Gaming Your Favorite Minigame

[CaNz]

everyone who has played a decently long adventure game probably knows what i am talking about here, but for those who are unsure, a minigame is short video game that you play inside of another game that usually has little to nothing to do with the plot of the main game.

i feel that even though these games are usually not important at all and sometimes become difficult for some complitionists, some of them can be addicting and fun.
[spoiler] however some can be annoying and stupid, so a subcategory in this topic is your least favorite minigames.[/spoiler]

anyways i will list off my top three favorites.

3) Kingdom Hearts 2: GUMMI SHIPS
[media][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipsFmKgbno0&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.c...feature=related[/url][/media]
there is a lot to hate about kingdom hearts (every no- Disney character in my opinion) but gummi ships are just to much fun.
in one they were fun, you didn't really have to do anything... but if you wanted to you could trick your ship out to make it faster or so strong that you could let go of the controller and finish a mission, in two however, the ship customization took a astronomical climb, making your ship feel like your ship.
once you made it, you could pick a few perks then take on expansive star-fox 64 like missions. it gets incredibly intense with enemies firing from four sides at once, and you have to survive as well as kill as many of them as possible to get good ranks.

2)The Legend of Zelda, Phantom Hourglass: SHOOTING RANGE
[media][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JQOLO_zako&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.c...feature=related[/url][/media]
i chose this video cause the top score is also my top score.
okay, there are lots of zelda shooting ranges... why does this one stick out as one of my favorite minigames? playing it is so friggen addictive.
its very simple, kill the (very Mario like) ghost planks and don't hit the girl (easier said then done)
points for each ghost start at ten, then add another ten for each consecutive hit up to 50 points per ghost. missing makes you start at ten and if you hit the girl its minus 50 points. this is fairly strait forward, but the way the targets move makes getting a high score require precise well timed strokes, forcing you to master the speed of the arrows, the speed of the ghosts and the girl, leading your shots, timing, angles, and your ability to do this fast. i have definitely played this mini game hundreds of times by now.

[b][size="3"]1)[/size] Final Fantasy X: BLITZBALL![/b]
[media][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1YnnB0QkhY&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.c...feature=related[/url][/media]
i have probably spent more time playing this minigame than the actual game (and its a good game!)
six different teams, tons of free agents, a leveling up system, a league, scrimmage and tournament play... even for final fantasy, for this mini game, they went all out.
though the physics of the game (about a dollar) dont make any sense at all, the game play is addictive. you can take controll of the ball carrier, as well as set up your defensive positioning, and when an interaction occurs (a defending player gets close to a offensive player) you can select one of your skills to use. its likelihood to work then depends on the stats of your character vs theirs, and the skill they used. using certain skills can form a good strategy, combining status effects with power.
the sport will have you racing back and forth in an underwater overly violent soccer-ish game. manage your roster well and you can enjoy obliterating the competition.

[spoiler]my least favorites really just make me angry thinking about it...
both are from the same game. knights of the old republic. the pod race mini game is the most buggy, framerapey, pointless nonsense. the only way to do well is memorizing a bland course at impossible speeds. the game has very expensive stuff so i usually try to do them anyways, but the only way to get better is practice, and if you lose you lose money as well. so it becomes a waist of time and money! i usually save before a race and reload if i lose, but even then the amount of tries ii go through is infuriating.
the only thing worse then that is Pazaak. i am a huge card game fan, so a star wars card game would be fun for me right? WRONG!!! this game is flat out unfair. the rule is you get four cards in your hand you can play at any time usually these cards are from 1-5 positive, negative or rare ones are both. you play these cards to help get as closes as possible to 20 without busting over. problem is you always go first, meaning your always at a huge disadvantage. criedits are hard to come buy so i do the save before games trick... but its so hard to beet the odds stacked up against you that at times i felt like breaking the game just so that i couldn't put myself through more abuse.[/spoiler] Edited August 26, 2010 by CaNz

[Magus]

I don't know the name of it but it's that card game in Final Fantasy 8. It's addicting.

Truth be told I try to avoid almost all minigames. I'm not much of a completionist so I just don't care about them, especially if they're completely random (have you do something like singing, dancing or whatever)

[The Tentacle]

[u]Favorites First:[/u]

[b]Blitzball[/b] - Gotta agree with CaNz here.  Once you put together a solid team playing Blitzball was a lot of fun.  Half of my team consisted of former members of the Al-Bhed Psyches.  In fact Tidus was the only member of my team that wasn't Al-Bhed.  It only started to get boring once my team had gotten so strong that winning was too easy.  I didn't even bother with Blitzball in X-2 though.  Come to think of it I didn't bother with X-2 at all once I'd beaten the game once.

[b]All but one in Okami[/b] - This game was just so much fun that I had to find every item, complete every side-quest and earn every reward there was in the game.  From racing a shapeshifting fox girl through the forest to catching that multiplying thief they were all worthwhile even if the reward you got for completing them was minimal. 

[b]Chao Raising[/b] - In Sonic Adventure 2.  I spent way more time doing this than I did playing the game.  It's not even that I like raising virtual pets or anything.  But with Chao it was different.  You could kick them.....


[u]Now my least favorites:[/u]

[b]Horseback archery - [/b]I HATED this in Ocarina of Time.  Trying to earn the Big Quiver was almost not worth the Herculean effort I put into besting this contest.  Skull Kids died en masse just so I could pay 50 Rupees over and over and over again until I'd finally won the damn thing.  

