Keiji Inafune talks about Japanese Games: how it relates to XIV

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Originally Posted by Andrien

Legend of Dragoon is heading to the PSN

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Well, time to buy a PS3, register for PSN and kiss my social life goodbye...

I honestly think LoD blew FFVII out of the water and it's on par with FFVIII. For not being designed by Square, It's one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

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Originally Posted by Alerith

Well, time to buy a PS3, register for PSN and kiss my social life goodbye...

I honestly think LoD blew FFVII out of the water and it's on par with FFVIII. For not being designed by Square, It's one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

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LoD was somewhere between a beautiful game to a big ugly mess, and I couldn't tell you where I stood in there because the scope of the game was so crazy.

The battle system was OK. Timed attacks got monotonous, and "HUH, HAH. DOUBLE SLASH!" sure got annoying. But there was real challenge in it and some of the boss fights were kinda memorable.

The maps and areas were pretty, but confusing at times.

The story was weird. I can't even tell you 90% of it today because I can't remember. Something about dragoon souls? Hero loses town to evil empire? That one lancer guy dies? I forget the rest.

And then that last boss. Oh. My. God. That had to be the lamest boss fight and quirkiest end cutscene I'd ever seen. I couldn't even tell it was over when it was over. The music stayed the same throughout, and all the while I thought, "Man these guys are trying too hard."

It was decent. But it didn't necessarily do anything new at the time of its release.

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Originally Posted by Andrien

yeah sure let me see you beat Ruby Weapon, and Emerald Weapon with just attack without proper metaria set up.

In FFXIII 90% of the game you just have to hit X and L1 to switch between paradigms. Not to mention half of the game is a tutorial. lol

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You can do this lol and emerald weapon is a joke if you don't have any materia on you so he does shit dmg.....

Most ppl who play 13 cant even beat Gui longs

FFXII to me just seems way to hard to get into, the storyline at the begining of the game makes no sence, the voice acting is terrible compared with FFX (they dont even use full acting for most NPCs, I think even FFX has more of it), I like being able to controll the chars.

To me FFXII doesn't feel like an FF game, I just struggle trying to get into its story, I just wish for future games SE would focus more on story than on battle I like the FF1-9 storylines better than 10/2,12,13/2. Hell I even miss how in some games SE would put a slightly romantic theme into it because it feels more real and believable instead of people just helping for no god damn reason, never wanting anything in return.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Reason I didn't like 12 and 13 is because I like complete control over my party, AI is no substitute.

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This is clearly a lie.
If you liked complete control over your party, you wouldn't have a problem with FF12 for this reason considering the fact that you must actually set up and turn on gambits yourself. Its not like the game automatically puts your characters under AI control, you have to do it yourself.


And heck, its not like you can't turn gambits off once you've enabled them... or even override whatever the comp is doing. Also, its not AI... the gambits quite literally only have the characters do exactly what you've told them to do, they don't think for themselves... it is all up to you.

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the voice acting is terrible compared with FFX

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSzCwFu1dYY

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Originally Posted by Wincy

Definitely agree with you Denmo. I loved FFXII, the plot, the characters, the battle system, all of it was really well done. But it never seems to get the props it deserves, especially among my FF-fan friends. Some of them refuse to even play it!? Crazy...

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Fundamental problem with both FFXII and XIII was the story. Lots of people have different reasons why they hated those games but to me the one glaring issue was that the pacing of the story was all wrong, from beginning to end. You never feel pulled into it as you would with older titles, some of the characters never get a full background or their own story. An FF are a bunch of side stories within an overarching one. This was missed in the latter games, like they spent so much time being innovative with the combat they didn't have the time or resources for what the fans really care about, knowing who these people are and what their goals are and what happens when they defeat the big bad.

