An example of what I consider a “good” game and what makes it “good”

Hello everyone, I am back this week to discuss about what I consider an example of a “Good” game and what makes the game “Good”. But first I would like to introduce to you guys a game called Nier, published by Square Enix and developed by Cavia in the year 2010. Which had 2 versions mainly Nier Gesalt & Nier Replicant which the difference would be the main protagonist that you play as named Nier. In Nier Gesalt the player controls a Middle aged man whereas in Nier Replicant you control as a young teenage boy. The reason being having 2 versions are to suit the community or players whereby the players in Japan would play as the teenage boy and the players in outside Japan would play as the middle aged man to appeal to the audience.

The plot is simple whereby you play as Nier where you attempt to cure your daughter (in Gesalt’s scenario) or younger sister (in Replicant’s scenario) named Yonah from a fatal disease known as the Black Scrawl and accompanied with the magical Grimmore Weiss and companions Kaine and Emil to find the cure while trying to understand the true nature of the shadowy creatures named Shades.

What I consider good in Nier:

Gameplay: In the game you control Nier which you can rename him to any name of your choice and players can control the camera in a 360 degree way to examine and look at the environment and players have a freedom of moving anywhere they please as long as the system allows. Players are also allowed to jump and climb ladders in the game too.

In certain battles the camera would be turned form a top view shooting style. In the game the player or Nier, is armed with a sword initially but is later armed to weapons such as a spear and a two handed sword which would be used at different variations of enemies the player would encounter against the shades to maximize efficiency. Players can use Magic from Weiss as ranged attacks such as lances and spikes to keep the enemies at bay too. Whenever an enemy is defeated players gain experience points and money so that they can buy items and other things in their quest which also can be obtained via side quests.

Graphics: For the game’s story and theme the art style and graphics are rather good in my opinion as it fits in rather well although most other reviewers or critics blame the graphics to be very bad which I disagree entirely for a world with civilization that just started anew which are constantly having trouble as time goes by where your daily necessities are getting harder and harder to find if the game didn’t had the full of grim atmospheric art and graphic, the game would seem like describing is all they could do but not bring out however they successfully brought it out to enhance the player’s experience which I believe they did a very good job in terms of graphics.

Sound: Nier has very good sounds where it comes to the swinging of swords to the music soundtracks that could be heard throughout the game. The game has very good sound effects too especially for example against a giant shade boss fight, there would be a loud slam when it hits a surface which made it realistic due to its size and impact it does. One thing that the game definitely well I would say are the soundtracks or background music’s , the music is absolutely beautiful in my opinion which I until today still listen to it although I have completed the game at the beginning of 2011. Many would say a good game with a good plot or dialogue would carry the emotions to the player at times but if the dialogues are perfect and accompanied by the background music, I did say you not only can feel the emotions of what the character is going through but literally in the character’s shoes feeling everything he or she just went through.

Plot: The game’s story is rather well constructed and done as it takes place after our current developed civilization takes place where civilization is back to around the medieval periods where there is no technology and everything was done manually. The Plot may not seem as much in the beginning but at the end of the game. The player would understand not only the plot well but the other characters too such as your companions, Kaine and Emil. The game has 4 different endings where there is 1 ending that deletes your entire progress file but the game would prompt you about 3 to 4 times to ask if you would be 100% sure that you want to do so and after that after your file has been deleted you will not be able to use the character name that you gave Nier in a new game file.

Replay value : The game has quite afew things the player might want to accomplished if they would replay the game such as clearing the side quests which some involve real day time in your console and also there are multiple endings and they require the player to get all the weapons in the game to be able to get the last 2 endings in the game which requires some time but can be achievable in a day or two.

In my personal understanding of what makes a “good” game , “good” is by simply first understanding the whole story of the game by simply beating the game and understanding it in-depth, if the plot is good or interesting I would normally pick it up and complete it so that I can decide if it’s a good game at the end of the day or not. Secondly Graphics, as long as the game shows what I am doing and going I am ok with it but if the game has interesting art style I would be frankly interested in it further. Third but not least will be the Sounds, Sounds play a very important role in determine how the game would feel like and how the player would experience during the game hence its one of the factors that determines if the game would be good or not. So in conclusion I would only determine the game if its good or not by completing it and then thinking of it in depth as each game has a story to tell and it has its own ways of depicting it which are graphics and also accompanied by its melodies hence if the story comes together nicely, the game is good in my opinion and I do not degrade it just by reading reviews as I prefer to experience it personally so that I can judge if it is Good or not.

Now that I just finish state what I consider what considers a “good” game “good”. I would like to state that although there are many variations that can consider a game being good it might be up to personal preferences or liking to the game. But I am sharing what I think is a good game and why is it good so let me know your personally comments or feedback and thanks again for reading this lengthy post ^_^ .

Analysis of "Non-Games" & Games that are "Non-Games" into a "Game"

Hello everyone today I would like to analyse a popular game that most of us would know it as Digivice (the PDA shaped one) however first I would want analyse the game in depth mainly the Objectives of the game, Boundaries, Resources and Outcomes.

The objectives of the Digivice is not really clear as the game is a simple feeding game that works similar to the very first pet keeping game, Tamagotchi .
The Boundaries of the digivice, you can farm food for your digimon by simply feeding food such as oranges, sushi and rice balls in a UFO catcher like game and the digivice does not allow battles in the machine but only allow battles that are only workable via linking 2 digivice to each other by the connectors at the top of the digivice.

The digivice sadly does not have much of a resource aside from food and there are no forms of life counter in the game as even if you lose to a battle against your friend in the game, your digimon will just show a sad expression when you lose hence the only possible resource that I can say that is available in the game is the food you farm via the UFO catcher mini game.

The outcomes of the game are pretty bad to be frankly honest when it comes to connection battle with your friends if they use the swipe card model digivice (some may call it the Digimon season’s 3 digivice whereas this model can be counted as a 3.5), it is a one sided battle and the outcomes are that most of the time the digivice with the swipe card ability will win half the time due to the ability to amplify or intercept an attack to empower the energy shots hence the battle is one sided.

This Non game device can be made into the game into a “game “in my opinon in 3 ways.

Firstly the Objectives should have been like the game in the other digivices to defeat the evil digimon like its always been and as a kid most of us would look up to roleplaying it hence when we complete the game we get to brag it to our friends however as the PDA digivice does not support the movement feature maybe a simple battle marathons till the end to a first boss and a training mode would work so they can prepare their way to beating the game.

Secondly, the resources of the digivice should include Life points and power ups such as probably some DNA data to make your digimon digivolve to stronger type digimons so that you can beat the game easier.

Lastly, the outcomes to the game itself is more or less none as there is no proper outcome in it aside from feeding and perhaps playing the UFO food catching game nut in a Versus battle , to battle against swipe card should be balanced whereby the attacks your digimon uses should be at least on par to those on the swipe card digivice and perhaps give an option to use item to give your digimon an edge to it hence making it a fairer game so that both parties would benefit.

In conclusion by giving the game a more solid objective, giving more resources to the player to manage and also balancing the outcomes in a versus battle to make the digivice to a “game”.