Media Videogame Thread

bdt2002 said:
Guys... I think I've come to a horrifying realization. This whole time I've been under the impression that maybe some of my dis-enjoyment (is that even a word?) with some of the more casual games I've grown up with are falling off for me because I'm just growing up and I'm growing out of those games. Perfectly normal for a Nintendo fan in his early 20s, I suppose, but I'm starting to realize there might be another issue at play here. I'm too good, and it's making stuff like Mario or Pokémon or whatever less fun. Well... kind of. Compared to the majority of Smogon's competitive playerbase, I'm not about to say that I'm a good player. Quite frankly I suck at this game compared to hardcore competitors. No, when I say that I'm "too good", I'm not trying to flex on anyone- rather, I want to bring attention to the fact that much of casual gaming's charm for me comes in the form of actually learning the mechanics and growing as a player.

Let me put it this way. Have any of you recently played a game that you really like and you find that you seem to be stuck in a sort of "skill limbo"? You find that you're really good at single player content and you're generally able to beat most of your other casual friends, but at the same time you're still a noticeable way away from where you'd like to be, possibly on the same or a similar level to people who take your game much more seriously. Again, this might just be my early 20s Gen Z brain speaking, but I can't be the only one who's stuck like this, right? But when the base game of whatever I've been playing for over a decade is too easy to the point where I physically can't develop enough as a player, that's where the problem comes in. I'm starting to wish that I was either less good at or less experienced with Pokémon, and this isn't just nostalgia talking. This isn't just me saying "Oh, I wish I could play these games again for the first time". I genuinely think much of the appeal of "Pokémon in its prime", whatever that's supposed to mean these days, came from discovering new Pokémon and new mechanics for the first time. Half of the fun of discovering a new region or a new generation or whatever comes from the learning, as it's not just the region you're exploring. Learning a game is, in a way, its own form of exploration, if that makes sense.

It's very possible that a post like this is just my way of trying to express my frustrations and wanting to finally "grow up" and play "real games" more often. Being too good (relatively speaking) for casual play but "too bad" for competitive play sucks to be stuck at, and I'm not sure I feel like sticking around and trying to figure out how I can dig myself out of this hole. I could just play competitive more often, actually sit down and grind and practice, sure. But I could also spend that time doing something else, you know? Competitive multiplayer gaming has its own list of problems I don't like to deal with, and it's taken me this long to grow up and admit that mechanically speaking, Pokémon as a turn based, monster colleting jRPG package... kind of sucks in hindsight? I still love Pokémon for other things- the stories, the music, the characters, those kinds of things- but the gameplay is absolutely not one of them. I think what I've been trying to say with this whole post is that I might start looking into and taking suggestions about other, dare I say, "actually good RPGs" from a gameplay perspective. Turn based, monster collecting, story driven, whatever it might be, I think I've decided especially now that I have this cool thing called "my own money" that I'd rather try something new and rediscover the joy of learning and exploring a new game or games again than keep doing what I've been doing. So, uh, yeah. Sorry for the long post, but if anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them, because I'm tired of old and especially modern Pokémon failing to accommodate to players stuck in between "casual fun" and "hardcore competitive" for multiple generations now. Okay thanks and byeeeee :)
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Turn based, monster collecting, story driven? Look no further than Shin Megami Tensei and its many sub-franchises. You can play SMT V: Vengeance and the SMT III Remaster on Switch, personally would recommend the former as an entry point, both because it's a lot friendlier to newcomers and has more interesting story beats than III's kind of empty world and setting. The gameplay is extremely similar to Pokemon, with rewards for hitting elemental weaknesses and demon fusion in place of Pokemon evolution for getting stronger party members. Will definitely be far more challenging than any Pokemon game you've ever played, and hard mode or the superbosses will be sure to make you sweat if you're up for it.

As for the sub franchises, you've probably heard of the Persona series. They're basically half of a visual novel/life simulator and half of a traditional SMT game with the dungeon crawling and demon fusion and turn based elemental combat and such. On average these games are way longer than the main SMT games, with my playtimes for 3R/4G/5R being around 70/70/90 hours, but if you've got the time they're fun. Definitely have some tropey anime moments but also some of the best music in JRPGs and cool story moments. Persona 3 Reload isn't on the Switch but 4 Golden and 5 Royal are. It is on PC though. I personally wouldn't recommend Persona 3 Portable, which is on switch.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is similar to the persona series in that there's a social aspect and a dungeon crawler aspect, but the setting is a fantasy world instead of a japanese high school and the gameplay setup is a lot more similar to traditional SMT games. It's on PC and all the platforms except for Switch.

Lastly, if you have ~ways~ to check out some older titles, SMT IV is vastly different in setting and themes than III and V and honestly it might be the single best 3DS game. I'm currently playing through Digital Devil Saga, which is another spinoff series that ditches the monster collection but still has a lot of fun other elements from the series. It's definitely Atlus's best work from the PS2 era.

