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Post by Nalacakes on Jan 30, 2009 8:36:06 GMT -5
With the exception of the wonderful FFXII, which was largely the work of the now-departed Matsuno, I haven't really been obsessed with a Final Fantasy game since VII. Suffice to say I'm not really looking forward to this so much. I'll play it, of course, and I'm sure it'll be fun enough. ^_^ But based on the trailers released, it just doesn't seem like a very 'me' game. I'm not going to say it looks like a bad game, as it really doesn't, but... It looks like it'll be very much like FFX: a game that ticks all the right boxes, but just doesn't quite have that extra special something for me.
That being saaaaid, I can't really understand anyone saying that the gameplay in VII and VIII is substantially better than that in XII, or even X, which I'm not especially keen on. To me, VII and VIII had issues that were far beyond anything in the newer games. Of course gameplay is largely subjective, and what's fun to someone might be boring for someone else. What rubs me up the wrong way, though, is that so many of the things that people criticise about the newer installments are things which are just as present in the older ones. People say the combat is slow in FFX, but look at the battle swirls, camera pans, and obnoxious spell animations in the PSX-era games. People say that XII had too much dungeon crawling and not enough story, but total up just how much time you spend in some of the earlier games' dungeons when you factor in random battles (which are about a hundred times easier to avoid in XII~! ^_^). People say X and XII give you the option to make every character the same, but VII and VIII both did that, and in those games it didn't even take Sphere Levels or License Points, but simply a couple of button presses. People say that FFX is far too easy, but VI and VII were two of my first RPGs, and I didn't die once in either of them. VIII is even worse, and you can more or less break the entire game within the first disc.
Whether the gameplay has really gotten any better is another matter entirely (I think XII plays far better than any other game in the series, but that's just me... ^_^), but I really think it's unfair to say that it's gotten substantially worse. I actually don't really like FFX, and I adore VII, so I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here. ^_^; Still, I do think sometimes people overlook the flaws of the older games far too easily, and come down way too hard on the newer ones.
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Post by Yakra on Jan 30, 2009 10:57:18 GMT -5
While FFXII had too much Akitoshi Kawazu to have soulless gameplay, everything else about the game felt pretty darn uninspired. FFXI... let's not even go there.Suffice it to say I've never played it and probably never will. That was sad to hear. T____T While I can understand someone hating FFXII because of its gameplay, to hear that about the rest of it.... I found the characters and the world of FFXII to be the most beautiful and well crafted out of all the Final Fantasy games. Gorgeous places with characters that actually weren't cliché fantasy book cut-outs/formulas! I loved how, much like FFVI there was no set 'hero' with his wimpy little heroine. Everyone was a major character in their own right. And most of all, the thing that made me love it so - the little easter eggs the team threw in relating back to the older or other Ivalice games. And not just easter eggs in a fanservice manner, no ho! It was like seeing just a little bit more of Ivalice's history and seeing how the world worked. Each and everything was so beautifully polished and... perfect that.... how could one NOT love it? (Ok, I suppose if one doesn't like the Ivalice world to start off with I could understand.... :'D But even then! I could never call it uninspired or.... without a soul!) So.... rather than babbling on pointlessly (actually, I have already... X'D), its best to say, Elin pretty much summed up atleast half of what I feel towards FFXII. (And basically, actually, so far, I haven't been disappointed by any of the numbered Final Fantasys. The FFVII spinoffs be another story altogether! They scream with too much flash, and bangs, and posey style for their own good. But even those, when I actually played were enjoyable in their own way, even if they didn't leave me swooning with awe. :'D Perhaps I'm just very easy to please. Fragile impressed me as much as FFXIII, but in its own incredibly different way.) You see. FF just isn't hip anymore. Actually.... I get this feeling its become too hip for its own good. Too mainstream? Its always better when while the masses are squealing at some popular thing, one whips out their one sole niche title and support that. :'D As for how horrid this trailer is..... I wish I could see. Its taking its own sweet time to load. >___>' I'm still pretty much, incredibly excited about FFXIII though! *the biased?