So to explain this thread, I've always kept a Skyward Sword based rant in my head; to my opinion I think the game is an insult on many accounts. The dreadful handholding, the controls, the plot, the graphical choices, Link's Beiberesque face, the entirely unmemorable music, how entirely Saturday Morning most everything feels, how visibly the game struggles to run on the Wii, and how this was supposed to be an anniversary celebration.

The destruction of a game because an old man past his prime demanded motion controls.

And that's the truncated summary. I could go at length alone on how useless the addition of Norton Antivirus to the Master Sword was.

So there's that. What's your game that when someone even brings it up, you roll up your metaphorical sleeves and quietly prepare to open a can of worms?

Final Fantasy 7.

You see, Final Fantasy 6 did a lot of things, some good (some interesting abilities, like Gau's Rage, for example, along with a non-linear second half, which is the best part about that game), and some bad (way too many cutscenes, and they go on for too long, plus characters don't have defined roles and can't be placed into such roles easily (unlike in FF5), plus the game gets too easy later on, and many of the interesting skills in FF5 (like Mix, which is *far* more interesting than Throw) didn't make it in).

Final Fantasy 7? Take Final Fantasy 6, throw out the best parts (no non-linear second half), and double down on the worst parts (even more cutscene heavy, and unlike FF6 there isn't a point in the game when they basically stop). Actually, not only did they double down on cutscenes, they even added huge amounts of Full Motion Video just for the cutscenes; furthermore, the game has to be spread over 3 disks just because they insisted on this fancy addition which doesn't do anything at all for the gameplay (and in fact, detracts from it).

There's other issues with FF7, like the reduced party size, the fact that just spending a little bit of time leveling (to learn that one spell you really want, for example) makes the game too easy, the fact that the early game has one frustrating boss that should have been saved for later, the fact that it takes too long to reach the world map, the way the game takes away the one character with interesting limit breaks (damage effects aren't interesting), the lack of interesting summons (again, damage isn't interesting), the fact that enemies are too easy to warrant the use of status effects, the inclusion of mini-games that require re-learning controls and hurt the game's accessibility, parts like the one where you have to give someone CPR despite the game giving you healing magic, and other problems make the game just not that good.

In fact, I would classify Final Fantasy 7 as one of the worst playable RPGs I've encountered. (The "playable" category means I'm excluding obvious kosoge, but kusoge never become popular or regarded as good, unlike this particular game.)

In the matter of including kusoge, would you place a game like Virtual Hydlide among the very worst?

Has FF7R conceptually solved your problems with it?

Mine is not game specific, but more about the wider industry in general and what games are now vs what i had imagined what they might be.

To clarify.

Back in the 90's when hardware was just about letting game designers really flex and grow the detail and depth of this new(ish) medium (games), we had a richness of (still) awesome games like X-com, X-wing&Tie Fighter, CivII, Fallout 1&2 etc. It was a heady time to be a PC gamer :)

And i could only imagine what the future would hold as the hardware improved.

Sadly all that promise of depth, complexity and interest has mostly (but not always) been squandered by focus on graphics. Add in the business aspect where games are just seen as commodities to make as much money for the publisher as possible (in-game cosmetics purchases/'nickle&dime' DLC releases etc) and we have an industry that is now 99% of the time focused on just these two aspects, how it looks graphically and how they can milk the game for as much as possible.

It's why i have pretty much given up on the mainstream industry, and part of what brought me to GOG in the first place, as here i could get those better (now) classic games that did not require a CD/DVD to run, and were DRM free.

So yeah i see a game like Fortnight or the COD franchise and it simply expresses to me how much we have lost and all the potential wasted in current gen game development. It (gaming) could have been incredible when looking back on what the industry was trying to do in the early years and 'golden' era of gaming as a medium.

Now get of my lawn! ;)

I'm not familiar with Virtual Hylide. Also buy "among the very worst", do you mean FF7 bad or Big Rigs bad? There's a difference here.

FF7R is not a game I have access to, and I haven't watched it being played, so I am unable to answer that question.

Also, another problem with FF7 is that its popularity took JRPGs down a bad direction (much like Ultima 7 and Baldur's Gate took WRPGs down a (different) bad direction); I'm pretty sure that FF7R is not going to have that much influence on the industry.

Every game should have a late stage tutorial. Like "Hey, we noticed that you haven't played our game in a while. That's totally cool, we know you have adult responsibilities that sometimes take precedence. Would you like a reminder of what you did until now, where you are and how the controls work?".

My main gaming rant is not aimed at any individual game but the concept of cloud gaming and clients being required to install and access games. These are not for the customers benefit but to restrict and control any kind of access to software and overall to help erode the concept of software ownership. The fact that many gaming journalists seem happy to promote these concepts just leads me to believe that the whole computer industry is beyond saving by professionals and could only have any customer benefits saved by legislation from government's to guarantee them, but that aint ever gonna happen. Enjoy being able to back up, mod and fan patch your games while you can.

An ever present "Welcome back"-button in the main menu too complicated for you?

I strongly agree with this opinion and my rant is about a specific example related to that. Some time ago i bought a game called "Chikara Action Arcade Wrestling" on steam. The game included licensed real wrestlers from the wrestling promotion Chikara. Playing as those indie wrestlers which were never included in any other wrestling game so far (like Mike Quackenbush for example) was the main reason i purchased this game. Recently, the wrestling promotion Chikara closed down, and right after the announcement the game in my steam library was suddenly only called "Action Arcade Wrestling" and all licensed wrestlers were removed and replaced by generic made up ones. As far as i know, there is no way to patch the game back to an earlier version and since i had the game for a while there is no option of getting a refund either. Now i'm stuck with a product i would not have paid money for without the licensed wrestlers.

