Lurker > tazzyboyishere

But around the midpoint of the game, something changes. The story loses its focus almost entirely. The world design becomes overwhelmingly large and barren. The method of progression becomes linked to chains of fetch quests. The pacing halts completely to force you into endless strings of battle, which, while still the best the series had seen at this point, was not able to sustain engagement for the games brutally long campaign. This astronomical drop in quality was frustrating, especially when it was discovered there was an alleged sex scandal which may have led to the games producer shifting the direction of the game to favor the Japanaese voice actress of the character, Rose. I will not talk any more at length concerning this, since numerous individuals have done deep dives of this rumor, but needless to say, Tales of Zestiria will always be remembered as a pathetic screed of a video game.

Tales of Zestiria was followed up by Tales of Berseria, which had some of the most creative storytelling Ive ever seen in a video game, especially in this genre. The way Tales of Berseria managed to take the excellent worldbuilding Tales of Zestiria failed to capitalize on, then completely deconstruct every tangible facet into something incredibly purposeful, was enthralling. This isnt even mentioning the wonderful voicework (A fucking rarity in modern Tales), the quality of scene direction despite a limited budget, and the tight pacing of each and every event you play a part in. There are obvious issues with the story like its villain being the stupidest thing ever written, but those flaws are all wrapped around a brilliant character study when viewed in a bubble. I think Tales of Berseria reinstalled a lot of good faith within the fanbase, yet there was still a need for the series to advance itself.

Enter Tales of Arise, which, as you can probably tell using context clues, I did not like. Tales of Arise functions a bit like a soft reboot for the franchise, updating its combat to have a more modern feel. The result is one which has potential to be the best the series has seen, but fails to actually engage it beyond a fairly limited scope. It is certainly not strong enough to sustain a 40-hour campaign, and it becomes the games worst aspect in the final act, where enemies sponge up damage to instill faux challenge. I literally moved the difficulty down to story mode due to how much the combat was destroying the games pacing. This is not the sign of a good battle system.

And while were on the subject of pacing and the final act of Tales of Arise, the story takes a nosedive as well. I never found it to be initially engaging, but it was, at the very least, nice to watch unfold. The final act, which is about seven hours long, contains about 60% of the story, introducing brand new characters and concepts up until the final dungeon. It stops being nice and instead becomes a relentless slog of context which merely becomes stupider the more they decide to tack on. The story could have worked if these concepts were introduced earlier and had some time to breathe, but as it stands, the script is laughable in its presentation. The fact that this is the most boring set of main characters the series has seen thus far just amplifies that. At least Tales of Graces had bad characters that were fun to make fun of. This is essentially just a group of sandwich bread.

So I know I didnt actually talk much about Tales of Arise relative to the franchise as a whole, but I think its important to note how much potential the franchise possesses. Its evident that a lot of work goes into them on all fronts, and Tales of Arise actually was remarkable to most people from what I can tell. This is the highest-selling and most critically acclaimed title the franchise has seen, at least in the United States. Yet Im left wondering why that is. Surely this isnt the peak Tales experience for a majority of the people. And if so, how likely are they to expand on the legitimate flaws present? Tales will always be a series mired by inept writing or game design or both. Thats just in its nature. Yet here I am, the fool who has played every North American release in the franchise and is engrossed in multiple translation projects for some of the games we didnt see come over here. I will always be here to complain about Tales games, and this series will continue to kick me in the ass while I gleefully pour my free time into them for the sole sake of whining on the Internet.

Tales of Arise Score: 2/6

23. Tales of Arise

The Tales franchise is a curious one. Its one of the longest-running gaming franchises, dating back to 1995 in Japan and 1998 in North America. Since then, it has seen nearly twenty mainline releases, most of which have been made available to Western audiences despite the series tendency to get relatively low review scores and sales. But the series does have a huge cult following, and its both loved and hated in numerous gaming circles. Specifically, titles like Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, and Tales of Vesperia have notable bunches of fans, with myself belonging to all of those. I like the Tales franchise, and have played every title released in the United States. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I am a fan of Tales.

