Tales Of DLC For Lazy Gamers
When downloadable content first took off, naysayers painted a doomsday scenario where developers would release unfinished games and gradually release the rest of the game as downloadable content, for a price. Then Oblivion's horse armor became the gold standard for downloadable content gone wrong. But now critics have a new champion for bad DLC: Tales of Vesperia.
You see, Namco Bandai decided it would be a wonderful idea to streamline its latest epic RPG for the casual (and affluent) crowd by allowing gamers to buy level ups and gald, the in-game currency, through downloadable content. Here's the list of what Japanese gamers can download now:
- LV Up +10: 300 Microsoft Points
- LV Up +5: 200 Microsoft Points
- 300,000 Gald: 300 Microsoft Points
- Skill sets: 80 Microsoft Points
- HP Recovery Cuisine Recipe Set: 100 Microsoft Points
Now, as a long-time Tales fan I realize that the biggest draw of the series is the amazing plot and character development, so I can almost bring myself to see some value in the DLC since it will allow more people to experience the story faster. Even still, it seems wrong somehow to be able to level up your character without having to build the experience on your own. My personal policy is: if you can't actually play the game then you shouldn't be playing it. So what do you think? Is this the future of RPGs, or the rightful heir to horse armor?
UPDATE: Gamers eager to get started on breezing their way through Tales of Vesperia due to DLC will find that Namco Bandai has already put up four items for free in honor of the game releasing today. There's a gel set, a synthesis kit, and skills for two characters. The gel set will provide healing items to help novice players who aren't accustomed to grinding while the synthesis kit provides some basic materials that can be used in the game to create more items. The skill sets are most significant as they provide six skills for the two characters you begin the game with, Yuri and Estelle. To be fair, each of the downloads can only be downloaded once per account, meaning the DLC can't be abused to get free gels whenever you need them in the game. There's also the fact that all of this comes for the low, low price of free, which I suppose you can't really argue with. But if Namco Bandai is already dishing out downloads like these, I guess it's only a matter of time before the level up downloads make it stateside.
NaviFairy
Posted to Video Games on 26 August 2008
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: downloadable content, namco bandai, tales of vesperia
Talk about sucking the life out of an RPG. There's nothing more satisfying than watching your character progress, so I say boo to this. As well, it almost looks like the game is flawed and that these level up points are necessary to succeed. Not a good image whatsoever.
But I guess for all those lazy gamers...a.k.a. people who probably wouldn't play an RPG...it's alright.
Eh. Some people use cheat codes to help them level up faster on RPGs. So there's obviously some interest in it, I suppose.
I doubt this will sell much, though. But at very least, it's offering something of actual value to casual gamers, rather than just the usual kind of download (graphic tweaks like the Horse armour). It wouldn't interest me, though.
All I can say is at least this time, Namco ISN'T making you pay for stuff that's already on the disc.
I wouldn't buy it, but being someone who plays games with the story being the primary reason and not being big on challenge (I play videogmes to relax, not get frustrated) I can see the use.
You should probably invest in some books or movies, then.
Grinding is mind numbing, I would use this,
If you wanna grind, then be my guest, I don't care if you spend 100 hours getting what I could get paying for if I wanted it that much.
I'm the kind of person who if I wanted to get into a MMO, I would buy a high level character.
Doesn't mean I resent the story, I'm more likely to play through the game if these kinds of things are open to me, surely having the options of these open to guys like me means more sales?
I would get pissed off if I had to be x powerful to do something in the game requiring hours of battles I care nothing for.
Yes! I no longer have to grind. Sure it costs some but I'd rather spend 200-300 ms points in exchange for the 10 hours of my life I wasted in blue dragon level grinding just to beat the boss before last.
I don't think many of you know just how little grinding is involved in Tales games. Frame of reference: I beat Tales of Symphonia on Mania difficulty (the hardest difficulty) with half-exp turned on, and I didn't have to grind once.
I think they did something similar for Eternal Sonata. I might actually use this on one of those late nights when I don't feel like grinding.