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Load times in RPGs
- Thread starter mint
- Start date
PS2 games are pretty good....DQ8 loads a bit much into and out of the battle screen...Wild Arms Alter Code: F, which I bought entirely because of nostalgia, loads almost transparently...I don't remember FF8 being that bad.
I don't mind loading different rooms, that's par for the course. If you are going to have a battle screen, though (and mind you, I like battle screens), please have it in the cache or whatever so it just pops right up.
I don't mind loading different rooms, that's par for the course. If you are going to have a battle screen, though (and mind you, I like battle screens), please have it in the cache or whatever so it just pops right up.
are you kidding? Load times are the greatest! Especially between the world map and the fight! It gives it a sense of suspense!
What generic fight will I be fighting? now? Oh look! Man sized lizards! Oh joy! Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy! Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!
What generic fight will I be fighting? now? Oh look! Man sized lizards! Oh joy! Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy! Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!Oh another load time! I wonder what I'll be fighting next?! Oh look! Man sized lizards again! Oh joy!
clearacell
Member
^
I assume you have some sort of problem with load times? It was kinda subtle
I assume you have some sort of problem with load times? It was kinda subtle
Load times for menu screens and battles are highly annoying and can make me stop playing a game. I just started playing Tales of Symphonia this week, and Namco got it right. I thought the PSX era FFs were bearable. Anything longer than that is too much. Had to quit Skies of Arcadia after 5 hours or so.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
After playing so many disc-based RPGs, it was a real treat when I played the GBC Dragon Warrior ports. I remembered why I didn't used to get so annoyed by random battles so much; the simpler ones might have come and gone in the time a PS1 battle would need to load.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Which are you thinking of?dark10x said:
Oh geez, it would take some time to name them all...but off the top of my head...JoshuaJSlone said:
Grandia III and Xtreme - Battles load so quickly that they would occasionally make me jump if I didn't see an enemy rush me on the field - faster than most cart RPGs
Rogue Galaxy - Battles load in less than 2 seconds, but the game never takes your control away (enemies pop up while you are still active)
Tales of Symphonia
Shin Megami Tensei III
Star Ocean 3
Suikoden IV (game would be unplayable otherwise, as there are metric ass tons of battles)
...and a number of others. Then, beyond those, there are plenty of games that are quite fast, but not quite CART fast.
The load time problem has been siginifcantly reduced this gen. PSX games tended to have more difficulty dealing with them...
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
Yeah, DQVIII loads kind of annoy. Most notably going from one house to another, or one room to another where it loads. Also, the transition to the boat or Empyrea SUCKS. I miss just running to a shore and walking off my boat, or just landing anywhere I want without any hitch.
I just hope loading time improves big time this next Gen. PS2 was awful still IMO.
I just hope loading time improves big time this next Gen. PS2 was awful still IMO.
As I've been saying, it totally just depends on the game. There have been plenty of PS2 games that feature virtually no loading (or hide it to the point that you never notice it)...while there have also been titles ruined as a result of it.
Better hardware does not always help the situation. Half-Life 2 could have been a vastly superior experience, for example, if it had not been for the loading...
It's up to individual developers, not the hardware alone.
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
dark10x said:
That's true...but that doesn't change the fact that the ps2 sucked this gen for load times. Many games could've been optimized to fix that, but for whatever reason the devs decided not to. I'm hoping it's EASY for next gen systems to load quickly. Bad load times should be the exception, not the rule.
I don't think it sucked, though. I'm going to guess that you've simply had a run in with many games that DID suck and it has convinced you that the library as a whole has problems. The majority of the PS2 games I've played this gen do not suffer from poor load times. Those that do bothered me greatly, however.Forgotten Ancient said:
The higher quality games tended to avoid those problems...
AtomicShroom
Member
Forgotten Ancient said:
If Xbox 360 is of any indication, it's only going to get worse.
The amount of RAM games have to fill goes up much faster than optical drive speeds.
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
dark10x said:
I dunno...maybe I'm just tolerant of the load times than you are. It's the biggest reason I don't have a PSP yet. I'm incredibly impatient. The quick loads even in Halo caused me to not finish the single-player mode, even though it's still one of my favorite games this gen.
The Burnout games are pretty bad IMO. Well, most EA games really.
I don't even know what to say. That's just beyond bad, right there. How on EARTH could you POSSIBLY be THAT impatient?! How do you enjoy anything in life?! :|
I mean, if something stops you constantly and you are waiting on a fairly regular basis, that's one thing...but something like Halo?!?!?!?!? Halo handles loading beautifully...and the sequel is 10x better than that (it only loads when you first begin playing, and then the rest of the game is seamless).
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
dark10x said:
lol, I only played the first 2 levels of Halo and noticed the quick loads and they annoyed me. I'm sure I could get through it, but I had too much fun with the multiplayer to bother.
Yeah...my impatience does suck tho. Hopefully next gen doesn't kill it.
