TRANCE2'S PROFILE

Well I finished Xenosaga 1... so now I'm hurting myself by playing Xenosaga 2! I'd probably be enjoying myself more if I hadn't started playing it while I'm crunched to do other things.

Also, after seeing a lengthy stream of it, I got convinced to buy Fez. Though the background behind it might not be so hot (though the creator did apologize and elaborate on his comments), the game itself is pretty fun. It's very old-school in its puzzle, though. And whether that's a good or a bad thing, take it how you will.

Lost Odyssey had an interesting idea regarding missable content that I kinda liked, though it got rather annoying when it was a mundane item. For those of you who haven't played Lost Odyssey, there's an achievement for finding EVERY treasure - that includes ones found in pots and behind posters, not just in treasure chests. For the couple of areas that the player could never backtrack to, there was an Auction House in one of the towns where the player could bid on any item that was in one of those areas.

It's a pretty good idea, except when you're bidding against people who are charging 4x the price of the first-tier healing item FOR that healing item. Plus you only get three bids until you're locked out, so if you're too itchy with that trigger finger, you lose out. At least for that particular round - nothing is permanently missable through the Auction House. If you don't win the bid, then it'll come back up in rotation soon enough.

As for "how hidden is too hidden..." Mushroom Kingdom Frog Coin (which was mentioned earlier) is too hidden. But as for other things... I'm with LockeZ in that if a player cares enough to look for it, they care enough about your game to do everything possible. Though I'm one of those people who likes to breadcrumb optional content; I'd rather it be hinted at in some fashion rather than be completely out of left field.

Another example of bad optional content I can think of is the Brionac side quest in Tales of Vesperia. You literally NEEDED a guide for that side quest, if only because there were specific times you had to be specific places, and those times are literally so specific that if you move one dungeon, town, or plot point forward, you'd lose out on that part of the side quest forever and therefore the item at the end of it. And there was no way to tell when or where these events were. So yeah... don't do that.

That's what I just did and I'm checking right now. It only started happening about... six hours after it blue screened for a display crash? I still have to crack 'er open sometime soon to see if all the frequent moving I've been doing with my computer has caused something to get loose inside (namely the graphics card) since it's been pretty cool, so it's not overheating... :x

EDIT: All right; the good old "restart the computer" trick worked. I'm still seriously freaked out that it happened in the FIRST PLACE, though... :<

LATER ON: Yeah, dubble paste baaad.

Just like to mention how trying to make a world map with somewhat defined paths with geological knowledge is a trial in frustration. Because you WANT to use mountains to keep the player from getting to certain places, but geologically, mountains where you want them don't make SENSE because of plate tectonics and all that jazz. So it's like hrrrrghn why map look so bad. .-.

Oh my GAWD it CANNOT be this difficult to rotate a sprite's head! Third program is hopefully the charm. ><

All I freakin' want is for the pixels to be like locked or something. And for them NOT to change while I'm rotating. Because that's what screwing everything up. D:

author=Tau
Battle system is fun and deep. The world is MASSIVE for a single player game. Graphics are beautiful, music, shit ton of quests. Gotta love Sakaguchi. Story isn't bad either surprisingly.

B-but... Xenoblade ISN'T Mistwalker. It's Monolith Soft. :x

The lead writer is the guy who wrote Xenogears, though. (and I think Xenosaga 1? I could be wrong on that last one.)