Now that Dark Dawn is out, we've got more examples as to what to do and what to avoid in our hacks. So what lessons did you learn, and how will you apply it to your hacks?
I'll start us off.
Transformation as a Free Action - because of the relative ease of the game, you were better off attacking with Sveta than you were going beastform. Even in boss fights this seemed to be the case, as only a few boss fights warranted the sacrifice of the turn. A better way to make beastform or other transformation abilities useful is to have them activate instantly, rather than cost a turn to preform. I figure this would work by causing an immediate Kite-style followup turn where you give the commands via transformation specific menus.
Plot Forced Armor FTL - DD made me realize that I really, really, REALLY hate it when a game forces armor onto you. Sure, it was one hell of a resistance build, but it'd have been fun to at least try other builds with Sveta, you know? It just reinforces the my belief that there should never really be a true 'final gear' or 'final set', but rather several different options available to each character.
Variety is good - I had a couple problems with variety in the game. First, Tyrell just seemed better than Eoleo simply due to having a wider equipment selection. Second, Sveta arguably suffered from having only two weapon types and one single armor type. While I understand why they did it, I think it'd be better to work out a way that characters can be equally viable in terms of gear selection.
Sometimes less is more - Remember how DD had eight well defined and in-depth characters? No? My point exactly. Arguably, DD could have lost four characters without losing any value. By having a team of Matt, Tyrell, Sveta, and either Rief or Amiti, it probably would have been better than having all eight. Himi and Eoleo were just too late in the story to allow for any real development, and in terms of fleshing out the characters, one could say that Sveta was the only one who had the proper treatment. By focusing on four characters instead, they could have easily built them up much better. Eoleo and Himi would be much better as NPCs in this game, and characters in the next. It's probably best just to focus on making a few well-developed characters, rather than trying to fill out all eight slots.
Silence isn't golden - They tried to give Matt more personality, and through the different choices, you can sort of get a gist for how he normally acts. Problem is, there's just no substitute for a voice. The age of the Silent Hero is long past - the only way I can see it working is if there's an actual storyline reason for them to be mute (such as in Drakenguard). Otherwise, though, I must disagree with the thought that it allows the player to be the main character. I'm Role, not Matt. I want to know how Matt reacts. How I'd react isn't even an option in this scenario. Nowhere do I see "Pull an Alex" in the selection choices, after all. Instead, I'd rather get to know the MC, rather than have him just be another hollow shell.
I like the idea of a silent protagonist. It wouldn't feel like Golden Sun without it, and I'm always devastated when Isaac starts talking.
Otherwise, I completely agree with those points.
I'd also point out:
Points of no return is just asking for hate - especially with Golden Sun, that delights in both showing you something you do not have the ability to obtain until later, and also hiding things that can only be found through sheer luck or obsessive and thorough exploration of each area (which no one really wants to do, right?)
In Dark Dawn, they practically ruined the game with the points of no return. Enough said.
Light versus Dark is boring - Dark Dawn just didn't grip me as much as the originals did, and this wasn't just because of the other bad points we've listed here. The main reason for this, I think, is that the storyline was duller and less engaging than the originals. Think about it; a large portion of Dark Dawn revolves around evil creatures taking over the world and, let's be honest, this has been done (way) too many times before. The thing that really stood out with the originals was that actually, both sides were 'good' and the only villains weren't the antagonists but merely creatures or people whom the player encountered.
There is something to be said for the power of the mind - Hence, the ideology behind psynergy being used with the mind. How is Insight encouraging players to use their brains for problem solving? It is almost like saying "Eh, the players are too stupid to be able to solve our relatively easy puzzles" or "All of our previous players have grown up since the release of TLA seven years ago, none of these new kiddies will be able to solve anything".
You should see the vast world out there - Unlike the first two games, exploration is not really emphasized in Dark Dawn. If you think about it, almost all of the towns that you have to go to have straight paths to them. Having to explore to find Garoh or Apojii was fun. The new areas of land/sea were pretty small, it did not take much to find the plot-related areas once somebody says "north" or "west".
Other than the silent protagonist one, I agree with all of these. I mean, you are controlling that person, why can't you decide how they react as well?
I have no problem with choosing how I react. I just want to hear what my character said.
Transformation shouldn't be an option AT ALL. Especially not into an overpowered beast thing.
I definitely want to hear what the character says.
Beastform actually wasn't all that OP. Since it puts a djinni from set to recovery every turn you're in beastform, you end up going back to your weak normal form after you use up all your djinn. And while she had the best stats in the party when in beastform, other chars could still rival her damage with their better EPAs.
I agree with most of the stuff said, including the silent protagonist. A big (albeit Fan Dumb based) peeve I have is when people say that Matthew has such a powerful personality. No. He doesn't. He swears at some point and that's about it.
I personally saw very little development in most characters. This is my overview of the entire party:
Matthew - Silent protagonist with absolutely nothing. I mean, not even his actions really gave him a personality.
Karis - Essentially existed to tell Tyrell he was wrong. She got better later in the game but she was still bleh.
Tyrell - I liked Tyrell. I felt like he was the one of the few natural characters in the game, he made me crack up and reminded me a lot of why I liked Garet, without seeming too much like Garet. He, like Rief, had personality, balls and was interesting.
Rief - Another character I liked. He's one of the few characters with an actual set of balls. He also usually moved a conversation forward, unlike most characters that had an obsession with simply regurgitating what someone else already said in a slightly different way... but that's a different matter. Because of this he came off as interesting.
Amiti - Oh man, Amiti. First off, every. single. goddamn LINE he says basically lays down exactly what HIS morals are and what HE thinks of something and it just blocks the whole goddamn conversation. After a while every time I saw his face in a conversation I instantly pressed "A", just because I knew damn well it was going to be something along the lines of "I disagree with that and I will certainly hate you forever because of it" or "I agree with this and I will certainly love you forever because of it". AUUUGH.