I have not played or even looked at XIII-2 but I hope it regains this.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

Western Audiences = sheep

They follow what everyone else does. EQ -> WoW -> GW-> Tabula Rasa -> AoC -> WAR -> AION -> FFXIV -> RIFT -> SWTOR -> TERA/GW2, Apple craze/Apps, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Skyrim, Twilight, Hunger Games, Mass Effect, the list goes on.

I find Japanese developers usually they try to mix up the formula a bit with some additions (they usually don't go over too well i.e. FFXII, FFXIII/2) Western developers however just rehash the same game and add a new number or subtitle and release it incomplete, and sucker people into buying pieces of the game in DLC. Too bad it sells. SE is slowly gravitating toward this model.

Just my opinion.

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I think you have that backwards.... Western audiences question EVERYTHING. Why do you think we get called whiners? A bunch of those games you listed were hyped and failed flat because they did not meet EXPECTATIONS. Our expectations are through the damn roof. So much so that we demand a new ending to Mass Effect.. Seriously, I would invite you to visit the Bioware forums for just a few minute and read what's on there. :D

Japanese devs for the most part are stagnating, staying with what is safe, SE has tried to change but it's like they are not sure how or how much is too much or what... FFXIV I think is a good step in the right direction at this moment.

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Originally Posted by Cendres

I think you have that backwards.... Western audiences question EVERYTHING. Why do you think we get called whiners? A bunch of those games you listed were hyped and failed flat because they did not meet EXPECTATIONS. Our expectations are through the damn roof. So much so that we demand a new ending to Mass Effect.. Seriously, I would invite you to visit the Bioware forums for just a few minute and read what's on there. :D

Japanese devs for the most part are stagnating, staying with what is safe, SE has tried to change but it's like they are not sure how or how much is too much or what... FFXIV I think is a good step in the right direction at this moment.

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A bunch of those games were hyped and failed because they are exactly the same thing, with different premises. AoC/WAR/AION/RIFT/SWTOR, same stuff different label. To be fair, AoC and WAR launched in a bad state but they are still quest on rails games. Every new Call of Duty game is the exact same thing. I see this sheep mentality everywhere. They all flock to the same "new" thing, then complain about whatever they don't like. Once Diablo III is released, everyone will go play that and then some people will complain it's not like II.

I've heard of that silly Mass Effect ending petition, my stance on that is it should be up to the game developers to decide what the ending is. If they cave and change the ending I will lose all respect for BioWare.

The biggest example of messing with the formula is how FFXIV launched. Yeah, that didn't go over too well even if they wanted to "innovate." When was the last time a successful western MMO came out that didn't have the same on rails quest system?
ArenaNet is probably one of the very few western MMO dev that are coming out and saying anything about "innovation."

People played FFXI for a long time as it was a niche game that was different from all the western copypasta quest on rails junk that was primarily being released by the west.

Saying anything is stagnating is subjective. I could say I can't tell a difference between each of Bethesda's new buggy ass games and their old ones, or any of the "new" shooters in a gameplay mechanic sense.

Expectations are a human problem. If you set the bar so high you will probably be disappointed no matter what the game devs come out with.

Really interesting article snippet and thank you for sharing. It's always interesting to see some of the inner perceptions of developers and their take on the social factors that shape the industry.

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Originally Posted by Rane

I agree completely. FF 10 was very linear, and had relatively little free exploration. In some ways, I think it was a precursor to FF 13. The difference is that 1) people still hadn't lost their faith in the FF series when 10 came out, 2) expectations were a bit lower back then, and 3) FF 13 was even more linear than 10.

10 was the first time I couldn't fly around the FF world in my airship--the FF 10 airship was a glorified fast-travel menu. I remember really missing the ability to fly everywhere.

I hope I can play a FF that was as fun as FF 7 again someday in the future.

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Lost Odyssey is as close as we are going to get I reckon lol.

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Originally Posted by Charismatic

This is clearly a lie.
If you liked complete control over your party, you wouldn't have a problem with FF12 for this reason considering the fact that you must actually set up and turn on gambits yourself. Its not like the game automatically puts your characters under AI control, you have to do it yourself.


