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Thread: Great Games that don't need sequels.

  1. #16

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    I pretty strongly disagree on that point, because I think there's substantial room for improvement in Vagrant Story's battle mechanics while keeping the same basic system so that a sequel would feel like it really belongs in the same series but remove some thornss. I guess I would say I don't have a problem with the mechanics themselves in terms of the way the game plays, but certain aspects of the implementation. To be honest, even the need to constantly swap weapons in order to keep them specialized to affinities for certain elements and creature types gets a bit cumbersome and annoying at times, but I could keep that, if they at least let the affinities develop a bit faster or, most importantly, don't include so many bosses of rare types so that it's unlikely you'll have a weapon with a decent affinity for that boss going into the fight. The amount of time I spent doing like 1 hit point damage just whacking bosses with a weapon over and over again is definitely something I could do without repeating. And I didn't really care for the increasing risk throughout the fight so you can finally do some attacks that do decent damage (I forget how this works to be honest, but I have some recollection that after hitting for 1 point of damage dozens of times I was able to intermittently do some more damaging attacks - took way too long though).

  2. #17
    Black Magic Shopkeeper's Avatar
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    Fair enough... These were all things that satisfied me, but I can see where it's not for everyone.
    Except of course for that last one. I agree that it could get annoying with bosses. But hey, at least it's not like Dark Law, which I've been trying to get through but is taking... quite the toll on me.
    Dexterity is kind of the most important stat in that one, and if you don't have substantially high dex you will ALWAYS do 1hp of damage no matter what weapon you use lol

    Don't play Dark Law if you don't like dragging yourself through long, painful, stressful battles.


  3. #18
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Black Magic Shopkeeper View Post
    Agreed, FF titles don't really do well with sequels. But I'm perfectly ok with side-content set in the same world but following different characters separate from the main cast. Sad that the closest we got to that was Dirge of Cerberus... I think? Maybe XIII-2 counts but that went a little too crazy and didn't even seem to be part of the same world as the original, so...

    I think the only reason really that I DON'T want a Vagrant Story sequel is that I love its battle mechanics. And after seeing what happened to Parasite Eve, which had very similar mechanics in the first game, I've grown to not trust any potential devs not to destroy the system it touts in favor of more modernized mechanics.
    ...Oh also I guess there's some concern about the color palette. You know how protective I am of colors. And modern games seem to all completely miss the mark in terms of attractive color choices, aside from maybe Monster Hunter World and Dragon's Dogma.
    Part of why I said I hope the original team would work on it. I doubt the art direction would change too much since Yoshida loves his earth tones with striking primary colors. Mechanics could still be switched around because holy hell the changes made by the team for Tactics Ogre were jarring despite largely being the same development team. Still, I imagine it would be pretty interesting. I feel part of the issue with Parasite Eve is that the series never had a proper team. The second game was made by the U.S. branch of the company and the third game was done by a hodge podge of employees they pulled from other projects to make it over a decade after the sequel. I would blame that more for the inconsistencies between titles. At least most of the VS team either still works for the company or are on good terms with them after going freelance.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Golbez View Post
    I pretty strongly disagree on that point, because I think there's substantial room for improvement in Vagrant Story's battle mechanics while keeping the same basic system so that a sequel would feel like it really belongs in the same series but remove some thornss. I guess I would say I don't have a problem with the mechanics themselves in terms of the way the game plays, but certain aspects of the implementation. To be honest, even the need to constantly swap weapons in order to keep them specialized to affinities for certain elements and creature types gets a bit cumbersome and annoying at times, but I could keep that, if they at least let the affinities develop a bit faster or, most importantly, don't include so many bosses of rare types so that it's unlikely you'll have a weapon with a decent affinity for that boss going into the fight. The amount of time I spent doing like 1 hit point damage just whacking bosses with a weapon over and over again is definitely something I could do without repeating. And I didn't really care for the increasing risk throughout the fight so you can finally do some attacks that do decent damage (I forget how this works to be honest, but I have some recollection that after hitting for 1 point of damage dozens of times I was able to intermittently do some more damaging attacks - took way too long though).
    As Risk goes up, your accuracy drops in terms of inflicting consistent damage, but your crit rate goes through the roof which is why you see those high hits. Technically the way the game is meant to be played is to engage an enemy, hit a few times and then run away until your Risk drops, but most players, myself included, learned that you can kind break the system if you can pull off a long enough chain combo. Not helped by the fact that after awhile, your consistent hits always go up. so even if you do one damage with your first hit, the second would be two, the third would be four and after long enough combo, you're likely doing more damage than you could at 0 Risk.

    Honestly, the only mechanic I would really change from the original is how offensive magic works, either beef it up, give them secondary effects to be more useful, or drop them entirely. Otherwise, I honestly enjoy most of the game's mechanics. It took me years to finally appreciate it fully, but I see now how much thought really went into the whole mechanics of the system.

    I feel the main reason why I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel, besides the fact the story had so much potential to begin with, is that the team still feels passionate about it. After the FFTactics port for PSP, they were hoping they could do something similar with Vagrant Story, and considering how many game ideas were dropped from the title or loose ends within the plot, I feel like either an enhanced remaster or remake could be really awesome if SE was willing to hire Matsuno back to write and direct and actually bank roll the thing properly. It's been interesting watch as SE finally revisits a few of their older franchises in the last few years so I'm hoping we might see something concerning Vagrant Story since enough of the right elements remain at the company to make it at least feel like a real sequel.

  4. #19

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    I was never really good at chaining too many hits in a row. I don't do well with things that require unbroken chains of correct timing and the timing changes as the hits increase, if I remember correctly. I'm fine with keeping the chaining idea though. I'd just prefer it to not be so dominant that boss fights take like an hour or whatever (maybe exaggerating but they felt quite long) if you can't do really long chains. I played through Vagrant Story several times, but I think only once on an original run and all other times were New Game +. For most games, I find that New Game + decreases my enjoyment of the gameplay, because battles are too easy and there's no more meaningful growth typically. In Vagrant Story, I actually prefer the gameplay on New Game +, because the bosses don't wear out their welcome.
    Last edited by Lord Golbez; 01-20-2019 at 07:05 AM.

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    Gobbledygook! Recognized Member Christmas's Avatar
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