An opinion you're probably all alone with?

[Vinyadan]

Speaking of balance: here is another hot take:

Balance is a terrible optimization goal for a single player game.

Balance is a good goal, if you want to let your players to use any means at their disposal if they want to, without being constrained by one being clearly superior or inferior.

Unbalanced enemies can also be a problem, Painkiller had its first setting filled to the brim with perfectly inoffensive enemies (which made for boring gameplay), and had the second setting filled with perfectly inoffensive enemies plus an occasional kamikaze that could easily kill you (which meant that you needed to play in a more careful way, which however would make the super easy enemies even easier, slower, and more boring to fight).

[Lord Raziere]

Balance is a good goal, if you want to let your players to use any means at their disposal if they want to, without being constrained by one being clearly superior or inferior.

Yeah, some people rationalize and think away imbalance as "well thats clearly easy mode, now to play on this hard mode option" but not everyone can or wants to think of options in that manner- mostly because they want to play the way they want to without it being a difficulty option. its a downside of tying playstyle to difficulty and imbalance that you end up alienating people who might look at an option that you see as a fun hard mode and instead see something they COULD use but only causes more grief than fun.

on the flipside you have the skyrim stealth archer problem where if an option is too good you end up devolving or defaulting to it despite intending to be something else.

[Rynjin]

I think if an option has to be specifically built into to be overly effective, it's fine. Stealth archery falls into this bracket, it's not amazing with investing a lot of perks into Stealth and Archery, so it's whatever.

The issue comes when an overly effective strategy comes from options that DON'T have to specced into, or that require very minimal investment. A lot of bad character action games, like Darksiders, fall into this trap. You unlock one combo early and then use it for the rest of the game because it's the optimal option and it takes considerable effort to NOT use it when it's a combo so braindead as to be easy to do even accidentally.

[Zevox]

Here is one I am probably alone on;


Final Fantasy 10-2 is a better than Final Fantasy 10 in every way other than game length.

Oof. Yeah, that one you might be alone on. I mean, I'm a little biased against FF 10-2 because it was the first game I played that had the ATB system, which I really don't like at all, so that unpleasant surprise right out of the gate colored my perceptions, but still... yeah. FF10 is no masterpiece, but there's really only two redeeming qualities for 10-2 in my mind, which are the in-battle class-changing concept (though it doesn't save the game's combat, it's a just a legitimately cool concept), and One Thousand Words (the song sequence). I could recommend 10 to someone who likes turn-based RPGs and hadn't played it yet - at least assuming I couldn't find a better turn-based RPG they hadn't played yet to recommend to them - but I can't honestly the say the same for 10-2.

[Sloanzilla]

I don't know man, how deep are you into the hyperbole?

Sleep has a 1 round casting time, and a tiny 10 ft. radius burst area-of-effect, and affects 4 (!) HD worth of creatures.

Lets take the very first encounter in Red Hand of Doom, unmodified: 6 2-HD Regulars, 2 4-HD Hellhounds, 1 3-HD Doom Hand Cleric, 1 4-HD Bladebearer and 6 additional 2-HD Regulars in the second wave.
At the most Sleep affects 2 targets, that get a save and can be awakened with an action. And your casting is at danger of being interrupted. A somewhat risky move, but the payof may be worth it. A good use of an action and a 1st level slot, but surely competing with other actions. And hardly the combat-ending nuke you make it out to be.

Well, that's not at all fair. Red Hand of Doom starts at Level 5. I picked two level one options (sleep and burning hands) for the purpose of comparison. That's also specifically meant to be a "small army encounter" and the only encounter of that day prior to reaching the village. (Good reference though- I LOVE Red Hand of Doom).

I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with the first encounter of the Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path, but it is one that could be pretty easily instantly ended with a sleep spell.

Besides, my original point was that evocations are not always worse than crowd control, for intangible reasons such as gaming dynamics, and for their (mostly) guaranteed partial damage. Given my original point, I'm not sure how much more I want to commit to defending how powerful a spell sleep is at L1!