But the series has been in a pretty weird state for a while now.I think it initially started with Tales of Graces f, a game which was very bad. For the first legitimate occasion, barring the severely dated Tales of Destiny and the bad port of Tales of Phantasia, I found a Tales game to be terrible. There was an initial shock to it, but it subsided when I played Tales of Xillia, which was very good. Then I played Tales of Xillia 2, which was not very good. Then I played Tales of Zestiria, which was not very good. Then I played Tales of Berseria, which was very good. Then I played Tales of Hearts R which was okay. As you can see, despite my honest intent to play every title in this godforsaken franchise, including Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, has led to massive spikes and plateaus in relation to quality.

I think I can identify my own personal reasons for why I feel the series dropped so hard.See, Tales of Symphonia was a revolutionary title for me. At the time, my experience with RPGs was pretty minimal. They were more focused on turn-based systems or dungeon-crawling. It was a rare sight to behold a video game which had such a heavy focus on active combat with the flourishes of a detailed story and cast of characters. Similarly, each character provided their own unique play-style with their own technical skills and combo potential. I got pretty deep into the core mechanics of Tales of Symphonia, and while its admittedly shallow, the hundreds of hours I dumped into the game as a teenager were far more unique to me than most other games I had played at that point. When I was 14, I had dreams of becoming a game designer (which were immediately snuffed out the moment I tried to learn coding language two years later), and I was creating ideas for games I would one day create. One particular project was literally just a copy of Tales of Symphonia in both plot and gameplay, and I worked really hard on writing these ideas out. I was an idiot.

I would like to someday do a deeper dive into why this franchise initially resonated so strongly with me, but I feel games have evolved past the level of what Tales offered to me. I cant think of many games in the mid-2000s which had active combat systems with a heavy focus on statistical character growth and a large-scale storyline all wrapped into one package. Tales feels like a pioneer in that regard, though it likely wasnt the first franchise to do it, or the best at the time. I will not Google this to find out. The important thing to note is that those types of games started to become more common in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Games which scratched itches once found in the older Tales games with far more polish and intrigue. The Tales series has never been one to innovate itself, which usually isnt a problem, but the games quickly went from being unique and exciting experiences to relatively shallow ones, surpassed by what both AAA and indie markets were able to put out. Even the games I quite enjoyed, Tales of Xillia and Tales of Berseria, were far more due to story and characters as opposed to their combat. Hell, I barely remember the mechanics of most of the games beyond Tales of Vesperia because they simply arent intriguing.

The franchise became the butt of every joke leveled toward Japanese RPG storytelling and game design. The series was a prime example of one which refused to change itself for the better, slowly becoming more absorbed with an effort to innovate while lacking the creativity to do so. It all culminated into Tales of Zestiria, a game so maligned by the franchises fans that it is still talked about to this day as a massive failure. Its hard to get across just how bad Tales of Zestiria was. A lot of why it is so bad is due to its incredible start. The initial introduction of its characters and world introduce a wealth of intrigue. We are also introduced to the Fusionic Chain Linear Motion Battle System, which to this point was the best the series had seen. Complaints leveled toward the combat in Tales of Zestiria have a tendency to focus on a poor camera and bad AI, but I never experienced these as issues myself, so perhaps I am just a better gamer than you. The systems in Tales of Zestiria were kind of awkward and poorly explained, particularly how it handles equipment skills and fusion, it is a much appreciated effort to try and add depth to its combat.

24. Monster Hunter Rise

Perhaps there is something to be said of myself that I would deign to allow this list to be populated by a game of which I have among the most minimal experiences possible. I initially did not have 'Monster Hunter Rise' included when drafting out the positioning of each game I played from the year 2021, as my total playtime almost certainly did not exceed five hours. Given the grand scope of 'Monster Hunter Rise' and my understanding of it as a game with hundreds of hours of content, it would have felt cheap to include it, especially given that I figured out fairly quickly that I did not like playing it. However, I also included 'Pac-Man 99', a theoretically endless experience of which I played only a couple of hours at the maximum. Perhaps it is time for me to admit that I do not have the amount of integrity I would like to pretend I do. I would love to pretend 'Monster Hunter Rise' is just a bad game for bad gamers, but the harsh reality is that I am merely a failure of a gamer who should not be allowed to come within twenty meters of a Nintendo Gamecube, the Earths finest gaming console.

