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Post by bcmccmmnx on Apr 21, 2015 0:28:38 GMT -5
See, for games like Sonic Adventure 2 (Not Sonic Heroes, but had the same "Story from multiple angles" thing you referred to), what made it intriguing for me was that you saw the game from multiple angles, and not just different stories. You got to see a massive, connected story unfold. In fact, I enjoyed that about Burst as well, seeing the story from multiple angles.
To me, the issue of any SK being tedious isn't the story, it's the gameplay. There are a lot of circumstances and moments that ruin the flow of character input, and thus overall gameplay. What feels tedious isn't playing the same levels multiple times, it's playing the same levels with annoying things slowing you down that makes it feel tedious.
In fact, I'm going through the hard mode of SV right now, and from Chapter 2 to 3, it feels like the game suddenly became crushingly hard, where suddenly all the enemies easily stopped your combos, and bosses suddenly could knock you around and nearly kill you with relative ease. To me that's all gameplay design causing me frustration, not the game itself.
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Post by ChaddyFantome on Apr 21, 2015 17:53:40 GMT -5
I apologize. As I stated before, it was late and I had a major head cold, (which I still have, but isn't as bad now). When I originally read it, I found it almost incomprehensible and incoherent, and not because of the idea or premise, but simply because of the way it was organised.  (might wanna fix that up a bit). Even now I am having trouble understanding what the idea you are trying to convey is. For instance, do all the stories happen at the same time? Do they all happen at different times? Is it using previous characters or new ones? Is this even in the same continuity as the current SK? I am having trouble even understanding which team is which because , well, you simply describe them as team X with no description of them at all, which makes it even harder for the actions and decisions to make sense or feel valid. I don't claim to be an expert, just someone who likes to dabble in alot of art forms, but even simply calling them Team good guys or team bad guys would make thing s alot easier to follow. Even in SV, the characters drive was mostly driven by the individual characters own different well, characteristics, (even if some of them felt shallow or silly). Here, it just kind of feels...empty. I would suggest coming up with actual characters or (if you plan on using existing teams) plan around what the characters would actually do in the given situation. Read the previous post above. Ah my bad. Miss understood there. Still, feel that is very compensatory. there is, again, no real reason that a character should be in a main member of the cast in story if they are not going to do ,much if anything in it or at the very least, do something worthwhile in it. I guess that is just my opinion though, but I would imagine playing through an entire game, seldom if ever using the character(s) you actually give a darn about, would discourage you from actually playing the story mode at all when you could opt to simply playing their individual character mission. And even then , The player isn't aware of this going into the game. Well, I can say for sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have, erhm... quite the ..uh. robust..sense of taste. As for the bold, I am literally laughing out loud right now. Anyway, one more thing I guess-- {This explanation to the multiple story thing, as I envision it, might help some, maybe?}By playing Team 1's story first, you are introduced to Team 2 as friendly characters, Team 4 as antagonistic characters, and Team 5 as characters with some kind of knowledge of what's going on. The ending ties into supernatural elements and foreshadows that there's more to be learned, which a player would infer that they could find in another route of the game.
From there, you might be inclined to play any one of their stories. To make things more like a game proper, let's say 1-3 are the starting teams, 4-5 are unlocked after beating the three of those, and 6 after all five. This now gives the player objectives and goals to accomplish, which is a big part of game design to consider. Rather than offering all of them at once, now the player's options are much less daunting, but not only that, this can be used to benefit the player as well.
Returning to the example, by playing through 1, out of your initial options, only 2 was initially available, so maybe you'll be more inclined to go for them next. Alternatively, maybe you want to go to 3, as they're someone completely new. Either way, your curiosity will likely surely be whet for 4 and 5, so knowing they're unlockable, if nothing else, you now have the goal of unlocking their paths.
By playing 3's story, despite not having the most serious story compared to others, you still learn more about Team 5's history and origins (which I mistakenly wrote as 6 at the end of their first chapter), and you'll see more hints that Team 4 might not be as in control as they might appear in 1's story. Both of these things will be big later on.