If you want other turn based RPG recs, I'd vouch for Xenogears (PS2 series from the Xenoblade creator), Dragon Quest III remake or Dragon Quest 11, and Octopath Traveler. Fire Emblem is a strategy RPG that uses some different gameplay mechanics than turn based RPGs (you're maneuvering units across a board, unironically think of it like chess), but was some of the most fun and intense gameplay I've ever had. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a brand new game that just released that is seeing unheard of levels of critical acclaim, but I haven't played it yet.

It can probably feel a little overwhelming to realize you've been only playing Pokemon and maybe some Mario titles your entire life and you're at the point to move on from that. That was me about 3 years ago. You might try a new game out and it might not be for you, but there's definitely something for everyone out there. Also getting into new stuff can make revisiting Pokemon more fun, I replayed White, Colosseum, X, and Ultra Moon in the past year or so and each playthrough felt pretty refreshing. I didn't even mention action RPGs like Nier in this post but would be happy to shoutout some of those as well.
 
Another general turn-based RPG recommendation: Radiant Historia. Please play Radiant Historia. It's about time travel and is amazing, plus Yoko Shimomura did the soundtrack.
 
am a bit busy but since we're talking about monster collecting turn based rpgs, may i mention the dragon quest monsters series? i've talked about dark prince and its poor story elsewhere but if you're just focused on gameplay it has an immensely addictive and fun gameplay loop. synthesis is a bit obtuse in previous games but here it's super easy and very clearly laid out for you what to do. if you enjoy that i would recommend picking up the older games, some are hard to find and some aren't even translated into english, but there's all fun and scratch that monster catching itch in a way pokemon can't sometimes.
 
Hera said:
am a bit busy but since we're talking about monster collecting turn based rpgs, may i mention the dragon quest monsters series? i've talked about dark prince and its poor story elsewhere but if you're just focused on gameplay it has an immensely addictive and fun gameplay loop. synthesis is a bit obtuse in previous games but here it's super easy and very clearly laid out for you what to do. if you enjoy that i would recommend picking up the older games, some are hard to find and some aren't even translated into english, but there's all fun and scratch that monster catching itch in a way pokemon can't sometimes.
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I’ve played the original on the GBC a while ago and really enjoyed it. I’ll take any chance I get to talk about it.
The coolest thing about the game is the breeding system. Unlike Pokemon, when you breed 2 monsters together, you can get a whole new monster. Long breeding chains can generate monsters with higher level caps, so breeding is pretty much mandatory. It can be pretty grindy (a monster must have a certain level before it can breed) but pretty fun to plan out these long breeding chains to get the monsters you want. You basically have to play the game with the GameFAQS guide open, though, if that’s your sort of thing.

One weird thing of the game though is that for many battles you can’t give your monsters direct commands like you can in Pokemon, you just have to sort of hope they do the right thing. Can be a bit of a downside depending on what you’re looking for. Sorry I’m blurry on some of the details, haven’t played it since I was in like high school. But I remember being surprised at how much fun I had with it.
 
LeonLeeds said:
Whats it like not being imprisoned by live service games for all of eternity, genuinely curious
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It's cool, I instead get choice paralysis from the many many games on my backlog and feel bad whenever I don't finish something (but feel awesome when I do)

Also on the topic of SMT / Monster Collecting games, I highly highly recommend the SMT Devil Survivor games. Devil Survivor 1 has a fantastic and dark story with a hard as balls endgame, Devil Survivor 2 has more fleshed out gameplay and more interesting maps (easier overall tho) with a story and cast that's fun but a lot more trope-y
 
I've had a pretty shaky success rate when it comes to finding non-Pokemon RPGs I enjoy. There are the main ones I can recommend:

Megaman Battle Network (GBA, recent rerelease on all major platforms):

In my opinion, the best Pokemon-like experience available on the Switch, actual Pokemon games included. It can definitely suffer from things being obscure, but I kind of feel that since the ingame hints are the player character looking through internet fora, digging around in old GameFaqs pages based on inconsistent international versions gives it a better ARG vibe than several actual ARGs. There's an argument to play them out of order if you're not too concerned with the story, as 6 has a much smoother early-game than its predecessors. Most of the PvP is apparently done through a mod on PC rather than the official channels, but I can't really be holding that against the community.

Golden Sun (GBA/DS, first two available through NSO+):

The visuals and especially music are pretty darn good in general, not just for the time, but that almost feels minor compared to how much I enjoyed the gameplay. It has the best noncombat puzzles I've seen in an RPG, with a lot of dungeons taking on Zelda vibes as a result. The battle system offers a lot of customization within the central concept of constantly switching strength between stats/regular spells, utility moves, and your big damage options. While I have noticed that the games often give bosses the standard JRPG massive status resistance, I still had a lot of fun with my usual control-focused playstyle since action denial still works. The first two games are one continuous story (that didn't fit in one GBA cartridge), with the ability to transfer your party forward, but unfortunately NSO doesn't seem to support link cable transfer so you might need to manually enter like six pages of data if you want all the details (the game does at least let you input shorter passwords to transfer some things but not everything). The third game on the DS is probably weaker, but I'd still say it's worth playing.

