Well, having just played through VS for the first time, I'll make a conjecture. I enjoyed the story a lot, too, and I thought the distinctive setting was refreshing. However, two aspects of the game broke up the storytelling experience in a damaging way.
First, there's the combat system. They added a new level of realism with hit locations and weapon ranges, and as a result, running through a castle killing three monsters in every room becomes more like the chore it would be in "real life". I think the older, more abbreviated combat systems made it more fun (or bearable) to hack through random encounters for 50+ hours.
Then there's the damned cube puzzles. They just don't belong. There's no reason within the established story for there to be these boxes with weird properties sitting around in this abandoned city that, when you factor in Ashley's jumping ability, happen to create solvable cube puzzles that stand in the way of reaching certain doors. In addition to the fact that this works against the immersive quality of the game, they're just not fun, and they even admit this in the in-game quick manual!
Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that some areas of the map are only accessible after the first play-through. It's the classic attempt to artificially create replay value in a story-driven game. I really wish they wouldn't do that. If the game is done right, you'll want to play it again regardless of whether you've found every item. Hell, I've played through FFIV at least once a year since it came out...
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First, there's the combat system. They added a new level of realism with hit locations and weapon ranges, and as a result, running through a castle killing three monsters in every room becomes more like the chore it would be in "real life". I think the older, more abbreviated combat systems made it more fun (or bearable) to hack through random encounters for 50+ hours.
Then there's the damned cube puzzles. They just don't belong. There's no reason within the established story for there to be these boxes with weird properties sitting around in this abandoned city that, when you factor in Ashley's jumping ability, happen to create solvable cube puzzles that stand in the way of reaching certain doors. In addition to the fact that this works against the immersive quality of the game, they're just not fun, and they even admit this in the in-game quick manual!
Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that some areas of the map are only accessible after the first play-through. It's the classic attempt to artificially create replay value in a story-driven game. I really wish they wouldn't do that. If the game is done right, you'll want to play it again regardless of whether you've found every item. Hell, I've played through FFIV at least once a year since it came out...