How can Squeenix fix itself?

[Had'ohken]

Nomura's not JUST an art guy anymore, he's also the creative head of most of those projects, and they HAVE given him a lot more leeway especially with the COMPILATION OF TEN-YEAR-OLD RPG THAT DIDN'T NEED SEQUELS OR PREQUELS.

The two-to-three stellar games a year method seemed to work in the days of the SNES. Maybe if they made sure those games were GOOD unlike THIS http://www.amazon.com/Last-Remnant-X...8180758&sr=8-1 and THIS http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Undis...8180758&sr=8-6

You make a point about them being in the market for 20 years. It's been said time and again, but JRPG companies are stuck at 20 years ago. They haven't brought us the kind of fresh innovation some WRPGs have. Not to say all WRPGs are perfect, but they're trying new things.

[Bells]

Originally Posted by Had'ohken

Nomura's not JUST an art guy anymore, he's also the creative head of most of those projects, and they HAVE given him a lot more leeway especially with the COMPILATION OF TEN-YEAR-OLD RPG THAT DIDN'T NEED SEQUELS OR PREQUELS.

The two-to-three stellar games a year method seemed to work in the days of the SNES. Maybe if they made sure those games were GOOD unlike THIS http://www.amazon.com/Last-Remnant-X...8180758&sr=8-1 and THIS http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Undis...8180758&sr=8-6

You make a point about them being in the market for 20 years. It's been said time and again, but JRPG companies are stuck at 20 years ago. They haven't brought us the kind of fresh innovation some WRPGs have. Not to say all WRPGs are perfect, but they're trying new things.

So you say they are stuck in 20 years ago, but you think the best thing they could do to innovate their methods is to do what was done in the SNES era?

...ok then.

[Had'ohken]

Originally Posted by Magus

Oddly enough, J-Pop songs seem slightly more fitting to the Chrono universe than your average Final Fantasy...but what do I know? Apparently not as much as whoever came up with Final Fantasy X-2.

I would TOTALLY fucking approve.

[Loyal]

Sure, we all have our gripes with Final Fantasy... we have our gripes with ALL main series of games... but overall, they do the job.

The difference is that outside of issues which, when addressed, would completely revamp or destroy the core focus of the game, the companies besides Squeenix take the time and the effort to put some good features and innovations into their sequels. Also worth noting that Rock Band and Halo have multiplayer as core features, which already puts it leagues ahead of single-player games* like Final Fantasy in general.

Square gives us good gameplay, good innovations, good stories, good music, good replay value and at least most of the times, good art and design... it has ups and downs...

In that order: Debatable, Debatable, Lol, Agreed, Depends on what you like in Replays, Depends on your tastes (but for the most part, Zipper/Belts everywhere and template-faces that all look alike do not constitute good design).

You're complaining about art. Visuals. If you're too trapped into graphics to discuss quaility over Squeenis work, then you're not paying attention... If you're not talking about Art design, then, i have no clue on what are you complaining about...

It's a valid point. It's not whining about "OMG I SAW A JAGGED POLYGON IT SUCKS", it's a complaint over the artistic style, which despite general public dislike, (at least over here, I dunno if the Japanese consumers get a stiffy over this sort of thing or something) manages to persistantly infest the game's designs.

And charge $200 for each game right? You're ranting without logic... if they dont try several games they cant try new things, new brands, new teams and they dont make money... they keep the same overall quality on all their projects. having less projects wont change that. It will only make the games come out earlier and make less money for the company.

I think you're completely missing the point, or perhaps deliberately skewing it to poor effect.

Honestly Bellsouth? I don't see what you're trying to say here.

So you say they are stuck in 20 years ago, but you think the best thing they could do to innovate their methods is to do what was done in the SNES era?

That's not at all what he said and you know it. He was referring to the timespan between releases for the SNES games, not talking about how they were designed.

*Let's not mince words here, multiplayer games tend to be infinitely more fun and replay-valuey than SP games by simple virtue of the fact that you can play with other people.

[Had'ohken]

Just as an example of how they've gone down a few notches in my eyes...