And heck, its not like you can't turn gambits off once you've enabled them... or even override whatever the comp is doing. Also, its not AI... the gambits quite literally only have the characters do exactly what you've told them to do, they don't think for themselves... it is all up to you.

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AI is based on a set of instructions just like anything else in a video game, true AI in video games doesn't exists because even for NPC's AI has to follow a set of rules.

Gambits are a set of rules which the computer uses to determine the characters actions, its basically AI routines.

I like how you ignored the rest of the post!
(the part about how you had to actually set up gambits yourself though the game doesn't force you to yet claim to like full control... nowhere did the game take that away from you, you took it away from yourself by setting and then enabling gambits which are off by default for the most part)

While what that guy said is certainly true, the part about enjoying older games is a bit flawed.
Admit it, the old FF games had a very simple setup, horrible graphics, and a far less engaging fighting system than anything FFXIV was ever close to, even in beta.
A huge part of what we still enjoy about it is the storyline, the rest is nostalgia, nothing else.
Now you can't do anything about the nostalgia part when creating a new game, but you can at least focus a lot on the story and the characters and work hard to make the player actually CARE about them.
Everytime SE says "We know the part our players like the most about our games are the graphics which are better than any others in the field." some little part inside me dies.
Beautiful graphics are a great thing, they can help to convey emotion, set an atmosphere, etc.
But they are there to back up a great story, not be there instead of it.

A great story is harder to do in an MMO than in an offline title, granted, but for 50 levels, we got nothing but a few random characters with complicated names popping up once or twice, then vanish for another 20 or so levels.
The first characters I actually cared about were those introduced with the Grand Companies; the leaders as well as Cid.
That's why I think we are going into the right direction, but we are far from there yet.
I hope SOMETHING epic happens in the 2.0 storyline on which future expansions could build on, not just "Wait 20 lvls to rescue a few sylphs, then wait another 30 levels to watch a cutscene in which you get blown up without even being allowed to fight."

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Originally Posted by Denmo

I found this Q&A very interesting.





Thinking back to how this game got a 4.0, I think that's what happened. Harsh criticism, and we're seeing a rebound. And what's more:



From what I've seen, Yoshi-P has the right idea on where this game should go. I think they're on the right track, and to hear the above quote from not just a Japanese, but Keiji Inafune, gives me a great deal of hope for 2.0.

But I also see it this way: We shouldn't shy away from being critical about something we feel strongly for (so long as it's constructive). That's what these forums are for. It can't all be hugs and kisses here.

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So what? Japanese devs are better than westeners anyway. The truth hurts , but it's still the truth. While they make one bad game, 10 others are good. The same cant be said about western devs.

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Originally Posted by Noir

So what? Japanese devs are better than westeners anyway. The truth hurts , but it's still the truth. While they make one bad game, 10 others are good. The same cant be said about western devs.

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It's a well known fact that Japanese devs don't have the coding experience withe current systems, such as directX, openGL and windows.

Now you may think pfftttt so what but fact is this generation has been a massive learning curve for JP developers and is part the reason they are behind in high end projects (look how long FFXIII took to come out, look how long versus is taking) I would say the only company that has been ready from day 1 this generation was Capcom and that was thanks to Inafune.

I will agree that JP devs have better artistical style, storyline and overall gameplay elements but it means nothing if the game runs like crap or if the project takes so long to make that it eats into the profit margins.

Of course its not just developers its Japan in general, Sony just announced a 6.4 billion dollars loss this year, as the article says Japan think they are still the top dog, everyone else is spending their money elsewhere though.

Example Sony's TV division has lost money 8 years running.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

A bunch of those games were hyped and failed because they are exactly the same thing, with different premises. AoC/WAR/AION/RIFT/SWTOR, same stuff different label. To be fair, AoC and WAR launched in a bad state but they are still quest on rails games. Every new Call of Duty game is the exact same thing. I see this sheep mentality everywhere. They all flock to the same "new" thing, then complain about whatever they don't like. Once Diablo III is released, everyone will go play that and then some people will complain it's not like II.