A good comparison in the opening Red Hand of Doom Encounter would probably be fireball (5D6 damage) vs. Stinking Cloud (DC 17ish). Hobgoblins with class levels have high fortitude saves, so I'd actually argue that's a great example of direct damage probably being more worthwhile than crowd control. I can remove a bunch of the mooks and let everyone focus on the blademaster and priest (fun encounter btw- I think I used glitterdust when we played it).

[animorte]

Here is one I am probably alone on;
…I found FFX-2 to be more coherent. Even when it wasn't coherent it had the awareness to have some characters call itself out. The writing team went above and beyond unlike with FFX.

I really enjoyed both, but I honestly completely agree.

[Mx.Silver]

I'd say 'don't reply to threads started by (apparent) spam accounts' probably qualifies given the amount of pages this is up to, but here I am so I don't even know if I can claim to hold that opinion now

Further hot takes, RTS games died in no small part because they listened to the community, which naturally was made up of highly invested, competitive multiplayer loving people. These people make up like 90% of the vocal community, and are probably like 10% of actual players. Everybody else just wants a fun campaign, a skirmish against a predictable AI that provides a steady stream of dudes to murder, and lots of cool, goofy units to mess with. Yes floating the resources for a super expensive mega-dragon is dumb and less efficient than building like 500 archers. It's also way, way cooler, and playing around with cool stuff is the fun of an RTS.

I don't think this is particularly hot, tbh. Like, if nothing else, it'd account for how Age of Empires 2 (first released 1999) has been outperforming Age of Empires 4 (first released 2021). Historically, the key features of the most successful of the RTS games have been single-player campaigns and in-game map and scenario editors¹, most of which have fairly limited relevence on the high-end competitive scene. The simple fact is that most competitive players start-out as casual ones, and so without a decent casual audience it's very difficult for a game to sustain a competitive scene.

There are some other factors, obviously. One being the increasing costs of game development for a genre of games that was already quite difficult to make and was seen as being inherently less marketable than other types of game. That aformentioned difficulty in making is likely why the genre hasn't had that much of a presence in the indie scene, in contrast to other 'dead' genres of PC games like Point & Click Adventures or (arguably) CRPGs. But yeah, this is a one that's not going to be disputed all that much.


¹worth noting that both MOBA and tower defence games were first invented as custom scenarios for RTS games.

[GloatingSwine]

I found FFX-2 to be more coherent. Even when it wasn't coherent it had the awareness to have some characters call itself out. The writing team went above and beyond unlike with FFX.

Nah, FFX is the last hurrah of the design team as a whole going above and beyond (until Naoki Yoshida and the turnaround of 14, probably the best MMO on the market now).

As an example of the "everything means something" thesis of FFX, the entire story of FFX is encoded in the mandala in Besaid temple, if you know the design language of mandalas.

FFX-2 is more fun, but it's also the point where FF switched into commercial reuse of assets, maximising the franchise, and losing the focus on every story as its own thing.

[animorte]

¹worth noting that both MOBA and tower defence games were first invented as custom scenarios for RTS games.

Can confirm. I remember that transition and was there for every minute of it.

Nah, FFX is the last hurrah of the design team as a whole going above and beyond (until Naoki Yoshida and the turnaround of 14, probably the best MMO on the market now).

As an example of the "everything means something" thesis of FFX, the entire story of FFX is encoded in the mandala in Besaid temple, if you know the design language of mandalas.

I’ve very much wanted to play 14, but alas not enough time.

Thanks, I did not know that. That’s really cool.

[The_Snark]

While technically a correct statement at the start there...it's only because neither did FFX. Keep in mind everything I'm about to say uses the translation of their language to decipher their real motives.

The literal first thing the Al Bhed are shown doing is saving the main character from freezing to death alone and then offering to take him literally wherever he wants to go. While they do threaten to kill Tidus at first...they think he's a fiend in human disguise. Which is reasonable, considering it's technically true. The only morally ambiguous thing they do is make them help with the dive...but considering that without said dive the heroes literally would not be able to move around fast enough to complete the plot later, I think we can give 'em a pass.

