334 réponses à ce sujet

[Bryy_Miller]

I think Mario is a vastly superior side scroller to Sonic the Hedgehog.

[astrallite]

I think Duke Nukem is a vastly superior side scroller to Mario.

[purplesunset]

My tastes are unpopular so I doubt anyone at Bioware even heard of this game, let alone play it: Amber:Journeys Beyond.

Now I have said many times before that the most important thing for me in  a game is atmosphere, which leads to immersion. I want to be taken away to another world. If a game does that for me, it would stick with me permanently. It would be added to the boiling cauldron of my subconscious mind, and will forever resurface in my dreams. (Yeah, I know how that sounds, but I do the same thing with my favorite books, music that strikes a chord within me, new theories in physics/mathematics etc.)


How was Amber atmospheric?  Was it the flashy spell effects, dynamic lighting, or  glossy textures? No.

Its atmosphere was a combination of:

Pacing: There was a slow build, but behind every action you took, there was ever a pervasive fear that perhaps you did the wrong thing. That perhaps you aroused something that would have been better left alone. In Dragon Age, the pacing came to complete halt after the Ostagar battle.  It  turned into a neverwinter nights style "There's darkspawn about. Go to the four corners of the world and get help....err...when you feel like it."  This killed the immersion for me, for it is such an artificial  game mechanic limitation.For me, there was no sense of impending doom at this point . Even though the characters talked about doom, their words felt flat and empty because ultimately, I could go to the "four corners of the earth" whenever I wanted to, and in my own time. The story essentially came to halt, and waited for me. I think they could have circumvented this death of pacing by making it even more pressing to the reader (at that point right after Ostagar), how the order in which they proceeded would have consequences.

Sounds and music (or lack of sound): You know how squeaky floors or creaking doors become seemingly louder when you're trying to be quiet? In Amber, every sound you make is given this quality. This puts you on edge, and it adds to the sense that you're the intruder (which consequently  added to the immmersion). The music in Amber came from a radio at one point and it was used to bring certain scenes alive. this is the best way to use music in a game. Instead of just being in the background, the music should become as important a part of the scene as any other non-prop such as furniture, trees, buildings etc. The music in DA was non-descript, which is surprising given how much I gush like a schoolgirl about Inon Zur's music in the Icewind Dale series (My favorite music in any game is in the town of Targos in IWD2).  Instead of being there to bring a specific scene alive, the characterless music in DA seemed to have been added to the scene after the fact and wasn't essential at all.

The Intangible:  Now this one is the most difficult to explain, and might be 100% subjective. However, it is essential for me. Amber has a character. A distinct "soul" so to speak. The games which I consider to be the most immersive all have this distinct character or soul. Baldur's gate 1 had it and it felt very different from the "character" of BG 2.  (Which would probably explain why some people prefer one game clearly over the other). The Witcher has a very distinct character especially if you play with the Polish language and english subtitles. The early chapters from LOTR concerning the Shire have a distinct and very different character from the later chapters in Return of the king. What is it that add to a game's character? I think has to do with the sum of its parts. Everything from the font style they chose, to the voice actors, to the music, to the art direction, to the type of humor, to the absence or presence of floating damage numbers, to the design of the clothing, and armor, to the atmospheric sounds (especially bugs, and birds), to the interface. All these things combine together and give a game a distinct character. For me, Dragon age didn't do so well in this area. There wasn't any one strong, cohesive character that brought everything together. "The parts" overshadowed "the sum," so to speak.

Modifié par purplesunset, 09 avril 2010 - 09:17 .

[Fredericol]

Oh... its a 360 game, was wondering why I hadn't heard of it...



This is also the reason it doesn't intrest me

[Daerog]

An RPG I have fond memories of... for some odd reason...

Golden Sun.

Now if BW can make a DA game for a handheld and make it as fun as Golden Sun, then I'll have to go buy a handheld.

[Hulk Hsieh]

Wasn't LO made by famous ex-FF producer, who hasn't got any project worth noting after LO possibly because the sales is quite bad?

[Raycer X]

DaerogTheDhampir wrote...

An RPG I have fond memories of... for some odd reason...
Golden Sun.
Now if BW can make a DA game for a handheld and make it as fun as Golden Sun, then I'll have to go buy a handheld.

If Bioware could do something like that for the DS or PSP, then that would be a day 1 purchase in my books.

[Wyndham711]

Hulk Hsieh wrote...


Wasn't LO made by famous ex-FF producer, who hasn't got any project worth noting after LO possibly because the sales is quite bad?

Yes, Lost Odyssey was done by Mistwalker, lead by Hironobu Sakaguchi. However, as far as we know, only one Mistwalker project has been canned (Cry On) and they have released several DS games after Lost Odyssey, and are currently working on a classic style JRPG for the Wii, called the Last Story.

