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Now, why would you sprint to the Louvre and miss all the sights and sounds of Paris?
How do you speed up Scale X Fang?
- Thread starter SuperSpyroDragon64
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Now, why would you sprint to the Louvre and miss all the sights and sounds of Paris?
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- Zekko
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There's beauty in Paris. You'd see less of it if going to The Louvre meant getting through a "maze" built around the outside that is not difficult to get through, only tedious and mind-numbing, a complete waste of time that could be spent better elsewhere. Time spent grinding in a videogame is a complete waste of time that could be spent better elsewhere. Time spent talking to someone like you who proudly refuses to see reason is a complete waste of time that could be spent better elsewhere.
Look, do you understand what we are actually arguing about or not? Does any fanboy playing damage control understand what is actually being discussed here? Do you understand why "I didn't think the grind/downtime was that bad" is not a valid counterargument to "Valuable use cases of the speed up function include but are not limited to speeding through bad dialogue, bad gameplay, nothing dialogue, and nothing gameplay"? Excessive grind and useless downtime are but two symptoms of bad game design that are easier to bear when the game can be sped up. If you've ever thought you liked it, it's because that downtime served a purpose, that grind gave you an opportunity to practice something you didn't immediately grasp and master, or you didn't realize there were more fulfilling things you could have done with your time. It's morally unjustifiable and laughably childish to let fear that your art won't be "experienced correctly and appreciated for long enough" motivate you to take away an accessibility and convenience feature core to the medium it is in. This can't be compared to the effort it would take to go out of your way to add a visual component to rhythm games, not when so many rhythm games have visual components anyway. I speak to you and everyone else with your stance at the same time. You have yet to formulate an argument in favor of taking away player freedom out of fear, because you know you don't want to be that guy arguing in favour of grind games. Same goes for everyone else who's tried to defend the bad choice that went into making the game worse to play (fortunately for the developer it failed, if it succeeded it would have turned away more players) by making a nonsense argument about something unrelated to the choice.
Abstract arguments are tiresome. Some games are too grindy for a man like me. The little buzz of pleasure man gets when the bar fills up and eventually fills... That's nothing compared to the lasting hit of a valuable accomplishment. Some day I hope you experience that high. Nothing compares. What value is there in saying "If you hate grind, play Cookie Clicker"? Do you even know what that game is? You're not defending your game, you're attacking me. It's sad that you don't know the difference, but reacting like a kicked hornet's nest isn't endearing or a valuable argument. If I went on a Nintendo fan forum and listed every reason why I have yet to purchase a Nintendo Switch, that would make them angry, but it would not make them right. You would see no defenses of Nintendo's anti-consumer practices, you would just see insults. Like in this thread, but moreso.
Grind is grind because it is arbitrary. Fictional. Valueless and unnecessary. Grinding to increase made up numbers in a videogame doesn't make you better at the videogame. It just replicates the feeling that you are. It's a shallow imitation of the real deal. Ever practiced your aim in a shooter, or practiced your skills in a fighting game's Training Mode? Feels good to improve. When grind has value in the gameplay beyond arbitrary number manipulation, it's not grind, it's practice. When grind has artistic value, it's not grind, it's time spent admiring art. It isn't "Grind" when I listen to the Sound Test in Wario Land 4. It isn't "Grind" when I practice my Potbusters in Guilty Gear. It's grind when a videogame tells me to kill eight boars so I can level up, and it's less of a grind if I speed the game up to speed this process up and lose less of my life to it. Of course, it's better for myself and others if I abandon the game entirely and focus on things that matter. When I want to play games to relax, I play the hardcore stuff. It's alright if you don't get it, I won't hold it against you.
If you like grind for the sake of grind, try a Korean MMO. They already exist, and so many of them exist that you could spend every hour of the rest of your life on them and still never finish all of them. It's easy to make a game bloated and grindy, after all. They're built to make the gameplay unbearable so people will look to solutions like purchasing power and convenience for an advantage in-game. This psychological profit-increasing anti-consumer tactic would not exist if grind had intrinsic value. Fans of these games have all sorts of excuses for why the game is the way it is, all sorts of excuses that muddy the water and distract people from what's actually worth talking about. Fans of these games also tend to complain when people pay to skip or reduce the grind, because they think if they suffered, so should everyone else, because "that's what separates the hardcore from the casuals". Does spending 80 dollars on Star Wars Battlefront 2 at launch and another 80 dollars to buy enough Gems to buy Darth Vader at launch, or wasting X amount of hours of your life earning that many gems, separate "the hardcore from the casuals"? The hardcore WHAT? Certainly not the hardcore enjoyers of skill-based gameplay. There is a reason why a reddit post defending EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2's scumminess became the most downvoted Reddit post of all time. Grind games are designed for money, not for fun or skill. If you think there is artistic merit to grind, play games that are nothing but grind until you hate grind as much as me. That's more valuable than telling me to go and play some other game. Not all art is for everyone, but taking away something intrinsic to the medium like Speed Up for fear that it will be used to get your game over and done with faster isn't artistic, it's cowardice. I could have sped up Undertale by mashing through text, but I didn't. The game won me over and I liked it enough to listen to music, read text, admire the flowers, interact with nonessential NPCs, take in the beauty of it all. Later I replayed Undertale and did the battles at 1.25x speed, it was epic. Better than getting through "traditional" RPG battles at 8x speed any day.
