I suppose it’s what you’re prepared to put up with…or what you find compelling enough to overcome what annoys you. If the mechanics of a JRPG piss me off these days, I’ll pretty much leave it be, because there are plenty of other JRPGS, or plenty of other games in general that I could play instead, and if you’ve played one JRPG, story-wise you’ve pretty much played ‘em all. I used to devour them, stupid random battles, pointless side-quests and all, but I no longer care.

Whereas I put up with things like helicopter missions in GTA games, which I detest, because I want to know -what happens next-. The carrot is bigger than the stick.

-Eddie.

It’s interesting how patience changes as you get older, though. I used to happily play my way through all of Sierra’s games, despite their continuously killing me for the most arbitrary of reasons. Now, I can’t even begin to imagine wasting that kind of time needlessly frustrating myself. And yet I enjoyed Ninja Gaiden II on the 360.

Now I’ve just confused myself. Go figure.

It’s pretty darn post-modernist, but did their actions create a new ending unintended by the developer but equally as real? We think of our games as rollercoasters built the designer, but they needn’t be that limited. The Path‘s another interesting one where interpretation pretty much defines everything – choice is pretty hard to define in a game where the goals are undefined, the outcomes uncertain, and the story opaque.

But, generally speaking I think you’re right – most sprawling games follow such a common formula, it’s borderline frustrating. One of the Webcomics nailed it – Mass Effect 2 feels like I’m a spacefaring counselor. What happened to the kick-ass and chew bubblegum space hero Shepherd from the first game, I ask you!?

There’s definitely a place for sprawling games – I loved Fallout 3. I think that’s because you could pick your own pace – just follow the story missions, or go off exploring for as long as you like. What gets to me is where it’s not a choice – you either do it the way the developer made it, or you don’t do it at all. I use the example of the interminable cutscenes in MGS4 which, if anything, made matters more confusing, not less, and padded out the game ‘artificially’.

-Eddie

I’m with you on providing a punchier experience though. Too many games still have too much “filler” in them – I don’t mind paying full price for an extremely well designed, 12 hour game. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have wanted Fallout 3 to be any different …

Yeah, I owned Bayou Billy, and I originally had it in my list (and left it in my tags), but it’s a little bit more obscure than some of the others. I mean, so is Milon’s Secret Castle as a -game-, but Milon is often remembered for having a “Getting Started” section in Nintendo Power where other games had an ‘advanced tips and tricks’ or similar. It needed it’s own damn guide just to figure out how to -start-.

PS. The Konami Code probably works – give it another try with 30 extra lives?

That was the Adventures of Bayou Billy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Bayou_Billy) which, to succeed at it, required the elemental opposite of facerolling. You had to get in touch with the alchemical quintessence of skill in order to win that fucker. It was less forgiving than Ayn Rand.

I never beat it. I only got to the last stage ONCE, in what, in retrospect, was likely a monk-like zen session of power playing over several hours. The game was so hard, it was obscene and perfect at once.