[Terra_Ex]

Well, Lost Oddysey was self-defeating in that the dream sequences were far more endearing and well written than the main plot, so its probably not the best one to study (unless you intentionally want to make a jarringly disjointed game). Personally I'd suggest Way of the Samurai 1, if only to see how to make a game world/storyline that does actually react dynamically to the way you play, allowing you to double/triple cross people mid-cutscene and completely change the course of the game.

[LightPhoenix]

Lost Odyssey was a total mess and probably not the best example of where Bioware could draw inspiration from a JRPG. This is especially true for the combat difficulty, which can best be described as grindingly easy punctuated by a few gotcha battles that were absurdly difficult. Not my idea of fun at all.



If I were to choose a JRPG Bioware could draw inspiration from, it would be something like Lufia or Suikoden. Of course, those are story-heavy JRPGs, so no surprise there. An honest answer would be either Wild Arms or Vandal Hearts. The former because it had a lot of exploration, as well as a non-combat "Tools" system that mixed up dungeon design and exploration. The latter because it's the perfect example, IMO, of a tactical game whose goals were rarely ever "kill everyone." Also the story rocked.

[thegreateski]

DaerogTheDhampir wrote...

An RPG I have fond memories of... for some odd reason...
Golden Sun.
Now if BW can make a DA game for a handheld and make it as fun as Golden Sun, then I'll have to go buy a handheld.

I don't get it.

Is it possible NOT to like Golden Sun?

Ah, it would appear that you and I were thinking of two completely different games.

Modifié par thegreateski, 09 avril 2010 - 01:17 .

[JHorwath]

I didn't like Lost Odyssey.  I borrowed the game from a friend and got bored with it.  The only thing I liked was when there would be a story told and the background changed as the text appeared on the screen.  I would hope BioWare would continue to roll along and make the games they want.  If their upcoming released resembled games like Lost Odyssey I probably wouldn't buy them.

[xCobalt]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Okay, how is it better? 

When comparing it to DA's Rune system, Rings have a much more noticeable impact. When I look at the Rune system, I feel it's something that's just tacked on. If that feature was taken away, I probably wouldn't even notice it. Top level runes simply don't have enough impact. +5 elemental damage is hardly noticeable  and I personally didn't even use resistance runes. There are features in DA that overshadow the rune system. Abilities and weapon enhancement spells make damaging runes obsolete. The useful healing spells that are in the game also make resistance runes obsolete. Now, I'm not saying the entire Rune system is pointless, it just doesn't have the impact that rings have.

Stanley Woo wrote...
Where is the "ring" system's depth?

 

I have not played Awakenings so I do not know how much depth there is to the Runecrafting system but in LO, ring crafting is a very rewarding experience. You are able to craft rings by simply purchasing some ingredients from merchants or loot that comes from monsters. In addition to this, you can combine other rings to have additional effects. Most of all, you don't have to throw away something you worked hard to make. For example, if you decided to put time into making a certain ring that would be extremely useful to you but only to find out that it's losing its value after time. No need to worry because you'll be able to use that ring as an ingredient for an even more powerful ring. Rings can do numerous things from adding elemental damage, more damage to certain enemies, status afflictions, absorb HP/MP, and more.

Stanley Woo wrote...
How do rings make "a notable difference" and where does it make that difference?

 
I just mentioned that rings have numerous effects and these rings can turn the tide of battle. If you're having problems with a boss (or any kind of enemy) and you're constantly dying. What if you could use rings to help you defeat it? What if this enemy was a classified as a Beast...what if it's using a lot of fire-oriented spells (or has fire spewing out of its body). Why not equip a ring that does extra damage to beasts and has a water element to it? For some more insurance lets have this ring give you an extra chance to do a critical hit. This ring will really help  your physical attackers.

In addition to this, there is a reticule system that will give you a bonus to damage if done right.
www.youtube.com/watch
At 1:10 you can see what I'm talking about.

Stanley Woo wrote...
How is the "ring" system "critical to progress?"

 
Rings are useful if you're having trouble but it's definitely not a mandatory thing to progress through the game. You can describe a ring as your second weapon if you prefer

Stanley Woo wrote...
What does spellcasting have to do with the rings?

 
It doesn't affect magic. It only applies to the physical attackers. 

Stanley Woo wrote...
How is tem positiong "vital", and what is it vital to, and how does this involve the rings?

 

The feature doesn't involve rings but it is something you have to consider for combat. There are basically two rows. Front and back. The back row will be able to resist physical attacks. However, they are susceptible to ranged attacks.