While I have also enjoyed Xenoblade (though I have yet to play X, not sure about more open-world staples), I also find it a bit harder to recommend. While Monolith is succeeding at making games big enough to contain the story they want to tell, they want to tell a really big story. I can be amused for that length of time by the combat system of 2 or 3, but it feels like it would be overwhelming without that. I only really appreciated 3's story after its DLC, which itself relies heavily on 1 and 2. That's something like 35 hours of cutscenes total.
 
bdt2002 said:
Guys... I think I've come to a horrifying realization. This whole time I've been under the impression that maybe some of my dis-enjoyment (is that even a word?) with some of the more casual games I've grown up with are falling off for me because I'm just growing up and I'm growing out of those games. Perfectly normal for a Nintendo fan in his early 20s, I suppose, but I'm starting to realize there might be another issue at play here. I'm too good, and it's making stuff like Mario or Pokémon or whatever less fun. Well... kind of. Compared to the majority of Smogon's competitive playerbase, I'm not about to say that I'm a good player. Quite frankly I suck at this game compared to hardcore competitors. No, when I say that I'm "too good", I'm not trying to flex on anyone- rather, I want to bring attention to the fact that much of casual gaming's charm for me comes in the form of actually learning the mechanics and growing as a player.

Let me put it this way. Have any of you recently played a game that you really like and you find that you seem to be stuck in a sort of "skill limbo"? You find that you're really good at single player content and you're generally able to beat most of your other casual friends, but at the same time you're still a noticeable way away from where you'd like to be, possibly on the same or a similar level to people who take your game much more seriously. Again, this might just be my early 20s Gen Z brain speaking, but I can't be the only one who's stuck like this, right? But when the base game of whatever I've been playing for over a decade is too easy to the point where I physically can't develop enough as a player, that's where the problem comes in. I'm starting to wish that I was either less good at or less experienced with Pokémon, and this isn't just nostalgia talking. This isn't just me saying "Oh, I wish I could play these games again for the first time". I genuinely think much of the appeal of "Pokémon in its prime", whatever that's supposed to mean these days, came from discovering new Pokémon and new mechanics for the first time. Half of the fun of discovering a new region or a new generation or whatever comes from the learning, as it's not just the region you're exploring. Learning a game is, in a way, its own form of exploration, if that makes sense.

It's very possible that a post like this is just my way of trying to express my frustrations and wanting to finally "grow up" and play "real games" more often. Being too good (relatively speaking) for casual play but "too bad" for competitive play sucks to be stuck at, and I'm not sure I feel like sticking around and trying to figure out how I can dig myself out of this hole. I could just play competitive more often, actually sit down and grind and practice, sure. But I could also spend that time doing something else, you know? Competitive multiplayer gaming has its own list of problems I don't like to deal with, and it's taken me this long to grow up and admit that mechanically speaking, Pokémon as a turn based, monster colleting jRPG package... kind of sucks in hindsight? I still love Pokémon for other things- the stories, the music, the characters, those kinds of things- but the gameplay is absolutely not one of them. I think what I've been trying to say with this whole post is that I might start looking into and taking suggestions about other, dare I say, "actually good RPGs" from a gameplay perspective. Turn based, monster collecting, story driven, whatever it might be, I think I've decided especially now that I have this cool thing called "my own money" that I'd rather try something new and rediscover the joy of learning and exploring a new game or games again than keep doing what I've been doing. So, uh, yeah. Sorry for the long post, but if anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them, because I'm tired of old and especially modern Pokémon failing to accommodate to players stuck in between "casual fun" and "hardcore competitive" for multiple generations now. Okay thanks and byeeeee :)
Click to expand...
boy do i have a game for you

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It should check most of the boxes Pokemon does. Turn based? Check. JRPG? Well, technically it's from their more land-connected cousin a little bit to the west, but close enough. Monster collection? If you count the worst people you could possibly think of as monsters then sure.

In terms of RPGs the game is definitely on the difficult side. There is no one set of cards that can carry you through a portion of the game, you WILL need to rebuild decks before most fights. Early on it'll show more as an "these guys outroll me too consistently I should try a different fight first" but later on it's more along the lines of "what the fuck her rolls are double mine"

Huge warning label but the game is a deck builder. The deck is only 9 cards but you still need to follow standard principles like deck economy and progress making (STALL IS NOT VIABLE*)

The game does have a very minor balance issue with a certain purple guy but I've found if you play literally any other floor you'll have zero issues with having fun. Every floor has their own overpowered bullshit (except hod) or at the very least their own merits as a floor (hod is really good midgame when having a free +2 is a meaningful buff and not a cool side effect) but those shenangians are normally kept separate from deck-based shenanigans (smoke is overpowered, singleton is easy deck economy, and then there's the +5 build)

I might be the #1 library of ruina shill on this website ngl but it is unironically the best game i've ever played. Do take the warnings on the steam page to heart though.
 
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