Board 8 > Games that are greater than the sum of their parts.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I hear this about Final Fantasy 7 sometimes and somewhat-agree...wanted to see if there are other games ya'll would describe like this.
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I interpret this as "games that are better when you entirely ignore one or more negative aspects of them" and my first thought is Gladius.
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Dragon's Dogma
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I think of FFVII as a game whose flaws are overstated more than this criticism, especially with the whole "it hasn't aged well" argument.

For me, it's probably something like Skies of Arcadia. The individual aspects of it aren't generally things I look for in JRPGs and it doesn't do anything particularly outstanding compared to other games in the genre, but the total package is very good.
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Or "games that sound bad on paper but are actually great." FFVII and Skies of Arcadia are both good examples.
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Persona 5 becomes amazing if you can ignore the heavy losses of character interaction/quality compared to 3-4

Spec Ops: The Line comes to mind, its parts may feel generic but it all contributes to an amazing story and experience anyway.
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Spec Ops: the Line is a good answer. Graphics, gameplay, soundtrack, and much of its story are worthy but not close to exceptional...yet it becomes a personal favorite of mine that more people ought to try.
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Spec Ops: The Line

Bioshock Infinite
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dq8
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Okami
Chrono Trigger
Trails in the Sky FC
Maybe Shadow of the Colossus?

I evidently have an understanding of this term that is nearly the complete opposite of the definitions given in this topic though, so...
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What's your definition? I thought about mentioning Chrono Trigger.
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The Quest for Glory series as a whole.
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I view Chrono Trigger the same way I do Skies of Arcadia, although I'm not as fond of it. It doesn't do anything great, but it does everything well.
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LeonhartFour posted...

It doesn't do anything great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5FFDj7vH6E
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I could point out problems with almost every individual aspect of Life is Strange but somehow the overall experience is 11/10
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LeonhartFour posted...

I view Chrono Trigger the same way I do Skies of Arcadia, although I'm not as fond of it. It doesn't do anything great, but it does everything well.

This is sort of how I view the term actually. Might post a more thought out version when I'm no longer on my phone, since there is a bit more to it.

It is very definitively not "games that do one thing pretty badly but are good anyways" to me, which is the impression I got from this topic.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

It doesn't do anything great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5FFDj7vH6E

Yeah, kinda weird to say the game featuring one of the best soundtracks of all-time doesn't do anything great. Even the graphics and battle system were great for their time.
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And yeah I somehow skipped Leon's first post when I made the comment about my definition being different from everyone else >.>
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thundersheep posted...

EndOfDiscOne posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

It doesn't do anything great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5FFDj7vH6E

Yeah, kinda weird to say the game featuring one of the best soundtracks of all-time doesn't do anything great. Even the graphics and battle system were great for their time.

Agreed. I wanted to mention Chrono Trigger, but it might be because it does everything at such a high level that it seems like those aspects are 'not great.' The game as a whole might be equal to the sum of its parts.
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I don't think the soundtrack is an all-timer myself. The graphics are good, but the battle system is pretty by the numbers. Dual Techs and Triple Techs are fun enough to keep it interesting, but I wouldn't consider that great either. You're almost always having fun though, which is the important thing.

Again, I'm not as high on Chrono Trigger as most RPG aficionados are, but I recognize that it's a very well made game with no real flaws.
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Ah, I should probably explain what I think greater than the sum of their parts means to me.

It means that the overall harmony of the game's features and qualities results in the game being a far better experience than if you simply examined each part by itself. The game might have flaws, but those flaws don't diminish the experience.

For me, the Quest for Glory series is far more literal because all five games, taken as a whole, produce an experience that each individual game could not accomplish on its own, partially because of the character transfer feature between games.
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The 1/3 Pain
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Twisted Metal 2
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Terranigma.

Probably Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia as well.
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For me personally it's probably mgs2

Like there's a lot that should be wrong there and 3/1/4 all do a bunch of things better but 2 is still my favourite. I even struggle sometimes to explain why I prefer it to 3, but I know that I do.

Could you count Pokemon games here too? With the formula being what it is there's no way it should still be so fun and yet I have a blast almost every time.