* [A bit random, but wyrdwad's talk about companies and souls made me think - when it comes down to making money and getting things sold, all companies and even more than half some individuals will make what sells. At the end of the day, the man sitting at the top is going to care more about whether he has money in his pocket for the project he funded/invested in, not about whether some programmer/writer/artist is sitting at his desk getting a warm fuzzy feeling at having gotten his/her story out to the world. ]
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Post by Nalacakes on Jan 30, 2009 12:53:56 GMT -5
(And basically, actually, so far, I haven't been disappointed by any of the numbered Final Fantasys. The FFVII spinoffs be another story altogether! They scream with too much flash, and bangs, and posey style for their own good. But even those, when I actually played were enjoyable in their own way, even if they didn't leave me swooning with awe. :'D Perhaps I'm just very easy to please. Actually, I feel more or less the same, really. ^_^ I think I've only been really scarily, 'this is one of my favourite things ever!' obsessed with two (maybe three? Final Fantasy IX came close. But it's really only been VII and XII) games in the series. But I don't think there's been any that I haven't had fun with. Final Fantasy X's cast didn't really agree with me, but I liked the setting and the battle system. Final Fantasy VIII sort of fell apart for me after the second disc, and was terribly easy to break, but I thought the first two discs were wonderful, and the gameplay was just kinda... fun to me, even if it was a bit silly. ^_^ And aside from FFX-2's icky-icky soundtrack, it was just so harmless and silly that I couldn't help but like it. So...umm...yes. While I might sound a little bit underwhelmed by FFXIII, it's more just that I'm not super-excited. Most of the people responsible for the Square games I got really involved with are gone now, so it's hard for me to swoon for this in the same way that I would with, say, Vagrant Story 2. Still, even if it's not going to be anything I remember for years to come, it's still more Final Fantasy. Fun JRPG'ing with high production values is always welcome~! ^_^ Then again, maybe I'm just sort of easy to please myself. I was thinking the other day about how many books, films, and games I genuinely hate, and could barely make it out of single figures. ^_^; I guess if a game does at least one thing nicely, I'll just zero in on that and kind of phase out everything else. Of course I'll notice that other bits are not-so-good. If I make the effort to be rational, I can talk about how I didn't really like Final Fantasy X's cast, or how Grandia III was a big disappointment to me after the first two. But I think I just want to like things a little too much, so somehow none of that seems to really matter at the time. ^_^
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Post by Varion on Jan 30, 2009 13:10:52 GMT -5
Final Fantasy VIII sort of fell apart for me after the second disc TIME COMPRESSION. I have nothing else to add to this discussion other than that Nintendo are far more dead to me than Square will likely ever be because at least Square are still making games. Not silly little gym simulators and silly little stick-waggling music sims. The Wii is the only console in my collection I regret buying, and I own a whole lot of consoles.
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Post by Justin on Jan 30, 2009 16:49:19 GMT -5
wyrdwad - I said it looks bland, because I think it looks bland. FF XIII has some pretty lush looking environments, and some crazy future-tech stuff like from FF VIII. Its personal opinion, but the comparison is not a good one. Fragile is a totally different game, in visuals, battles, story, and overall presentation. If you are baffled as to why I would state something like Fragile looks unappealing to me, yet FF XIII does, then I can simply tell you its personal taste. I took a good look at Fragile (As I always do with games of interest), and I couldn't care, but I certainly wouldn't go as far to say its soulless. That just shows stubborn disregard for anything outside my nerd bubble, and I am not that kind of person.
