Nothing is worse than trying to run away when your HP is low and the game denies you of this… you almost ALWAYS DIE! Does anyone else but me miss a good ol’ fashion JRPG? RPGs are just not the same as they used to be… and sadly, this is largely why I no longer play as many games as I did when I was younger.
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↓ Transcript
Pop Villain: These people paid
for a show! NOW,
LET’S GIVE iT TO
THEM!
[ Joseph attempts to run, it fails. ]
for a show! NOW,
LET’S GIVE iT TO
THEM!
[ Joseph attempts to run, it fails. ]
Yeah, pretty much if I ever attempted to run, I’d fail. And there went an hour or two of unsaved gametime.
Not sure about missing, but I’ve basically stopped playing games these days just cause I don’t have the time for it.
It always seemed like when you had LESS health.. you know, like when you NEEDED to be able to run, it was 10 times harder to get the hell out of there! ><
I miss the good ol' turned based games. Those games are the ones I grew up on and loved so much. I mean, I liked some of the "action adventure" RPGs out there like Zelda… but primarily it was the basic RPG. Today when people tell me about RPG games that sound cool, I'll look into them and see its pretty much just a FPS and I'm like… oh, nvm. :/
I don’t know about the JRPG vs western RPG’s thing. Elder Scrolls is definitely setting a new kind of bar. Now, I don’t expect everyone is going to be a fan of this kind of game, but since 96 with Daggerfall, Bethesda has definitely ushered in a new era of role playing games – as in you play a role in the world.
I’m not hating on JRPG, but no FF game can come close to the feeling of immersion that something like the recently released Skyrim can. They just plop you in a world, give you some exposition (in the form of the first mission) and then set you off to go have fun. See something in the distance? You can go there. It definitely has a different sense of your place in the world.
For a game that’s only about 10sq miles, you can definitely do what I’ve done and gone 35hrs into the game, and only seen a portion of one half of the entire map, and still have more quests than you can contemplate doing. The narrative is definitely weaker than the aforementioned Final Fantasy type game, but the immersion factor is orders of magnitude larger.
Not that I assume everyone will agree, but I definitely gave up JRPGs a long time ago.
P.S. I don’t actually game that much due to other commitments – Skyrim time has definitely been coming out of sleep time. Stupid work and college XD
On a side note, Daggerfall definitely showed the world why games have scale issues when it comes to their world-maps. Here’s a handy comparison of the scale of game worlds in comparison to each other:
http://horna.kicks-ass.net/~setae/kuvat/irc-images/2010-05/08/ubwcz.jpg
Daggerfall was definitely ~1/2 the size of Great Britain — No big deal.
I’ll admit, that is pretty rad.
Don’t know too much about Elder Scrolls or Dagger Fall… they seem to be more of the Action Adventure (what is now pretty much just First Person) type games. I’m not sure if I’m correct in thinking that though.
I’m not really against these new games by any means, I mean, I’m actually rather fascinated by the fact that Skyrim has randomly generated quests which lead to infinite amounts of game play! There was just a charm to me about walking a map that lead to having random battles (which would jump into a new screen/format where you have a turn based battle), and have an over all path/story to follow along in case you didn’t care to do too many side quests (even though those were available). Personally like playing games where I can beat them “100%” rather than not really have a “set goal.” … if that makes sense?
I guess it just saddens me a bit that the new type of RPG has basically over run the old type completely… for people like me who prefered that style of gaming.. it’s almost obsolute, except for remakes on the DS/PSP. Which, isn’t bad… just miss playing games on the TV sometimes. lol
Well, any of these big RPG’s still have an overarching narrative. A couple dozen hours of main storyline, they just have the infinite ability to make it your world. To not would be a waste of all the love they put into it. And I mean, really a lot of love. So much little stuff to pick up on in the world.
I personally think that we’ve gotten away from the FF style game because, well, it doesn’t sell anymore. Many gamers are in my position where they feel like they’ve started to blend together into one giant, long hallway full of angst and enemies you can’t see until they’re biting your ankles.
Technology just wasn’t ready for the sandbox – now it is.
