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chuckroWhat do these things have in common?
Professor Layton and the Curious Village as described by Penny Arcade. It's not inaccurate: You're theoretically searching for a lost treasure, and there's a related murder investigation, but really, it's all an excuse for everyone you run into to have you solve puzzles. I like brainteasers, though I'll admit, the difficulty levels are wildly variable depending on your personal puzzle-solving skills. The most annoying ones are the "lateral thinking" ones, where it basically comes down to either having heard the problem (or a similar one) before and answering it instantly, or spending three days and all of your hint coins on it. It only took me about 10 hours to get through the full plot and most of the puzzles, though I'm fairly certain I'll play this again in a couple of years.
Warriors Orochi is pretty much standard Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors fare. I like the beat-em-up genre in general, and this series in particular, and the fact that I've gotten Jethrien addicted to it is very amusing. We're nearly through the fourth (and final) story mode, and will probably go back to try to unlock some additional characters and acquire more abilities. There's always so goddamn many hidden items in these games, I typically set my "endpoint" for when I've completed the primary story modes and get bored.
I played a bunch of the original Dragon Warrior recently--the Super Famicom remake that was never translated, but there's a fan patch for. Actually, there's two fan patches: One that uses the Dragon Warrior names, and one that uses the more accurate translations from the Dragon Quest game boy releases. I'm playing the DW version, as should be obvious if you read my other posts. The graphics are prettier and everything moves a bit faster, but it's still the same game.
I was thinking about what I'd actually want in a remake of the original Dragon Warrior, and it occured to me that I'm less interested in the usual "graphic upgrade and bonus dungeon at the end" that most of the rpg remakes see, and more so in a complete overhaul, a la Sword of Mana. What the game really needs is to be brought up to the standards of a modern rpg in terms of plot-to-grind ratio.
Here's the game sequence: Start->Erdrick's Cave->(grind)->Visit Garinham->Visit Kol->(grind)->Pass through Swamp Cave->Visit Rimuldar->(grind)->Mountain Cave->Save Princess->Get Silver Harp from Garin's Grave->Visit Cantlin->(grind)->Get Erdrick's Token from swamp->Visit Haukness and get Erdrick's Armor->Trade Harp for Staff of Rain->Get Stones of Sunlight from castle basement->Trade both for Rainbow Drop->(grind)->Dragonlord's Castle.
The simplest thing would be to add extra dungeons with a few traps or complications in them, and the game has locations where they'd fit in perfectly: Erdrick's Cave has no monsters and is where you learn the actual plot sequence of the game; move that to conversations and hide something useful at the bottom of a real "beginner's dungeon". The spot in the swamp where you uncover Erdrick's Token could be a cave in the mire. The ruined town of Haukness could have much more to it, perhaps some underground passageways or the like, before you fight the Axe Knight for Erdrick's Armor. The cave where the old man gives you the Staff of Rain is instead a tower you need to get to the top of. The hidden room under Tatangel Castle where you get the Stones of Sunlight would instead be the castle dungeon. The temple where you trade for the Rainbow Drop could be another tower, or a Temple of the Pushable Block. That more than doubles the number of dungeons in the game, and can replace a great deal of the overworld grinding.
Next, I'm thinking a few subplots, with additional party members, would both keep the story interesting and make battles more complex than (Attack, Spell, Run). You start alone, hear rumors about the way to the Dragonlord's Castle, and follow them through Edrick's Cave, which is tacklable at level 3 or 4 and gets you another level or two, so you can make it to Garinham. There you meet up with your second party member, a bard and descendant of Garin, who tells you about the Silver Harp and (possibly) requires a fetch quest before joining you. Two characters makes it easy to get to Kol and through the Swamp Cave to Rimuldar, where perhaps there's another fetch quest to build you up a little before you get the magic keys necessary to get into the Mountain Cave and the part of the Swamp Cave where Gwailin is. The Mountain Cave, which is currently a pointless and unnecessary sidequest, gets an actual connection to the plot and a reason to do it before rescuing Gwailin. Then, when you save her, she becomes the third party member. Then you've got six dungeons between you and the Dragonlord's Castle, which means that if you scale the difficulty and treasure levels of the earlier dungeons correctly, you'll barely need to grind at all.
I've given this far too much thought, haven't I?