For example, say you have 3 characters in the front row with a total hp of 1000. This 1000 hp translates to 1000 'armor'. Not the exact term for it but it will suffice. If an enemy decides to go directly for your healers/spellcasters with 1000 armor, they're not gonna do much. If they decide to weaken your front row to say 500hp total, they'll do much more damage to your back row. Healing your front row will not increase your armor but there are spells to increase your armor if you really need it. This system also applies to enemies. You might have a boss that resides in the back row while there half a dozen little minions in the front row trying to defend their leader. 

Stanley Woo wrote..
How are Lost Odyssey's enemies "very original in terms of design?" Are you speaking strictly in combat, graphically, or story-wise?

 

Graphically, yes. These enemies are very unique looking, some you might even call them weird. Not sure what you mean by story-wise in terms of design.

Stanley Woo wrote..
You're implying over 60 distinct strengths and weaknesses for rank-and-file, regular creatures encountered during gameplay. Is this accurate? "Force players to think" how? What abilities and tactics are used/required?

 
I wouldn't go as far and say all the enemies have distinct strengths and weaknesses. I will say this feature is more prominent in LO than it is DA. Of course, in both games you can simply go through some enemies without any strategy whatsoever. With LO, you could mistakenly heal the enemy or even make them stronger if you aren't careful. With DA, I don't really recall ever making any fatal mistakes. With most bosses, I just kept attacking. In terms of combat, DA never really made me think.

Stanley Woo wrote..
I daresay that Dragon Age may have far more than 8 "optional bosses," if you include all of our game's side quests and light content and if you assume our definition of "bosses" is the same. But aside from that, does all of these extra hidden/optional content mean Lost Odyssey is better, or simply more?

 
My definition of a boss is something that posses a challenge. I can only think of a few optional bosses in DA that actually pose a challenge. Probably the two optional dragon bosses. I'm looking through the Dragon age wikia and they classify some bosses as Bears and Revenants (based on the colour of the name). Which I disagree completely. They provided no challenge whatsoever and simply had more hp than other enemies. 

I believe LO has more story-line and optional bosses. Stanley, if you're able to give me a concrete list of bosses in DA, I'm sure i could provide a longer list of bosses in LO.

Modifié par xCobalt, 09 avril 2010 - 03:30 .

[Upper_Krust]

Lots of replies to get through so bear with me.

TheMadCat wrote...
Business: Simplicity sells, plain and simple. The more complex something is the further you pull away from the casual crowd.

This to me is where Dragon Ages variable Difficulty Levels should really be put to use. Should easy be a cake-walk, yes. But upping the difficulty should be more than just more hit points and higher damage for monsters. They could easily make combat choices incredibly important for hard and nightmare difficulties.

The combat and stat development systems of DA:O are indeed simplistic and shallow when comparing it to other games in it's field. And it was intentionally done for several reasons...

Purpose: Combat, even though it's been harder to see as of late, has never been the primary focus of a BioWare game rather a necessity required by the medium they develop on. They do what they can to keep it interesting, but it's never been deep or incredibly thought out.

Exactly and in trying to appeal to the broadest spectrum of gamers they should put a bit more thought behind it.

Being new: This is a system pretty much made from scratch trying to seperate itself from what it's initally birthed from, the D&D system. Over time it will develop itself out naturally as they have more time and gain more experience and have a better understanding on what direction they want to take it.

The irony being that it carries over the flaws of 3rd Edition D&D. I suggest taking a few glances at 4th Edition might help in future.

There are tons of game that have better systems for combat, character development, things like rune crafting, ect. But just because a system is better doesn't mean it's the best way to go, every product requires different levels of complexity and style to suit it's needs. DA:O's system suits it's need just fine, some tweaking and a bit more depth perhaps but for what it needed to do it was solid.

It seems to me what you are saying is that you shouldn't improve the game, this just seems a bit bizarre to me.

Can Dragon Age be improved. Yes. So lets improve it.

Hard to comment on since I have no knowledge of Lost Odyssey, I'd bet my car though that it's enemies aren't as originally designed as you may think.

I'm an RPG (pnp) Designer, and if I have a speciality its monster design. I think I know a little about the subject. I'm not saying Lost Odyssey has the best designed monsters ever. But they are well designed, and while many draw upon staple JRPG subsets (Kelolons look a lot like Tonberry's for instance) they are numerous and varied enough that the full roster has enough originality within it to feel fresh. Not only are many visually original/arresting, but mechanically also.

Contrast that with Dragon Age and you can point out the original monster designs on one hand, or arguably, one finger...the broodmother.

I think Lost Odyssey even holds up far better than Final Fantasy XIII in terms of monster/boss design (I have studied both games at length)...and there are no bigger studios than Square-Enix, so thats quite an achievement.

But this is sort of a tie in to the points I made with the combat, familiarity breeds comfort and comfort breeds sales.

Unfortunately the flipside to that is familiarity breeds contempt. At this stage I find it difficult to get excited by YET ANOTHER Hurlock battle.

