The Malgorian Blog

So I was tempted to buy Death End re:quest when I saw it at ebgames/gamestop the other day. I held off, mainly because I had little choice - couldn't afford it that day. But also because they didn't appear to have any non-gutted copies out on display, it was a full priced title, and where it was primarily a niche jrpg - I've seen way too many cases of DLC whoring in that genre since the day they started launching on a console that could easily do digital downloads.

The main game seems to play similarly to games like .hack and probably SAO - games where you're in another game. This one apparently tries to have you go through multiple game genres and the "real world". So I thought that was interesting enough to at least consider. But not until I saw what kinds of things they ripped out of the game to offer separately.

It's important to note I've been playing jrpg titles since the NES. And while the NES and SNES flavor hold little similarity to what these games do, the best way to determine if they're lacking "basic features" is to compare them to PS2 jrpgs. (As seriously I see very little innovation overall past that era - graphics look nicer, sound is generally still ok, but I'll be honest there's a lot of repetition and stagnation. If you like how jrpgs were back then, then this isn't a negative in and of itself. And I don't particularly mind how they were back then - so long as the story is at least trying to be somewhat unique on it's own somehow and the battle system isn't a colossal screwup (I'm looking at you Ar Tonelico 3!) then I can play through it and feel like I've gotten my money's worth. Usually.

When it comes to looking at the DLC for new JRPGs I look at what types of things were commonly available as bonuses or extras. I also look at if they do the common "item set/stat set/etc" DLC. You know - the one time limited set of consumable items you'll be given at the start of the game. This is harder to judge with new series starting on the DLC-able systems but are so blatantly obvious when you're dealing with a series that started on the PS2 or earlier. (I'm looking at you Disgaea!)

This game is pretty much new, so I just end up assuming if the DLC is of the type of shit that use to be common additives in old games but are now routinely cut out at launch (or offered as preorder bonuses) that it's been cut out of this as well. As otherwise it just means the game was inferior to start with.

So here's the type of DLC shown in this game that was -accidentally- released by the developers during a promo stream of the game. Basically when starting the game Compile Heart games tend to reveal what DLC was added. Oops! So much for "announcing it later". More on this after the breakdown.

1. Character Costumes - There's apparently 12 of these in the DLC for the main character(s). I can't even tell you how expensive they are offhand because the 4-5 of them that are currently listed on PSN are showing it as "unavailable".

2. Bonus areas - There are two of these. I consider this gutted content entirely since it would usually be akin to extra stages unlocked in a games epilogue. (Consider Lunar 2 and the various stages in Disgaea 1.)

3. Item Sets. 6 different item sets. one or two of them are free, the others are being sold for a buck or two each depending on your country of origin. These tell me two things. 1. The game is badly balanced so that you need the starting crutch of items, or the game was deliberately balanced to make these item sets desirable if not needed. 2. The game has probably had it's item drop rates, or shop prices/xp/gold-drops adjusted to make them desirable. (kinda goes with the second half of #1 really but from a different angle.) Devs of course will say "Oh no! we never did anything like that!" but can you really trust them at their word? You'd really have to play through the game twice from scratch and ask yourself how much more of a grind was it to go without the item drops.

4. There's an xp boost item. This immediately sets off a red flag for me, making me think they deliberately set the XP gains too low. Even if you could get the game for free by playing the game, and getting it only near the end of the game. Meaning you had to deal with the xp nerf the entire game.

5. 1 hidden boss. Yeah, no. It's not "hidden", it's "removed". So I count these things as optional bosses and as removed content. Hell consider the original Final Fantasy's "Warmech". A randomly encountered boss you could meet in the final bridge leading to Tiamat. Power-wise Warmech was probably on par with Tiamat if not stronger. This boss is one of two DLC quests. IE: they cut quests out.

6. A bunch of weapons/equipment. Basically these are treated the same as item sets, just not consumable/temporary. I consider all items to be removed rather than bonus content.

7. One extra playable character. Also removed content. Consider all the extra characters you would unlock in old games - especially Disgaea as an easy example. (Of which those bonus characters in Disgaea are all now DLC characters.)


So yeah, a whole lot of content I personally classify as "removed content".

Now for the more offensive take away I had from the devs/pubs promo stream. When asked about DLC they kept saying "We'll announce that at a later date!" ie: we're not telling you before the game is launched so go buy it without knowing!

The devs however accidentally gave away the full list of DLC because as I mention above the game popped up notices of all the DLC being added when they launched the game. Which is not what they wanted based on their refusal to actually talk about DLC prior.

What this tells me is that, whether intentionally or not, they were passing off a fully DLC loaded game as the base game you would get with your 60-80 dollar purchase. IE: intentionally or not, they were attempting to engage in false advertising. If Compile Heart's basic game design didn't throw all those pop-ups on the screen, who would have known all those extra costumes were DLC? That the items you started the game off with weren't what you would REALLY start the game off with? That those extra quests would not ever become available? That those items, XP-boosting item, cool extra weapons and equipment, would never be found as you played? (Or found only after doing the most insane of requirements, etc) and the list would go on.

