Spectra

Yeah... the whole concept of games as a service only really makes sense - in my eye, at least - for MMORPGs, where you're constantly getting a stream of content updates, and free to play games, where there's no significant up-front costs.

I think that might be where they got the idea from, but the problem is that MMOs are, in the vast majority of cases, digital-only and subscription-based. They're a completely different experience, and they NEED constant updates and additions in order to keep their player base interested and justify the subscription cost. They're an ongoing, incomplete experience.

Most video games outside of MMOs and maybe the F2P titles with microtransactions are designed as complete experiences; you buy a video game to play it and (hopefully) finish it, not to play part of it and then wait for the rest of it to come out later...which you then have to pay for on top of the hefty price tag. Genuine expansion packs that are unplanned or take a long time to develop, in response to fan interest, I would consider as worthwhile DLC, which follows the spirit of the concept of games as a service - it's making a game better going forward.

But with developers like KT (who are notoriously bad with this), NISA (sorry, but I still haven't forgiven their outrageous Disgaea D2 DLC packs which even had trophies tied to them!) and EA (where do I even start) just taking things you should get in the game out of it and selling it back to you...yeah, that isn't really a service. Developers abuse it by locking the more attractive/useful stuff behind paid DLC, people buy it, nobody complains, and the cycle continues. It's...frustrating.

...and £39.99 for a season pass, come on Nintendo.

The Universal Century works of Gundam, at least up to Char's Counterattack and excluding ZZ, would qualify as this for me. I started to lose interest around Unicorn (which I still haven't finished) but I absolutely loved how the UC developed from the original MSG up to that movie. The movie itself left a lot to be desired - I'd call it the turning point, if only because I hated how it ended - but the various shifting politics and struggles of the cast really kept me captivated.

3/10. This really needed a decent villain; it put me right off Digimon for years. But then, I'm one of the few people who liked Adventure 02 (at least until the last arc) and I got verrry attached to the cast.

Kill la Kill

Persona 4 Golden immediately springs into my head, but I don't really want to start an argument, so I'll stop there.

Racking my brains a little harder...Mind = Zero on the Vita was pretty damn terrible. It was so badly scripted it wasn't even funny, the gameplay was mediocre and tedious with no unique element to make it stand out from other games in the genre, and it was horrendously unbalanced. Every dungeon felt like an anti-climax in that the dungeon enemies were ridiculously difficult, but the bosses themselves were so pathetically simple that it felt like a bad joke. And no, this was not because I'd been grinding to defeat harder dungeon enemies. I started skipping encounters halfway through the game and I still found it easy. Someone did not design this game properly.

After Zestiria made me want to claw my eyes out and never play another game in the franchise again, EVER, Berseria turned out to be the best Tales game I've played in years. It had a solid cast, an actual PLOT, a gameplay system that wasn't a complete mess that had me getting stuck on walls or grinding for hours just to upgrade my weapon once, and the voice acting was pretty solid, too. It even did the impossible - it improved my opinion on Zestiria's utterly terrible excuse for a story.

...but I'm not sure it edges out over Symphonia for me, though. I don't really subscribe to the idea that the first game you play in a series will always be your favourite, but Symphonia was my favourite game for years. It took Xenoblade Chronicles to topple it from that spot. Even playing it on PS3 didn't diminish the experience for me, and that usually happens when I replay games years later. Tales games usually follow a fairly predictable pattern in the story, and have a tropetastic cast of characters, and Symphonia is no different in this regard, but even so, I loved the plot and the gameplay; it was totally different from anything I'd experienced up to that point and it still holds up really well. The music was especially memorable, too. The problem with Sakuraba is, good as he is, he recycles things; it's very hard to distinguish between the OST of one Tales game and the next (although Go Shiina did an INCREDIBLE job with the four temple themes in Zestiria) but Symphonia's OST is something else, in my opinion.

I will probably end up buying Dark Rose Valkyrie, Valkyria Revolution, and God Wars: Future Past...at some point. Maybe not this month; honestly it depends on the PSN sales (I'm expecting Big in Japan to drop in June somewhen, and I want the Atelier Plus titles off that at least) and what else is already out. I've had Crash Bandicoot preordered for forever now, and I am definitely importing Tokyo Xanadu, so if nothing else I will end up with those two. I might try and make that it; I buy far too much.