This would also fall under the need for added depth in the combat, more varied enemies with a wider range of unique strengths, weaknsses, special abilities, ect.

Not just a wider range, but also importantly defining characteristics which force players to make choices which matter. The degree of importance can be balanced for each Difficulty Level, so easy can still be easy.

I don't know, I'd say there is plenty of optional stuff in DA:O. Sidequests, characters and little stories, a few locations with a few housing bosses and such, two areans though each are quite short. I'm not sure what they could do here that puts it so high above DA:O.

EIGHT optional bosses. Seven of which are NEW monster models. That speaks volumes and isn't even counting the other secret stuff.

Ultimately though your four points all seem to revolve around one general point, and that's combat. As I said the combat for DA:O did what it needed to do. Did it do with in some super fashion? No, but that's where BioWare put's it's primary focus. Overtime the system will improve, but it will never be the chief selling point of their games.

Q: Do Bioware want to improve Dragon Age and if so, what areas have the most room for improvement?
A: Combat 

[Harcken]

Any Obsidian game, probably KOTOR II. The writing and gray area morality of the majority of Obsidian games is simply phenomenal (not to say Bioware's writing isn't good, but sometimes it can be way too black and white, more in Mass Effect than DA:O).

The Witcher for the way the levels are designed and the story progresses. In DA:O, everything, even Denerim, felt incredibly tiny. In the Witcher, the game is split into multiple acts and each act has a few central hubs, most are fairly large and give you the feeling of being in an actual city or jungle (not a hallway). They should also look to CD Projekt for great customer service. When the Witcher first came out, it had very long load times, and some nasty bugs; akin to DA:O and Awakenings, respectively. However, in a few months, large patches came out, fixing bugs and adding fun and meaningful DLC , and later CD Projekt entirely fixed the loading problems and improved upon the original Witcher quite a bit. All these DLC packs and the enhancement patch were offered free to original owners.

Like the OP said, really any JRPG or World of Warcraft for bosses. In DA:O the majority of bosses for me were hack n slash and tank n spank, with one gimmick move, that really didn't change the tide of battle. Bosses that move around, enter different stages, and come equipped with unique moves that forces you to think on your feet is what I enjoy most. Again, World of Warcraft is probably the prime example here, minus all the grinding and on a much smaller scale.

Modifié par Harcken, 09 avril 2010 - 03:53 .

[Upper_Krust]

[quote]Adfero wrote...

The ring system in Lost Odyssey did not make that vast a difference, sure they could make some fights easier but in no way are they critical to progress in the game. [/quote]

In your opinion, are the Rings more important to progess in Lost Odyssey than the Runes in Dragon Age Origins?

[quote]Now skills you had your Immortals learn, they are vital to progress.

"Team positioning"? There isn't any really besides having your meat shields in the front so the defense wall formed protected your back row. Fighters in front/caster at the back is not remotely a new concept used in the game.[/quote]

I noticed there was a bit more to it than that due to Guard Counter, variable team line-ups, also you had monsters which scrambled the party order so it wasn't as meat and potatoes as the front and back row typically is in such games.

[quote]I agree, there is a lot of monsters and monster types and it wasn't until nearer the end of the game you saw reuses of older monsters again. That was mostly as you didn't revisit many areas until nearer the end of the game anyway.[/quote]

For a game roughly the same length as Dragon Age it EASILY has double the amount of monster types, thats not even counting 24 bosses, 22 of which are unique.

[quote]Every (almost every?) enemy which was ranked Orange to you in DA:O is a boss to be frank.[/quote]
 
True, but the difference between a boss fight in Dragon Age and a Boss fight in Lost Odyssey is the difference between night and day. In Dragon Age, players could dispatch a boss without even realising they were fighting a boss! To be honest, with a few exceptions (Uldred, Broodmother) the only real boss fights in Dragon Age are the big dragons.

[quote]Although not wholly unique there was a lot more of them in DA:O [/quote]

As I recall there are 30 'bosses' in Dragon Age of which one model is unique. Not that I am wholly against the approach of using a monster as a boss, then later encountering it as lesser monsters (as with the Ogre, which I thought was an excellent boss in DAO). Or the notion of using humanoid characters (Loghain, Branka, Jarvia etc.) as bosses.

But DAO had about 30 monster models including the bosses, LO has at least 82 such models.

Added to which the difference between a boss and a standard monster in DAO was simply statistical. There were no new tactics, powers or defenses involved.

[quote]and some, if not most, as is the majority of the game based on tactical encounters.[/quote]

Yet for a game based on tactical encounters its a rare thing for the player to actually need to change their tactics.