Then they're shown attacking the party and trying to kidnap Yuna several times, which is evil on the face but their dialogue (and the later plot context I think your forgot?) makes it clear that their goal, while misguided, has pure intentions. They want to prevent the summoners from dying for what they think is a pointless gesture (the Final Summoning) and instead seek out a more permanent solution to Sin. Which again, ultimately, the main characters do.

I'm really not sure where you're getting "the game goes back to establishing them as a people to be evil without a single good character" from at all. Yuna and Rikku are both Al Bhed. Cid is Al Bhed, as is the entire crew of the airship you use to get around. And most of the characters you think are evil are, again, revealed to have good intentions either by the plot (in their home city) or by their translated dialogue (in subsequent playthroughs or with cheats).

The only thing I can think of is you just assumed it was correct when Wakka said it and never critically questioned whether or not he was maybe just a little (read: a lot. Holy **** so much) racist?

I haven't played through FFX myself, but I've seen this take several times; it is not an isolated opinion (although the bit about liking FFX-2 is unusual). I think it's fair to say that the game was trying to do what you're saying, but the execution is mixed.

At the start the writers are trying to fake you out by having you taken prisoner by these strange people you don't know: they threaten you, then decide to use you as forced labor for their project, and you can't understand their language so you don't have a clue why any of this is happening. If you play through the game a second time, you get the translation and can see what their thought process is (plus have the benefit of knowing what happens later)... but even with that, they're kind of brutal about it: they have the main character sleeping out on the deck and wake him up by kicking him.

Later on, they're kidnapping summoners because they have a moral objection to the pilgrimage, but... they're attacking your party with guns and tanks. Not something that feels like nonlethal weaponry! Granted, this could just be a gameplay artifact that's not meant to be reflected in the story - Final Fantasy as a series has plenty of that - but the point is that it feels like they're attacking you with intent to kill everyone but Yuna. Especially since losing a fight is a game over, just like it would be if you lost against Seymour or a wandering monster that's trying to eat you. Again, this is a gameplay thing rather than a deliberate story statement - if the script says you're supposed to win a fight then you need to win it, that's just how Final Fantasy works in general - but here it's undermining the story a bit.

It's not a total failure; there are plenty of people, like you, who experience the Al Bhed more or less as (I think) the writers intended. But there's a significant portion of players for whom it didn't work. Shamus Young's piece on the game is a good read if you want a more in-depth perspective from one of those people (and also from someone who actually played the thing, unlike me).

[Spore]

I’ve very much wanted to play 14, but alas not enough time.

You can do it at your own pace. One quest and dungeon at a time. And up to Heavensward it is free so no time pressure* either.

*No time pressure really, but if you are like me, you feel obligated to play a game you pay a subscription for.

[Alcore]

While technically a correct statement at the start there...it's only because neither did FFX. Keep in mind everything I'm about to say uses the translation of their language to decipher their real motives.

FFX did spend that time; I do remember the game.

The literal first thing the Al Bhed are shown doing is saving the main character from freezing to death alone and then offering to take him literally wherever he wants to go. While they do threaten to kill Tidus at first...they think he's a fiend in human disguise. Which is reasonable, considering it's technically true. The only morally ambiguous thing they do is make them help with the dive...but considering that without said dive the heroes literally would not be able to move around fast enough to complete the plot later, I think we can give 'em a pass.

I do not give them a pass on anything. Do you not remember building a fire? Tidus, while alone and lost, was fine at the time of the attack. They capture him for nothing.

So you do not find it morally wrong to make your prisoner sleep outside in the cold (frankly he would be warmer in the ruins). Kick him awake (courtesy of Riku no less) and make him eat on his knees face first? They treated him like a ****ing animal.

Then they're shown attacking the party and trying to kidnap Yuna several times, which is evil on the face but their dialogue (and the later plot context I think your forgot?) makes it clear that their goal, while misguided, has pure intentions. They want to prevent the summoners from dying for what they think is a pointless gesture (the Final Summoning) and instead seek out a more permanent solution to Sin. Which again, ultimately, the main characters do.

