Yes, the story mode is probably the biggest Cliché Storm in the history of JRP Gs, and even the online gameplay can get boring at first, but once you get to a particular point, it really starts to pick up and you can even get quite addicted to it, just like with MM Os!
edited 15th Jan '11 9:11:35 AM by MrPoly
It'd be completely amazing if the game started with you having the ability to sync magic, chain attacks, and use Trinity Acts.
Instead, you get a few hours of very slow-paced battles before you get to "holy crap I'm wiping everything out!"
I have a message from another time...Wait, Avalon Code dungeons actually evolved beyond a few rooms with challenges set in a straight line?
I seriously missed out because of that.
Stargate SG-1 Let's Watch. Because my ZHP thing failed.There was a game on the Sega Genesis that my sister bought for me one Christmas. I can't remember the title, but it was a game that featured Ronald Mc Donald and was sponsored by the food chain. The focus of the game was nothing about Mc Donalds at all though. You play as a pair of kids who have these goo guns and you explore through these long levels while fighting Pollution monsters and stuff.
When I first opened the gift, I didn't know what to expect. My first reaction was less than stellar, and when I first played the game and said it was OK, my sister had a fit. HOWEVER, the game actually turned out to be really fun. I mean fairly challenging and just good fun gameplay. I really enjoyed it.
Rune, hands down. The first levels of the game after the tutorial are extended Down the Drain levels full of tedious enemies that are no fun to fight, but once you FINALLY (about a sixth of the way through the game) reach the surface world, the game starts going strong and never once stops. I'm sure it singlehandedly killed the game's commercial chances.
Same for me with Deus Ex. I was hooked before I finished the demo - then they released an add-on for the demo which added a few more levels, and I was hooked even more. I played through probably a dozen times trying to get all the guns and take different paths, just on the demo.
edited 15th Jan '11 12:16:48 PM by Talby
Hey You Pikachu. It's a gloriously dumb kid's game throughout, but for some reason the first set of missions have the camera locked onto Pikachu and you can't pick stuff up. Once the basic camera and item-handling control schemes are unlocked it becomes a fun gloriously dumb kid's game. :B
I forgot about Kingdom Hearts II's stupid Introduction! Thanks for reminding me about the introduction where you run around and do some minigames!
Shutdown sequence initiated.Um, It wasnt a bad first impression, but I guess it would be Ace Attorney series. Case 1: I know, its a tutorial and all, but it just was... kinda there, and I really didnt know what to think there (It wasnt BAD, but still...). But then again, just as soon as case 2 starts its when I got pretty interested
edited 15th Jan '11 4:21:51 PM by NONAMEGIVEN
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death itself may die."@Ralphrius Yep
I really suggest you give it a chance for a couple of chapters and you'll be amazed. I mean, I love Avalon Code and "I" even admit the first couple of dungeons were crappy, which I think is a major reason why it's SO underrated. But by about chapter 5 I have no complaints about any dungeons.
One of my favorite aspects of the game is how you can involve a fair bit of clever tricks to help you win boss fights. Kind of like The Legend Of Zelda, but not too much.
edited 15th Jan '11 5:36:36 PM by PsychoFreaX
Help?.. please...I second the dislikes for the KOTOR and KOTOR 2 intros. Fun on your first time through, just tedious afterwords.
I also dislike the intro to Baldurs Gate 2. It is okay, but for the most part it is just a boring dungeon crawl. It gets much better once you get to the Wide-Open Sandbox type portion of it.
"The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."There's a problem though... I don't have it anymore ;-;
Stargate SG-1 Let's Watch. Because my ZHP thing failed.Seconding Baldur's Gate 2. You know there's a problem when there are multiple mods to allow you to skip the first dungeon and go straight to normal gameplay.
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something AwfulMajoras Mask and Epic Mickey.
I had a love-hate relation with the Time-Based system in Majoras Mask. While I found it a neat gimmick, it got on my nerves after a while. But then, while doing the sidequests, I got into the story and NPC interactions. And the story/NPC interactions are the reason I think that Majoras Mask is the best Zelda game.
