Nothing can skew a gaming experience faster than unmet expectations. When buyer’s remorse sets in, is it the fault of video game creators or their audience?
Editorial!
Nothing can skew a gaming experience faster than unmet expectations. When buyer’s remorse sets in, is it the fault of video game creators or their audience?
Editorial!
http://punctualdork.com/
This editorial was pretty good food for thought. When is it that it was the fault of the fans and when was it the fault of the company on how you feel about the finished product in a game? The line is pretty shaky, and it will definitely vary from person to person.
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I always say buyer beware. Being day 1 can be costly.
"The universe is already mad. Anything else would be redundant."
Twitter @FinalMacstorm
I try to keep my expectations minimal whenever buying and playing a new game, since oftentimes I've been let down even by acclaimed titles, and satisfied that titles that didn't receive high acclaim.
I immediately thought of Chronos Cross as soon as I started reading the article... even before seeing the reference to it. I saw ads for the game and somehow thought the FMVs were gameplay, and was awestruck. And Chrono Trigger had been one of my favorites, so it was an easy decision... pinching every penny to be able to afford it... After all that, I never could get into it... I hated the story, the feeling, (though it had a few good songs I still listen to today) I ultimately never even had the motivation to finish it properly.
A recent example of this was XCOM... As an ardent fan of the original, I hung on every word of the developers, watched 12+ hours of preview footage, and anticipated it more than any game since Xenosaga III and Valkyrie Profile 2..... only to realize after playing how much it had been oversold. While capturing the general feel of the original game (not easy, apparently) and improving a couple things, it actually LOST all kinds of features of the original (in the name of "streamlining" or "modern game design") and took away so much from the strategy layer it no longer felt desperate or epic.
In both cases, I really should've known better. But somehow let my hopes outweigh a rational evaluation.
Last edited by Taika; 11-16-2012 at 10:29 PM.
I had a longer post, but my final comment was the only point really worth making: try before you buy and stop taking gaming so seriously and you won't be disappointed.
Last edited by TG Barighm; 11-16-2012 at 10:55 PM.
This point also holds true for systems. I know the 3DS is doing well now, but I can't forget its "launch lineup" list that everyone was going nuts over at E3. It had very few official titles on it, just things like "Final Fantasy series" and the like. And then nothing...and when we did get games in those series, they weren't what people expected. So yeah, don't buy anything before you have a solid reason to do so.
"The universe is already mad. Anything else would be redundant."
Twitter @FinalMacstorm
The problem with researching a game to the point of dissertation is that you can learn too much about it.
If the next KH game has a Miyazaki world or the next FF has chocobo jousting, how cool would it be to find that out as you play versus seeing a screenshot 12 months prior?
What were the advertisements like for Chrono Cross? I took a look at the propaganda section and anything that wasn't a full page had game play on it. It's been so long, I don't remember if there were commercials or not for it. I've always loved Chrono Cross, but I know people's feelings seem to be highly negative towards it. Was it just the advertising that caused this?
Probably not cool enough to warrant $60 and a sense of disappointment.If the next KH game has a Miyazaki world or the next FF has chocobo jousting, how cool would it be to find that out as you play versus seeing a screenshot 12 months prior?
It probably had more to do with the changes between CT and CC. There were not many advertisements for it that i was aware of.Originally Posted by SeraphimKitten
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Curse you Trent! this hits on something I was going to write about some stuff Goethe said! curse your bones!
I found two on Youtube. I vaguely remember the one that fired me up showed the characters flying around or something - I was pretty young, and had mostly played older games, so the distinction between gameplay and FMV wasn't clear to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0NKp5b_Yes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfgJhwo2fig
Even beyond the hype, it was more that the tone and story of CC just walked all over CT. In CT, time travel is a joyous thing that fixes problems and brings friends together... even after they win and destroy the time portal, they're like well, hang it, we still have the Epoch, let's go see everyone!! Which was a really refreshing take on time travel. In CC, if I remember right, it was changed into a dangerous, destructive force and we see our favorite characters ruined and their work undone. If that wasn't bad enough, the whole tone went from cheerful and optimistic to dark and depressing.
I think this raises a good point too.... it was great to go into so many games not knowing what exactly to expect, and being thrilled by the unexpected. Of course the surprises need to be GOOD, but a lot of games seemed to have a knack for it back then (or I just got lucky.) Researching a game too heavily does make it predictable, which removes one potential element of fun.
Interesting, that's probably the discrepancy. I left Chrono Trigger a little disappointed because the only character I came to care about was Schala, and they abandoned her plot thread. I liked Chrono Cross because it answered the one question I cared about that Chrono Trigger failed to answer. It's almost like they asked me directly what I didn't like about Chrono Trigger and then made sure they covered that.
Chrono Cross was alright.
Anyway, I usually don't have too high expectations for a game. Often I have the feeling of "I might not like it" and get the game anyway and then it sucks, but my expectations weren't high to begin with. If I look at a game and think "OMG this is so amazing I must have it" I'm never disappointed by it. I don't need to play a demo, watching a gameplay video is enough for me to determine that.
These days I'm also taking it much less seriously. I just play games as long as they are fun. I'm only really finishing 5% of the RPGs I buy lately, but I wouldn't say I disliked the other 95%. It's more like I like them for 10-20 hours and then they get boring. I didn't even finish Tales of Graces although I really loved it, but it's just way too long (I played 60 hours into it).
Awww... I really like what they did with the new X-COM. I can't say that I miss time units either. It doesn't have every feature, and I think it could use a couple patches - but I'm really impressed that they made something like that in this day and age.
Yep.
Sure, the game companies hype their stuff, and sometimes overhype..... but there's also those people out there (you see them on the forums in the months to runup) thinking things like "This game will be The Highlight Of My Year™", or otherwise convincing themselves that it's the second coming/etc. And they're going to be the first ones lining up to complain bitterly about how disappointed they are.
(Why, yes - I did spend a good bit of time on the Skyrim forums in the past year or so.)
CC was decent, but failed to live up to the expectations of CT fans.
The battle system was slightly wonky, and was made all the less satisfying by some ridiculously restrictive level caps.
Also, the fact that they decided to pack the game with FORTY playable characters really limited what they were able to do with the story.
Still, I adore the setting, and utterly love the soundtrack.
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Ha! Take that Scott.
If you really got a problem,we should settle this like men - Editorialist fight in the back alley; your pokemon VS mine.
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With regards to that spoiler, I would say that they left it open to interpretation. "Abandon" seems a little strong of wording.
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