Come to think of it, why are they called "Traditional RPGs" when they have more in common with games that forgot the role-playing choice-making aspects of Dungeons And Dragons campaigns when translating over grindy turn-based number-increasing combat? Then again you'd probably rather not discuss that, not when you could call it unfair for me to compare bad grind in one game to bad grind in another game people cared about.
If I spent longer in this discussion than I spent beating Scale X Fang, and the discussion pointedly avoided ever discussing any part of Scale X Fang because even defenders of the game know they'll have an easier time trying to drag this conversation into useless subjective abstract squabbling over how much _____ is too much _____ and whether there's validity to anyone's subjective feelings on whether _____ is good or bad and whether this game had too much of it for you, that would be funny. I can praise Undertale, I can praise Devil May Cry 3, I can praise games that left me with something to chew on and think about after the game was done.
Look, do you understand what we are actually arguing about or not? Does any fanboy playing damage control understand what is actually being discussed here? Do you understand why "I didn't think the grind/downtime was that bad" is not a valid counterargument to "Valuable use cases of the speed up function include but are not limited to speeding through bad dialogue, bad gameplay, nothing dialogue, and nothing gameplay"? Excessive grind and useless downtime are but two symptoms of bad game design that are easier to bear when the game can be sped up. If you've ever thought you liked it, it's because that downtime served a purpose, that grind gave you an opportunity to practice something you didn't immediately grasp and master, or you didn't realize there were more fulfilling things you could have done with your time. It's morally unjustifiable and laughably childish to let fear that your art won't be "experienced correctly and appreciated for long enough" motivate you to take away an accessibility and convenience feature core to the medium it is in. This can't be compared to the effort it would take to go out of your way to add a visual component to rhythm games, not when so many rhythm games have visual components anyway. I speak to you and everyone else with your stance at the same time. You have yet to formulate an argument in favor of taking away player freedom out of fear, because you know you don't want to be that guy arguing in favour of grind games. Same goes for everyone else who's tried to defend the bad choice that went into making the game worse to play (fortunately for the developer it failed, if it succeeded it would have turned away more players) by making a nonsense argument about something unrelated to the choice.
Abstract arguments are tiresome. Some games are too grindy for a man like me. The little buzz of pleasure man gets when the bar fills up and eventually fills... That's nothing compared to the lasting hit of a valuable accomplishment. Some day I hope you experience that high. Nothing compares. What value is there in saying "If you hate grind, play Cookie Clicker"? Do you even know what that game is? You're not defending your game, you're attacking me. It's sad that you don't know the difference, but reacting like a kicked hornet's nest isn't endearing or a valuable argument. If I went on a Nintendo fan forum and listed every reason why I have yet to purchase a Nintendo Switch, that would make them angry, but it would not make them right. You would see no defenses of Nintendo's anti-consumer practices, you would just see insults. Like in this thread, but moreso.
Grind is grind because it is arbitrary. Fictional. Valueless and unnecessary. Grinding to increase made up numbers in a videogame doesn't make you better at the videogame. It just replicates the feeling that you are. It's a shallow imitation of the real deal. Ever practiced your aim in a shooter, or practiced your skills in a fighting game's Training Mode? Feels good to improve. When grind has value in the gameplay beyond arbitrary number manipulation, it's not grind, it's practice. When grind has artistic value, it's not grind, it's time spent admiring art. It isn't "Grind" when I listen to the Sound Test in Wario Land 4. It isn't "Grind" when I practice my Potbusters in Guilty Gear. It's grind when a videogame tells me to kill eight boars so I can level up, and it's less of a grind if I speed the game up to speed this process up and lose less of my life to it. Of course, it's better for myself and others if I abandon the game entirely and focus on things that matter. When I want to play games to relax, I play the hardcore stuff. It's alright if you don't get it, I won't hold it against you.
If you like grind for the sake of grind, try a Korean MMO. They already exist, and so many of them exist that you could spend every hour of the rest of your life on them and still never finish all of them. It's easy to make a game bloated and grindy, after all. They're built to make the gameplay unbearable so people will look to solutions like purchasing power and convenience for an advantage in-game. This psychological profit-increasing anti-consumer tactic would not exist if grind had intrinsic value. Fans of these games have all sorts of excuses for why the game is the way it is, all sorts of excuses that muddy the water and distract people from what's actually worth talking about. Fans of these games also tend to complain when people pay to skip or reduce the grind, because they think if they suffered, so should everyone else, because "that's what separates the hardcore from the casuals". Does spending 80 dollars on Star Wars Battlefront 2 at launch and another 80 dollars to buy enough Gems to buy Darth Vader at launch, or wasting X amount of hours of your life earning that many gems, separate "the hardcore from the casuals"? The hardcore WHAT? Certainly not the hardcore enjoyers of skill-based gameplay. There is a reason why a reddit post defending EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2's scumminess became the most downvoted Reddit post of all time. Grind games are designed for money, not for fun or skill. If you think there is artistic merit to grind, play games that are nothing but grind until you hate grind as much as me. That's more valuable than telling me to go and play some other game. Not all art is for everyone, but taking away something intrinsic to the medium like Speed Up for fear that it will be used to get your game over and done with faster isn't artistic, it's cowardice. I could have sped up Undertale by mashing through text, but I didn't. The game won me over and I liked it enough to listen to music, read text, admire the flowers, interact with nonessential NPCs, take in the beauty of it all. Later I replayed Undertale and did the battles at 1.25x speed, it was epic. Better than getting through "traditional" RPG battles at 8x speed any day.
