Yeah, but the thing with the old shows is you can just skip ahead. It was all made for an age where everything was self contained. The most you’d get was a two-part episode.
Now it’s all made for the Netflix binge generation, where every new episodes assumes you’ve seen all the previous ones. I mean, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and it gave us great shows like The Wire and Breaking Bad, but it does mean they need to get their shit together immediately, and not have several seasons of shit before they find the story they actually wanted to tell.
I started reading Neal Stephenson’s book ‘Anathem.’ Threw it down after twenty pages, because it was just ridiculous. A few months later someone told me to stick with it, the plot really starts coming together around page 200.
Yes, I read it, and yes, it takes 200 pages to start making sense.
I always describe Stephenson this way; some college professors will just answer your question; some will tell you what page of the book to read; some will answer the question in Latin, making a pun. Stephenson loves his little enigmas.
“The first 50 hours of Final Fantasy 14 suck, but the expansions afterwards are worth it!”
“The game starts at max level!”
I can’t stand it. And it’s not like the game magically gets much better, it just feels pretty okay for someone who just wasted months of their time on the bad parts. Of course you’ll enjoy mediocre parts later on after suffering through that crap.
A game has to start being fun ten minutes after the tutorial tops. Why play it otherwise?
Same. Even on the rare occasion where I’ll do a free to play MMORPG, I avoid PVP and otherwise dealing with other players as much as I can and of course eventually get sick of the grind and return to single player games
Ironically what got me into Diablo was my then-girlfriend now-spouse insisting that I go back to Diablo 1 with her and experience it for the story, and damn if that didn't hook me quick. Endgame D2 and D3 are great and all, but what makes something great even greater is having any sort of emotional connection to the story the game takes place in.
Also hot damn the ambiance of D1 is just something else.
Nah, Diablo 4 is much more fun when leveling from 1 to 70 or so. 70 - 100 is just doing the same things over and over with barely any rewards. It’s the other way around there, leveling is fun, endgame is dogshit.
Usually “game starts at max level” is used for MMOs like WoW. Where all the leveling is seen as annoying bullshit fetch quests and at max level you do dungeons and raids.
This is not true for D4 unless you’re trying to max level as fast as you can. I took my time and did most of the side quests, and I intend to go back and finish them all. The quests are interesting and engaging and voice acted all the way through.
D4 is quite a good leveling experience if you don’t play it zoom-zoom.
Conversely, too many good games get bad reviews because of lacking endgame. So go play the next thing in your overflowing backlog. Some games do what they came for, and that’s fine.
It’s like giving a bad movie review because the concession stand was closed when you left the cinema.
Ugh, ARR is horrible for that. It really is a good game after all that bullshit, but it doesn’t excuse the bullshit existing in the first place. Plus it’s so weird for Final Fantasy, a story driven RPG, to have so many low quality quests in the first place (both story and side quests). I can’t fault anyone not wanting to deal with that.
Best thing it has going for it is that the dungeons are really fun even when the story quests suck. But it’s been years since I’ve played and my knowledge may be stale. Someday I’ll go back, but no way I’ll start with a new character lol.
The story or the gameplay? Because all I wanted to do was play a fun MMO, get items and do dungeons with other people. Instead I did quests like hit 3 rocks with your basic ability. Great! Hit 3 more rocks with the same ability. Done? Now run between 4 NPCs and talk with each of them. Great, now kill 8 enemies over there. Run back, talk with 2 more NPCs. Run through the city and interact with 8 lamp posts, the interaction takes several seconds each, because why not? …
I really tried to power through this absolute bullshit, but after a few hours I simply gave up. It only got worse, not better.
As you say Heavensward, I still hear that there is a ton of dumb quests then. Like the story is right at a critical point and they send you off on hours of fetch quests before you can continue?
I honestly don’t care about the story that much in games. A good story is nice, if the gameplay is there. If the only thing that is actually good about the game is the story… I’ll just read a book instead.
The grind is kind of an MMO thing, it’s not for everyone. Personally I enjoyed the gameplay while chilling with a friend and listening to music on the background
Not to be that guy, but once you get past the first 35 levels of story in FFXIV (which is a lot faster than 50 hours) it really picks up quick. Like a lot.
