Agree or disagree?

[The_Dark_Knight]

 

[ZEGA ZONICZEGA ZONIC's icon]

Not every game should be Call of Duty sized.

 

[Xenocloudarius Xenocloudarius]

Well, The answer is obvious.

 

[Mileena]

I don’t think too many people, if any, will disagree with this.

 

[GundamJehutyKai]

It's not even about data size... games with massive open world maps, lots of fetch missions and collect quests with slow and/or boring traversal across the map is the bane of modern gaming

 

[CheesyExplosive]

eeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhkkkkkkkkkk! i need rare and different mechs,stors and visus.

 

[bjork]

I agree with the first part, games don't outright need to be bigger. But for the rest, it's purely subjective and 'better' is a really ambiguous term to use in an artistic medium.

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

It feels like a fairly pedantic statement, especially since that second line is an "easier said than done" sort of thing.

"Oh shit, the only way to make a better game...is by making my game better! Why didn't I think of that?"

Obviously the whole "map size" argument is happening again because of GTA6 (where GTA4 and TESIV started this whole bullshit back in 2000 whatever the fuck), and of course there's nothing wrong with having massive sprawling levels to explore. The problem is needing something to DO in them outside of cookie-cutter MMO quests.

 

[G.L.a.D.O.S.]

Burnout Revenge is a great example of this. On PS4, it feels like a new game and proves that not every classic game requires a ton of bloat to be great.

 

[FarJyyUir]

Better gameplay mechanics, stories & visuals

What they need are competent programmers & writers!

 

[Jeff]

Not every game has to be Call of Duty, GTA, Elder Scrolls, Kojima game or every Playstation and Xbox game. Make a game you want to create without any interference or awful journalism bait. And make it with great game mechanics, a simple complete story, and controls with a fun factor.

 

[Sheepy765]

I agree. Though for me personally I think there's a point at which games can be too short for me to want to spend money on them, even if they are well-crafted masterpieces.

 

[McBurn]

A couple hours or more is about the bare minimum for me.
A game can be short, but the impact it leaves on you is what matters.

 

[Bakuma1997]

Totally agreed, What is better, a short game you want to replay a lot or a game with lots of content you don't want to finish a second time, if there is a second time?

 

[Lokgamer]

Totally agree. Except about "visuals" if it refers to graphics, but if we're talking about art style, then, agree.

 

[What's His Face]

I both agree & disagree.
I agree that games don't need to be bigger. Look at Super Mario Bros. That was, what, 40kb? Yet it's the Gold Standard still used today in how characters should move in platforming-type games - how they accelerate, how they don't stop on a dime, how they can slightly adjust their direction mid-jump, variable heights of jumping, how they bounce off objects/collision detection, how platforms and enemies should be placed both to help continue and to impede, etc.

Going for more modern games, I just recently finished both Tales of Arise (the Beyond the Dawn DLC - I beat the main game ages ago) and The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon (A cliffhanger?! Really?!).

Tales of Arise on PS4 is 57.20 GB, and the Beyond the Dawn DLC is an additional 36.77 GB, for a total of (give-or-take) 93.97 GB. It's...an okay game. ToA is a beautiful anime-style game with fantastic backdrops, great spell effects...but a miniscule game world and a game that puts you in the "final dungeon" around the time you'd expect the second of three acts to start. The majority of the game is running around the game world and performing menial tasks for cash & skill points. While it takes a good 80-hours-plus if you take your time to complete the full game & DLC, the content is heavily lacking. The story is good, but it ends far too fast.

(To insert another Tales of title between, let's look at Tales of Eternia, the closest other Tales game thematically to Arise - it's roughly 1.25 GB in total size, it takes 40-70 hours to complete but a good chunk of that is comprised of story beats, LOTS of locales to explore, two large full game worlds + a smaller central axis between them. The game is NOT a graphically impressive as it's a PS game instead of PS4, but the story, characters, settings, writing, music, etc. are vastly superior.)