Come to think of it, why are they called "Traditional RPGs" when they have more in common with games that forgot the role-playing choice-making aspects of Dungeons And Dragons campaigns when translating over grindy turn-based number-increasing combat? Then again you'd probably rather not discuss that, not when you could call it unfair for me to compare bad grind in one game to bad grind in another game people cared about.
If I spent longer in this discussion than I spent beating Scale X Fang, and the discussion pointedly avoided ever discussing any part of Scale X Fang because even defenders of the game know they'll have an easier time trying to drag this conversation into useless subjective abstract squabbling over how much _____ is too much _____ and whether there's validity to anyone's subjective feelings on whether _____ is good or bad and whether this game had too much of it for you, that would be funny. I can praise Undertale, I can praise Devil May Cry 3, I can praise games that left me with something to chew on and think about after the game was done.
Deokishisu
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Full disclosure, I am not going to play Scale and Fang because as a rule I don't play ROMHacks from randoms in the scene that I don't already know. It could be a masterpiece or it could suck. I don't really care. I also didn't read the entirety of the thread, only skimmed the first page.
It's just kind of funny to me that nobody in this thread appears to have heard of death of the author. Once your work is out there, how it is used and interpreted by whoever has it is up to them. Your intentions as the creator don't matter, the player doesn't have a direct interface into your brain to find out the symbolism of why you placed a rock tile there instead of another grass tile, all they have is their own interpretation of the work based on their own experiences.
Pokemon is almost a master at this by virtue of the sheer variety of gameplay styles and Pokemon options the player has access to. Despite how handholdy and linear the recent games in the series have become (with the exception of Scarlet and Violet), I'm on *my* adventure and not Masuda's or Game Freak's or whatever. If I wanted to grind to level 100 in the first grass, I can do that. If I want to beat the game with a team of six Wurmple, I can do that. My experience is mine and will be different from another person's experience. I'm sure Game Freak wanted me to care about Lillie in SM/USUM, but I didn't. Their intentions for their art didn't matter because the author is dead, and I wasn't playing it with their ghost looking over my shoulder.
This is why it is funny to me to be so stuck up about speedup. The only player that is going to get exactly what you intend out of the play experience is you. I could play your hack and find the story to be irredeemably trite and not worth the time spent, and your maps dull and lifeless. Another player could go through it and it could literally change their life. If your hack is as good as you hope it is, it will be good regardless of whether or not the player zooms through it at 1000% speed. This seems like a gimmick being used as a crutch in the hopes of having your hack seem more profound than it actually is. And yeah, it feels bad to spend a few hours putting together an event only for the player to speed through it in 3 minutes. That's part of developing a game: content will always take longer to create than it does to play through. Deal with it.
As an aside, the extra added 15+ seconds in every single battle waiting for the field transition animation and the slide in animation adds nothing of artistic value after the first few times and serves only to waste the player's time. HP drains, the exp bar filling up, text printing delays, text that should be in one textbox instead split into multiple ("A critical hit! *delay* *new textbox* "It's super effective!" instead of "A critical hit! *new line* It's super effective!"), and unnecessary delays added to almost every action in battle keep players away from the world more than almost any other thing. This is the reason I put in options to turn them off in FRLG+ and added instant text printing. Pokemon battles, even in modern Pokemon games, are unbelievably slow for no real reason. If you want players to spend more time in the world that you so lovingly crafted, start by cutting those. It will make not having speedup more bearable, and if you turn them into options the players who are fine with having their time wasted can continue to play like that. If you don't want people to whine about not having speedup, create an experience that makes speedup feel unnecessary. By nature of the useless delays added to every action in battle, there is no vanilla Pokemon game that meets this standard (though Gen 5 came the closest).
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Max Elixir
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You might be the last person with any business calling anyone else stuck up. Especially over something as basic as a game having rules put in place by its creators. Yes, obviously, one cannot program a magical force that will come out of your computer and literally kill you in real life if you break its rules through unintended means. A game is not, however, worse for not making your unintended play or even cheating as convenient as possible. Just because it's not literally impossible to do something in a pokemon game doesn't mean that every deliberately obtuse playstyle you can come up with is equally valid to ones within the realm of reasonable human behavior and need be catered to.
You aren't smart for knowing what death of the author is, nor are you correct that just because any of us didn't abandon our positions in recognition of its apparent absolute applicability in every situation you don't want to have a real point about that we must all be unaware of the concept. Your attention span is so thoroughly melted that you couldn't even make it through a serious discussion about a topic without giving up and rushing to get on your high horse and post about this from an uninformed position instead. Maybe if you actually read the discussion you think you have something to contribute to you you would realize that the people you are sharing these oh so brilliant and original replacement ideas and solutions with already have them and agree with you on more than you think.
Deokishisu
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Vanilla Pokemon games don't go out of their way to prevent me from doing absurd challenges with obtuse playstyles. This is part of the reason they're so popular in the first place.
Lol. There are other things that I'd rather spend my valuable time on than read walls of text from people who are this far up their own behinds. I don't need to read the entire thread to know what the arguments boil down to, the highlights are enough.
And by the way, before you decide to deride me for my supposed reliance on speed up and apparently melted attention span, I generally don't play with speedup on and don't usually grind at all in Pokemon games (or JRPGs in general), because I like being low-level and still eking out wins. This is part of the reason that I only play hacks that are good by people who I know don't suck; I don't have the time to play through poorly-balanced garbage and poorly-balanced garbage doesn't jive well with this playstyle.