Consider the Anju and Kafei sidequest. You've just completed the Anju/Kafei sidequest, hours before the Moon will obliterate all life. After a grievous and uncomfortable cutscene, they stand by each other and urge you to flee for your life. They say that they'll be alright, and of course you know that's a lie, and they know you know. They know they're gonna die, but they're still staying. They want to be together in peace one last time, instead of spending their last moments running in desperation.
Before finishing the sidequest, I planned on playing the Song of Time to head back to the first day, to pick up a few more masks. But after seeing that cutscene... I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to just leave. I thought "Yes, they will live to see dawn!". I wasn't as prepared as I could've been, but I was going to fight Majora's Mask anyway.
And it wasn't just that cutscene. The whole story is so powerfully, beautifully, tragically told. Pamela and her cursed father, the poor insane postman, Romani and Cremia; all these stories arced along different paths towards inevitable death. You really want to defeat Majora's Mask, not just because it was the final boss but because you wanted to save everyone. You don't want them to die.
Ocarina of Time wasn't like that. When I fought Ganondorf for the first time, sure I thought it was an epic battle (probably one of the most epic in video game history), but I battled him because he was just the next rung on the ladder. I didn't care about anyone in Hyrule. Ganondorf was the final boss, but Majora's Mask was your nemesis.
A similar occourance happend in Epic Mickey. While the camera had problems and the controls were clunky, you got immersed into the story and you wanted these characters to have their home restored, you wanted Oswald to become happy again, you wanted these characters to have happy endings. While the characters and sidequest weren't as emotionally engaging as the ones in Majoras Mask. They were effective enough to actually make me want to play the game.
edited 17th Jan '11 2:36:04 AM by PippingFool
I'm having to learn to pay the priceYou just explained one of the reasons I liked Majoras Mask so much (though I actually loved the time mechanic, which is surprising since I tend to hate feeling rushed). I have to agree on the sluggish beginning. With exception to Link To The Past and Wind Waker, I always feel like Zelda games have a fairly boring introduction level. I feel that Twilight Princess and Majora's were the worst though.
Star Ocean Till The End Of Time (or the 3rd Star Ocean game, in case I'm getting my subtitles mixed up) also had a fairly terrible opening sequence. I think it took 2-4 hours before you actually start to get into the game proper.
Yeah, really any Zelda game for me. Wind Waker and Majora's Mask were the absolute worst, with Twilight Princess being the runner up.
Also, I hated Paper Mario's prologue. It has a nice theme and some good humour, but the battle are just so damn PAINFUL.
A corpse should be left well enough alone...Final Fantasy VII. The game isn't bad at all. But the opening with nothing but fighting? Kind of boring, ya know. Never had any problem with any other Final Fantasy game's opening.
Also, Majoras Mask invoked this. Love the game to death, though. Twilight Princess was good, but kind of barren. Wind Waker felt bigger than in needed to be, but it was still good.
Ironically, Quest 64 didn't do this for me. It actually has a good opening that gives you what you need. YMMV if it helped, but the game's battle system, while good, kind of become stale. Love the exceptions, heh.
Quest 64 threadNeither Baldur's Gate 2 or KOTOR 2 (which I thought was suitably creepy) were that bad the first time around... It's just that they're absolutely awful the second time around.
Taris is boring, yes. As is Ostagar in Dragon Age
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent@Ralphrius Damn and I thought I'm the one with the bad luck here. Well, if there's any chance you can get another one then you know what to do ^^.
Help?.. please...When I first played Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines I tought the game was kind of wierd, and I had played Deus Ex before and loved it from the tutorial so I don't know exactly what I didn't like about the game, maybe it was the animations or whatever but once the tutorial was finished it became one of my favorite games ever.
Another one was Operation Flashpoint, when I first played it I just couldn't do anything right, the controls are totally different from most common FP Ss and the cutscenes were 100% narmful to human life but after I started playing for a while I really loved it.
:)

I felt this way about Chrono Trigger. I was expecting standard fantasy adventure due to its age, but the first several areas felt even blander than I expected. Magus' Keep, specifically the bat (Flea) following you everywhere without any explanation combined with the sudden music shift and the children dancing in the middle of the evil demon lord's castle, was when the game shifted from "sort of dull" to "holy shit amazing".