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Forums - Nintendo - A biased review: Earthbound

NintendoPie on 29 July 2013
morenoingrato said:

It has not. The battle system is really, really good, the characters are interesting and the moments unique and engaging. It certainly has a better battle system than Xenoblade and much better characters. And the story is more coherent.

And screw opinions. The music is phenomenal too. Have you played it yourself?

People went with unreasonably high expectations. It's a very old game and people thought of it as the new WiiU killer app.

It has aged. There isn't a point in arguing that, Moreno. Nearly every game ages. Earthbound isn't a special exception. (Even though I agree that it hasn't aged horribly at all. In my opinion, it still looks and sounds really quite good.)

Many people already had high expectations. Many, many, many people. So yeah... I also agree with that.



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Mr Khan on 29 July 2013
kupomogli said:
NintendoPie said:

It's good to see that there are some *Nintendo fans that aren't obsessed with the game.* I think the review is fair, and it's good that you mentioned the game "aging" Because your review is obviously from a modern standpoint. Which I like.

I agree with this. 

Even when it was new the game wasn't amazing.  It was worse than your average RPG and the only thing that was standout about the game was the games world and a few quirks here and there.  Calling up the pizza place your sister worked at and receiving a delivery regardless of your location, holding the For Sale sign up in an area that people were in had someone run up to and try to purchase one of your items, taking the bus from one place to another as a sort of quick travel system.  The games mechanics were really unique and that was part of its charm.  

Once Ness was found to be a secret character, then on Melee where he was one of the original fighters, the game started to get extremely overrated(one of the best RPGs ever status from a lot of gamers that have played it.)  People praised the game all around, including the gameplay.  Then when next gen consoles released, more so after the release of Brawl.  The only people who could possibly think the gameplay was "amazing" are those that have never played another decent RPG in their lives.  Depending on how old the person is, they might not have.

It's a decent game, but one of the weaker games in the JRPG library.

-

The review doesn't seem biased, so why is it listed as "A biased review."

I know i'm diving into this game right after beating KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords, and the transition is insanely jarring from WRPG mechanics and semi-real-time battles to a stock Dragon Quest-esque JRPG full of silliness.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Xxain on 29 July 2013

The miss ratio is not as bad as Sonic Brotherhood though.



Sonic - Miss

Knuckles - miss

Tails miss - Miss

Amy - miss

(for 3 turns)

enemies attack - Party dead. We lost to fucking hornet.



Off topic, but I now have PTSD so Rol's lowering score in for that is ok in my book.



ishiki on 30 July 2013

I found the writing and premise pretty awesome. However I agree on gameplay, some of the older JRPG's imo haven't aged well gameplay wise. Chrono Trigger, Pokemon and some others excluded.

This fits with Dragon Quest V for me in that it's extremely charming, with solid but unspectacular gameplay.



F0X on 30 July 2013

From what I've played, the majority of Earthbound's entertainment value is derived from reading quirky NPC dialogue. Unfortunately, this only applies to those who enjoy reading in JRPGs.[/joke]

The gameplay is exactly as you say, unspectacular, yet I did appreciate the little twists to the vanilla Dragon Quest-style battle system: scrolling health, back attacks, instant-win battles against much lesser foes, and my personal favorite, no random battles. Nothing that competes with the best RPG battle systems of the time, but with such an overabundance of charm, I guess it didn't to. I feel the same way about the Dragon Quest series, though I really like Dragon Quest V.



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t3mporary_126 on 30 July 2013
RolStoppable said:

 In Dragon Quest it's usually the case that it's fun to play until level 20, but then the game developers always go: "Uh oh, already level 20 and less than a quarter of the game done. Now we need to scale EXP gains to make you finish the game at around level 45."

A good read but this statement caught my eye.

Have you played Pokemon recently because I think Pokemon does this as well. How is this different from Pokemon? I've never played Dragon Quest but I would like to start another RPG that isn't Nintendo styled (Pokemon, Paper Mario, or Mario and Luigi).

Edit: If you haven't played Pokemon recently, you get half the gym badges and about a third or half the story done at level 35 and beat the game with level 50-55 Pokemon. And you start off with level 5 pokemon and get to level 20 about less than a quarter of the game as well.



Otakumegane on 30 July 2013
F0X said:
From what I've played, the majority of Earthbound's entertainment value is derived from reading quirky dialogue. Unfortunately, this only applies to those who enjoy reading in JRPGs.[/joke]

The gameplay is exactly as you say, unspectacular, yet I did appreciate the little twists to the vanilla Dragon Quest-style battle system: scrolling health, back attacks, instant-win battles against much lesser foes, and my personal favorite, no random battles. Nothing that competes with the best RPG battle systems of the time, but with such an overabundance of charm, I guess it didn't to. I feel the same way about the Dragon Quest series, though I really like Dragon Quest V.


To be fair, a lot of Fire Emblem is like that too. 

It helps that FE is an SRPG though in gameplay aging and all that.



http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/92109/nintendopie/ Nintendopie  Was obviously right and I was obviously wrong. I will forever be a lesser being than them. (6/16/13)

F0X on 30 July 2013
Otakumegane said:
F0X said:
From what I've played, the majority of Earthbound's entertainment value is derived from reading quirky dialogue. Unfortunately, this only applies to those who enjoy reading in JRPGs.[/joke]

The gameplay is exactly as you say, unspectacular, yet I did appreciate the little twists to the vanilla Dragon Quest-style battle system: scrolling health, back attacks, instant-win battles against much lesser foes, and my personal favorite, no random battles. Nothing that competes with the best RPG battle systems of the time, but with such an overabundance of charm, I guess it didn't to. I feel the same way about the Dragon Quest series, though I really like Dragon Quest V.


To be fair, a lot of Fire Emblem is like that too. 

It helps that FE is an SRPG though in gameplay aging and all that.


It also helps that Fire Emblem is a series and therefore can be iteriated on. >_>



3DS Friend Code: 0645 - 5827 - 5788
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Conegamer on 30 July 2013

A good review. I can't argue with it, though I may have given it a higher score myself.

You forgot to mention the HP system, though. That is something I found very interesting indeed.



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

NintendoPie on 30 July 2013
t3mporary_126 said:

A good read but this statement caught my eye.

Have you played Pokemon recently because I think Pokemon does this as well. How is this different from Pokemon? I've never played Dragon Quest but I would like to start another RPG that isn't Nintendo styled (Pokemon, Paper Mario, or Mario and Luigi).

Edit: If you haven't played Pokemon recently, you get half the gym badges and about a third or half the story done at level 35 and beat the game with level 50-55 Pokemon. And you start off with level 5 pokemon and get to level 20 about less than a quarter of the game as well.

Pokemon is too kiddy for Rol. Rol is a man.