Thursday, October 23, 2008

I has new PeeEssPee Game

Picked me up a little "Star Ocean First Departure" at EB during my break today and deicded to celebrate over a burger and coke at A&W.

While i was munching away thinking about how much fun im going to have visiting an RPG i never got to play that exists as an upgraded version part 1 of my absolute favorite RPG series to date, i decided to crack open the manual (of course ditching the French version). I was surprised to see, an actual instruction booklet. Opening it up it explained all gameplay mechanics, button layout hotsheets, a registration form to Squenix, and, hold on to your hats: Character Profiles.
Seriously people, THIS is how you do an instruction manual! This is packaging for games 101.

now i know some game sout there (mostly RPGs) still feature such things, but i never felt compelled to browse the thin instruction manual to Tales of Vesperia, and only to see 2 little character profiles for Yuri and Repede and basic explanations as to what may entail in the game.

can we seriously go back to doing what we used to do with Instruction manuals? i mean i know Game Design 201 is all about being able to tell the player everything intuitively while playing the game and i can understand not wanting to spoil something or details to early, but these make great reading material for those who dont have interest in Books. Back story of events leading up to the game itself, profiles, weapon data, monsters, all of this information USED to exist, but much like the Health Bar since Halo, its gone the way of the dodo in place of manuals consisting entirely of how to put the disc in the tray and turn it on.

Anyways, im stoked to play me some Star Ocean.

Oh and im about halfway through The Brotherhood on Saints Row 2 now. Ronin and Sons of Somedi have already met utter defeat.

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