Toss an Savage/Ultimate to Yoko Taro...

On the topic of the thread: Interesting gameplay is an area that Yoko Taro shines and I think if they gave him some control over the mechanics that he could design a really challenging and fun savage fight. I don’t think they will, because I’m sure they have other collaborations they want to do with other creators and 3 tiers of 24 man raid is probably enough. I also think they are very careful with and take pride in designing the little high end content they have, so I don’t think they’d let anyone else touch it. But you never know.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

The man is a glorious blessing to mankind.

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Uhhh, no. His games have some very questionable content that really isn't appropriate.

Questionable content?

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Originally Posted by BristolRuss

Uhhh, no. His games have some very questionable content that really isn't appropriate.

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Please enlighten us.

I believe it's the Nier Replicant achievement/trophy for using the camera to look under Kainé's "skirt". I think Automata had a similar one for looking under 2B's, but I'm not a Yoko Taro fan and only played the first Drakengard and the first Nier, so I wouldn't know.

While Kainé IS a fictional character, encouraging players (because that's what achievement/trophies are for) to sexualize one of your characters does sound questionable.

Edit: She's also supposed to be seventeen (20 in the "Gestalt" release, 17 in the original Japanese, idk if she was made 20 again in Replicant), and we've had enough arguments about the sexualization of underage characters; and she's intersex (but with she/her pronouns) and I believe it's one of the reasons the narrative is supposed to make you feel bad for sexualizing her, AND the game actually has her attack you if you look under her skirt too many times, and... it's... a complicated subject...

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

I believe it's the Nier Replicant achievement/trophy for using the camera to look under Kainé's "skirt". I think Automata had a similar one for looking under 2B's, but I'm not a Yoko Taro fan and only played the first Drakengard and the first Nier, so I wouldn't know.

While Kainé IS a fictional character, encouraging players (because that's what achievement/trophies are for) to sexualize one of your characters does sound questionable.

Edit: She's also supposed to be seventeen (20 in the "Gestalt" release, 17 in the original Japanese, idk if she was made 20 again in Replicant), and we've had enough arguments about the sexualization of underage characters; and she's intersex (but with she/her pronouns) and I believe it's one of the reasons the narrative is supposed to make you feel bad for sexualizing her, AND the game actually has her attack you if you look under her skirt too many times, and... it's... a complicated subject...

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Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that is messy territory to navigate. It was one thing with the 2b achievement in Automata that had you do something similar, as tasteless as it might have been, but this does seem...questionable to say the least in regards to Kaine. I'm guessing the only way they got around this with the ESRB is by making her older (keeping her older if one played Gestalt only). That's the only way I could picture this getting through for an NA release. Again, the achievement is tasteless, but hopefully age isn't an issue. The game's still great and has one of the best stories I've ever experienced. But as far as Kaine goes they are probably on thin ice. Hopefully they clarify her age to put the age part of the controversy to rest one way or another. This does have the potential to make things unpleasant for SE, especially in today's world. I wasn't even aware of the issue until today, to be honest. I just assumed that she was still 20 in game. lol I don't expect the achievement to be around much longer regardless. I loathe the Twitter mob most days but I can't really argue with them when they have a good point like this one. As far as I'm aware, that's where this started.

There's also the matter of the original Drakengard. Caim, the main character, was a relentless psychopathic killer with no mercy or remorse in his soul, taking pleasure and joy in killing his foes, even if they were conscripted children. Then you have two of the party members of Leonard (who is a pedophile who is trying to reform himself, albeit unsuccessfully which leads to the death of his family) and Arioch (who is a elf lady who goes mad and becomes a cannibal who favors children). How you can see, Yoko Taro has a ...........unique way of storytelling and worldbuilding. That where I would say his "strengths" are and I wouldn't have it any other way. The concepts he comes up with are so utterly insane.

That being said, I wouldn't trust him at all with gameplay given how he loves to troll players. The weapon collecting in Drakengard, the final boss of Ending E, Ending E itself just to name a few.

I don't think the context, sexualization, motivation of said character is what matters here. Lahabrea wanted a genocide to restore his world and he's in UWU for a quick moment.

The original demand was to create a savage/ultimate based on the Nier universe. Maybe even designed by Yoko Taro or fitting his visions. (AKA: One ball touche one player = wipe)
I say no for simple reasons first being that mechanically the raids were not amazing and that Yoko Taro vision has a high probability of not being compatible with FF XIV.

