Malik
(2/28/11)
I have moved on from
Fallout: New Vegas. In other words, I beat the game in one of the
half dozen possible ways. However, having done so, I still feel a
calling to go back and try a different approach. I mean the game
gives enough incentive to make multiple saves, like any Bethesda
game does, that I have some previous saves where I can easily change
course and try for an alternate ending. While Fallout 3 didn't leave
many options for how you end (it all came down to one or two
decisions at the very end), New Vegas has some unique final missions
to wrap up your game.
Despite that, I am a
little annoyed with how New Vegas still has the same problem at the
end as Fallout 3 did; once you finish, it's the same as if you die
since the game ends with no chance to see how your actions changed
the world or to finish up any loose strings. I would have loved to
have had a chance to continue to find new companions, solve some
minor quests, or explore any of the areas that I kept thinking I'd
get back to later on.
Anyway, for the record,
I went with the NCR ending. Considering I like to play a good
natured mischief maker, the NCR seemed about right in how to finish
the game. Plus, if you do things right, you get to see a nice epic
battle with you fighting alongside NCR troops, Brotherhood of Steel
paladins, and some nice explosions and bombing runs performed by the
Boomers. It makes for something that feels absolutely epic in scope.
It was also fun seeing how speech can be a powerful enough factor to
end the game without a final boss fight. Of course, after talking my
way out of the final conflict, I still had to reload to end thing
correctly (with the Legion leader facing my All-American and a bunch
of armor piercing rounds). Still, I'd love to see either the Yes Man
ending (which seems like the most personal ending) or the Mr. House
ending. I initially skipped the Mr. House way due to his demand to
terminate the Brotherhood. Of course, Yes Man has no such
requirement involved. Maybe in the future I'll see how they both
go...and maybe even use a really old save to try the Legion way.
I've now moved on to
Dragon Quest VI. Amazon did eventually ship my order, and now I'm
about 12 hours into this game. It's a pretty good Dragon Quest game,
which makes it sad to see how it was never given a US release in the
SNES days. I'm sure I would have loved this game in the darker days
when RPGs were not nearly as plentiful.
With DQ6, I have only
one real complaint, so far. DQ6 has the same job system you find in
DQ7. You can change jobs, retain previously learned skills, and
unlock advanced classes as you progress. However, you get experience
for jobs based on the number of "hard" fights you win while equipped
with a given class. Unfortunately, I had some grinding I had to do,
since new party members arrive at low levels (like how you can be
around level 20, but a new person is level 3), so I'd grind a bit to
get new people enough HP to stand up in the obviously forthcoming
boss battles. In the process, I'd get a ton of levels for my older
party members.
The complaint? Well, a
"hard" battle is determined by where you are and what level you are.
Trying to gain class levels is a pain in the ass when you are too
strong for the area you are at when you first unlock classes, due to
being a few levels too high. At least the level requirements or
level caps for each area has been outlined in several FAQs online.
Sadly, I see no where to gain job levels as I stand with my main
three (or first three) party members. Hopefully I'll get to areas
soon where I can advance my jobs. For now, however, this is nothing
short of frustrating since DQ games are hard enough to require
occasional grinding, and the boss fight before the job system is
unlocked does require some grinding if you want to escape a quite
possible death...and numerous attempts to return to the fight for
another probably defeat.
Malik |
Malik
(3/2/11)
After playing some more
Dragon Quest VI, I am feeling that one little complaint from Monday
more and more. To advance a job level, you have to beat enemies. It
should be simple. However, the battles needed to advance in a job
are determined to be quality or useless based on the area you fight
the enemies and what level your characters currently are. This is
just goofy in a few ways.
In one way, two of
my characters are constantly on the line between being overly
leveled or of right standing to get job advancement. Unfortunately,
since you cannot half leveling of your character levels (being out
of the active party still nets a character full experience) unless
you actually kill a party member and keep them dead, it means one
character is constantly above the level cap for an area, and my main
hero is right on the line. My hero will get a few battles that count
towards his job level, and then he gains a level and is out of luck
until I clear a dungeon or two and make more progress in the
game...by which time he is almost ready to level and once again
falls above the level cap for the new area.