Not to say a good narrative isn’t awesome anymore, but they tend to come really nicely as 8-10 hour action-adventures – or perhaps your Mass Effect’s of the world as well.
A side note: I think the real charm in games like Skyrim – for me anyway – is that I can sit down with a buddy of mine and talk about our exploits over a beer as if we actually did them. There are laughs, heavy moments in side-storylines (because some are just awesomely built and very memorable), and many expletives regarding some big-bads that just ruin your day. It’s an experience you can share with your friends, even though it’s completely single-player.
Haha, yeah, my friend tells me about what he’s been doing in the game. It always sounds like a ton of fun when he tell his tales. lol
I like the Elderscrolls games but the series lacks the ability to make me “care” about the characters the way traditional JRPG’s do. Elderscrolls games and its like do an admirable job of building a living world but it never really feels like your character is a part of it. Feels more like being the omnipotent and capricious god strolling through a kingdom of puppets who live and die at your whim. Worse than that the puppets are completely unable to solve their own problems and way too trusting of strangers. It feels a bit unnatural…..which is why I usually just kill everyone I come across until only the 20 to 30 essential characters remain. They just got in the way most of the time and I quickly tire of being stuck in a hallway because random high elf # 4 wont move his butt to the side a quarter inch. I couldnt kill everyone in a Final Fantasy game (aside from Quina of FF9) because I genuinely like the characters. They all have different personalities and abilities. In Elderscrolls everyone has the same personality rammed into stock body that differs from those around only slightly in a very cosmetic way. I look forward to the day that Elderscrolls changes this but until that time the traditional JRPG stands far above it…………….Awesome comic btw.
Shattergraves makes a good point, that I didn’t previously think of. I got fully immersed into characters back when JRPGs were at their height. I cared about what was happening to Cloud in FF7 and Squall and Rinoa in FF8.. a lot of the newer games… I stop caring as much about the characters… probably because of the lack of great narrative, as Tucker brought up before and furthermore the flat personalities in the “stock bodies,” as shattergraves puts it doesn’t help either.
Thanks. Glad you liked it. It’s interesting to me that this strip as engaged us all in a secondary dialogue. I like that. :] I need to find ways to slip more strips like this in here, for that very reason.
That… is a frightening face on Joseph.
Ah, good ol’ FF. I’d never played an RPG in my life before I bought FF 1+2 for my GBA a while back. It was… interesting. Also very annoying at times.
Might as well run… Joseph has no magic (that we know of)!
Nothing like a good ol’ “FFFUUU- Face” when things go awry.
My FIRST RPG, to be honest, was actually Final Fantasy 7. Once I played that game and beat it completely, I went back and played the previous FF games, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire… etc. Then came Pokemon… and we all know how much of a life sucker that game was/still is (for some). lol
If I could have fit it, I would have actually showed the entire battle menu, which was influenced from FF7 specifically. The menu would have showed an MP gage that may or may not have answered your question. ^_~
FF7 hmm? I’ve heard quite a bit about that one. Maybe I should search for the Windows version and give it a try. (I don’t have a PSX.)
haha, i own a PC version of the game too… not sure where it is anymore. It’s a rad game… but be ready for some really bad graphics! It was revolutionary for its time.. but it’s dated as hell now.
Don’t worry about me, man… I still play Doom and Descent for fun occasionally. I’m an old-school gamer.
LOL Descent? MAN that’s so OG shit right there! Then, FF7 away man!
Ohshit, Descent? That’s awesome! I was actually looking at getting that running through a dosbox on my tablet. I remember that from when I was like… 5. Amazing.
Somehow I actually still have a copy of it. lol
So does the internets.
CHRONO TRIGGER!!! God that game along with Earthbound, FF 2 and 3 were my life back in middle school.
If you had an Xbox 360, and probably close to 70+ hours continuous game time… Lost Odyssey is still a pretty cool game. Turn-based JRPG, fantastic storyline, side quests that are actually worth the time to do… I like it (still, even though I finished it ages ago).
I don’t dedicate much time to games (work is such a soul-sucking beast, after all), but on my days off… movies, games, pissing about on the Internet.
