And? I plainly said "in addition to great FPS gameplay". I'm not arguing good story is all a game needs. I'm just saying that far from beind somehow by definition detrimental to a game, story and cut-scenese can add a lot to a game and improve it.

Chrono Trigger is nice in that it doesn't go overboard with the length of its story sequences, which is a very nice change from the likes of Final Fantasy 6.

It does, however, suffer from having a mandatory button mashing mini-game at one point. Also, there's a point where you have to press multiple buttons at once, which while not a problem for the majority of players, can be an accessibility issue for some.

Story-focused RPGs should really follow Chrono Trigger's example in terms of how much story/cutscene to include, not FF6/FF7's example.

(As a side note, why haven't there been that many Dragon Quest 3 clones? Create a party, adventure into the world, kill monsters and save people, that sort of thing. DQ3 is incredibly popular in Japan (to the point of out-selling games that are considered among the best selling games of all time), so why didn't Japanese developers try to copy it?):


Except that they can also take away from the game.
* It takes time to get through the story and cutscenes, time that could have been spent on actual gameplay.
* In some cases, storys can contain problematic elements. For example, as much as I liked Etrian Odyssey 1 (which is a gameplay-focused first person dungeon crawler), it does have one particular problematic plot element that's bad enough for me to give that game a trigger warning.

I understand 100%... and strangely... I've been gravitating toward the same games as of late.

For me, much of this comes from the stories just not being very involving. If a story is as involving as the gameplay, I'll gladly watch... but... usually it's "filler" that just not worth the time. Much like a book...

... I'd rather read the book myself than have someone read it to me terribly.

Off the top of my head, these games aren't at Chrono Trigger's level but close:

- NieR: Automata (2017)
- Persona 4G (2012), 5R (2019)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (2010)
- Yakuza 0 (2015), Like a Dragon (2020)
- DQ11 (2017)
- FE: Awakening (2012), 3H (2019)
- The World Ends with You: Final Remix (2018)
- Tales of Vesperia (2008), Berseria (2017)
- Trails in the Sky trilogy (2004-2007)
- Trails of Cold Steel (2013-2018)
- The Last Story (2011)
- FF13 trilogy (2009-2013) - best FF story and lore with terrible storytelling

I agree with your assessment. The reason why we haven't seen anything on Chrono Trigger's level is because Japanese games' priority demographic are still Japanese kids, teenagers, and young adults. Their games are still seen as for adolescents over there like anime and manga. Initially interesting for Western audiences because story elements are novel and radical. But once you get familiar with Japanese-style abstract and emotion-based storytelling, you lose the rose-tinted glasses and realize the genre no longer appeals to the 25+ demographic. Their recent releases do keep pushing the envelope for visual fidelity, however.

I've only played the original. Is Final Remix any better? I love that Square-Enix tried to break the mold on this game but absolutely hated the characters and story. It felt like the worst of every mall teen angst stereotype. The gameplay has flaws I'm willing to forgive since it was basically an experiment but I nearly quit because of the annoying characters and faux-philisophical plot.

I realize this is virtually all opinion but a friend of mine gave me the game raving about how deep the characters were. Was baffled upon finishing it. Just curious if Final Remix is radically different in that department.

Just more story and updated graphics, which you can catch on Youtube. If you didn't like the DS version, wouldn't bother with Final Remix.

Did your friend play it as a kid or teen and were they introverted before the game? If yes to both, then that's a very plausible reason why they loved it. It's known for its relatability to [bullied], introverted, misanthropic kids and teens and pushing them to opening up and making friends. Obviously if you play the game as a 22+ yo adult and having known that, then it's about angsty teens. But for others in that game's targeted demographic, it changed their lives.

There are a lot of mediocore or bad games. But because of personal attachment and nostalgia, some games get elevated beyond their worth. I played Crash 3, MGS, FF8, and Rival Schools on PS1 as a kid and I still cannot judge them objectively today because I still revere them. Even though they haven't aged well.

And I have tried on various occasions to get it running. It's one of those rare "real hardware/real system" games like Creatures 1, where due to the way it works beneath the hood, it's doing some weird things that no longer works in today's software. (Be it Wine or otherwise.)