The holiday season this year has really been excessive with game releases, so I took it upon myself to narrow it down to the 4 or 5 games I REALLY wanted.

CT DS was one, but it's something I've played before, blah blah blah.

Now the other two games that could qualify as RPGs? Fable II and Valkyria Chronicles. That's right, I'm more interested in an action RPG where you can walk the line between hero and villain and a strategy game made by SEGA of all people than two more offerings of "generic save-the-world storyline with broken battle systems and lackluster reviews that point out the same flaws constantly".

[Bells]

Originally Posted by Loyal

In that order: Debatable, Debatable, Lol, Agreed, Depends on what you like in Replays, Depends on your tastes (but for the most part, Zipper/Belts everywhere and template-faces that all look alike do not constitute good design).
[/I][/SIZE]

oh c'mon now... you dont think they provide good Storytelling? Gameplay? that dont bring new things to the table? That their major titles usually offer tons of gameplay options that people who like to play-to-the-finish and people who want to play-to-100% are well served?

What Square-Enix games on the last 10 years have poor Gameplay mechanics or are without any level of innovation? That dosent offer you a good, even if simple, Story that's enjoyable? New elements? The option to finish the game in 20 hours or 80+ hours depending on just how much you actually want to do?

The few titles you can pull out of the majority of titles they launched in the same time spam, arent any bigger than that what you would expect from any other company in their league...

[Had'ohken]

Bellsouth: in regards to storytelling, cut from THIS article:

"But the problem is, nine times out of ten, those story-driven game directors get it completely, utterly wrong. The fact is, Metal Gear and Final Fantasy are not good storytelling videogames. In fact, they're pretty poor. You see the problem is that in gaming's relative adolesence, we started to run before we could walk in terms of narrative, and devoid of the tools we needed to really tell stories through games, we borrowed the conventions of cinema and crudely stapled them on. And that just doesn't work.

In even the most 'story-driven' games, if cinematic cut-scenes are used, they and the actual game remain two completely separate entities. They feature the same character models and are stored on the same disc, but in actual fact, they are totally independent of each other. Take Final fantasy VII for example, or almost any JRPG for that matter.

Cloud may be your protagonist, but the parts of the game in which you directly influence his actions - Golden Saucer date aside - consist only of moving an avatar around a map and guiding it through combat. As far as the development of the plot goes, you sit and watch a linear cartoon play it out for you. And they call them role-playing games? The approach only serves to highlight how the player isn't part of the story."

That sums up more or less WHY RPGs are generally terrible at delivering engrossing stories, especially JRPGs.

[Loyal]

What Square-Enix games on the last 10 years have poor Gameplay mechanics or are without any level of innovation? That dosent offer you a good, even if simple, Story that's enjoyable? New elements? The option to finish the game in 20 hours or 80+ hours depending on just how much you actually want to do?

In general? Well, let's see.

Last I checked, mainstream FF games rely on their random battles and ATB system most of all. ATB is a love-it-or-hate it kind of thing, so I won't comment on it, but Random Battles are just a bad idea that the series should have evolved past long ago.

"No innovation at all" is not the same as "good innovation". Most of it has merely been little tweaks to the ATB system or some new and exciting way to summon espers, but the core of the combat has remained pretty much static (wait for bar to fill up, use action) and the out of combat stuff, to the best of my knowledge, has pretty much boiled down to "talk to NPCs, arrive at town, insert plot, go to dungeon/next town (with random battles), fight boss, optional additional plot insertion, move on." There may be a few miscellaneous snippets here and there, such as the joining or departure of a party member, but really.

And the 20-80 hours thing isn't really that big a deal. At best, it's tacked on mileage to the original playthrough.

The few titles you can pull out of the majority of titles they launched in the same time spam, arent any bigger than that what you would expect from any other company in their league...

Could you try this statement again? I honestly couldn't figure out what you were saying here.

[Had'ohken]

This is where we're heading if they don't stop dicking around with laughably bad ideas, folks.

[Regulus Tera]

Maaan and here I thought I was a Nomura hater.