Lurker > Solioxrz362

Great_Paul posted...

I see that there are a few bonus episodes for some of the other characters, are they worth checking out?

Gladio's one is meh at best. Decent little gameplay sidemission, but very light on story.

Prompto's I remember feeling strange, but it's still fine.

Episode Ignis and Episode Ardyn are both entirely worth playing.

Heavy Rain is one that comes to mind, but I'm almost certain there's something more recent which fits this

I think the conversation about difficulty is a little too black and white when some people talk about it. Easier is not inherently bad. Harder is not inherently good. And vice versa.

FFXVI is definitely NOT a hard game under any circumstance, but FF is a story-driven franchise. If the gameplay doesn't make me sweat, I'm not bothered by that. In fact, I would say this is exactly why there's a consensus that FFXVI is still a good game despite its flaws: we care more about the story, and the story was good enough to keep us playing.

I would say its lack of difficulty is only a problem because there's a lack of variety. There's a lack of enemy variety, lack of incentive to try a variety of abilities, lack of boss variety (bosses get reused for hunt board quests), lack of variety in gameplay outside of combat, etc. If the game provided ways to have fun that were a little easier, that'd be fine, but doing the same easy stuff for 50 hours is a problem.

However, I'm surprised on the discourse of FF being a very easy franchise... FFX had numerous hard fights (Seymour Flux, Yunalesca, even Braska's Final Aeon was hard if you hadn't done much side stuff to level up and didn't have any stoneproof stuff). FFXIII had a few fights that were tough too. I'm not an RPG expert and definitely not someone who knew any strategies going into these fights, so I feel like I may represent the general playing public on these games.

Never played Witcher 3, but GoW4 is the best one here, closely followed by Uncharted 4, and Spider Man is also fantastic.

PS4 has a pretty damn good library all things considered.

TomNook7 posted...

Aight heres what im thinkin:

Combat is great - just a shame how easy it is. I get that they wanted to make this game accessible for people coming off FF14, but i was mostly able to just cut my brain off and mash buttons until i won. That never happened in DMC/Bayo/Nier, and it shouldnt have happened here.

Story is great. Writing, dialogue, voice acting are all exceptional, especially for a JRPG. Active time lore is amazing. Graphics and music are incredible.

RPG elements range from undercooked to nonexistent. No elemental weaknesses, no status effects, no customization, no meaningful loot, no meaningful exploration, no meaningful gear, and a general lack of enemy variety. I wouldve liked a little more RPG in this action RPG.

Eikon battles are hit or miss, with Bahamut being a standout. QTEs are unfortunate.

But overall i enjoyed it for what it was. Its got its flaws, but not from a lack of effort. The team clearly loved what they were making, and it works on a lot of levels.

So yeah like 8.5/10. Pretty good anime movie.

I agree with pretty much all of this, except I'm a bit harsher on the flaws, and I think the emphasis on the RPG elements is entirely up to preference. Certainly the gameplay could've been a bit deeper had there been more RPG elements. I'll say yes to exploration, more meaningful gear, and more enemy variety. However, I am glad the game didn't put elemental weaknesses in. It may work with a party of playable characters, but I don't think it works with only one playable character.

MacArrowny posted...

I think what you're saying is that the graphics are so good you notice minor imperfections more? Kinda like an uncanny valley effect? I can understand that, but I haven't had a problem with it, personally. Specifically with The Last of Us Remake, it has the issue of using the original PS3 animations with better graphics layered on top, so I can see how that would look "off".

Yup, that might be it.

The PS3 animations using that era's graphics really looked spot on at the time, and still looking back looks pretty natural to me. Like, it has aged really nicely! But maybe those animations with way higher fidelity graphics on top just looks wrong. Uncanny valley is exactly what I'm talking about. Lots of things approaching realism with a few things completely collapsing the immersion.

BlackDra90n posted...

You still need to choose between performance and graphics mode for PS5, I could imagine that the next generation would just be integrated so you get the nice graphics and the 60 FPS.

I hope so! Feeling like I'm getting rid of either looks or framerate really sucks. But at the same time, usually performance mode just outright looks better with the stabilized framerate and still incredibly high def graphics.