Your diatribes, and those of others defending this stance, won't change the fact that the lack of speedup is a gimmick that is being used as a crutch to explain away criticisms of poor game design. Exposition dumps in 2-line textboxes that can only fit a small amount of characters per line is not good design. When people don't like how long textboxes take and ask for speedup to be enabled, the actual issue is that the long dialogue is poorly-suited for this display format. Instead of tailoring the writing to be more succinct or having better pacing of information across the play experience, the creator decides to whine that people aren't appreciating the story. Speedup is a boon to hackers because it papers over these design faux-pas, but since Scale and Fang disables speedup, its flaws are much more difficult to ignore because they're on screen for longer. Instead of thinking one level deep about why exactly people are coming back with these criticisms, they hone in on speedup being the issue and blame the players. Which goes back to my point: If you don't want people to whine about not having speedup, create an experience that makes speedup feel unnecessary. This includes writing with the tiny textbox in mind and pacing dialog better.
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Big talk about diatribes from the guy who claimed that binary hacking was holding the scene back and then immediately fell back to copes of "well it wasn't serious" when pressed on his god-awful wall of text.
You automatically disqualify yourself from the discussion because you are arguing purely "in principle", assuming Scale X Fang has long battles or huge stretches of poorly paced dialogue and so on, because you haven't actually played it. For the sake of everyone intelligent, take a hike.
Max Elixir
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This is a very "online" perspective to have. This is not, in fact, any part of the reason why Pokemon is popular in the first place. And you're almost certainly old enough to know better. Pokemon's popularity has nothing to do with "CAN YOU BEAT POKEMON BLUE WITH ONLY A KAKUNA????" and you'd be hard pressed to find any franchise whose popularity "in the first place" comes from the ability to play obtuse challenge runs of its games.
Do you need us to remind you of your most recent pokemon hacking community spat, or are you so lacking in self awareness that you're actually sincerely posting things like this from inside of a glass house?
You have already admitted you didn't play the game and are describing imagined flaws for the game you didn't play. Get over yourself. And more importantly, people are deriding you for your caustic behavior in entering a discussion you had no interest in engaging with in good faith firmly atop a high horse and calling other people stuck up. Maybe next time you should keep your epic dunk posts where you keep the imaginary version of the games you don't like, which is in your head where they belong.
No one has done any of the "whining" you attribute to the voices in your head, other than people whining that an external emulator function was partially disabled. And the bulk of this whining came from people who, like yourself, didn't play the game and just made up things to be offended by in response to hearing about emulator speed up being disabled.
Deokishisu
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I never claimed that my stance wasn't serious, only that it wasn't meant to be as aggressive in tone as it turned out to be. It generated discussion, brought people to pret who were excited to try out the decomps, and started a dialogue on how to make both the upstream pret repos and RHH's branches more accessible which is exactly what I was hoping to accomplish. I maintain my stance that binary hacking holds the scene back and have never indicated that I've backed down from it.
Long battles are fine. Unnecessary delays in the battles are generally not. Again, even vanilla Pokemon games struggle with this distinction (and the newest entries actively make battles worse by removing the option to disable move animations), so I'm not surprised that you're confused at what my criticism actually is. See Pokemon Colosseum and XD for more evidence of this. Some battles in XD on Citadark Isle take 25+ minutes solely because the move animations (which cannot be turned off) and unnecessary delays take so long. I've read the discourse on Scale and Fang and the exposition dumps are a common complaint. My suggestions aren't moot just because I haven't played it, these issues have plagued bad ROM hacks for the entire 17 years I've been here. Only recently have we gotten enough control to more easily remove unnecessary delays in the battles with the decomps, but tailoring the writing to the textbox format is something that we have always been able to do. Hell, even Gaia is guilty of long exposition dumps that occur a little too frequently, and I would consider that a pretty good hack.
Deokishisu
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Yes it is. It is part of Pokemon's appeal and staying power. Kids were doing challenge runs of Red and Blue back in the day before the internet was widespread, and people were doing so with later games before Youtube and streaming became popular. You're almost certainly old enough to know this. There are plenty of games whose popularity stems partly from the ability to do challenge runs. The Dark Souls series is one of them just off the top of my head.
Nah, I've read enough on Scale and Fang to know it's not something that I want to play. The choice not to play based on reviews and what is essentially promo material released by the devs is a valid one with real games. Discussions about these games include people who haven't played. These people give feedback on what they don't like or do like based on what they've read all the time. But somehow, miraculously, Scale and Fang is special enough that it is an exception and nobody who hasn't played it can have an opinion. I have never played Dark Rising, but I know its flaws and know it is a bad hack. I did become aware of this hack initially by someone mentioning that speedup was disabled, which I thought was an interesting choice in the right hack and began looking into it. This is clearly not the right hack for this choice at this time. People were already defensive about this topic and no matter how I delivered what I came here to say, the Scale and Fang Defense Force would've jumped on me regardless. I knew this coming in. Still decided to make suggestions on how to improve the game.
Okay, buddy. I can read the same posts you can.
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Max Elixir
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No, no it absolutely isn't one of them. The popularity of Dark Souls does not "stem from the ability to do challenge runs" of it. This is exactly why I referred to your perspective as "very online" so I'm glad you made sure to prove me right.
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Pokemon's appeal and staying power was that it was a simplistic RPG with great character designs on a cheap handheld with a install base in the literal millions. If you took a poll of every Pokemon player, chances are "challenge runs" rank pretty low on the list of reasons they continue to play the franchise.
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Hi, I would like to throw my hat into the ring? I was going to say this in the thread of the actual hack, but decided against it, I feel it would be a faux paus.
But first, I would like to talk about a game very close to my heart.
