Games that have no warning about their lack of accessibility get their own special rant.

The most infamous here would be The Witness, which contains puzzles that impact both people with color-blindness (which I have) in addition to people with hearing impairment. I've read that there a part of the game that triggers photo-sensitivity epilepsy and motion sickness in people with these sensitivities.

Games don't have to be 100% accessible to everyone because not every game is for every person. Where it does become a problem though is when developers give no warning at all such that people buy the game and attempt to play it, only to find that it lacks accessibility -- or the warning about the lack of accessibility is only given on a screen that you will only see after run the game. -_-


Her limit break was primarily why I used her as everyone else was just damage people. Also in relation to that CPR mini game, don't they have Phoenix Down? O.o

I don't abandon games I've put significant amount of time into.

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You can rationalize that phoenix downs are for injuries resulting in KOs, not actual death. If I had to liken it to an IRL substance or tech, it'd be like an ammonia salt or a defib. It obviously won't work if your lungs are full of water, if you've got a giant stab wound, or if someone amputated your arm.

Reminds me of when Cyberpunk 2077 was released, where mandatory parts of the game had a light pattern known to cause epileptic seizures.

Incidentally, Guacamelee! has an issue with colorblind accessibility, as you need to use specific attacks to remove specific color barriers on enemes, and two of them looked too similar to me, so often I just had to guess.

The way I see it, an accessibility barrier is only acceptable if a core part of the game could not be modified to work around it, and such core parts must be in the game's description before purchase. (For example, a game being real-time is acceptable if it's enough of a factor in the description, but a real-time section in an otherwise turn-based game is. Also, color and epilepsy issues should always be possible to work around.)

I guess this is geared toward sp games. Most of the stuff I play is rather short so under 10 hours or so.

The only game I remember quitting at the end was Omikron. I just remember being at the final boss and just tired of the game all together. The David Bowie parts were awesome but I just had no more in my tank for that game.

Uninstalled and never played another sp game that require more than 10 hours to end since.

Why couldn't they revive her with a Phoenix Down, anyway?

Final Fantasy 5 handled its character death better, as:
* The other party members at least *try* to revive the dead character and fail, which avoids that complaint.
* The game immediately gives you a replacement character who has the same abilities as the character who died.

(Another issue with FF7 is that, even when you can choose your party, you can't remove Cloud, so in addition to only having a 3 character party (which really makes the game feel significantly less epic), you only have 2 that you can actually choose. Even FF6 and Chrono Trigger were better about this (though the latter not until late game, when *that* game becomes non-linear like FF6's late game).)

It becomes harder to rationalize when:
* There's no in-game justification; the idea of using a Phoenix Down is not even mentioned by anyone in-game.
* The result of this is the player having to endure a very un-fun minigame in order to get back to the game's core gameplay, which is presumably what the player is there for. (In particular, there's no good gameplay justification for this, either.)

Can think of a few:

Thief 2: Liked it quite a bit, but the final mission with all those robots was just too intimidating.

Risen: Final battle was bullshit.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky: Got to the final part where you have to hunt down Strelok, seemed rather tedious and not much fun, so I skipped it.

I watched the ending sequences for those games (which I mostly enjoyed before the final parts that annoyed me) on Youtube, I just don't have the patience anymore for trying again and again.

I also stopped playing Starcraft 2: Legacy of the void pretty late in the campaign (maybe three missions or so from the end). By this time I was already pretty fed up with how they had botched the story with stupid retcons and casually killed off cool characters...then I lost a mission and just had enough. I watched the ending cinematic on Youtube, thought it was terrible and uninstalled the game. Probably won't play it again.

You're overthinking it and misapplying hyperrealism to this game. If phoenix downs really could restore people from death, then there are major implications that causes way more trouble than a simple rationalization. For example:
- Why didn't Cloud save everyone in Nibelheim
- Reviving everyone who got killed under Sector 7
- Using a soft or remedy on a party member's relative
- Using one on a very important NPC later in the game
- etc.

For that scene, think cinematically. Let's ignore the premise of the game that the scene was based on Sakaguchi's experience with his dying mother. Do you think the flow of the scene would be interrupted if they had Cloud trying to spam phoenix downs? My interpretation is that even if you're only controlling 3 characters, everyone's there fighting the boss with you. Maybe one character is offscreen trying what they can with first aid. But death is inevitable.