2's story is there to provide balance to the game's largely more serious atmosphere, as this series is about balance, or so I've been told, and maybe could have these characters learning about the supernatural things without actually getting involved with Team 4 like in the other stories, so it provides education, so to speak, while still being unique in its own right. 5 might make some appearances here due to how they're involved in the supernatural part of the story, and 1 would naturally appear because they're friendly with 2. If you play this one first, you then have reason to be interested in 1 and 5 at the very least, as well as reason to be happy when 2 shows up in other stories, and you have some knowledge you might not have going into the other stories that you do by playing this one. We could also see more perspective on the 1 and 2 relationship, maybe taking a chapter to rewind and take place before the game's events, for example. This could be used to catch players up, if these are returning characters, or help establish an established relationship.
Once those are out of the way, we now have access to 4 and 5. By this point, if we've played through the first 3, we now have sufficient reason to play through either one.
In 4's story, we learn that there's been a lot going on behind the scenes, and the characters who we thought were villains are actually victims. By we players taking control of them, we allow them a moment of rebellion before the end, and by playing as them even when they're being controlled, we can feel the same struggle they feel, as now we've been forced to do something we may not want to as well. In 5's, this team could delve into what's really going on with 4 and they could represent the "out of the know" teams finding out the shock of 6 being behind things, perhaps by having 3 be the victims of 4 and 6 here. This is important because a player could pick either 4 or 5 first once they become available, and so making sure to convey both sides - 4's side and everyone else's - is important.
Then there's 6. At this point, you've now played through every story, seen all the trials and tribulations of these characters, and probably don't like that you're playing as the villains - which is an important thing to do with "dark" parts of games. It's said that with horror games, the most important part is to make players do things they don't want to do. Likewise, to see this through to the end, players will need to play as the very villains that they probably want to beat up most of all by this point. It both offers an option, as people are often drawn to villains, and it allows us to explore the last piece of the puzzle that makes up the game's story as a whole.
If you'd like, let's say we could assume 6 is the "true" story path. While I'm not necessarily a fan of that school of game design with games with multiple paths, we could still go there. After we see things from 6's perspective, maybe with 6 seemingly coming out victorious, the last chapter opens up. By this point, we've learned things about all of the teams, their motivations, what they know, and while not every team might know everything about the situation, we, the player, do.
The last chapter could play out with all the teams gathering together and pooling their power into one team to go off and fight. This could either be the "main" team, or the last cutscene could trail off with a "The ones who should go will be..." moment and turn to a character select. Then perhaps it could have you up against a monster of some kind, combining the frantic "survival mode" elements of the Daidouji/Rin battles in Burst with some of the series' monstrous bosses.
To top it off, we have the individual story modes complimenting all of this, which primarily offer character relationships forming, insight into characters, and things like that. Maybe SV's take on this concept wasn't the best, but I still stress that these can be used to add to the experience as a whole. No, they're not necessarily tied to the larger story that the story modes are all telling, but they're tied to the characters you meet throughout and that in itself is something that they add - it allows you to learn more about them, to get to know them better, and to form a relationship between them. Not like a waifu and husbando thing, but the relationship all consumers of fiction have with their medium of choice - these simply allow you to deepen those bonds, and I think that's fairly harmless. It's not like Persona's social links or a story-capable fighting game's arcade modes ever truly tie into the stories much, but you can bet they'll often add a lot to the characters they revolve around.
In essence, because games are more than just books or TV shows, you can create this kind of storytelling. It's something only games can do, and games can do so much more than that - they can do so much more than just a story that goes in a straight line. This is not really a novel concept - I've played fighting games that have a similar way to tell their stories, for example.