[b]That one in Okami[/b] - If you've played Okami before you know exactly which one I'm talking about.  Yeah, it's Blockhead Grande.  This guy was a cast iron pain in the @$.  I had to tape a sheet of plastic wrap to the television screen and mark it with a magic marker to finally pin him down.  How much of a hassle is that?

I'll probably come up with a couple more later. Edited August 26, 2010 by The Tentacle

[Sangome]

[quote name='Beretta' date='26 August 2010 - 10:14 AM' timestamp='1282835665' post='699877']
I don't know the name of it but it's that card game in Final Fantasy 8. It's addicting.[/quote]

[color="#9932CC"][font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]Triple Triad, I do believe it's called.

Anyway, as for me...the NiGHTS Pinball game from Sonic Adventure 1 was oddly addicting. It wasn't a particularly deep or complex pinball game, but it was just...fun. I got so many extra lives from that, too. But I think what kept me there the most was the [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz211pMQczA"]music[/url]. So awesome <3 It also got me into the NiGHTS series itself, so that's a plus.

As for other minigames, there's also [url="http://www.mariowiki.com/Hammer_Whacker"]Hammer Whacker[/url] from Super Paper Mario, which I got so engrossed in I actually cleared all 100 levels...in a single try. Yeah.

And finally...well, considering the entire series is about minigames, a lot of the minigames from the Mario Party series are pretty darn fun too [even if I played alone all the time ].[/font][/color]

[Delta]

[COLOR=#35425e]Yes, [b]Triple Triad[/b] was really enjoyable especially when playing in an area where the Random, Plus, and Diff rules are in place. I must have spent an hour playing with [spoiler]Elone[/spoiler] to get the Laguna Card! Then it quickly became frustrating when somebody got my GF cards with just Funguars and Blitzes. But oh the rewards! I collected Biggs and Wedges and Fuujn and Raijins because they be Card Modded into X-Potions! And that for 1 Gilgamesh, I can get 10 Holy Wars! Card Mod really got me through the final battle. Now that's some integrated minigame!

Oddly enough, Triple Triad's successor in [b]Final Fantasy IX[/b] was really disappointing. Even after reading guides and walkthroughs, I still don't get the numbers on the cards. It was like reading hexadecimal!

I have fond memories from playing [b]Blitzball[/b]. Can't remember who was in my team (I think it was people from Luca, aside from Tidus, Wakka and Brother), but they always won. I love how everyone in the radar just swarms around whoever has the ball, and one can try to break as many opponents with one shot. The Jecht Shot was really something, wasn't it? Everything was a breeze after acquiring that move; Jecht's bragging rights were well-justified.

Was there a mini-game in FFXI? Because by the looks of it, minigames from every odd-numbered installment lacked [i]je ne sais quoi[/i]. (I didn't really enjoy anything from that carnival in FFVII. They were very... forgettable)

Great topic, CaNz![/COLOR]

[Magus]

I couldn't stand Plus and Random. Same I was fairly decent with, but those other 2 (with Same on as well) OMG!!! Talk about a bunch of BS. But for the most part I pretty much go for a no-level game and spend majority of my time playing TT. Getting ahold of some of the best magics on the first disk (pretty much right at the beginning) makes the game a heckuva lot easier, especially if you're just looking to dominate everyone. Card Mod is definately nifty and cheap at the same time lol. 10 Holy Wars equal cheap for any boss. Oh yeah, I did manage to get Squall's Lionheart on the first disk as well by play TT. Very time consuming. Playing TT makes things fairly easy and cheap, but it also is a lot more fun to me that way. When it comes to RPG's I never look for bosses to give me a challenge lol.

Anyway, I completely forgot about Excite QTE (I think that's the name of it) in [b]Shenmue[/b]. The one where you punching everything. That's also an addicting game. I went pretty long before I started messing up. Mainly when you have to push 3 buttons at the same time.

As far as Blitzball goes, I hated that game with a passion. I can never get used to it. Granted I've only played FFX once, I did play that part twice... ARGH!!! Never again will I play it. I guess another part of the reason why I don't like it is because it's like Soccer and I hate that too.

[The Tentacle]

Triple Triad was fun up until I got to Trabia Garden and the Random Rule took effect.  After that it was just frustrating with me losing one card after another to whoever I was facing.

Blitzball, lemme think.  My team consisted of Tidus, Brother and Ropp along with Eigar, Berrick and Nimrook of the Al Bhed Psyches.  In fact Tidus was the only non-Al Bhed on the team at the end.  Nimrook started to suffer though because my opponents were never able to get the ball away from me and make a play so he never leveled up.  I also had Svanda and Jumal on my team at one time but the Psyches have the best stats out of anyone in the game. If they become available they're definitely worth recruiting.

[The Tentacle]

Wait wait wait.  Lost Viking?  Explain plz.

I know the original Lost Vikings games were put out by the company that eventually became Blizzard and the Vikings make cameos in WoW but what role do they have in Starcraft?  I am intrigued by this.

[Nony]

I really really like the bike races in [b].hack//G.U.[/b] It had some decent difficulty to it but was still fun to do and not super tedious and boring like most of the sidequests/mini-games in the series. It was also super neat to get bike parts from winning each mission which you could then make use of on the normal fields. Invisibility is the best.

Oh yeah, another one from the same game: Crimson VS, a fun little card game. You put together a deck then "register" it, so while you're off doing things in The World, you have Crimson VS fighting other opponents with the deck you registered. It can take some actual strategy to win, although it's not too difficult either. Makes me wish I could have some real versions of those cards; in fact, they [i]did[/i] sell some of them... in Japan. So of course I'll never get my hands on a copy of 'em. Edited September 2, 2010 by Miss Anonymous