already, play Ni no Kuni and you'll see what Spuuky is talking about. They literally stop you like once every 15 minutes, for the first 10 hours of the game, to tell you how to do everything. Annoying as hell.

[Mirage]

Ni no kuni just doesn't seem like a very interesting game to me.

[Spuuky]

Ni no kuni just doesn't seem like a very interesting game to me.

It's 1/3 Pokemon, 1/3 Dragon Quest, and 1/3 Earthbound. If you like all those games, it should interest you, and if you don't, it shouldn't. But that's fine, that isn't really the subject of this thread, it's just an exceptional example.

[Mirage]

Pokemon wasn't my thing, the only DQ I played (8) was extremely boring, and I actually haven't tried Earthbound yet.

[SirPrizes]

I can relate completely. My tastes have become a lot more niche, and lately I find that the 3DS is the only system that really has any offerings that appeal to me. I still play a few newer franchises like Demon's/Dark Souls and I'm looking forward to The Evil Within, but beyond that, I just play Atlus RPGs (which still play like the best the PlayStation had to offer) and emulators.

I'd suggest checking out the ROM hacking scene, especially if you like platfomers. There are hundreds of Mario hacks, many of which are essentially brand new games running on the original game engine and with the original mechanics. Super Metroid is in the same boat. Then there's Zelda Classic, which is a PC port of the original Zelda on a new engine with a level editor built in. There's tons of quests made for that as well. There are so many older games getting fan translations that never made it out over here to play as well.

If modern gaming isn't for you, there's still an endless amount to discover concerning older games, and even new "old" games coming out all the time if you count ROM hacks.

[Bolivar]

Pokemon wasn't my thing, the only DQ I played (8) was extremely boring, and I actually haven't tried Earthbound yet.

... I can't find and post the barfing emoticon on my phone!

Jk Mirage we know you got class! (Classy lady)

[Dr Unne]

Dragon Quest is a great series if you like classic RPGs, especially if you don't like hand-holding. In DQ9 for DS, it's possible to miss the event that lets you have more than one person in your party for example. DQ9 feels very much like an old NES game with updated graphics and a few modern niceties.

You're in a town, you finished a quest, and suddenly you have no idea what to do. You talk to some people and hear the name of some other town repeated a few times, and a very vague idea where it might be. You check your map and see a road going east so you head off blindly in that direction. Along the way you find a cave. Do you go in or not? There's a non-zero chance that this is a high-level dungeon that will destroy you.

I love RPGs where instead of artificially blocking your progress to parts of a map with walls (or invisible walls...), they just put enemies over there that will one-hit kill you. You get to control your own progression. If you reeeeeeally want to grind out 20 levels, then congrats, a new area will be open to you. In practice you're probably going to do all the low-level quests and level up that way, but at least you have the choice. Or maybe you can cheese your way through the high-level area and find some kind of uber-sword and become an avatar of death for a while back home. This is where fun is born.

[Del Murder]

All this talk of hand holding is making me scared to play Ni No Kuni now.

[Mirage]

The problem with at least DQ8 was that it was too much like a NES game. I don't mind not being hand held, but I do mind a very unexciting battle system. It was ultimately that which made me stop playing the game.

[Polnareff]

All this talk of hand holding is making me scared to play Ni No Kuni now.

It's still a fairly challenging game (mostly because your partners have inept AI and there are very few AI settings), but yeah, all the lame-ass tutorial business made it hard for me to get into. That said, I have a save file that's about 3/4 of the way through the game.

DQ is pretty good about not holding your hand, but the newer DQs and the remakes aren't very challenging. Specifically DQIX. By the end of that game, everyone had a multi-hit skill. The last boss was getting hit 16 times in one turn. He died in something like 5 turns. Any other DQ last boss is pretty hard. I know you'll say the challenge in DQIX is in the downloadable maps and stuff, but truth be told, those aren't even that hard. Plus it matters little because they're not part of the game proper. Even the DS remakes got seriously nerfed in that way. But at least they don't tell you how to do every little thing like all these other RPGs now want to.

[Vyk]

Like Polnareff, I got through the majority of Ni No Kuni, and enjoyed a good portion of it. I can't say I would not recommend it. All the hand holding was endearing at first. The real problem is that even 10 hours in, they're still introducing new mechanics. And once you learn something, you're rarely allowed to just do what you know you should do. Instead you have to have a conversation about what you should do. In which you're told how stupid you are for not knowing how to do what you know you should do. It gets old. But it typically takes a while to get old. In the beginning it barely pulls you away from loving the game. In some way its makes the game even more lovable, because the little fairy dude is a hoot half the time. It really just depends on your tolerance/patience levels. But of all the people I know who eventually got tired of Ni No Kuni, I can't think of any of them who were immediately turned off. And I can think of a fair few who were happy to barrel through to the end and never even stopped to consider anything was annoying or repetitive and just loved it for what it is. I definitely think it's always worth a look to see for one's self how it rubs them. I still look back on it fondly, and intend to finish it one day. I even spent $40 on the beautiful and massive strategy guide

[Polnareff]

Without the game being as cute as it is, it wouldn't be nearly as tolerable. I think a big reason why I stopped playing is because I got caught up on level grinding on these enemies that appear in a certain area on the world map, and just plain old forgot where to go next. That and I already know who the final boss is and how to fight him. But someday....

[Spuuky]

It's still a fun game.

[Mirage]

I'm starting to doubt it!