We continue our discussion on scalability of game experiences. In the Hangover, Randy talks about samurai warriors using iPads in Shin Megami Tensei IV, Paul has more Project X Zone musings and D.J. grinds beetles to dust in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
Episode Timeline:
0:00 – Intro
2:41 – Viewer Mail
16:40 – Shin Megami Tensei IV
24:15 – Project X Zone
30:32 – Animal Crossing: New Leaf
39:23 – Scaling Game Experiences, Part 2
56:45 – Phil Fish
59:28 – Last Call
1:02:30 – Outro
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This Week’s Music:
“Club Wolf” and “Win” from the Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar and Level by Disasterpeace
Links:
VGHangover Animal Crossing: New Leaf friend code list – Add your 3DS code and play with the community!
Zeboyd Games: “Why I don’t think our next game will have a ‘Normal’ difficulty setting.”
Fez meltdown reactions:
Giant Bomb: “So, Fez II”
Zeboyd Games: “There is no Internet war on creatives”
Mersey Remakes (bonus preemptive reaction!!): “Assholes are assholes.”
I almost exclusively play on whatever the ‘normal’ difficulty mode is. Defaults are defaults for a reason, after all. The idea being that most video game players will find that mode to be the right balance. I celebrate developers who provide numerous difficulty levels to choose from, because people who play games have widely varying degrees of skill levels. Not to mention, lower difficulties are a great way to ease newer players into new experiences that they’d otherwise have a problem trying to get into.
The only game I can really think of where I ever went with an elevated difficulty level from the start was Halo 4. That’s a special case in multiple ways: at that point in the series, I’ve already played four previous Halo games, so I already know what to expect and don’t have to deal with trying to come to grips with the game’s systems for the first time. Furthermore, the designers of the game actually come out and say that ‘Heroic’ difficulty is the way the game is “meant to be played”. I think it’s kind of odd that the default difficulty isn’t that mode, but I digress. Also, in the case of the Halo games, the enemy AI acts “smarter” on higher difficulty levels, whereas some games simply alter some variables, making supplies less scarce and enemy health levels higher.
In terms of bringing in new players… if/when I try again to get my wife to play some sort of third- or first-person action game, you can be damn sure I’ll be setting the difficulty level to ‘easy’ for her.
How do you guys think you would do if you all grouped up and became a indie studio?
Most likely, we’d spend all day just hanging out and playing 3DS in our sweet office until we used up all our Kickstarter money three weeks later. It would be an awesome three weeks, though!
I think we’re actually talking about something similar on an upcoming show, so stay tuned.
It would be nice to be able to skip battles and such without affecting your boss battles when you get to what you think is near the end of an extremely long game that you’ve been trying to play for wayyyy to long. That was a long sentence, but I’ve been playing final fantasy XIII, which took me a while to get into, then it became better, then I was enjoying it, then I started hating it again. Now I would like to finish b/c I’ve just played for so long and I’m so near the end. But I can’t beat the boss I’m on now, b/c I’ve skipped battles.
Had that exact problem in XII-2. Generally avoided pointless battles for most of the game and I got to the final area and was woefully under-powered. The grind needed to finally pass that section was just too much and I shelved it. Shouldn’t have to do several hours of random battles just to finish the game 🙁
I meant XIII-2. Whoops.