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[electroshockwave]

I know it's been mentioned multiple times but GTA IV fits this so much. Money is worthless. All I could really spend it on was body armour and ammo before a mission and some clothes. And I didn't need more than a few outfits. Also, it clashes with the story in an annoying way so it seems like the player and Niko have no real reason for doing anything. Niko's always saying that he needs money and that's why he has to kill people and stuff but he's fucking loaded. After the bank heist mission I got a quarter of a million, Niko and Roman have a nice apartment in East Algonquin and Roman's taxi business seems to be doing even better than the first one so why does Niko still need to be a criminal?

The only reason the player actually continues doing the missions is because there's fuck-all else to do and gamers have a drive to complete games. I think Vice City did it best by making the property management gameplay part of the story. I think a lot of the property missions were fun and had some cool side characters. It also made Tommy Vercetti more than just someone's lackey for the entirety of the game. Once you built your empire and Sonny Forelli started attacking you wanted to defend it.

 

[DJ_Tet]

"Congratulations on beating the hardest difficulty! The wampas are now your friends."

What a cop-out. o_o

Haha I forgot all about that. Had to google to make sure you were talking about SoTE. I could never beat the game at it's hardest difficulty but watched my friend suffer through it. This was before gamefaqs or anything so we didn't know what would happen but I remember him trying to put a positive spin on it. We both knew it was some shit though, and I don't think he even beat the game ever again.

 

[Femmeworth]

Kind of From Software games. Demon's Souls and Armored Core For Answer (the only two I have played in recent times) are fun but not particularly rewarding. The simplistic stories are definitely part of it. Also the Arms Forts, which looked fucking awesome, were hardly rewarding to take down.

 

[Fantasmo]

Amazing thread topic. Yes, Oblivion and Zelda are two big offenders of this. Wonderful games despite that, but it kills the desire to explore.

Actually this topic has me hoping for a new Metroid Trilogy when Wii U arrives. The endgame puzzle hunts stink but missiles energy tanks and new powers were great rewards. Anything that makes you feel more badass is cool in my book.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

GTA4 by far.

Money was useless, getting all 200 pigeons was useless.

EDIT: 200, not 100. It's even worse.

Yep

---
About Oblivion, the good thing is it's heavily modable if you have the PC version. You can make your own style of oblivion. Reward yourself with the awesome armor and weapons people create. Then fight their custom dungeons.

 

[NBtoaster]

I don't see how people can say Demon's Souls is unrewarding. It's completely satisfying to kill a boss on iit's own and you get a huge soul reward too..

 

[Green Mamba]

Correction: you get 200 rupees every time you enter the skulltulla house and talk to the guy. It's basically endless money.

Considering Ocarina of Time is the premier Zelda in which there is nothing of value to spend your money on, that's not much better.

 

[Derrick01]

Borderlands (ending spoiler)

Spoiler

I played the entire game to get what was in that vault and....nothing? FUCK YOU

I don't see how people can say Demon's Souls is unrewarding. It's completely satisfying to kill a boss on iit's own and you get a huge soul reward too..

This is a big reason why I didn't like Demon's Souls. I got no satisfaction after clearing areas, it was still boring to me.

 

[Shotgun Kiss]

Dead Rising 2's Zombie Genocide Master achievement. You have to kill 72,000 zombies in a single playthrough. The process for doing so is incredibly awkward and time-consuming (we're talking seven or so hours of just running over zombies in a vehicle), and if you fail to kill enough by the end, you've just wasted all that time for absolutely nothing.

And all you get is an achievement worth a pathetic 20G. Dead Rising 1's Zombie Genocide achievement required only 53,594 kills, the process involved was a lot easier and faster (it was still tedious, but you didn't have to worry about running out of time and wasting hours for nothing), and you also unlocked the real megabuster (the most powerful projectile weapon in the game) upon unlocking the achievement.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I know your joking, but you're right.

Congratulations for beating this really tough dude. Now as a reward, you can die almost instantly from this even tougher dude. /blech

That IS the reward, the right to advance test your might further, and the opportunity to earn bigger rewards (this goes back to the Ulduar vs later WoW dungeons thing again). It's largely a dungeon crawler.

 

[Syril]

I don't see how people can say Demon's Souls is unrewarding. It's completely satisfying to kill a boss on iit's own and you get a huge soul reward too..

The times when you're not actually making progress or working towards it can feel pretty tedious, like if you find a cool weapon and you need to grind out 5 more soul levels before you can use it. Sometimes I feel like the game would be improved if the character stats were removed and you found HP/MP/Stamina/Burden increases from exploring the levels like in Metroid.

 

[JoeBoy101]

That IS the reward, the right to advance test your might further, and the opportunity to earn bigger rewards (this goes back to the Ulduar vs later WoW dungeons thing again). It's largely a dungeon crawler.

Thusly, games that don't reward you properly. I'm glad your happy with that, but for other people, including me, that's somewhat a cop-out.

All comes down to risk vs. reward. Whether the amount of effort is being adequately acknowledged and rewarded. Progression can be a reasonable reward, but given the large amount of effort and challenge involved in that game, there's little reward to recognize it.

I don't see how people can say Demon's Souls is unrewarding. It's completely satisfying to kill a boss on iit's own and you get a huge soul reward too..

See, I think people are confusing satisfaction with relief and catharsis. Not exactly the same.

The times when you're not actually making progress or working towards it can feel pretty tedious, like if you find a cool weapon and you need to grind out 5 more soul levels before you can use it. Sometimes I feel like the game would be improved if the character stats were removed and you found HP/MP/Stamina/Burden increases from exploring the levels like in Metroid.

Given the game's horrid inability to explain the meaning of its assigned numbers, this would be an interesting alternative.

 

[Vally]

If achievements/trophies count as rewards, I'd say Resonance of Fate... all you get for beating the game is a shitty bronze trophy, whereas you're given silver trophies for doing stupid things like loading a terabit of data from the disc or killing an old man in some sidequest.

 

[IC_Champion]

I would say Tekken 6 with their item system in playing Scenario Mode. I wanted for so long to get an S rank costume that gave me full life and more damaging elemental properties, but, all I end up getting is crap.

 

[mysticwhip]

More games need unlockable skins for characters. Those are probably my favorite rewards. Cheats are cool too.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

Borderlands (ending spoiler)

Spoiler

I played the entire game to get what was in that vault and....nothing? FUCK YOU

After a certain point, way before the end of the game, I felt like the game stopped rewarding me with significantly improved weapons. That includes the DLC, too.

 

[Deified Data]

L.A. Noire. Collect all the (extremely well-hidden) golden film reels and drive every car in the game. The reward? Trophies. Fuck that - collectable quests need to come coupled with awesome in-game rewards. Collecting Hidden Packages in GTA nets you weapon drops, tanks, assault choppers, etc. I'm ot going to collect something just because it's there. The film reels should have come with bonus cinematics that shed more light on the story and its characters.