Fic, Vesperia, Drakengard
Aug. 28th, 2013 02:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pezGot to the end of my fic. Wrote the ending, hate it - not the ending itself, but how I wrote it. Gave up, gone back to chapter 1 and began editing. By the time I've gone through 60 chapters maybe I can write actual readable paragraphs for the ending.
Reading through, I realise that the majority of the writing isn't as exceedingly bad as I remembered, just kind of lacklusterish. And the fic lacks excitement, which is hard to correct, unfortunately, because the story is about a bunch of people trying to make the best of their shitty lives. JP is good at picking things up a bit in general, and there are about 3 chapters where there is a proper sense of urgency, but the rest of it is of characters looking at what they've been given, look at what each other has been given, and saying, "right, we're going to make this work, somehow." The whole thing is just character development and interaction. Which is fine, but 60 chapters of it...? Argh what have I done?
I've been playing Tales of Vesperia. 5 years late, I know, but hey. And I hate to say this but I'm not enjoying it very much. Some reasoning behind parts of the story/character decisions are just paper-thin, that's if they actually bothered with reasoning at all. Estelle make me want to kill things, Karol's voice acting has the same effect. The skits are very, very badly drawn, as are the occasional "anime" cutscenes, the art is so bad it makes Weiss Kreuz look artistic. As for the gameplay, I don't enjoy the battle system at all and essentially, most of the time the game plays like this:
1. Cutscene
2.You make your character move from one room to the next
3. (sometimes it tells you if other characters have parted/joined your group at this point)
4. Another cutscene
This happens so often. They might as well just ditch the part where I get to move the character, and just show them do the walking. This game is in essence a visual novel with occasional fighting bits.
I also don't buy the Rita/Estelle interaction very much, but somehow a lot of people are like, "oh how cute, they have girly feelings for each other!!11" Having Rita there doesn't make Estelle more likeable.
If you ask why I'm still playing this, well, Yuri is okay (except when the character reasoning bit fails), and Flynn, although he's inflexible as hell, at least he's consistent. Their interaction is interesting to watch. Plot-wise, there has been one slightly clever bit with Don Whitehorse.
But still, I don't understand why people rave about this game. It's so inconsistent, there's no reasoning behind parts of it so when you just stop to think for a second, you realise it actually makes no sense. Is the bar this low now with RPGs? Are people actually happy with this? As long as you get cute character designs it doesn't matter if the whole thing is stupid? Or do people not actually realise how weak the game is because it's got pretty stuff in it?
Sigh. I'll see if I can keep playing, just for Yuri and Flynn.
In other gaming news, I found out that Drakengard 3/Drag-On Dragoon 3 is being developed by a team which had worked on The Last Story and Nier. Same director/writer as Nier, same artist as The Last Story, and same music composer as Nier. This means this game is a must-play, even though unfortunately it's only getting a PS3 Japan release. No Xbox, no international release. I'll still play it, somehow. But first I suppose I should get the previous 2 games on the PS2. (It seems like Drakengard 2 is quite hard to get hold of cheaply, though.)
I've already looked at the character designs for this, and they look pretty nice. Unfortunately there aren't enough pictures out for me to start planning a cosplay. Can't make anything when you can't see what the back looks like. :(
Reading through, I realise that the majority of the writing isn't as exceedingly bad as I remembered, just kind of lacklusterish. And the fic lacks excitement, which is hard to correct, unfortunately, because the story is about a bunch of people trying to make the best of their shitty lives. JP is good at picking things up a bit in general, and there are about 3 chapters where there is a proper sense of urgency, but the rest of it is of characters looking at what they've been given, look at what each other has been given, and saying, "right, we're going to make this work, somehow." The whole thing is just character development and interaction. Which is fine, but 60 chapters of it...? Argh what have I done?
I've been playing Tales of Vesperia. 5 years late, I know, but hey. And I hate to say this but I'm not enjoying it very much. Some reasoning behind parts of the story/character decisions are just paper-thin, that's if they actually bothered with reasoning at all. Estelle make me want to kill things, Karol's voice acting has the same effect. The skits are very, very badly drawn, as are the occasional "anime" cutscenes, the art is so bad it makes Weiss Kreuz look artistic. As for the gameplay, I don't enjoy the battle system at all and essentially, most of the time the game plays like this:
1. Cutscene
2.You make your character move from one room to the next
3. (sometimes it tells you if other characters have parted/joined your group at this point)
4. Another cutscene
This happens so often. They might as well just ditch the part where I get to move the character, and just show them do the walking. This game is in essence a visual novel with occasional fighting bits.
I also don't buy the Rita/Estelle interaction very much, but somehow a lot of people are like, "oh how cute, they have girly feelings for each other!!11" Having Rita there doesn't make Estelle more likeable.
If you ask why I'm still playing this, well, Yuri is okay (except when the character reasoning bit fails), and Flynn, although he's inflexible as hell, at least he's consistent. Their interaction is interesting to watch. Plot-wise, there has been one slightly clever bit with Don Whitehorse.
But still, I don't understand why people rave about this game. It's so inconsistent, there's no reasoning behind parts of it so when you just stop to think for a second, you realise it actually makes no sense. Is the bar this low now with RPGs? Are people actually happy with this? As long as you get cute character designs it doesn't matter if the whole thing is stupid? Or do people not actually realise how weak the game is because it's got pretty stuff in it?
Sigh. I'll see if I can keep playing, just for Yuri and Flynn.
In other gaming news, I found out that Drakengard 3/Drag-On Dragoon 3 is being developed by a team which had worked on The Last Story and Nier. Same director/writer as Nier, same artist as The Last Story, and same music composer as Nier. This means this game is a must-play, even though unfortunately it's only getting a PS3 Japan release. No Xbox, no international release. I'll still play it, somehow. But first I suppose I should get the previous 2 games on the PS2. (It seems like Drakengard 2 is quite hard to get hold of cheaply, though.)
I've already looked at the character designs for this, and they look pretty nice. Unfortunately there aren't enough pictures out for me to start planning a cosplay. Can't make anything when you can't see what the back looks like. :(
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-08-29 11:52 am (UTC)Nah, I've tried very hard to love the Tales games over the years but mostly failed, so I think the reason why I liked Vesperia is for once they didn't pick an overly young lead, and the older characters are given more screen time (Judith/Raven, etc) I'm not a fan of the younger ones at all, and previous Tales games have mostly focussed on them and their journey as they grow up, yadda yadda. Cannae discuss the other reason why I like it until you finish it (or give up and read the synopsis :P) Other than that the battle system, progression and story telling is pretty much the same as every other Tales game...
I remember Drakengard 2! Maybe if 3 does very well in numbers, they'll consider a later international release :) Check CEX, Game, etc, I've often seen it in there when browsing.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-29 04:20 pm (UTC)The local CEX doesn't have it, gonna hit GAME later. Fingers crossed!