HALO 2ChrisReid said:
Halo 1 DID have a load screen between every level that required about 30 seconds of waiting. However, I always found it to be stylish looking and raised my anticipation for the next level.
If you are talking about mid level loads, however, that's correct. Both Halo 1 and 2 really didn't HAVE mid level loads outside of a quick frame skip. The game may say "Loading" for a second, but they likely only added that text in order for people to understand why the game skipped a frame.
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
ChrisReid said:
Yeah, people got be freakin' kidding complaining about that kind of "load time."
Suburban Cowboy
Member
yet people still call nintendo retarded for wanting to stick with cartridgesReilly said:
wasnt the load time in the DC version of Skies of Arcadia supposedly unbarable? ive only played gc version...
They were, for a variety of reasons.
They've also proved that they can continue to deliver gameplay without any significant loadtimes even when using an optical format. It should also be noted that several later N64 titles DID feature slight loadtimes. I don't believe a cart format would have made much of a difference with the Gamecube.
I lived with it, but they were some of the worst I've seen in an RPG (kinda like Xenosaga II...but worse, with REALLY long transitions into battle and then waiting as they draw each individual character on the battle field).
Still, the DC version of SoA featured VASTLY superior audio and better textures...preventing it from being THE version to play. The battle transitions were cut in half, however, which was a nice upgrade.
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
Odysseus said:
lol, c'mon guys. I'm not saying the loading times are bad in Halo, but there were a few in the first level and it annoyed me. I never gave it a shot after that because I played it mainly for the multiplayer. Maybe the quick loads in Halo are common in a lot of FPS, but I don't play them very often. I've always been used to seamless action with loading at the beginning, or in between levels.
I've finished, or near finished games with much worse loading times - Skies of Arcadia, Burnouts, DQVIII, NHL (any year), etc.
Uhh, there really wasn't any loading during the game, though. How on earth could you possibly have been bothered by a quick "skip" in the gameplay while walking through a hallway. Patience can't even come into play here, as you don't actually WAIT for anything. The game just "skips", literally. That's all there is to the loading...and it doesn't even occur that often.
Hurricane_Chris
DDK
Suburban Cowboy said:
In the DC SoA the random battles were hella frequent and the loads were pretty long, especially if your DC's GDRom had started down the path of failure...
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
dark10x said:
I know what it does. I also know it's only a quick second that does it, but I didn't like it. It wasn't so much a matter of patience in that sense - it just annoyed me. I can't say it any other way than that. It's silly that this thread has become more focused on my seeming lack of ability to handle quick pauses in the middle of action.
I didn't like the quick skips or loads in Halo...alright, it's been established. Move along, nothing more to see here.
btw...I'm the kind of person who's really concerned with 1up's review of FFIV Advance. The slowdown during battle is something that could really agitate me. Hopefully it's nothing too bad, because I can't wait to get that + a Micro later this month.
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
ddksanrokumaru said:
yup...you always knew when a battle was about to start because the DC would get a bit louder just before. I would hear that noise and suddenly stop, hoping that no battle would take place. It still happened anyways :lol
SoA...what a beautiful game. At least, when you're flying.
See, that's the thing, it never paused in the "middle of action". The only time you'd witness a pause such as that was during your travel down a transition hallway. No action. No enemies. Nothing. It was just you walking along.
There was ONE benefit to the DC version, though. You could always hear the drive access just prior to a battle, which would give you a second to react and enter the menu if you needed to use an item or something.
Forgotten Ancient
Banned
dark10x said:
Never tried that. Would it work in Halo? :lol
c'mon, it's a joke!
The load times are greatly reduced in the Skies of Arcadia Legends version for Cube, right?
Anyhow, loading times can be a dealbreaker. It sapped a lot of my enthusiasm for KOTOR, though it was still an awesome game, the constant loading was another reason that it drug on and on...
I prefer 2D RPG's anyway, fast gameplay with zero loading. Viva la GBA/DS!
Anyhow, loading times can be a dealbreaker. It sapped a lot of my enthusiasm for KOTOR, though it was still an awesome game, the constant loading was another reason that it drug on and on...
I prefer 2D RPG's anyway, fast gameplay with zero loading. Viva la GBA/DS!
Yes, but in a rather poor fashion. They simply chopped the battle transition animations in half. Yeah, it's faster, but it cuts to battle while the animation is clearly still under way (which looks sloppy) rather than editing the actual transitions. It feels more like enabling some sort of "speed loading" mode in an emulator or something.
Actually, I'll take this back in one regard.me on the first page said:
If the transition is fast enough, looks cool enough, and provides me with some kind of information while I'm waiting, like the quick swirly effect and then the battlefield overview in Star Ocean 2, it's okay. If the transition is a voice clip of "To my side, my noble Einherjar" playing at the beginning of every single non-boss battle, it's not. I'd also say the same of the slow-crawl wild silhouettes in Pokemon--my favorite series or not, it's still downright annoying--but I'm not sure if that's technically load time or if they just threw it in for some kind of stylistic reason.