To bring up one specific example, while early BlazBlues went further and used time loops and such to really tie everything together in that it all happened sort of, the premise was still ultimately the same in that all the varying stories earlier in, while not necessarily matching up, provide the player with information in regards to the major story at hand as a whole, and in turn, tell them a whole story through pieces. It's something only video games can do, and yes, maybe we shouldn't jump right to 6 teams and 30 characters until SK's writers prove they can handle a smaller number, but to suggest that the concept can't work is, and I mean no offense, disrespectful to people who write for video games and even game designers, as these are decisions that take place on the gameplay level too. After reading through everything, I would highly, highly suggest actually writing an actual narrative for this. As it stands it is to vague and unorganized, making it hard to grasp any feel of what you are trying to do here. Your set up, as I mentioned before is alot, and I mean alot like SonicHeroes, where each story gives a little bit of info as to what is actually going on, with a reveal in the last story where everyone bands together to join there powers to defeat some big bad monster of the weak that was behind the scenes all along. I swear, it's alomst like you copy/pasted it, lol. The thing is though, unlike SK, The gameplay in that game was at the very least dynamic in it's approach , with it being an action platforming game as apposed to a brawler. From the get-go, it had it's team based game play, varied levels with individual gimmicks etc, keeping the player from getting too disinterested, (this became a problem with other stories because of the aforementioned retreading) In the SK games, Levels are mostly glorified backdrops. Simply making each team go throw different levels wouldn't accomplish much of anything if the levels don't have their own interesting gimmicks and tropes in of themselves. Again, the SK games in of themselves within the genre is inherently repetitive. Stories going in a straight line isn't something mutually exclusive from games. Some games have very detailed and intricate stories, some gave none at all, some have average stories. How the story goes isn't inherent to the medium, but what the author wants to do with it. The only adantage games as an interactive medium is tghat the player is participatory in the action, but this doesn't and has never lent itself to Senran Kagura, at leats not yet, and even then, what you are suggesting doesn't even do this or take advantage of it. The player has always been a third party in the events of the game, an observer who is let into the secret world that is the life of the shinobi. The games make us a guest into the world, not the protagonist, not a member of the action, but an observer. Either way, what you are suggesting isn't even as special or interesting as you somehow think or have convinced yourself it is. Really all you are doing, is what SV already did again, but with less contexts and an even more generic plot. oh and an extra team. I don't know, I would highly suggest again that you fill out an actual narative for you outline. Maybe then I could get some actual perspective one what you are trying to do here. You are making this out to be some unique method of story telling when really, it isn't. It really is like the plot of every post 2D Sonic game. Which is funny, because I see alot of si similarities between both series now, which both exhilarates and frightens me... You seem to be of this crazy believe that having a plot in a video game is inherently wrong or something. That is just ridiculous. The main selling point of plenty of games is the world building, characters and story and Senran Kagura is one of them lol. It's almost like I am talking to Miyamoto.Don't know jack about blazblue and never played a persona game. ._. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2015 18:00:21 GMT -5
Don't know jack about BlazBlue? BLASPHEMY. Naw, jk. There's an extensive wiki on it. |
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Post by ChaddyFantome on Apr 21, 2015 18:12:36 GMT -5
Well, of course. Although SA2 did this much better than Burst, where in Burst, it was almost like a rewrite of the original story. Even then, SA2 multiple story aproach, while I loved it (one of my childhood favorite games actually) still suffered from similar inconsistency issues, as I mentioned before. Either way, like I said, the plot has never been the main draw of the series, (this is true for both), but having fun likable and interesting moments with the cast that make it enjoyable. If you are talking about Bear-chan and Turtle chan oh gawd I can relate. Other than that though, at least for the series at large, I don't think enemies like that are prevalent throughout all the games. I'd like for you to share more insight into this though. it would be much appreciated. This is less a direct gameplay issue and more the problem with the difficulty in the game being screwy. The difficulty system in SV either makes the game so easy it's boring, (seriously you could kill the opposing girl in like 1 combo on normal) or unfairly difficult on hard. (You basically win in hardmode by outleveling the enemy after loosing enough times.) This is because, as I am pretty sure I have mentioned before, the level system is fundamentally flawed. It really needs to be adjusted in future games. |
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Post by Seventh on Apr 21, 2015 19:22:02 GMT -5