[quote]In a game like LO and FF you don't get the chance to think on the fly. Yo prepare for the boss beforehand or you get to reload after you lose.[/quote]

In fairness, the new Final Fantasy does have realtime combat. But point taken.

[quote]The only thing in LO you could do on the fly was change your equipped ring and accessory. While handy, it doesn't help against the boss that can freeze your entire party if you have not learned the freeze immunity and taught it to others before then.[/quote]

The game can throw up challenging situations but often each has multiple solutions, so even if everyone doesn't have anti-freeze they may have the warm vest. Added to which freezing isn't a permanent effect anyway.

[quote]Only one was tougher than the final boss, and that was the one in the arena you mentioned. The others were challenging, but by no means harder than the last boss.[/quote]

Well, lets just say there are a handful in and around the power of the final boss. Whether a specific gamer found one harder or easier might vary on a given playthrough.

[quote]DA:O has plently of optional quests, hidden clues in codex entries and items and boss fight.[/quote]

It doesn't have EIGHT optional boss fights of which SIX are wholly new models. Nor does it have 30 variant/new optional monsters in the game.

At a stretch you could say Dragon Age has 6 optional bosses of which all are variants and none present any new powers or tactical challenges.

[quote]DA:O also has DLC too as you are aware, and it is a far sight more in depth than what LO was offering to theirs which did not enchance the story at all. A few nice extra trinkets, but that was it.[/quote]

Certainly in the area of DLC (which as you know was not a point I raised*), Dragon Age is superior, but you certainly can't count DLC as secrets in the game.

[quote]I politely disagree.[/quote]

Though interestingly you did agree with many of my specific points.

[Upper_Krust]

Hollingdale wrote...

I really have to agree that Dragon Age never was very difficult which is quite a shame in the battles that are actually hard you tend to die due to unfortunate cc chains or because the enemies nuke one your characters while youre chopping darkspawn with your twohander looking to score phat crits since combat most of the time is a breeze.

In other words, when you die its because you werent paying attention imo, but luckily the difficulty can be tuned although even Insanity can often be trivial for many players.

Lost Odyssey on the other hand can be genuinely difficult, in a stupid and frustrating way I remember playing it and being forced to grind exp because I couldnt beat bosses even after learning them thoroughly.

Neither game is perfect in the difficulty aspect but Dragon Age Origins at least lets you choose difficulty making it in my opinion superior, having to stop grinding to beat a stupid boss when you just want to see the story progress is dull to say the least.

I would definately agree that a variable difficulty system is the preference of choice for these games. So in that respect Dragon Age is superior. That said, I don't think Dragon Age really makes the most of its difficulty levels.

Lost Odyssey is more a hardcore gamers game, but that doesn't mean we cannot learn from it and adopt its strengths (while avoiding its weaknesses).

Before I say that you are right in stating that Lost Odyssey has much more varied enemy and boss design let's not forget that in lost Odyssey you have to watch the main characters strut in horribly designed costumes that you can't do anything about.

I think 'horribly designed' is a tad unfair.

It's kind of irrelevant though since
you most certainly still is right in stating that Lost Odyssey has more varied enemy and boss design, there's really no excuse for the lack of variety in Dragon Age, there should be more enemies.

Agreed.

And you are also right in saying that Lost Odessey has more optional difficult bosses but you can't really use that as point against Dragon Age for it instead contains more story related side quest.

I'd go along with that comparison.

Here the games are merely different and I personally prefer Dragon Age as it allways struck me as silly to grind my characters until they reach some kind of super saiyan level in order to beat extremely powerful but nonetheless absurd bosses. It simply doesn't seem believable, even in a fantasy world. Indeed many JRPG's more resemble shounen mangas in this aspect.

Yet there are many DAO gamers against Level Scaling in general because its LESS believable.

Also as regards the ring versus runecrafting system, it's simply not a fair comparison. As I recall rings take up a much larger part of Lost Odyssey's equipment system than runes do Dragon Age's. It would be better to simply compare the entire equipment and leveling systems against each other in which case I vager that Dragon Age would come out on top in terms of complexity containing much more equipment and rather than having set stats letting you customise the attributes of your characters.

Certainly I would say Dragon Age is superior in character customisation. I think the equipment question is debateable though.

But it was a while since I played Lost Odyssey and perhaps I missunderstand you. Maybe you also mean the timing thingy that you use to boost your attacks in combat? Where you hold a button down and release it as two circles meet.

If that is the case I do however argue that timing ones abilities can be equally important in Dragon Age, just not in the same way.

This brings me back to a point I raised earlier in this thread wherein the choices you make in DAO are of much less importance (than LO).

Furthermore lost Odyssey's combat is extremely slow and often very very tedious. I would go as far as to say that it's a rather poor combat system even for a JRPG (and that's even though I like how you learn abilities similarly to FFIX).

