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Original post by Extrarius
Being able to beat the game was an achievement

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Heck yeah! There were some games for the NES (wow... why does saying that make me feel so old? When I hear "old Zelda game" I think Zelda I&II, not OoT or LttP ) that I didn''t beat until last year. There are some I still haven''t beaten!

Of course, we should remember that we''re talking about RPG''s here. Really, you *ARE* supposed to be able to beat RPG''s. However, I believe a "perfect" game should still be a feat. What bothers me more is the stupid stuff you have to do for a perfect game. I mean, come on... dodge 200 lightning bolts in FFX? Even if I played the game (I don''t have a PS2), I wouldn''t bother. I have better things to do that sit and wait for 200 lightning bolts and hope that I don''t blink at the wrong time. If I can''t have a perfect game, make it because I don''t have the mad skillz required, not because I''ll fall asleep before I finish.

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Original post by GroZZleR
If you missed it, thats your fault. You can''t complain because you read a walkthrough after the game and learned about some of the things you missed.

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that''s ridiculous. If it''s like a fighting game that takes 10 minutes to beat, that''s fine. But if it takes 70 hours to play through and you can''t go back to a part that you need to go back to, that''s bad design.

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Original post by tieTYT
... and you can''t go back to a part that you need to go back to, that''s bad design.

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If you can''t complete the game without going back, it may be bad design (you should try playing some Interactive Fiction one day, learn-by-dying is common there), but if the part is optional (and yes, your über items are optional), then there is nothing wrong with it being only accessible at one point.

Most of the time you don''t even want those uber items the first-time around, as it''d make the game too easy.

Its like playing FF7 through the second time, and really going slow and just building everything up like mad.

You get those 8 materia weapons, with a link. So you breed 8 Counter-Attack materias and you absolutely destroy Sephiroth the first time he hits you. Or you counter with Ultima and then Knights of the Round, and then two other huge magic attacks.

Its just not the same game.

My personal belief is that your "uber" weapons and stuff are in general a bad design. More stratagy would be better, screw the secret items. if you want secrets, make them potential plot twists, or areas where the plot deepened (Grandia had a bit of this in it). Having uber weapons makes the game after it alot less fun.

Uber items are like a drug. When you put them in front of your face, you HAVE to get them, but it makes life after it much less enjoyable.

I admit that I often strive for a 'perfect' game, with most if not all of the secret stuff obtained (expecting the sort of ridiculously difficult and not worth the effect stuff, such as the Excalibur II, in Final Fantasy 9) and sometimes it kinda bugs me to realize that I've missed something really important and can't go back and get it. However, I don't really see this as a design issue. They are, after all, secrets; you're not suppose to find them all with the greatest of ease.

I agree with Extrarius to a large extent. I remember when I was younger, before I had easy access to free and thorough walkthroughs which so populate the internet, secrets were often hard-earned. You were very unlikely to find everything of value on your own. Now, of course, most people refer to online walkthroughs to find this stuff for us.

I pretty much make it a rule to never read them before I've beaten the game at least once, though. Basically, I play once though on my own first, then I'll go back, with the aid of a guide, and find all the stuff that I missed the first time around. I suppose this might take some of the fun out of it, but there is definitely a certain allure in the completeness of getting everything and it's neigh impossible to find EVERYTHING without a few hints.

Now, if you don't want to play a game twice yet still want to get everything, I suppose this might present a problem.... This probably does encourage some people to use a strategy guide from start to finish. I personally think that takes the fun out of it, but to each their own. However I'm not really sure I see a way out of this problem, if that's what you choose to call it.

Firstly, most people who are into games enough to care if they get everything also will probably play those games more than once. But that aside, even if none of the major secrets every become inaccessible, that's still not likely to stop people from searching for many of them on the internet rather than in the game. On top of that, I personally think that spending a large length of time searching for something that may or not even exist is quite a bit more boring than replaying the game at a later time, armed with a little additional knowledge.

As for this being bad design, I personally think that depends upon the game. In heavily story-driven games, such as the Final Fantasy series, I think it makes sense. The plot often demands that many of the places you will go to over the course of the game can't be returned to, at least not in the same state that they were when the secret was present. It may be impractical to make sure that everything really desirable is in some place you can still get to by the end of the game.

It may, however, be a little easier to avoid non-repeatable secrets in more open-ended games, where little really changes in the environment and you're free to go pretty much wherever you wish at any time.

.....man, I'm rambling tonight. I thought I had barely anything to say about this, and instead I've written a small (and not that well focussed) essay. Oh, well, people are free to ignore my long post if they so choose, because I don't feel like doing much more editing.

Edit: What do you know, I ended up editing it anyway. Blasted typos

[edited by - Zarion on April 2, 2004 9:03:38 PM]

Now, you know it took you far too long to write something if 4 people have posted while you were busy typing

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Original post by Fruny

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Original post by tieTYT
... and you can''t go back to a part that you need to go back to, that''s bad design.

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If you can''t complete the game without going back, it may be bad design (you should try playing some Interactive Fiction one day, learn-by-dying is common there), but if the part is optional (and yes, your über items are optional), then there is nothing wrong with it being only accessible at one point.

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I still think there is something wrong with it. Sure they''re optional, not necessary, etc. But it is less fun to too many people (like myself) to make them "one time only secrets". Is there anyone out there that prefers to find out they missed something 30 hours back and has to restart if they want it? I highly doubt it. Therefore, to make the game more enjoyable to everyone, the game should not be designed with "one time only secrets".

I think that by making secrets easy to get (which is what making them always available does to some degree) lessens the acomplishment of finding the secret.

Sure, you might not like it if you didn''t find it, but if you do, you''ll feel better if you happened to do the right thing at the right time I think. Especially if you did it because you figured something out rather than just by accident. If there are no in-game hints pointing to a secret, then it is just random luck but otherwise you have to be somewhat clever and you acomplish something by both figuring out what to do and doing it to get something special. If secrets aren''t special, they aren''t worth having IMO.

''Oh, look, a dark corner with a bright glowing golden sword of DOOOOOOOOOM!!!! OMG I FOUND A SECRET! Except that it wasn''t really secret, being rather obvious with the high contrast and all. Oh well, its still special since its a sword that will ruin the game for me!''

I also don''t think special items need to be entirely better than anything you could otherwise have. I think a much better reward would be something a little bit better than what you have when you get the secret (which is easier to do with one-time secrets only available at one point in the game) that is also much different than standard equipment to make it more interesting.

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Original post by Zarion
As for this being bad design, I personally think that depends upon the game. In heavily story-driven games, such as the Final Fantasy series, I think it makes sense. The plot often demands that many of the places you will go to over the course of the game can''t be returned to, at least not in the same state that they were when the secret was present. It may be impractical to make sure that everything really desirable is in some place you can still get to by the end of the game.

[edited by - Zarion on April 2, 2004 9:03:38 PM]

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That''s a good point. But i can not think of any situation where it would actually be impractical to make sure that everything really desirable is in some place you can still return to. Why would this ever be impractical?

There are many ways you can go about this. Make the secret item appear somewhere else if you didn''t get it the first time that you can always return to. ALWAYS make sure that a secret item that can not be returned to is never the best of its kind. The list goes on and on.

I always love using FF4j as an example because IMO it is the most perfect RPG out there. It had places you could never return to again, but these places never contained the strongest anything of its kind.