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Post by Copyrighted Name on Jan 30, 2009 19:44:50 GMT -5
That was sad to hear. T____T While I can understand someone hating FFXII because of its gameplay, to hear that about the rest of it.... I found the characters and the world of FFXII to be the most beautiful and well crafted out of all the Final Fantasy games. I wasn't necessarily implying that the gameplay was GOOD, mind you. Truth of it is, it suffers the same flaw that afflicted FFII and the SaGa games (which were also designed by Kawazu) - great ideas, spotty execution. For example, getting loot from monsters and selling it was a great way to get rid of the illogical 'random monsters dropping gold' thing... except that it made everything so expensive! I did, if nothing else, liked the fast-paced combat. Just try playing any of the older games right after playing XII. I dare you. And while I admit I'm not done with the game, the story so far has left me unimpressed. In order for a story to be interesting, it requires compelling characters - and I don't give a crap about anyone in the game. I've only seen one scene of real character development, and that was in the most astonishingly poorly thought-out cutscene I've ever seen in a video game. Here it goes: So, we've just met Basch, and it's obvious Vaan loathes the guy. We've fallen down a dank but relatively monsterless hole - a perfect forum for discussion of issues. Do they deal with it right then and there? NO. Instead, they go into the dungeon and fight monsters, and then FOR NO REASON they stop in the middle of fighting monsters and decide to bring up the subject again. FOR NO REASON. And when they finally decide to resolve the issue, it results in two of the stupidest plot twists in the entire series. First, we find out that the random soldier we were playing as in the opening, and who Basch killed, is Vaan's brother. Second, we find out Basch didn't actually kill his brother BECAUSE HE HAS AN EVIL TWIN. Seriously, they're pulling the EVIL TWIN thing in a FINAL FANTASY game. Seriously.
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Post by Nalacakes on Jan 30, 2009 20:54:58 GMT -5
Umm...wasn't it made pretty apparent from the opening that Reks is Vaan's brother? Reks says he has a brother back in the city, and mutters 'Vaan' as he loses consciousness. Then we skip to controlling a boy in the city called Vaan. The two look extremely similar too. I hardly think they intended to make the revelation a 'Dun dun dun!' moment. You even see a dream scene between Vaan and Reks before you wake up in prison, so if it is a plot twist, it's delivered with a good deal more grace and style than you're making out. Even if we assume it's a plot twist, though, what's so bad about finding out that one major character has a past entwined with another? That's like...bread and butter for fantasy fiction, and even moreso for Final Fantasy. ^_^; Not that I'm hugely keen on such convenient coincidences in stories myself, but it seems a little unfair to point the finger at Final Fantasy XII when it's hardly unique in playing such a card. If it's a game-ruiningly obnoxious twist in FFXII, then surely a good 90% of JRPGs are equally ruined? As for the hole thing, aren't the characters escaping when they fall down that hole? I'm hardly an expert in such matters, but I should think you wouldn't be so inclined to sit around and discuss things when you're on your way out of prison. Especially when you've just...y'know...freed one of the most reviled criminals in the country. I'd imagine personal vendettas would be put aside in such a situation, so the party's mostly protest-less cooperation with Basch at that point actually seemed more reasonable to me than them sitting down to discuss things in typical RPG fashion. In any case, it's certainly no more eyebrow-raising than something like the scene where you recruit Yuffie in FFVII (Letting a girl you know nothing about come with you when it's quite clear she wants to steal everything you own? Why not?), or the very fact that you do recruit Relm in FFVI (What sort of responsible adults would drag a little girl who fights with a paintbrush into a war against a ruthless empire which more or less rules the world?). Don't get me wrong, people poking holes in fantasy is actually one of my pet peeves, and neither of those scenes annoyed me at all. ^_^ But if you're going to call into question the realism of one Final Fantasy game, you should probably consider all of them. And I'll admit that I got a little giggle out of the 'evil twin' thing too. Just because, like you implied, the very idea of an evil twin is so silly and pantomine-y, and conjures up all these awful images. But to call Gabranth an evil twin is a pretty gross oversimplification. He's Basch's twin, and happens to stand for different things to him. That's all. He's not some misshapen creature that lurks in the attic waiting to ruin Basch's life at every turn. ^_~ If Gabranth is an evil twin, then Kefka is a jester with magical powers, Sephiroth is a pretty boy with an oedipus complex, and Exdeath is...well...a tree. ^_^ Eep, sorry, too long. I'll shut up. I don't especially like arguing about likes and dislikes, since it really just boils down to opinion. But your qualms with the story, outside of the simple statement that the characters aren't well-developed enough (which is really just a matter of opinion. Personally, I felt closer to them than any cast since VII's. ^_^), seem terribly picky to me. Kurse all SeeDs. Swarming like locusts akross generations.