I'm working my way through Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada right now. I guess I'm something of an oddball in that I don't much care for the Dynasty Warriors main games but I DO love the spinoffs (I have Dragon Quest Heroes II sitting on my shelf for...somewhen...) and, in the absence of Sengoku Basara - which has far better character designs even if historically it's painfully inaccurate - this is the next best thing. I'm actually really enjoying it, though! S4 and 4-II were very light on story and not very engaging, but the focus on the Sanada Clan, whilst not ideal (Oda would be far more interesting in my opinion) is making it far more engaging.

Handheld wise, I'm all over the place. I'm trying to compile a 6th Generation Living Dex in Pokemon Omega Ruby - after playing through Pokemon Moon turned out to be the worst experience I'd had with the franchise since Black and cost me EVERYTHING after I stupidly transferred it over via Bank and now it's stuck there - and trying to figure out what to do next. I have a horrible feeling if I play Fire Emblem Echoes I will purchase the overpriced season pass; I'm weak and I want the content in it. I've been dabbling a bit in Monster Hunter Generations again in anticipation for XX's inevitable localisation (I can't Adept Bow at all anymore so I'm going Aerial SnS whilst I get back into it) but I feel like something new...or something really, really old. I never finished Children of Mana on the DS back in the day, and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse has been sitting on my DS for foever now. Maybe I'll pick up one or both of those...

I buy more DLC than I should. I absolutely refuse to pay for cosmetics that I should be in the game from the get-go (although I am embarrassed to admit that I WILL buy ultimate weapons if they're not overpriced, because I'm phenomenally lazy sometimes, haha) and season passes are an immediate pass - I will not pay for promises - but if there are expansions planned I will usually get them if I enjoyed the game enough. I don't buy into the has/has-not psychology that drives a lot of DLC purchases (especially in multiplayer titles) but...honestly, it depends on the pricing, and whether or not I think it will make a difference to the experience.

But this "games as a service" model that a lot of AAA publishers have taken as a vain attempt to justify their DLC schedules, season passes, and pre-order bonus DLC is something that really irritates me, though. It's been completely normalised with this generation to the point that even NINTENDO are doing it (the fact that Fire Emblem Echoes' season pass costs more than the actual game is pretty disgusting) and it's very worrying for the future. A lot of what is included in DLC is things that you could have expected to have in the game in the sixth generation. I understand that developers have to make a profit, and I wouldn't want to see games cost any more than they already do in exchange for having pieces of the game cut out and sold back to me at outrageous prices - which IS what would happen, if DLC was done away with at this point - but even so...some developers have no clue how to provide value for money with DLC. Thank god its optional.

Well, thank you all for the warm welcomes :3

Tell me about it! I always agonize heavily when it comes time to make one of them. The end result is usually pretty good, but the path to that result tends to be a little troublesome, to say the least!

 

It's the same, for me at least, with profile texts and the like.

It all has to be juuuust right, yeah? I'm actually kinda relieved there aren't super extensive customisation options for profiles here...because aaaaaaaargh, I'd be toying with it every month with new themes, and I'd spend hours over the colours. I've not filled out my profile here with basic info yet. That's a task for an afternoon.

 

I think your mistake will end up being a fortunate accident of circumstance! As someone that floated around the internet a great deal looking at a lot of the different forum options for anime communities, I think this one has very easily taken the top prize. The people present, and the posts that are made have done nothing but impress me since I first joined. It may not be as ultra-active as some forums, however I think the quality, pleasant members, and lack of drama more than make up for that.

I actually like smaller forums more, honestly. I'm not the most assertive person, and I find large sites quite intimidating. There's a greater sense of community when you know most people (or can at least approach them, which you also can't do on larger forums usually) and it's...cosy. Yeah, that'd be the word. Plus yeah, less drama is better. Been there, done that, couldn't afford the t-shirt at the time.

I think it probably will! and there's nothing wrong with being a bit disconnected from the fandom - outside of my attachment to this forum, and the actual act of watching anime, I don't really tend to be all that linked up with it myself. Which... honestly, I'm quite okay with.

