SO, FINAL TEAR 3

Posts

Ciel
an aristocrat of rpgmaker culture
367
I think that Welps should replace Stars for reviews.

Also, I never did get to ask whether "Tear" in the title meant crying, or ripping.
author=narcodis
You mean you arrogantly lashed out at everyone for doing something exactly like what you've done on multiple occasions, and get mad when they retaliate? Yeah, the nerve of these people.


Just because he's a hypocrite, it doesn't immediately invalidate his point.

super_stunner has been gang raped. And I, personally, feel bad for him, despite agreeing with all of the criticism that has been brought up.

author=sbester
author=narcodis
You mean you arrogantly lashed out at everyone for doing something exactly like what you've done on multiple occasions, and get mad when they retaliate? Yeah, the nerve of these people.
Just because he's a hypocrite, it doesn't immediately invalidate his point.

super_stunner has been gang raped. And I, personally, feel bad for him, despite agreeing with all of the criticism that has been brought up.


He may have a point, and I never said it wasn't valid. He's still a total jackass.

In any case, the entire reaction FT3 has inspired was instigated by Super_Stunner himself. He declared himself against everyone here at RMN and refused to accept any honest criticism. That kind of attitude is really kind of destructive in it's own way... and then hiring your friends to skew the review system? It's shameful; however, it's gone on too long, that I will agree with.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
I don't know where exactly the criticism of FT3 started, but I would guess that it wasn't 'honest' at first. Time and again it seems like all anyone ever deals out around here is destructive criticism. The kind that doesn't help developers and discourages them due to the general meanness of its nature. Really persistent people (like myself) can read between the lines and find useful advice in cruel slander, but not everyone does, and it's really stupid to think you can help others or the image of this site giving feedback that way.

Basically, you guys are all jackasses. The only ones who aren't are the ones like Liberty who actually tried the game, gave it a fair chance, and expressed their complaints in an unobtrusive way.

Are we GW yet?

@hali

Calling everyone else horribly "destructive" is in itself horribly "destructive". Especially your little GW wisecrack video. If you want to take a moral high ground, then you shouldn't tack on forum ammo.

author=Super_stunner
Yeah I decided to quit this site on all of my 3 games because the reviews of people who play the whole game got deleted and the reviews of people who did play 1 hour of the game stay...

Willing to list the screen names of people who played the game completely so that we can get some proof of this? I personally was willing to use your entire game as a test case for my engine, except it was an installer.

I don't know why everyone is so particular about this game, it's not like this is the only bad game on this website.

Actually, if you link me a ZIP of the game that would be fine.
author=halibabica
Basically, you guys are all jackasses. The only ones who aren't are the ones like Liberty who actually tried the game, gave it a fair chance, and expressed their complaints in an unobtrusive way.

Ganonfrog and I wrote very lengthy reviews pinpointing what we thought went wrong with this project, just to have him delete the game because of "low star count". We each played approximately 8 hours of this dreck until we just couldn't anymore. And what was the response? "You guys need to play the first 20 hours... that's when it gets GOOOOOD!" This is a horrible response to criticism and this is where the Final Tear 3 backlash began. Coupled with reviews and responses engineered by friends of his, this is where it's infamy stems.

The game is terrible but it's not the worst. Putting aside Yankee_Doodle.mid playing for an entire 30 minutes in the first town, appalling spelling and grammar to the point of hilarity, systems that barely make sense, the longest and most narmy introduction you can find in an RPG Maker game and the game's self-proclaimed 150 hour length, it is still not the worst. There are many projects that could use a bashing instead of this one, such as The New Disciples. But until the creator, newdisciples, acts like an ass about feedback and asks his buddies to write him up two 5-star reviews comparing it to Inception and Shutter Island, most likely he's going to be safe from all of this.

If this guy was Max McGee, this wouldn't be an issue.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
I didn't say you weren't one of the fair ones, SL.

from WolfCoder
Calling everyone else horribly "destructive" is in itself horribly "destructive".

Yeah, it pretty much is. I could do a case by case of each jackass specifically and tell them why their methods of giving feedback are horrible, or I could blanket them all under one general issue like I did. It's not like either would do any good anyway. These persons will continue to be problematic until they decide to pull their heads out of their asses and show some decency.
"You guys need to play the first 20 hours... that's when it gets GOOOOOD!"

Where have I heard this one before...?


Oh yeah that's right, Final Fantasy 13!
Super_Stunner is the Ed Wood of RPG Maker. And "Final Tear 3" is the "Plan 9 from Outer Space". You can't expect Ed Wood to direct a Citizen Kane. Might as well accept his inability to. Nobody here hates Final Tear 3, just like nobody really hates Ed Wood. We find it endearing in its dedication to awfulness.

"Make the games you wish to see in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi.

