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NISAmericalover13
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Re: Difficulty
With all due respect to how tough a game is, if you have seen AI3's mini puni, it's obvious a plant into a game from people who whine about how easy a game is.
Folks, you need to remember you aren't the only one playing the game. Just because it's hard for you, doesn't mean it's not hard for others.
Sometimes points like these have to be made to remind people individuals buy games, but games aren't made for one person.
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2/29/2008, 1:18 pm
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Tiredman
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Re: Difficulty
Aye, and no disrespect here either, but I am a paying customer, and I don't think its wrong of me to say I want more difficulty. I am 28 years old, been playing rpg's since dragon warrior 1 / final fantasy 1 / original zelda. My first strategy rpg, hmm, I want to say Warsong, but it could of been any number of genesis games, maybe even shining force 1.
I have grown up on these games, and I know a large chunk of the niche audiences in this country are older, than teenage, people, because kid's can't afford to purchase these niche games all the time. I really don't enjoy a game that puts up no fight. My biggest draw to ar tonelico was the diving, and the final reyvatail, or however you spell it, storyline.
Difficulty is far from a bad thing. A game doesn't have to be too hard, but a little bit of challenge makes one enjoy it more, since steam rolling normal monsters for a few hours gets rather dull so far into the game. In the original ar tonelico, all I had to do was built up a fireball, release it, fight done. Every single fight was like this until late in the game. I have little reason to use most of the abilities of my songstresses, because they just weren't needed, and other than just wanting to see the graphic once, I never used them again.
I think dragon quest 8 is an excellent example of a rough game. Even though it is rather tough, people still flock to it to the point that its one of the most popular rpg's in the console gaming world. I own part 4 and 7, neither of them are easy, and all 3 parts are very satisfying when you finally beat them.
Now, I am not saying NISA games should be dragon quest games. I am just saying that upping the difficulty isn't going to drive away many, if any, of the customers, just like all these easy games aren't driving me and so many other's away. Atlus makes its living on hard games, one reason I love Shin Megami Tensei: Nocture. It rankes in my top 3 games of all time. I will agree that game is too hard for a NISA game though, but if they released one as hard as nocturne, just like if it was easy instead, I would jump all over it.
So to sum up, I buy NISA games, I think I am allowed to say I want more difficulty without being called a whiner.
Last edited by Tiredman, 2/29/2008, 9:49 pm
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2/29/2008, 9:48 pm
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thundercloud82
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Re: Difficulty
My two cents...
As long as the game in question has a good story, characters, etc, I couldn't care less about the difficulty level.
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Aurica Nestmile's #1 fan forever
Ar tonelico fan site:
http://artonelico.isisview.org/
My blog: http://thundercloud82.blogspot.com/
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3/1/2008, 12:40 am
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NISAmericalover13
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Re: Difficulty
I understand where you are coming from Tiredman. I'm 42 years old, and don't like that a lot of games have been watered down, either.
I've played DQ8 also, tough game yes. I can agree with all but one point in your last post. The key word is "I". Let me give you an example. I didn't like the ending of Rogue Galaxy. I would have liked to have seen more. I can point out AT3's good ending, as well...
SPOILERS.....................
I wanted to hear edge say i love you to Iris. Didn't happen. The point is, i may be the only person who didn't like that. Unfortunately for me, Everyone counts more then just me. That's why i try to keep complaints down to a minumum on games, because honestly, the only way you are going to get the perfect game is if you make it yourself. That way you guarantee difficulty, fun factor, etc.
I'd like to see as bit more difficulty myself, but nothing earth-shattering.
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3/21/2008, 5:50 am
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Tiredman
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Re: Difficulty
Hehe, I think the big difference between my issue and what you just cited for example is that yours takes place at the end of an annoying game, yeah, I didn't care much for the whole no healing spells things, and having to use potions. But it did have its moments.
My issue deals with an entire game being a push over. Its not that the game is watered down, its just that it has virtually no challenge. I will ask, in ar tonelico, how many times did you use your highest dive spells? They cost more mp, they took longer to make stronger, and they were fun to watch the first few times. But, it was just as easy to power up a spell the ladies have when you get them in your party, and destroy everything in front of you. That kind of ruined the entire battle based part of ar tonelico, and that is a lot of the game.
I like a bit of incentive to use new spells, ar tonelico gave none. You did not even have to heal in most fights. I don't think it would hurt to make the games a bit tougher, and give some incentive to actually use your high lv abilities.
As I was saying in an earlier post, I own a ton of NIS games. Preordered mana khemia, the deluxe one with the statue. Lets see what else...