I've heard of that silly Mass Effect ending petition, my stance on that is it should be up to the game developers to decide what the ending is. If they cave and change the ending I will lose all respect for BioWare.

The biggest example of messing with the formula is how FFXIV launched. Yeah, that didn't go over too well even if they wanted to "innovate." When was the last time a successful western MMO came out that didn't have the same on rails quest system?
ArenaNet is probably one of the very few western MMO dev that are coming out and saying anything about "innovation."

People played FFXI for a long time as it was a niche game that was different from all the western copypasta quest on rails junk that was primarily being released by the west.

Saying anything is stagnating is subjective. I could say I can't tell a difference between each of Bethesda's new buggy ass games and their old ones, or any of the "new" shooters in a gameplay mechanic sense.

Expectations are a human problem. If you set the bar so high you will probably be disappointed no matter what the game devs come out with.

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Are you expecting MMOs to be a completely different animal every single new one? Of course not, the genre is what it is, those games are far from being the exact same thing, they all have at least ONE or two features or more that set them apart, that appeal to a certain audience, something very important especially for an MMO. For a game like Mass Effect not so much, and I wonder if you have played Mass effect to any length? Because it does something that very few games come close to or as well. The ending is worthy of the criticism believe me and Bioware has listened. Something Japanese devs could really benefit from and Yoshi-P clearly also takes to heart.

To me Japanese games right now tend to be a bit homogenized, very similar and antiquated. I'm having fun in ICO again and finding that game as old as it is still fresh... That tells me something is amiss. And no stagnation is an observation of an occurrence not a subjective opinion. Or maybe it is.. Because the way YOU view western games is the way I view Japanese games.... O.o

I agree with you on expectations but at the same time, if you shoot for the moon and miss you'll still end up among the stars, right? We move forward by striving to better ourselves.

edit: Right I had bolded Arenanet because as awesome as I think GW2 is going to be I am cautioning people that it really won't be the new Messiah of MMOs, it's an advanced version of GW2 and a lot of fun no doubt, and beautiful but I'm concerned that people think they are reinventing MMO gaming... They're not.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

It's a well known fact that Japanese devs don't have the coding experience withe current systems, such as directX, openGL and windows.

Now you may think pfftttt so what but fact is this generation has been a massive learning curve for JP developers and is part the reason they are behind in high end projects (look how long FFXIII took to come out, look how long versus is taking) I would say the only company that has been ready from day 1 this generation was Capcom and that was thanks to Inafune.

I will agree that JP devs have better artistical style, storyline and overall gameplay elements but it means nothing if the game runs like crap or if the project takes so long to make that it eats into the profit margins.

Of course its not just developers its Japan in general, Sony just announced a 6.4 billion dollars loss this year, as the article says Japan think they are still the top dog, everyone else is spending their money elsewhere though.

Example Sony's TV division has lost money 8 years running.

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Those games take longer because they are RPGs. And square always AAA. They always try to innovate and create new gameplay styles. That's why it should take longer. I don't mind the wait. The only mistake they made was announce it. Creates expectation because people are impatient. You can't compare square which runs 5-10 projects at the same time, with a company like naughty dog, which runs 1-2 titles the most at the same time for example. Or compare With activation which milk the same COD engine for 10 years. Square used the same engine for final fantasy xiii-2 and the game took little over a year for completion. It was good, but that's not what I expect from square. We always expect innovation and not AAA game, but a AAAA game. Yes, in a market that calls Call of duty AAA, final fantasy should be called AAAA. At least final fantasy xiii and versus. Due to the level of polish and care.

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Originally Posted by Noir

So what? Japanese devs are better than westeners anyway. The truth hurts , but it's still the truth. While they make one bad game, 10 others are good. The same cant be said about western devs.