 

Similarly, I don't have much knowledge of voice actors or studios either, apart from the fact that I've been trained to expect good things from a couple of them.

Better to go in blind when it comes to new shows? I have this problem with a lot of media - I have very high expectations of things that are hyped up, and they never meet my expectations...which is ironic, because I'm easily pleased if I go into something with no expectations. And anime fans tend to be quite aggressive in certain corners of the internet (Tumblr mostly, although there's a bit of this on MAL too) in that if you disagree you're likely to find yourself hanging from a tree with a fire under your feet with an angry mob screaming at you. Just want to enjoy the damn shows and maybe chat about them from time to time!

JRPGs have always been a bit of a love/hate thing for me, personally. I'm not really a fan of very many of them, but the ones I have enjoyed, I bloody well love. Admittedly, I haven't done much in the genre in a long, long time, so most of those games that I'm fond of are classics from the PS1 and SNES eras. I very often enjoy the stories, but find the battles and such to be a bit of a bore. Thankfully, now that I'm married to someone that seems to enjoy playing them more than I do, I can just sit back, relax, and let her take the controller while I nibble on popcorn.

(Appreciating you, @Cy~!)

 

I'm quite interested in visual novels myself, as well. Have any paarticular favorites?

I guess maybe you put slightly more emphasis on gameplay than story when playing something yourself? A good story can often make-or-break JRPGs, and when you've played a really good one - or a lot of them - it becomes quite hard to find ones that are better. Since they're time-consuming, the lack of diversity in gameplay is a bigger deal than, say, FPS, too. I just like losing myself in grinding, so I have a verrrry high tolerance for these things, haha. I will overlook almost anything for a good soundtrack, too.

Hmm...well, I started with Katawa Shoujo and I LOVED Lilly and Rin's stories, but loathed the rest of it, haha. The two Steins;Gate games were pretty good (I actually really liked 0 although it didn't give me the pairing I reaaaallly wanted to happen) and even though I enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls the most, I did enjoy the Danganronpa games...although the Despair Arc of the anime is the only arc of that I enjoyed. Code;Realize was one I was really surprised by. I dunno if Ace Attorney as a series counts (kinda?) but I've been working my way through those too. I have a fair few on my backlog (Norn9, Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness, Hatoful Boyfriend, etc.) to work through yet, and I'm quite excited for Collar x Malice coming out in the summer. Still dabbling kinda, I'm not really a PC gamer so my options are a bit limited...and there is so much junk on Steam. Any recommendations, though? :3

Hahaha, except for the bit about the Power Rangers, this is a good description of myself as well. Which 90s cartoons did you watch?

Ooooh, pretty much everything from Kids WB - I'm still extremely fond of Pinky and the Brain, and Taz has grown on me a lot now that I'm old enough to understand the humour - and the old Disney cartoons (I didn't have access to the Disney Afternoon but I DID get to watch pretty much all of the shows), as well as the 90s Batman, Spiderman, and X-Men series. Oh! And Mummies Alive. That was probably my favourite show. I also caught the tail end of the 80s cartoons that were on in the mornings; Wacky Races, Secret Squirrel, Teenage Mutant Hero/Ninja Turtles (the one with the good theme song, not the early 2000s reboot...although that was good too up to that awful Future season), He-Man (whyyyyyy did they cancel the reboot after 2 seasons?!), Biker Mice From Mars (the less said about the reboot of THAT, the better), Thundercats, etc...these are just the ones off the top of my head and exclude the dubbed anime, haha. Any of those ringing any bells? Did I miss any?

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. I've wanted this since they announced FFX/X-2 HD, and I was not anticipating having to wait this long for it. It remains my favourite FF title, and I am dying to get my hands on it.

Also waiting on Capcom to get off their backsides and announce a localisation date for Monster Hunter XX...I will almost certainly buy that for oth the 3DS and the Switch, and it'll probably consume my life for another 500+ hours. Especially considering I'll be able to transfer my Gen save data over.

I also have half an eye on Fire Emblem Warriors, but whether or not my interest in that is sustained depends entirely on the character roster.