8/9/26
I think tactical RPGs often suffer from this annoying combination of things:
- Overly complicated from the outset. I have gear and stats and race and equipment and buffs and abilities.
- And then the combats you play through are absolutely trivial. Probably because the game is so complicated that you’re being given baby challenges as a bandaid.
- Often (though not in the case of The Last Spell which is spawning this thought) there’s a bunch of narrative setup taking up more time making progression through the previous steps even slower.
- These games ask you to invest a LOT in a character or run and I feel like they’re not able to punish you as strongly as a game that doesn’t. AKA Spelunky can kill you instantly at any time, but losing an XCOM run feels very different. XCOM can certainly kill you after a week of play, but idk if I can handle that.
This all combines to create an experience I find incredibly off putting.
Thinking about The Last Spell though, I find this game to be pretty fascinating. I enjoy watching the game. It has been interesting to see some later gameplay, there’s so much more interesting enemy and challenge stuff going on. In my play, after playing an hour I just kinda trivially destroyed whatever mission I played. I found it uninteresting and dropped the game. I felt similar when trying out a Fire Emblem game.
This is clearly an “expected” genre trope. There’s the stereotypical “it takes X hours before game gets good” thing. I just cannot gel with this idea.