Trails in the Sky SC. A lot of this also applies to the first game, FC, as well but I'm mainly talking about SC because that's the one that took my heart. This game duology is a masterclass in RPGs, and a must play for anyone into JRPGs. The gameplay is wonderful, I love the orbment (this game's equivalent to magic) system, It's so fun trying out different set ups not just because of the spells the quartz can give you but also the different buffs they provide, making them worth experimenting with even on Physical focused characters. It also does the turn system I really like, the one you see in Final Fantasy X or Legends Arceus.
But where this game really shines is it's writing, it has some of the best in video game history. The story in both games have twists and turns that'll keep you playing for hours, and SC had me crying tears of joy, and it's very rare for a game to make me cry, let alone from happiness at that. Estelle is one of the best protagonists in any piece of media, and it's not from some sort of dark and mysterious back story. It's because of her personality and her interactions with the other characters. One example is her first meeting Joshua at the beginning of FC, he's lying in a bed injured, being edgy all like "Grrr... You shouldn't have saved me, you're only bringing misfortune upon you." How does Estelle respond to this? She goes "NO. None of that," and starts jumping on top of him until he promises to stop saying stuff like that. I highly recommend you all play these games, they go on sale quite often.
Speed up did not detract from that at all. In fact, it only enhanced the experience. Trails is a long game (In fact, these two games were supposed to be just one initially before the devs split it), and a very slow one. Battle Animations are extremely slow, and traversing the world takes far too long at times (especially during this one section in SC where you have to visit all the towns, and you have very limited access to magic during this). And it's also a hard game, some of the fights took over 30 attempts from me. In fact, I don't think I could've finished the games were it not for the speed up function.
And this was not me using a cheat tool to speed up the gameplay, the Worldwide PC releases of these games added the function in. While you could argue that, yes, the localizers did add this in, the original developers, Falcom, have started adding in a speed up function themselves in recent entries. And they aren't the only ones, Square Enix have been adding these in as well, like in Dragon Quest XI S, or the rerelease of FFXII. And Super Robot Wars, a series that prides itself on it's superb animation (seriously, search up the ones for Cowboy Bebop, it's amazing), has both a button that let's you speed up the attack animations, but also skip them. But to be fair in this instance, some of the attacks can take over 2 minutes, so it's arguably a different case there. Even here, some fan games made with XP are adding in a speed up function. My point is, more and more developers are viewing speed up as a quality of life tool, not something that harms the game.
And this isn't me saying lack of speed up is keeping me from playing this, I'm probably gonna play it anyways, it looks like the exact sort of thing I'm into from what I've seen. But that's exactly the problem if lack of speed up were to keep me from playing, and my issue with the sentiment of "play another game" that seems to be a common response in this matter. There's not many fan games that push the same buttons as this one. I don't to play a different fan game, I want to play Scale x Fang.
And it's not like I don't get it, I imagine it'd suck to have people skip through a story you spent so much time writing. And from a coding perspective, I'm genuinely very impressed with it! But lack of a speed up wouldn't stop people from button mashing through the story, and it would make having to rechallenge story fights with cutscenes proceeding them quite a chore to get through. See the original release of Kingdom Hearts for more info. And I feel like there could be a good compromise to be had here, personally I'd have the speed up disabled during story moments, and not have the entire cutscene proceeding a story battle play out if you white out. I believe I also saw someone mention only allowing it during battles?
also
Because France sucks, I just wanna see the Jojo exhibit there. Also there's not a bunch of people attempting to use their pet dogs to mug me thereI hope, and if there is... Well that'd be why I'm sprinting lol.
But first, I would like to talk about a game very close to my heart.
Trails in the Sky SC. A lot of this also applies to the first game, FC, as well but I'm mainly talking about SC because that's the one that took my heart. This game duology is a masterclass in RPGs, and a must play for anyone into JRPGs. The gameplay is wonderful, I love the orbment (this game's equivalent to magic) system, It's so fun trying out different set ups not just because of the spells the quartz can give you but also the different buffs they provide, making them worth experimenting with even on Physical focused characters. It also does the turn system I really like, the one you see in Final Fantasy X or Legends Arceus.
But where this game really shines is it's writing, it has some of the best in video game history. The story in both games have twists and turns that'll keep you playing for hours, and SC had me crying tears of joy, and it's very rare for a game to make me cry, let alone from happiness at that. Estelle is one of the best protagonists in any piece of media, and it's not from some sort of dark and mysterious back story. It's because of her personality and her interactions with the other characters. One example is her first meeting Joshua at the beginning of FC, he's lying in a bed injured, being edgy all like "Grrr... You shouldn't have saved me, you're only bringing misfortune upon you." How does Estelle respond to this? She goes "NO. None of that," and starts jumping on top of him until he promises to stop saying stuff like that. I highly recommend you all play these games, they go on sale quite often.
Speed up did not detract from that at all. In fact, it only enhanced the experience. Trails is a long game (In fact, these two games were supposed to be just one initially before the devs split it), and a very slow one. Battle Animations are extremely slow, and traversing the world takes far too long at times (especially during this one section in SC where you have to visit all the towns, and you have very limited access to magic during this). And it's also a hard game, some of the fights took over 30 attempts from me. In fact, I don't think I could've finished the games were it not for the speed up function.
