Ruined Franchises

[Evil]

A voiced protagonist is a double edged sword. Yes, you get a character that makes themselves known, but you have far, far less options.
Comparing the verbal options in Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4 and you go from someone who, depending on their skills, can have options ranging from medical knowledge, to science, to engineering, to weapons, to conversations based on their own stats. And then we get someone whose conversations are limited to 4 options.

You've gained a voice and lost far more.

 

[Kokayi005]

What about in Mass Effect when more options appeared based on how far you were in a sidequest or he main story too?
It can be done, we just have to find someone willing to pay more voice actors to do more voiced work instead of spending all their budget on graphics. All so they can one up a rival dev or platform. Honestly, when I first played FFX, the first mostly voiced RPG I played, I was so happy to hear what the character in my favorite RPG series sounded like. And since then I always want to know what people sound like. I can imagine a voice all day. But then you get hit with curve balls like odd accents you don't even recognize. What do you do then? Wouldn't it help if a voice actor did the accent.

Remember Chrono Cross?
Lots of characters. Lots of mannerisms and slang and accents. Australian, british, French, street slang, and then completely made up ones. Even a skeleton calling you "Mister S" like the Fonz. THAT NEEDS TO BE VOICED.

 

[Evil]

Do yourself a favour and read this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/aenfti/what_do_you_prefer_silent_protagonist_or_voiced/
And watch this:

 

[ScarletteKnight]

It's different when you have someone like Geralt, or even Shephard, who are supposed to have a defined personality to an extent. Yes, you decide how hardass they are and make choices for them, but they're pretty set in stone. Nobody wanted that for Fallout or Dragon Age, where you're supposed to be totally free to make your character who they are.

 

[Zavos]

A voiced main character comes with the opportunity cost of less dialogue options. It only ever works in outliers such as the Witcher, where a fixed character has a relatively small range of plausible responses. Anywhere else, its just making the game more appealing to a casual audience at cost of the game's creative ingenuity. Deplorable, but sensible.

Please stop pretending you know anything about how game development. You're welcome to put your wallet where your mouth is, because ultimately it is the only voice that matters. Everything else is, for the most part, meaningless noise.

 

[Kokayi005]

Well I guess that's not for me. I don't want to make up who the character is unless I have complete control over what they look like and their background. And in all the games I've played, that never happens. To me, if the character has a name and you can't change their looks, they should talk.

I never pretended I was an expert on game development. All I know is what I like and pay for. Let's just agree to disagree and move on.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

Well I guess that's not for me. I don't want to make up who the character is unless I have complete control over what they look like and their background. And in all the games I've played, that never happens. To me, if the character has a name and you can't change their looks, they should talk.

And this is something you can do in Dragon Age and Fallout. Origins has the most options for background.

 

[Kokayi005]

If you say so. I've never seen Bioware allow a lot of options of character. Can they be short? Can they really tall? Fat? Black? Asian? Glowing eyes? Does it look good when you do your own thing, or is only the defaults well made like in Andromeda.

I'm not saying more dialogue options are bad. I'm saying my idea can be done if they cared enough to do it. More voiced option and still voicing it.

 

[Evil]

Bear in mind that the Origins character creator is now nearly 10 years old, so its "basic" compared to what is around now. Basically you have Human bodies, Elf bodies and Dwarf bodies, no adipose, no height.

But what Origins did offer was:
Three races to pick from.
Three classes (well, 2 if you're a Dwarf).
Six origins to pick from - Human Noble, Human Mage, Elf Commoner, Dalish Elf, Elf Mage, Dwarf Commoner, Dwarf Noble. And each origin would change the world to create a unique story. For example, the Human Noble is betrayed by a family friend and is searching for vengeance, while the Elf Commoner caused a riot at their own wedding.
And then you get specialisations. And Warriors got more than a choice between Two-handed weapon or Sword N' Board.

I'm almost tempted to play my favourite Warden again. Dual Wielding Human Warrior, took the Champion, Reaver and Spirit Warrior specialisations and by the time you got to Awakening, he hit like a truck.

 

[null_blank]

DAO had the longest intro for a modern RPG ever. It also had one of the most numerous starting options and backgrounds.