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Originally Posted by Noir

Those games take longer because they are RPGs. And square always AAA. They always try to innovate and create new gameplay styles. That's why it should take longer. I don't mind the wait. The only mistake they made was announce it. Creates expectation because people are impatient. You can't compare square which runs 5-10 projects at the same time, with a company like naughty dog, which runs 1-2 titles the most at the same time for example. Or compare With activation which milk the same COD engine for 10 years. Square used the same engine for final fantasy xiii-2 and the game took little over a year for completion. It was good, but that's not what I expect from square. We always expect innovation and not AAA game, but a AAAA game. Yes, in a market that calls Call of duty AAA, final fantasy should be called AAAA. At least final fantasy xiii and versus. Due to the level of polish and care.

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I keep forgetting that this level of fan-dumb is to be expected on a Final Fantasy forum.

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Originally Posted by Denmo

I keep forgetting that this level of fan-dumb is to be expected on a Final Fantasy forum.

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You silly ,silly Lala! XD

Well, RPG's were actaully a Japanese game companies strong point. I have to agreee about the other asian markets games.

Now to me XI had alot more to offer then EVE, WOw and other MMO's. After beig nstornger in XI, games liek WOW were just mediocre, casual MMO's. It's fine for the Hyped, my friends play it younger crowd, but XI was mroe hardcore, indepth and had a MUCH stronger community effort.

Now many of the tiles,Minus WOW, are NOT American titles. European yes, American no. Actaully the devloper teams are mixed in race from many regions for higher end titles.

Some of the earlier strogner story writers of Final Fantasy are gone, but some from XI are back and working on XIV now. The sad truth is, the Father of Final Fantasy has moved on to his own company a long tiem ago. You can see his imfluence and the orginal style (turn based) in the title Lost Odyseey. I am jsut glad Nubuo is still doing music on both sides.

I have alot of Japanese friends, and they simply do nto feel that way. THey play many titles including other mmo's. Yet I stick by there side when you try to compare XI to wow. WOW was just.. meeeh.... We will have to see what another other asian title... Guild Wars 2, can really become. The closed beta has it's issues hince delays, and we don't want another Aion, or a free to play but put in money to get better stuff faster game.

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Originally Posted by Noir

Square used the same engine for final fantasy xiii-2 and the game took little over a year for completion.

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Exactly and this is what most developers do they update and expand on their existing engine.

Crystal Tools was considered to be a failure and is why it has been replaced with Luminous, it's the reason this games engine sucks so much also.

As I said JP developers were not ready for this generation and were caught with their pants down, time will tell if they will bounce back.

Here is an example of what their new engine can do

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Originally Posted by 10-12-2011

At a press conference in Japan last weekend, Square Enix showed off tech demos of its next-generation Luminous Engine, which it first announced in August, and announced features of its Luminous Studio development framework.

Designed with native DirectX 11 support, the engine includes cloth and fluid simulation, realtime reflections and highly efficient tessellation techniques that lower the level of detail of 3D models with minimal memory usage cost.

Square Enix chief technical officer Yoshihisa Hashimoto claimed that despite its startlingly realistic visual fidelity and new features, Luminous Studio can reduce game development costs by up to 30 per cent, and expects it to enable faster development cycles.

Square Enix's team has also created a demo of realtime scenes, including an underground parking garage, designed to show off the Luminous Engine's ability to mirror digital photographs of the real thing. The effect is mainly achieved through diffuse reflection, which models light as it behaves in the real world, with coloured surfaces bleeding their hue on to nearby surfaces.

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Originally Posted by kazaran

We will have to see what another other asian title... Guild Wars 2, can really become. The closed beta has it's issues hince delays, and we don't want another Aion, or a free to play but put in money to get better stuff faster game.

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Guild Wars 2 is made by an American company, it is published by a Korean company.

