helava

I'm not really sure I understand the existence of this article. Basically, the TL;DR version is:

"I like JRPGs therefore they're worth playing."

The thing is, there is a lot of discussion to be had about the individual components and *why* they matter. There's also a lot of discussion to be had about what makes the overall experience *different* than a book, or a good movie.

For instance, one of the biggest differences between a JRPG like Lost Odyssey and any movie is *time*. While in an episodic TV series, you'll spend more time with the characters, they're specifically written so that in most of them, order doesn't matter, and therefore, *time* doesn't matter. With most movies, you're only with the characters for 2 hours. You can care about them essentially only in the context of a very, very specific event.

With a JRPG, you may have the same characters for 120 hours. Three full working weeks. That's a LOT more time to get to know a couple characters, and you'll be doing so in the context of a progressive story arc. So even if you're doing mundane things, and the mechanics suck, you'll be spending a lot of *time* with those characters, watching them evolve and unfold, and finding out more of the subtleties about them - stuff you wouldn't be able to find in most movies, with visuals that are more visceral and immediate than most books.

There's also a sense of progression of the narrative, the progression of the character's power, how those two interplay - usually going from amnesiac teen angsty nonsense to world-saving planet-smashing explodination. There's a power fantasy that fulfills, and it makes the mundane (your character at the start) into something genuinely important by the end.

I mean, there are dozens of things to dive into, and honestly, I *hate* most JRPGs because the mechanics *are* garbage, and the stories are *terrible*. But there are a lot of reasons they should be better than they are, and in the hands of someone who's not tied to the nonsensical Japanese conventions, a linear "RPG" could still be a really powerful experience.

I guess the question is, when has a MMO that's launched to reviews this terrible actually had the time to carve out what's necessary to make it compelling? As I understand it, APB has been in development for a long time. If re-tuning & adding features takes 3-6 months before the game's genuinely fun in a self-contained actual-not-potential sort of way, how many people will still care?

Given that, it seems really strange to me to end the review with a "Well, it sort of sucks now, but might be worth it in the future..." If a reviewer's supposed to put the quality of a game in *context*, it seems to make more sense to say, "Well, it sort of sucks now, and as a result, isn't likely to ever build up a fanbase that will support the game to the point where it's actually fun. Better luck next time," no?

One of the old school Robotech Valkyries.

w00t.

"Sadly, it was all CG, but we'll take any new Force Unleashed we can get."

Why? The first one was awful. The story was the only even marginal high point - the combat mechanics were unplayable garbage.

My favorite of this type of thing was in Moto GP on the Xbox. Human motorcycle noises FTW. This is pretty hilarious in its own right, tho.

@Jrinswand - Your assumption that because a game sucked, each individual member of the development team sucked, is incredibly naive and ill-informed.

There are a lot of reasons a game can go bad - everything from "everyone on the team sucking" to "incompetent upper management" to "being tied to the release schedule of a film." Sometimes unforseen events occur, sometimes you're bound by various restrictions that are beyond your control, and you have to do the best with what you have.

There are often very, very talented people on bad games, and very, very untalented people on good ones. Yes, they made a bad game - but are they all bad developers? Almost certainly not.

* Not affiliated with WBIE or the Watchmen game in any way whatsoever.

Nice to see Seaman pop up again. Got my break into the industry on that game scripting logic. Good times. :) Happy Birthday, Seaman.

Park a helicopter next to the stack and turn on the rotor.

Taxiball!

Well, I think the thing is, this *does* interest me... in general. If there are movers and shakers who are changing positions in the industry, I'm interested. But this guy? Really? Why not post an article about how some random tester changed positions from Activision to THQ, or how level designer X switched positions from some developer you've never heard of to a company you don't care about?

Either it's an incredibly slow news day, or this guy has some significance to the industry that's not made at all clear by the article. What has he done? Why should we care? Hell, the article author barely cares, yet takes the time to spread the news. Why? Aren't there better things to be writing about?