Frame Trap - Episode 48 "Climbing the Mountain"

So... the stars are going away? Because of metacritic?

Miguel Pires Ramos

Did you see the Xenoblade 2 patch notes? You can skip the summoning blade introduction now. Every little bit helps.

Zugdar

I just want to say this is a fucking killer Frame Trap line up and I am thankful for these super long shows to listen to while I do comics.

Raven Perez

And they never came out, let's hope the demons dosnt devour them

For the next Frame Trap it should start off with the allies looking all drained after being in the demon realm for a week. then huber shows up, breaks them out and the podcast returns to normal. Awesome Frame Trap this week guys! keep it up

My Latin Lover

Every episode is interesting and well moderated. Best podcast I listen to.

Justin Little

Great episode Ben. These are getting better and better every time!

They're still stuck...

They never did get out...

We are all still in the frame trap...

nice audio

Hope you’re not stuck in there still

Hey Ben...did you guys ever get out of the frame trap? I know Brad sprung the trap, but I don’t recall anyone snapping out of it?

It's great that Brad enjoyed Lost Sphear, but like, when even someone who LIKES a game sells it as something where nothing in it will "blow you away", that's enjoyable only if you approach it with the most tempered of expectations, I don't see why I would EVER make time to play it. Too many actual classic RPGs out there that probably WILL blow me away when I play them.

Anontastic

I love how the Frame Trap was triggered right at the top. Expect the unexpected.

I personally love the stars, but I agree wholeheartedly with everything Huber said. I like the meaning behind each star (5=Masterful, 4=Excellent, 3=Decent, 2=Inferior, 1=Terrible) and I think it is a better representation of what a game review should be than the 100 point scale. I think 100 points gets too nitty gritty and in the end people (or at least me) just want to know if a game is bad/good/great. What is the difference between a 7.1 and a 7.8? They are both decent games so who cares at that point, but that's just me. With all of that being said I totally understand why you guys would have to switch to a different scale, I will definitely miss the stars though if you do.

TL;DR for Dissidia: I love playing as a team online and it's fun to to level up your favorite FF characters and get their cooler HP attacks, costumes and tonnns of music. Long version: I'm glad Ben is giving Dissidia NT a try, but regarding the story I think it's important to note that this is and primarily will be an arcade game. They probably should have just kept the title as Dissidia ARCADE to make it very clear that the story was an after thought. I wish there was more yea, but I bought it to play online (which is the main point). It sucks that Ben regrets buying it at full price, but I don't, I'm having a great time playing online and with friends in a party, and unlocking all the stuff from all the Final Fantasy's (esp all the music). Even some of the story summon battles can be a bit challenging with it's MMO'ish boss tells and such. The combat is definitely more like Gundam VS. With 3 on 3 it's less about 1v1'ing someone for PRIDE and more about situational awareness and helping out your teammates or ganging up on ppl. Newbies have a hard time because actually you should be switching targets A LOT. Stunning someone with an HP attack (even if it doesnt kill them) and then switching and helping a teammate goes a LONG way. I don't think it's fair to call the combat bad because I think it's much more strategic the deeper you go. While it's not a traditional fighting game, still a lot of your success comes from knowing your specific opponent's moves, weaknesses, and recovery times, and learning when to block or dodge (cuz dodge spamming in this game is heavily punishable). Ofc all that takes time and experience (like any other game), and if you don't want to commit, then welp that's cool it's your time! The game really shines when you're in a party with 2 other friends and you can yell and shout for help or to coordinate to all team-up on 1 guy. Or if you're the one getting double-teamed, you even get support points for surviving and being the "decoy" while your 2 teammates are double-teaming the enemy's last dude. I get there's never enough time, but hopefully the Allies can give it a another fair chance in the future. Feelsbadman.

Owa

excellent work!

Great episode. I never found myself blocked off from Xenoblade by the skills. If I didn't have the levels on one Blade I could always brute force it by equipping the party with low tier blades with the one skill needed and then unequipping them afterwards.

Olf Himself

It's always frustrates me that you guys complain about not being able to play all games :( i have at the most 2h each WEEK to play my games; the newest game i finished in my backlog is Super Mario 3.... :) L&R

Randy Verschueren

At least the person will clearly understand the intended worth the critic meant for Yakuza and not be confused when some unconventional scale that was never meant to be converted to hard numbers is converted by sites like Open and Meta Critic as they inevitably must be. I'd understand if we were talking GOTYs, but saying scores are only for ego sake is pretty ignorant. We don't live in a world where people have unlimited time and unlimited money. Having more points on a scale to more accurately differentiate between the value of two games so they don't end up piled onto the exact same score helps a consumer's purchase decision when the review of each of the games sound equally appealing. Sure, well written reviews are first and foremost, and those aren't going anywhere, but even the best critic can accidentally overinflate or underinflate their general feelings towards a game while trying to say everything they feel they need to cover about it. Hell, people can and often do interpret things widely differently based on words alone which is pretty dangerous in many cases. Scores keep things accurate and honest to the intentions of the critic that words alone simply cannot uphold.

MBUN

CLOVERFIELD PARADOX WHAT??!?!? I HAD NO CLUE! NETFLIX TIME!

I expressed some concern when Damiani mentioned on the Q&A that they were looking to change review scale to 20 from 10, but hearing the reasons why on Frame Trap have me even more confused. The person that says "You gave Yakuza Kiwami a 3.5, so you didn't like it?" is going to say that if you give Yakuza 0 a 8 and Kiwami a 7.5 anyway. if they're only interested in the score and can't even read the single word that comes with that score, they're never going to listen to the words to find out why anyway Fitting in with Metacritic and Opencritic. They're just based on the IGN scale pretty much. Hopefully whatever scale they came up with uses the full scale and still won't fit in. Eurogamer doesn't fit in and they seem to be doing fine, so are sites that just say buy/don't buy Comparing games just by a number shouldn't be done at all and no scoring method should account for comparison. Let the words do the talking and try to encapsulate the reviewers opinion there and then with a score/word at the end. The only people that really seem to compare scores are people trying to win an argument by propping one game up over the other. Just putting it out there. I know it was things in the moment that were said, so there might be more behind it. I just really don't see anything but a diluting of the scoring system by widening the scale. There was a reason you guys were the most trusted reviews on OpenCritic

Skankman

I think having the expert review the game is best, but only if he can provide a neutral perspective without bias. You mention Damiani reviewing Zelda, and I don't think he should be reviewing these games anymore for this exact reason.

miggity

Talking specifically to Huber saying he wouldn't cut anything from Persona 5. The game centers around one particular character and is plenty long enough without going on over a dozen hours after you finish the main character's story with that character into additional arcs that take you through the most filler dungeon in the game, which should have been completely optional. Many of the previous dungeons themselves also have fat that could be trimmed. Plus the ending is completely drawn out for emotional effect.

MBUN

Just to correct a small misconception, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 does force give you Blades with every ability you need to progress through the main story without having to RNG bond core crystals for random Blade pulls. You might not realize you have them if they aren't the ones you naturally gravitate towards or have the ones you need leveled up as much as you need or even summoned yet from their core crystal however.

MBUN

So glad you talked about Celeste, I was honestly blown away by it. Not only some of the best 2D platforming in years, but the characters and story are excellent (especially the themes and how that ties into the difficulty), fantastic music, great visuals. No spoilers but the last level is amazing. Play Celeste, people!

Conn