Decency? There is no decency when it comes to:



If the guy is unwilling to change this dialogue, we might as well respect his wishes...

If I could say "Fuckin Nuckle Dragon Cunts" to the teacher, I would be sooo happy.
author=Strangeluv
Super_Stunner is the Ed Wood of RPG Maker. And "Final Tear 3" is the "Plan 9 from Outer Space". You can't expect Ed Wood to direct a Citizen Kane. Might as well accept his inability to. Nobody here hates Final Tear 3, just like nobody really hates Ed Wood. We find it endearing in its dedication to awfulness.

Yes. It is The Room and Troll 2 and Plan 9 and all that other good stuff.
author=WolfCoder
If I could say "Fuckin Nuckle Dragon Cunts" to the teacher, I would be sooo happy.
this would be a great user title.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
That's not horrible writing, it's just horrible language. Lots of action movies have scenes with dialogue like that. And are still considered great movies. It's less common in TV shows due to network censors, but shows like The Wire have this kind of dialogue non-stop and are still considered extremely good - The Wire is even highly praised for its writing.

So a few screenshots of foul-mouthed cursing isn't enough to show that the game is awful, or even that it's not excellent.
author=kentona
author=WolfCoder
If I could say "Fuckin Nuckle Dragon Cunts" to the teacher, I would be sooo happy.
this would be a great user title.

I was thinking the same thing, except it's ripped from South Park and isn't original.
Yeah, this is not The Wire or Pulp Fiction. Those have established urban settings, where such language is expected... commonplace... it respects the verisimilitude. This is like Harry Potter screaming "FUCK YOU RON, YOU WEASLEY CUNT!" Both terrible and hilarious.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=WolfCoder
except it's ripped from South Park and isn't original.


I retract my earlier statement about "not enough to show that the game is awful" in light of this new information
author=Strangeluv
author=halibabica
Basically, you guys are all jackasses. The only ones who aren't are the ones like Liberty who actually tried the game, gave it a fair chance, and expressed their complaints in an unobtrusive way.
Ganonfrog and I wrote very lengthy reviews pinpointing what we thought went wrong with this project, just to have him delete the game because of "low star count". We each played approximately 8 hours of this dreck until we just couldn't anymore. And what was the response? "You guys need to play the first 20 hours... that's when it gets GOOOOOD!" This is a horrible response to criticism and this is where the Final Tear 3 backlash began. Coupled with reviews and responses engineered by friends of his, this is where it's infamy stems.

The game is terrible but it's not the worst. Putting aside Yankee_Doodle.mid playing for an entire 30 minutes in the first town, appalling spelling and grammar to the point of hilarity, systems that barely make sense, the longest and most narmy introduction you can find in an RPG Maker game and the game's self-proclaimed 150 hour length, it is still not the worst. There are many projects that could use a bashing instead of this one, such as The New Disciples. But until the creator, newdisciples, acts like an ass about feedback and asks his buddies to write him up two 5-star reviews comparing it to Inception and Shutter Island, most likely he's going to be safe from all of this.

If this guy was Max McGee, this wouldn't be an issue.

Not sure if I understand the Max comment, but the rest of this rings true.

I missed that short 4 hour window between when the review was posted and the game was taken down, so I unfortunately did not get a chance to read it. Any chance that you still have it handy? I'd like to read it.

I also agree that a couple of screens with overthetop language isn't enough to label a game as 'horrible', but a review from someone who played the game for 8 hours (the timestamp wherein an RM game goes from average length to long) should carry enough weight to be able to assign a label to a game.

...if that makes any sense...

I would like to read the review, and know the score you gave it, that it caused such ruckus that the game's creator made the decision to take down the game.
author=LockeZ
author=WolfCoder
except it's ripped from South Park and isn't original.
I retract my earlier statement about "not enough to show that the game is awful" in light of this new information

Same. I obviously don't watch enough South Park.

(or maybe I do, depending on your opinion of the show)
author=kentona
I would like to read the review, and know the score you gave it, that it caused such ruckus that the game's creator made the decision to take down the game.

No creator is separate from his creations. To properly understand a creation is to properly understand its creator. The creation, in this stance, is "Final Tear 3" and the creator is "Stevie v.d. Laar". Who exactly is Stevie v.d. Laar? To play Final Tear 3 is to study the adolescent life of Stevie v.d. Laar. There are many works that follow the lives and emotions of the wistful teenager. "The Catcher in the Rye", the marvelous novel by the reclusive J.D. Salinger, "Stand By Me", a simple but heartwrenching film directed by a hefty Rob Reiner, and the nostalgic television series "The Wonder Years" come to mind. Unlike such works that involve the incandescent coming-of-age story arc, has there ever been one, aside from rare instances such as "The Diary of Anne Frank", which does it from a real teenager's point of view, over the course of several years? Not even Anne Frank could accomplish such a feat. Yes, ladies and laddies, Final Tear 3 is a detailed account of the human condition of the adolescent male, from age thirteen to adulthood.


