[General Discussion] RPG hype getting the better of you

Originally Posted by orion_mk3

Vagrant Story is another. I remember when all the gaming publications were giving it tremendous scores (Gamespot gave it a 10), without mentioning the ridiculous and unbearable complexity. It's essentially the world's most in-depth mystical weapon forging game.

Like most people, I was awed by the opening cinema and music and lost interest in the first level. While I eventually came back and beat it, the experience only revealed more flaws: distinct dead areas where you have no idea where to go next, and an ultimately incomprehensible story.

Eh, this is one of those areas where I have a knee-jerk "But-" reaction. How was the story incomprehensible? I was fairly confused about the whole Sidney-Joshua linking (was Joshua Sidney's young version, a separate child or just manifested his thoughts or what) but the rest was either wonderfully clear near the end or left open for your interpretation (what really happened with Ashley's family), but not something I'd describe as incomprehensible. But then I never found MGS2's story complex, just needlessly jumbled.

I will say something about the weapon system, though. A lot of people complain about the difficulty and often even say the game is downright impossible to play if you don't know what to do beforehand.

I played this game when it first came out in Europe. At the time my experience with RPGs was Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 7 and Grandia. Hardly games to make me a hardcore RPG player. I had no internet for reference or help. So to say Vagrant Story never felt overly difficult or complex should put things in perspective. Sure it was hard. Many of the bosses were extremely challenging since you had to do more than just wait for a turn and attack. You couldn't powerlevel through the game so that's probably what caused a lot of trouble for people. I was often stuck doing 2hp damage on many bosses, but that's what boost spells, chain abilities and break arts were for. The golem was impossible till I noticed I could damage it with a blunt weapon much better etc.

But I kept going because the story completely swept me away, I had to find out what happened next. I played through the game with two weapons only. A (crappy) sword I built that I kept improving as I found better hilts and a large mace I got from a boss. I didn't know how the forging system worked so I never used it. Meaning you don't need that many different weapon types to finish the game, nothing is forced on you. I ran away from bosses to lower my RISK, I waited around after tough fights to bring back my health and magic, etc. And apparently I beat the last boss with an unusual method that WASN'T the only way to do it after all.

But yeah, touchy subject for me, that.


On the topic, I think Final Fantasy VIII kinda counts for me. 7 and 8 were THE reasons I bought a PS1 and entered that generation of consoles and onward. The FMVs had been amazing for the past few years so by the time I bought the console and games, the story details had been spoiled to me (though both games still surprised me with many twists). FF8 was very entertaining to me back then. Nothing as gripping as FF7 and I remember not really liking any of the cast that much, but it was an entertaining yarn either way. The orphanage twist made me frown as till then I'd figured RPGs and Square always did good stories with engaging characters with well written personalities and pasts. That 8 essentially skipped all that was troubling even back then.

It was only years later, especially after watching Noah Antwiler's "reviews" of FF8 that I started repeating "What was I thinking?". The more I watched the videos and remembered those mentioned story bits, the less sense it all made. Why was this matter like that? Why did they go there? Why are they doing this? WHY did I not think it ridiculous back then?

I guess I was too young to actually read what was going on and was swept away by the eye candy. And my theory is that whoever still likes this game did so too. I doubt there is a single person who plays this now for the first time and finds it their favorite in the series.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just can't get enough that they kidnap a president of a nation by switching train carts and replacing him with a robot double. AND the president turns out to be a zombie clone planted for security. Because, you know, an academy for training teenage mercenaries was plausible enough.

There's nowhere I can't reach.