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I hate the word "entitled" and all its variants. I'm not even convinced that most people who are using it really know what they are saying.
I won't get any further into this as it's likely to become a slanging match if the response above is anything to go by, but props to you, Chris. More people on this side of the fence need to speak out -- particularly against the rather poor attitude certain members of the press have been displaying towards the community."
But here's the thing: The Last Story and Pandora's Tower are both set to follow, and while I can't speak for Pandora's Tower until I get a copy on the 16th, The Last Story is certainly on a par with Xenoblade in terms of quality -- and is a completely different take on the JRPG, to boot.
Pandora's Tower may well be the Wii's last gasp, then. :)"
Now, were you to 100% Gamerscore the game (I did) you'd see a significant amount of content the game had to offer -- but you'd also be directing yourself down a set of rails that the game doesn't necessarily put there for you. You'd also be missing out on a lot of incidental quests that help to flesh out the world, perhaps ignoring them because they don't seem as "important" as the achievement-giving ones. I know that's certainly how I felt when playing Oblivion on the 360, and it really bugged me.
The way to play Oblivion -- and indeed any Elder Scrolls game -- is to explore, discover things for yourself and follow the plotlines you stumble across that seem interesting. You can play your way, live your virtual life in the virtual world and continue to have an enjoyable experience for many hours.
Max out the achievements, though, and there's a sense of "I've seen everything this game has to offer" -- when in fact that absolutely is not the case at all.
I've been getting back into PC gaming recently, and the lack of achievements in many titles is seriously refreshing."
This was Platinum Games, of course, but Vanquish didn't have hyper-sexuality as part of its aesthetic design—it was completely gratuitous. In Bayonetta, the ridiculous camera angles were part of the experience. I believe I described it at the time as "so sexy it's not sexy any more"—it was just incredibly stylised. In Vanquish, it just came off as tacky.
Complain all you like about JRPGs, but they're home to some of the medium's great female characters."
That said, I've been shocked at quite how many people are playing on PS3. Not shocked in a bad way—I'm delighted to see the PS3 get an online game all of its own—but surprised that people would seemingly gravitate to it as the platform of choice for this game.
I guess that's partly due to the things that The Shums says above though. It's seemingly been designed primarily as a console (or at least console-style) game. Apart from the social stuff, which is clunky and sucks ass at the minute, but is apparently a "priority" for them to work on. You'd hope, really, given the nature of MMOs."
This is one of the things that bugged me about Fable II in particular -- someone can be having SRS CONVERSATION with you while you're Cossack dancing in front of them. A lot of Fable is about the silliness, but there is a plot there, and I can't help thinking that the plot of Fable II would have carried more weight if it were a more "directed" experience. That's not to say it should ditch the relative freedom that Fable's gameplay typically offers. But I believe there is a time and a place to wrest control away from the player, however temporarily."
It felt good to know that they *weren't* going to grow and change over their lifetime, that what I'd paid for was what I got. I didn't need them to be anything more, and I didn't feel any guilt over playing them now when there might be additional content further down the road. I would much rather things stay that way. Not every game needs to be a service. Competitive multiplayer titles like shooters, racing sims and whatnot? Fine. But keep that crap out of my story-based games because all that ends up happening is fragmentation of a once-coherent narrative.
My big problem with DLC is that it is, in many cases, piecemeal and very expensive for what it is. I'd much rather pay $20 for a full-on 20+ hour expansion pack along the lines of Shivering Isles, Dragon Age: Awakening or the old Black Isle expansions of yore than continually have to pay out little chunks of $5-$15 for one or two hours of gameplay. As it is, the vast majority of DLC *is* nickel-and-diming consumers, purely fuelled by greed. The whole "production cycle" argument is a convenient excuse, and I don't buy it at all."