I just wish the publisher/rights holder would give it to the crowd since they're basically squatting it at this point and the community is all but dead for it.

My tolerance for cinematic games that take control away from me is definitely decreasing. I can no longer play a Sony exclusive game like God of War or Uncharted, but... I actually still love story-driven games like The Legacy of Kain, Point & Click adventure games, and RPGs.

At first I thought I was a hypocrite, but I think I am able to justify my taste now.

It turns out that I don't mind having cutscenes, and I don't mind having to read long strings of text to progress the story, and I don't mind not being able to hit buttons all the time. What I actually hate is the paranoia that I could be assaulted by the game designer at any point (not literally... I think) and suddenly be put on a rollercoaster that I really don't want to be on.

Uncharted, for example, is a game that can just stop you at any time and force you into a forced walking section. "Why can't I run? This looks like any other street in the game!" I ask, but it turns out that the game designer has set up a trap for me here.

Suddenly, they jump out of the woodwork to assault you, grab the camera like a lunatic and then swing it around in a dramatic Michael Bay-style way. " OHOOOO WATCH OUT SOMETHING'S EXPLODING!!!!" and BANG the street crumbles beneath my character's feet and he falls into a unskippable cutscene.... And lands on a rollercoaster in the form of an NPCs car, and are now forced to use the turret at the back of the car to shoot people, only to be rewarded with another unskippable interactive cutscene that finally leads you back into the game.

From my experience, the worst case of this was Tomb Raider (the new ones). I got to the point where I see a bridge and just groan because I just know that I am about to be thrown into an interactive cutscene where the bridge will break down, after which I'll be put on a rollercoaster where I have to slide down the mountain, and it'll take 5-10 minutes before I can get back to just shooting things in this third person shooter.

In contrast, in the Legacy of Kain, Raziel enters a cutscene when I arrive at the place I am supposed to arrive at. I know I will get a cutscene or some sort of reward at that place since that was my destination. And I also know that after the cutscene ends, more likely than not I will be playing a 15-30 minute chunk of uninterrupted gameplay, and it's going to be the same jump & run, hack & slash gameplay that I had before the last cutscene. I play exactly at the pace I want, and I can even skip the cutscenes on a replay and leave only the gameplay. At no point do I think the game designer is going to yank the controller off my hands.

Project Justice is likely more fondly remembered. I think MGS stands up for its gameplay not graphics so much.

Doesn't that game only work on old Windows version because it's not a 32-bit application?

It's a bit deeper than that, because it's basically a collection of programs running in a chain. And it turns out program chains don't really work well anymore.

Funny because last I checked they were still selling it on Gamersgate.

It worked reasonably well under XP for me 8-9 years ago. As far as I remember the only problem I had was that the game had some issues when the music was enabled. When I disabled the music the game worked fine otherwise.
Since this game has nice midi music I did just make two playlists for Winamp, one for the town and one for the dungeon and fired the right one up whenever I changed between them. This also allowed me to add some other midi music in a similar style for a little more variety.

I assume that I will still be able to do this in a virtual machine the next time I want to play it.



Yes, you probably need a 32-bit version of Windows running under a virtual machine or a dual-boot system with a such a operating system to get it to work. Windows XP is very easy to set up with Virtual Box, but you have to play the music files from the game in a separate program like Wnamp. You can also play Civilization 2 this way, but you can't see the videos which is a bummer.

The best way is probably to install Windows 98 as a VM, but I'm not sure how easy that is.

That is a good option as well. I would say that it depends on the game, your system and what you expect from the game. For example I don't like the DOS version of Heroes of Might and Magic 2 running under DOSBox, which is the one that is supported by GOG. It feels somewhat slow and clunky compared to how the game ran when it was new.

Luckily GOG also supplies an enhanced but non-supported Windows version of the game as well and that is the one I use. It sometimes crashes, but since HoMM2 autosaves every turn this is not a problem. Someone also made a wrapper for the Windows version which I expect will make the game crash-free as well.

Interesting. I thought you could only obtain it by ordering it as a CD-ROM or go Jolly Roger for it. I had also heard that Gamersgate had given up the ghost. It must have sucked a lot for them when that Gamergate thing happened.