Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Ryan Braun being guilty or innocent, the American Idol top 25, or Powerfox & Ponymane, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
I’m loving Final Fantasy XIII-2. I’m going to end up playing it way longer than I expected. Part of it is because I’m anxiously awaiting next week’s DLC (Sazh is cool and Serah in a bikini is cooler), but the bigger part is that I love how monsters are handled. In many ways, it’s similar to Pokemon. I’ve played over 1,000 hours of Pokemon, so this facet of the XIII-2 is immensely appealing. I’ve spent hours catching monsters, looking for components to level up monsters, infusing monsters to increase their powers, and more. Hunting and training monsters in XIII-2 gives me the same type of enjoyment as hunting, breeding, and EV training monsters in Pokemon.
In fact, I’ve spent roughly 65 percent of my game time focusing on monsters and only 35 percent on progressing the story. The monster system is so good that I’d be perfectly content just catching, training, and fighting monsters. (And yes, I want the DLC because the game will be 37 percent more fun playing as Serah in a bikini). While I’m definitely enjoying the game as a whole, I’m enjoying this aspect of the game more than the entire game.
Has this ever happened to you? I remember a few of you being hooked on gambling minigames. Have you enjoyed a sub-game, minigame, or ancillary aspect of a game more than the entire game?
I enjoyed getting all of the Gargoyles and Demon Doors in Fable 2 if that counts.
Totally counts!
There were times I would log onto FFX and just play Blitzball all day long. The monster hunting thing…..eh. I haven't tried it yet. I'm only an hour into the game since the wife's been the one playing it. She really likes it though, more so than FFXIII (which both of us felt was pretty Bleh). My own preconceptions of the game based on what FFXIII was is stinting my own anticipation for jumping into FFXIII-2. Also, too many good RPG's in a 6 month span makes it hard for me to get excited for all of them.
I liked the side quest missions for Oblivion and Fallout 3 more than I did the actual main story. Although, Fallout 3's story was significantly better than Oblivions'.
-M
Dude, Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow's gambling mini-games were great! I love how they keep making the slots better every year, too!
As for hours played… I've played the Pokemon series the most, but Final Fantasy: Tactics Advance and its sequel clocked in a combined total of 500 hours, 300 of which belong to the original. Not to mention Dissidia and Duodecim, which make about another 300 hours total due to grinding.
And don't even get me started on Super Smash Bros. I won't talk about it.
Actually going to give FFT iPad a whirl. I'm hopeful. The iPhone version could have been better. I've heard the iPad version is fixed.
"Fixed"? What was wrong with the iPhone version?
The iPhone version has horrible slowdown and stuttering. I have the iPad version downloaded, but haven't tried it yet. I'll definitely play some this week.
Yikes. That sounds pretty bad. I think I have Tactics on my computer, actually, but I don't think I ever got around to playing it… I might have to do that.
I of course really get into this part of the game in Pokemon, as evidenced by the amount of time I've played the games. Heartgold has around 480, Diamond has 200ish, platinum and pearl have around 30 each, and Black has around 550ish so far because I took a couple months off of playing and haven't gotten as much play time recently as I would like.
When I was a kid, I'd spend a lot of time in the casino level in Sonic 2 so I could wrack up a ton of lives. The very first slot machine I'd stay at for until I had just enough time to finish the zone.
I remember this since a guest of mine started playing Sonic 2 on my Wii last night.
Oh, hey! I just thought of one:
In Final Fantasy VIII, I played that stupid card game more than I played the actual game. I think that was one of the reasons I usually hate on that game. It was telling me: "Hurry, there's no time to waste; you have to save the world. But first, would you like to play a card game?"
-M
yeah i actually did the same thing with 8. That was a fun game, although once you get good enough cards, you couldnt be beaten