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The Others...; ...are among our minds...and interests!
Topic Started: Jul 6 2011, 08:23 PM (726 Views)
labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
Phantom
 
I've discovered half the series I'm into online. If it wasn't for the Internet, I wouldn't be even be aware of:

- Pikmin
- Okami
- Castlevania
- Super Meat Boy
- Left 4 Dead
- Bioshock
- Mario RPG games (Partners in Time, Bowser's Inside Story...)
- Fire Emblem

This was the flame that ignited the fuse. The explosion of a new idea is upon us...

This was bugging me for a few days, and I think that I picked the right time to hear your thoughts and opinions on a matter that more or less connects us all on a worldwide scale (this is also a good time to lay of from space for a while-just to clear me mind, savvy?).

For anyone who doesn't understands the topic title, I will make it this clear: what are your other video gaming interests, what measure you give to them compared to your primary interest (which is Golden Sun) and how much do you think any of their elements is equal, lesser or higher to Golden Sun's elements.

Ratings and rules:
1-4: lesser amounts
5: equal amounts
6-10: higher amounts
(you must give, even a slight reason, for your rating. You may have your own opinion about a game element, so even the famous "just because" answer, is enough of a reason to your vote. I don't want anyone to go against their beliefs)
Only one game per post (make a new post for another game)
Use the format down below.
At least 3 posts that discuss the last posted game must be made before a member post a new one

And I will make the first step:

Game Title:
Breath Of Fire Series

Game Description:
The story of each game follows the story of Ryu, a boy who, almost always, is the last of his Clan and the most powerfull of them. Ryu's Clan is the Dragon Clan, also called the Brood, the strongest of the clans in the game's universe. The mortal enemy of the dragon's and primary antagonist of the series is the Demon Clan, led by the Goddess of Destruction Myria, the de facto archenemy of the Brood. In all of the series's games, Ryu travels the world in order to stop Myria, or anyone associated with her, making alliances along the way with members of other powerfull clans. These clans include the Wing Clan (the clan of the female protagonist Nina, appearing in all games along with Ryu), the Woren Clan, the Grassrunner Clan, the Grassmen Clan, the Manillo Clan, the Creeping Clan, the Dirt-Eating Clan, the Forest Clan, the Iron Ogre Clan, the Highlanders Clan and the Shell Clan. Ryu has become partners with at least one member of these clans and in many cases they were regarded the strongest of their clan at the time.

Game Elements:
The most prominent feature of the Breath of Fire series is Ryu's main ability to turn into dragons of different elements and attribiutes, much like Sveta's Werewolf Psynergy. Another is the plethora of attacks you can have even with a battle team of three people. The spells have interesting and stunning animations, even those presented in games of the age of GBA. The environment of your surroundings and of the battles is highly captivating and sometimes you can interact with it in many ways, especially in the heat of battle. Finally, the story is breathtaking and keeps you hooked all the time (partly because of the mini games that add to the story, particularly the fishing game-pun verily intented) also having many "Briggs is dead" moments, and believe me when I say that I shed tears on those moments.

Element Ratings:
1) Ryu's Dragon change ability: 10
2) Plethora of attacks: 9
3) Spell's appearence, usage and special abilities of the other characters: 10
4) Environment of surroundings and battles: 9
5) Game Story: 8

Reasons of said rating:
1) IT'S FRIGIN' DRAGONS. What more would you want???
2) Lot's of attacks, I will give it that, but there are many moments in the game where you are "God, I wish I could do such badass moves like this fella" which can sometimes be highly annoying
3) When you have an angel like Nina and she just goes into battle summoning a hammering thunderstorm and titanic firestorms, there are few things left to say for the magical department of these games
4) 9 because of it's small flaws, that if rectified, will strongly encourage the player to interact with them often
5) While the story development is awesome, the characters are not so strongly developed to back it up to it's full potential, save for a handfull of characters that are so badasses that you can't resist but shout:"Man, he/she trully lives the moment."

Overall Game rating: 8.5
Why? Practically, it's a Golden Sun game mixted with Dragons and excessive sorcery. As you may have noticed, both series have a lot of elements in common, and it should deserve a 5 but the Dragons and the story won the day on this one. Also, the fact that these series where my first ones that got me into the gaming community (the second was Golden Sun) is another reason
of this rating.
So...Your opinions and thoughts about this game, please.

