ALTEREGO'S PROFILE

I remember starting playing Mystic Quest (I refuse to call it a Final Fantasy xD) many years ago on an emulator, but I never finished it because I thought it was too repetitive... Yeah, yeah, you could say the same thing about any rpg, specially from that era, but for some reason I thought that Mystic Quest was even more so repetitive. Probably because you can only control two characters at a time, and you fight the same group of enemies over an over again, specially in those 'battlefield' areas.

That being said, the idea of remaking and old final fantasy has always been sitting in the back of my mind. Maybe I should finish it and remake that instead, just to show Squenix how remakes are done...... >_>;

author=Max McGee
From what I can see from the trailer the...gameplay...for the disgusting filth that it is...actually seems really solid.

I don't know... I friend of mine was telling me: "How is this any different than DOOM? All you do is shoot monsters endlessly." And I was like: "No way, dude!" xD You have very distinctive set of weapons in Doom that are more effective against certain type of monsters and best used under certain circumstances. You really have to strategize your approach in order to save ammo and dispatch large crowds of monsters, specially if you're playing a custom map. And we're talking about a game made 20 years ago here!

In this game however, for what I can discern from the trailer, all your "enemies" are the same: harmless, defenseless, and scared shitless... Even when the 'protagonist' is shooting police officers (at the police station, no less) he's like "guns ablazing!". I see no need there to take cover, to change weapons, to save ammo, to do nothing. All I see is -cinematic- violence.

"Feminism this" "Feminists that"

Jesuschrist! Is this line of discussion helping anything? You're even making me want to join the anti-gamergate side just because of this. (For the record, I'm neutral). I mean, the point has been beaten to death. And the parallel between feminism and gamergate is becoming tackier and tackier. Let people indulge on their double standards, they'll never get it.

Something something about games, fun, politics, and other related issues.

I think is important to make a distinction between games as a medium and games as games. The two are not mutually exclusive. Certainly anyone can use the medium as a platform to push their silly beliefs (Incidentally, nobody likes it when the military uses games as a recruiting tool, but hey, "social engineering!" amirite?) But this is not something I want from the "entertainment industry" side of the medium. I want my vidya-gams to be the less politicized as possible. I play videogames to have fun, first and foremost.

Regardless, we cannot operate under the premise that games influence people. We have to operate under the premise that people let games influence them. Games do not radiate hypnotic rays that tell people what to think or how to act. And that is not the intent of your average game studios... Please note that this does not preclude developers from expressing themselves, from tackling complex issues, or trying new things -- quite the opposite. What it does is return agency to the consumer to make their own choices. It returns society the ability to hold individuals accountable for their wrongdoings without the "games made me do it" distraction. And it returns developers and players the ability to create/enjoy the games they want without the stigma of being labeled "complicit" of certain behaviors.

And even then I'd agree that developers share some degree of responsibility about what they create. But I think there's more productive ways to improve our situation than to inoculate games from all things "pernicious" or whatever. Like for example: facilitating the player accurate information about themes you may have approached with some artistic leisure. Or including trigger warnings for people who may feel legitimate upset about certain topics. etc... Dunno. This is probably a discussion for another time.

author=Liberty
Here are a few title screens. Tell me which ones you'd allow on the site just by these images and which you wouldn't. Then I'll show you whether they made it or not and why. No cheating now~

None of those caught my eye, except maybe number 5 and the last one. The former tells me the author can do some digital painting, and the later tells me the author knows something about graphic design. Both useful bits of information for me as a player/artist... But I find this exercise to be a bit unfair because I would never accept a game based on its title screen ONLY, and I'm not asking you to do this either! This is like the third time I say it. Why do you do this to me, Liberty? Why do you hate me sooooo!!??? T_T

I think I worded this fairly clear. All I'm asking from you is not to categorically dismiss title screens as one of the three screenshots that would help you decide to accept a game or not. If you think necessary to ask the author for another type of screen, you still can do that. If you think necessary to reject, or to ask a screenshot to be improved based on its quality, you still can do that. Nothing has changed! But if by some cosmic happenstance you come across a title screen that is fairly 'unique', consider it, please.
_
Then there's the argument about "playability". How do we decide what's "playable" and what isn't. Are cut-scenes playable, for instance? Many would argue they are not. How many times have we heard platitudes like: "I want to play the game not watch a movie/read a book"? ...But here's the thing. I'm of the opinion that as a creative community with people from all walks of life -with backgrounds from different disciplines- we should be striving to get rid of that type of mentality, and many others, such as: "RTP sucks" or "Music is not important" or "Title screens are not In-game/are not playable". Eventhoughthteytotallyarebothofthosethingsbydefinition.

*deep-breath*

author=kentona
The games submission queue has already claimed the lives of Magi, Karsuman and Deckiller. How many more lives must be sacrificed to satiate your desire for misguided leniency?

I won't stop until rmn is a barren wasteland

It's like we're talking different languages. ;_; I could write my own laundry list of what kind of useful information you could derive from a title screen alone; some of which would even coincide with items in your list (Skin choice, readability, etc.) This should be reason enough not to categorically exclude a good title screen from being one of the three screenshots accepted. But you have your mind set that a title screen is just "a cool image with some pretty text slapped on it" and nothing more... Ah, but I guess this just confirms my initial conclusion: It's not that there's a legitimate reason not to allow this, it's simply that the disposition to do it does not exist.

@Kentona: This is about principles, man! Ugh! You people would never understand!

PS: Out of spite I'll make all the title screens of my future games fully interactive. >=(