tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post4956434336841149762..comments2024-01-30T18:06:40.312-08:00Comments on Up late talking games & writing? You're...: Podcast News, Dante's Trials, and Nier's FishingBrad Gallawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09452185302281177580noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-24664551097916193432010-08-27T10:44:43.551-07:002010-08-27T10:44:43.551-07:00I think the cultivation was less of a problem beca...I think the cultivation was less of a problem because it was completely optional (with the exception of the pink moonflower sidequest). Given how slowly the farming goes, though, I can imagine that there would have been an even bigger stink over that if the developers had made it a requirement. As is, I think the pink moonflower quest is pretty poor, because there is almost no way a player can solve it without using an external guide.Sparkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444352252473400411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-37219928328903335342010-08-26T16:49:19.554-07:002010-08-26T16:49:19.554-07:00Glad to hear some love for Nier, though I must adm...Glad to hear some love for Nier, though I must admit I have no idea what the fuss is about over the fishing. After all, it's the cultivation that's far more challenging.<br /><br />(on a side note, Brad, did you just admit to playing this game on Easy? I beat it 100% on default/normal without even dying. It's not hard in the least.)<br /><br /><br />In the interest of full disclosure, I did write the official strategy guide for Nier and, for me, doing all of the side quests, particularly the fishing ones, was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. The very first time I played it, I grabbed the rod and immediately set to fishing right next to the dock with the old man like so many others naturally do. I soon realized my problem and switched to the beach by the lighthouse and solved my problem.<br /><br />The fishing system was very much a paper-rock-scissors type of game. Which bait do you use to catch which fish and where, then use that fish to catch to catch bigger fish (usually) and so on and so forth. I especially enjoyed that not all freshwater locations had the same fish and not all saltwater spots did either.<br /><br />The trickiest thing in the entire game is collecting the 10 pink moonflower seeds for one of the quests. Chances are if you don't use a guide you're not going go figure it out.<br /><br />Then again, those of you who blast through games just to check them off a list probably won't spend a minute doing the more enjoyable parts of the game anyway.Doug Walshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09492162192250783305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-55167225069792272012010-08-25T11:53:17.270-07:002010-08-25T11:53:17.270-07:00I actually did turn the minimap off (ironically, r...I actually <i>did</i> turn the minimap off (ironically, right before I went into Seafront) because I thought it was unhelpful and intrusive. I acknowledge that if I'd had it on I would have seen the X in a different place, but again, I might not have bothered to look at the minimap since the instructions seemed to so obviously point towards the beach that's immediately adjacent. That's on the localization team, not the devs, though. Would it have been so hard to have the guy tell you to go fish in the cove on the other side of the lighthouse?<br /><br />And, to be clear, I think quitting <i>Nier</i> because of the fishing is a <i>bad</i> idea because you'll miss some amazing stuff. I just think it's <i>understandable</i> to ragequit there after you catch your third extremely active bucket.Sparkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444352252473400411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-65221895916641583532010-08-25T11:44:40.393-07:002010-08-25T11:44:40.393-07:00Holy cow, please forgive all of the typos and miss...Holy cow, please forgive all of the typos and misspellings. YIKES.<br />That's what I get for trying to type out a sizable response in a rush...<br /><br />Brandon> I watch only 0/1 hours of TV per day. Frees up a lot of game time. = )Brad Gallawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09452185302281177580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-84652209399028061322010-08-25T11:21:58.408-07:002010-08-25T11:21:58.408-07:00I have a deep love for you, Brad.