You are making this out to be some unique method of story telling when really, it isn't. That was actually my point if you look at it in context (in the other thread) - what I was suggesting wasn't that particularly unique for this medium. Far more video games than Sonic have done it, by the way. That said, it is unique in that it's something mostly unique to video games over other mediums (but within that medium itself, it's not unheard of at all, as I said), so no, it's hardly exclusive to me or my idea, not at all. I said as much either there or in the other thread. Anyway, I don't know why you, or anyone for that matter, would think I think having a plot is wrong when I wasted so much time talking about them and even offering my own suggestion for one, but considering it clearly was wasted time, as I said in theo ther thread, I think it's time for me to just bow out here since I've clearly been misunderstood pretty drastically. Hope there are no hard feelings, but yeah. |
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Post by ChaddyFantome on Apr 21, 2015 20:39:38 GMT -5
I am aware that others have. I simply cited it as it was on my mind with my previous example of Sonic Heroes. I have already adressed in the other thread that this approach simply doesn't lend itself to the series as the story and gameplay are almost completely separate. If ypou main point of contention is to change this, please speak up. But as it stands, every game in the series uses the VN style of story telling and the former doesn't mesh with purely interactive story telling. This series really isn't the place for that, at least not yet.When you say things like, I liked the game unlit it decided it needed a plot, chances are people are gonna think you have a problem with the game having the plot. maybe it's just me, but I think its safe to assume any person would come to that conclusion  . I really don't get you. What is it you want with the series? Do you want it to change? Stay the same? Evolve? Focus on story? focus on gameplay? It seems even you don't know what it is you want with the series, which is a darn shame...Not many people are willing to spend that much time typing out stuff as suggestions for a series they clearly care about. Maybe you just need to organize your ideas, better.  I wouldn't mind seeing an actually thought out plan for your ideas, if I could get what it is you are trying to convey. I hope this doesn't discourage you from doing so in the future.  I don't know why you would think there are any, but no. No hard feelings. |
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Post by ChaddyFantome on Apr 22, 2015 16:06:27 GMT -5
After thinking about it, I think we need some kind of story focusing on the Gessen team. They are, for lack of a better term, the weakest team of the 4 and I think this is because the games, so far, have done a poor job of showing the group as a unit or how they relate to the others. The Crimson Squad, in Burst, got a few chapter's dedicated to showing how the team got together and how the members feel about eachother initially. The NewHebijo team, in SV, got a similar treatment, not to mention it has 2 sets of sisters and the fifth member is one of the characters childhood best friend. Hanzo, while they didn't get a similar thing did get entire episodes dedicated to showing how the group came together in the Anime as well as episodes dedicated to showing the relationship between Ikaruga and katsuragi specifically. they even got there own manga for it. Add in the fact that we have Daidoji, who was fierce rivals with Rin, one of Kiriya's favourite students who's presents influenced how he relates to the Hanzo girls, who defected from Hanzo to join Hebijo as a teacher as well as being the teacher of both the CrimsonSquad and NewHebi, as well Miyabi's father being the principal of the school and I think you catch my drift. Basically, outside of Hanzo being friends with Kurokage, Gessen really feels like an outlier out of all the groups. I still find it weird that they don't even have NWs. They could really use something to maybe give them more development or show them working and interacting as a group, preferably something putting the spotlight on how they got together in the first place like the other teams. It would be fun seeing Yumi slowly realizing she is getting adopted sisters and how she copes with it. |
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Post by leanmeanlovinmachine on Apr 22, 2015 19:42:33 GMT -5
I dont think we'll get another Hanzo/Crimson game with Homura and Asuka MCing solo again. I cant imagine Yumi not being in a game in some capacity due to her massive popularity but who knows.
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Post by tzitzimine on Apr 22, 2015 20:31:24 GMT -5
Why not?
SK2 didn't sell worse than any previous 3DS entry.
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Post by Seventh on Apr 22, 2015 20:38:07 GMT -5
Why not? SK2 didn't sell worse than any previous 3DS entry. Wait, so is this wrong, then? Senran Kagura Burst (2012 / 3DS) : 70,569 / 94,344 Senran Kagura 2 (2014 / 3DS) : 47,325 / 69,323 This is physical copies on week 1/lifetime just for comparison. Not that that's necessarily drastically worse, but it is noticeably lower - and I don't see websites trying to practically give any other of the games (or their LEs) in the series like I do SK2. Then again that could end by the time the same amount of time has passed as has for SKB, so that's prolly not a fair comment. That aside, I really just want another game that plays like Burst. Gimme. |
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Post by BlakJakXXI on Apr 22, 2015 20:57:01 GMT -5