Just to say, the main reason why Japanese games take so long to make may be because they build a new engine for pretty much every game they make.
American gaming companies just keep on using already existing ones.
Saves time and money..:rolleyes:

I apprechiate the effort and you really see the results, but I'd rather have them use the same engine for a while..
Someone mentioned how FFXIII-2 came out so much faster than FFXIII; well, they used the same engine.
I wouldn't have minded if they used the same for Versus XIII, which I've been waiting for for ages, but no, new build again..

For FFXIV-2 it's different since it's an MMO and they already said how a solo player-fitting engine is not a good idea for an MMO.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Exactly and this is what most developers do they update and expand on their existing engine.

Crystal Tools was considered to be a failure and is why it has been replaced with Luminous, it's the reason this games engine sucks so much also.

As I said JP developers were not ready for this generation and were caught with their pants down, time will tell if they will bounce back.

Here is an example of what their new engine can do





Guild Wars 2 is made by an American company, it is published by a Korean company.

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If I'm not mistaken and the reason why versus is taking this long, is because they started from scratch with luminous, dropping crystal tools. I don't think they will ever admit that, but the last images from versus show different graphics, prolly made with the new engine, while the 2006-2010 pics were made using crystal.

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Originally Posted by Denmo

I keep forgetting that this level of fan-dumb is to be expected on a Final Fantasy forum.

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Maybe because you are retarded? They are always in denial. Always complain, but in the end pay and play games made from the company they trash.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Guild Wars 2 is made by an American company, it is published by a Korean company.

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Oh yes and an even more fun piece of trivia Arenanet's founders are/were from Blizzard.... ba dum dish! I've seen what the GW concept originally looked like.. Exactly like Warcraft, exactly. Good thing the art direction was changed by NCsoft, good call there.

THe aspect and comment about Lost Oddessy had nothing to do with AI. It has to do with the heart of FF , the creator, and how his imfluence was clear in that title, as well as the story aspect. LO had one heck of a story, and it was often emotional. Even if Kiam was melotone at first in hsi voice. Jensen made up for that, and the rest of the story, characters, and play. The founder sparked FF and many RPG's in a new light.

Elder scrolls is a good series, but liek many games, it is growing smaller, least detailed, and the stories are falling short. IT became more apparent after Morrowind. Even more so aafter oblivion, and now Skyrim.

Square Enix is known for their artwork and stories. So as a Japanese company they can boast if they want even if they haven't .What a person states they feel Japanese gamers all think, and developers, is irrelavant, because all do not feel that way.

Bethesda Game Studios is an american company, had some grea titles, but not perfect, nor in my opinion, complete. Oblivion felt incomplete, the world to small, had early technical issues. Skyrim feels the same, with mroe technical issues, a very bland world when it comes to color use, and frankily SE go well beyond them in that department. Other Japaneese companies are not as talented in many areas.

As far as mmo's. Square Enix did a good job with XI. The story, design, global community, and content. Sure I played other titles, max ranked in WOW a few times. However it was land to me. It lacked the ful leffort into the stories that wove into each other as content grew (not talking a few page write up on the base lore with quests that just didn't weave any aspect together like you find in wow). SE takes the time to write the sotries, cutscnes, and make it feel real.

To be hoenst I was never big on the regular Final Fantasy games. Could care less, but Xi changed aspects of that for me. I probably Enjoyed other SE titles more. Heck I didn't like XIII at all.

I have been part of the GW2 closed end betas in the past 3 stages. They have alot of work to do, and hopefully the UI, glitches and imbalances will be worked out. I jsut hoep they start showign actual game play mechanics at E3 this year, and not the prerendered aspects shown that are nothing like the actual stages and gameplay. WHile they have a base concept of story. Quests and APR missions are randomized ideas and don't have a feel of story. In a common areas there are actually cutscenes into group isntanced battles, but it doesn't have that "story" apeal that makes sense.

I wouldn't say Japaneese develoeprs got caught with their pants down. You can't exclude American and European companies that have as well, Bethesda Game Studios being one of them.