No wonder it took 7 years to make. And the moment I noticed all this the first thing I thought to myself was "they are never going to do all this shit again"

boom and I was right

DA2: 3 classes, 2 genders, 1 race, choose between brother (fighter) or sister (mage) dying, final destination, lmao

 

[Evil]

Yeah, you're never going to see the like of DAO again.

Well, except maybe from Larian Studios, been playing Divinity Original Sin 2 recently. Its got that spark of DAO and its certainly got that freedom to create a character the way you want.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

If you say so. I've never seen Bioware allow a lot of options of character. Can they be short? Can they really tall? Fat? Black? Asian? Glowing eyes? Does it look good when you do your own thing, or is only the defaults well made like in Andromeda.

I'm not saying more dialogue options are bad. I'm saying my idea can be done if they cared enough to do it. More voiced option and still voicing it.

Not many games that I've played let you change height and weight in the first place, but the character creator is perfectly fine for being a decade old.

The amount of time and money spent on a voiced protagonist is already something, but then you've got to do at least 2 separate voices just because you get a gender option. And then you have dialogue choices, limited to 4 at a time, so instead of 1 line there are 8. If you talk to 50 people that is 200 dialogue options, 8 times more expensive and time-consuming than having a standard protagonist. In Origins there are anywhere from 4 to 12 options in dialogue at a time at least, meaning it could be up to 24 times more expensive and time-consuming than a standard protagonist.

I'm almost tempted to play my favourite Warden again. Dual Wielding Human Warrior, took the Champion, Reaver and Spirit Warrior specialisations and by the time you got to Awakening, he hit like a truck.

The game got pretty broken as a Rogue if you dumped every single point in Dex and Cunning and ignored weapon types, with the right gear I was unstoppable. Especially with Awakening, the new Specialty Legionaire added extra health and durability. It was seriously impressive, I cheated to max level on a second playthrough and went through Nightmare solo, never died once. It was terribly lonely though.

Yeah, you're never going to see the like of DAO again.

Well, except maybe from Larian Studios, been playing Divinity Original Sin 2 recently. Its got that spark of DAO and its certainly got that freedom to create a character the way you want.

Divinity OS was good, but slow to start. Divinity 2 has been better, but I really hope I don't have to be religious, I'm already sad enough at killing off most of my friends.

 

[Evil]

The game got pretty broken as a Rogue if you dumped every single point in Dex and Cunning and ignored weapon types, with the right gear I was unstoppable. Especially with Awakening, the new Specialty Legionaire added extra health and durability. It was seriously impressive, I cheated to max level on a second playthrough and went through Nightmare solo, never died once. It was terribly lonely though.

Oh yeah, Rogues could get broken fast, but that warrior build, I just loved it so much. It was just so tanky and hit like a truck, you had the damage and speed boost from Spirit Warrior, as well as the resistance to a lot of physical attacks. Combine that with two of the Reavers abilities and Champion's War Cry, dumping just enough points into Dexterity for all the Dual Wield skills, with the rest going into Constitution and Strength and you ended up with a character that was not only ridiculously fast, both in movement and attack, but hit hard, was constantly doing spirit damage and was pretty much immune to stun or knockback.

I mean, I took this guy into Golems on Nightmare and he soloed the Harvester by himself when the rest of the party got taken out at the start.

 

[Kokayi005]

I thought to myself was "they are never going to do all this shit again"

boom and I was right

I think if they put forth the effort they could do it again. Inquistion came close. And I think it'd be smart of them to give up on copying other companies like Bioware did with letting Andromeda die and fixating on faulty Anthem. Squaresoft went down the same road. FFs were amazing then they fell apart because everything Square was accused on (being crazy over graphics and phoning in all else) became true. They started copying other companies and ignoring what made them THEM. They lost their identity and get in an arms race with graphics, DLCs, microtransactions, phone games and more and more. Until story, heart, drama, unique battle systems became a thing of the past. And even when they copied other devs, they did it weakly or wrong because it wasn't their strong suit.

 

[Zavos]

Inquistion came close.

Take. That. Back.