After thinking about it, I think we need some kind of story focusing on the Gessen team. They are, for lack of a better term, the weakest team of the 4 and I think this is because the games, so far, have done a poor job of showing the group as a unit or how they relate to the others. The Crimson Squad, in Burst, got a few chapter's dedicated to showing how the team got together and how the members feel about eachother initially. The NewHebijo team, in SV, got a similar treatment, not to mention it has 2 sets of sisters and the fifth member is one of the characters childhood best friend. Hanzo, while they didn't get a similar thing did get entire episodes dedicated to showing how the group came together in the Anime as well as episodes dedicated to showing the relationship between Ikaruga and katsuragi specifically. they even got there own manga for it. {Spoiler}Add in the fact that we have Daidoji, who was fierce rivals with Rin, one of Kiriya's favourite students who's presents influenced how he relates to the Hanzo girls, who defected from Hanzo to join Hebijo as a teacher as well as being the teacher of both the CrimsonSquad and NewHebi, as well Miyabi's father being the principal of the school and I think you catch my drift. Basically, outside of Hanzo being friends with Kurokage, Gessen really feels like an outlier out of all the groups. I still find it weird that they don't even have NWs. They could really use something to maybe give them more development or show them working and interacting as a group, preferably something putting the spotlight on how they got together in the first place like the other teams. It would be fun seeing Yumi slowly realizing she is getting adopted sisters and how she copes with it. If they do end up doing that, maybe they could also expand on what Gessen's relations with the twins were like before the latter defected from Gessen Academy to Hebijo while they're at it. Given how Yozakura even knew about their late older sister, and how Ryouna herself expressed grief about leaving them back in the Hebijo story of SV, it could be possible that the Gessen elite had some sort of close relations with the twins, as opposed to knowing them merely as just another couple of students that also attended their school. |
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Post by leanmeanlovinmachine on Apr 22, 2015 21:02:17 GMT -5
Why not? SK2 didn't sell worse than any previous 3DS entry. let me counter that with a why? |
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Post by tzitzimine on Apr 22, 2015 22:25:28 GMT -5
Why not? SK2 didn't sell worse than any previous 3DS entry. Wait, so is this wrong, then? Senran Kagura Burst (2012 / 3DS) : 70,569 / 94,344 Senran Kagura 2 (2014 / 3DS) : 47,325 / 69,323 This is physical copies on week 1/lifetime just for comparison. Not that that's necessarily drastically worse, but it is noticeably lower - and I don't see websites trying to practically give any other of the games (or their LEs) in the series like I do SK2. Then again that could end by the time the same amount of time has passed as has for SKB, so that's prolly not a fair comment. That aside, I really just want another game that plays like Burst. Gimme. The data isn't wrong but the argument is flawed. Is presenting the data like the circumstances were exactly identical at the time of the releases and as we've seen on EV's sales thread, that isn't the case. The japanese market is getting smaller, competition and expectatives were very different, isn't counting digital sales or if Burst's numbers are counting its release outside of Japan. Under that logic, the Versus line is also on risk because EV fell short of Versus numbers and is even far away of hitting the numbers Versus got on its lifetime. I don't understand why but there as marked bias against SK2, people accept those numbers at face value and when I pointed the sales data for EV and how it didn't had the same success as Versus, many of you looked by arguments and loopholes to sustain the faulty data reported initially (just to mention some "it doesn't account for digital sales" or "LE's sales aren't considered") |
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Post by Seventh on Apr 22, 2015 22:56:54 GMT -5
Aren't you doing the same thing here, though? I concede a bit about the time issue myself in that post, and likewise, I concede that the situation has changed, as it will continue to as time passes. I said in the sales thread myself that the situation is different and that comparing straight numbers doesn't work and doesn't necessarily mean something sold better than/worse than something else - but since you were the one making those comments about the Versus games, I figured by your logic, it did, and so by the logic you were using in that thread, SK2 sold worse than SKB. I'm not sure why it's fair to say that it can apply here with these games and not there with those.
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Post by leanmeanlovinmachine on Apr 22, 2015 23:49:30 GMT -5
What is it about the 3DS that matters though? They probably wont spend the budget on another game like SK2 again and it'd be hard pressed to look better than what Estival Versus does. Not to mention they cant do full strips on it and everything. I simply doubt we'll have the same character set SK2 and burst had, why rehash it again if SK2 seemingly ended it well being self contained and all.
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(might wanna fix that up a bit). Even now I am having trouble understanding what the idea you are trying to convey is. For instance, do all the stories happen at the same time? Do they all happen at different times? Is it using previous characters or new ones? Is this even in the same continuity as the current SK? I am having trouble even understanding which team is which because , well, you simply describe them as team X with no description of them at all, which makes it even harder for the actions and decisions to make sense or feel valid. I don't claim to be an expert, just someone who likes to dabble in alot of art forms, but even simply calling them Team good guys or team bad guys would make thing s alot easier to follow.
I don't hate it, to be clear, and quite liked most of the Hebijo mode (... until it decided it needed a plot), and I love the gameplay, but yeah.
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I wouldn't mind seeing an actually thought out plan for your ideas, if I could get what it is you are trying to convey.
