FFFCD: nov 28
Still on FF5.
I have a feeling I have a long way to go… But there is some good news!
I figured out I wasn’t supposed to go into that stupid castle. And am now merrily on my way though the story as should be. Which brings me to raise this question.
How much does one need to be pointed in the right direction in order to create the maximum game play experience?
My thoughts:
In the Videogame community, the debate over hardcore/casual is just getting started. Whether games should be hard to beat at the cost of immersion/story flow, or easier games that can sometimes can seem like they play themselves. While I’ll get into this topic at some other time. FF5 presents a pretty unique case.
Now FF and JRPG difficulty is usually on the high end, it’s a very straightforward difficulty most of the time. You’re either high enough level and you beat the guy, or you need to go grind some more. This has never really taken me out of the story, because the level of difficulty actually makes me feel like I’m battling a huge boss. I break into sweats when I reach the final Baddy, I curse myself for not having purchased enough shurikens, and if I lose, when I come back after some training, I get the same feelings over and over again.
In this vein, I don’t think JRPGs take you out of the immersion.
What frustrated me during my “is this where i need to be” fiasco the past couple of days, was up until that point, the game had pretty much pointed me exactly where to go. This is fine, I expect that from any FF game. The problem was that all of the sudden I had no idea. They hold my hand and then are like “seee ya!”.
That’s gay.
A game either needs to consistently point you in the direction. Or let you explore on yourself the whole time. You can’t switch it up. If i was used to finding my own way around, looking for clues where to go etc, I wouldn’t have been frustrated. But the fact that I had been led the whole game, only then to find msyelf lost as hell, made me not want to play anymore.
Thats all for now.
After about 15 hours, i’ve finally gotten into my FF5 rhythm. which means I’ll probably beat it in the next week.
