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Pacing
This could apply to most of the topics on the board, but since I'm linking to an Extra Credits video, it probably should go under video games.
Since Extra Credits finally moved from the Escapist to PATV, you can see the most recent episode here:
Extra Credits Season 3, Episode 7
This reminded me of Final Fantasy XII. I bought the game, having taken a break from Final Fantasy games since IX left me disappointed. When I first stepped into it, I thought the game was going to be awesome. The intro sequence had me bought in. Then suddenly, "You are now some kid, killing rats in peoples basements for gold and experience." I put the game down then, and never came back to it. This fell exactly into the parameters of starting too strong, or dipping too far down afterwards. I wanted to continue the story where the game started, but apparently I had ten or more hours to slog through to get back to it. That just didn't work for me, and so all those hours that went into making that game and all the depth to it ended up wasted for me.
Another example that grated on me for pacing was the Monster Rancher series. Maybe I just didn't know how to play the game well, but basically by the time I got around to my first monsters death by old age I wasn't ready to start over. Having to spend tons of time re-training just to pick up the story from where I left off. I never actually "finished" any of the plot of one of these games. It always just came down to winning the big tournament and then losing my monster to old age and never playing again.
Since Extra Credits finally moved from the Escapist to PATV, you can see the most recent episode here:
Extra Credits Season 3, Episode 7
This reminded me of Final Fantasy XII. I bought the game, having taken a break from Final Fantasy games since IX left me disappointed. When I first stepped into it, I thought the game was going to be awesome. The intro sequence had me bought in. Then suddenly, "You are now some kid, killing rats in peoples basements for gold and experience." I put the game down then, and never came back to it. This fell exactly into the parameters of starting too strong, or dipping too far down afterwards. I wanted to continue the story where the game started, but apparently I had ten or more hours to slog through to get back to it. That just didn't work for me, and so all those hours that went into making that game and all the depth to it ended up wasted for me.
Another example that grated on me for pacing was the Monster Rancher series. Maybe I just didn't know how to play the game well, but basically by the time I got around to my first monsters death by old age I wasn't ready to start over. Having to spend tons of time re-training just to pick up the story from where I left off. I never actually "finished" any of the plot of one of these games. It always just came down to winning the big tournament and then losing my monster to old age and never playing again.
Comments
Thinking on it, a ton of JRPGs do exactly that. Some are better than others though. I guess the original Final Fantasy didn't have that... or at least the drop was near 0 (after defeating Garland I guess).