Spaff Posted November 12, 2006 why? why design a game so badly? it's not hard to jsut copy what worked and what everyone wanted you to do. jerks. a multiplayer game in which only the main party leader can prgress through the game or benefit from quests and missions... a multiplayer game that gives you game over if player1 dies what a waste of a good idea, and what a way to ruin my birthday... i was looking forward to a week off work and some mana ds winnage with nick lawrence and rusalka.. now i have to find something else to do for a week. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted November 12, 2006 allow me to translate that for thsoe of you who have not yet played this unforgivably shit game. Basically, the three other characters in a 'multiplayer' game only serve to aid the 'main' player, the Leader of the party. Only s/he is rewarded by completing quests and missions... The game is also simply a series of dungeons. If the Leader of the party dies, the whole group is sent back to the village and must restart the dungeon. If any other player dies, they may be rez'd or are automatically brought back to life if you reach another 'stage' in the dungeon. Also, the menus are incredibly annoying. Lawrence and I were both extremely exasperated with the way menus use a combination of the terms "cancel", "quit" and "back" (or something like that). You try to quit a menu and it asks if you want to go back or cancel quitting... what?!? We kept cancelling our attempts to quit a menu because we wanted to go back to the main screen... Or er something confusing like that... It's also very, VERY easy to accidentally use all of your health potions in one go. We all did this, repeatedly... by say, meaning to press the B button but pressing Y instead, and.. Oops! You used 8 health potions. Also, the class system seems to have very little point, although perhaps this will change as we progress further into the game. Spaff was the magic-using character... and yet my heals were just as good as his... Magic in this game is utterly pointless as it's so slow to cast. By the time you've cast a spell, all the enemies are either already dead, or have moved out of the radius of the spell's attack. we've also encountered numerous annoying 'bugs', such as our wifi connection breaking and being transported back to the start of the dungeon. At one point, Spaff had to speak to villagers who told him to go to some place called Jadd. However, this place didn't become available on the map until he spoke to a PARTICULAR villager who said pretty much the same thing as everyone else... we don't even bloody know which one it was. They all said basically the same thing anyway! There's no sense of adventure or discovery or teamwork. It's simply one poorly-designed, unspectacular, short and repetitive dungeon after the other, and in between you'll return to the same village with the same boring people. You don't even have to 'trek' to the start of each dungeon... you're automatically transported there from the village. Children of Mana may be alright as a single player game, but as a multiplayer game it completely fails. It had so much potential, but somehow they fucked it up in every way possible. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Roderick Posted November 12, 2006 That sucks dudes. Disappointment = initiated. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nsps Posted November 13, 2006 ... more like ... uhh.... Children of Shit-ana? Children of Eric Bana? Children Pissed on my Fauna? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elmuerte Posted November 13, 2006 why design a game so badly? Well... ask them (or American McGee) not us. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
miffy495 Posted November 13, 2006 ... more like ... uhh.... Children of Shit-ana? Children of Eric Bana? Children Pissed on my Fauna? Chillingly Banal? Killed all the fun-a? Fuck, this one is hard... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twilo Posted November 13, 2006 Hate to say I told you so. Who am I kidding, I love to! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kenty Posted November 13, 2006 oh noes I knew it was just the dungeons without the 'world exploration' and stuff but was assuming it would still be proper co-op with a dungeon trawling emphasis a la Zelda Four Swords, what a letdown and clearly tragic wasted opportunity lets hope Crystal Chronicles DS doesn't suck too Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted November 13, 2006 Everybody I know who has played this game, has accidentally quit the game instead of quitting the menu, because of how confusing it all is with its "quit, back, cancel, return" commands... at least once. How can you let design that shitty exist??!? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vimes Posted November 13, 2006 Maybe it's because everyone know that before the word has gone around that the game is shit, tens of thousands of fanboys dedicaded to the franchise would have bought the game; and that it would make the whole project economically aceeptable. Not on the long term for sure, but it's not like the video game industry has a memory anyway. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twilo Posted November 13, 2006 Everybody I know who has played this game, has accidentally quit the game instead of quitting the menu, because of how confusing it all is with its "quit, back, cancel, return" commands... at least once. How can you let design that shitty exist??!? Bizarrely, I never encountered this problem in the Japanese version, and my Japanese isn't all that hot. This might be because I stuck to the buttons. Children of Mana works entirely fine withough the touch screen or the second display. It's got nothing DS-y going on at all. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LOPcagney Posted November 13, 2006 Well... ask them (or American McGee) not us. Hey, Alice was pretty incredible. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elmuerte Posted November 14, 2006 Hey, Alice was pretty incredible. Wasn't talking about Alive, Alice was indeed a good game. I was talking about the POS called Bad Day LA Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kolzig Posted November 14, 2006 Weeeeell, I know I won't be getting Children of Mana. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Oath Posted November 14, 2006 Weeeeell, I know I won't be getting Children of Mana. Yeah, I'm kind of regretting having bought it. Nice looking sprites and backdrops and not much else. The design is mostly terrible. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kolzig Posted November 14, 2006 I'm thinking that my DS money for 2006 is going to Yoshi, Gunpey and Touch Detective. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DanJW Posted November 14, 2006 Bizarrely, I never encountered this problem in the Japanese version, and my Japanese isn't all that hot. This might be because I stuck to the buttons. Children of Mana works entirely fine withough the touch screen or the second display. It's got nothing DS-y going on at all. I suspect it's a localisation problem then. Game translators are, on the whole, awful art anything even slightly technical. The industry really needs to make more of a thing about game-dedicated translators. Not just hier general translators who do games "on the side". Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted November 14, 2006 Or they could stop recruiting people from brighton beach. Particularly people who neither play games, nor speak English. Actually, if only the industry would just stop hiring arseholes... then most problems would in fact be solved. Unfortunately, arseholes give other arseholes jobs. This is how the arsehole mafia is running the games industry. Probably. Forunately, having titties means you can be in with the 'cool' group without being an arsehole. But I'm an arsehole anyway, because I'm just a really horrible person naturally. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Moosferatu Posted November 15, 2006 Phoenix Wright's translation is pretty amazing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BooJaka Posted November 16, 2006 Does anyone have FF 3 yet? I preordered it from Movietyme the other day and am now waiting for it to arrive (I don't know how quick they are). But if you've got it, what do you think? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Roderick Posted November 16, 2006 I've noticed that Phoenix Wright 2 has some more spelling errors than the first one. By no means severe, and the writing is still top notch, but it seems like a few small lapses in polishing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twilo Posted November 16, 2006 I've noticed that Phoenix Wright 2 has some more spelling errors than the first one. By no means severe, and the writing is still top notch, but it seems like a few small lapses in polishing. Case 1 and the first half of Case 2 are frustratingly difficult. My belief (and you might notice this yourself when you play it) is that the translation for this part of the game was not handled by the same person (or group) that handled PW1 Case 1-4. It has a lot in common with Case 5 of PW1, though, such as "where/were" errors and slightly odd jokes, illogical Objections etc.Once you get over this hump, it's back to the good old characters you know and love, great jokes and plenty of good hints. I particularly enjoyed the third case. From the PW2 thread Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Roderick Posted November 16, 2006 Ah right. I'm in the second case now, and I'm beginning to wonder whether Phoenix Wright can pull off being challenging without become downright obscure and illogical. Not that I'm having such a hard time, but I'm just wondering out loud. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nick Posted November 23, 2006 I completed CoM anyway. It was too easy, I didn't do one side mission. Magic was shite, just used for extra healing with my uber 4xberserker gem build ¬¬. So it was a big dissapointment, although I did get some enjoyment out of it so it wasn't a total waste. Maybe I missed something by not doing the side quests for people, like finding Watts's mate, but I doubt it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nappi Posted November 23, 2006 How different are the DS and SNES version of the game? I thought the original was supposed to be one of the best SNES games of all time, while this apparently isn't that great. Is it because of time and crappy multiplayer game or are the games significantly different? (I'm still scarred because I ordered the game but never actually got it.) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
