Eurogamer's Games of the Generation

[Finch]

But Dragon Quest VII has Yangus. It can't be that either.

[alan_fatima]

I wonder if DQX, being an MMO, finally, finally, finally brought multi-hit weapon skills used with multi-hit weapons in line. I was really excited for DQ IX having both classes AND VIII's weapon skills, but it wasn't well balanced.

VIII has Yangus. VII has Maribel.

[Finch]

i forgot an I

DQVII: Maribel is a Bitch and the Game is Better For It

[alan_fatima]

IBTN.

[MechDeus]

It's not that the concept exists in the first place, it's how it is often misused and what that represents as part of the culture of game design as a whole.

This is nearly every aspect of gaming in every generation. Enforcing long-term decisions and consequences can be done in better ways than locking the player into specific abilities that end up sucking balls.

[Joust Williams]

True, although I don't consider it much of a flaw with the game like many do. On my first playthrough it seemed fairly obvious swimming wasn't worth investing in.

I don't either because it's a game where there isn't an end game or a place where you really back yourself into a corner. That's the best kind of game maybe--games where respecs aren't an option but it's fairly balanced (although I would say that things like hacking aren't since the only thing better hack gets you is a longer time to be in hack mode, which is pretty useless unless you want to read everything) and you don't need to mouse around for 9 hours to see all the paths you can take. But I cannot think of one spot in the game where you need swimming to even do anything in the water.

[Yoshi]

Journey has been added. While I enjoyed it, there is no way that one would make my list, unless it's going to be hundreds of games long.

[Frogacuda]

What does concern me is the continuing trend towards focusing on short-term decisions rather than long-term consequences. Regenerating health, freedom to re-spec at any time, or the simple lack of any major decision-making at all are all symptoms of an emphasis on immediacy that almost totally excludes player choice on how the game evolves. Of course, the two games I cited above manage to avert this quite nicely for the most part, but at the same time I think it's a far greater and more prevalent problem than difficulty.

This especially bothers me with regard to endings. Having a game full of choices (like Mass Effect), some of which DO have long-term consequences, and then boiling the end down to some single binary choice at the very end really sums up narrative pathing in games today.

I'm excited to see how they handle it in Tesla Effect. They're promising totally unique story threads and even different locations on the different paths and that you'll have to replay the whole game to get the different endings. I already think Pandora Directive handled that better than any other game in the genre and TE looks to advance the ball in a meaningful way.

[Diff-chan]

Journey has been added.

Sounds like a boring list of the usual suspects.

[Diff-chan]

Meanwhile DmC lets you reshuffle your skill points at any time, meaning that I don't even think about where to throw new skill points since I know I can change them whenever I like.

The whole point of DmC's combat is experimentation and changing how you fight whenever you want. It's not about character builds and "meaningful choice." It's a skill-based game built on combos and fighting enemies in the style you want to fight them.