Disgaea 1 and 2
Soul Nomad
Aterlier Iris 1, 2, and 3
Ar Tonelico
Makai Kingdom
Phantom Brave and
La Pucelle
I probably have a few more sitting around. Of that list, my favorite is disgaea 1, didn't care for 2. Reason I love disgaea 1? It just has so much to do besides the main story, and I loved challenging higher lv items before I was high enough lv to blow through them. I loved discovering how to throw my toons around to lv exits when the monsters were just too tough. I loved learning strats like using decoy's, buff chains, and I loved going up against monsters like baal and having all my characters get 1 rounded in the exact same turn when I took him on the first time. This game was hard, and it still is, and if its not hard enough, you are able to make the game harder yourself.
Now, you know why I love disgaea. My next game would have to be Phantom Brave. I will be honest with you, I hated the game mechanics in this game with a passion. But, I couldn't help but fall in love with Mokona. The story moved me, the way Mokona was treated moved me, the final climatic ending moved me. I could not get enough of Mokona's voice acting, it was spot on. Some of the play mechanics were neat in this game, but I hated that your characters would disappear soon enough off the battlefield, and the skill to make them stay on longer was the most expensive skill in the game to get.
Now, for La Pucelle, my third favorite NIS title. This game had an excellent story. I enjoyed the purification of squares, making it simliar to disgaea's geo symbols. I liked being able to take on optional challenges for extra loots, like the angel shoes. Also, my first run through this game was tough. When I first went to the mushroom place, I was getting massacred, and it was all I could do to get through it. I loved every minute of it. When I finally got through it, I felt proud that I was able to pull it off. My reward was more of the thoroughly entertaining storyline. Oh, and I loved half of the voice acting in this game to. Prier and Culotte both owned.
Anyway, sorry for the book sized post, but I hope you can understand where I am coming from. My favorite NIS games featured harder gameplay that you could "choose" to take part in. Disgaea's item world and optional bosses, the underworld, or whatever it was in La Pucelle, and Phantom Brave had those interesting dungeons you could make with an npc's help, iirc. All these games featured harder content that the player could choose to take part in, and I took part in all of them. My only sadness, is I never beat Baal in Disgaea the legit way, meaning using my normal toons.
Thats my take on it. The games that were either harder in general, or featured optional harder content, were my favorites. They also featured great storylines.
Making games tougher isn't a bad thing.
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3/21/2008, 6:25 am
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thundercloud82
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Re: Difficulty
I'm not looking for a fight here, but I'd like to say a few words.
quote:
NISAmericalover13 wrote:
I wanted to hear edge say i love you to Iris. Didn't happen. The point is, i may be the only person who didn't like that.
I wanted him to cough up those words as well, though its no big deal that he didn't.
quote:
Tiredman wrote:
I didn't care much for the whole no healing spells things, and having to use potions.
My issue deals with an entire game being a push over. Its not that the game is watered down, its just that it has virtually no challenge. I will ask, in ar tonelico, how many times did you use your highest dive spells? They cost more mp, they took longer to make stronger, and they were fun to watch the first few times. But, it was just as easy to power up a spell the ladies have when you get them in your party, and destroy everything in front of you. That kind of ruined the entire battle based part of ar tonelico, and that is a lot of the game.
Um, AI3 had healing spells. I used them all the time, namely Heal All. That spell was awesome.
I agree that Ar tonelico was too easy for sure, but the game was still great as it is. I used healing spells after battles all the time, because I used the skills like crazy every fight. I for one used 'Ar tonelico song magic' every fight after I got it in phase 2...I never get tired of watching it obliterate any enemy in the game.
As for increasing the difficulty level artificially, you could always do what I've done and uneqip all equipment & grathnodes from your fighters & jack your RT's power to the max. This way, you'll get to harmonic level 4 every battle (except for the ones with only 1 or 2 enemies) and you can charge up song magic very quickly. This of course does mean giving up most of the customization aspects.
The storyline part of La Pucelle was absurdly easy in my opinion.
Last edited by thundercloud82, 3/21/2008, 5:05 pm
---
Aurica Nestmile's #1 fan forever
Ar tonelico fan site:
http://artonelico.isisview.org/
My blog: http://thundercloud82.blogspot.com/
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3/21/2008, 5:03 pm
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Tiredman
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Re: Difficulty
I would never unequip gear. Why make a game artificially hard by taking rewards you earned in the game and not using them? I am not one of those folks who craves ways to make games harder, I prefer for the game makers to add optional content.
As for the spell you mentioned, did you have to use it, or did you just enjoy the graphics? Sounds like you liked the graphic, so you chose to use a stronger spell when a lower one would of had the same effect. It wasn't because the monster you were fighting would live longer, and thus stand a greater chance of killing you.
And I mentioned rogue galaxy having no heals =p, not AI3 =P In ar tonelico I charged a spell up for a turn, then released it, dead monsters, barely any, if any, damage. most of the game was like that. I never had to heal in fights, thats what I was talking about.