The part that is
really silly on this issue is that enemies don't stay only in a
given area. Right now, if I go back a few areas, I can fight some of
the same enemies I currently face, but the level cap is lower and
this eliminates even more party members from job
advancement...despite the enemies being the same. The game says you
need to slay "hard" enemies, but it is more of a matter of "you
better rush through the game some so you will not go above the level
cap."
It's one thing if
I had a choice and could go to a "hard" area right now. However, I'm
stuck where the plot allows me to go, so I currently have four party
members with about five ranks in their job, a hero with three ranks,
and a fighter type who has yet to gain a single job level (you
always get one for free, I should add, when you beat any battle at
all after selecting a new job).
This has me
feeling like I'm trying to, in the game, flee a burning building,
but two characters just are not going fast enough to escape the
flames since they are too busy helping the other four exit safely.
The most aggravating factor in this is that these two characters are
not gaining new skills, and you stop gaining skills from character
level gains around the point the game intends you to reach the job
system for the first time. At the very least, it feels like the game
should base the level cap on an area either in a different way
(raise the caps) or that the cap should factor average character
level and not each character separately. If I had the choice, I'd
choose to lose a level or two on some characters in order to make
the job system work correctly...but that is just not an option
without a cheat device (which I have none of for the DS).
Malik |
Malik
(3/4/11)
Dragon Quest VI is a
constant race, it feels like. I rush to a new area as quickly as
possible, since I don't want to gain extra character levels, then
grind with the lowest experience giving enemies I can find in a new
area, and then quit when I gain a level on my most advanced
characters. Each new area has a level cap increase of, at the most,
1 level. All of this to try to keep getting job level growth on my
characters.
The problem with
this is that some characters really need to advance in level, like
my newly acquired slime knight, but I cannot afford to let him grind
any in order to make sure my more leveled of characters never become
truly unable to advance in their jobs.
Seriously, this is
not how a game should be played. I mean I am facing DQ6 more like
some game with a time limit than a game which is more slow paced as
you take time to enjoy exploring. In fact, exploring is not an
option since it means extra battles...which equal extra
experience...which equals Carver never gaining a job level again.
True, I imagine there will be some areas with an unlimited level cap
for job growth, but I don't want to wait until the very end of the
game to start getting job advancement for Carver, who has a bad
habit of gaining levels too damned quickly.
In all
seriousness, DQ6 is a really fun game. However, the job system is
definitely a headache. I've played, now, all nine regular DQ games,
and have finished all of them except DQ3 (which saw my save file
vanish near the final dungeon...I just cannot bring myself to
playing all of that again after such sadness of seeing my progress
destroyed) and DQ6 (which I'm obviously playing now). I've also
played Final Fantasy 1-10, and a good set of other RPGs with various
job based systems, weird character advancement rules, or with
standard non-job systems. Without a doubt, DQ6 takes the prize for
having the most aggravating job system I've found. If only the game
would have been good enough to tell me, from the start, that
grinding for money, exploring for fun, or anything of the sort would
be bad since it would push character levels too damned high, I would
have appreciated the warning. I cannot think of any other time I've
played a game where the motto should be "go for a low level run to
enjoy the game more!"
It would probably
help if there was a way to limit the experience a party member
gains, but even characters out of the current party still get full
experience. The only way to stop gaining levels would be to kill a
character and leave them for dead while progressing the plot. This,
however, just doesn't work when your main tank and your main hero
are the two with excessive experience. To remove both of them, while
trying to continue the game, is likely to be the only thing that
could make the game more aggravating than this job system is making
it to be.
Malik |
|
For Those Who Don't
Have Flash Plug-Ins...
Rested
XP News
Reviews
Videos Features
Forums
Archives Search
This Site Links
Contact Us Disclaimer
|
|
|