I'm looking forward to see what other video game interests you have.
Edited by labouka, Jul 6 2011, 08:27 PM.
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Darkceus
Angel
So, we basically review a video game and rate its elements in it?
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bluek00pa
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ಠ_ಠ
Hopefully I can do this right. :P
Anyway, I don't think I've played any really "different" games, so my choice is kind of dumb. If this were about TV shows, I could pick some shows that were really obscure (Legendz and Gargoyles not counting).

Game Title:
Pokemon

Game Description:
I think you know this game, but I'll explain it anyway. Pokemon is a game where you collect monsters and you fight with them. Simple. There's not much of a plot except for the simple "stop the bad guys because they are evil" stuff.

Game Elements:
As I said, the premise of the game is to collect a bunch of monsters. Your goal in the game is to collect all 649 or something. All monsters have an attribute or element, and these elements work against each other in a rock-paper-scissors manner, where one is bad against, one is good against, and one is neutral against.
Although these elements were not introduced until later generations (III I believe), the games also featured a lot more depth in training by the way of EV and IV training. Going into detail with these will just serve to give you a headache, although I know Dark knows this. Basically, IV training is like the genes of a Pokemon, determining how well they would do in certain stats. If their IV was 0, it would suck. If it was 31, it was the best. EV training is a lot more complicated, but it deals with how much a stat will be at level 100.
There's also the breeding aspect in the game, and competitive battling (the metagame). The metagame ruins your perspective on the games, unfortunately. I kind of studied the metagame after Dark destroyed me in a battle once and then told me he EV trained and I figured it all out. :P
MOVING ON...

Element Ratings:
1) Rock-Paper-Scissors elements: 10
2) EV training: 1
3) Battling: 8
4) Basic gameplay advancements (moving through the game): 4
5) Story: 0

Reasons of said rating:
1) I think Golden Sun has some of this - when you do the best damage against someone you get the "!!!" at the end of the damage, and when it's bad you get a "." I never really noticed though, it was just meh effort.
2) Boring. Tedious. Not fun at all.
3) The rock-paper-scissors mechanics were new when they came out, and they really worked well. It was kind of fun to discover what I could do.
4) Eh... just not as fun as GS. It gets annoying going into places where you have to battle people and you just don't want to. GS was also more interesting.
5) THE STORY IN POKEMON IS NON-EXISTENT. IDC if Pokemon Black/White was alright, everything just sucks with the story. They don't try, and they don't need to try. GS they needed to try, and GS had a really good story.

Overall Game rating: 7
Why? I didn't make an average, but I simply got 8 because Pokemon in general is just better IMO. Plus I really like Pokemon, and personal sentiment probably got in the way of a "true" ranking. Plus, I have only played TBS, and not TLA or DD. I intend to, but when I can.

Average ranking: Mean was 5.6, and median was 4.
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labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
Good one Blue, but you made a tiny winy bit mistake:
Quote:
 
At least 3 posts that discuss the last posted game must be made before a member post a new one

I made this rule to give more depth to the ratings of a game. To see what others might think of the little "presentation" made right here. Your post is not wrong, just a bit too early. But overall, you got the point and made a very good explanation on this video game theme. Very informative even for newbies. :P
Also, another reason is that any member who will participate into this, will take their sweet time to write down details of their favourable game, so the least we can do is to talk around their interest before moving on

So, before a member posts a new game, a discussion (even a little one) must be made on the games posted by me AND Blue.

Oh and, on Blue's post I agree on all his facts. Funny thing is that even the Breath of Fire series have a touch of Pokemon in them in the form of Faeries and their Faerie Village...very frustrating if you make the wrong choices...literally.
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Rialys
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Loyal Servant Magus

Okay then, let's see if I can get this discussion thing right.

I've heard of the Breath of Fire series before, but I know very little about it and have never played any of the games. It sounds like a series I'd be happy to have a shot at, though (because dragons are freaking awesome and I need some new games), as long as I had the right console. I'm limited to the DS, I'm afraid. However, any game with an involving storyline is definitely worth a look at, and you've made it sound pretty impressive in that review.

---

Pokémon, on the other hand, I can talk about quite a lot. And, to be frank, I agree on pretty much all of Blue's points - if we're only dealing with the main series. On the one hand, I've never dealt with competetive battling and breeding and whatnot and, instead, enjoy the collecting of critters. The graphics are impressive and improve with each game, although I'll be honest and say I found the 3D stuff in D/P/Pt a little jarring and prefer the 2D stuff seen in R/S/E.