The story or the gameplay? Because all I wanted to do was play a fun MMO, get items and do dungeons with other people. Instead I did quests like hit 3 rocks with your basic ability. Great! Hit 3 more rocks with the same ability. Done? Now run between 4 NPCs and talk with each of them. Great, now kill 8 enemies over there. Run back, talk with 2 more NPCs. Run through the city and interact with 8 lamp posts, the interaction takes several seconds each, because why not? …
I really tried to power through this absolute bullshit, but after a few hours I simply gave up. It only got worse, not better.
Ehhh, Final Fantasy I’ll give a pass to on that sort of thing. They were telling good enough stories at least up till FF 10 that a two hour tutorial was ok, because the rest of the game was going to take you a minimum of 60 hours to complete. There are a few other RPGs that would get a similar pass. Baldur’s Gate would get the pass, but unless they changed something in 3 I expect less than a half hour tutorial in that game as well
That’s why I don’t play japanese rpgs despite liking them. You have to “play” for 10 to 15 hours before the game actually starts. And during this time it’s a whole lot of cinematic and dialogs with minimal gameplay. Sometimes it gets ridiculous. I can’t remember which game, but after few minutes of dialog you’d be walking for less than a minute to then have dialog again… I want to play and have fun damn it.
I can’t remember which game, but after few minutes of dialog you’d be walking for less than a minute to then have dialog again… I want to play and have fun damn it.
Sounds suspiciously like Final Fantasy 13. I swear that game was basically an 8 hour FMV that was broken up every 5 minutes for the first 8 hours of the game.
Yeah no I can’t do games like that. I don’t have as much time for ma vidja games as I used to or as much as I would like these days I can’t afford to wait 50 hours for enjoyment to start. If it takes that dn long for a game to be fun its just bad game design
This is season 1 of Parks and Recreation. It didn’t really start to get it’s footing until season 2. I’m glad I stuck with it, so many great characters!
Yeah, on rewatch I generally start at season 2. Same with The Office (US). Both shows are phenomenal, but they take a while to find their footing.
However, I’d certainly argue that even on first viewing, the first seasons can be skipped. You might miss a bit of backstory, but you’d be able to understand most things perfectly fine.
I think a lot of those kind of shows just need to get to know the characters better and see what works and what doesn’t in the first season and then improve on that when viewers also have a better understanding of that
It’s exactly what a sitcom is supposed to be. Light watching that’s generally funny. Also if you miss an episode or two here and there it’s easy enough to pick up what’s going on.
I love shows like that, after a long day of mentally draining work. I don’t want to think, I just want to drink a beer and zone out. Even though I’m still thinking about work lol
This image is fucking with me because the way it’s drawn reminds me a lot of Family Guy, and Family Guy is one of those rare cases where this concept is inverted and the show starts going to shit after season 3.
After GoT and all the cancelled shows on Netflix, Prime, etc. I refuse to get into a show until it has a few seasons under it’s belt. Nothing like getting invested in a show only for them to cancel it.
I avoid shows until all the actors playing the main characters are dead. Got into Golden Girls about a year and a half ago, and I figure I’ll be watching Friends from a retirement home.
This is Picard for me. I thought season one was alright, season two was hot garbage, but season three is what star trek fans had been waiting for all these years. Perfect conclusion, but boy was it rough getting there lol
I agree with your take on the first two, but s3 was so gratuitous I could barely stand it. A reunion episode would have been fine, but they didn’t do the story justice.
Yeah they completely lost me with the ending of S1 and I gave up on the show.
But RLM said S3 was actually good, so I watched it. Completely skipped S2. Nothing of value was lost. I guess Raffi and Seven are in a relationship? I think that’s the only thing that happened in S2 that carried over.
I think I’d have liked S3 more if I was a big TNG fan. But as it was, it was basically the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, just that it brought back a beloved character rather than killing off a beloved character in the middle part of the story. Which of course made it so much better. But still, it’s basically the same kind of thing. It was fine. A good ending for the TNG crew.
I hope the Legacy thing can happen, I want to see how things are going on DS9 because that’s my Star Trek.
Totally agree, and yeah DS9 is my favorite trek as well (I’m actually watching it as I type this on my phone lol) so would love a revisit to the promenade.
But Picard season three was what I think TNG needed for a good wrap-up. It didn’t blow me away but the final scene of the last episode was perfect for me.
The thing that stuck out to me was that some people don’t feel ready to decide whether or not they like something until they’ve totally completed the experience. They feel it isn’t fair to judge the partial product, so they’ll stick it out through the end, even if it’s terrible, just so they say without a doubt they did not like it.