And this was not me using a cheat tool to speed up the gameplay, the Worldwide PC releases of these games added the function in. While you could argue that, yes, the localizers did add this in, the original developers, Falcom, have started adding in a speed up function themselves in recent entries. And they aren't the only ones, Square Enix have been adding these in as well, like in Dragon Quest XI S, or the rerelease of FFXII. And Super Robot Wars, a series that prides itself on it's superb animation (seriously, search up the ones for Cowboy Bebop, it's amazing), has both a button that let's you speed up the attack animations, but also skip them. But to be fair in this instance, some of the attacks can take over 2 minutes, so it's arguably a different case there. Even here, some fan games made with XP are adding in a speed up function. My point is, more and more developers are viewing speed up as a quality of life tool, not something that harms the game.
And this isn't me saying lack of speed up is keeping me from playing this, I'm probably gonna play it anyways, it looks like the exact sort of thing I'm into from what I've seen. But that's exactly the problem if lack of speed up were to keep me from playing, and my issue with the sentiment of "play another game" that seems to be a common response in this matter. There's not many fan games that push the same buttons as this one. I don't to play a different fan game, I want to play Scale x Fang.
And it's not like I don't get it, I imagine it'd suck to have people skip through a story you spent so much time writing. And from a coding perspective, I'm genuinely very impressed with it! But lack of a speed up wouldn't stop people from button mashing through the story, and it would make having to rechallenge story fights with cutscenes proceeding them quite a chore to get through. See the original release of Kingdom Hearts for more info. And I feel like there could be a good compromise to be had here, personally I'd have the speed up disabled during story moments, and not have the entire cutscene proceeding a story battle play out if you white out. I believe I also saw someone mention only allowing it during battles?
also
Because France sucks, I just wanna see the Jojo exhibit there. Also there's not a bunch of people attempting to use their pet dogs to mug me there
- 1
- Posts
- 6
- Years
- Seen May 2, 2023
Hello everybody.
First of all, I'm sorry for sharing my opinion on this topic without having fully read it, but I'm pretty sure you will agree when I say this debate is a bit long to properly follow. I came here looking for a way to speed this game up and bumped into a guy typing walls of texts that - funny enough - said absolutely nothing concrete and split themselves into some kind of weird debate about the meaning of life itself. Still, the thing I had the hardest time understanding were the replies given. Again, I only read the first page of the thread - there's three of them, so I guess I'm not missing that much after all - but the arguments I've seen on a topic that, in my humble opinion, was supposed to die soon after it was born, kind of gave me chills. So, I would like to tell you my opinion about the lack of fast forward (by now: FF) and, most of all, I'd like to show you how any argument supporting the lack of FF completely makes no sense. Last, before beginning, I just wanna point out two things: 1)I have nothing against the creator of this amazing ROM hack - didn't have the chance to try it but it seems pretty cool - as I have much more against some... "unreasonable" opinions I've read 2)If some choices and/or attitudes drive me a bit mad it's just because I love pokemon, I love ROM hacks and I would have loved to play this game, although I was basically not allowed to.
Let's start with a very quick example: my own experience. I booted the game, reached the guy with the Pinsir at the end of the Meadow, wiped out and - surprise - the game ends. Didn't know I wasn't going to respawn at the pkmn center but, oh well, now I know.
I restart the game from scratch and I read all the freaking dialogues I've already read, I re-catch my team and I grind it again. Before the fight, however, I decide to check the revophone feature and I see there's an icon to check my ID card.
I click it. The game crashes. I do it all over again.
I repeat all the aforementioned stuff, reminding you that the area you explore at this point has no healing point; I beat the guy and I am then given my apartment keys.
I go check my apartment. The game crashes. Again.
Now this example alone should tell you how a stupid decision it is to forbid the use of the FF, but I know what you're thinking: «Well maybe the demo you downloaded is bugged.» A great argument, right? What if I had already ended the game, instead, and wanted to play it again with a different starter? What if, after a bit of storyline progress, I realize I wanted another team and thus decide to restart the game? What if I simply have to grind for the next [gym] fight? What if I want to completely change my team for some reason? Do I really have to spend hours - or minutes, for that matter - doing so? It's not even a matter of time that we may or may not have, it's a process that is simply tedious. And someone - not the creator, rather the enlightened minds I've witnessed - tells me: «No, it must be done like this. The artist decides.»
The truth is this kind of argument makes no sense under any point of view. And I'm gonna prove it you.
1)First of all, you can't impose yourself, nor your point of view, by any means. Saying «This game must be played like this, anyone who doesn't want to can f**k off» - which Is basically what I've read - is just stupid. Like: yesterday I watched a movie, but after 15 minutes I fell asleep; now I'm watching it all over again, but I cant skip those freaking 15 minutes.
Guys, there's thousand of people who don't play (or live, for that matter) your own way and that share nothing with you, but that would really enjoy this experience of a game. The truth is, this attitude is filled with one simple thing: prejudice. Tomorrow, maybe, you will change your mind and decide that a game played with FF, with earphones in your ears playing your favorite Rolling Stones album might be very cool, and maybe denying others to do so is not that clever. Especially because you're implying that your point of view is much betters than others' and will always be. Like you know that you, in the first place, are never gonna change. But, I mean, are you sure?
2)Such attitude proves lack of confidence. If I believe in my product I work on it, not being afraid of the crowd's judgement and I share it. Imposing your own point of view is like being an aspiring author that sends their book to a publishing house and can't even describe the plot of it. Also, when asked to, they reply: «No, you definitely gotta read my book, you gotta publish it, there is so much inside of it...». You know what this is? Bullsh*t. If you have no idea how to describe your work it means it's got no identity, and if you do not accept others' point of view it means you are just closing yourself in denial. Now, before anyone gets mad at me: I don't mean to accuse ANY-FREAKING-ONE of such behavior. I am just saying that some attitude(s) lead to being completely wrong much before you realize it.