Storyline? What storyline? The games have changed in their attitude towards the villains, though. In the first games, Team Rocket were basically a sidequest and a minor annoyance. From R/S/E onwards, though, you basically have to save the world before you can get to the Elite Four - meaning that, post-defeating the game, there are no 'plot threads' left, which does take some of the enjoyment out of it. Okay, in Black and White they tried to tease it out further, but it didn't really work. Also, the fandom's reaction to N really irritates me. I don't care if he was manipulated as a child - he's a pain in the bum all the way through the game!

Nonetheless, main series Pokémon games are still pretty enjoyable to play, the music tends to be pretty good, and playing one is a good way to spend a rainy afternoon. I don't think the main series of games is as good as Golden Sun, but the game format is different and Pokémon is pretty much the only notable 'collect-em-all' game series out there.

---

I assume you were only talking about the main series of games, Blue, so I'm not gonna talk about the side-series like PMD and Ranger...but, if I'm completely honest, I think those games are superior to the main series.

---

All okay? That the kind of thing you're looking for?
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bluek00pa
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labouka
Jul 8 2011, 03:41 AM
Good one Blue, but you made a tiny winy bit mistake:
Quote:
 
At least 3 posts that discuss the last posted game must be made before a member post a new one

I made this rule to give more depth to the ratings of a game. To see what others might think of the little "presentation" made right here. Your post is not wrong, just a bit too early. But overall, you got the point and made a very good explanation on this video game theme. Very informative even for newbies. :P
Also, another reason is that any member who will participate into this, will take their sweet time to write down details of their favourable game, so the least we can do is to talk around their interest before moving on

So, before a member posts a new game, a discussion (even a little one) must be made on the games posted by me AND Blue.

Oh and, on Blue's post I agree on all his facts. Funny thing is that even the Breath of Fire series have a touch of Pokemon in them in the form of Faeries and their Faerie Village...very frustrating if you make the wrong choices...literally.
*headdesk*
I read that as a member can only post a new game after three people said their review. Teaches me to stop skimming.

Anyway, I don't really have anything in particular to say about Pokemon, having made my points. And yeah, Ria, I was talking about the main series. I never really got into the side games.

About the Breath of Fire series, I can't really say I know much about them. The name sounds familiar, but nothing else does after reading the review. Although it does look interesting, and I do want to see more of it. So, I may spend my time on Wikipedia or YouTube tonight to learn about it. :P
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labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
Hiya to all and everyone. Due to family matters (happy and wonderful ones, mind you) I will be quite afar from my computer for the next 3-4 days (I'm using my uncle's one).

As such I will be outa this topic for a while, but don't neglet to follow the purpose of this topic while the host is away. Once I manage to return, I will be get up to the recent news.

Until I come back, keep posting game reviews and opinions to them.

See you !!!
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Darkceus
Angel
Ok, let's talk about Golden Sun now! ^^ Then move onto another game.
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labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, I have returned guys. Family is happy, we officially have a new member in it, and the matter I spoke of made us even happier as of now.
And now that I am back, we can continue the discussions over your other favourite games (sorry Dark, no Golden Sun for you today. It was taken by [Alex , as always.)
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labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
Um...what gives ???

I said that I'm back and yet I can't hear the cheering crowds, busting with life and the urge to talk about their other favourite video games.

What the...!!!
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MadMustache
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How do forums work again?
Will this make you feel better?

I don't have as much to say unfortunately, having played neither of these games. I've heard of Breath of Fire, but never played it before. Pokemon... Let's just say I was a huge fan of the TV show, but once that show lost my interest, I never picked up a game.

Yep... Sorry Labouka, I don't have much to say about these things... Having no access to games, and/or new systems really deprived me of some of the better things in life. Games.
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labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
Thanks a bunch for the congrats MM, really. As for your deprivation of games you can use an alternative sollution, if I may propose an opinion, although you may not approve of it but it's better from nothing: emulation. There is a bunch of consoles being emulated on PC for souls like you who have little to no access to these games. Even though emulation is a very controversial subject you might as well give it a thought or two.
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suzumebachi
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[post goddess]

*insert crickets here* :3
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labouka
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Ruler of Black Holes
Quote:
 
*insert crickets here* :3

Ummm...wut ???
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suzumebachi
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[post goddess]

labouka
Jul 25 2011, 07:29 AM
Quote:
 
*insert crickets here* :3

Ummm...wut ???
Uhh.. Yay? :D
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