Sveta - Sveta... eh. She's okay. I don't get where most peopel say she's getting this personality development from because she doesn't really have all too much (sacrificing yourself is a pretty strong moment, but she doesn't really develop; I felt like that always felt like something Sveta would be able to push herself to do). She annoyed me though mainly because like many of the other characters she mainly fell flat on her face in the personality department and just felt like a cutesy girly girl to me.
Eoleo - A HUGE missed opprotunity here. Eoleo is the GODDAMN SON OF BRIGGS. How. How. HOW could you not make him freaking AWESOME. Seriously. Even though Briggs not really having a sense of humour anymore disappointed me, I expected Eoleo to be a sarcastic twit would be the logical route to go. His lines came off as stale "I gotta do my duty" bullshit and he had little personality whatsoever. I really was disappointed with him.
Himi - Deus. Ex. Machina. That is all.
And thus, my little lessons are these.
We get the point. We don't need every. single. GODDAMN member of the party to tell me how to feel about something. You know what makes this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle2re9wjml) powerful? Or this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BarefootGen) powerful? Or this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCrow) powerful? It's because they don't tell us how to feel about it. They just tell us how it is. If we're told in Schindler's List that "isn't it wonderful that this Nazi realized what was going on and saved all these Jews' lives" or "wow, atom bombs are horrible, don't you think" in Barefoot Gen a billion times it loses its meaning. ToS also suffered from this problem and it drove me up a goddamn wall. I mean for crying out loud, the last example I provided was completely fictional and I bawled at the end of reading it - because I wasn't told how to feel about it. For example, why did DD have to tell me that all the people dying in the Eclipse is horrible? OF COURSE IT'S HORRIBLE! I don't need you to tell me that. If they just left it as you going to one of the old towns attacked by the monsters and everyone is dead I think that would have been more effective than everyone saying "Oh my god. The eclipse will kill all the people. This is horrible."
Golden Sun's not great as a series in this respect but even the stuff in the first two games were done better than this, like when Karst and Agatio died and all they really said was that they felt "so cold before they died". You didn't have Jenna or Sheba saying "wow, I feel so sorry for Karst and Agatio *wink wink* They're dying now and I feel so bad for them even though they were the bad guys." DD gave me a huge feeling of this forced emotion through the whole thing.
Super Cool New Summons "Hey guys? Wanna see some cool new summons? Yeah, that's right! We've got some cool new summons! It's named Crystallux!... Wait, you want more? Well, too bad, suckers! That's all I could come up with, even though there's obvious in-game relations that could be made with Apollo, or just more cool stuff like Loki, Sleipnir, Scylla, ect!" This REALLY irked me. They had 7 years to come up with cool new summons and they came up with ONE. Granted, it is pretty sweet, but seriously. ONE summon. >_>
I learned not to get hyped up lol and that Camelot storytelling absolutely sucked @#$ in that game.
I learned that camelot are not afraid to throw death into the mix, nevermind mass genocide lol.
cant wait until Felix hears of Briggs death.... please ooooh please make something good come out of his wasted death, I agree with you Charon, Briggs and Eoleo were a let down.
In fairness to Matthew, you only really got a glimpse of Felix and Isaac's personality when you weren't playing as them.
And I imagine when Felix hears about it, he'll say 'Oh, ok. Anyway...' or something similar. If they bother telling him at all.
I totally agree with those! They only really developed Tyrell (probably the comedic relief) and Rief. Karis and Sveta had some time, but they could have used more. Also...
QuoteWe get the point.
So many one-liners, EVERYONE has to say something! Why!?
Learn to think of others Amiti, learn to be witty Eoleo, and go hide in your hole Himi! After one or two people, I am sure that players would understand what the party thinks of something.
Bosses /= Hotel Staff - "We would like to thank you for defeating us in battle, and we hope that you enjoyed your time with us! Please have this
turd souvenir as a memory of our battle". What this means: Having battles with bosses that give you worthless items that you can only use once. I mean, it would have been nice if they were at least reusable. Weapons or armour would make sense, or even items that you can purchase again later on. However, having a one-time drop of an item that is both useless and incredibly cheap is really pointless. For those who like to beat games 100%, items like this make it harder to do so; less inventory space, and you can not buy them back if you do sell or use them.
Most of the plot is just a freaking fetch quest. For a FEATHER. An effing feather. Even though the hugeass bird you get it from is a major plot point, and has an assload of build up, but it fights like a retarded Chocobo.
ALL the game's bosses go down like a bag of bricks after a few turns if you're at a decent level. Hell, even DULLAHAN, the hardest boss in the game, drops like a rock to a maxed out party with all the djinn.
Just what the hell were they thinking?
That is true, plot and bosses have always been a very well-thought out and important part of GS ... till today. Also Nero, ask yourself, were they even thinking at all at the time?
I've learned actually quite a bit from this game: don't copy it in all aspects.
Length + RPG = Godly - Remember back in the day when Golden Sun didn't take just a few hours to complete? I do too. No, no, I don't want your after-game events if the main part took me less than half a day to stomp on; we demand a game that has some length to it! It's always like, "You found the first town. You're 1/10 of the way done with the game! You fought a boss? Great, you're almost done! Only 7 bosses to go!" ... In an RPG? Ugh. Golden Sun had LOTS more. Don't even get me started on TLA ... but that is part of what made them good.
Let's Explore ... Oh Right ... - What happened here? You would think with the world changed by the Golden Sun event, you could take a few extra routes here, there, that way, way over there, in that new cave, etc. EXPLORATION, people! Why has Fallout done so well? Exploration! Why have (the old) Final Fantasys done so well? Exploration! And how about DD's predecessors? GS and TLA? E.X.P.L.O.R.A.T.I.O.N. If that's "not possible", give the player something to explore/revisit the rest of the world with. Limited to the eastern side of a whole continent? I don't think so!
