[Adol]

[CubaLibre]

Don't forget that from 7 on every game has been stupendously ugly.

Aesthetics matter.
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[Toptube]

[John Mc.]

actually shadow hearts takes place just before ww1.

in fact, you kind of save the world, but cause world war 1.

sh2 takes place during ww1.

also guys ff7 really isn't a bad game. "not being as good as you remember it" isn't necessarily "bad."

[Felix]

4 = linear, epic; operatic (non-DQ) jrpg
5 = pleasantly regressive; hobby-celebrating
6 = celebratory, sprawling, genre-defining
7 = confident, technological, fetishism
8 = postmodern, only conceivable followup
9 = falteringly regressive, nostalgic
X = hollow, confident, self-conscious
X-2 = more hollow, more confident, more self-conscious
XII = brilliant, unfinished, discomforting

[CubaLibre]

Felix, post more. :(
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[niitaka]

yeah 12 is the exception to a lot of what FF is guilty of. Too bad like Maz mentioned, Matsuno ended up leaving!

Also "This one isn't really about defending stories. We've established that the stories are shit and that one of the big draws is that Final Fantasy games are often able to convince us that they're not." isn't a very good argument. it reads: yeah the stories are shit but it's ok because it, superficially, at least feels like good stories. why should that be ok? why should that be enough for us?

To follow up on Cuba's point about other settings, why dont't we have more unique settings other than fantasy? Yes, Ivalice is miles away from Midgard but somehow they all devolve back into magic. Why not draw from other perspectives other than the spunky lad? Why not have a whole rpg revolving around a hero who has to choose between civic duty and personal loyalty? A doctor who loves all life but is often forced to let war-ravaged soldiers die? The feeling of exile and ostrasization? There's so much that can be done and while you can certainly say "But this rpg has a doctor character! Or this rpg has a character who betrays the world for the woman he loves!" the treatment often just grazes the surface and never explores the concept further.

[Vehicular Manslaughter]

And you get the strong impression that S-E went in and jiggered things up -- like making the gambits unlock over a period of time, which is pretty ridiculous.

My main complaint about FF12 is actually that they were too proud of their character models/didn't have enough time to make the art for/were afraid that obscuring characters would confuse people to put equipment aside from weapons visibly on the characters. If I've spent all this time/energy to get Mr. Awesome Hat I want to see it being worn, dammit.
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[negativedge]

[dark steve]

That's sort of silly, yeah. Although they're so inexpensive that it hardly matters. Just a(n arbitary) way to pace out the rate that you could get them at. It would have made more sense to maybe tie them to certain skills/equipment, so they'd show up dynamically as you got new abilities/weapons/spells (giving you hints on how to utilize them and such).
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[108]

[!=]

Frankly, that precisely made me quit the game early and refuse to have anything to do anymore with it. I was drawn to it by the idea of gambits, to only realize I had to uncover them one by one as objects.

If at least they were somewhat related to the narrative (trust that your party has in you? -- this does not even play well with the underlying theme of having a non-hero as your avatar --)

[108]

[John Mc.]

gambits exist so that you don't have to hold down the a/x button to fight regular enemies.

honestly, if you relied on gambits alone in boss fights, then a) you probably didn't make it very far, and b) you totally missed the point.

i'm going to miss gambits.

[diplo]

[firenze]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

the gambit system is a pretty good idea but I think that they should really have something more action-based if they're going to stick to small party sizes.

[Loki Laufeyson]

i once spent about 4 or 5 hours at a friend's house playing FFX (he wasn't there, so why was i in his house, playing his games? a mystery.) i can't remember anything about playing the game. i can't remember battles, blitzball, the sphere grid, anything. i can remember the cutscenes, but that's it. that's pretty strange.
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http://uk.youtube.com/user/misterlaufeyson
http://lunaticobscurity.blogspot.com/ - newest review: mean arenas (amiga)

[Felix]

honestly guys read fukubukuro 06 if you haven't

[Predator Goose]

[google]

[chevluh]

[Lestrade]

I bought a used copy of FFX many years ago and was all ready to dive in. I got three hours into the game and then my wife accidentally overwrote my save file. I didn't re-start. :-(

Also, my brain can't handle the Sphere Grid. I can get linear-style skill trees (like in WoW and others), but that grid just messed me up.
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Illustration Portfolio | The Gamer's Quarter

[SuperWes]

[BenoitRen]

This thread is a great read.