Being an FF lore nerd myself, I understand details are important. But some things don't need to be spelt out explicitly and can be understood implicitly. If everything needs to be spelled out explicitly, then creative works become legal documents or scientific proofs instead of being engaging, interactive experiences. As per the video game design addage: graphics hook players, gameplay retains them [from quitting or refunding the game], and story is what stays with them their entire lives. The latter is what's important to me. Better stories also have evolved the medium to a state where it's more respected by general audiences than the 1980s where the focus was all gameplay due to early infancy and technical limits.

Lastly, the point of FF7's minigames were to break up the monotony. Some people just want to battle and advance the story - that's great. But there are others who prefer variations because repeating the same thing over and over again gets boring like eating the same meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner Honestly that's why I have great difficulty revisiting older JRPGs because it's just linear exploration and fighting with an overarching goal to save the kingdoms or world. I'm not sure if you've played FF13, but this is exactly one of its major problems, despite its awesome battle system, when compared to FF10 despite both being extremely linear games.

Except that the flow of the game is interrupted by the CPR mini-game, which is far worse. (The scene in FF5 I was referring to, which happens inside and right by a tree, did not interrupt the game flow in the same way. Also, they tried more than just Phoenix Down; some spells were tried, and I think they may have even tried Elixir. On toe other hand, it at least doesn't use up those items from your inventory.)

FF2 and FF4 were also more believable, at least when it comes to major characters. Most of FF2's character deaths that happen on-screen involve situations where the party wouldn't be able to find the party, and Scott's death (very early, so not really a spoiler) comes before the player is likely to obtain the means of revival. (It *is* possible to have a revive spell or Phoenix Down at that point, but Phoenix Downs are very expensive (and in the original version are useless during battle), and reaching the store that sells the revive spell requires walking all the way around the world (and dealing with enemies that are *way* too strong for a beginning party).)

Thing is, monotony can be broken up better by introducing new gameplay mechanics while staying in-genre. For example, give the player a new ability that has interesting mechanics.

Also, if the monotony becomes a problem, one can just play a different game, one that does not even pretend to be an RPG. When I sit down to play an RPG, I want to play an RPG, not an action (or other genre) that's inserted in the middle of the game.

I have not played FF13; the only post-FF7 FF I have played is FF9, where I stopped near the end of Disk 3. (FF7 really did turn me off from the later part of the series.)

Also, I could describe Super Mario Bros. (and other 2D Mario games) as just linear exploration (wuith the occasional warp zone to skip ahead) and platforming with an overarching goal to rescue the princess from the dragon. (Really, Bowser (the video game character, not the president of Nintendo of America) is a dragon; after all, he *does* breathe fire just like a proper dragon would.) So, why isn't this a problem for Mario, yet you see that as an issue for Final Fantasy?

When it's the 3rd or 13th time I'm playing the game, the gameplay is what matters; the story is the same as the 1st time, while the gameplay can be different each time. I sometimes discover new things about games I've played through many times. So, in my case, it's the gamplay that stays with me, as it's something I can continue to enjoy on replays, something that can't be said of the story.

Also, speaking of Final Fantasy, why hasn't Final Fantasy 3 been mentioned as an abandoned game? The FF3 endgame is particularly notorious.

Fair enough. I don't have any strong feelings towards that CPR minigame either way. And it's pretty easy to perform; I don't think anyone having accessibility issues would have that much trouble with it. Not quite. If you assume phoenix downs could revive people regardless of state in a reasonable amount of time, everyone in FF2 except the penultimate member dies onscreen where the party is either at their dying side or seconds away. And the only character I remember that dies in FF4 is during that incident where the underground is sealed up with a bomb.

Besides 12 and 15 that I've yet to play, phoenix downs have never cured permadeath. There's no reason to believe that these spells or items would reverse it. And yes, I was one of those grinders who went to Mysidia and had revive and phoenix downs before I talked to Scott. As for that character in FF5, I think it'd be very dehumanizing experience for your main characters to do nothing especially given the other character(s) involved in the scene and their relationship to each other. I mean that's what they did. Aren't you given Shiva after this event? FF7 has no shortage of materia and combinations. I would've preferred another town, but I was already satisfied with Fort Condor's RTS minigame right before Junon. I feel like we've had this same conversation before. This game was released in 1997 on console only. Not all kids had a 100+ game library or backlog teens and adults could play like PC gaming has today. Sometimes it was just this game and if your parents loved you, maybe < 5 other games because they were expensive. And even if you rented games, you only had that game to play for that alloted amount of time, so it made no sense to rent multiple games at the same time. If you design a game today, then yes what you're saying should be considered. Yeah, I've never heard this string of characters before. I guess if 7 isn't for you, the rest of the story-immersive FFs aren't for you... Maybe it's because they're different genres with different gameplay and mechanics? By design, platformers are all about shooting and jumping with each handcrafted stage being progressively harder than the last. Every environment is unique so that you're not always fighting the same exact configuration of enemies repeatedly. Even later Mario games like Super Mario World breaks up the monotony of stages with Switch Palaces, Bonus Games, and Coin Heavens. Or even mushroom houses too in other titles. These stages don't involve any enemies or pitfalls, just coins or power-ups only.