And I also mildly agree on giving the MC a personality. Mildly because I would like to influence a few of his actions still; just give the guy a voice, ok? Matt would thank you personally, too. Why can't he now? Oh um, maybe because some people decided to only let him learn one word in the U.S. release ... and it wasn't a very nice one apparently.
On the exploration, give back the freedom to mess with the order of events in the game. In both TBS and TLA there was the option to do a mission with or without the Mercury Adept.
Quotemaybe because some people decided to only let him learn one word in the U.S. release ... and it wasn't a very nice one apparently.
And even that was a mistranslation.
Woolseyism =/= Mistranslation. Get your terms right.
I apologise for not knowing an obscure term that I had no reason to know. Nice addition to the discussion by the way.
Actually, you can gauge Matthew's personality by others' reactions to your choices in conversation. There's usually at least ONE particular option that gives a funny result. That said, they didn't do a very good job of it, and I personally HATE silent protagonists. Lloyd Irving, Yuri Lowell, and Senel Coolidge FTW!!! Heck, every main char from the Tales series except for Stahn Aileron FTW! (Why Stahn? Because his Japanese voice acting sounds loud and obnoxious, and because he's dense. But anyway...)
Don't make a weapon system based on grinding: In DD, I would always accidentally grind without meaning to, thanks to always wanting to learn that next unleash. This, I think, is part of what made all the bosses way too easy. That, and the fact that they were too easy to start with. Or, at least, if you're going to make a weapon system based on grinding, make it so the bosses are actually tough enough that you might WANT to grind.
My two cents on the characters:
Matthew: Nothing to say here, except that it's funny if you respond with an angry face when what's-his-name betrays you after the Mountain Roc fight.
Karis: She's definitely intelligent (I do wish in-game characters would stop pointing that out, though!) and would make a good leader in Matthew's place were she not a bit cowardly. She's also a bit of a suck-up at times.
Tyrell: There's a VERY good reason not to let him lead. He's dumb as a post for a lot of the early game, and is impulsive for the rest of it. I hate how he was the only one to even TRY to stand up to "Arcanus".
Rief: He's a know-it-all and his voice is annoying. He is a believable character, though. He's also got no common sense whatsoever, which is why Matthew is still leader.
Amiti: Our local naive morality pet, which is why HE doesn't get to lead the party. Not such a bad guy overall, though.
Sveta: Has really very little discernible personality. She doesn't use emotes, doesn't express her opinion when she talks, and even her manner of speaking doesn't show any real personality. OK, so she cries for a while after Belinsk, but she manages to sound forced and dull even then! And then she's perfectly willing to nobly sacrifice herself without really any comment or inner monologue about the implications, just like your stereotypical videogame hero. That also really kills any potential drama in that scene, too. And she talks to Matthew during it, but really she's all just "Sure, we'll die, but at least we'll save the others!" in stereotypical RPG fashion. In fact, were it not for her angsting for a while, she'd very easily be able to completely replace Matthew as leader of the party. Except that, y'know, Matthew's the only one who can draw the Sol Blade (Himi could, too, but I doubt she'd be able to lift it), so you need him to be able to open the door to the Apollo Sanctum controls.
She seems to just be there for the cute factor and the furry fandom.
... Why the h*** does she know Cure Poison and Restore in her base class, anyway? And why does she also learn those two moves as a Gladiator? I can almost understand knowing them while in Beast Form, but...
Eoleo: He gets a few good lines, but you never really learn his personality, thanks to a lack of random conversation in Golden Sun in general, and the fact that he joins too late in the game. He'd probably be a decent leader, but nobody wants to listen to him thanks to that whole "first impression" thing. You know, the part where he instantly starts insulting you as soon as you rescue him.
Himi: Deux. Ex. Machina. I mean, you'd think the party would have the decency to be surprised when the Third Eye randomly floats out of their inventory and embeds itself in Himi's head! And then the other guy asks what happened, and you know what they say? "You've just seen it yourself." Seriously? Is there some bit of culture clash going on here, or am I missing something? And then she starts FLOATING IN THE AIR, and they aren't the least bit surprised about that either! While it's possible to learn about her future sight thing from the townspeople, nobody mentions that she floats during it! So why isn't anyone surprised?
Only thing I really disagree with for you there is the furry fandom comment. Ever since Garoh, people wanted to to have a werewolf character. This was fanservice to them. Hell, this was a fanservice game period.
First four act as Expies for the O8, satisfying those who wanted the originals to return. The tutorial fight also serves this.
Himi is a female venusian, which was wanted.
Himi is a venus mage, which was wanted.
Eoleo was wanted as a playable character.
Sveta was the wanted werewolf
Sveta also acted as a "Jovian Fighter" of sorts, also wanted.
Amiti was basically people who wanted Piers but with better equipment support (what was really needed was better class support, but oh well).
We also got bows to satisfy that last bit.
Long story short: Want a game to not suck? Don't add everything at once. Add new stuff in installments, not together, otherwise it'll backfire hard.
Bows sucked. Not only were there far too few artifact bows in the game, the ones that were there felt weak compared to other weapon types. Worst of all, unless I missed a major area that was cram-packed with the things, there weren't any bows that were useful endgame.
I found that most disappointing out of everything else.
I think I've complained about the artifacts before, because (either due to so many characters appearing in such a small game or just because there weren't any) I found myself relying on normal weapons for most of the game because I found artifacts so rarely.
This doesn't feel like Golden Sun for 2 reasons:
A) Maybe we were spoiled for choice in the first two but there definitely seemed to be a lot more artifacts.
B) There were so many ancient ruins and dungeons in the first two games, and apparently even more opened up, that you expect there to be a lot of ancient, magical items like artifacts. In fact, now I think about it, the dungeons in Dark Dawn felt quite bare and empty.
Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 28, May, 2011, 07:19:18 AM
Himi: Deux. Ex. Machina. I mean, you'd think the party would have the decency to be surprised when the Third Eye randomly floats out of their inventory and embeds itself in Himi's head! And then the other guy asks what happened, and you know what they say? "You've just seen it yourself." Seriously? Is there some bit of culture clash going on here, or am I missing something? And then she starts FLOATING IN THE AIR, and they aren't the least bit surprised about that either! While it's possible to learn about her future sight thing from the townspeople, nobody mentions that she floats during it! So why isn't anyone surprised?
Didn't you know that this happens all the time in Japan? Srs.
Actually, you bring up a really good point. Personally I think that they would have been even more shocked and dismayed than western audiences
because of the culture differences. If you look all around Yamato (or whatever it's called, it's been a while) there's a ton of stuff that shows its traditional atmosphere and their religion and all that.. When Himi is brought up with the Third Eye, she's pretty much the equivalent of Jesus in the eyes of her hometown... and then they're all like... "cool beans". I think that if Shinto prophecies or other religious contexts were coming true people would flip their @#$% in Japan, not just blow it off like "yeah whatever," maybe even the Buddhists would be like "THE HELL?!". Hell, with ANY religion I think people would be going nuts, so the fact that they didn't in DD makes it all the more excruciatingly stale.
Just remember. There's always Takeru.
QuoteAmiti - Oh man, Amiti. First off, every. single. goddamn LINE he says basically lays down exactly what HIS morals are and what HE thinks of something and it just blocks the whole goddamn conversation. After a while every time I saw his face in a conversation I instantly pressed "A", just because I knew damn well it was going to be something along the lines of "I disagree with that and I will certainly hate you forever because of it" or "I agree with this and I will certainly love you forever because of it". AUUUGH.
At least Amiti had a personality, even though it was an annoying one. You don't have to like every character that Camelot comes up with. Some characters where probably intended to provoke dislike. I was more annoyed at the beginning of the game, where everyone has to name everyone else just because the player could then look up who they where. Although I do understand the reason for it... It was still annoying though, made the conversations sound fake.
I don't remember anyone talking about Sheba, but she still ended up in my encyclopedia somehow... Amiti's just a bit naive because everyone thinks he's Jesus or something in his home and he's never left it except maybe Passaj. He and Tyrell are the only ones with personality and the other characters don't like them much for it.
I find it odd how no one ever mentions Kraden. Does this mean he's a perfect character, or simply not considered because he's only an 'honorary' party member?
Don't ask me why, but I liked Amiti. Especially the backstory they included about his father, which was only brought down because it wasn't used as an optional side-quest.
Karis was also pretty cool, although her arguments with Tyrell got dull after a while.
Quote from: Shinigami on 29, May, 2011, 11:35:38 AM
QuoteAmiti - Oh man, Amiti. First off, every. single. goddamn LINE he says basically lays down exactly what HIS morals are and what HE thinks of something and it just blocks the whole goddamn conversation. After a while every time I saw his face in a conversation I instantly pressed "A", just because I knew damn well it was going to be something along the lines of "I disagree with that and I will certainly hate you forever because of it" or "I agree with this and I will certainly love you forever because of it". AUUUGH.
At least Amiti had a personality, even though it was an annoying one. You don't have to like every character that Camelot comes up with. Some characters where probably intended to provoke dislike. I was more annoyed at the beginning of the game, where everyone has to name everyone else just because the player could then look up who they where. Although I do understand the reason for it... It was still annoying though, made the conversations sound fake.
His personality consists of telling people that he thinks something is right or wrong. Pretty flat to me. lol
I mean, at least Rief and Tyrell had the balls to stand up to Alex, and even Karis was pretty bold. Karis is an example of a character I didn't like but would have to admit she did have personality. Amiti... er... no.
Quote from: Awec on 30, May, 2011, 06:23:19 AM
I find it odd how no one ever mentions Kraden. Does this mean he's a perfect character, or simply not considered because he's only an 'honorary' party member?
Kraden basically stayed the same. Which is actually pretty nice, even though he still is pretty damn talkative.
Ah, but Kraden is a little funnier than I remember him. Remember that line about his messenger pigeon? It went kind of like "teach it to throw fireballs, and it would put you out of a job", when he was talking to Tyrell. This proves that both Kraden and Tyrell have personalities.
Amiti is kind of flat. Also seems to believe in labels quite a bit, as seen with Tret and Eoleo (wise and pirate). Instead of getting to know them, he treats them in accordance to what others have called them.
Amiti starts out awesome, but once his black and white morality starts to kick in he just gets to be "ugh." He gets better near the end of the game, when he finally starts to see that not everything is black and white, so he does get some clear character growth, but the whole pirate thing and the thing with laurel/tret really just leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I don't think anyone is gonna dispute that eoleo didn't get enough stage time to really develop his character, or that himi was a deus ex machina in character form. Personally, I found sveta one of the most interesting characters in the game, and I can never really understand all the hate she gets. Karis had some definite personality, but I felt that they exaggerated her arguments with tyrell too much, and they needed to stop saying that she was smart and instead just let her show it. She does show her intelligence occasionally, but it just got annoying constantly being reminded by the other characters that she's supposed to be the clever one in the party. Speaking of which, I think that gives us another lesson to learn from dark dawn: Show, don't tell.
Quote from: Role on 28, May, 2011, 11:17:38 AM
Only thing I really disagree with for you there is the furry fandom comment. Ever since Garoh, people wanted to to have a werewolf character. This was fanservice to them. Hell, this was a fanservice game period.
First four act as Expies for the O8, satisfying those who wanted the originals to return. The tutorial fight also serves this.
Himi is a female venusian, which was wanted.
Himi is a venus mage, which was wanted.
Eoleo was wanted as a playable character.
Sveta was the wanted werewolf
Sveta also acted as a "Jovian Fighter" of sorts, also wanted.
Amiti was basically people who wanted Piers but with better equipment support (what was really needed was better class support, but oh well).
We also got bows to satisfy that last bit.
