Nier Gestalt

So I've played about four hours of this game. It's not bad.

It's an action RPG with the emphasis on 'action'. The RPG side comes from optional quests, money, items, weapons and so on. But it's very stats-light. You have HP, MP, Attack and Magic and that's about it. Not actually true, there are some other stats but they're not too important.

The game mostly looks kind of bland but the magic effects are nice. The storyline is great. It starts off very strong to get you sucked in, then it kind of slows down a bit but it still makes you want to see how things turn out.

I am currently stuck because of a FUCKING BULLSHIT fishing mini game, but I'll give it another go when I regain my patience.

Worth looking at if you're interested. Understand though that this is primarily an action game. If you're not into 3rd person fighting games like Bayonetta or whatever, then don't be confused into buying what looks like an RPG.

OK, I'm going to double post like an asshole because I have just experienced THE VERY DEFENITION OF BAD GAMES DESIGN.

You're on a quest. You need a certain fish (don't ask). You can't buy this fish but you have been told you can catch one yourself. You track down a fisherman who gives you a rod and tells you how to fish. The fisherman says, 'You can catch that fish you need on the beach.'

So basically, the game is introducing you to a new feature, a little mini-game. Something you haven't done before.

Right next to where you talk to the fisherman is a little beach. So you go down to the beach and start fishing, start playing this new mini-game. But something is wrong. You follow the instructions as closely as you can, but you fail. You fail again and again and again and again and again. As you have never played this mini game before and have never succeeded at it, it's hard to tell what you're doing wrong. So you try it again and again, trying slightly different things, but continue to fail. What is wrong ? Is it you, is it the game ? Every time you fail, the game repeats part of the instructions, making you think that it must be your fault, that you're not following the directions even though you're SURE you are.

What's wrong is this : the game has many places to fish. What you will slowly learn, is that some fishing spots are harder to fish at than others. In fact some are so hard that early on, when you are inexperienced and have only basic equipment, they are basically impossible. One of these sites is the one that's right next to the guy who gives you your initial fishing quest. Yes, the site is UN-FISHABLE for n00bs.

However, the town also has another beach you can fish at, quite a bit further away. If you go over to this beach, you can actually fish. And in fact, I got the fish I needed on my very first try.

WHAT THE FUCK ?

I spent at least 30 minutes trying to fish at an impossible site, blaming myself for somehow missing the point or misunderstanding the instructions, when now I understand that it is simply an impossible spot for a character of my low fishing experience. So why put it directly next to where you first get your instructions and practically tell you to fisht there ? It's like level design by either retarded monkeys or sadomasochistic Nazis.

God damn it, if this wasn't a game I was enjoying and wanted to persist with, I'd have quit right there.

Wow Uberman! that really is some bad game designing, it's because of stuff like that I have a hard time playing older games, either they purposely add stuff like that so it adds hours to the game or they are accidentally there, either way, they are both dickish.

Finished it. At one point I was doing all thye side quests, but then I started to lost interest. I feared I might just end up putting it away unfinished, so I just sprinted for the end. Good enough. Some great concepts and ideas, but iperfectly executed. I like what it was trying to do most of the time, even when it failed. A bit of an oddity with a good story at the start and the end (the middle is a bit dead).