I agree that it can be slow, loading times don't help either. But I think it has a depth that DAO lacks.

There are more interesting combat systems, that of FFX-2 (although I really hate the game I have to admit the combat is brilliant), and that of FFXIII or heck even Tales Of Symphonias real time battles.

I never played FFX-2, just getting into FFXIII, its problem seems to be the long learning curve (I've read that the first half of the game is a glorified tutorial for the combat).

[xCobalt]

I'd just like to add that LO is one of the few JRPGs that tries to deviate from the whole grinding thing. For most of the game, you're not really underlevelled nor 'super saiyan' as someone pointed out earlier. Every time you go to a new area, you receive large bonuses to exp gain if you're under leveled for that area but receive little to no exp if you're over leveled.

[Dorifto25]

If you want a good game, play WoW

[Challseus]

In my opinion, the ring system turned into one big cluster f**k at the end. I just didn't care about them anymore. I just wanted to get on with the story. Then again, I've never been into crafting aspects of RPG's, so my opinion may be skewed.

Here are my favorite aspects of Lost Odyssey:

- the aforementioned emtional cutscenes

- the music. Seriously, Nobuo Uematsu's been doing this since like 1985, and I was skeptical he still had it, yet he knocked it out of the park. Can't blame Dragon Age's composer for not living up to those standards

- the "Thousand Years of Dreams" thing.

[AlanC9]

I'm not a huge fan of gear being any more important than it already was in DA. Crafted or found, it's all the same to me.

[Upper_Krust]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that western RPGs and JRPGs are very different creatures and take Upper-Krust's comments individually, because I have a few things I'd like clarified. Let's also leave aside the "considering things in isolation" argument, since any game is a sum of its parts first. Only once the whole is experienced can each part be analyzed. That said, this analysis is done with two games of comparable length, gameplay, and "epic-ness" (I assume, since I haven't played Lost Odyssey).

Fire away Stanley.

Okay, how is it better? Where is the "ring" system's depth? How is it "vastly superior?" How do rings make "a notable difference" and where does it make that difference? How is the "ring" system "critical to progress?" What does spellcasting have to do with the rings? How is tem positiong "vital", and what is it vital to, and how does this involve the rings?

Not only is there "quite a lot [you're] leaving out," but you don't even begin to describe this "far more intelligent system of checks and balances." What is checking or balancing what? And where do the rings fit in?

Put very simply, player choices matter more (in Lost Odyssey). This is something I have mentioned previously, but you are totally correct to ask for clarity.

Are individual components "critical"? Also as noted that may have been an exaggeration on my part. But my distinct impression of both games (and anyone who has played both feel free to comment on this) is that choices are more important to combat in Lost Odyssey.

Now the questions become, should choice be important, and if so, how important? As others have commented (and I agree with them), Lost Odyssey is a hard game. Imagine if Dragon Age was stuck on Nightmare difficulty. Thats a flaw and it would undoubtedly alienate a massive chunk of the audience. However, victory over a difficult challenge is ever more rewarding than an easy challenge.

But the key (for me) is in how this game sets out its difficulty. Its much less to do with statistics (as per Dragon Age) and much more to do with player choices. For instance in Dragon Age, with a few exceptions (the big Dragons) just simply attacking an enemy with your best weapon/ability/spell will win 99% of the time. The higher the difficulty level, the more you have to min/max, but ultimately the same tactics will work time and time again.

In Lost Odyssey, you can't get away with using the same tactics. The choices you make are more important, thus make too many bad choices and you'll get punished. The game throws up not just a variety of enemies, but also a variety of interesting encounter set-ups where who you attack, when you attack them and in what order is also very important.

Heres a very quick example. Boss #6: Rough Queen. You encounter the Rough Queen with a retinue of Rough Eaters (weird looking subterranean enemies that look a bit like armoured flightless birds with oversized pteradactyl heads). The queen can use her pheromones to change one of the Rough Eaters into a frenzied state (whereupon it deals FAR more damage), but the others become jealous and attack it. Additionally the queen herself has a very powerful petrification ability, but she prioritises replacing fallen Rough Eaters over that attack. So we have a situation where who, where and when you attack can be the difference between success and failure. Theres a dynamism to the tactics I don't see enough of in DAO.

How are Lost Odyssey's enemies "very original in terms of design?" Are you speaking strictly in combat, graphically, or story-wise?

All of the above. As noted previously, I'm not saying every LO enemy is original visually, mechanically (combat) or in terms of story. But many of them are, and theres enough diversity within the list to be impressed with it.

And what are these "strengths and weaknesses" you're describing? You're implying over 60 distinct strengths and weaknesses for rank-and-file, regular creatures encountered during gameplay. Is this accurate?

