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

[Firon]

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

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

[Denmo]

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

Big name devs yes.

Small time indie devs, nope~

[Cendres]

Apologies, all you mithras look alike~~~

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

[Akumu]

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...

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.

[Vaer]

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.

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.

[Longinus]

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.

[indira]

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

[Gramul]

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

[Denmo]

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

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.

[indira]

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.

yeah, capcom is going the way of sega.