The SoulCalibur character Xianghua, often abbreviated by pro players as X

Currently playing TLoU Pt 1 on PS5... and I feel crazy, but didn't the original game/PS4 remaster just look better than this? Obviously textures are higher resolution on PS5 version, backgrounds are far clearer, and *certain* aspects of the lighting are way better (though not all). Yet I'm getting some weird vibes of inconsistency that weren't there in the original. The animations on characters' faces look way less natural all of a sudden, the obviously fake smoke cloud from a gunshot looks way worse now, harsh shadows stand out much worse than they did before, etc.

I experienced this in Horizon Forbidden West too. Like, yeah, the environments look gorgeous, but why does everyone's face look SO UNNATURAL??? Aloy's smiles in conversation are straight up so awkwardly timed. In fact, in HFW, the character that seemed the least awkward to me was Kotallo, a character who had so much face paint on that you couldn't really tell what his face was supposed to be expressing, and he had a rather stoic personality anyways so he didn't need to express much.

I'm feeling like as our textures/render distance/graphical fidelity increases, all the other stuff has gotta increase with it, but it's lagging behind. A bad animation or effect can do WAY MORE to kill my immersion in a game than a slightly blurry background texture. And human character models are getting so close to realism in many ways, but still falling short in others - in TLoU Pt 1 I'm seeing this as Joel and Tess looking a little cartoony, as if a slight Walking Dead-esque cel shaded filter was applied over real people.

Anyone else? Just me? What has been y'all's feelings towards the AAA graphics of the current gen

I don't think this game is for me at all. I'm a SoulCalibur pro-level player and something about a legit 2v2 fighting game makes me want to stay far far away. Whereas in League and Valorant the high-coordination team play thing makes sense, it doesn't make sense in a FG. If agency is being taken out of my hands while my teammate gets to take the lead or my gameplay plans are getting interrupted by my teammate interrupting a combo/setup with something, it's just gonna be frustrating, not fun.

Also, I've gotta find another person around my skill level to team with, and we've gotta practice together, and we've gotta both have good connections, and then the opponent players hopefully both have good connections too... FGs are already hard games to get right, and I'm convinced this sounds like more of a hassle than interesting game design.

I'm gonna back up - playing the game through on NG+ is showing me another section I did not like

After killing Hugo, you have to go through main story fetch quests for Mid, then you have to go through a daft main story side plot with the kids in Boklad. It's terrible mission design.
>Run here
>Talk
>Run here
>Talk
>Run here
>Talk
>Run here
>aggghhhhhhhhhh

And largely while it's in a city so you can't sprint to make it go by faster. FFXVI is lucky that I like the main throughline of the story and the combat so much bc there are definitely biiiiiiig flaws with it that can be seen throughout. That's kind of how I felt about FFXV too, but I like FFXVI more.

Kuja

masterplum posted...

Meh, just went and did it.

I am really torn. If the game had ended at bahamut it would have been a 9.5 bordering on 10/10 game for me, and I would have put it over tears of the kingdom.

But everything after that was solid 7.5/10. It was fine, but everything was a step down. The story, the art, the pacing. Very on par with FFXV

I felt like bahamut was the absolute peak of over the top but not ridiculous. The fight felt real which made it awesome. After that I went I have no idea how they could possibly top that

And they tried and completely botched it

Kind of agreed! I think there's a VERY slight drop off in quality of the game after Cid dies, but definitely felt a bigger drop off after the Bahamut fight. Obviously there was still more story to tell so it had to keep going, but yep the reason I don't give this game an 8/10 or 9/10 is that the last stretch just doesn't hold up the same as the first 3/4ths of the game does.

Though I do think the fight with King Barnabas/Odin on top of the big tower was also pretty dope, I wish they wouldn't have made you get your ass whooped by him two other times in the two hours before you finally actually beat him. Like, I just lost to this dude hardcore, twice, and all of a sudden I'm strong enough to dispatch him?

TomNook7 posted...

7.5 rounds up to 8 last i checked

It's a light 7.5 not a strong one

Dels posted...

that actually does surprise me, i knew gamefaqs was dead but i didn't know it was that dead.

yeah, an FF game I would've thought for sure gets a review from SOMEONE before 1 month after release

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Yeah I remember hearing people weren't too hot on Exodus when it came out

i mean it got decent reviews... but I didn't think it was good. i gave it a 4/10 when i was done.