 

[Kokayi005]

I saw vids of DAO, especially of Isabelle. I know it set a bar and a standard. But in Inquisition they tried their best. There was lots of chests and exploration. Lots of conspiracy and mystery (what I love). So really other than not doing well enough as DAO, what is Inquisiton guilty of?

 

[ScarletteKnight]

I saw vids of DAO, especially of Isabelle. I know it set a bar and a standard. But in Inquisition they tried their best. There was lots of chests and exploration. Lots of conspiracy and mystery (what I love). So really other than not doing well enough as DAO, what is Inquisiton guilty of?

I mean damn, the whole system really. It's visually a lot more impressive, but the first things that hit me were

The god damn combat.​

• They removed the tactics menu
• You have to unlock the ability to defend yourself
• They removed the tactics menu
• They took out the radial menu so you only have 8 abilities at once which fucks up Mages
• They took away assigning attributes
• They took away perks, so I couldn't just make traps and poisons but had to learn trap and poison powers which is limiting as a character and removes tactical choices
• The combo system has been way watered down
• The magic system has been way watered down
• It can be very janky because of the terrain
• The less grounded movements can be fun but I liked the realism in Origins
• The AI is just bad, I abused the hell out of it as a low level Archer on Nightmare
• They took out my damn tactics menu

Really most of this started in 2, which is why I didn't like it. But 2 also had problems in being so heavily scripted you leveled up at the same time each playthrough.
But my tactics on my party were set up so well that I could just go into stealth and put my controller down while everyone else perfectly fought in sync, shredding their opponents, capable of moving tactically and taking out certain enemies first, comboing moves, and really just being a beautifully overwhelming force. In Inquisition my allies have to be babysat so they don't use their moves incorrectly and actually get out of the way of an attack, forcing me to move them repeatedly and making every encounter 5 minutes long because I have to do everything for 4 people.

And then there's the fact that I had to go back and buy the DLC for DA2 just to understand what was going on in the story. At least the characters were mostly amazing. Voiced protagonist made it worse on the whole, like 1/3 the dialogue options.

Edit: I'm pretty sure they didn't try their best. There would've been some people trying to make things work, but the actual people in charge have been proven to be more interested in making money than good games.

 

[Wsan]

Command and Conquer. The early ones were fantastic. Red Alert was a brilliant expansion on the original concept and peaked with Yuri's Revenge. C&C3 was wacky, but I still really liked it -- it was still C&C, just shinier and with aliens.
C&C4 is possibly one of the worst computer games I have ever played in my entire life. I bought it and RA3 (which was just mediocre) solely to play coop with a friend, but we both only made it through the first mission before agreeing to never play it again. What an absolute flop. They threw away every single good thing about the series to chase e-sports money and it blew up in their face. At least they're remastering the original.

 

[null_blank]

Oh I want to add, Xenogears. Square (before they became Squenix) cut their budget leading to a sudden end of the game on the 2nd disc. Funding for future games was forever cut in favor of FF and Square sits on the Xenogears IP to this very day. Xenochronicles/saga is just a sad attempt by the devs to continue the franchise.

hurr durr you get to kill the christ god please stop

 

[Evil]

I also want to throw in Dino Crisis, mainly because of Dino Crisis 3, which left the franchise extinct.

I loved Dino Crisis, its fast and mobile nature made it a breath of fresh air to the slower and static feeling of Resident Evil. Actually, I loved both series, Resident Evil will always be a favourite but Dino Crisis will have a little leggy-redhead place in my heart.

Dino Crisis 2 tried to mix things up even more and while it wasn't overly successful, it went out of its way to make its own game, rather than just "That Resident Evil with the dinosaurs".

Dino Crisis 3 was an unmitigated disaster. Not only did Capcom decide to forget Regina's story, but they went with godawful controls with a shitty anti-gravity mechanic that just made the game stupidly difficult and paired it with an abomination of a story, effectively making an "IN SPACE" game that many people wish got blasted into space.

However, with the recent success of the RE2 remake and some rumours about a potential RE3 remake, one can only hope that Capcom will have the cop-on to bring back the dinosaurs.