One question, t...I have a deep love for you, Brad.<br /><br />One question, though, that has begged an answer for many moons:<br /><br />Where do you find the time to complete so many games?!<br /><br />I am astounded, jealous, and envious.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11054140046688650395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-76483265147660183442010-08-25T09:19:25.612-07:002010-08-25T09:19:25.612-07:00>>>The in-game instructions about how and...>>>The in-game instructions about how and where to fish are useless, and if you start fishing in the wrong place using the wrong technique what happens is that you lose every fish as soon as it's hooked, so you can't even figure out what you're doing wrong.<br /><br />I totally agree with this. The instructions are terrible and the mechanics are equally bad. I'm in no way trying to excuse the fishing minigame, as I found it pretty wretched myself. <br /><br />>>>You mention the map, but the problem with that is, why would you look at the map? What about the fishing minigame suggests that the map would provide valuable information? The man says, fish from the beach. Conveniently, the beach is right next to him. Sure, there's another beach, but it belongs to the same ocean so why would you suspect they are different?<br /><br />Well, like I said above, unless the player turns the mini map off in the options, I’m 99.9% sure that the default is for the mini map to be in the corner, and that giant red X I mentioned should be a pretty good indicator that the player is in the wrong area. I'm not able to check in-game right now so pardon me if I miss remembering, but I'm pretty sure that's how it is. <br /><br />>>>The fishing minigame is pretty bad, it's explained in a way that is pretty likely to make the player fail at it repeatedly, and it stands as a completely nonsensical roadblock to further enjoying the game. Given that the game up to that point is basically a breeze, that could easily be frustrating enough to kick the disc. You came into this with two advantages: the availability of FAQs and the foreknowledge that this part might be trouble. You can't discount the importance of the latter (although second-wave players often do), because it allows you to deal with the fishing as "oh, it's that tough spot I read about" instead of "why is this not working OMGWTFBBQ!11!1!"<br /><br />That's very true and I concede the point, but I would counter by saying that in the normal course of playing the game, I quickly learned to use the map to orient myself, and as an extension, I learned to always buy the maps. I also learned that for every important quest, the game usually try to give me into what I needed to do. Even if I had never heard of the fishing issue beforehand, the natural course of events (for me, by keeping most of the game defaults on and following the natural style that the games seem to suggest) would have led me to the correct spot on the beach and awarded me the fish after a few failures, which is exactly what happened.<br /><br />I can understand that experience will not be the same for everyone, but the general reaction seemed so out of proportion and so overblown that it felt as though I needed to say something. Nier has been such an overwhelmingly positive experience so far that this entire fishing issue has completely drowned out everything that it does right, and that didn't seem in any way appropriate.Brad Gallawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09452185302281177580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-29995466249249598342010-08-25T09:16:32.626-07:002010-08-25T09:16:32.626-07:00Jeff and Sparky> I’ll just respond to the both ...Jeff and Sparky> I’ll just respond to the both of you guys at the same time, for expediency's sake…. I’ve got three minutes before I need to get out the door here. ^_^<br /><br />>>>On the other hand, GameFAQs is a privilege, not a right. Reviewers often have to write a review prior to release so they don't have that luxury. And not everyone has internet. Most do, but not all. Others like me consider it cheating and stubbornly refuse to look stuff up with rare exceptions. So I can understand the hate behind the misdirection. I've certainly been held up for stupider things myself.<br /><br />I can certainly relate about not having constant access to GameFAQs or message boards for help. I had a similar situation myself in Etrian Odyssey III where I was stuck to the point that I was actually thinking the game had some kind of programming error. Luckily, a quick e-mail to the publisher resolved the issue and all was well. <br /><br />That said, if the choice is between asking for help and dinging the game in the review (unless there's absolutely no help to be found, which I see as a bit of a rare circumstance) or completely writing the game off and then publicly castigating it, I think a serious review or would probably choose the former. <br /><br />>>>Also, that infamous Nier video was made by friend of BRP, Justin McElroy. He was on our cast once talking about review scores of all things. In his defense, I can understand his frustration (he probably had no FAQ) and after lots of criticism for that video he did try going back to the game. He didn't like it for other reasons (one of which being that he couldn't tell how much damage he was doing to the boar, though you can enable enemy health bars in the options menu. Sigh) like that room in the sand temple where you can't run, but at least he gave it a fare shake. I could understand these criticisms, but none of these things held me up for more than a few min in my playthrough. Maybe I just got lucky. Or maybe Nier fucking rocks.