Was Mr. Laar abused as a child? These may be key scenes in unravelling the mystery... ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky



One of the first messages the player gets in the game is:


I believe this very message, a master-stroke of three lines, characterizes the ambitious greed and folly of youth and the very preference of style over function. Should one ever sacrifice function for fashion? A deep question. Spanning one hundred and fifty hours of gameplay, the game boasts a lengthy one hour long introduction, complete with voice acting in the first five minutes â€" a deep, growling voice reminiscent of such heavy metal and death metal bands of our youth such as Slipknot, Cannibal Corpse and Sepultura. I was instantly reminded of my days of spiked collars and headbanging to the speedy riffs of Slayer's "Raining Blood" and screaming along, "GOD HATES US ALL! GOD HATES US ALL! HOMICIDE! SUICIDE!" A potent five minutes once one gets the proper references.

Ten minutes later, we are introduced to our first story arc, which involves a mysterious phallic spacecraft and enigmatic mentions of a God called "Emoirle". For a thirteen year old male, the image of a penis is a powerful, almost intoxicating one. I was reminded of my first few sessions of masturbation, looking at my erect penis and realizing its symbolic authority. In Final Tear 3, the aforementioned spacecraft fires an enormous laser and destroys an entire planet. I believe this to be representative of Mr. Laar's first period of ejaculation destroying the world of his naive childhood innocence. This is a key scene in the game!



"Sexual lust is both a destructive and constructive entity." ~ Sigmund "Final Sexual Fantasy" Freud


We are soon introduced a new character by the name of Lord Lucas, a hooded deceptive Prince. As he wanders about his village, talking to his people, we are only forced to watch. The game plays automatically. The text is absurdly slow at some points. It is as if Mr. Laar is attempting to punish his very audience, just like how we all wanted to lash out at the world at age thirteen. It is at this point that most would have tuned out, refusing to give Mr. Laar a chance to speak. Teenagers need not be lectured, only to be listened to, and it is those ignorant ones that flee when they realize their turn to speak is more than an hour away.



A representation of true teenage angst ~ Allen Ginsberg.


Lord Lucas is a manifestation of the teenage angst that soon accompanied the destruction of Mr. Laar's childhood world. Thirty minutes later, we are still listening to Lord Lucas' devilish monologue, giving him our time of day, hoping that it would stop him from doing his dirty deeds. However, soon he amasses a group of villagers and demands that a woman bring a certain baby to him. What does this baby represent? Perhaps Mr. Laar was longing to return to his childhood days after cutting himself during his first shave, a single trickle of blood leaking down his lips? Only further analysis can tell. The truth is that Mr. Laar licked the blood off his lips that day, for as soon as he acquires the baby, he summons a giant dragon named "Omega" who scorches the entire village.



"Some people just want to see the world burn." Batman.


After one hour of the introduction's cutscene, we suddenly shift to another story arc â€" this time to a young boy named Lance. Lance is mild-mannered, caring and good-natured. Lord Lucas and Lance are polar opposites and represent the schism and contrast of Mr. Laar's want to express himself and want to be socially acceptable. Lance also lacks any real memory of himself when he was younger. Characteristic of the confusion of adolescence when developing a proper identity for one's self. Upon contemplating, I strongly believe Mr. Laar's father to be a gambling alcoholic. The reason I say this is because of a certain roulette mini-game found in the first town. One reviewer stated the game is very "realistic", just like a real casino game. I have to strongly agree with this, the reason being that once you begin the roulette mini-game, the player may never leave, just like how gambling addiction works in real life. It is as if Mr. Laar is penalizing the player for choosing to gamble, teaching a lesson to all the potential mothers and fathers out there to not squander away their kids' college funds. Mr. Laar had to feel very strongly about gambling to implement such harsh consequences to participating in an illegal activity.



Mr. Laar... making a statement on gambling and its effects on the nuclear family.


The first few hours of the game, which I have played, have very slow walking speed. When one is in their early teens, they tend to be very cautious when stepping out into the world, so this can be forgiven. The battles are very simplistic Spacebar mashfests. A nice touch about the battles was the voice acting of Lance at the beginning of each battle. One such remark is, "OH MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!" A realistic exclamation for a young man stumbling across two giant fire-breathing toads. But Lance is brave and with a couple of "HIYAAA.wav" and "GRRRUUU.wav", he defeats his foes. A cocky teen, for sure.



"i pray to u o lord" ~ The Pope


There is a lot of talk of God and religion when the player teams up with Jesse at the church. Doubt and religious ponderings are commonplace at this time of life. While Lance is agnostic, Jesse's beliefs are preposterously outlandish, to the point of parody. The religious blasphemy even goes as far as having Jesse use the Bible as a sort of black magic tome, having him quote psalms from Exodus, Genesis and Revelations to cast spells and having him recite ridiculous lines, such as "Religion is my middle name." But then again, it just might be.