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Post by Copyrighted Name on Jan 30, 2009 21:20:24 GMT -5
Alright, I guess I was going a bit overboard there. I missed a lot of what you mentioned, so I guess it's kinda my fault. Also, I haven't finished the game, so I could only go on what I'd gone up to. Still, it sorta shows a problem when I haven't bothered finishing the game two years after its release. In the meantime, I've revisited older games, and even played some newer ones (though most of those are remakes : . I dunno, maybe I just expected too much? It just doesn't really stack up to the earlier games, and seems a bit dry even compared to some of the team's other stuff. I mean, Tactics got me into it in the first 5 minutes, whereas XII hasn't managed to do anything to make me go 'yeah, this is awesome!' in the first five hours (I'm pretty sure I'm farther than that, though. I just don't know how much farther. . The music also bored me, and it's easily my least favorite FF soundtrack ever (aside from FFX-2, of course!). And as for the aesthetics... well, it's not bad, I guess. I'm just not a big fan of Akihiko Yoshida's style. Tactics, again, is the only place where I really loved his work, and I wasn't especially fond of the character designs in, oh say, FFIIIDS. I prefer Amano's simpler, more traditional look. Even Nomura is better to me. Despite a few silly-looking characters, I loved the feel of VII, VIII, and X's worlds, which are visually fascinating to me. I think I'd just rather play the older games, to be honest. Edit: Also, Wyrdwad, I'd still have to disagree that the changes were 'minor'. To me, the battle system is what RPG gameplay is about, so they were pretty major changes to me. If anything, I think the removal of the overworld was just a minor change. The overworld is basically just a method for travel, and well, FF games tend to be pretty linear as it is. It just didn't seem like that big a deal to me.
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Post by Copyrighted Name on Jan 30, 2009 22:16:30 GMT -5
Yeah, VII's wasn't awful, but his art seemed to get worse as time went on. On second thought, I think I like Yoshida better. But I still think the overall world art/aesthetic for those games is great. Just not the character designs. And yeah, I guess it's true that battle systems should change from game to game... but a lot of game series never seem to change anything, ever *coughmegamancough*.
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Post by Yakra on Jan 31, 2009 2:10:23 GMT -5
I dunno, maybe I just expected too much? It just doesn't really stack up to the earlier games, and seems a bit dry even compared to some of the team's other stuff. I mean, Tactics got me into it in the first 5 minutes, whereas XII hasn't managed to do anything to make me go 'yeah, this is awesome!' in the first five hours (I'm pretty sure I'm farther than that, though. I just don't know how much farther. . The music also bored me, and it's easily my least favorite FF soundtrack ever (aside from FFX-2, of course!). And as for the aesthetics... well, it's not bad, I guess. I'm just not a big fan of Akihiko Yoshida's style. Tactics, again, is the only place where I really loved his work, and I wasn't especially fond of the character designs in, oh say, FFIIIDS. I prefer Amano's simpler, more traditional look. Even Nomura is better to me. Despite a few silly-looking characters, I loved the feel of VII, VIII, and X's worlds, which are visually fascinating to me. I think I'd just rather play the older games, to be honest. And if that was the case, I don't think you'll get very grippingly involved with it any time soon. Infact... that was the very thing that I liked about FFXII! No extreme urgency coupled with high drama. No tales of love and passion and all that. (As compared with say.... the Aeris story, Zack's fate, not being able to find Shadow (I'm pathetic and mean), Kain's actions, or even the Fort Zeikden incident, etc., etc.) It started off mild, and it remained mild throughout, with all the characters actually having halfway realistic reactions. It was... refreshing. For me atleast. But then again, I think Akihiko Yoshida is a god. And think the same for Masaharu Iwata and Hitoshi Sakimoto. So basically, it was hard for me to be displeased. I just found the game to be (finally) a very apt follow-up to FFT and Vagrant Story. And far better beyond my expectations (FFTA!). I also really like FFXII's 'world map', by the way. I loved how it actually connected, was vast yet small at the same time, and the changing of the seasons!!! <3 Ofcourse, I've never played an MMO, so.... I can't say much. (Perhaps I might actually like those? If I like FFXII's gameplay so much, and even really like the 'mock-MMO-series' .hack? )
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Post by Kimimi on Jan 31, 2009 3:35:33 GMT -5
I disagree. None of the MMOs I've played have felt like playing FFXII, even FFXI has a very different focus ("Grind in a team for hours or don't bother playing") that gives it a completely different feel.