I can understand the mentality, but sometimes you have to just jump ship.
I’m your worst nightmare. I refuse to get to s2 or s3 until I finish the dredge that is s1 because I’m of the belief that CR is only good because the people who watch it went through s1 first
Ooooh I respect that. You have a lot of patience xD I’m trying to finish 1 rn btw. Only watched a couple of episodes of 2 and 3 to check out and decided to leave it for later as well as you. To get a more full picture I guess…
It’s literally, one of hte most boring things I’ve ever seen in my life… but the fans keep gaslighting me, trying to tell me I “Just don’t get it” or am “Too simple to enjoy something without pew pew”
I like plenty of things without pew pew, Andor just isn’t one of them.
The prison arc is decent, but it didn’t save the show for me and was not worth the god awful heist arc.
Andor is good, but a lot of people treat it as amazing because everything else in Disney Star Wars has been garbage. Cassian is by far the most boring part of his own show.
If watching some Andor scenes is the cost of a Luthen vs the ISB plot I’m willing to keep watching.
Obi-Wan was unironically better than Andor though, I will give you that Book of Boba Fett was a complete middlefinger to the audience.
Andor however doesn’t even feel like it belongs in the same universe as Star Wars until the prison arc when they remember Storm Troopers exist and stop having “Imperial Soldiers in Imperial Uniforms”
I find Secret Wars to be a great show and a more successful version of what Andor was trying to accomplish. The fact that a show as boring as Andor is loved, but Secret Wars is written off as trash, is… honestly baffling to me.
I will grant that if Andor was cut out of Andor, and we focused more on Mon Mothma, it would be a lot better, and actually be this “Political Intrigue” show that people bill it to be.
Yes show, I get it “Empire Bad”, you don’t need to keep reiterating this point. Tell an actual story please.
Just spend a month’s free time doing nothing but reading manga and you’ll be fine. Wait shit that was how long it took 8 years ago when I was last caught up
I can’t deny this lol. Sometimes you like it from the start, but the start is very corny since it was made in the 90s, so it doesn’t grab everyone right away, but it matures really well over time and becomes more timeless. But even then I have to admit it can be an acquired taste with its cartoony style and wacky characters/world.
It’s a typical shounen with all it’s troupes and cringy narrative. The start shouldn’t shock people. It actually manages to grab people quickly enough compared to other shounens at their beginning.
Over the years the story matures and develops accompanying their audience. The beginning was for teens and now it still has the same fans and followers that are in their thirties.
It’s hard for shows that are so long lived to maintain their engagement.
You’re right and wrong, but the way you said it makes me think no one likes talking to you or much less holding a conversation with you. Which is why that’s all I’ll say.
I’m not really sure why it’s such a bad thing. The fact that they’re there and alive doesn’t necessarily detract from the story. They interact with so many other characters that get a lot of screen time compared to the main crew, and those characters eventually leave or die. And it’s fine. I’m not looking for the crew members to die and be replaced.
Tf are you doing trying to critique a show you’ve never watched or read based on random video game versions of them, neither of which are accurately placed in any part of the canon timeline and are just for fun. That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. That’s like judging a series based on nothing but the McDonald’s happy meal toys based on them. There’s so much wrong with what you said I’m not even gonna bother trying to address it seriously.
It’s unfortunate that it is true. No going around it - the first 25 or so episodes are cartoonish and the old drawing style kept a lot of people away. I tried to convince people to stick with it but most of my friends left it around episode 2 or 3.
It’s also evident that it is perceived as a dumb teens series since producers brought it to TV to a channel named 4Kids. And then they quickly realized by the second batch of episodes that kids definitely shouldn’t watch that.
That’s why I’m hoping the live action becomes a success. One piece has a lot of amazing things, but the anime adaptation is just shat out of someone’s ass every week. I can’t recommend that to anyone.
If Netflix is successful in recreating the one piece experience - and so far it looks like they are - I’ll finally have something to show people why I like this story so much.
My GF loves One Piece, she started me at just one episode quite a ways in - the one with Bink’s Sake - basically just to say “hey look, this story is actually going somewhere”. Then we started at like episode 60 or so and kept watching from there - it’s definitely a lot rougher, but I’m hooked enough now to watch it with her!
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