I did not forget the context. They selfishly want to feel good about themselves about saving people who want to give their lives to stave off Sin. Sure, it is only two years but that is two years without death of hundreds or even thousands! Hypocritically they throw themselves and their machines at Sin anyways. Who is going to abduct them and save them?

I'm really not sure where you're getting "the game goes back to establishing them as a people to be evil without a single good character" from at all. Yuna and Rikku are both Al Bhed. Cid is Al Bhed, as is the entire crew of the airship you use to get around. And most of the characters you think are evil are, again, revealed to have good intentions either by the plot (in their home city) or by their translated dialogue (in subsequent playthroughs or with cheats).

Yuna is not from the culture and does not really count (its not really their blood that is my issue). Rikku, as established, has commited a number of evil acts and have I mentioned she tried to kill some of the party after taking Yuna? "Save the summoners from Sin, kill the guardians who get in the way!" WTF... Calling Rikku good is entirely the wrong word to ever use. Then our characters apologize for attempting to kill her and reclaim Yuna. Does she ever once think to apologize for attempted murder? (Or anything else she did?) Nope! Their worldview is that they can do no wrong; a people of narcissists...

The only thing I can think of is you just assumed it was correct when Wakka said it and never critically questioned whether or not he was maybe just a little (read: a lot. Holy **** so much) racist?

Wakka was wrong about many things Al Bhed included. They are misguided in the extreme; instead of working with summoners in ending the problem would rather stop the only thing keeping the world going. Guns don't work so try something else while the sommoners continue their pilgrimage. Research the final summon, try to determine why the final summons doesn't work.

Nope! Stop the Pilgrimages of good people and let so many more magnitudes die... with no summoners to perform sendings leading to an exaggerated fiend problems.

Wakka was racist because he was taught to be; I am racist against the Al Bhed because until 3/4 in they are the only humans to repeatedly attempt to cheat, steal and kill me. Our reasons are completely different as I don't care they go against the teachings (also my brother didn't die with a gun instead of a sword; part of his racism is truama related). Some are apathetic, some are morally grey but none were shown to be truly good.

[Alcore]

I haven't played through FFX myself, but I've seen this take several times; it is not an isolated opinion (although the bit about liking FFX-2 is unusual).

I did not say I liked it. I said;

Final Fantasy 10-2 is a better than Final Fantasy 10 in every way other than game length.

I can understand why someone might assume I liked FFX-2 as I do in comparison to all other FF games apart from 12. A great many enjoyed FFX which influences were FFX-2 would end if I said 'better' but that is ignoring where I place FFX. I would actually consider the FF franchise to be a bit of a dud if it wasn't for 12. Hard to enjoy a story or world when it feels like the writers were tripping hard on drugs.

FFX-2 is the second best FF game but has nothing on the games I like; the story was cringe inducing in places.


FFX-2 is okay

[Vinyadan]

Further hot takes, RTS games died in no small part because they listened to the community, which naturally was made up of highly invested, competitive multiplayer loving people. These people make up like 90% of the vocal community, and are probably like 10% of actual players. Everybody else just wants a fun campaign, a skirmish against a predictable AI that provides a steady stream of dudes to murder, and lots of cool, goofy units to mess with. Yes floating the resources for a super expensive mega-dragon is dumb and less efficient than building like 500 archers. It's also way, way cooler, and playing around with cool stuff is the fun of an RTS.

The trick is that for the singleplayer person, balance is a negative once you clear the threshold of being able to win with a particular Faction and sane strategy. Part that point, balance is just removing cool stuff.

To be honest, I wonder how much it depends on other kinds of strategy games having learnt to hook up players. For genre representatives, Crusader Kings, Mount and Blade, Dota, Civilization, and Frostpunk come to mind.

I also feel that there's a serious lack of publicity for all traditional RTS games except remasters. In practice, if you like RTS, you either go look for such games yourself, or you are unlikely to find out new ones, which I guess manifests a major lack of faith in the genre from major houses. And, if you play more than one genre, the least publicised one is going to get less attention.