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Post by Copyrighted Name on Jan 31, 2009 9:30:44 GMT -5
And if that was the case, I don't think you'll get very grippingly involved with it any time soon. Infact... that was the very thing that I liked about FFXII! No extreme urgency coupled with high drama. No tales of love and passion and all that. (As compared with say.... the Aeris story, Zack's fate, not being able to find Shadow (I'm pathetic and mean), Kain's actions, or even the Fort Zeikden incident, etc., etc.) It started off mild, and it remained mild throughout, with all the characters actually having halfway realistic reactions. It was... refreshing. For me atleast. But then again, I think Akihiko Yoshida is a god. And think the same for Masaharu Iwata and Hitoshi Sakimoto. So basically, it was hard for me to be displeased. I just found the game to be (finally) a very apt follow-up to FFT and Vagrant Story. And far better beyond my expectations (FFTA!). I also really like FFXII's 'world map', by the way. I loved how it actually connected, was vast yet small at the same time, and the changing of the seasons!!! <3 Ofcourse, I've never played an MMO, so.... I can't say much. (Perhaps I might actually like those? If I like FFXII's gameplay so much, and even really like the 'mock-MMO-series' .hack? ) Aww, but extreme urgency and high drama's what FF's all about! And yes, XII's world map was awesome.
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Post by Justin on Jan 31, 2009 12:29:31 GMT -5
I'm not saying it IS soulless, I'm saying it LOOKS soulless TO ME. It strikes me, from the trailer, as a game without a soul. That's the impression it left me with. -Tom I watched the trailer on my PS3 today in HD, and I have to reaffirm my opinion. It looks really good ***Ducks for cover***
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Post by Justin on Jan 31, 2009 13:19:21 GMT -5
HD dude, that's all I have to say. The game looked really nice on my TV, and even my ignorant Fiancee was like "ooooh whats that game?"
Funny thing is she asked "Why are they putting out number 13 when you just got 4 for the DS?"
We had to have the Final Fantasy "Talk", and she thinks I am more of a nerd now than ever before. Good Times.
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Post by Incog Neato on Feb 3, 2009 5:30:15 GMT -5
You're allowed to have an opinion, even if that opinion is baffling to me. ;) YOU'RE baffling. :3 How can it look soulless? Damn thing looks like a pretty sci-fi movie! Or is that what makes it seem that way? :B
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Post by Copyrighted Name on Feb 3, 2009 6:07:23 GMT -5
Personally, I think it looks like a cliche-ridden American-style Sci-Fi movie, which is why I think it looks soulless, though I can't speak for Wyrdwad.
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Post by Justin on Feb 3, 2009 15:56:14 GMT -5
Hey, no one said a Cliche was a bad thing, its only expected
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Post by Incog Neato on Feb 3, 2009 17:11:23 GMT -5
Personally, I think it looks like a cliche-ridden American-style Sci-Fi movie, which is why I think it looks soulless, though I can't speak for Wyrdwad. I doubt that Square could pull original out of their asses even if their lives depended on it though. :P
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Feb 3, 2009 19:36:22 GMT -5
If you like that kind of thing, great. But I tend to go more for the shy, reserved types, who wear no makeup and are ostracized by their peers for being "weird". Because THOSE girls... they've got some serious depth to them. They're interesting, and cool. (: Like Chihiro -- the cute, shy librarian-esque treasurer in Persona 3? Honestly, I prefer a chick without makeup; I want to see how beautiful she really is! (:
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Post by Justin on Feb 3, 2009 19:45:05 GMT -5
Why limit yourself!! I like all the girls/video games that are around, or at least enough to try once.
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