Back on topic, though, this is an awesome one.
Oh I know of Lost Odyssey, it was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi the creator of the Final Fantasy series. <3
I never played it though because I hate my XBox… I literally only got it so I could play Castle Crashers AND so I could start watching Netflix on it (cos at the time XBox was the only device doing that… now EVERYTHING has it on it). I was actually really interested in that game.. but at the time it came out, I was really focusing on getting LAWLS and my other comic stuff off the ground… which in reality is really the kill of all things video games for me. I LOVE doing comics, but it is a shame from time to time how little I get to do things like play video games like everyone else. :/
Yeah.. when I want to piss away time and relax, i tend to just stream shows on Netflix rather than invest brain power / time into a game.
Thanks, I was pretty happy with this one. :3
You may also like Last Remnant for the 360. It has a LOT to do in it that is generally worth it. Almost all the side quests tie into the main story or get you gear that is always worth it. It didn’t get the best rating because of the battle system but i actually found it rather fun and interesting.
What was “wrong” with the battle system?
Maybe you should make a L.A.W.L.S. RPG…
In the back of my mind I’ve been working on a L.A.W.L.S. Based RPG and also just random iPhone app type games… thing is, I don’t know any motivated even programmers.. and still don’t make enough money to invest in such a thing… BUT it is something I’ve had on my mind. :]
i never run into this issue when playing games mainly because i tend to juggernaut my people on the low levels so i can just eat the souls of everyone else that comes my way. Soul Eater is a special 1 hit ko move that i made because i can hack the game codes and insert my own moves
Generally this wouldn’t happen to me in Pokemon or Final Fantasy 7.. but every so often I’d still get hit by it.. and when I did.. it was always at the worst times… BUT because of that.. i tend to over level early, just like you. haha
…I was the worst on FF8… you’d get stronger the more you’d absorb monster’s magic… so id max out all the magic in the area before I’d move on…. yeah… spent A LOT OF HOURS on that game.
FF8 was so freaking easy to beat, it got boring fast. So I started to play it by never upgrading my weapons or exploiting the limit breaks, never junction the stronger magics until it got nearly impossible to beat normal enemies, and I never ever used melt down on anyone.
Man, now I want to reinstall EPSXE and plug in my old games to relive high school.
You know.. i NEVER actually got the final limit breaks or weapons in FF8… i mastered the hell out of FF7… but never FF8. In fact.. now that I think about it, I only beat FF8 1 time… now FF7… beat that at least 20. lol
Can I “like” and “fave” and everything else to this strip?! I love it so much…
Thanks! :3 I’m sure you can find plenty of ways to like/fave it! stumbl-twit-tumbl-facebook’d it everywhere. lol
By the way Joenis… have you figured out a schedule for LAWLS yet? I’m a little confused at the moment what days it’s supposed to be. :S
Are you… checking the site manually for updates? Use an RSS reader!
Glad to know someone is using the RSS feed. :]
Checking manually is like baking your own loaf of bread. Sometimes you do it (we have a breadmaker! :3 ), but most of the time it’s easier, quicker and better quality to just get your baked goods direct from the bakery
It’s either been Tues/Thurs or Wed/Fri depending on how my week ends up starting. I’m even starting to get sick of this scheduling. I’m hoping once the book is ready that I’ll get back to a M/W/F sorta thing. Sorry about the confusion. :/
Run always feels like a “cancel” option to me; if I’m using it it means I’ve done something the wrong way. Then again I also have a habit of grinding to overlevel the whole party…
As they say at Schlock Mercenary: There is no “overkill.” There is only “open fire” and “time to reload.”
Agreed… I tend to push thru it and get my heart beat up a bit thinking I’m not gonna make it, rather than just run away. If this was a daily comic, not a serial strip.. I’m sure i could make a whole string of jokes just based on this logic. heh
Ahh yes, the ol’ “OHH SHIT IT’S TEARING THROUGH MY HEATH BAR THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA WHY DIDN’T I RUN EARLIER OHH SHIT I CAN’T ESCAPE NOW?!” routine
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!