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But I've come up against that traditional, boring-ass cliche that seems to crop up in most games I've played.
The "Now's the part where it's nothing to do with skill, just repeated plays until luck falls your way" portion of a game.
Why? Why do developers do this?
This game, so far, has been tactical and almost chess-like in the necessity to plan each move, to consider where your opponents may move and how best to defend/attack.
Until now.
Having endured the oh-so-surprising "twist" where your surly companion finally decides (after *so* much whining and threats) to defect...*clasps hands to cheeks in mock Home-Alone-style surprise*...and you just know you'll end up facing him in the finale because that always happens in games - your once-close compadre decides to become evil and then disappears until the final encounter where, having spent so much time and money levelling him up/equipping him, it makes a complete mockery of your work by taking him away.
But I am now stuck.
Well and truly, red-faced-anger-inducing, swearing in guttural snarls, wanting to smash somebody's face in, hoarse-voiced-from-screaming-at-the-tv angry.
Being betrayed again...*sigh*...I now have to battle my once loyal gladiator nubian I picked up along the way.
Oh, oh...but not just him. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh no, because that would merely be bloody difficult.
No, in order to make it retardedly hard - the developers obviously sat around and thought
"Now, we've taken his two best medium fighters away from him. So, we'll give him 3 medium fighters. Against their old mate. And 3 summoners."
So you have 3 Gladiators against 4 enemy.
Fair enough, not 100% impossible with some planning and tactics. That's why this game is good.
But just to add that extra soupcon of hate-inducing frustration?
Let's have the 3 summoners able to conjure up Skeletons/Scarabs/Eagles!!!
Yeah! Because now you have 3 Gladiators fighting 7 enemies! Great! Dig it!
Ooo ooo, and to put the anger-icing on the cake?
Have your main Hero character, the one that cannot die else it's game-over be struck straight away by your ex-chum. Yep.
Oh, and then you can have the summoners bring forth their 3 extra enemies straight away before you are allowed to move!!! Brilliant!!!
So, what you have is your must-stay-alive Hero absolutely surrounded on all sides with no way to escape. And the summoners using "freeze" blasts on you, so you forfeit what occasional turns you do get.
And the other 2 of your team? They're waaaaaaaaaaaay over the other side of the arena, so by the time they get in range, it's over.
But just in case you might withstand an attack from every direction at once?
The summoners can also scatter your team with a magic-blast.
Which means instead of you being next to, finally, a summoner and ready to have a crack?
You end up the other side of the arena with 4 enemies and 3 conjured beasts coming at you.
It's retarded. No, really it is.
It's taken me 2 days off-and-on playing to repeatedly throw myself at this level until I have now reached the point of never wanting to play it again.
Stupid game design that can kill a perfectly well executed surprisingly good title.
I've managed to find an infinite health cheat for winback, problem is the lasers were 'instant kill' thingys so instant kill might still beat infinite health, if the cheat had been for invulnerability then I'd be sure it'd beat the lasers...
Still I'll give it a go later.
It's like the developers took a look at the last expansion pack, saw that 3 hours worth of play was too short so decided to make the follow up so hard that it would take weeks for anyone to complete it. To do this they removed the health packs and ammunition that enemy soldiers drop, meaning you constantly had to hope that the next house you walked into had enough of these items for you to continue. Enemy accuracy increased, soldiers had the uncanny ability to shoot you with pinpoint accuracy with a machinegun in a sandstorm while your stupid team-mates did their best to get themselves killed, wandering out into the open to take on a Panzer tank with a Thomson.
And it didn't help that you had to fight the 'entire' German and Italian army single handily, with no help, no cover and not enough bullets. Enemy troops soaked up entire clips before they died, and when there are hundreds of them this only increases the frustration. I ended up cheating on the final mission, possibly the most difficult and stupidly designed levels I’ve ever played, I completed it as an invincible player, the only time I had fun, and as soon as I finished it I took it off my computer, put it in the drawer and never touched it since.
I like challenges, but I also like to have fun. I can understand why developers want to make their game last a little longer or increase the difficulty a little to keep hardcore gamers challenged enough, but this kind of sloppy design just infuriates me, and makes the whole thing feel like a chore to get through, making it feel like I’m playing for the sake of it rather than because I find it fun.
It didn't
I had to get past the three lasers AGAIN to progress, I died, it was annoying, especially as it was impossible and otherwise the game was nothing short of brilliant.
I might see if I can skip the lasers with good ol' action replay though...
> Reminds me of Skies of Arcadia.
>
> "Lambda Burst!"
> "Delta Storm!"
>
> Can't remember anymore.
The thing about Skies was that you could repeatedly tap A for the various moves, and then watch TV, and then go back and repeat a few times.
KOTOR was great because it was actually involving in combat terms.
Damn this evil single player!!
"Lambda Burst!"
"Delta Storm!"
Can't remember anymore.
On MTG:B I'm on the second chapter of the single player mode against a duellist with infinite mana who just launches the same two spells at me.
Not to bad so far, this I can handle.
However aside from the difficulty level the duellist pronounces the name of each spell. So I get a constant barrage of "Raging Goblin!" and "Engulfing Fire!" (repeat ad infinitum) which is really draining after a while.
I'm going to beat it goddammiT!!!
Luckily all the spells are available online without unlocking them all in the single player so I can go for a blast on that instead.........
No! I feel I have to defeat this git first!
"Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!"
"Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!""Raging Goblin!"
"Engulfing Fire!"