So. For the DLC state of the game alone, I'm passing on this game permanently. I have WAY too much to play already purchased. I'm never going to miss it, and I think my 80+ bucks can be better spent on other things. But for their attempt at avoiding the DLC issue in their promo stream only to be ratted out by the game itself and their potential attempt to show the game as something more than what you will get if you pay the full price tag, I'm boycotting Compile Heart and Idea Factory games in general for at least a year or so. Again. 9_9

For those who don't care about that and buy and play and enjoy the game anyway - go for it. Just don't whine about the missing content or level/gold grind if you refuse to buy the DLC. And if you buy the DLC, don't whine about the cost.

I've had Plus membership on the PS3 (well, all of Sony's platforms, given it's shared nature, but primarily used via PS3) for years. Many years. I'd have to admit I spent far more money buying games digitally than I ever planned. I was going to spend about 40 bucks to "customize" the PS3 as it were the same way I did to the 360.

On the 360, I spent 40 bucks. And that's it. Didn't have even the slightest urge to go over it.

On the PS3, I admit I did go over. By several (several) hundred dollars. I'd like to say I got my money's worth since virtually everything I bought was bought on a drastic sale. There's also a load of free rentals. I call them rentals because you can only play them while you retain the Plus membership.

And that ran out for me. Over 6 weeks ago.

Pretty drastic change for me isn't it? To someone who would check the store every single week for deals, even if there was nothing I particularly wanted. To... apparently someone who barely turns the PS3 on, let alone check the online shop.

What exactly caused this change? I think I can safely thank Sega and Sony from last year's bumbled DLC rollout for Project Diva F 2nd.

So looking back over the last year, has my boycott been all talk or did it have teeth? Thus far, it most certainly had teeth. I completely passed over Project Diva Mirai on the 3ds, which under normal circumstances would have been a Day 1 purchase even without having a console/handheld to play it on. (Only recently picked up a 3ds.) There was another potential game purchase I was going to pick up a month ago. I was half way to bringing it to the cash when I noticed Sega's logo on the front. I sighed and put the game back. Pretty sure I haven't bought any Sega game since starting the boycott either - although if it was a cheap second hand title I potentially would have not cared. Even then I don't think I've aquired any new Sega games.

And... I'm not missing it. I have to admit there's a potential chance that I'll pick up the PS4 Project Diva game depending on how it's done - assuming it's released in NA. (I played the japanese version at the anime convention.) But that'll naturally assume I'll buy a PS4. Right now it'll depend on the VR situation on the PS4 later on.

One thing I can safely say however, is that I won't be buying any Plus membership again (actually not 100% true.) on the PS3 or PS4. And I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep a handle on any digital purchases this time around.

Regarding the above bracketed comment, I -might- purchase one last 3 month prepaid Plus card for the PS3. Mainly to clear up one question that's been nagging me for years that I've never been able to get a straight answer for. If my Plus lapsed but I renewed it later, would the Free games from before the lapse become playable again. I could never bring myself to let it lapse to test this out. But since I apparently don't give a fuck about it anymore (as shown by it taking me 6 weeks to even realize it had lapsed - pronounced more so since the Plus membership would cause my PS3 to wake up every morning between 4-6am to do updates/backups if I had played it the day before.) I might as well test it out and get some closure on the subject.

So um. Fuck you Sega. :)

We'll see if I say the same thing to Sony after we see the final costs/situation with their VR setup when it's released. Giving it a 50/50 chance I'll be saying the same, as I have absolutely no love for the new look of their PS4 Slim model. They better hope their Scorpio model or whatever it's called will be worth it's price tag.

Just an update on the situation, more to vent than anything else.

Short Story: Absolutely no change.

It's been 5 weeks now, and Sega/Sony are still failing to deliver on what they promised after taking the $9.99. They're probably lucky that their fuck up at the very least let me download the Vita version of the DLC, even if there's no way to redownload it now since it won't let me from the PS3's download list and they've now removed the DLC pack in question from the store itself.

I sent an email to Sony Support once a week asking for an update and I kept getting no response after the first automated email.

So last week I said to hell with trying to reply to that particular ticket and sent a completely new (but mostly copied from the original) email which forced their system to open a new ticket. After a day or so I got a reply from someone there on the new ticket - which was the standard copypasta response a person would expect "thanks for emailing. we're looking into it. we'll let you know". in other words "blah blah blah lip service lip service"

They did finally fix a different DLC issue with the game, with two modules not showing up for free for the people that shelled out 70 dollars to buy the club pack. Took them 4 weeks to fix that - since that issue iirc started the week AFTER the suimsuit pack issue. But apparently people have to use the search option to even find those modules now since they're currently not listing with the game properly. Can't make it simple after all.

Yeah, I'm pretty much done with Sega now whether they fix this issue or not. It's simply inexcusable.

