You know, it's been months since I've last thought of it, but I want to put it on the record: Pocket Card Jockey for the 3DS is the most depressing game ever made.
You might ask, why is a game about playing solitaire and racing horses so depressing? Because you're placed into the Star Trek Kobayashi Maru game; i.e. a game that is designed to be unwinnable and spites you even if you perform perfectly. Some history is required: Pocket Card Jockey was a game originally for mobile phones, and it had shameless microtransactions to help you along; Naturally, the game is balanced with these microtransactions in mind. That is, it's Bullshit hard. When it was ported to the 3DS, it lost the microtransactions... but kept the BS Difficulty unchanged.
So everything is grossly overpriced in the store, your opponents are riding 'roided up super horses, and every mistake is held against you forever: you MUST win every race because after you lose 3 races total your horse is taken from you and sent to better pastures. And winning doesn't mean "Top 3", it means "First place or nothing"; your manager doesn't give a flying fuck if you beat all ten of the other riders but one and came home with the silver trophy, your horse is going to the glue factory, pick out a new one I don't care if you liked your horse and hate these new ones Elmers is already here I hope you said your goodbyes.
Combine that with the fact that RNG plays a major factor in races, and you're going to be chewing through a lot of horses just because of random chance. And before you ask: No, savescumming doesn't work, the designers already thought of that and punish you for trying.
You get to raise up your own horses at least. Every horse has an adolescent phase where it grows quickly... then it stops getting any stronger or faster once it hits adulthood... I don't care about the biology of horses, I just feel this is a very pessimistic viewpoint on life being implemented into a game mechanic by the designers. Like the game is trying to say "Oh, all your potential and growth was confined to your childhood, and if you didn't capitalize on that fully when you had the chance and now you're a shitty adult? FUCKING SORRY YOU'RE GOING TO SUCK FOREVER! NO MORE GROWTH OR CHANGE FOR YOU! SHOULD'VE USED THAT NARROW TIMEFRAME BETTER DUMBASS! OH AND SOMETIMES YOUR GENETICS JUST PLAIN FUCKING SUCK SO EVEN YOUR CHILDHOOD GROWTH DOESN'T MATTER SORRY!!!" ... perhaps I'm over-empathizing with videogame horses, but that's the feeling I picked up from the game.
What it was that convinced me to put down the game was that I had finally raised myself a pretty good horse, and I was obligated to ride in a big shot race with opponents that are more beefy and roided up than ever before. I run the race perfectly though, I get all the bonuses, I'm taking the perfect line through the course, I'm taking all the biggest risks and they're all paying off, my horse is EXPLODING with raw solitaire energy... and I still get my ass beat cause my opponents are riding super horses bequeathed to my opponents by god. I don't even place. I get back to my stable and my horse gets minced up for stew despite performing so well... No extra chances, no acknowledgement of how well he did, no lenience or understanding given he was facing far superior opponents, it's just "Oh, he lost? Well, if you can kindly walk him over into this wood chipper, we'll pick you out a new one right away." It's just so soul crushing, to try your hardest, and to get beaten down regardless and made to start over from the bottom again and again...
Perhaps not the place for the WTF thread, but the game just popped back into my head randomly, and I haven't played it in forever but it still makes me upset just thinking about it.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14902481 times)