Magicite Spring said:
First thing I would like to address is that you said the Platinum games you have played are MadWorld and Legend of Korra, correct? I haven't actually played either of them so what you say about them could be correct, but MadWorld is the first game Platinum made, and Legend of Korra is a budget $15 licensed game said by many people to be their weakest game. So they probably aren't the greatest pool of games to make a judgement out of. This doesn't mean you don't have a point about those particular games, but to make a judgement of Platinum as a whole without playing their best games is a bit weird.
I am interested in what you said as it makes no real sense to me. You don't like the games because the gameplay is about looking cool? Why is that a bad thing? Having the gameplay look cool is essential to these type of games as it gives the player definite feedback that what they are doing is having an impact. If the gameplay wasn't cool, then the game wouldn't feel as nice to play as the what the player is doing is cause boring gameplay to happen. Cool, stylish gameplay gets the player invested in the game and makes the game more fun to play.
But I could just be misunderstanding your point. What are you looking for in the gameplay that the Platinum games you have played don't have?
I don't deny my opinion of Platinum may be unfounded and I admit that. I make this judgment now because they don't exactly have a huge number of games they've developed and I'm starting to notice a pattern in their games. I know 2 is only so much to go off, but like I said they only have so many games and I'll get to their other games eventually. Not only that, but I have seen extended clips of gameplay from their other games and they give me a bad gut feeling. When I've seen a lot of a game I tend to make good judgments even though I haven't played them yet. Any game that I've seen lots of clips of that I think I won't like that I later get against my own judgment I end up disliking probably 8/10 times. Don't get me wrong, their other games look good; the bad gut feeling refers to how over-hyped they seem according to my own personal, again subjective, standards. The other reason I judge them harshly like this without seeing their entire catalog of supposedly better titles is that 1) I game on a budget and 2) I believe you should try as hard as you can to vote with your wallet even if that only has so much of an effect. I don't like spending full price for a game that I don't believe is worth what the developers promised for that price. That success lets them continue, never learning. The flaw in this is that financial troubles don't necessarily cause developers to learn either
. This goes especially for Platinum who is always on the brink of collapse financially; they certainly deserve more financial stability. I guess what Platinum needs is more communication with their skeptical fans. Yes, at the end of the day I am a fan of them. I'm just not an over-dedicated fan.
It's interesting you say the 2 games I've played represent some of their weakest offerings. I've seen a ton of people bend over backwards to defend both of those games from criticism. Some even said, with not a hint of sarcasm in the tone of their writing, that they deserved GOTY for their respective release years. What? Seriously?
Legend of Korra has a 9.5/10 on the PSN store and an "Overwhelming Positive" rating on Steam. Meanwhile critics gave it 3-4 on average with a few outliers of course. I haven't seen this much of a gap between these 2 groups of gamers (professional critics vs average players) EVER. I won't deny that I side more with the critics, but at the same time I think the low scores were a little harsh. Worst GOTY is stretching it a bit. Still, when I made a thread pointing out that, to quote myself, "a budget title does not excuse quality of fun" (of course quality of fun is subjective) and used Korra as my main example I got attacked for this opinion with a minority of responding people actually contributing to the heart of the discussion and civilly disagreeing with me. Keep in mind that I defended the game in the sense that the title of worst GOTY is a bit harsh and the critic scores were a bit low. I got attacked anyway. If a Platinum fan thinks the game is amazing fine, but the attacks I got were completely unreasonable from my point of view. I wasn't dismissing opinion of the game: In fact, I was looking for civil discussion. I was stating an opinion that you can't use "It's a budget title" to excuse flaws that have literally nothing to do with budget. Unfortunately, these sort of things are all too common from diehard fans who put their favorite gaming companies on pedestals. It's rare I see this much insecurity except for those with way too much devotion to their favorite gaming companies. Frankly, you are the first Platinum fan I've encountered, other than a personal friend of mine, who responded to my Platinum skepticism reasonably and without flipping out. I appreciate that.
There is nothing wrong with gameplay that emphasizes style. The problem is when you get down to it I feel like that's all Platinum's offerings have going for them (though
The Wonderful 101 looked promising and a surprising outlier to their usual cool style). Once the style runs out you're often left with gameplay that has nothing left to offer and once that happens it makes the whole experience shallow, repetitive, and uninteresting. I feel Platinum lacks an understanding of nuance, depth, or complexity. This is compounded by the fact that spectacle fighters will often go into cutscenes of cool things I'd much rather have done myself. A good non-Platinum example of this is
Devil May Cry 3.[footnote]Though people currently working for Platinum did work on the game before Platinum was founded[/footnote] There are multiple cutscenes of cool things Dante gets to do that I wish I could have done myself, either in general or during the cutscene itself. He jumps through a monster's eye. Why couldn't I do that? He runs down a wall, throws his sword, shoots his sword to make it speed through a monster, and then runs after it so he can catch it. Why couldn't I do that? Spectacle fighters decide to just not involve you at all during these sort of moments (especially cutscenes) and when they do it's through shallow one button presses and extended QTE fights no better than
RE4's, which really shouldn't be setting the bar. Quite a few of Platinum's games are spectacle fighters of some sort and many of them do this and I find it frustrating and not fun. "Hey, here's some cool combos to make your eyes glisten! Great, you won! Now here's a cutscene of your character doing something cool that you'll have to watch for 2 minutes while passing the time by sipping your latte. If you're lucky maybe it'll be something cooler than anything you can do in the game! AND, if you're REALLY lucky we'll involve you through shallow involvement just to make you lose interest even faster!"
Hope that cleared up my perspective a bit. If not, I could redirect you to some threads I started and posts I've made in the past that might make me a bit easier to understand.