Professor Layton and the Curious Village as described by Penny Arcade. It's not inaccurate: You're theoretically searching for a lost treasure, and there's a related murder investigation, but really, it's all an excuse for everyone you run into to have you solve puzzles. I like brainteasers, though I'll admit, the difficulty levels are wildly variable depending on your personal puzzle-solving skills. The most annoying ones are the "lateral thinking" ones, where it basically comes down to either having heard the problem (or a similar one) before and answering it instantly, or spending three days and all of your hint coins on it. It only took me about 10 hours to get through the full plot and most of the puzzles, though I'm fairly certain I'll play this again in a couple of years.
Warriors Orochi is pretty much standard Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors fare. I like the beat-em-up genre in general, and this series in particular, and the fact that I've gotten Jethrien addicted to it is very amusing. We're nearly through the fourth (and final) story mode, and will probably go back to try to unlock some additional characters and acquire more abilities. There's always so goddamn many hidden items in these games, I typically set my "endpoint" for when I've completed the primary story modes and get bored.
I played a bunch of the original Dragon Warrior recently--the Super Famicom remake that was never translated, but there's a fan patch for. Actually, there's two fan patches: One that uses the Dragon Warrior names, and one that uses the more accurate translations from the Dragon Quest game boy releases. I'm playing the DW version, as should be obvious if you read my other posts. The graphics are prettier and everything moves a bit faster, but it's still the same game.
I was thinking about what I'd actually want in a remake of the original Dragon Warrior, and it occured to me that I'm less interested in the usual "graphic upgrade and bonus dungeon at the end" that most of the rpg remakes see, and more so in a complete overhaul, a la Sword of Mana. What the game really needs is to be brought up to the standards of a modern rpg in terms of plot-to-grind ratio.
Here's the game sequence: Start->Erdrick's Cave->(grind)->Visit Garinham->Visit Kol->(grind)->Pass through Swamp Cave->Visit Rimuldar->(grind)->Mountain Cave->Save Princess->Get Silver Harp from Garin's Grave->Visit Cantlin->(grind)->Get Erdrick's Token from swamp->Visit Haukness and get Erdrick's Armor->Trade Harp for Staff of Rain->Get Stones of Sunlight from castle basement->Trade both for Rainbow Drop->(grind)->Dragonlord's Castle.
The simplest thing would be to add extra dungeons with a few traps or complications in them, and the game has locations where they'd fit in perfectly: Erdrick's Cave has no monsters and is where you learn the actual plot sequence of the game; move that to conversations and hide something useful at the bottom of a real "beginner's dungeon". The spot in the swamp where you uncover Erdrick's Token could be a cave in the mire. The ruined town of Haukness could have much more to it, perhaps some underground passageways or the like, before you fight the Axe Knight for Erdrick's Armor. The cave where the old man gives you the Staff of Rain is instead a tower you need to get to the top of. The hidden room under Tatangel Castle where you get the Stones of Sunlight would instead be the castle dungeon. The temple where you trade for the Rainbow Drop could be another tower, or a Temple of the Pushable Block. That more than doubles the number of dungeons in the game, and can replace a great deal of the overworld grinding.
Next, I'm thinking a few subplots, with additional party members, would both keep the story interesting and make battles more complex than (Attack, Spell, Run). You start alone, hear rumors about the way to the Dragonlord's Castle, and follow them through Edrick's Cave, which is tacklable at level 3 or 4 and gets you another level or two, so you can make it to Garinham. There you meet up with your second party member, a bard and descendant of Garin, who tells you about the Silver Harp and (possibly) requires a fetch quest before joining you. Two characters makes it easy to get to Kol and through the Swamp Cave to Rimuldar, where perhaps there's another fetch quest to build you up a little before you get the magic keys necessary to get into the Mountain Cave and the part of the Swamp Cave where Gwailin is. The Mountain Cave, which is currently a pointless and unnecessary sidequest, gets an actual connection to the plot and a reason to do it before rescuing Gwailin. Then, when you save her, she becomes the third party member. Then you've got six dungeons between you and the Dragonlord's Castle, which means that if you scale the difficulty and treasure levels of the earlier dungeons correctly, you'll barely need to grind at all.
I've given this far too much thought, haven't I?
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Date: 2009-01-21 06:15 pm (UTC)