Games just don't feel worth what they used to.

[MagusKnight]

Don't forget also, now with the 3D revolution much more budget needs to be put into the graphics department, which was traditionally 1/100 (hyperbole) of the cost. Nowadays, it's practically half the budget! (unfortunately not a hyperbole...) However, with today's budget and some rare jewels of writers, I still believe they can make the most EPIC 2D old school game EVER. xD

[Asesino]

You know what I would pay for instead of a bunch of DLC for Fallout 3? An updated version of Fallout 2 on a console. Simple game play, tons of replay value, and it wouldn't even have to be a full-price game. It's brilliant.

[senjuro]

Honestly, the last game I remember that was a different enough from every other game to be considered innovative Katamari Damacy. The game doesn't try to be serious, doesn't try to have a good story, and tries at every turn to make the player say "WTF?!" The cutscenes are totally random, the King of All Cosmos says the absolute strangest things imaginable, and the music is diverse and awesome.

The past few years have had, as Yahtzee put it, a bad case of the sequels with almost every game coming out having increasingly large numbers tacked onto them. I don't mind this for franchises where the developers actually make the effort to make subsequent games in a franchise different.

For example, Final Fanasy does a great job here, as each game is actually quite different. Sure, they all have Moogles, Chocobos, and a mechanic/authority figure named Cid, but the gameplay is generally pretty different. FFIV, for example, was the first game to use the ATB system. V introduced jobs. VI had Espers and steampunk elements. VII was steampunk/futuristic, had Materia, and involved the death of a main player character. VIII had Junctions, Guardian Forces, and a plot centered mainly on the love story rather than "beat the baddy." IX was...well I didn't like it, so I guess you can say that it included a cast of completely unrelatable characters, which was a first for me from a FF game. X was the first to feature truly three-dimensional environments over its predecessors' rendered environments, had the Sphere Grid, and spoken dialogue. XI was an MMO. 'Nuff said. XII was MMO-like, in that the world was huge and took a long time to traverse, had the License system, Gambits to dictate character actions, and so on...

In short, Final Fantasy, as a franchise, has pretty successfully wedded things with which the gaming audience at large is familiar with to things which are entirely new ways of looking at these familiar things. Not exactly innovation, but at least it's conscientious thought.

And then we have franchises like GTA, which ever since the very first GTA on the PSX/PC, have boiled down to identical parameters.

In general, creativity has been pretty stagnant lately, and I find myself less and less willing to shell out $60 for something I feel like I've already played *coughStreetFighter4cough*. Games that are truly immersive or interesting to me, or promise hundreds of hours of gameplay, for example Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, I'll happily shell out some cash. But a "once through in 10 hours" ordeal just doesn't cut it for me.

[MagusKnight]

Senjuro, 1 was the first to introduce jobs.

[The Reclaimer]

Games that are truly immersive or interesting to me, or promise hundreds of hours of gameplay, for example Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, I'll happily shell out some cash. But a "once through in 10 hours" ordeal just doesn't cut it for me.

I think that's what a lot of it comes down to for me too. I like a game that I can play quickly 4-10 hours or so, just because I don't have a lot of time around work, school, girlfriend, etc. to spend on a game. But once I'm done with that, there should be some replay value.

Oblivion is a great example. The story was quick to beat, and not that challenging, but there was still a huge world to enjoy once it was done. I did sell the game once I felt "done" with it, but there was still a hell of a lot left that I could have done.

On the other hand, Prince of Persia was quick, but once it was over, it was over.

DLC helps to expand that I guess, but that's more money into an experience I didn't find fulfilling in the first place.

[senjuro]

Senjuro, 1 was the first to introduce jobs.

We're both wrong. Final Fantasy I had character classes, not Jobs. It was Final Fantasy III that first introduced the job system.

Your response in no way added to the discussion at hand. Was there a purpose behind it?

[UnknownH]

Don't forget also, now with the 3D revolution much more budget needs to be put into the graphics department, which was traditionally 1/100 (hyperbole) of the cost. Nowadays, it's practically half the budget! (unfortunately not a hyperbole...) However, with today's budget and some rare jewels of writers, I still believe they can make the most EPIC 2D old school game EVER. xD

Unless you're Nintendo. Then you say F the Graphics, let's make this game fun.
I think that's the better choice.

[MagusKnight]

Yes, me and Unknown agreed on something! Oh me dear lord! And Senjuro, yes, I am a hardcore FF fan, did you expect me to NOT respond to that? (btw yer right now that I think about it FF1 just let you choose your chars, can't really call that a job system like in FF3 where they had dark knights and knights and ninjas you could switch between to maximize your stats)

[DragonMasterX]

Oh oh oh! I like how senjuro analyzed the FF franchise, and as such, I'll nerd my way through MegaMan! ...But to save you guys from longass history like I did on my deleted resumé, I'll just emulate a few comments like he did with the comparisons.

Just look at how, from the start of the MegaMan classics, we just saw a little blue monkey with a left hand that turned into a cannon owned stuff, and jumping from the same concept of "playing throughout stages and beating the boss" kept being repeated over and over, but over different plots and with newer addons. For instance, MegaMan had his trusty arm-cannon all over his first three 8-bit games and when reaching the fourth installment, he was given the MegaBuster, which was an outstanding revolution (Except for the fact Samus Aran was employing the Charge Beam already by that time) for his platforming lore. And as Classic MegaMan kept going over, more characters and abilities were implemented, such as Rush, the robot dog, was used as MegaMan's playtoy transformer throughout V, and VI also added the possibility and innovation of giving MegaMan a new appearance with the R.U.S.H. Armor Plate that allowed them to fuse together. VII, making its way into Super Nintendo, added Bass, everyone's favorite evil anti-hero (Doesn't make sense!) who becomes MegaMan's eternal rival and gives the plot a much richer twist! Allowing fans to keep drooling as they get past all the newer, smoother-graphic'd bosses! Gotta love FreezeMan's "Cool" pose.

Separate from all the derivations that surged from the Classic, original MegaMan, I can conclude that Capcom loves to beat him like a moneycow, but! The pro is that each new title that comes out, for either of his series, always has a new, even if smaller difference that makes gameplay so much sweeter! Let's just advance some years into the future and to present date. Two days ago I got MegaMan Star Force 3: Black Ace, and while I'm truly disappointed they didn't keep the JPN voice actors, they didn't screw up that much with the dubbing, AND as established ever since the .exe saga, we keep seeing how we can customize and modify our MegaMan to both enjoy different ways of completing the main story AND enjoy Player Vs. Player to its fullest. Star Force 1 had the Star Forces, Star Force 2 had Tribe Ons, and Star Force 3 has graced us with Noise Changes. Capcom is doing a great job making the MegaMan franchise live. And they better not end it with Star Force 3, or I'll have to eat them alive.

[MagusKnight]

That's not long!? *head explodes* Could you please break that up a little more, instead of one big chunk???