[Mx.Silver]

To be honest, I wonder how much it depends on other kinds of strategy games having learnt to hook up players. For genre representatives, Crusader Kings, Mount and Blade, Dota, Civilization, and Frostpunk come to mind.

Kind of depends really. A lot of those genres, TBS, city-builders, real-time tactics, were around during the old heyday of the 'build & destroy' RTS at a similar level of prevelance they had subsequently (possibly because most of them have always put a lot of focus on the single-player experience, and so never really needed to maintain an active competitive scene). MOBAs though may well have caused an amount of audience bleed, particularly in regards to the 'casual online multiplayer/LAN party' segment which was the group who tended to play the custom maps that invented the genre.
This is related to another issue: it takes a lot of effort to be able to play an RTS competitively. That inherently means the actual pool of people who can make-up a game's competitive scene is going to be limited, and that all of them are unlikely to be able to be in the scenes of more than maybe a couple of games at a time, creating an upper limit on the audience for any given RTS that wanted to focus on having a competitive scene.

[Rynjin]

FFX did spend that time; I do remember the game.

I do not give them a pass on anything. Do you not remember building a fire? Tidus, while alone and lost, was fine at the time of the attack. They capture him for nothing.

Being alone, in an unpopulated area, with a rapidly dwindling fire he had no means to rekindle, with no food or drinkable water.

Yep, seems like he had it all sorted out. Everybody knows man can live on fire alone.

So you do not find it morally wrong to make your prisoner sleep outside in the cold (frankly he would be warmer in the ruins). Kick him awake (courtesy of Riku no less) and make him eat on his knees face first? They treated him like a ****ing animal.

Among the many things you've misremembered, they did not "make him eat on his knees face first". RIkku gave him a tray of food and he immediately started scooping it into his mouth with his hands, because he is an anime-man and he does not need utensils. They also did not "force him to sleep outside in the cold" (and it was certainly warmer than in the ruins). They left him on the deck of the ship while they went inside to converse among themselves and he took a short nap, during which someone made him a hot meal and brought it to him.

Truly the gravest mistreatment.

I did not forget the context. They selfishly want to feel good about themselves about saving people who want to give their lives to stave off Sin. Sure, it is only two years but that is two years without death of hundreds or even thousands! Hypocritically they throw themselves and their machines at Sin anyways. Who is going to abduct them and save them?

The idea of the machines is to kill Sin permanently. Quite obviously, the Final Summoning does not work. That is not hypocritical.

They are misguided for reasons you state: the 10 years of Calm are better than 10 years of turmoil, so the Summoners are nto sacrificing themselves for nothing. This is hammered home time and time again throughout the game.

But nor are they "selfish" (quite the opposite) for trying another path.

Yuna is not from the culture and does not really count (its not really their blood that is my issue).

It uh...sure seems like it, because you're not really judging them on their actions, but ascribing ill intentions to them that don't track with the plot.

Rikku, as established, has commited a number of evil acts

Established via your misremembering of any scene involving the Al Bhed, yes.

and have I mentioned she tried to kill some of the party after taking Yuna? "Save the summoners from Sin, kill the guardians who get in the way!" WTF... Calling Rikku good is entirely the wrong word to ever use. Then our characters apologize for attempting to kill her and reclaim Yuna. Does she ever once think to apologize for attempted murder? (Or anything else she did?) Nope! Their worldview is that they can do no wrong; a people of narcissists...

I'm really sure the suped up ball throwing machine (because that's what it is, if you look closely, it's like a tennis serving machine for Blitzballs) was going to murder the group of demigods who fight monsters for a living, one of whom has spent his entire life hitting those same balls at the same speeds with his body on purpose.

Wakka was wrong about many things Al Bhed included. They are misguided in the extreme; instead of working with summoners in ending the problem would rather stop the only thing keeping the world going. Guns don't work so try something else while the sommoners continue their pilgrimage. Research the final summon, try to determine why the final summons doesn't work.