This is not my first revelation of my ineptitude in playing video games and summarily discussing these experiences with faux-artistic sensibilities. When I included 'Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 + 2' on my 2020 list, it served a similar purpose of admonishing the cruelty I could be showing to a potential audience. Perhaps even a warning to those unfortunate enough to stumble upon my words, in an effort to present a finely tuned writeup which more reflects the danger of becoming too absorbed in the long-winded dialogue of an author with profound delusions of critical substantiality. I can utilize video games such as 'Monster Hunter Rise' and 'Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 + 2' to feed this message through early on, before I become absorbed into discussing gaming experiences for which I actually do have more than a minimal amount of thoughts on. I become something else when I go into my 'Gamer Mode', something far more pathetic than my current, healthy state of being. I urge you to consider these words before you make the decision to continue reading my words. I am henceforth forbidding you from leaving these writeups unfinished if you make the decision to read past this paragraph. If you do stop, I will be sad, and you do not want me to be even sadder than I already will be once the rot of 'Gamer Mode' reaches my brain, do you?

'Monster Hunter Rise' is a bad game for bad gamers. Yes, I am aware of how harsh and shallow such a comment is, but I am also aware of Capcoms decision to frontload the game with text boxes as a means of tutorial, rather than making the process of learning the seemingly endless systems of the game through a more organic method. I do not play video games to read descriptions of video game mechanics. That is what nerds do. I imagine if you play visual novels you will enjoy the first two hours of 'Monster Hunter Rise' because you have to read swathes of text while the plot fails to progress at all. Thats right, visual novels are bad too. I read 'Umineko no Naku Koro ni' for ten hours before something happened, and it is supposedly the greatest video game ever made according to probably at least one person. If you play visual novels, you are a bad gamer, and if you played the first hour of 'Monster Hunter Rise' and thought it was a good way to open a game up, you are an even worse gamer. Is this what you want from me? Is this fun for you to read? If you made the decision to continue to this paragraph, I am sorry, but it is too late. You are forever cursed with the unfortunate decision to keep reading, just as I am forever cursed due to my decision to purchase 'Monster Hunter Rise'. Yes, I am aware this entire write-up is a troll, and yes, I am aware it makes no sense to chronologically come after my 'Everhood' writeup. But 'Everhood' is actually a bad game so it was an important distinction. 'Monster Hunter Rise' is probably pretty fun if I try to play it in spurts of more than 20 minutes.

Monster Hunter Rise Score: 2/6

'Everhood' cant really be brought up without noting the music and mechanics related to said music. The perception of 'Everhood' as a rhythm game by many reviewers led to me misinterpreting the type of game 'Everhood' actually is. While this isnt a fault of 'Everhood' itself, it does bring an intriguing argument to why video game reviewers deserve to be purged from this plane. What was described to me through my various readings was a rhythm-action experience with 'Undertale'-like combat. So I expected a game where you perform actions by hitting the appropriate commands at the appropriate timing in an ever-changing gameplay loop. Instead, what the game offers is a more unique yet significantly less engaging type of gameplay where the boss performs the rhythmic actions and you just dodge the notes they make. Later on you can absorb some of the notes and fight back with them. There is never a change to this, though you do have to change up our strategy depending on which boss youre on. The Gameplay in 'Everhood' ranges from boring to infuriating, unfortunately never reaching the point of actually being fun. Ideally a game centered around music would make up for any of its flaws by containing music one would identify as bops or jams. I, personally, cannot identify with such a mindset. Aside from the absolute banger 'Tinnitus Dance' and the climactic 'Euthanasia Rollercoaster'', 'Everhood is severely lacking in the area of memorable or noteworthy tunes. Given the sheer size of its catalogue, this is truly unfortunate. It should be noted that the game drew comparisons to 'Undertale '' due to its aesthetic and writing, as opposed to its gameplay. It feels impossible to separate 'Everhood' from 'Undertale' in this regard simply due to how blatantly the former apes the latter. The creators of 'Everhood' saw 'Undertale' and thought, 'Yeah, we can do this meme shit.' Now, its important to distinguish immediately that I fucking love 'Undertale'. It is one of the greatest video games ever made, and the attention it brought to the indie scene was a bit unfathomable. The reason I Feel 'Undertale' struck a chord with so many is that it was quite innocent in its sensibilities. I Don't get the sense that 'Undertale' is actively trying to establish anything more nuanced than, "you should be nice", yet the methods it takes to reach such a theme are creative, hilarious, emotional, and, for better or worse, full of memes. Its intriguing to understand the creative process that went into 'Undertale'. Toby Fox was basically just a random dude with a creative idea and the skills to put those ideas together. 'Undertale' was not meant to be the event it ended up becoming. It was meant as a fun experiment from a guy that liked EarthBound a lot. The depth of 'Undertales' story and characters wasnt really understood until massive swathes of people hopped on the ride and built their own interpretations and theories surrounding the events of 'Undertale'. Yet when you take the game at face value, its a small, silly, and somewhat overly sentimental piece of art. Yet the small flourishes stuck with people. People who viewed the games story as something to engage wholly with were rewarded with something truly magnificent. The game is masterful in every way a game can be. But this wasnt something Toby Fox crafted himself. The depth of the Mariana Trench cannot be manufactured by humans, and neither can the depth of any single piece of art. Depth in a story is only made by how the audience of said story chooses to view it.