3)Claming to be an artist doesn't mean you actually are, and doesn't mean you can speak like you were. Not even by far. Again, before anyone gets mad: I don't mean to accuse anyone. I'm pretty sure no one of the people who worked so hard on this game ever claimed to be anything that they're not. I'm just talking to whoever replies to criticism with stuff like: «No, it's art, it has to be like this.» Again: that's bullsh*t.
An average writer spends a year to write a book, make it be edited/reviewed and then published. Some others take three years with their book lying on a shelf, or on their computers. Some others take ten years which they spend rewriting their own work over and over again, as they realize their mistake and most of all as they realize what they really want to give to their readers; in other words, as they realize how much better they want to (and can) do. Art is not an excuse and no one of us is an artist. We are dreamers, hard workers, and when we reach success we might have the right to accept people calling us artist. That's it.
4)Last but not least: this game is not different from any other game. Don't get me wrong, I haven't played it - since the game didn't let me and then I was kind of driven away by the stuff I read - but if you tell me that the game, the story and the hard work behind it is amazing I would do only one thing: I would believe you. I'm not joking. Still, this doesn't change the fact that we're all humans and that this is nothing but a ROM hack.
If you really wish to insist about the story being so good that it deserves to deny the use FF, however, I might break your dreams: it's not. The idea I read about online and the bits I perceived by the dialogues promised me a beautiful story, and I completely trust it to be so, to the point that I might tell you (judging on a literally 10 minutes slow and grindy gameplay) it is already much better than any other ROM hack I've played before. I mean, I might tell you so. But even if I did, this wouldn't mean the game is actually good.
The dialogues I've witnessed so far involving the main character (I'm talking about the initial dialogue and the one before facing the Pinsir guy) proved me that behind this hard work - and it's completely understandable, don't get me wrong - there is people with great potential, that's true. As it is true that those dialogues just like the main character were written by amateurs. This guy especially - the protagonist I mean - is just obnoxious, which is fun, because practically speaking he behaves the same way I would do in the game and in its situations; too bad that some things he says make no sense and in the few bits I witnessed there was a lot of false dialogue (basically, it's the things that you make your characters say instead of showing them, despite it being very weird for a person to say certain things in a certain situations, or simply despite it being very weird for a dialogue to simply take place the way it is).
Again, don't get me wrong: this is my bread and butter, I'm not here to criticize anyone especially because I liked the feature of the speaking protagonist, but if you think any of that is written in an objective good way you might be terribly wrong. For an amateur writing, it was good. The incoming stuff might have been much better too, I concede you that. But that doesn't mean you can claim anything, because you simply are in no position to.
I hope I didn't hurt anyone with my words, especially anyone who took part in this project, but honestly I find it very wrong to just not accept criticism, even when it's directed at our idols; although, I must say the opening message on this topic - despite sharing my point of view about the FF - was possibly written in the worst imaginable way...
Anyway, I hope in the future patches - especially when the game will be complete - someone will have opened their minds just enough to include the Fast Forward option. Until then, hope you all have an amazing day.
First of all, I'm sorry for sharing my opinion on this topic without having fully read it, but I'm pretty sure you will agree when I say this debate is a bit long to properly follow. I came here looking for a way to speed this game up and bumped into a guy typing walls of texts that - funny enough - said absolutely nothing concrete and split themselves into some kind of weird debate about the meaning of life itself. Still, the thing I had the hardest time understanding were the replies given. Again, I only read the first page of the thread - there's three of them, so I guess I'm not missing that much after all - but the arguments I've seen on a topic that, in my humble opinion, was supposed to die soon after it was born, kind of gave me chills. So, I would like to tell you my opinion about the lack of fast forward (by now: FF) and, most of all, I'd like to show you how any argument supporting the lack of FF completely makes no sense. Last, before beginning, I just wanna point out two things: 1)I have nothing against the creator of this amazing ROM hack - didn't have the chance to try it but it seems pretty cool - as I have much more against some... "unreasonable" opinions I've read 2)If some choices and/or attitudes drive me a bit mad it's just because I love pokemon, I love ROM hacks and I would have loved to play this game, although I was basically not allowed to.
Let's start with a very quick example: my own experience. I booted the game, reached the guy with the Pinsir at the end of the Meadow, wiped out and - surprise - the game ends. Didn't know I wasn't going to respawn at the pkmn center but, oh well, now I know.
I restart the game from scratch and I read all the freaking dialogues I've already read, I re-catch my team and I grind it again. Before the fight, however, I decide to check the revophone feature and I see there's an icon to check my ID card.
I click it. The game crashes. I do it all over again.
I repeat all the aforementioned stuff, reminding you that the area you explore at this point has no healing point; I beat the guy and I am then given my apartment keys.
I go check my apartment. The game crashes. Again.
Now this example alone should tell you how a stupid decision it is to forbid the use of the FF, but I know what you're thinking: «Well maybe the demo you downloaded is bugged.» A great argument, right? What if I had already ended the game, instead, and wanted to play it again with a different starter? What if, after a bit of storyline progress, I realize I wanted another team and thus decide to restart the game? What if I simply have to grind for the next [gym] fight? What if I want to completely change my team for some reason? Do I really have to spend hours - or minutes, for that matter - doing so? It's not even a matter of time that we may or may not have, it's a process that is simply tedious. And someone - not the creator, rather the enlightened minds I've witnessed - tells me: «No, it must be done like this. The artist decides.»
