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Is there some excitement left for a new Final Fantasy?

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10.01.2012 6:12pm

Spidey
So Sigh Ety

I agree with Ashilyn's that its been happening the whole time but the graphics just didn't let you notice. Did you realize Sabin skids the water like a skipping stone several times before he actually falls into the water when thrown off the raft? If you showed the same thing on the PS3 it would like like some crazy FF13 shit too. There's people jumping off houses and doing crazy shit in FF4 and FF5 all the time if you go back and play it again.

0

10.01.2012 7:16pm

Ashilyn
Career GM

Not to mention basic shit that's in nearly every game like dragoons jumping, which is the EXACT same kind of thing, just not as flashy because older graphics didn't really let it be flashy.

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10.01.2012 7:22pm

Kal
yes

Eh I don't really mind it, it's a staple in anime and it happens in pretty much every hollywood action flick as well and most of those are supposed to be grounded in reality.
The cable skating thing in FFX looked a little silly (especially Kimaru carrying Lulu) but not any more than... blitzball.

0

10.04.2012 9:02pm

Sam Biscuits
Custard Creams

I've only just realized reading this thread that Blitzball was pretty much the last FF side game right?

VII had Gold Saucer

VIII had Triple Traid

IX Tetra Master

X Blitzball

XII, um I may have forgotten, honest mistake if so, and mark hunting does not count, worst McGuffin of all time.

XIII had the side game of trying to imagining many different ways you could disembowel Snow, Hope and Vanille. :)

Seriously though there been a total lack of immersion in the games. I'm a World Map lover and crave exploration. None have really had it since IX though X didn't seem to suffer nearly as much as the others. The writting doesn't help, I nearly stopped playing XIII-2 after ten minutes but as it turned out its a slightly above average game somewhere inbetween XIII and XII.

The worst writing has got to be in Crisis Core. Seriously none of that shit made any sense. It was just Gakt or whatever the fuck he was called quoting "Loveless", it was really poor. They're all suffering this problem. How often can Chaos or someother nonsical unseen omnipotent emminance be the true bad guy, and our protagonist must look to the "light" or whatever conveniant diety that happens to be of opposite polarity to the bad guy... hell I don't even know what I'm talking about, no suprise I can't follow this kind of crap in the games.

XIII-2 was the first FF I did not by on release since the very early games, but I eventually got it. I won't ever get as excited as I once did for these games but I'll always probably play them.

Maybe its that we look through rose tinted specs at the older games as we were much younger playing them. S-E haven't changed their target audience, maybe we as a previous S-E target audience have just grown up?

0

10.04.2012 9:32pm

Catastrophe
I'm Catbug!

X-2 had that...coin game...or whatever it was.

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10.04.2012 9:52pm

Sam Biscuits
Custard Creams

Ah yes, forgot about that one.

0

10.04.2012 10:42pm

Spidey
So Sigh Ety

X had (unfortunately) a loooot more than just Blitzball...

0

10.04.2012 11:10pm

(Edited on 10.04.2012 at 11:24pm)

Ashilyn
Career GM

Outside of Genesis, I thought Crisis Core had pretty good writing myself. Not the best, but I had no problems understanding what was going on, they wrote Zach as a fantastic character, Cissnei was an intensely likable, if woefully underdeveloped character, Angeal was probably one of the big few noteworthy additions from the compilation, and even Sephiroth seemed better represented than he had been previously. Genesis and Cloud were weakpoints, but overall I'd say it was pretty well written. The plot was definitely bizarre, but again, I didn't really have trouble understanding it. It was just on the silly side. I'd argue in a heartbeat that at the very least X-2 and VIII are worse off than Crisis Core in both overall writing and plot (though if you were palying X-2 for the writing or plot, that was your own fault).

Also am I the only who liked Vanille? I was largely ambivilent to XIII's cast (I'd still peg most of them them as better than the undeveloped saps in XII or the just plain unlikable idiots in VIII), and only really genuinely hated Hope, but I thought Vanille (and Fang) were genuinely decent (sometimes even good) characters. My real issue with XIII's cast is more that they're just this big walking ball of wasted potential. Pretty much everyone but Hope could have been amazing, but it's like they turned away from every possiible opptrotunity to take that extra step. nstead, they largely end up being just "okay".

As for minigames, eh. I loved Triple Triad and Blizaball, but besides those two, honestly most of them are kinda crap and I don't really bother with them. They were something I definitely didn't miss in XII and XIII.

Sam Biscuits said:

Maybe its that we look through rose tinted specs at the older games as we were much younger playing them. S-E haven't changed their target audience, maybe we as a previous S-E target audience have just grown up?

This is sort of what's happening. I don't have the link handy, I'll have to find it later and edit it in, but there was a realy, really good article several months back at Kotaku of all places about why some genres, JRPGs in particular, never seem to grow, why stuff like really moe characters are so prevelant in some newer gaes, and in general the gaming culture in Japan.

The basic summery of it is that we're not the target audiance anymore. In Japan, being an adult gamer isn't exactly a good thing. Unlike anime, gaming isn't as culturally accepted as a hobby for adults, and an adult doing something like playing a DS or PSP on the subway will get a lot of strange looks. As a result, a lot of companies target their games at Japan's younger audiances, where gaming as a hobby is still more acceptable, and play to the trends for that age group. It's why you see increasingly moe/cute characters, some of these bizarre ass games like Neptunia, and a lot of characters who seem immature or underdeveloped to our tastes, or a lot of anime influenced design (though again, I'd argue that was always there). While we may have grown up with Square growing with us, they've hit their pleateau of how far they can go up and still appeal to the mass gaming market in Japan, while we kept leaving the demo.