 

[Kokayi005]

@null_blank
Be that as it may, Xenogears and Xenosaga were way way deeper than what Monolith became after leaving square. I even liked their Xenoblade game. But it keeps going down in depth from there. I think when Square did Xenogear the only thing that would've been better would be remaking it with a full update to it.

@ScarletteKnight
I'm just saying the put forth some serious effect in Inquisition. That's all I'm saying.
Even in combat, when you can slow things down, and tell you allies where to stand, what to do there, and for how long. Even then, I could see effort. Credit where it's due.

@Evil
Anything is possible after the advent of a great remake.

 

[null_blank]

The thing is, when I say Xenogears, I really mean Xenosaga/blade because they can't use the name Xenogears since Square owns it and won't let anyone do anything with it.

 

[Kokayi005]

Well to me Xenoblade, Saga, and Gears were great.
I think they went into otaku-NEET-baiting with Xenoblade 2 letting you collect cute spirit girls. But other than that, I've always loved their stories and how deep they are. They're the reason I think so deeply about stories. Well one of them, I was also raised by some pretty smart yet poor parents.

 

[Evil]

I'm just saying the put forth some serious effect in Inquisition. That's all I'm saying.
Even in combat, when you can slow things down, and tell you allies where to stand, what to do there, and for how long. Even then, I could see effort. Credit where it's due.

Do yourself a favour and watch this video discussing the difference between Origins and Inquisition.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

The thing is, when I say Xenogears, I really mean Xenosaga/blade because they can't use the name Xenogears since Square owns it and won't let anyone do anything with it.

The same developers of Xenogears worked on Xenosaga, same creator/story writer who came up with the whole story.

 

[null_blank]

The same developers of Xenogears worked on Xenosaga, same creator/story writer who came up with the whole story.

Yeah but they can't use the name or any of the characters so it just winds up being "Hey this is not-Fei and his eternal girlfriend not-Elhyam!"

 

[Kokayi005]

I wish Square and Monolith would hook back up again and do more of the Perfect Works (Xenogears).

 

[sumgai]

Oh I want to add, Xenogears. Square (before they became Squenix) cut their budget leading to a sudden end of the game on the 2nd disc. Funding for future games was forever cut in favor of FF and Square sits on the Xenogears IP to this very day. Xenochronicles/saga is just a sad attempt by the devs to continue the franchise.

Man, I STILL love some of the music in that game. Flight and The Wind is Calling.... so good. Hell, Flight mangages to make Chu-Chu seem badass for two minutes.

Shame about disc 2. Epic game on disc 1, people sitting on chairs talking about epic stuff on disc 2.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

@ScarletteKnight
I'm just saying the put forth some serious effect in Inquisition. That's all I'm saying.
Even in combat, when you can slow things down, and tell you allies where to stand, what to do there, and for how long. Even then, I could see effort. Credit where it's due.

You realize you could do even more with slowing time in Origins? Like, basically everything except graphical fidelity is a direct downgrade.

 

[coldmonkey]

New World Computing, that made the fantastic "Might and Magic" and "Heroes of Might and Magic" series, allowed themselves to be purchased by the 3DO Company, back in the day. The NWC CEO, Jon Van Caneghem, one of the pioneers of computer RPGs, had been told they'd let him attempt to make an MMORPG, but instead, they imposed ludicrous deadlines and forced NWO to spend sometimes less than a year to make the next games in the series, making each game shorter and less polished than the rest. M&M6 was long, beautiful and fantastic. MM7, still really good, but with far smaller dungeons. MM8, short as hell and with obviously unfinished maps and quests. MM9 was a heroic attempt to make a whole new engine and game with about a year available to them, as their current engine was hopelessly behind the times, but ultimately it was shipped as an unplayable mess of bugs and unfinished content.

In the offshot series, HoMM3 was great, of course, but HoMM4 was... well, some say it's shit, and the 3D models do look like the art and graphics groups had no time to polish anything, but the writing was still really good, and it had some really good gameplay improvements - sadly offset by a bunch of other new stuff that hadn't been playtested or polished enough. Again. the necessity of staying with the times and upgrading from 2D to 3D made NWO fail, although the finished product was completely playable, unlike MM9.

And then, 3DO went under and took NWO with them, with the "Might and Magic" trademarks being bought by 3DO.