The truth is this kind of argument makes no sense under any point of view. And I'm gonna prove it you.
1)First of all, you can't impose yourself, nor your point of view, by any means. Saying «This game must be played like this, anyone who doesn't want to can f**k off» - which Is basically what I've read - is just stupid. Like: yesterday I watched a movie, but after 15 minutes I fell asleep; now I'm watching it all over again, but I cant skip those freaking 15 minutes.
Guys, there's thousand of people who don't play (or live, for that matter) your own way and that share nothing with you, but that would really enjoy this experience of a game. The truth is, this attitude is filled with one simple thing: prejudice. Tomorrow, maybe, you will change your mind and decide that a game played with FF, with earphones in your ears playing your favorite Rolling Stones album might be very cool, and maybe denying others to do so is not that clever. Especially because you're implying that your point of view is much betters than others' and will always be. Like you know that you, in the first place, are never gonna change. But, I mean, are you sure?
2)Such attitude proves lack of confidence. If I believe in my product I work on it, not being afraid of the crowd's judgement and I share it. Imposing your own point of view is like being an aspiring author that sends their book to a publishing house and can't even describe the plot of it. Also, when asked to, they reply: «No, you definitely gotta read my book, you gotta publish it, there is so much inside of it...». You know what this is? Bullsh*t. If you have no idea how to describe your work it means it's got no identity, and if you do not accept others' point of view it means you are just closing yourself in denial. Now, before anyone gets mad at me: I don't mean to accuse ANY-FREAKING-ONE of such behavior. I am just saying that some attitude(s) lead to being completely wrong much before you realize it.
3)Claming to be an artist doesn't mean you actually are, and doesn't mean you can speak like you were. Not even by far. Again, before anyone gets mad: I don't mean to accuse anyone. I'm pretty sure no one of the people who worked so hard on this game ever claimed to be anything that they're not. I'm just talking to whoever replies to criticism with stuff like: «No, it's art, it has to be like this.» Again: that's bullsh*t.
An average writer spends a year to write a book, make it be edited/reviewed and then published. Some others take three years with their book lying on a shelf, or on their computers. Some others take ten years which they spend rewriting their own work over and over again, as they realize their mistake and most of all as they realize what they really want to give to their readers; in other words, as they realize how much better they want to (and can) do. Art is not an excuse and no one of us is an artist. We are dreamers, hard workers, and when we reach success we might have the right to accept people calling us artist. That's it.
4)Last but not least: this game is not different from any other game. Don't get me wrong, I haven't played it - since the game didn't let me and then I was kind of driven away by the stuff I read - but if you tell me that the game, the story and the hard work behind it is amazing I would do only one thing: I would believe you. I'm not joking. Still, this doesn't change the fact that we're all humans and that this is nothing but a ROM hack.
If you really wish to insist about the story being so good that it deserves to deny the use FF, however, I might break your dreams: it's not. The idea I read about online and the bits I perceived by the dialogues promised me a beautiful story, and I completely trust it to be so, to the point that I might tell you (judging on a literally 10 minutes slow and grindy gameplay) it is already much better than any other ROM hack I've played before. I mean, I might tell you so. But even if I did, this wouldn't mean the game is actually good.
The dialogues I've witnessed so far involving the main character (I'm talking about the initial dialogue and the one before facing the Pinsir guy) proved me that behind this hard work - and it's completely understandable, don't get me wrong - there is people with great potential, that's true. As it is true that those dialogues just like the main character were written by amateurs. This guy especially - the protagonist I mean - is just obnoxious, which is fun, because practically speaking he behaves the same way I would do in the game and in its situations; too bad that some things he says make no sense and in the few bits I witnessed there was a lot of false dialogue (basically, it's the things that you make your characters say instead of showing them, despite it being very weird for a person to say certain things in a certain situations, or simply despite it being very weird for a dialogue to simply take place the way it is).
Again, don't get me wrong: this is my bread and butter, I'm not here to criticize anyone especially because I liked the feature of the speaking protagonist, but if you think any of that is written in an objective good way you might be terribly wrong. For an amateur writing, it was good. The incoming stuff might have been much better too, I concede you that. But that doesn't mean you can claim anything, because you simply are in no position to.
I hope I didn't hurt anyone with my words, especially anyone who took part in this project, but honestly I find it very wrong to just not accept criticism, even when it's directed at our idols; although, I must say the opening message on this topic - despite sharing my point of view about the FF - was possibly written in the worst imaginable way...
Anyway, I hope in the future patches - especially when the game will be complete - someone will have opened their minds just enough to include the Fast Forward option. Until then, hope you all have an amazing day.
Last edited:
- 170
- Posts
- 2
- Years
- Seen Apr 30, 2024
I agree the protagonists of the gane not really good
I know commenting is futile now since the dev give up because of the hate but my personal opinion is i honestly don't care about about fast forward button, original pokemon game don't have it so i already getting used to it. People's saying the dev take away player choice to fast forward or not but for me it's the player that chose to still play the game that they know don't have fast forward button because if they want they can just leave the game yet people's keep forcing it
In the end rip the game
Have a good day everyone and stay healthy 👍🙏🙂
I know commenting is futile now since the dev give up because of the hate but my personal opinion is i honestly don't care about about fast forward button, original pokemon game don't have it so i already getting used to it. People's saying the dev take away player choice to fast forward or not but for me it's the player that chose to still play the game that they know don't have fast forward button because if they want they can just leave the game yet people's keep forcing it
In the end rip the game
Have a good day everyone and stay healthy 👍🙏🙂