Long story short: Want a game to not suck? Don't add everything at once. Add new stuff in installments, not together, otherwise it'll backfire hard.
I FORGOT THE BIGGEST ONE!
There's people who called for a fifth element. While there's still no fifth element, they got something very close that many people claimed to
be said fifth element - Light and Dark. And now we have adepts for
both. Cue every single horrible mary-sue powered fanfic writer going "HA! See? My character is using legit powers!"
Oh god... Sure, I wanted a new element but did it have to be LIGHT? (and Dark)
I admit they seem the most obvious choices for new elements but that's also the precise reason I would avoid using them. Then again, it's not like Dark Dawn was anything but pathetically predictable. At least the originals surprised me occasionally.
Well there weren't really many other options for a fifth element. Though where does that leave fire and its light producing qualities?
I've seen Aether, Lightning, and Void all done as a fifth element.
I was thinking Metal (although obviously that would need a better name).
When you think about it, it doesn't really seem to fit into the existing elements and Steel (the djinn) is the only thing that connects metal to any of them.
Also, a Ghost (or Ethereal) element could have worked, especially for the necronomicon classes. It may sound somewhat dorky but at least it doesn't fit into the stereotypical Good/Evil element that Light and Dark have.
They could even have taken tips from Pokemon and made Dark an element on its own without being obviously 'evil'.
Thinking about it, the necronomicon (and a couple of the triple classes) are probably why I object so much; they go out of their way to shove in your face "Dark is evil!" but give you the option of choosing classes that could quite nicely fit into the new Dark element. If I have the option of having 'evil' classes then can I at least play an evil character?
This is Golden Sun. Light is not good, Dark is not evil. Watch, B&C had very valid reasons for what they were doing - come the next game, we'll find out they were similar to S&M in this regard.
More referring to massive evil tower that spawned millions of evil creatures that did a load of evil things.
The darkness itself isn't evil though. It's just darkness. The thing is that monsters tend to prefer it. Look at it this way - birds prefer to be in the air. Occasionally, you'll find a land-based or water-based bird, like Emus and Penguins, but other than that they tend to be more sky-based creatures. Swap air with darkness and bird with 'generic monster' and you're good.
I'm pretty sure B&C are evil. Didn't Alex say they were going to fire the Apollo Lens at the High Empyror or something? And the whole torturing Volechek into insanity thing was a small bit evil I think... I suppose S&M did kill a lot of guards though.
Quote from: Awec on 02, June, 2011, 06:39:37 AM
More referring to massive evil tower that spawned millions of evil creatures that did a load of evil things.
And destroyed entire communities pretty much. Unless their reason involves saving the whole world (and maybe even the universe if Camelot brings that in), they seem like a pretty evil couple to me.
Of course, S&M were exactly the same... until you found out WHY they did everything in TLA. The GS world loves shades of gray, don't forget that. Is what they were doing wrong? Of course. But they may have had a very very good reason to be doing it. S&M caused disasters, kidnapped people, and caused a hell of a lot of trouble. Why? To save the world. I expect B&C to have a similar reason...
I'm theorycrafting here, but it could be that the High Empyror forced their people into servitude, or could be one of the causes for the Mourning Moon. Don't outright say they were evil until you get more intel, and that's usually in the next game.
They weren't happy working for him since they were trying to kill the empyror by the end, but it seems unlikely one man could cause the Mourning Moon. Regardless, B&C were far more extreme than S&M.
No, not one man. But one nation, sucking the power of alchemy out via those machines...
They only saw one machine though, and never actually found out how it worked. It could have been a prototype.
Also, I should point out I never even mentioned B&C because as I said before, there is a much better example of how Golden Sun's 'shades of grey' haven't been brought in as well to Dark Dawn:
Quote from: Awec on 02, June, 2011, 06:39:37 AM
More referring to massive evil tower that spawned millions of evil creatures that did a load of evil things.
I don't suppose you've head of the term "Lesser of two evils", have you?
I would very much like to know the greater of those two evils.
Hmm, let's see... the Dark Eclipse effects maybe half a continent, and is temporary (even if the Apollo Lens wasn't used, it'd have ended eventually).
The Psynergy Vortexes cover THE ENTIRE WORLD. It'll happen with the occasional HUGE event called the Mourning Moon until it is stopped. The heroes have no idea how to do this. The villains may very well have known, as shown by the machine you came across.
Remember how you thought S&M was going to destroy the world by unleashing alchemy? Remember how they were really trying to save the world, even if it meant causing global-scale natural disasters? That. This is a GOLDEN SUN GAME. Odds are, they weren't pure evil, just doing things in a totally wrong way.
Common sense. It does a body good.
but even if thats true, alex wants that power to do bad things like rule the world, and we still don't know much about him.
he could be the one evil in the world.
Aye, Alex is the only person who can be considered truely evil right now... but even then, he's shown genuine concern for Mia, and is STILL an enigma. We have no idea what the hell he's after. He's likely going to be the penultimate foe of the series.
The eclipse would have ended eventually, but they never say what would happen once the tower had filled with energy. It could very well have had a different result without the Lens. Most vortexes are small and avoidable, and very little information on the Mourning Moon is given. I don't see how the Eclipse is the lesser of two evils when the eclipse didn't stop vortexes appearing.
...Did you even play the game? The whole purpose of the Apollo Lens was to fill it up faster. You wanna know what would have happened? Exactly what did happen. Only slower, and without people getting Light Adept powers.
@Role: The eclipse covered half a continent? Yeah, right. It covered a large portion of the Eastern Sea, and most of TWO continents! Or did you fail to look at the map that was right there in Luna Tower and showed everywhere that would be hit?
Last I checked, we only got access to one continent Jamie. Or would you like to go back and check to see if we ever did go to Gondawan?
I find it kind of funny how they actually put Venus Lighthouse on the map, despite never being able to go far enough to see it (unless I am mistaken).