This is a great idea! ...In a world where their entire people aren't persecuted and forced to live outside normal society by the same religion that sponsors the Summoners and to which all Summoners are beholden, and who jealously guard the secrets of Summoning and the Pilgrimage with their lives.

I am racist against the Al Bhed

I really don't think this was the right wording here for what you were trying to get across.

[GloatingSwine]

Kind of depends really. A lot of those genres, TBS, city-builders, real-time tactics, were around during the old heyday of the 'build & destroy' RTS at a similar level of prevelance they had subsequently (possibly because most of them have always put a lot of focus on the single-player experience, and so never really needed to maintain an active competitive scene). MOBAs though may well have caused an amount of audience bleed, particularly in regards to the 'casual online multiplayer/LAN party' segment which was the group who tended to play the custom maps that invented the genre.
This is related to another issue: it takes a lot of effort to be able to play an RTS competitively. That inherently means the actual pool of people who can make-up a game's competitive scene is going to be limited, and that all of them are unlikely to be able to be in the scenes of more than maybe a couple of games at a time, creating an upper limit on the audience for any given RTS that wanted to focus on having a competitive scene.

And this is why there hasn't been a major RTS success since Starcraft 2.

Because they all focus on the competitive multiplayer scene, which is small, and any singleplayer content they offer is an afterthought built out of multiplayer parts. And building singleplayer content out of multiplayer parts leads to a boring campaign where nothing feels powerful or impactful because it's all intended to be balanced against each other.

[Rodin]

Over the past year or two I've gone back and played the single player campaign for a bunch of the old RTS's. One thing stuck out to me: The missions do not resemble a multiplayer match at all.

The enemy has a base that sends a limited number of units at you periodically. This is meant to keep pressure on the player, to make them keep a good defense while building up an attacking force.

However, the actual difficulty of the mission lies elsewhere. The computer starts with total map control. It has defenses. It has units patrolling. These are not there to attack the player - in fact, if the CPU were to play in earnest the match would end instantly. Instead, they're on the map to provide the player with constant progress.

The result is a challenge -> reward cycle. You get heavily harassed by a base near you at the start of the game. You break through and smash that base and claim its resources. A second base is on the other side of the river, so you have to smash a load of fixed defenses to be able to build naval units to storm across. Rinse and repeat.

It's a very effective formula, and one meant for an entirely different type of player than one who is focused on multiplayer. The old "build expansions and control the map" motto isn't relevant, and the games can be beaten without understanding what multiplayer RTS types would consider the most basic of basics.

[Vinyadan]

And this is why there hasn't been a major RTS success since Starcraft 2.

Because they all focus on the competitive multiplayer scene, which is small, and any singleplayer content they offer is an afterthought built out of multiplayer parts. And building singleplayer content out of multiplayer parts leads to a boring campaign where nothing feels powerful or impactful because it's all intended to be balanced against each other.

That's a nice video! Something I couldn't help but compare it to: Stalker. Beside the fact that its war mode has been seen as a tower defense game by some (now, THAT is a contentious definition), Stalker has an incredibly active modding community, the result of the dev team releasing the software developer kit for the game and fundamentally saying "do what you want with the games and their content, as long as you are not selling it." Now even some original developers are part of the modding community, and the most visible guy behind Anomaly is a Minecraft developer (to put things in perpective with the video, mods for the Stalker mod Anomaly have reached 29 million downloads). While Stalker is something of a cultural phenomenon, such a community certainly will benefit the release of a new game. And in a way it ties in because it's all single-player (there are some forms of multiplayer, maybe even a MMO, but I think they are their own distinct community).

I think the visuals of RTS are easy to underestimate. I couldn't do much with Ashes of the Singularity, because the units were too similar. I couldn't play AI War, because the background didn't change size with the zoom level, and so I found it hard to to estimate sizes. Grand strategy games are much more forgiving from this point of view. And I also think of Stronghold, which had a neat first title with lots of hand-drawn sprites and carefully animated buildings, and a second title with 3D animations and a sanitised interface that, while expanding on civilian life, did give away a lot of the style and magic that was never recovered. Unsuprisingly, the first Stronghold and Stronghold Crusader benefit from nostalgia are small cult titles, which their sequels really aren't. It's like devs sometimes forget that a game has to draw you in.