[Talbain]

Hm... I haven't played Crisis Core, and I won't ever since I don't have a PSP anymore, but I will say that Square has pretty much gone downhill since it merged with Enix. At the same time, before the merger they were both making great games. While the merger probably killed much of this creativity, what it essentially means is that they've gone from making great games, to good games, to average games. My suspicion is that it then becomes mediocre. Crisis Core is likely an exemplar of that mediocrity. Which means that while new, original games may pop up from SE every now and then, anything connected to their old series is pretty much doomed to die a pauper's death by any critic who's been around and isn't being paid to "LOL SQUARE ROCKS." This is happening with lots of stuff right now. Series were en vogue until about a year or two ago, and have since become more like a pox. It's a trend that will eventually taper out, leading to some creativity in the interim before sequelitis begins again. You can only milk a franchise so much. That amount might be a lot based on how well you advertise and fellate your customer base, but it doesn't last forever. I liked FFXII for what it was, but the game is pathetically easy and the whole conception of "larger than life" evil is an old idea that really needs to be replaced by something. The entire idea of "big evil" is an idea I find tiring in games. Games like Lost in Blue are far more interesting conceptions for games. They are in their infancy, but when they grow up, I foresee them taking a large chunk of the "big evil" audience.
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Heuristic Hedonism
Vigigames
Station 54

[Cossix]

I keep hearing that stories in video games are universally terrible and that they're intrinsically the worst at stories ever, but I mean if this is the case then what really is a good story? I mean I get it that video games are kind of hooked on the Hero's Quest as a narrative structure, but the Hero's Quest isn't intrinsically juvenile.

[dark steve]

What? Of course it is.
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[CubaLibre]

[SuperWes]

[CubaLibre]

[tacotaskforce]

[SuperWes]

[Mr Mustache]

[niitaka]

Yay finally we're getting somewhere in this discussion. Weş, do you read because it's fun entertainment, or because there're insightful perspectives or thought provoking things you can pick up? Same with movies. Of course LOTR has a terrible plot. But you're sorely mistaken if you think this is the pinnacle of the medium.

If you're going to argue that of course the purpose of games is to provide entertainment, that's why we play them, etc, then I don't agree with you. Sure, being entertained is certainly important and there will always be games that do this, but should this be their only goal?

Why shouldn't games be thought-provoking? If the main paradigm of games is to provide an experience, why shouldn't games show interesting perspectives in living a certain way, or in portraying certain world-views or characters?

If "being entertaining" is the sole purpose of a medium, then we'd never have any books beyond schlock fantasy or sci-fi, nor would we have any types of movies beyond chick flicks and over-the-top action movies.

Does that make sense? Certainly there is a place for mindless entertainment, and just as we'd always have their equivalents in movies and books, I don't expect all games or videogame series to steer clear of such. Sometimes that's all you want and it's your guilty pleasure. But they should aspire for more, and (in rpgs particularly) it just isn't happening beyond a few games like Mother 3 and certainly not in the Final Fantasy series, except maybe 12.

Go ahead and have interesting mechanics, have interesting gameplay, etc. We're doing (mostly) just fine on that front.

Edit: Let's illustrate this with an example. I remember reading somewhere that Matsuno, with FFXII, wanted to cast Basch as the main character, as someone who has to make difficult choices and live with their consequences, such as his betrayal of a kingdom.

That's what I'm talking about. Make a game where the player repeatedly has chances to betray his country for personal conviction, and either the player will have to suffer the price of giving everything up for his country, or deal with the guilt of betrayal for personal reasons. Either way, the choice is the player's, and it's the player who faces the ramifications of what he chooses.

See what I mean? Show an experience. Show to the player a character's eyes, a character's thoughts, his triumphs, his defeats, his choices, his consequences. You're not writing out a scripted story (although in limited cases you could deliberately) because it doesn't fit into this medium. You're conveying an experience.

[CubaLibre]

[Adol]

[CubaLibre]

[niitaka]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[haze]

this is my attitude here