If you want an example of someone attempting to manufacture depth, re-read my first paragraph. Most of that is absolute bologna. The initial paragraph was written to fool you into believing I am extraordinary. If you personally read the opening paragraph and made the assumption I was extraordinary, you just got OWNED. I immediately deleted my analysis of 'The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD' when I noticed it gathering dust in my Medium drafts while looking into the stats of some of the actually interesting articles Ive written. It is, in fact, true that I have sufficient anxiety regarding my work and how I interpret said work, and I most certainly continue to refuse the editing process to keep that anxiety buried, but that anxiety comes exclusively from a place of privilege. I can write large chunks of somewhat legible text for days on end without becoming exhausted. Boredom, instead, is my greatest enemy. Writing about 'The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD' was fucking boring. Why would I dedicate so much time writing about the most ineffective way of playing one of the most mediocre gaming experiences ever conceived? That was a terrible idea.

Now, which paragraph is the truth, exactly? Am I truly regretful for the ways in which I have gone about practicing my hobbies? Or am I just rolling with whatever happens, acknowledging poor decisions and appropriately moving on? Neither are actually important, as I am continuing to manufacture depth with these questions. Much like myself, 'Everhood' also wants to possess depth. It goes to the length of completely aping an aesthetic to give itself perceived depth. Yet the story is an absolute dumpster fire if you stop to think about it for more than a few minutes. I, unfortunately, cant spoil anything significant due to the legal action CD Project Red took against me from the year prior, but I feel I should note that the actions the player takes, the way the game decides to speak to you about your actions, and the end result of actions youve taken are all full of holes and contradictions that left me actively annoyed as the credits rolled. This game has cool psychedelic scenes though. Like, wow, some of the best Ive ever seen. 2021 sure was a year where getting extremely high and watching longplays of 'Everhood' wouldve been cool for a variety of reasons. Welcome to the list you pieces of shit.

Everhood Score: 2/6

25. Everhood

Creating this type of list last year should have been a bit of a formative experience for me. I have a tendency to lapse in and out of writing projects I take on, almost inevitably resulting in a failure to complete said projects due either to an inability to accept my perceived personal flaws, or through overplanning the writing process and crushing my brain under an unnecessary weight of perceived burden and responsibility. In actuality, the importance of my writing is solely dictated by the enjoyment I receive from it. I am not doing this as a job and I know the amount of people who honestly read my work likely wont go past single digits. I have had much contemplation over these negative thought processes, and have sought many professionals for consultation concerning my personal feelings of being a failure. The result of this is still undetermined. I wish I could say that my successful effort of sticking to a large writing project, even barring it taking nearly half a year to do so, had fixed my indecisiveness. However, I was intending to make a BIG return to my writing, including a list of ideas for media-related articles and a rebranding of my personal Medium page. My first attempt at an essay was an analysis of 'The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD' from the sole perspective of using buttons only, and why this way of playing 'The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword' would be a horrible mistake for new players and an exercise in tedium for returning players. I began this article close to a month after the release of 'The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD', popping out a total of eighteen paragraphs over the course of two hours. I was about a quarter of the way through my argument and felt quite satisfied with it at this point. However, I have not returned to this article since that day, and I have, at this point, completely forgotten a majority of the things I intended to discuss. Those words gather dust in my drafts folder on Medium, and they will likely never leave the security of that folder unless I delete them, forever sending my memories into an endless void, never to be retrieved. I am left wondering why, exactly, I have yet to delete the article. I have lost all of my interest in finishing it up, yet at the same time I hold sufficient anxiety over the possibility I may need to complete it some day. But what value can be gained from completing this? I am evidently opposed to doing it out of personal satisfaction, yet Ive established I will receive no gratification from others seeing the finished product. When I think about my writing in this way, I become caught in a loop. What is the meaning of performing ones hobby? What is the meaning of value? What is the meaning of productivity? What is the meaning of this tired script we refer to as everyday life?