I think so. You see, Lost Odyssey's monsters are designed based around various TYPEs (10 different) and ELEMENTs (5 different). Each of these brings up various strengths and weaknesses (the aforementioned checks and balances in the game). Then of course you have to factor in the rare enemies which change type or element or actually have multiple phases/parts with multiple types/elements. So there are a potential 50+ distinct variables for the basic enemies.

Thats even before taking account of individual powers and abilities a given monster might have. Or specifics to a given encounter set-up.

"Force players to think" how? What abilities and tactics are used/required?

This takes us back again to the point about the consequences of player choice. Lost Odyssey rewards players for making the right choices and punishes them for making the wrong choices. That doesn't mean the game doesn't offer any latitude, of course it does, otherwise there would only ever be one way to win.

I daresay that Dragon Age may have far more than 8 "optional bosses," if you include all of our game's side quests and light content and if you assume our definition of "bosses" is the same.

I calculated 6 optional bosses for DAO (using Bioware's definition). I admit I could be wrong on that, I'll happily defer on the matter if someone believes there are more.

Though I think Bioware's definition of the term is something of a stretch in many cases.

But aside from that, does all of these extra hidden/optional content mean Lost Odyssey is better, or simply more?

Well whats the first thing a Dragon Age fan asks for...MOAR! So clearly more (even if of the same) is better than less.

But I think the larger picture here boils down to two things. Choices should matter and variety is more interesting. 

You've mentioned a lot of things, but have in no way described how they are "vastly superior" to Dragon Age, except to state that they are.

I have tried to do so above without getting pedantic. I'll be happy enough to go over any specifics you wish.

[Upper_Krust]

Can I just add a big thank you to xCobalt, I read the comments in order replying to those specifically asking me questions. Only when I got up to date did I realise you had answered most of the key points already and far more concisely and informatively than I managed.

[Adfero]

[quote]Upper_Krust wrote...

In your opinion, are the Rings more important to progess in Lost Odyssey than the Runes in Dragon Age Origins?[/quote]

I would say they are on the same level. You can complete both games without touching either of them if you wanted to. To add on, now that I think about it the higher tiers for runecrafting in Awakenings was less troublesome to make use of than the higher or highest level rings that could be crafted in LO. Minor point but I think it is worth a mention.

[quote]I noticed there was a bit more to it than that due to Guard Counter, variable team line-ups, also you had monsters which scrambled the party order so it wasn't as meat and potatoes as the front and back row typically is in such games.[/quote]

Ignoring Guard Counter for the sake of this point, what you have is Final Fantasy 1-9 at the least in terms of party positioning and makeup. All those games had some enemies which could move characters from the frontlines to the back and vice versa, difference being in LO that  there is a formation lock skill you can learn and equip for your team members too so this is the first time that such an ability could be countered.

I personally see only marginal differences in how the battles and tactics are between LO and other Square-Enix type RPGs, but nothing that gives a deeper tactical depth than DA:O on the console which i'll admit, probably pales in comparison to the PC version as well.

[quote]For a game roughly the same length as Dragon Age it EASILY has double the amount of monster types, thats not even counting 24 bosses, 22 of which are unique.[/quote]

I'm not checking up on your numbers but I agree with what you have said.

[quote]True, but the difference between a boss fight in Dragon Age and a Boss fight in Lost Odyssey is the difference between night and day. In Dragon Age, players could dispatch a boss without even realising they were fighting a boss! To be honest, with a few exceptions (Uldred, Broodmother) the only real boss fights in Dragon Age are the big dragons.[/quote]

Well the biggest difference being that you had a different battle music track playing during boss fights in LO. I will agree that DA:O and even Awakenings did not have a lot of bosses that you knew could destroy you if you slipped up or didn't pay attention to them. DA:O was more about small skirmishes than the huge boss fights though, so the differences in a classical JRPG type and the Baldur's Gate type of RPG show here.

[quote]As I recall there are 30 'bosses' in Dragon Age of which one model is unique. Not that I am wholly against the approach of using a monster as a boss, then later encountering it as lesser monsters (as with the Ogre, which I thought was an excellent boss in DAO). Or the notion of using humanoid characters (Loghain, Branka, Jarvia etc.) as bosses.

But DAO had about 30 monster models including the bosses, LO has at least 82 such models.

Added to which the difference between a boss and a standard monster in DAO was simply statistical. There were no new tactics, powers or defenses involved.[/quote]

You seem to remember more about the less unique DA:O bosses than the LO ones though. Again it's a difference of the two games in that one is tactical encounters and the other is random encounters while you explore/get through an area which may lead to a boss encounter. The one thing that is important to notes is that in DA that the enemes scale along with you, LO doesn't really have that. Just higher level enemies in certain locations so while they stronger versions of the same spells as before, for example, the DA enemies also get a little more abilities too. The spellcasters are more noticeable though.