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Originally Posted by Cendres

Oh yes and an even more fun piece of trivia Arenanet's founders are/were from Blizzard.... ba dum dish! I've seen what the GW concept originally looked like.. Exactly like Warcraft, exactly. Good thing the art direction was changed by NCsoft, good call there.

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so wait, you're crediting NCsoft, the publisher, with veering Guild War's art direction away from WoW-like standards?

Your argument is, because an Asian company published an American game, it's now better?

Asian = Better?

Are we seriously going down this road of discussion?

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Originally Posted by Denmo

so wait, you're crediting NCsoft, the publisher, with veering Guild War's art direction away from WoW-like standards?

Your argument is, because an Asian company published an American game, it's now better?

Asian = Better?

Are we seriously going down this road of discussion?

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Easy there tiger! Did I say what you just wrote there? Noooooo, I said it was a good call they took the art direction somewhere else, for many reasons none of which have anything to do with being 'better' then Blizzard. You have to have your own identity mainly.

Please do NOT put words I never wrote. And I don't have enough time on my hands to express my feelings on NCsoft.... lol... Let's just say the only thing of theirs I will touch is by Arenanet at this point.

*note: I'm not a forum warrior.... don't mistake me for one. lol

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Originally Posted by Cendres

Easy there tiger! Did I say what you just wrote there? Noooooo, I said it was a good call they took the art direction somewhere else, for many reasons none of which have anything to do with being 'better' then Blizzard. You have to have your own identity mainly.

Please do NOT put words I never wrote. And I don't have enough time on my hands to express my feelings on NCsoft.... lol... Let's just say the only thing of theirs I will touch is by Arenanet at this point.

*note: I'm not a forum warrior.... don't mistake me for one. lol

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http://i.imgur.com/ZRccq.gif

Apologies, all you mithras look alike~~~

IT honestly feels like many game developers, regardless of orgin, are getting lazy.

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Originally Posted by kazaran

IT honestly feels like many game developers, regardless of orgin, are getting lazy.

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This ^. Hey guys our game doesn't come out for another year but we have DLC lined up for day 1 :)

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Originally Posted by kazaran

IT honestly feels like many game developers, regardless of orgin, are getting lazy.

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Big name devs yes.

Small time indie devs, nope~

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Originally Posted by Denmo

Apologies, all you mithras look alike~~~

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*chuckle* It's okay it happens. <3

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Originally Posted by Wincy

Definitely agree with you Denmo. I loved FFXII, the plot, the characters, the battle system, all of it was really well done. But it never seems to get the props it deserves, especially among my FF-fan friends. Some of them refuse to even play it!? Crazy...

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I was one of these fans until recently. I played every FF numbered game, but XII itself. I just recently started getting into to it(progressed pretty far) and it is more decent than I thought. My main game destroying issue though is the main character. I can't stand Vaan and feel he is more of a sideline character. In most FF games you might not be the most serious or most important character but for the most part they play a great role and act well enough to be taken serious as a main character.


On topic:

The current "fad" is spamming games regardless of the genre now it seems. Gamers want to feel so "involved" in their games by spamming a button a million times as fast as they can. It was great at one point of my gaming years until the variety of choices blurred. It's like the Shooting, Racing, and Arcade genres spilled over into every other genre.

Just look at the MMO genre for example. How many people realize that it is becoming more and more a shadow of its former self? Everybody is focused on time and speed of things. People used to play MMOs because they were time consuming. I am one of those people and knew casuals(by time) that still enjoyed MMOs right along with us "hardcore". That time consuming struggle of an adventure is the reason why so many people have the fondest of memories from the older generation MMOs.

How many "old school" MMO players have at least 1 memory that outshines their old MMO days?

Now I'm not saying the generation shouldn't have sped up a bit but the speed is blurring everything that made the genre amazing.

