Witness the debut of the "cranky old fangirl" tag. ;p
Finished Phoenix Wright 3 recently. It was awesome. I will probably not do a big spoiler-cut post on it, but I really loved how things tied together. The final case was probably designed to make you want to give every member of the main cast a hug. I can see why this was the last of the Phoenix Wright-centric games, since they built everything to a really great climax and resolution.
Started Apollo Justice. I've done the first case, and it is very wtf-inducing. There's a way to do a good setup for a Big Reveal (or in this case Big Fill-In) later on, and it is not to drop the player in the middle of a situation where it feels like there must have been another game in the series that took place before this one that you somehow missed. (Particularly since I'll probably have to work through two or so mostly irrelevant cases before getting back to the meat of things.)
This was one of my problems with Kingdom Hearts II. I figured that part of my confusion must have come from not finishing Chain of Memories, but apparently it doesn't answer that many of the questions I have. I can't imagine how confused a player who skipped Chain of Memories must be. I mean, okay, some of the plotstuff I can figure out, and I'm sure it'll be confirmed later, but I don't like being overwhelmed by "I have no idea what's going on, so I'll play along until I find out" when I'm starting a sequel to a game I really enjoyed.
Hope fully Apollo won't suffer from what I've termed "Chrono Cross Syndrome," wherein a successor to a successful and well-loved game would have been a *lot* better if they hadn't tried to tie it in to the previous game. I think this is also where I get my dislike of being dropped into an established (or semi-established) universe and not really having a clue what's going on. I spent the entire game waiting for the connection between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross to be revealed, and... well, I ranted on this before, so I'll spare you. ;p
For me, FFX and FFX-2 managed to pull this off successfully, dumping Tidus into a "What the hell is going on?" situation in the first game and picking up with very little starting confusion in the second game. FFX-2 was more a "visiting old friends with one big mystery" start, easing you into the stuff that's going wrong instead of throwing it all at you at the beginning.
Hrm. Maybe I ought to go into the "Successor Standards Scale" in a future post. It's not a coincidence that three of my favorite games are FF6, Chrono Trigger, and Kingdom Hearts, and the three games I was most disappointed by were FF7, Chrono Cross, and Chain of Memories. Hopefully Apollo won't fall into this category.
Also, very brief impression of Guitar Hero World Tour: I like Rock Band's interface and art style much better, but the arenas are fun. More when I have played more than three songs. ;p
Started Apollo Justice. I've done the first case, and it is very wtf-inducing. There's a way to do a good setup for a Big Reveal (or in this case Big Fill-In) later on, and it is not to drop the player in the middle of a situation where it feels like there must have been another game in the series that took place before this one that you somehow missed. (Particularly since I'll probably have to work through two or so mostly irrelevant cases before getting back to the meat of things.)
This was one of my problems with Kingdom Hearts II. I figured that part of my confusion must have come from not finishing Chain of Memories, but apparently it doesn't answer that many of the questions I have. I can't imagine how confused a player who skipped Chain of Memories must be. I mean, okay, some of the plotstuff I can figure out, and I'm sure it'll be confirmed later, but I don't like being overwhelmed by "I have no idea what's going on, so I'll play along until I find out" when I'm starting a sequel to a game I really enjoyed.
Hope fully Apollo won't suffer from what I've termed "Chrono Cross Syndrome," wherein a successor to a successful and well-loved game would have been a *lot* better if they hadn't tried to tie it in to the previous game. I think this is also where I get my dislike of being dropped into an established (or semi-established) universe and not really having a clue what's going on. I spent the entire game waiting for the connection between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross to be revealed, and... well, I ranted on this before, so I'll spare you. ;p
For me, FFX and FFX-2 managed to pull this off successfully, dumping Tidus into a "What the hell is going on?" situation in the first game and picking up with very little starting confusion in the second game. FFX-2 was more a "visiting old friends with one big mystery" start, easing you into the stuff that's going wrong instead of throwing it all at you at the beginning.
Hrm. Maybe I ought to go into the "Successor Standards Scale" in a future post. It's not a coincidence that three of my favorite games are FF6, Chrono Trigger, and Kingdom Hearts, and the three games I was most disappointed by were FF7, Chrono Cross, and Chain of Memories. Hopefully Apollo won't fall into this category.
Also, very brief impression of Guitar Hero World Tour: I like Rock Band's interface and art style much better, but the arenas are fun. More when I have played more than three songs. ;p