You know what the fun thing is? This means Sega's incompetence (which is likely augmented by Sony's incompetence anyway) is going to cost Sony a lot of money out of me. In order for me to jump up to the PS4 Sony needs to have several must-buy titles that are exclusive to it. Currently there's NOTHING I want on the system and I doubt JRPGs are going to woo me to it since I've already boycotted most of the companies that release them due to DLC whoring. Sega's apparently planning on releasing the next Project Diva game on the PS4 - which is just a home console port of the arcade game. (So we can expect them to half ass game development again this time by just converting the game itself, then expecting players to shell out another 100 bucks for a few bonus songs and modules like they did this game.)

Sega Boycott -> Not buying Project Diva Arcade -> One less Must Have Game on the PS4 (Which is otherwise still only at "1", assuming the arcade game is ported to PS4 - haven't seen confirmation yet)-> Not likely getting a PS4 at all, which means also not buying any other less-than-must-have title on the system that I'd only consider buying if I already had the system bought.

I bought a PS3 originally due to wanting to play Ar Tonelico 3. That was the Must Have game on that platform for me. And it failed to impress in so many ways I've still yet to make it even half way through the game. The project diva games actually saved the system for me, making it feel like I DIDN'T waste a few hundred bucks on an otherwise pointless console at the time. That's not going to be there for the PS4, and I can't think of a single game or genre of games that can fill the shoes.

Sony's going to lose a lot more of my cash than Sega ever could. They won't notice it, but I will. $_$

And no, this doesn't increase the chances of me getting a Xbone. That still sits firmly at 0%.

It DOES however slightly increase the odds for a Wii U next year. I can't say I agree with a lot of things with the Wii U, but it does have games I'm interested in playing at some point. That's something the other current gen systems can't boast about.

*addition*

Also, unrelated to the above, but it's seriously fucked up that the best way to access the PlayStation Store is through any means OTHER than Sony's own hardware. If you try accessing it from the PS3, there's an extremely high chance it'll kick you out/crash before you can actually purchase anything. It's why people tell you to buy things from the playstation store's website instead then download it via your system in the download history. Laughable really.

I heard a new song on the radio on the way home tonight. It was by Three Days Grace, "Break". It sounded awesome, but alas they're with labels that are on the other side of my boycott line. What to do?

There are many reasons for the boycott. Putting aside the bullshittery the RIAA does that make me hate them I'm damned tired of picking up CDs from those labels because of a song I heard on the radio expecting the CD to be just as awesome - and find that the songs on the radio are the ONLY songs really worth listening to on the entire CD. And then a month or so later even THOSE songs grind on my nerves because YOU HEAR THEM ON THE RADIO ALMOST EVERY FREAKING HOUR FOR A FEW YEARS.

But that's a rant about the radio stations, which I'll save for later.

Back to 3DG, even with the boycott in place, there are a couple of bands that are on the auto-buy list regardless of said boycott. They've proven themselves to me with their past work and so long as the quality stays up there I'm willing to continue buying their CDs.

That auto-buy list has 3 bands on it at this point with the recent scratching off of Stratovarius from the list. (Their last CD was good, but not The Awesome - if they release with a non RIAA label however, I will consider picking their next one up.)

Those 3 bands are:

1. Disturbed
2. Sonata Arctica
3. Blind Guardian

Only Disturbed, so far, releases with a RIAA label.

Here's the catch. When a band gets scratched off the list, they can't get back on it without proving themselves with the next CD. But how can they prove it if they're not on the auto-buy list? They need to prove it with either legal and free mp3s of full songs that I can listen to. (Yeah we know the odds of the RIAA doing THAT.) or the majority of the CD being streamable in full. Meaning full songs can be previewed - NOT just the one or two tracks we're going to hear on the radio. 30 second clips are no good. They're laughable at best given you can't gauge whether the song is any good or not with just that.

And the problem is, Three Days Grace is ONLY streaming one song on their website right now in it's entirety. That song is, predictably enough, "Break" which is on the radio. All of the other tracks can also be previewed sure enough. At least the first 30 seconds of each song. One clip ended just as the first syllable of the lyrics was starting. :P

And so, with no legal means to test the quality of their new CD their CD can remain in the local HMV. I refuse to go hunting down the tracks from more "shady" sources, even if it's quite possible the entire CD can be tracked down on youtube in one form or another. And I absolutely refuse to purchase a CD because I liked a song on the radio ever again. (Got burned with that way too many times in the pre-boycott years when I was buying CDs every payday.)

But the RIAA's loss of my revenue is the game industry's gain. I've been buying so many games these last few years I have at least 15 still factory sealed because I haven't gotten around to playing them yet! :)

*edits and addition*

Mind you, the game purchases have gone down recently as well as the last gen winds down. I haven't dived into the current gen consoles yet due to price and various other issues - which is yet another rant for another day ^_- but that'll probably change by next year if the console prices make one final dip below the magic $200 dollar mark.

To get me on those ships Microsoft has to finally present a sufficiently reliable version of their hardware that doesn't RROD.

Sony has to get Ar Tonelico 3 released in North America on physical discs and drop the price of the PS3 a bit further.

and

Nintendo has to produce a few more games I'm interested in. There are several, but not quite enough just yet. I had a taste of Mario Kart Wii over the holidays and it was kinda cool. Of course I've liked the Mario Kart series since the SNES.