Final Tear 3 also made me believe Mr. Laar was mugged during his early teen years. The scene below illustrates a rude thief coming out of nowhere and attacking you for a "ten". I had 400 at that point in time. I wouldn't have minded giving up a 10. But Lance braved on into the thirty-minute long boss battle. At this point, however, I began to become fatigued. I was literally lying on my bed, eyes closed, finger pressing Spacebar every three seconds. Mr. Laar had made his point. He had hated the world back then for what it did to him.



"FUCK THE WORLD!" ~ Insane Clown Posse


The dialogue is done in mostly "text-speak", such as replacing "you" with "u" and "Okay" with "ok". I would like to believe the dialogue begins to gain some intelligent coherence by the hundredth hour when Mr. Laar's progresses to writing his college application essays.

Look... enough bullshit. Final Tear 3 is an exhaustive exploration into the mind of a man. With some imagination, one can actually have fun with this, like I just did, writing the above faux-examination. But that's the most fun you're most likely to have. With seven years of development, this is a shining example of why any project of such extent and duration should NOT be undertaken by any neophyte of any medium. It is plodding, perplexing, unbalanced and simply horrible. George Lucas made his short film "THX-1138" before he attempted to direct "Star Wars". Stephen King wrote short stories and the novella "Carrie" before attempting his Dark Tower magnum opus. Most amateur creators start small. The amateur RPG Maker designer, however, wants to start big, and this is the downfall of many games. Stevie v.d. Laar has toiled and spent seven years of his life on a project that probably no one but his alternate accounts will have completed. Take that statement however you wish to.But one must admire such persistence.

Unfortunately, I wish such persistence and determination was involved in a better project. The game may be complete but, after playing close to seven hours of it, I find it to be a complete pile of jumbled shit. Rips are just thrown together without any regard for consistency. Facesets include those made with Facemaker, Mac and Blue and stills of random commercial anime characters. The voice acting is entertaining but I tire of hearing "There's the enemies. Do they look evil?" at the beginning of every random encounters. There's even a point where Lance says in the beginning of the battle, "Do we really have to fight?" This was my only true connection to the otherwise wooden main character.



This was probably the most colourful character... the "Sonic Wannab" enemy...


The game is simply unentertaining. It is not even entertaining in the manner that Ed Wood movies are entertaining. And the only real praise I can give the game is for some of its soundtrack, which provides some cool tunes for some of the areas, such as the the overworld theme, the Petunia Plains and the first village's theme (not Yankee Doodle/London Bridge.mid).

The plot is indecipherable as far as I've played, except that it involves aliens who inhabited a planet and stole a baby. If the plot twist comes 20 hours into the game, I can only surmise it is that Lance was the baby stolen at the beginning of the game. But guess what? It doesn't matter how good your plot twist is. Nobody is going to see it, because the game is so damn painful to play through. Writing an enthralling plot involves a decent amount of foreshadowing, a present and ongoing conflict, lucid dialogue and narrative, intelligible exposure and compelling characters, all of which Final Tear 3 lacks. Its main demise is that no one knows what the damn conflict is from the indistinct one-hour long introduction. Conflict is what keeps a story going and what keeps a player playing. What is the player's goal? Rescue a princess from a castle? Recover a stolen artifact? Brave across dangerous territory to reach his father? None of this is made apparent. The actual main goal doesn't have to be made apparent from the very beginning, but small ones leading up to the main one can. A good example would be Chrono Trigger starting off with little conflict, until Crono bumps into Marle and she is subsequently sent into the Middle Ages. We don't find out about Lavos until a few hours later, but we're given an interesting set of sub-plots and arcs that establish the mood of the game before the "reveal". It is also very rude to suddenly switch perspectives after viewing a one-hour long introduction and have them play another one-hour long introduction as another character.

Listen. RPG Maker games are dime-a-dozen. They are freeware (mostly). You will be lucky if someone plays your game for an hour waiting for something interesting to happen before deleting it forever. Nobody paid any money, so what is the incentive to keep playing? This is not like a bad movie, where you might stay for the whole thing because you just shedded ten bones. This is the awful NES ROM you send to your Recycle Bin after playing for two minutes and realizing how clunky the controls are. Know your market and design your product accordingly. I repeat, NOBODY is going to play for twenty hours waiting for it to "get good", no matter how good it gets. A tree falls in the forest, and so on... you know?

The key is to hook the player from the first scene, not 20 hours into the game. That's horrible storytelling design. Nothing more.



SL, if you want it taken down let me know and I'll edit it out

*edit*
The score was one star