Either way, it covered more than half of the continent, if I recall. Didn't it go near Mt. Aleph as well? It nearly covered every coast, aside from a few odd beaches here and there. Granted, it only covered about half of what we could go on for the majority of the game.
We never did, no. But remember the puzzle in the Eclipse Tower? The one where you had to light the "sun" using the four elements to deactivate the Ward? Remember how lighting the sun made a shadow on a stone plaque of the world? Yeah, that. It has a map. Of the whole of Weyard, if I recall correctly. And the Eclipse covered everything but the edges of the continents and half the Western and Eastern seas.
A huge portion of it was over water, and last I checked, people don't live in the ocean. While the effects were bad, yes, they were not on the scale of the natural disasters that were caused by S&M's quest to save the world.
Simply put, we don't know their motive yet. The reason that they were doing it. It's very likely that we'll find out in a future game. I'm very certain they weren't pure evil.
@Jamie: Go back and play and find all the places it covered. In game.
You can't. Simply can't be done. Why? Because you never get access to the other edge after the release of the Eclipse. You can't go and check where it ends, simply because you DON'T GET TO GO TO THOSE OTHER CONTINENTS. So all we have to go by is what you see on that map, IN-GAME.
And no, people don't live in the ocean. But they do live on islands, which are in the ocean. And it's quite possible that a number of islands off in the west are too small to be seen on that rather tiny stone map.
...You don't know about the Wall Glitch?
We all agree to some point that every one in golden sun isn't evil. (at least to the sence of true evil).
But even if there is the possibilty that some one is evil that one person would have to be Alex.
Alex hasn't done anything selfless yet, and everything he has done has been bad for every one but him.
I get what you guys mean by darkness not being evil, but there is a difference between darkness and "~DaRkNeSs~" if you get what I mean. you can say in normal life the dark isn't evil, just a place with out light. but the concept leading darkness and evil comes from religion. and yes we don't want to get into that kinda talk, but most of our concepts and way we look at the world is due to different religion's vews over the years.
so define darkness
and define evil and pure evil
all different diffinitions.
but to come up with a answer that every body can be happy with, a lesson we've learned from Dark Dawn would be, leave out light and dark combind with good and evil as much as possibul. GS 1 and 2 had it right!
...Wow, have we strayed from topic or what? Let's try to get back.
Right, just to contribute to the topic I also have learned:
Inconsistencies lead to confusion - I truly remember the Psynergy Vortexes sprouted quite a bit ... before Matt left the general Vale area. Where'd they go? The eclipse block 'em out or something?
[spoiler=In case some didn't finish GS 3]Did the vortexes all combine to become the gargantuan one we saw at the end?[/spoiler]
Overall, explanations please, about the mysterious disappearances of things that can kill, destroy, and block important paths. And if there is blatant information about why the vortexes were gone, than by all means disregard or delete this post.
Quote from: zman9000 on 08, June, 2011, 08:15:41 AM
quote by Role:
Quote...You don't know about the Wall Glitch?
quote by zman9000:
Quotebut to come up with a answer that every body can be happy with, a lesson we've learned from Dark Dawn would be, leave out light and dark combind with good and evil as much as possibul. GS 1 and 2 had it right!
whose straying from the topic?
That wasn't directed at you, genius. It was a comment about the general state of the topic.
@Scott: Checkov's Gun, IIRC. They made it out to be a bad problem, but then distracted you with an immediate threat. You get back, and BAM, there's the Mourning Moon. Forgot about it, didn't you?
QuoteThat wasn't directed at you, genius.
thanks Role.
@scott: if you want real answers you will have to wait until GS4.
but I'm right with you, the vortexes shouldn't have stopped just for plot convience, they should have thrown one or two small ones in here or there.
@Role: I didn't forget about the Mourning Moon, I just forgot its name. I know it appeared at the end (it's in the spoiler just forgot its name,) I just wanted to know why none appeared after leaving the Vale area. Wasn't the Mourning Moon's arrival supposed to be announced by
many Psynergy Vortexes? We only saw 3 in the entire game ... They suddenly stopped when you passed the border to southern part of the continent. I'm just gonna guess Camelot didn't want to include them anymore because it wasn't going to get anywhere for the rest of the game or because those were the last of the vortexes until the Mourning Moon. That's my opinion.
@zman: Eh, I'd like 3 or more vortexes appearing at least. I got excited when the eclipse began because I thought it would amplify the psynergy vortexes and cause them to mutate in terrifying ways ... but nope. They merely decided to go with "Mourning Moon time!" at the very end. Probably trying to say, as stated above, the 3 vortexes we got to see were the last ones until the Mourning Moon.
Quote from: RoleYou get back, and BAM, there's the Mourning Moon.
... Well now I see where you're coming from Role.
yeah well One lessen to learn from golden sun DD would be:
Don't say something will happan only if this other thing happans, and still have the thing happen with out the other thing happaning first.
Edit: wow that looks confusing now...
Quote from: zman9000 on 10, June, 2011, 05:49:22 AM
yeah well One lessen to learn from golden sun DD would be:
Don't say something will happan only if this other thing happans, and still have the thing happen with out the other thing happaning first.
Edit: wow that looks confusing now...
I think I understand what you're getting at but I can't remember any examples in DD.
Maybe the vortexes were spread out to begin with, then they made their way towards Mt. Aleph?
STOP.
We have a thread for theorycrafting. Let's get back on topic before we all derail it again.
Firstly: HIGHER DIFFICULTY! All the bosses minus the three soldiers fought at the start of the game are a joke! Find a way to make summon rushes less efficient on bosses, and give them more health!
They need to actual develop characters more.
And Matthew was annoying with the emoticon system since you didn't know what he says, Tyrell was captain obvious (Though his goofy moments were nice), Karis was an annoying nag without much variety to her character, Rief is irrelevant to the plot and a comploete pussy, Amiti is too predictable and doesn't contribute to conversations other than stating how he agrees with something, Sveta didn't have enough screentime (She was one of the coolest characters! Why not develop her more to make us care about her more in the finale?!), Eoleo REALLY didn't have enough screen time, and Himi was... Yeah..