<br /><br />The point I would raise here is that (IIRC) the game auto-enables the minimap unless the player turns it off the menus. If McElroy had left that function enabled (and really, why would you turn it off?) He would have at least seem that he was in the wrong place whether he had purchased the map or not. Like you mentioned earlier, the game awards the fish to the player (not only on Easy, apparently) so long as he had been in the right place, the entire “ordeal” would have been over in three or four minutes. <br />As a reviewer, there have been a million times but I've been frustrated to the point of anger over something in a game, but it's pretty rare that I will completely discount an entire game over something that (in fairness) is an extremely short, one-time segment.Brad Gallawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09452185302281177580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-59815090439816309582010-08-25T05:51:34.896-07:002010-08-25T05:51:34.896-07:00I don't agree about the fishing. If you want t...I don't agree about the fishing. If you want to quit because of that, fine; the devs (or the localization team) didn't do their job. The existence of an FAQ is <i>never</i> an excuse for bad instructions in game. I can only imagine the apoplectic fit you would have if a game came out that had been intentionally designed to give you bad information so that you could only progress if you owned a strategy guide. The in-game instructions about how and where to fish are <i>useless</i>, and if you start fishing in the wrong place using the wrong technique what happens is that you lose every fish as soon as it's hooked, so you can't even figure out what you're doing wrong.<br /><br />You mention the map, but the problem with that is, why would you look at the map? What about the fishing minigame suggests that the map would provide valuable information? The man says, fish from the beach. Conveniently, the beach is <i>right next to him</i>. Sure, there's another beach, but it belongs to the same ocean so why would you suspect they are different?<br /><br />The fishing minigame is pretty bad, it's explained in a way that is pretty likely to make the player fail at it repeatedly, and it stands as a completely nonsensical roadblock to further enjoying the game. Given that the game up to that point is basically a breeze, that could easily be frustrating enough to kick the disc. <i>You</i> came into this with two advantages: the availability of FAQs and <i>the foreknowledge that this part might be trouble</i>. You can't discount the importance of the latter (although second-wave players often do), because it allows you to deal with the fishing as "oh, it's that tough spot I read about" instead of "why is this not working OMGWTFBBQ!11!1!"Sparkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444352252473400411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4625171860671748699.post-49841061323789674232010-08-25T02:07:41.743-07:002010-08-25T02:07:41.743-07:00Oh man, my girlfriend actually LIKES the fishing i...Oh man, my girlfriend actually LIKES the fishing in Nier. Okay, maybe "likes" is a bit strong, but she felt compelled to do all the fishing sidequests and said it wasn't that bad once you get good bait and upgrade a little.<br /><br />You also don't have to be on easy for it to give you the fish. I believe it takes more strike-outs on normal, but it'll do the same provided you're at the right spot.<br /><br />On the other hand, GameFAQs is a privilege, not a right. Reviewers often have to write a review prior to release so they don't have that luxury. And not everyone has internet. Most do, but not all. Others like me consider it cheating and stubbornly refuse to look stuff up with rare exceptions. So I can understand the hate behind the misdirection. I've certainly been held up for stupider things myself.<br /><br />Also, that infamous Nier video was made by friend of BRP, Justin McElroy. He was on our cast once talking about review scores of all things. In his defense, I can understand his frustration (he probably had no FAQ) and after lots of criticism for that video he did try going back to the game. He didn't like it for other reasons (one of which being that he couldn't tell how much damage he was doing to the boar, though you can enable enemy health bars in the options menu. Sigh) like that room in the sand temple where you can't run, but at least he gave it a fare shake. I could understand these criticisms, but none of these things held me up for more than a few min in my playthrough. Maybe I just got lucky. Or maybe Nier fucking rocks.Mr Durand Pierrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14942907377044744031noreply@blogger.com