'Everhood' wasnt very good. At the time of writing these particular words, it is November 29, 2021 at 5:26 PM EST. At this moment I am nowhere close to finishing all of the games I want to play for the sake of completing this list, but 'Everhood' is pretty firmly lodged in the bottom spot, and I dont foresee anything slipping below it. If something does, I will still not edit this write-up, because any efforts at editing I make, no matter how small, always end up in me completely redoing what Ive written, and that doesnt sound like a good time. From the moment I write these words, they will be forever imprinted onto this page no matter how many falsehoods they contain. Noting the many flaws 'Everhood' holds would take a significant amount of time to write, and I will absolutely take all of the time I need. I fully expect all of the eyeballs which take the time to read my complaints will take offense, as the reaction to this game has been almost unanimous praise, but that is a problem for me to disregard and for you to seek the necessary professional attention based on how you decide to engage with my words.

colliding posted...

I think it actually is Metroid Dread and you're lying

Your issue is that you assume I am intelligent enough to trick people above the age of three

Oops, I meant to include a poll to attract those strange individuals who enjoy clicking bubbles and having their votes tallied towards an ultimately meaningless march of dogmatic subjectivity. However, I forgot to do this. The poll was going to be the choice of best games as voted by nobody other than myself from the previous ten years, which are as follows:

2011 - Dark Souls
2012 - The Walking Dead
2013 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
2014 - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
2015 - Bloodborne
2016 - Titanfall 2
2017 - Hollow Knight
2018 - Wandersong
2019 - Outer Wilds
2020 - Doom Eternal

Feel free to vote with text instead. I will not count your votes, so this would be a pointless endeavor, and I am truly sorry for suggesting you waste your time in such a way.

Hello fellow gamers. 2021 sure was a year. In fact, I'd say it was among the greatest years of the 2020s. I played a lot of games this year. In fact, there were 25 games I played for more than an hour. All of those games are absolutely eligible for my top 25 list, and I'm really sorry about that. If it makes you feel better, I liked most of them, but I will also complain about a few regardless of whether or not it makes you sad. Here is the list in alphabetical order:

Astalon: Tears of the Earth
Before Your Eyes
Blue Fire
Boomerang X
Bowser's Fury
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Deathloop
Deltarune: Chapter 2
Everhood
It Takes Two
Metroid Dread
Monster Hunter Rise
NEO: The World Ends with You
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139
Pac-Man 99
Persona 5 Strikers
Pokmon Brilliant Diamond
Psychonauts 2
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Resident Evil Village
Returnal
Scarlet Nexus
Shin Megami Tensei V
Tales of Arise
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Whoa, that's exciting. Here is last year's list for reference, never before seen on Board 8:
https://vincent-daniels.medium.com/top-21-video-games-of-2020-june-2021-edition-abb74cd37723

Oh boy, I can't wait to see what this year's list holds in store for us. Perhaps we will all celebrate the event as it should be celebrated. You know how it goes. Please, just understand that too much celebration can be detrimental to your health, and I do not want anyone to be hurt from the sheer excitement of seeing myself rank 25 separate video games from worst to best.

Hint for number 25: It is not Metroid Dread and this is the only hint you will receive for the entire list.

I 100%'d 3D World solo and this version in particular is fantastic. Bowsers Fury is the main draw imo but 3D World is still worthwhile

The one with robots

The chad Noctowl

The game where me and Mac got divorced

Predix fail

The Lost World

Near replican't

13 Sentinels because it has anime titties aka best plot device

The sequel to well-known good game Ratchet & Clank 2016

Valhalla

forgotten city because lost world i guess

bravely default 2

BOOMERANG x

Oh hell yea

Play on the easiest mode to engage the awful combat with as little stress as possible.

I figure anyone who makes the conscious decision to become a police officer is probably a bit of a shitty person at the very least.