We need a faster ship!
We need more explorability! Anyone remember how cool it was to explore all the dungeons and towns in TLA to figure out where to go and wht to do next?
We need bigger dungeons! Some of them are only two rooms big in dark dawn! Seriously!? Anyone remember how awesome the rocks were in Golden Sun TLA? Why is none of that here!? And the final dungeon of the game was just a stupid mountain pass!? Come on! Yes, it had the epic music, but why couldn't we have the Endless Wall be the dungeon itself as opposed to being part of the overworld?! They could have had really cool puzzles similar to Lost Woods from Zelda to capture the "Endless Fall" feeling. It would have been awesome!
We need less side-tracking! The whole game is that you're trying to explore sol sanctum, but Tyrell broke the Silverwing, and you need to get a new wing to fix it. So you become sealed out of a cave by rocks you couldn't simply move for some reason with psynergy. To get around this, you have to get involved with an all out war just to get two stupid masks that would have allowed you to cross a stupid mountain. So now you're in furry village but Kraden STILL isn't there! So instead you have to rescue Eoleo. But to do that, you have to gather a number of stupid musicians across the continent which forces you to become involved with the affairs of Kolima and save the village. Fair enough. You go and beat up a bird to steal its feather. But now you're told you have to go through this HUGEASS underground maze to save Eoleo. So what do you go through just to save him? YOU UNLEASH THE FREAKING APOCALYPSE!
Not only that, but the premise of the game itself is kinda dumb. You're trying to get a stupid feather. And that dragged out WAAAY too long. And the cause of it is because a stupid machine broke which could have been avoided had Tyrell not acted like a dumbass flying it. In TLA you were trying to get a boat because a HUGE TIDAL WAVE struck and damaged the entire freaking continent! And that only drags on for half the game. But here.. You're getting a feather for 3/4 of the game, and in doing so you get side tracked to save a prisoner, which causes the apocalypse... TLA's plot is waaaay better!!
More HP isn't really the issue. The issue is more Attack, higher level Psynergy, and higher Defence stat.
Seriously? The Mountain Roc should have been hitting you with Grand Gaia and Tempest in between its crushing stomp or whatever and Upward Blast. It should have been healing itself with Vital Boon! Its Stone form should have been a PERMANENT 70% DAMAGE REDUCTION BARRIER. It needed about 50 to 100 more Defence! In the end, I left the Roc in Stone form for the rest of the fight simply because it was too easy otherwise. I liked the part where Psynergy was actually dealing proportionately high damage.
The Djinn should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be using Psynergy that's one stage higher than what you have access to at the time. Only at the ENDGAME should the Djinn end up at your level in terms of power, simply because there's nothing stronger out there. They're made of PURE ELEMENTAL ENERGY, don'tcha know, so the fact that they never throw anything stronger than a Mother Gaia at you is just plain sad.
The two Kaocho generals need much higher Defence, higher Attack, and their special moves need to be stronger. The "[enemy] strikes with pure hatred!" move would have been SERIOUSLY cool, if only it did a lot more damage.
The emote system was annoying simply due to the lack of options. There were tons of times where I would've liked to use :!: or :?: emotes, as well as :Sweat: and :um:. And there were lots of times where I would've LOVED to be able to choose between :irate: and :fury:, rather than having both of them stuffed into one.
I did not come very often, but many complain to dark dawn.
First : no boss except last one attack two times in a row. I mean come on, make them all weak. And they are all weak, I was excepting Roc to be harder.
Second : Stop giving us that much exp in a single battle, I mean 1000 exp, in some battle at start of the game WTF ?
Make it easy
Actually, there are numerous reasons why the game is too easy, and they aren't all to do with bosses having bad stats:
The guys at Camelot did their best to answer the fans' complaints. The problem is, they took this too far. Let's take a look:
1. The fandom complained about the high encounter rate. Camelot answered. They did indeed reduce the encounter rate. But they didn't strengthen the encounters to make up for it. They DID, however, increase the amount of EXP given. This would be mostly fine, were it not for...
2. They allowed all combat animations to be sped up by holding the B button. This results in people not running from encounters that they would have run from in GS1 or GS2.
3. They increased PP regen rates, resulting in regular encounters becoming too easy to clear by spamming area Psynergy on them. This also results in regular encounters causing no lasting damage to the party, because this, combined with the reduced encounter rate, makes healing Psynergy practically free.
4. They introduced a grinding-based unleash mechanic, causing players to willingly fight battles they would otherwise run from.
5. The failure rate for fleeing from encounters has been increased. And since most players don't bother trying to flee more than once before just giving up and frying foes, this practically amounts to forced level-ups.
As it turns out, the Sand Prince is quite a nasty boss when the party is level 13. Eruption hits for 75% of any given character's max HP, and hits for roughly 2/3rds of the max HP of adjacent characters. His normal attack command also does more than that of the player characters. If Karis didn't get Fresh Breeze at tier 1 of base class, this would be a legitimately challenging fight.
The Kaocho generals can be a legitimate threat at level 13, as well. Ku-Embra's "strike with pure hatred" does about 90 damage to a single target, though Zealous Fury and Cyclone Slash are still pretty weak. The firecrackers are something to be concerned about, though, doing 70-85 damage to three party members. Ku-Tsung's Dragon Spark is very dangerous at this point in time, hitting the centre target for 85 damage and adjacent targets for 70+ each. Combined with inspiring speech and Cyclone Slash, this can be enough to KO a party member, and a Dragon Spark/firecracker combo can be lethal to up to three characters. Ku-Embra's inspiring speech can make the two very dangerous, boosting the damage dealt by strike with pure hatred and Dragon Spark to very dangerous levels. The fireworks are normally just a waste of an action, but I did get unlucky enough to have them disable Matthew's Flower when I needed area healing. Once again, Karis's base class breaks this fight badly, as does Tyrell's new Arid Scorch psynergy.