I have gone off my train of thought now, but as I said I won't argue with the numbers you are providing.

[quote]Yet for a game based on tactical encounters its a rare thing for the player to actually need to change their tactics.[/quote]

If it works, use it. Doesn't matter how you win as long as you do so and having pre-made effective and alterable tactics provided by Bioware made things easier. We should thank them for that. Positioning the party though...ugh...the console version is terrible for that and made some fights more annoying than they should have been.

I would conversely argue that most JRPGs are about telling a story, rather than you playing a role in the story. Still, both games are enjoyable, no?

[quote]In fairness, the new Final Fantasy does have realtime combat. But point taken.[/quote]

I concede that I have not played the new FF, so I should instead say my previous comment was aimed at older games in the FF series.

[quote]The game can throw up challenging situations but often each has multiple solutions, so even if everyone doesn't have anti-freeze they may have the warm vest. Added to which freezing isn't a permanent effect anyway.[/quote]

If your whole party froze it was a game over, only that boss had that as a concern but is repeated later by another boss which can petrify the party with the same result. Having one person of a party of 4/5 with the anti-freeze ability to unfreeze everyone else, while getting hit by boss attacks at that, usually didn't end very well. It's a pattern repeated in older FF games as well making encounters bearable whilst being mostly immune to boss attacks. I wouldn't say that is really a tactical battle though to be fair, more a case of rock-paper-scissors if anything.

[quote]Well, lets just say there are a handful in and around the power of the final boss. Whether a specific gamer found one harder or easier might vary on a given playthrough.[/quote]

That's a fair assessment.

[quote]It doesn't have EIGHT optional boss fights of which SIX are wholly new models. Nor does it have 30 variant/new optional monsters in the game.

At a stretch you could say Dragon Age has 6 optional bosses of which all are variants and none present any new powers or tactical challenges.[/quote]

I'll concede the point on there being not many additional bosses. Still the codex quests/items and other hidden/random encounters were plentiful in depth I felt whereas in LO those "optional" encounters meant you missed out on a lot of the final spells in the game. In my opinion that's not really optional, it could hinder progress if you didn't do them.

[quote]Certainly in the area of DLC (which as you know was not a point I raised*), Dragon Age is superior, but you certainly can't count DLC as secrets in the game.[/quote]

[quote]It even has optional levels with 30 new enemies in them (although most
of those are variants of existing monsters).[/quote]

I was thinking you meant the DLC and not the Temple area, so my apologies for thinking of the wrong thing. In which case, again that is not really extra as you "have" to go there to get the best weapon in the game for one of the characters as well as a couple of final spirit spells.

[quote]Though interestingly you did agree with many of my specific points.[/quote]

I did, but those specific points are not evidence that LO is superior to DA in those areas as that lies on the perception of the player. DA would not be a better game if those points were learned from/used as both games combat systems are different in their intentions, aims on progressing and telling their stories.
 
LO was good, it lasted longer than DA:O and Awakenings did in total hours for me, the story was good and the "Thousand Memories" was amazing but DA was a more satisfying game. Even only looking at the specific points you have previously mentioned, I disagree they make LO superior to DA in those areas. To me it is simply a case of Quantity vs Quality.

[SomeBug]

Your argument is very selective and falls well within the purview of an apples to oranges comparison. You omit gameplay mechanics that Dragon Age does well to fit your own internal narrative. For example, you promote choice as being a key benefit to Lost Odyssey, but need I remind you that you are talking purely about mechanical, gameplay choice. Not story choice. Losty Odyssey is an entirely linear game, perhaps less so than a FF13, but by comparison to Dragon Age you have almost no player control over the story at all.

Furthermore, I cringe when people such as yourself make a 'more is better' argument. So what if Lost Odyssey has more bosses. Heck, it could have two thousand boss battles for all I care. Some people are not looking for pure quantative output in their games. I'd take one meaningful boss battle over a million nameless Big Bads. When I think of the memorable bosses from Dragon Age, I think about culminations of plotlines, ones that I have had a hand in shaping myself. Fighting against Witherfang in an act of betrayal, or deciding to be greedy and take the Anvil of the Void for myself. These are what matter, not the nameless Magic Beast or the Holy Beast on Numara Atoll.

See, the point I'm trying to make is that these differences between the games are just that. Differences. Not qualitive distinctions of quality. I prefer Alistair as a companion over Seth, you might not. It's a subjective opinion which reaches into the gameplay and structure of the title too. Harder does not equal more fun. More does not equal better and these differences you cite as being advantages are really not what you think.

Perhaps you should go back and look as why Stanley called out your initial post as being baseless and without substance, and why even after your multiple replies and thousands of word posts you are still saying nothing that falls outside of 'Here is my opinion on this....'