Ignis

Fluttershy_Pony posted...

Neat! I wish I could remember more about it, but I'm drawing a total blank other than the name & general genre.

You play as Josh Calloway who just turned his back on his employer Wisdom Corporation because your girlfriend Eliel got used in creating a superweapon named Legacy which fuses some cool metal thing with a human soul. You fight everyone using Eliel as a beam sword, and eventually get other weapons (lightning rod, gravity hammer, snake sword, tonfa, etc), and take down Agla who is the evil head honcho of Wisdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsLecZZvPSg

Really it's not a bad game, it's just very basic. Wisdom is a typical evil corporation trying to take over the world, Josh and Eliel don't have a ton of personality, the combat is barely knee deep, etc. Totally serviceable back in the PS2 days but probably a little boring by today's standards.

colliding posted...

good review

ty! and you too snake

TomNook7 posted...

7's a bit too harsh imo.

my real score is 7.5 but that wasn't an option LOL, is that closer to what you were thinking?

Fluttershy_Pony posted...

EOE: Eve of Extinction. Some PS2 action game, I dunno.

I'VE PLAYED THIS OMG

When I was a kid this was like one of my favorite games, like I even had the username Yanjun_Zong for a while based on the character Raven's real name. Now looking back, that game is sooooo mid haha

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps5/300958-final-fantasy-xvi/reviews/174922

It's been a whole month since this game came out, how did I beat everyone to it? (aside from the obvious answer of no contributor awards and weak site traffic)

Everyone else has said it, but these were definitely issues with the game on release too. They were probably just easier to forgive at that time. The general quality-of-life on AAA releases nowadays is so high that we see things like Mass Effect 1 and really don't have the same stomach we used to for them.

Mario

I would only describe one or two side quests throughout the entire game as "great", and I don't know if any of those are the ones that pop up at the end, but they're at least important to resolving the side characters' story lines.

To answer this, I went through my TrueTrophies games list and found the ones that I had completely forgotten I'd played:

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
Table Top Racing: World Tour
MouseCraft

masterplum posted...

wtf 8 side quests showing up at the very end there

haha yuuuuuuupppppppp

This is so interesting seeing y'all mostly hard split - I voted VII Remake personally, but I really liked both games' combat systems!

An additional minor reason: Discord probably sucked a good amount of forum traffic out. I know it certainly has done so on this exact message board.

It's a mix of things

Video walkthroughs have made tons of people have no real reason to ever go to GameFAQs.

Games themselves have been designed to need guides less and less as time as gone on. Lots more handholding.

Ownership changes over the years probably also didn't help

And while I do think good contests/contributor awards could've continued to provide some sparks to site traffic while the site was still doing pretty good (Character Battle IX is the reason I'm on this board in the first place, and definitely caused a ton of interest), I would imagine that the biggest reason that site traffic died down is just because people don't need written guides as much and this site was never built for video guides. Unless we have stats that show otherwise, I would wager that over 50% of users at this site's peak never became frequent forum users. The primary reason people used the site were the guides, not the forums, and now this site has no competitive advantage with the guides.

Moderation style has very little to do with the long-term trend of site traffic decline.

GTM posted...

Hello solio

I missed you buddy

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Just about everyone so far has said "Blank and it's not even close" in one way or the other, so I think it's safe to say they're just 2 different target audiences lol.

Sure, they're different styles.

It's still interesting to gauge what people prefer

Garnet / Dagger

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Are you short on money?

That was uncalled for. I do not know who or are why you are so bitter.

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

From the moment you reach Moore it should have been obvious why all the white people. Whether slaves or oppressors, it doesn't matter if you're somehow able to spread different races evenly and fairly. All it takes is one frame out of context and it's over. Now whether it was right or wrong, it's complicated but it's definitely understandable why they would rather avoid the whole issue

I suppose I can see that. But honestly I'm fine accepting the answer that it's just feudal Europe too.

PeaceFrog posted...

Games are hand holdy enough these days that walkthroughs aren't really needed, except for maybe gamers who want to minmax in a jrpg. Short form guides and wikis are far more useful for the average user.

No doubt GameFAQs's main attraction isn't much of an attraction anymore. Yet it would still be nice to have some content uploaded here every now and then.

GTM posted...

This food is butt-like.

That outfit is butt-like.