(Anyway, I don't even like Mario as much as I do with Mega Man. Precisely because I can choose where I want to go to break up monotony if I get tired of one stage.)

RPG involves adventure and exploration. I want to do various things. Maybe not minigames specifically (depends on the quality and implementation), but I'd like to always have the option to explore different sidequests and take as long as I need before I choose to advance the main story. It's my adventure and I should have some control in determining how that plays out. With exceptions to roguelikes, roguelites, and other games with NG+, I don't believe the main focus of game designers should be on people replaying the game 3+ times because these people are in a very small demographic of hardcore fans. This is similar to when I retracted my comment about designing a game for speedrunners. To me, that's absolutely insane when there are so many other accessible options and media out there to explore. But to each their own, I suppose. I only play games once except for games I really like and even those are exceptions.

Oh man, if I knew how bad the ending was going to be, I would've stopped before the epilogue too. The only good one mission, story and design, was the first one where you played as Protoss as the vanguard. The second one was another last stand mission with Terran, which was dumb because we already played a last stand mission two missions ago. And killing a bunch of, effectively, floating rocks was the most anticlimatic thing in the trilogy I've ever seen. Really left a poor taste in my mouth.

SC2: Nova Covert Ops is a pretty good redemption arc, though. I really enjoyed that one as it was more down-to-earth.

Shiva isn't really that interesting; it's just yet another summon that does damage to all enemies (an effect that is *way* overused in FF7).

Where are the summons like Golem, Zoneseek, Kirin, Carbunkle, Unicorn, Seraphim/Starlet, Palidor? All interesting summons that *don't* do damage to the enemy. (At least FF7 has Phoenix, but even then FF7 Phoenix includes a damage effect.) Or, to go back a bit further in the series, what about Remora, Sylph (though the FF4 version was more useful than the FF5, even taking in account when the summon is first available in those games), and Asura?

FF7's materia variety isn't as interesting as FF5's ability variety simply because FF5's abilities are more varied in their effects. Plus, FF5 encourages specialization more (while still allowing somewhat balanced characters, unlike many games with skill point systems), so characters actually have different combat roles at any given point (unless you use the same set-up on everyone, but that tends to only work in certain areas for any given job, and may lack important abilities like healing).

IIRC, Shiva is the first mandatory summon you get. So if by chance you missed Choco/Mog, this is a new mechanic for the player you're vouching for. Each FF game is different by design with more emphasis than others on for status effects. Plus, this is one of the few FFs where you have Hades who effectively bad breaths all your enemies. And even then, I found it useless compared to maximizing DPS. The emphasis of the game leans more towards exploiting Quadra magic, multihit limit breaks + fury + hero drinks, KOTR spamming, or the 7777 trick.

If you really want to play an FF game with huge emphasis on status effects to max DPS and mechanical theorycrafting, go play 13. It's not turn-based, however. But the same can be said about 7, objectively speaking.

I can't really recall, but I think I would've remembered if it were the case for me. I do remember not finding the monastery setting that appealing for some reason, in contrast to most locations up to that point (well except the ice castle, but I always seem to be able to power through it). That might've had something to do with it.

Oh that game has an atrocious end sequence! For some reason, and this happened in SoC as well, they essentially tried to turn the final part of the game into Call of Duty: tons of enemies in close quarters urban combat. I powered through it, but it was torture.

Yeah, the monastery area wasn't much fun at all, same with the ice temples battle squares. Auril's ice temple is actually where the problems start. Your characters are powerful enough now you don't need to level up and you can end up level squatting because of it. Even if you do level up your characters right away, you're so powerful that monsters no longer give you experience so it really dampens the sense of progression. IWD2s late game is nowhere near as fun as the early game.

I can't remember the final boss in the original Link's Awakening being very hard. The eagle in the seventh dungeon (the tower dungeon) however, was very difficult back then. Me and my friend died over and over until we got him.

I usually don't drop a game at the end, since coming that far gives me a huge incentive to finish it, and the satisfaction of beating a difficult endgame is usually very satisfying. But I have often dropped games well before that.

But games are a waste of time, except for the enjoyment one gets out of them, so if you get more satisfaction from dropping some games at the end, then that is probably the right decision for you.