Ice Queen was a pain in the neck at level 15. She has a tendency to target characters weak to Mercury with Ice Missile, which in my case was Karis. This leaves Karis at only 45 HP, perfectly open for her to KO over the next few rounds if not healed quickly. It also does about 165 damage to Matthew, who was the adjacent party member. It's really effective for tying up all of my attackers but Tyrell. Unfortunately, Tyrell is the one she'll really be wishing she could tie up, as Arid Scorch does over 165 damage to her and really breaks the game at this point. The Ice Queen also likes to hit Amiti and Tyrell with Frostbite, doing fairly heavy damage to them too. The fight would be more difficult if Karis was at the centre of the party, rather than off to one side, as this would mean three characters would be hit, rather than two. On the other hand, the fight could have been potentially made easier by having Karis in her base class. (Or her HP could have been low enough for Ice Missile to OHKO. Either way.) The real problem with this boss fight is that she uses her regular attack too often, and her attack stat is too low. Icy Kiss can OHKO, but if that fails, its damage is pretty lame.
Djinn are still consistently very easy, despite being fairly challenging foes in GS1 and GS2.
Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 22, June, 2012, 10:26:13 PM
Actually, there are numerous reasons why the game is too easy, and they aren't all to do with bosses having bad stats:
The guys at Camelot did their best to answer the fans' complaints. The problem is, they took this too far. Let's take a look:
1. The fandom complained about the high encounter rate. Camelot answered. They did indeed reduce the encounter rate. But they didn't strengthen the encounters to make up for it. They DID, however, increase the amount of EXP given. This would be mostly fine, were it not for...
2. They allowed all combat animations to be sped up by holding the B button. This results in people not running from encounters that they would have run from in GS1 or GS2.
3. They increased PP regen rates, resulting in regular encounters becoming too easy to clear by spamming area Psynergy on them. This also results in regular encounters causing no lasting damage to the party, because this, combined with the reduced encounter rate, makes healing Psynergy practically free.
4. They introduced a grinding-based unleash mechanic, causing players to willingly fight battles they would otherwise run from.
5. The failure rate for fleeing from encounters has been increased. And since most players don't bother trying to flee more than once before just giving up and frying foes, this practically amounts to forced level-ups.
As it turns out, the Sand Prince is quite a nasty boss when the party is level 13. Eruption hits for 75% of any given character's max HP, and hits for roughly 2/3rds of the max HP of adjacent characters. His normal attack command also does more than that of the player characters. If Karis didn't get Fresh Breeze at tier 1 of base class, this would be a legitimately challenging fight.
The Kaocho generals can be a legitimate threat at level 13, as well. Ku-Embra's "strike with pure hatred" does about 90 damage to a single target, though Zealous Fury and Cyclone Slash are still pretty weak. The firecrackers are something to be concerned about, though, doing 70-85 damage to three party members. Ku-Tsung's Dragon Spark is very dangerous at this point in time, hitting the centre target for 85 damage and adjacent targets for 70+ each. Combined with inspiring speech and Cyclone Slash, this can be enough to KO a party member, and a Dragon Spark/firecracker combo can be lethal to up to three characters. Ku-Embra's inspiring speech can make the two very dangerous, boosting the damage dealt by strike with pure hatred and Dragon Spark to very dangerous levels. The fireworks are normally just a waste of an action, but I did get unlucky enough to have them disable Matthew's Flower when I needed area healing. Once again, Karis's base class breaks this fight badly, as does Tyrell's new Arid Scorch psynergy.
Ice Queen was a pain in the neck at level 15. She has a tendency to target characters weak to Mercury with Ice Missile, which in my case was Karis. This leaves Karis at only 45 HP, perfectly open for her to KO over the next few rounds if not healed quickly. It also does about 165 damage to Matthew, who was the adjacent party member. It's really effective for tying up all of my attackers but Tyrell. Unfortunately, Tyrell is the one she'll really be wishing she could tie up, as Arid Scorch does over 165 damage to her and really breaks the game at this point. The Ice Queen also likes to hit Amiti and Tyrell with Frostbite, doing fairly heavy damage to them too. The fight would be more difficult if Karis was at the centre of the party, rather than off to one side, as this would mean three characters would be hit, rather than two. On the other hand, the fight could have been potentially made easier by having Karis in her base class. (Or her HP could have been low enough for Ice Missile to OHKO. Either way.) The real problem with this boss fight is that she uses her regular attack too often, and her attack stat is too low. Icy Kiss can OHKO, but if that fails, its damage is pretty lame.
Djinn are still consistently very easy, despite being fairly challenging foes in GS1 and GS2.
I think you've made your point.
tl;dr - It's not that the game is easier, it's just bad pacing. You get too strong too fast. It'd not be an issue if power growth was paced better.
Try an inepts run, or a run where you purposefully ignore all djinn you can. You'll see what I mean.
Between the new weapon expertise system, the djinn acquisition rate, and the xp gain rate, it's too easy to overwhelm foes. Remove one or two of those factors, and suddenly the game doesn't just get more difficult, it can get downright hard. By the time enemies start to catch up with you, you're at post-game strength and they should be dropping like flies anyways.
I've just been running from every possible encounter, excluding Mimics and Djinn. I'm level 18 at Border Town, now, and the random encounters are just starting to do some damage, though it's nothing that can't be corrected immediately after the battle using Rief's Wish, with no ill effects.
Problem is, it's getting increasingly difficult to flee from them. I've finally resorted to killing all but one enemy, then fleeing to avoid the EXP.
I don't know what it is with me sucking at golden sun games when they first come out, but I died so many times to every type of monster everywhere once the eclipse happened. and don't get me started on the bonus bosses or the 30 tries it took to beat the final boss. Though I do admit everything else was too easy...