So far the fanboys are praising Nier claiming it is the best content, that Yoko Taro is an absolute visionnary genius and would make a perfect savage/ultimate for XIV.

But I'm still against it for other reasons:
-Yoko Taro is familiar with action-RPG that plays like Nier, not a GCD based Online RPG. Putting salt works on meat but it doesn't mix well with coffee. Or reverse the example with sugar. A Nier extremely difficult content would fit better in Nier and fit to Yoko Taro's vision.
-Nier is Nier and belong to Nier. Savage should remains within XIV, telling a "what if" of XIV content. Plus as you can see, a good chunk of players are tired of Nier being forcefully injected into the game.

Savage/Ultimate have interest in a small portion of the community, let's not make it smaller because of the Nier cult that demands it.
The community is not unanimous about it and it should be enough to abandon the idea, Nier raid was far more than any collaboration and it's enough.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Please enlighten us.

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There is an achievement in the new Nier game for trying to look up Kaine's skirt. The achievement is called Daredevil and it's description is "You risked life and limb 10 times to discover someone's secret.". Now I won't spoil exactly why this is tasteless for people who have yet to play it, but in the modern world - where the topic of gender and gender identity are such a hot topic - this is in incredibly bad taste.

Then, if you go back to the original Drakengard there is a character called Leonard who... well, I'll just paste a section of his wiki below.

"However, he also chose to be a hermit to punish himself for his pedophilia. While he personally wallowed in self-blame and regret, a part of him also felt he should be proud of his sexual preferences. He constantly struggles with this personal dilemma. He eventually caves into his pedophilia and masturbates in the forest, causing him to be absent from the Empire's massacre of his family and home".

I really don't need to explain what is up with this. I hope we never see Yoko Taro anywhere near the Final Fantasy franchise ever again.

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Originally Posted by BristolRuss

Then, if you go back to the original Drakengard there is a character called Leonard who... well, I'll just paste a section of his wiki below.

"However, he also chose to be a hermit to punish himself for his pedophilia. While he personally wallowed in self-blame and regret, a part of him also felt he should be proud of his sexual preferences. He constantly struggles with this personal dilemma. He eventually caves into his pedophilia and masturbates in the forest, causing him to be absent from the Empire's massacre of his family and home".

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I never played Drakengard so I was unaware of this if it is true. That's not okay, obviously. My only experiences have been with Nier (probably the case for most people) which, by and large, has been fine aside from the most recent drama. You should also read my post above explaining my stance on the achievement as well.

It seems in context, the entire point of Leonard's character is to be someone who truly loathes themselves. Did it necessarily *need* to be... How do you say without being banned... A catholic priest? No, not at all. I can understand using it though, it sets the player on an immediate commonality with Leonard, that being "I hate Leonard because of who he is and what he chooses to do and think about."

Drakengard's main cast were intentionally made to be bad people. Part of the point of the game was 'anyone that would enjoy killing on this kind of scale is a bad person.' The main character is a bloodthirsty psychopath, there's Leonard as mentioned, a woman who eats babies literally. Part of the game's point is that these are bad people and they don't deserve a happy ending and each ending you unlock just gets worse and worse, until you have Caim and his dragon just being unceremoniously blown up by a fighter plane in the final ending.

That's not to say I don't feel weird about that character involved, but the game was not portraying his...urges in a positive light.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Drakengard's main cast were intentionally made to be bad people. Part of the point of the game was 'anyone that would enjoy killing on this kind of scale is a bad person.' The main character is a bloodthirsty psychopath, there's Leonard as mentioned, a woman who eats babies literally. Part of the game's point is that these are bad people and they don't deserve a happy ending and each ending you unlock just gets worse and worse, until you have Caim and his dragon just being unceremoniously blown up by a fighter plane in the final ending.

That's not to say I don't feel weird about that character involved, but the game was not portraying his...urges in a positive light.

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Yeah, that's kind of what I gathered. If anything it appears that Yoko was trying to give these types of people the middle finger in a sense, which I can get behind. Still, I'd have probably been uncomfortable a lot while playing Drakengard by the sound of things.

Probably. There's a lot of messed up stuff in Drakengard, and I can definitely see a lot of it being in bad taste even if there is a reason behind it.

The achievement for looking at Kaine's butt, and the similar one for 2B in Automata, I have no defense for.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

The achievement for looking at Kaine's butt, and the similar one for 2B in Automata, I have no defense for.

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Yeah, I never defended the 2B achievement back then, won't defend the latest addition to the pile either. Both were unnecessary.