Basically it's a combination of the fact that we grew up, and that we're no longer the audiance Square (or many other companies) are catering to with their biggest games and RPGs. IIRC, FFXIII didn't do AMAZING in the East, but it still did better than it did here, and that's one of the reasons for that. So they're targeting a younger audiance with often shifting trends nd desires, while we've grown up and now see the flaws in a lot of what they're doing now that a younger generation might not see or care about. There's not much really that can be done about it, except when SE occasionally tries to develop a game to intentionally appeal to western players. Ironically, the last game they made with that intent - Type-0 - isn't coming over. Ain't that a bitch.

0

10.05.2012 2:41am

Rhaegar
World Warrior 21007

Ugh, Vanille was all the worst traits of Yuffie, Selphie and Rikku thrown together, with none of those characters' respective positives.

0

10.05.2012 3:19am

Enkidoh
Time Travelling White Mage

Sam Biscuits said:

I've only just realized reading this thread that Blitzball was pretty much the last FF side game right?

VII had Gold Saucer

VIII had Triple Traid

IX Tetra Master

X Blitzball

XII, um I may have forgotten, honest mistake if so, and mark hunting does not count, worst McGuffin of all time.

XIII had the side game of trying to imagining many different ways you could disembowel Snow, Hope and Vanille. :)

FFXI had little-known NPC dice-rolling, which after speaking to certain NPCs was basically bet an amount of gil against a random number generator - players instead prefered running their own dice-roll rackets using the '/roll' command, until SE clamped down on the practice. Lower Jeuno used to be notorious for it.

There are also seasonal mini-games which only become active for short periods during annual events (like goldfish dipping and cheering on that little skank Mumor during Summerfest, or handing out gifts to NPCs during the Christmas events), but despite being pointless and often having little to do with the game's lore (in fact, most seem irrelevant or even artificial), they're nice and fun timewasters regardless.

XIII-2 has several quiz games playable in Academia 5XX AF, plus a Gold Saucer-clone in the form of Serendipity, but sadly most of the games there are only playable if you purchase and download Sazh's DLC (only Chocobo Racing and slot machines are playable otherwise).

I could also mention the Paradox mini-games but they're more frustrating than fun (the stupid "Hands of Time' one is the worst - I felt like throwing the control pad at the screen in anger when I was stuck on those).

0

10.05.2012 4:21am

Fincher
Deep Water Horizon

Catastrophe said:

X-2 had that...coin game...or whatever it was.

Actually, X-2 probably had more minigames than anything else in the series.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not convinced that my tastes have changed all that much since "the good old days". I'm just not impressed with FFXIII's story (or gameplay).

Currently playing: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Picross DS
Last played: Time Hollow (good)
Last watched: Agent Carter (very good)
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0

10.05.2012 8:25pm

shooter_mcgavin
Registered Member

Spidey said:

I agree with Ashilyn's that its been happening the whole time but the graphics just didn't let you notice. Did you realize Sabin skids the water like a skipping stone several times before he actually falls into the water when thrown off the raft? If you showed the same thing on the PS3 it would like like some crazy FF13 shit too. There's people jumping off houses and doing crazy shit in FF4 and FF5 all the time if you go back and play it again.

Ashilyn said:

Not to mention basic shit that's in nearly every game like dragoons jumping, which is the EXACT same kind of thing, just not as flashy because older graphics didn't really let it be flashy.

On these points I don't see this as an excuse at all why most FFXIII's battles and most cut scenes are all flashy and nonsensical. With diffrent eras you are going to get a diffrent advancement in graphics and visuals.

And yes while in the SNES and even in the PSone era the games made us use our imaginations more due to the limitations it doesn't mean it will be translated will in today's HD era. It's no diffrent from the narrative of most JRPG's in a previous era they were seen as the genre with the best stories and storytelling. But the use of HD presentation has not translated well for this genre.

0

10.06.2012 2:28pm

Cameron
Registered Member

Somehow, that level of fantasy was more acceptable when you had to use your imagination. You had the ability to control how absurd it was. As much as the series is obviously about fantasy, I think it would do well to take things a little more seriously than the traditional anime makes it look. It's not just Final Fantasy that kind of lost itself with increaslingly better visual technology. Star Wars was much the same for me. I got the same feeling watching Obi Wan and Anakin flying around over a mountain of lava as I do whenever we get a ridiculous FF cutscene.
-
Whoever the guys are behind the Ivalice Alliance seemed to have a better hold on maintaining a sense of reality, but even in Final Fantasy XII, there were things that made me roll my eyes. Here we have this ancient world with airships powered by magic stones - cool, I love it. Why do the ships have to move like they'd put anything in a futuristic society to shame? Whenever you go too far with any one element of the fantasy, it calls other parts of it into question. When you have a military with ships like that, why are people still fighting with swords and daggers and wearing sandals and no body armor?
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Maybe I'm being overly critical, and granted, one has to be able to suspend belief for a series titled 'Final Fantasy,' but I think some games more than others have created a world where the fantasy makes sense.

1

10.06.2012 3:19pm

Crusader
Not Even My Dad Hit Me

Tone may also play into this. Advent Children was srs bsns, but in FFVI, you randomly stumbled on a train that took you to Hell, so it was a bit easier to buy when Sabin would do a pile driver on the engine to stop it.

0

10.06.2012 3:46pm

Atma Weapon
I Am Pure Energy

Could honestly care less. I don't plan on continuing to follow the franchise unless it is recitalized to universal acclaim.

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