Trails BtH comes in at 28.76 GB. The game also uses an anime aesthetic, but the detail is not quite at that level as Arise. It's still damned beautiful for a Falcom title, but it's clear that the game was made on a smaller budget. However, BtH has 4x the number of playable characters as Arise, each with their own story beats. It has a TON more music. The game world itself isn't quite as large, but a good part of the expanded world is in the "randomly generated dungeon" portion with its own story beats that directly connects to the main game. And takes roughly two-to-three-times they playtime to complete - my game clear came in at 187-hours. And that's NOT me trying to Platinum the game - that's just playing the game normally.

tl;dr: A game absolutely does not need to be bigger to be better, but it also doesn't need to be graphically superior to previous games to be superior, either. A game doesn't need to have better stories than past games, they just need competent stories (with a major hands-off approach in term of localization - localizers haven't improved a game since the PS2 era, back when improvements meant adding to a game & not censoring/cutting """objectionable""" content). Games don't need better mechanics, they just need great mechanics - even if they're 'tried & true' mechanics we've enjoyed for decades.

 

[Neb Lleb]

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Tru dat yo. A big game can work, but you need to deliberately pace yourself most of the time.

 

[Ikagura]

I agree on that except story (or at least make narration seamless and not shoehorned into the gameplay).

By visuals you mean the art style and not just graphical fidelity, right? I'd 100% take a low poly yet charming game over a realistic yet boring grey/brown one.

 

[CraigJarrett]

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Visuals? Honestly I couldn't care less. They keep making sports games, war games and sandbox games like GTA look as life like as possible but that doesn't equal better. I mean life like isn't a must have for me when playing a video game because well, it is a video game. The reason for the rebirth of retro gaming over the past decade is of course down to people just wanting a simpler gaming experience.

 

[GardeniaSky's icon GardeniaSky GardeniaSky]

Open world and larger game sizes made devs lazy. Trying to CRAM as much as possible into limited space made devs creative. I mean look at original Pokemon games for the GBC. They did some crazy shit to jam everything into that tiny cartridge.

 

[Ikagura]

Open world and larger game sizes made devs lazy. Trying to CRAM as much as possible into limited space made devs creative. I mean look at original Pokemon games for the GBC. They did some crazy shit to jam everything into that tiny cartridge.

Absolutely.

I dare saying that the sprite art from GBC Pokémon is better visually than the 3D models we got on the Switch.

 

[JellyjamLu]

Visuals don't matter all that much anymore for me, sure it helps but I also believe downsizing the project as a whole allows for greater density and intrigue to occur in said world instead of wandering around baron nothingness.

Less is more in the long run, just tell a decent enough story to follow with a sprinkle of passion behind everything. Had enough of insane big budget movie, cinematic games at full price.

 

[Vreeves]

I'm always in favor of smaller, more focused games but I also appreciate a large game when it's done right.

Unfortunately, many studios still fall into the usual traps. They try to cram in as much bloat as possible to justify it being a 50+ hour game, instead of simply making content in a more organic way that makes sense in that game world and at the same time is more interesting to play.

 

[BrawlMan]

I'm always in favor of smaller, more focused games but I also appreciate a large game when it's done right.

Unfortunately, many studios still fall into the usual traps. They try to cram in as much bloat as possible to justify it being a 50+ hour game, instead of simply making content in a more organic way that makes sense in that game world and at the same time is more interesting to play.

What @Vreeves said.

both agree & disagree.

Same.

I agree on that except story (or at least make narration seamless and not shoehorned into the gameplay).

By visuals you mean the art style and not just graphical fidelity, right? I'd 100% take a low poly yet charming game over a realistic yet boring grey/brown one.

Indeed.

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Ed, Edd, n Eddy memes few. I prefer much shorter games and those turn to half replay value more than overly long or long games. Not all the time, but most of the time.

 

[iamthemilkman]

I like both. I'm still enjoying Crimson Desert, loved my time playing Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, but I also enjoy a great 8-10 hour single player FPS like Half-Life, F.E.A.R., Halo, etc. If a game's great, I'll spend $70 on it. Some weirdos don't want to pay full price for shorter games anymore, however if they're great like the games that I mentioned, you'll probably keep them and replay them. Shorter games are more replayable to me because committing 100+ hours to an RPG more than once is difficult.