As for storyline of la pucelle, yeah, I won't fight you on that, because everybody interprets a story in their own way. I am not a huge romance fan, but to me priet was just do darned lovable, going and kicking everybody's behinds for most of the game except when she is forced to show her emotional side. It was good stuff to me, but won't be others cup o tea. Just glad there is more to the game than just storyline =p
I won't fight you on these forums, but you have to agree that most NIS labeled games are genuinely not even challenging in 95 to 99 percent of the game. Even most boss fights are easy as can be. AI 1 had the optional cave at the end, that was fun, and hard, still havent beaten the boss there. Plus the entire AI 1 alchemy system was challenging, I like that kind of challenge to. The future AI's lost the complexity of the AI 1 alchemy system sadly.
To sum this up, I don't like making a game harder by sacrificing stuff I earn in game. I don't want it to be my job to make a game harder artificially. I like equipping that new weapon, this piece of new armor, or that neat looking accessory, its one of the ways I have fun. Game developers make games to cater to audiences, so I am giving my feedback as one of those audience folks and saying I would like harder games. I know NIS doesnt make the games, but maybe they can pass the info along that some players really enjoy harder optional content, and maybe not quite so gimpy normal fights in the game. A little challenge doesn't hurt anybody.
Would you mind a bit more challenge in a game? If the answer is no, then there is no point debating this anymore =p
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3/22/2008, 3:09 am
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thundercloud82
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Re: Difficulty
In my first playthrough I used Ar tonelico because the enemies were all quite rough after Slepnir. I ran from a ton of fights in the upper tower before I got the song as a result. This was mainly caused by my lack of use of recrystalizing & not so good choices of crystals installed to songs (because I didn't have the money to buy or recrystalize anything good), which lead to very poor damage output by my RT's (namely Aurica, as I didn't use Misha or Shurelia outside of the times I was forced to by the story). ...not that those physical immune wolves helped the situation any by seemingly always using status affliction attacks. Just to note- it took me 45 minutes to beat Mir the first time. That to me qualifies as a very satisfying and worthy fight.
For later playthroughs I read up on how to farm money from something other than fighting a ton of battles & the difficulty of the later half of the game quickly evaporated away. From my second playthrough on, I still opted to abuse Ar tonelico song magic, for the reason you mentioned above...I love the visuals.
My bad on the AI3 comment. I misread what you wrote. Sorry.
I liked La Pucelle too. Its just that if were going to talk about Ar tonelico being a cake walk, then La Pucelle has to be brought up, as it was ten times easier than Ar tonelico (for me at least)...maybe even more so. Boss fights for me in the game basically went 'bring out Prier, move her next to the boss, pull off her strongest attack, boss dead or very nearly dead' ...and that was w/o using mass miracles, power leveling, or making godly items.
I agree with you that there is very little challenge in the games NISA localizes...though each game has its moments and the lack of challenge takes nothing away from the rest of the games. I have lost a battle three times during the course of playing five titles (Atelier Iris 1-3, La Pucelle & Ar tonelico). Of those losses only one of them was because the boss was hard as hell. I thought AI2's alchemy system was just as good as the first one and it was AI3 that dropped the ball big time imo.
More challenge? Sure I'd like more challenge, but if we don't get it, I'm not going to be upset. The games are still highly enjoyable for everything else in them. Overall, the other aspects of the games (characters, story, romance, music, visuals, the feel/charm of the games, comedy gold parts) more than make up for the lack of difficulty for me, even though I agree that things could use to be a bit tougher. From what I see, Mana Khemia & certainly Ar tonelico 2 may deliver a reasonable increase in difficulty w/o sacrificing anything else, which would keep us all satisfied with those games.
Like you, I don't want to fight about this...here's to future games that keep us all happy.
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Aurica Nestmile's #1 fan forever
Ar tonelico fan site:
http://artonelico.isisview.org/
My blog: http://thundercloud82.blogspot.com/
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3/22/2008, 9:50 am
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Tiredman
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Re: Difficulty
Hmm, 11 hours into mana khemia, and I am loving it. Can't go into a new area without getting the crap beat out of me. I also love the new fight mechanics, and that the game forces you to learn how to use it if you don't wan't to get massacred from the big monsters. I think the new way of leveling up allows this game to be hard, as you really can't out lv the content in the game. Due to this, the game can be tuned around characters with so much hp/sp and attack/defense.
I have only been wiped out once though, and that was when I learned just how dangerous monsters are at night =x
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4/21/2008, 11:56 pm
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NISAmericalover13
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Re: Difficulty
Been a while since i posted, sorry. I happen to own all those games you listed as well, Tiredman.
Last word on Ar Tonelico from me, i agree that game was way too easy, even the hidden boss was a pushover. I never died once, and i forget how many times i fought her.
I got my copy of Mana Khemia last saturday, and popped it in. Looks real good. Glad to see the evened out the difficulty issue, and that it's to your liking.
My problem is the backlog of games i got to play. Juggling 5 or 6 is starting to get to be too much.
As it is now, i'm really considering Ar Tonelico 2's localized version as my last game, period. I love gaming, but i'm getting too old for it.
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5/2/2008, 4:08 pm
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