Deus Ex Invisible War: What a piece of shit game that was following one of the best games ever made Deus Ex. It took everything that made DE great and removed it for the sake of the XBox's low amount of RAM. Such a shame that Warren Spector never got the chance to make DE great again. Human Revolution was pretty good though.

That should work (assuming the game is on a system powerful enough to accommodate that; might be difficult for games stored on floppy or 8-bit cartridge, but you never know).

For me, probably the lack of games being released native on Linux. I mean, given that most of the libraries tend to be cross-platform and highly portable, there isn't really a good excuse to not release on all platforms. Also, it's sad to see some developers who have released games Linux native rowing back on that with more recent releases (e.g. Larian, CDPR). Talos Principle not releasing Linux native on GOG, despite having already developed a Linux native version.

That is shocking and frankly a great example of why you should never, ever buy anything on Steam. You don't own the games you buy there - they continue to own and control them, even after you've installed them on your PC.

For every single installment, Ubisoft writers have needlessly saddled Assassin's Creed with the absolute worst science-fiction in the history of Science, fiction, and History; and it has never once benefited the story or game-play. The first red-flag is the proudly used sign of terrible writing, "What if I told you..." Not only has that phrase never once preceded anything smart, this particular crime against ideas is founded on the supreme bullshit myth that we only use 10% of our brains. No healthy, living, active brain-scan will ever show less than 80% at any one moment, and every cell of an undamaged pre-senile brain is going to be ready to use at any time.

But even worse than that, is genetic memory. The entire shit-lore of this franchise is founded on the idea that we all retain the memories of our ancestors in our DNA; every time I hear this idea taken seriously, I feel a hidden blade move another micrometer towards my heart. Information is stored in the brain, but no one cell actually remembers anything. Every thought is a pattern that moves through the wrinkles on the surface; vivid memories are just very familiar patterns and the differences between them are borderline intangible slights that can't be measured in physical reality, nor can they be passed on through sperm or egg. If we really must have a future-story in Assassin's Creed, a much better way would be to access some kind of quantum recorder that would make Forensic Science obsolete (Think of the briefing scene in Prometheus, but you put the projectors anywhere to see into the past of that space). It would be far enough removed from commonly known Science to not insult the audience but still let future-characters learn what the story would have us believe is the objective truth of History. Remember the shit-storm about Odyssey's character being required to make a baby, never mind that the lore requires his/her genes to pass on. Well that wouldn't be an issue with my infinitely better idea because family trees would be a complete non-factor, which is much better for role-play.

But even if the lore had good Science, Desmond and everyone at Abstergo are still shit-characters in a shit-story, and putting Desmond's brain in a jar just stresses how desperately devoted they were to shit-ideas. So, even better than quantum recorder, would be no future-story at all. Just let us stab historical figures and slave-traders without all the white grid garbage that feels like dust-bunnies floating in my face. That the different protagonists each in their own time and place are all apart of the same group is all the connectivity we need.

I fall into a state of complete madness

such as this one

ROME II AND THE PROPORTIONAL DECLINING QUALITY FAN AGAINST THE GROWING HORDES OF ZOMBIES
Aventus_MaximusAventus_MaximusSeptember 2019 in Rants and Raves
Sometimes i feel that the Eastern coalition is driving away everyone that has normal intentions
In this i have to be honest and say that i played and enjoyed the most out of total war when i was a disillusioned younger male. Hoarding loads of drugs hanging with people from the borderline of society, having a hardcore physical job...
I mean a lot of people I see hanging around in Total War would have fit the groups I just described pretty well. Of course both groups are anything but standard but they do seem to have in common this shared desperation. Be it because of family, stupid life choices, forced in narcissistic behavior or just chained mentally from birth, cast outside but outside that they could have had either a rich or a poor background. Be incredible smart, or just have enough braincells left to realize that you need food now and then. And that... well that's about it what both groups of people seem to have in common.

In the Western world apparently it is not more then normal to have these folks around, living they way they do … because of … free will and you know... we don't have money for everyone.
In the east you can find this mentality too of course though the outlines and shapes differ from anything reasonable from the scope of once again one of the groups I've mentioned earlier but always seem to come to some form of rebellion against depraved rich parents, drop downs in society or fall out for a life lived in a closed system

Those differences seem to predict that an outcome for this once western adventure into creativity that even rats won't face together with them.
However trustworthy this started out or with whatever earnest motivations this company started their early lives. About 20 years later one can only conclude that their current path is set for total and complete failure. The failures of demoted westerners still can find an easy hiding place into eastern mentalities where goals and targets are measured in different values. A value such as. " I want to deliver quality " has more worth as a empty statement then as a true goal.... and certainly if the clientele seems to be as good as any monkey's ass.
Only the most profound realize the powerful balance between movement and thought and only a true human would exactly know how much leverage God has granted us in obtaining our own goals.
So there you have it.

I won't say I fear because the worst has been already done for
I won't say they should because they have already proven theirs self's unworthy
I won't say don't because that would make the fool I really am even less disconcerted

p.s.

true honesty abides me to tell that I really shined in Total War when I was at the top of my game aligned both physically and mentally but.. you know what happens then? You accidently see this game for what it truly is