Also the old Resident Evils and Silent Hills because the controls are fairly shitty and they have a laughable script/VA in some cases and yet they're pretty damn amazing. I think the 2 in both of those series is probably the best example.
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Yeah, I think MGS2 is a good answer.
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Life is Strange, definitely

Cringey dialogue/writing
Dumb teenagers
Chloe being Chloe
Choices that don't matter in the end

But when I think of the entire series as a whole, it was awesome. I cried at least twice. It was one of the best video game experiences I've had, but I can't pinpoint why.
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i don't think MGS2 is greater than the sum of its parts either. its parts are pretty amazing!
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The Witness has got to be maybe the best ever example of this.

I'm down with the Witness. A game with 600+ puzzles built around drawing lines with a 45-minute audio clip and no music*...but it works.
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Nier 1
Skies of Arcadia
Deadly Premonition (the king of this concept)
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Both Nier games to different extents

SeabassDebeste posted...

i don't think MGS2 is greater than the sum of its parts either. its parts are pretty amazing!

MGS2's level design is impeccable, especially the Tanker. The story is a hot mess though, but that's part of the reason people love it.

I think MGS4 might fit this better, actually, or it might even be the opposite. I'm not sure which, but MGS4 has some of my favorite individual moments in the series and I always love it when I play it, but when I step back and look at the whole package, it's so easy to notice what a mess it is.
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MGS4 act 3 was bad. Like really really fucking bad. Literally took the worst part of MGS3 and made it into an hour long interactive movie.
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Sorry, but I loved Act 3's exposition-fest. It's such a guilty pleasure.

the gameplay segments are awful though and it has the worst B&B boss

it kind of sums up how I feel about the game in general I guess
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MGS2 has some really great parts but I think the cohesiveness of the whole is what pushes it to the top for fans like me.

I'm not really sure if that's what the topic title means, but hey.
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I've always been an unapologetic fan of the bit in act 3 where you follow the guy
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Act 3 in MGS4 was amazing to be honest. Acts 1 and 2 are the weaker parts of the game imo. (They're not really weak though. I don't get the hate this game gets sometimes.)
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I've always loved act 2. The power stations and mansion had some great sneaking routes. The chase at the end was awesome too. Reminded me of The End battle.
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The Mass Effect trilogy.

Each game on its own is at least pretty good, with 1 being sustainable and 2 & 3 being phenomenal games. But played together with choices carrying over throughout the whole series, you really start to live with the characters and it all feels so familiar by the end. You know the conflict is about to resolve, but you almost don't want it to because you've started to become attached to that world and those characters. It's simply incredible.

Of course talking about single games and not series, I'd say that Soul Calibur V is my personal answer. Yeah, the story mode was ridiculously underwhelming and some of the new characters weren't presented very well at all. But I still think it's the best Soul Calibur game with the deepest character relations and definitely the best fighting system. It overcomes its weaknesses even though those weaknesses are pretty pronounced.
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The ME trilogy is a good one yeah. I'm not sure any of the games make my top 10 but the trilogy does.
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Chrono Trigger easily. It's my all time favorite and every aspect is perfect but somehow putting them together is even more perfect
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ME3 is a top ten game all by itself for me, and ME2 is top 25.

I guess the whole "trilogy where your choices carry over" thing is the best example of this because it's designed to be this way, but I kinda feel like that's cheating here...!
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Deadly Premonition only does one thing right, and the rest of the game is absolute garbage, but it's still one of my favorite experiences in gaming ever.
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Agreed. I wanted to mention Chrono Trigger, but it might be because it does everything at such a high level that it seems like those aspects are 'not great.' The game as a whole might be equal to the sum of its parts.

I feel like when games have multiple attributes that work together, it doesn't feel like an accumulation or sum, it feels like the game's quality grows along other dimensions. So instead of "good music, good graphics" being two points in the games favor, it feels like they amplify each other. I measure the experience along related axes.

So if we take a shooting game, if a gun is fun to control, it looks good and it sounds good, you might say "three points for that gun", but for me it's more of a cube. But the effect needs the game features to complement each other to really evoke this feeling. A game with good controls and a good soundtrack might just be a sum of its parts (depending on the game and player, of course).
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so for me, Witcher 3 - there's so much to do and I really want to do it. And a lot of places to explore and uncover. That game, to me, feels like it could be half as big and still be more than I can handle.
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Deadly Premonition
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