Whether or not you enjoy them is subjective orifyou'regoodatthem They do however accomplish the goal of fleshing out the world- giving professions to different people so the game doesn't come off as centered around your quest, but rather a world where your quest is just taking place.
Y'know, I've tried reasoning with you At this point I think it would be more economical to just say "Wrong" and trot along
I liked the ones in Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X so far. [desperate attempt to point out how shit the mini-games in Kingdom Hearts have been]
It doesn't get the attention it needs to actually work in terms of gameplay, though, and if you're going to make that argument, doesn't it kind of belittle every other person in the world by making it so one person can surpass all the people who dedicate their lives to the profession in question with little to no effort. There's no justifying putting in terrible mini games for the sake of it, if it hurts the game itself there's no good enough reason to include them (I guess the exception being moere genre bending games where the player's frustration is used for the narrative or gameplay The mini games in KH definitely aren't very good either, and I'm glad they eased off them, but at the very least besides some specific examples, like the rhythm ice cream game in BBS, they're flawed for a lack of depth, and not fundamentally broken. They ad the game, but they're not offensive enough to actually detract from it.
Whoa there hot shot- I'd say that it's quite the opposite. Those who understand it quickly and beat it without problem show that these people need to try harder and it really paints your hero status well. Afterall, Tidus isn't just a warrior- he's an athlete. Winning with ease would paint him as someone who's just straight up better than most people, getting his skills with ease and that's why he's in a hero position and why people will remember him for a long time. On the opposite end of the spectrum is if the player fails the mini-game and has to keep trying- it means that the regular guy is showing his dominance in his field but Tidus being the hero can still learn quick, adapt, and overcome- something he has to do the entire game. The character is enough of an avatar where either way would be fitting from both a writing and an interactive respect.
Oh wow speaking of which just spent 3 hours trying to win this minigame and trying to follow FAQ's that all say "lol no really good luck." But yeah, this minigame doesn't necessarily reflect the integrity of the other minigames in this and in other FF games. It's just a little frustrating how this one just happens to depend wholly on luck and to be a requirement for Tidus' ultima weapon. D:
That's certainly a perfectly valid angle, I don't personally subscribe to it. Okay, so Tidus is an athlete, but there are NO Chocobos in Zanarkand. Sure, he has physical strength, but there's no particular reason why he should be able to beat a person who raises and races Chocobos as a career so easily. It's a narrative issue that is prominent in a LOT of video games. They present you with challenges that, on a relative scale, aren't anywhere near the level they should be. Ancient trials are solved with basic puzzles, and legendary races are beaten after a few attempts. The side effect of this is that suddenly you have an character who is INSANELY skileld at a TONNE of skills. In the few short days Tidus spends in Spira he, canonically, caught legendary butterflies, found innumerable hidden items, learned an entire new language, won hundreds of blitzball games (easily the most believable achievement, barring the time scale) he has solved puzzles meant to test if a summoner can beat what is essentially a god of death, he has come up with a way to beat Sin permanently, he has survived way more encounters with Sin than anybody else ever, found the means to awakening the power of over half a dozen legendary weapons, won two entirely different Chocobo races, one against some vaguely defined legendary chocobo. And I'm sure there's more where that came from. My point is, if this were a book or something, there would probably be a point where the reader starts rolling their eyes and asking "is there anything he CAN'T do?" And really in this case they were lucky enough to have a wide cast, so they could have cirumvented this by having different characters do different things. Have Lulu do the mystical stuff (or maybe Kimahri) have Rikku or Wakka do the Chocobo stuff, have Yuna do the cloister puzzles. Now instead of serving to make one character into a powerhouse in everything he deigns to try, we instead have it serve to renforce somthing the game already does a LOT with its combat: that each character is wildly different and has their own niche to fill. But again, that's my angle, I can TOTALLY see where you're cming from with yours. I'd say it's pretty indicative. It may be one of the worst ones, but there are a LOT of other terrible ones throughout the franchise REALLY arbitrary ones too, like "Hey, let's do a timing mini game where we all have to press these buttons at the same time, but to add challenge the way we press buttons is to throw our arms above our heads slowly and THEN press it, making the timing a nightmare!"
If horse races and football were a mathematical equation of skills and training rather than a complete matter of luck we wouldn' t organize bets around them. Just sayin'. As for the kid/teenager wiping the floor with any war vet around while single-handedly saving the world, killing gods and somehow finding the time to win uber materias in a theme park, nevermind that huge meteor coming your way real fast, could not care less. I buy video games for their gameplay first and foremost. If you think adding some interactive fun just gets in the way of the believability of your little abortive attempt at writing a story you clearly picked the wrong media, **** that ****.
Half of your argument is about the game replicating reality and the other half is about how you shouldn't expect it to. Sure, in real life sports are a lot of luck, but also in sports you generally don't aim for a time of zero seconds and zero millisecond in order to win a magical artifact that unlocks the power of a legendary sword. The minigame is nearly non-functional. The Chocobo changes directions at random, turning is completely unpredictable, and you're constantly being interrupted by random birds that can spawn in right in front of you and combo you. It's a mess on every level On the narrative aspect, I'm with you on that, btu different strokes, y'know? I don't see what's so crazy about buying a JRPG for story/world building. But yeah, not getting your argument of "Of course it's luck based, just like in real life... also this is a video game, it's nothing like real life"
That' s probably because that' s not what I said. I raised the fact that those are luck based irl because you said otherwise. The second half was me saying having a believable story in a video game is optional. Which doesn' t mean you shouldn' t do it at all, partially or not. Bonus points if your gameplay excentricities somehow become a narative tool on its own (that wall crammed with save points in SH2 for instance). If you ask me the silliest story in the world won' t sink a good gameplay. However I' m not sure a good story, no matter how awesome, would suffice to salvage the worst gameplay ever. The same could be said about movies, a good plot won' t save a horrendous execution (directing and acting), but a good execution can make the silliest plots fly.