[NeoVid]

Over the past year or two I've gone back and played the single player campaign for a bunch of the old RTS's. One thing stuck out to me: The missions do not resemble a multiplayer match at all.

With what you typically hear about RTS games, it's hard to remember that they even have single-player campaigns. The points you made gave me a clearer idea why I like the only three RTSes I've ever enjoyed, Guilty Gear Overture, Brutal Legend, and Team Buddies. Though that must only be part of it, as those three were also the only ones where I also enjoyed the multiplayer to a degree. The RTS community makes it seem like there's no point in playing anything other than multiplayer.

And even then, as much fun as I had in the campaigns of those games, the first time I tested out an AI practice match in GGO, I immediately had the reaction, "Oh, *this* is the real game." BL and GGO's campaigns both felt like extended tutorials for the army battles once you'd tried the primary gameplay. Another thing that sets those three apart from typical RTS games is that they were... Is there a term for this? "Hero RTS," where you directly control a single character on the battlefield while giving orders to the rest of an army. Which I'm told is the way Halo worked in its original vision as an RTS, until testers got so caught up controlling a single Spartan that the devs decided to run with that.

Ah, there's something I can say that fits this thread: The only RTS games I've ever had fun with were such huge departures from the formula that you couldn't tell they're RTSes at a glance.

[Gnoman]

They are misguided for reasons you state: the 10 years of Calm are better than 10 years of turmoil, so the Summoners are not sacrificing themselves for nothing. This is hammered home time and time again throughout the game.

The Calm didn't last 10 years - note how people react to Tidus mentioning being attacked by Sin, let alone encountering the monster. Even with in-game information only (expanded out-of-game material makes it explicit - the Calm lasts a few months at most, and Braska is one of five summoners in a thousand years to bring one), it is clear that Sin was known to already be active at the start of the game - it didn't just pop up the same time Tidus did. Also count the statues in the temples - there's only a few High Summoners. Meaning that the Calm never lasts very long, and the pilgrimages have only managed to do even that a few times. Spira is sacrificing people quite often - note that there are two other summoners making the pilgrimage at the same time Yuna is, which isn't implied to be an unusually high number- and nearly all of them died for nothing.

[Rynjin]

The Calm didn't last 10 years - note how people react to Tidus mentioning being attacked by Sin, let alone encountering the monster. Even with in-game information only (expanded out-of-game material makes it explicit - the Calm lasts a few months at most, and Braska is one of five summoners in a thousand years to bring one), it is clear that Sin was known to already be active at the start of the game - it didn't just pop up the same time Tidus did. Also count the statues in the temples - there's only a few High Summoners. Meaning that the Calm never lasts very long, and the pilgrimages have only managed to do even that a few times. Spira is sacrificing people quite often - note that there are two other summoners making the pilgrimage at the same time Yuna is, which isn't implied to be an unusually high number- and nearly all of them died for nothing.

Huh, damn, you're right. The game constantly references "10 years ago" (which IS when Braska completed his pilgrimage) so I always assumed that that entire period to just before the present had been the Calm, but the wiki backs this up. Interesting.

[Mx.Silver]

And even then, as much fun as I had in the campaigns of those games, the first time I tested out an AI practice match in GGO, I immediately had the reaction, "Oh, *this* is the real game." BL and GGO's campaigns both felt like extended tutorials for the army battles once you'd tried the primary gameplay. Another thing that sets those three apart from typical RTS games is that they were... Is there a term for this? "Hero RTS," where you directly control a single character on the battlefield while giving orders to the rest of an army. Which I'm told is the way Halo worked in its original vision as an RTS, until testers got so caught up controlling a single Spartan that the devs decided to run with that.

