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Games with great stories, but horrible gameplay

Link Floyd

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Sep 23, 2014
Ever play a game that had an interesting plot, but horrible gameplay? Or have you ever played a game all the way through based soley on the story?

I'm definitely a fan of the Kingdom Hearts series, but the gameplay in a lot of the early games is less than adequate for me. It's just WAY too hard to control Sora in combat and a lot of the menus are confusing and don't make any sense to me.

So do you know a game like this?
 
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon

A brilliantly realised world and characters, amazing soundtrack and nothing but feels all through the game.

But bloody hell its borderline unplayable. The motion controls are nasty, the slow down is insane, theres no lock on and camera control is crap, plus movement feels clunky as hell.

It should have been a movie or short series. It needs a remake so bad because it was such a special story.

fragile_conceptart_1lvWZ.png
 

mαrkαsscoρ

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Xenosaga
gameplay isn't horrible per say but it's abundantly clear that the story is the forefront of the game,i mean hell there's literally only ONE battle theme throughout the whole game aside the last boss,and no background music aside the last two dungeons
 

Dio

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I completed Final Fantasy 13. I loved the graphics, the music, the characters and the plot. Actually playing it however was a painful endeavour. I hated the gameplay with a passion but still I forced myself through 70 hours of it it to keep revealing the next chapter of the plot and to see the story through to its conclusion. In case you are wondering why I wouldn't just watch cutscenes or playthroughs online instead it is because it just isn't the same. I don't get any enjoyment or accomplishment from that therefore I had to do things the PROPER way.

When it came to 13-2 I just couldn't take the pain anymore and decided to not put myself through it all again.
 

Dio

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@Deus I was going to say the same thing about final fantasy 12.
I also liked the story of 12. Never got to finish it but would like to. Gameplay wasn't the sort of thing I really enjoy, combat wise anyway. There was a lot more interacting with NPC's and shops in 12 which I liked and found was missing from 13.
 

Link Floyd

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I completed Final Fantasy 13. I loved the graphics, the music, the characters and the plot. Actually playing it however was a painful endeavour. I hated the gameplay with a passion but still I forced myself through 70 hours of it it to keep revealing the next chapter of the plot and to see the story through to its conclusion. In case you are wondering why I wouldn't just watch cutscenes or playthroughs online instead it is because it just isn't the same. I don't get any enjoyment or accomplishment from that therefore I had to do things the PROPER way.

When it came to 13-2 I just couldn't take the pain anymore and decided to not put myself through it all again.

That's the problem with most FF games, imo.
 

Castle

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Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon

A brilliantly realised world and characters, amazing soundtrack and nothing but feels all through the game.

But bloody hell its borderline unplayable. The motion controls are nasty, the slow down is insane, theres no lock on and camera control is crap, plus movement feels clunky as hell.

It should have been a movie or short series. It needs a remake so bad because it was such a special story.

Geeze. There was a time I really wanted that game. I forgot all about it. I'm surprised anyone even remembers it exists. Of course, it may not have ever gotten as far as NA after all.

Yeah, the last couple of Final Fantasy games take the cake for promising/interesting story, poor gameplay. I was able to stomach the story of XIII even though it's written by forth grade literature flunkies. I actually thought it was an interesting situation and while the characters themselves were inane with the exception of Vanille (the archetype I'm usually the least fond of) I thought their interpersonal relations and their relation in regards to the situation they were in made for a rather engaging drama.

Now XII has an excellent story. One of those "I can't believe it's not Hollywood" stories (back when hollywood could still write worth a damn on a good day.) It's got a remarkably gripping political intrigue drama, fascinating characters (except vann because f- that ****) and a really well plotted narrative and Ivalice is one of my all time favorite underrated fantasy settings.

But great Hylia's balls was that game a sordid grind. Take everything you know about the JRPG grind and crank it to 11 multiplied by two and that's what FFXII feels like. Infuriatingly enough, one simple thing that should have been a no brainer to begin with would have made the whole game tolerable- which is to break up their god awful license board for character progression into Jobs you can assign each character just like the Tactics games are known for! And lo behold that's what they did and Japan's been holding onto the playable version of the only good Final Fantasy game post VI worth playing until just recently.

Interestingly enough, the gameplay problems of FFXIII are to me almost entirely to do with that games ball crushing linearity. The battle system is... unique. And the paradigm character progression system is trite. But if you just open the game up and allow players to explore then there's more to do than fight > cutscene > fight > cutscene > repeat. And that's why I actually like XIII-2. Yeah, I like it. I like the story. I enjoy the characters well enough. I dig the fantasy. And it's fun to play because you can run around and explore freely.
 

Dio

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That's the problem with most FF games, imo.
Haven't been able to play most because the majority are PS only any the way I have been able to play some of the non Xbox FF's such as 10 and 12 is at peoples houses or on their PSP (Crisis core, Dissidia).

Crisis Core had good gameplay and 15 I was really pleased with also.
 

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