This project is butt-like.

Works perfectly. Glad there were no further criteria than using them

butt-like huh

LiquidOshawott posted...

Oh the rewards for contributions are done?

so like, is this site going to stop getting people to write FAQs and such?

Seems like it's kind of gone in that direction for a while anyways! Since January 2022 to be exact. Many major releases nowadays don't even get reviews written for them since contributors have no incentives

But ZoopSoul in that topic expressed interest in bringing the awards back dependent on funding

give han CotM

Aecioo posted...

i know i'll be attacked for it but "literally obsessed" is you making this topic

i keep getting notifications on the topic i made and i'm wondering what's making my review of the month question pop off

then it's this guy going in on gamefaqs admins for some conspiracy theory he has where the admins are showing favoritism for contributor of the month

just reminded me of this old board 8 saying and wanted to share *shrug*

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/5-gamefaqs-contributors/80500932

pretty cringe

masterplum posted...

Its entirely this. Side quests were perfect up till bahamut. Then suddenly you walk 50 feet and more pop up, but you still want to do them because the good ones were so good

I felt that for sure. Early on, I kept thinking "yeah these sidequests are nothing special, but at least there's only 3 of them and they take like 5 minutes each at most. I'll do these no problem"

Then at the end there were 10 of them and they took 10-15 minutes each

Needless to say, they stopped being inoffensive and became a nuisance.

junk_funk posted...

Battle and gameplay - B-
Battles were well paced, even the long ones. Enemies needed to be more diverse or have counters for your moves to force you to switch strategies. Common enemies stall for 20 seconds or so between attacks. Status effects could've helped. Party members fought ok but did low damage and didnt have health bars which made you not care about them. I only died three timesand it was because I wasnt paying attention to my health bar not because I couldn't heal.

I think the combat gets much more fun on Final Fantasy difficulty. The game is definitely too easy on first playthrough.

So, if you start up FFXIV and end up liking it, thats fantastic, though if youre more similar to me and realize youre absolutely miserable over 100 hours in, then stop.

like, no shit sherlock lol.

Leonhart4 posted...

How I saved FFXIV characters wrong and wasted over 400 rounds

lmfaooooooo

What a weird article lmao

"I started an MMO even though I don't like multiplayer games, dropped a ridiculous amount of time into it, never really learned how to play it properly, and now I hate the game. Just wanted to tell everyone!"

Cool story bro

Ignis

Triple post but

Overall I liked the game quite a bit... sidequests and messy ending aside, the combat is pretty stellar, and the main story was overall good. Not to mention the (usually) excellent voice acting performances, including some characters that don't get too much screen time like the Dame, which really helped to sell the story - Ralph Ineson doing Cid's VA in particular was just incredible.

No major complaints on the music or graphics either

It's a flawed game but a good game!

Double post but

I eventually started skipping the dialogue in the sidequests when I could tell it was going to be one of the cookie cutter ones. They kind of followed a formula:

NPC: "Hey Clive, we've got a problem"
Clive: "Okay what's the problem"
*NPC says the problem, and hey look at that it's gonna involve finding an item or fighting a monster or both*
Clive: "Okay I'll help, what should we do"
*NPC and Clive have a conversation about strategy, most of which doesn't really matter because I'm going to follow the big waypoint on my screen and fight a monster or pick up an item, the exact same way I've done it for the rest of the game*

Sometimes that strategy section of the conversation would also be like "hey Clive, we should go now!" and Clive would be like "no, it's too dangerous, you'll need to go around the flank and meet with me later instead of now" and I'm thinking.... I'm going to have the same fight with whatever monster I'm gonna need to kill regardless of how this conversation goes, can we speed this up?

And then when the sidequest is over there's an exposition dump about that NPC

This is filler and I'd rather this kind of content not be so prevalent in a game, regardless of whether it's optional content or not

One of my biggest problems with the sidequests is how the game seemed to drop a shit ton of them more and more as the game went on.

Right before the last mission (this is NON SPOILER I promise), the characters were like "okay the villain is over there right? We better waste no time going to beat them up!" and then the game was like "okay but first, wrap up every supporting character's side story and watch these inspiring cutscenes at the end of each one where they really show their resolve!"

Maybe some of those sidequests could've been spread out a bit more and it would've felt both more natural and less tedious.