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Originally Posted by Cendres

Are you expecting MMOs to be a completely different animal every single new one? Of course not, the genre is what it is, those games are far from being the exact same thing, they all have at least ONE or two features or more that set them apart, that appeal to a certain audience, something very important especially for an MMO.

Yes, but the core gameplay mechanic i.e solo questing model/raids/gear based are all very much part of all of those games. It's not much to ask in 3-4 years to have an AAA game that is different. Closest thing to deviation we've had in AAA MMOs is FFXIV which is saddening. Investors say no I guess.

For a game like Mass Effect not so much, and I wonder if you have played Mass effect to any length? Because it does something that very few games come close to or as well. The ending is worthy of the criticism believe me and Bioware has listened. Something Japanese devs could really benefit from and Yoshi-P clearly also takes to heart.


I have played and beaten the first and second one, haven't played the third one yet because of the QQ about the ending that came up 24 hours later. They're okay, felt kind of on-railsy, but I don't like it enough to play the last one right away.

It's just my opinion that endings should be whatever the devs want it to be, no matter how much I like a game. Speaking of endings, FFXII-2's ending kind of blew, but I got over it pretty quickly. NIER's was even worse, but I got over that, too.

To me Japanese games right now tend to be a bit homogenized, very similar and antiquated. I'm having fun in ICO again and finding that game as old as it is still fresh... That tells me something is amiss. And no stagnation is an observation of an occurrence not a subjective opinion. Or maybe it is.. Because the way YOU view western games is the way I view Japanese games.... O.o

I agree with you on expectations but at the same time, if you shoot for the moon and miss you'll still end up among the stars, right? We move forward by striving to better ourselves.

edit: Right I had bolded Arenanet because as awesome as I think GW2 is going to be I am cautioning people that it really won't be the new Messiah of MMOs, it's an advanced version of GW2 and a lot of fun no doubt, and beautiful but I'm concerned that people think they are reinventing MMO gaming... They're not.

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I am with you on GW2, the hype train makes me sick. There are going to be a lot of disappointed people when GW2 is released. This is coming from someone who played GW1 at launch and still pop on from time to time. Almost makes me want to wait until the honeymoon period of first/second month is over before I even get near it. Actually, with the genre as it is now, should wait that one - two month period by default.

Inafune was dead on. A lot Japanese games are living off legacy, and the FF series is no exception. Imo the issue is easily identifiable too, its storytelling. The FF games never really suffer from technical deficiencies, in fact they are usually superior in that regard (FFXIV and recent battle-system choices in the offline games aside). However the characters, stories and presentation have become at best boring and forgettable, and at worst annoying and just bad. Its like a photographer who takes beautiful pictures....of parking lots.

Obviously, their failings have opened up the way for the successes of their western counterparts, which is not entirely a bad thing since more competition means better options. I was beginning to think that it might be an irreversible trend though because as the games and audiences become more sophisticated, I think the character and story choices are reflecting more pronounced cultural differences. But games like Xenoblades made me realize that there are still some folks there that know how to tell a interesting story and still be technically sound.

his fault megaman is dead :( but atleast he has passion over corprate greed.

Just as long as they don't cut the meat with the fat.

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Originally Posted by indira

his fault megaman is dead :( but atleast he has passion over corprate greed.

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He'd work on Megaman if he could, but as he's no longer with the company, he has no rights to the liscensing. His biggest regret to leaving Capcom is that MML3 was canceled (source).

As to why he left, the general idea was that working at the company became insufferable to him, and he no longer felt like he was creating games, so he broke off to start his own.

I too wish he could've kept on with the Mega Man series, but if Capcom's gotten that bad (look at their current lineup, DLC debacles, and fixation on Street Fighter) and I were in his shoes, I think I'd quit too.

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I too wish he could've kept on with the Mega Man series, but if Capcom's gotten that bad (look at their current lineup, DLC debacles, and fixation on Street Fighter) and I were in his shoes, I think I'd quit too.

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yeah, capcom is going the way of sega.