@NeoCweeny Niiice, Rocket League. :D

The controls are clunky, the gameplay is repetitive, but the fantastic vibes of Okami's characters and settings nearly make up for its shortcomings.

@Yoshi Might be better in https://forums.easyallies.com/topic/5249/that-s-not-news/ ?

@brannox said in The EZA Community Top 20 Best of 2006!:

especially since GTA is the posterchild for the mindless "do-what-you-want-which-ultimately-always-leads-to-violent-slaughter" that's become so mainstream acceptable to the point I find it sickening.

Well said! :)

@Capnbobamous

When I see any video of The Sims, it seems like such a chill time, with all kinds of fun things going on. The only time I've actually played it was a 2003 version titled "The Sims" on the original Xbox. I was really looking forward to it, but the very beginning gave me such a sour experience that I've never felt an urge to try any version again.

I've loved other lighthearted simulation games such as SimCity 2000 and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. A key reason is that they're easy to get into and slowly ramp up in difficulty. However, my lone Sims experience was like running into a brick wall at the starting line.

I was presented with a couple of Sims in a mostly empty house. Either I wasn't given enough of a budget to buy more stuff or more stuff wasn't made available at that point, but the only thing I was able to add to the house was an espresso machine. Maybe the excessive coffee drinking caused this, but only thing my Sims felt interested in doing was going to the bathroom. And they wouldn't do it automatically. I had to keep an extremely close eye on them, because if I waited to click on them for even a moment, they'd pee on the floor and start crying. And if they both had to go at the same time, because there was only one bathroom, only one would get to go and the other would make a puddle. I tried this opening section over and over, never finding a way to improve the results, and thusly had no interest in trying the next stage.

Was this a fault of playing it with a controller? Or an overall bad port? Or was I missing something obvious that would've greatly improved my experience? Particularly in the original PC version, what SHOULD the early progression look like ideally?

@capnbobamous said in The EZA Forum Hall of Greats (January 2022):

Question for @Oscillator

I hold this game close to my heart, but there is a blemish that I think is worth discussing. You've mentioned it already but I feel I have to bring it up: the leveling system is deeply flawed. If you choose an easy skill as one of your main ones, like Acrobatics, you will level up far too fast and the enemies will scale too early, thus making the game insanely difficult. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the game is easier if you choose never to level up at all. Do you agree with my complaints, and if so how negatively does it affect the experience?

I can't speak to this very in-depth, as I've only ever played Oblivion with a single save file/character, and the build I used felt decently balanced. The class I used was Barbarian, with major skills of Armorer, Athletics, Blade, Block, Blunt, Hand to Hand, and Light Armor.

As they are central to combat, Armorer and Blade leveled up the quickest, along with Athletics, which is just walking. I utilized the others less, including barely touching Hand to Hand. My main level increased at a comfortable pace until my most used skills maxed out, slowing main levelling to a crawl.

I had three constantly used major skills, so having just one like in your example wouldn't cause what I would personally consider to be rapid levelling. edit - upon research, it seems Acrobatics is easily manipulated (read: cheesed) to level quickly, so having it as a major skill CAN induce rapid main levelling, IF you want it to - at least in my experience, bending/breaking the game like this has to be done intentionally. Another example is full invisibility, which requires 5 expensive enchantments not available right at the start or dangled right in front of the player.

If I'd chosen, say, the Crusader class, which also has Armorer/Blade/Athletics major skills along with Heavy Armor, which I used much more than Light Armor, and Restoration, which is very commonly used, I would've levelled much faster for longer.

However, I suspect I wouldn't have minded, and may have actually preferred that. While enemies scale with your level, so does loot and store stock, meaning you're given the chance to be as equipped as the enemies you're facing. I think I would've personally enjoyed unlocking cooler enemies and equipment faster.

What critics like least about Oblivion's levelling system is levelling in unison with enemies, meaning without heavy buffs like fortifying spells, potions, and enchantments that are time consuming to gather, you not only never get to an all-powerful state where you can mush even the toughest enemies, but minor enemies also become tougher. This was intentional by the developers to keep the gameplay consistent over time, and I personally thought it was a good mechanic.

That said, Skyrim's more traditional levelling system, where if you encounter a super tough enemy, you can eventually come back to it later and breeze through it without needing complex buffs, IS more satisfying.

@brunojoey

1. All technical aspects. Full vs. limited voice acting, a much more advanced lighting engine, way greater draw distance, way better textures, smoother character animation. Also less clunky combat, a higher fidelity and more emotional soundtrack, and of course, a bigger and more detailed world.

I understand why some people prefer Morrowind. The world is more exotic, the story is deeper, the mechanics are deeper in some ways. But this is all hidden behind a proverbial layer of fuzz. Oblivion may be more shallow in a few respects, but what it does have (and it has PLENTY) has been FULLY realized. Aside from some janky AI, a limited pool of voice actors, and a relatively small amount of content cut (arenas in every town) due to running out of disc space, almost nothing in Oblivion feels like it has an artificial limit placed on it. It's the freest and broadest game I've ever played (including Skyrim and Breath of the Wild) that wasn't super procedural, a simulator, or sprite-based.

2. Skyrim had a lot of quality-of-life fixes. The biggest improvement was to combat. which felt a lot more impactful and tactical. While it's not bad, Oblivion's combat sometimes feels like you're swinging a big stick at a tree or flinging around little wisps of fire instead of powerful magic. Also, walking around feels more grounded/natural, the character animations are more realistic, atmospherics like fog, snowfall, and fire are much better realized, and the hud is cleaner (if more sterile, aside from the magnificent perks menu). As a whole, though, Skyrim is overly streamlined, a much steeper simplification than from Morrowind to Oblivion.

I'm surprised they're doing two of the hardest games to emulate first - Paper Mario and Majora's Mask. It may be because they need to do single-player games first to give them time to add online play to multiplayer games like F-Zero X, 1080 Snowboarding, Wave Race 64, and Super Smash Bros.

...I just hope MM isn't TOO broken at launch. -_-

@brunojoey

For me, the music was a very important component of Gold/Silver/Crystal's charm. IMO, the more advanced music orchestrations in HG/SS degrade the original music rather than enhancing it, making the game feel less special as a result. The simple, clear melodies are made busy ( Vs. Rival NEW/OLD, Kanto Gym Leader NEW/OLD ), 'fatter'/'woodier' sounds take the edge away ( Vs. Legendary Beast NEW/OLD ), more 'ordinary', less 'spacey' sounds make it less atmospheric ( Dark Cave NEW/OLD ), cheesy samples give it less weight ( Champion Battle NEW/OLD ).

And even when you do finally unlock the 'original' music in the postgame, it too has been made more complex ( Johto Wild Pokemon Battle THEN/NOW ), again, IMO, taking the edge off.

Do you think this has some merit, or are these just purist nitpickings?

EDIT: Links fixed!

PETATON