I haven't heard a bad one here yet, I guess they are all really different flavors.
Pokemon, with the repetitive catching of monsters is really no better than my favorites Advance Wars : Build armies, move toward enemy, shoot till dead repeat and as for Fire emblem? Equipt fighter, move toward enemy hit/shoot, stab, slash etc till dead, collect loot, repeat.
There's probably more variety with ones of a more comprehensive story line such as Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon (which I really enjoyed). The newer RPG's games are not much more different than the old days of paper and pencil RPG's: grinding through caves etc... except these days they throw in a puzzle or two and a larger boss battle for a real challenge or to slow you down until they [game writers] have thier next script changed enough so you will lack just enough recognition in it to buy it all over again under another name / edition / version.
My interest in all the RPG's came from the days of D&D in the late 60's & early 70's,all I did was mix it with my other favorite game, chess. Think about it...Choose moves, capture opponent,repeat, then add story line = RPG. It is this reason that I try and not be too hard on the game designers, after all they are out there doing it, making these, I'm not. If I really don't like it, and there are few I really don't I try and be understanding as to just how tough it is to come up with truely new material. I really get irked by these reveiwers that really get down on a franchise like Pokemon or Fire EMblem and beat them up for putting out a game for the newest console but not changing the formula much... so what I got MY favorite game on MY newest console (making it portable for me) why on earth would I beat them up for making few changes, especially when it's something that already works. Not only that, few who are complaining about changing a battle formula have any idea on what amount and type of coding is required to make the smallest change in what you are experiencing. I DO know.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for these guys and gals, especially the ones that do the same game for a different console, which often requires an ENTIRE re-write of the same old program. It would be like you re-writing a book you had written in your native tounge, You're re-writing it in another language you had to learn just for this book and may never need again.
I wrote programs (not spcifically for games though)for a company for a short time. It is dam hard when all you are doing is basically writing out what amount to math problems all day long, while someone else tests the results. It's not all fun and games that most players think it is, no pun intended.
They don't just pay you to sit around vid games. playing all day long, and those who are paid for that (beta testers)are not paid nearly as much, if at all,as the actual code writers anyway, not to mention they don't just play though but have to stop and detect which piece of code created the glitch and so forth, not much fun in the long haul.Then there are thegraphics department with texture creation/application (not that much fun, highly repetitive) and so forth, each only sees a smal part of the whole you are playing, and those really responsible for the largest part of the play have the most boring job of all writing hundreds of lines of code for hours and days, just compiling code. Good designers write thier own code to achieve a very specific result on the other hand, cheap, poor designers use code compilers and just reuse those someone else created, delivering a less than adequite effect from what they really intended.
So the next time you wanna' complain about how lame a game may initially seem, just think, one programmer/artists' probably spent more in coffee latte's in one afternoon than you paid for that whole game. Thier money went in seconds, your's at least takes hours. Give 'em a break huh.. Even the simplest game like Etrian Odssey requires a tremendous amout of code work to do the most direct and simple task.
Kudos guys [game writers/creators], even on the failed attempts. You have MY total unrestrictedrespect for all you efforts.
Log in to comment