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naruball on 03 July 2014
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UltimateUnknown said:
Torillian said:
It's a pretty common thought process unfortunately and isn't just thrown against Indie titles. Often I hear in the staff chat that there aren't enough JRPGs and it was such a lame generation for them. I then toss out smaller games like the Atelier series to show that there are great games out there if you're willing to step outside of their standard comfort zone and then they'll scoff at the idea of playing a game with below 8 on metacritic. In some ways I can understand the idea of not having all the time in the world and only wanting to play games of a certain quality, but don't complain to me about not having enough games of a specific genre to play if you ignore the great games that already are releasing for that genre.

You know, I felt the same way about JRPGs being very lacking last gen both in quality and quantity.

So I decided to take a step out and try Dust: An Elysian Tale. My mind was literally blown by how amazing this game was and it opened my mind to indie games. It gave me a very old school JRPG feeling with the story, characters, art, music, etc. And the amazing part is that I believe this game was mainly made by one dude. That just blew my mind at how one person or small teams could make such fulfilling and fun experiences.

Some people dismiss indies WAY too easily. Sure there are a lot of them but if you look around there are some really amazing games out there that can provide just as much fun as AAA games. And that's the key point, FUN. That should be the only thing that matters, not how much money or time was spent making it.

The rate at which people want AAA games is just unsustainable. They cost way too much and its just companies going back to their tried and tested cash cows to make sure they get profits. So many devs have been shut down last gen because they just couldn't stay alive in this highly risky AAA environment. I see indies filling in the role of the smaller sized mid-tier games and I'm glad to see bigger companies such as Ubisoft start to see potential in this approach as well with games like Child of Light.

Though I strongly agree with your last paragraph, I have to somewhat disagree with the bolded.

I guess most people do play video games for fun. But videogames are not just about that. Not any more anyway. Some videogames, like Demon's Souls are more of a challenge rather than anything else. Some people see a challenge as something fun, while others see it as a sort of accomplishement. Games have evolved over the years and a fun game is not necessarily enough at this point. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's an audience for indies/fun games with low budgets and an audience for more polished and realistic experiences. Child of Light, Guacamelee and Mutant Blobs are some of the most fun games I've played the last couple of years, but I appreciate games like Ni no Kuni more because they have a story and the graphics are so good (for me at least) that they add tremendously to the experience. I've also noticed that 16-bit games don't do it for me any more. I just can't enjoy playing games with bad graphics any more.

Also, take games like Heavy Rain into account. Is the word "fun" what you'd use to describe them? I think they're more experiences rather than anything else. And it's a bit like movies and tv-series. There are comedies and actions movies that are fun to watch but then why do we watch drama? It's more for the experience and what they make us feel. And in order to relate to the characters you need good graphics and voice acting among other things, in other words, a big budget. I personally find it hard to relate to chracters that don't look realistic. I still remember the voice acting in Heavenly Sword. There were moments that were so powerful that they gave me chills.