I don't think there was ever a specific term for it, beyond 'action-RTS' or possibly 'Sacrifice-like'¹' and even then probably not. The sub-genre never really had a density of games that led to it being codified.


¹Team Buddies pre-dating Sacrifice by a couple of months notwithstanding.

[Vinyadan]

I generally prefer player vs AI matches over campaigns. I don't like the arbitrary objectives you sometimes find, nor having my choices limited so the campaign can unlock new options as it proceeds.

[MCerberus]

Zero hour had an interesting vs AI mode where each specialist general went against others in premade maps. Stuff like the laser general only being able to power up part of his base. You'd get a selection of match ups starting easy then going against your counters.

But of course, nothing truly counters the AF general's chinook party bus

[warty goblin]

I generally prefer player vs AI matches over campaigns. I don't like the arbitrary objectives you sometimes find, nor having my choices limited so the campaign can unlock new options as it proceeds.

This is generally my bias as well. The only exception is if the campaign delivers some stuff that is really hard to do in a bot match, e.g. defense missions or something like that. But if it's just like build a base and do normal RTS stuff, except with some chunk of the units and buildings unavailable* and some hero or other you have to keep alive, it's just a less interesting skirmish battle.

*Exception for when there's a good reason the units aren't available and lacking them is actually interesting. Company of Heroes gets away with this; you don't have tanks because the tanks aren't there yet, and fighting tanks with infantry is engaging and a good challenge.

[Vinyadan]

This is generally my bias as well. The only exception is if the campaign delivers some stuff that is really hard to do in a bot match, e.g. defense missions or something like that. But if it's just like build a base and do normal RTS stuff, except with some chunk of the units and buildings unavailable* and some hero or other you have to keep alive, it's just a less interesting skirmish battle.

*Exception for when there's a good reason the units aren't available and lacking them is actually interesting. Company of Heroes gets away with this; you don't have tanks because the tanks aren't there yet, and fighting tanks with infantry is engaging and a good challenge.

Yes, if the environment is convincing, and it creates an interesting challenge, then it makes sense. In Battle for Middle Earth, one mission in the evil campaign saw you as Mordor's captain, trying to force Harad into submission. In normal play, Harad units were the elite of Mordor: gigantic Oliphaunts and Haradrim spear-throwers that could also climb on the Oliphauns. In theory, the mission was going to be a massacre for Mordor, because the Oliphaunts could just run over whole squads of Orcs, were similar in use but much stronger than Trolls, and doubled as siege engines; they were weak to fire, but fire arrows hadn't been unlocked yet in the campaign, so your Orc archers were almost useless against them, and inferior against the Haradrim. Mordor could produce Orcs at zero cost, so one could have furiously spammed them to keep the enemy units occupied while you accumulated gold as a tribute for the Harad kings to convince them to join you (an option normally unavailable in the game) and win without destroying their base.
Except for a detail: Harad didn't have a well-rounded army, as it had no actual infantry or a fast cavalry. Oliphaunts also were extremely large and easy targets, while, on foot, the Haradrim had to be stationary to throw their spears. This made the normally vulnerable Mordor siege catapults into their bane. It's the only time I recall actually using them (in normal play, you could summon a Balrog and use it to destroy gates), not to mention building them exclusively.

[Imbalance]

Currently playing through Metroid: Dread, and can't help thinking how everyone was right about Other M. However, I remember enjoying that title by the end and have a strong desire to play through it again.

[LaZodiac]

Currently playing through Metroid: Dread, and can't help thinking how everyone was right about Other M. However, I remember enjoying that title by the end and have a strong desire to play through it again.

As a noted Other M Liker: Other M is not nearly as bad as people say. It's still certainly bad in places, and needs fixing, but nothing about it is necessarily unenjoyable. Game's good!

[JNAProductions]

As a noted Other M Liker: Other M is not nearly as bad as people say. It's still certainly bad in places, and needs fixing, but nothing about it is necessarily unenjoyable. Game's good!

I’ve never heard anything major about the gameplay.
The issue with Other M, from what I know, is characterization.