Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2023 18:19:12 GMT
I was a little disappointed when the sidekicks in the flashback weren’t named Biggs and Wedge, but at least we met Cid early on.
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Tuffty
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Post by Tuffty on Jun 23, 2023 18:19:13 GMT
It's different from other games that came before, which has been true of every game, either mechanically or spirtually. People will bemoan the shift to all action or it's grimdark fantasy setting, but these are things I am all about so I don't mind actually.
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 23, 2023 18:21:01 GMT
Yeah, its been interesting hearing all this. I secretly harbour desires for a big RPG game in the style of FF7 or the early 3D ones, but I'm pretty sure that isn't going to come from this series anymore. If its good, the change of direction is fine by me, its just a different thing now.
RE FFXV, I ended up feeling like that was an interesting game completely undone by their mad decision to carve it up into mixed media pieces and DLC. I remember being utterly baffled by it, and feeling like the game could have been a classic, if only they hadn't, well, ff'd around with it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2023 18:22:57 GMT
I loved XV. There was a point where I got burnt out on the meaningless “find this frog” sidequests, BUT THE BOYS. They had some of the most realistic camaraderie in a video game, IMO. Only Cyberpunk 2077 gets close in making companions that felt like real friends.
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 23, 2023 18:23:52 GMT
Good textured pizza, too.
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Solid-SCB-
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Post by Solid-SCB- on Jun 23, 2023 18:34:36 GMT
XV was on course to be one of my favourite ones about a third of the way into it, gameplay be damned. The game flatlined after the Leviathan fight though, it was a laughably rushed finale. A cautionary tale to everyone to finish your fucking games before you release them.
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 23, 2023 18:37:20 GMT
Yeah it was after the leviathan bit, on the train, where it lost it story wise. There was a little bit earlier too where your boys would just nip off for their DLC adventure, which was annoying. Doesn't exactly scream artistic integrity!
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Solid-SCB-
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Post by Solid-SCB- on Jun 23, 2023 18:41:13 GMT
You could almost forgive the blatant DLC signposting if they didn't have 15 minutes of plot left written to cover the last 10 hours of game.
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Post by JuniorFE on Jun 23, 2023 19:01:38 GMT
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't XV go through pretty intense Development Hell? I seem to recall shit like having to scrap entire storylines (including multiple additional DLC) and fully rework characters, directors changing halfway through, possibly executive meddling forcing an early release...
Not that this fully excuses any issues or rushed parts, but any game could struggle after such a mess of a development cycle...
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Solid-SCB-
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Post by Solid-SCB- on Jun 23, 2023 19:09:29 GMT
It was originally supposed to be Versus XIII fuck knows how long before it became XV.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2023 19:16:57 GMT
Nomura worked on Vs XIII for about a decade and got nowhere, until Tabata got hired on to reboot the whole production. I think word was Tabata got about 2 years to complete it, but he gets the blame for the production whereas no one criticizes Nomura.
Tabata did a commendable job considering the situation.
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 23, 2023 19:59:08 GMT
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't XV go through pretty intense Development Hell? I seem to recall shit like having to scrap entire storylines (including multiple additional DLC) and fully rework characters, directors changing halfway through, possibly executive meddling forcing an early release... Not that this fully excuses any issues or rushed parts, but any game could struggle after such a mess of a development cycle... Thats kind of what I mean though. XV had a nightmare development and rebuild. Whatever that resulted in was so likely to be a hot mess that when it came out and was actually interesting was kind of a miracle. Its a disservice to the people that spun that poo into gold (I may be mixing my metaphors there) to have then split it up that way. I'm going to assume it was marketing. I always blame marketing. |
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Post by uiruki on Jun 23, 2023 21:28:25 GMT
I thought FF15 was a terrible game but you can't ignore what a huge achievement it must have been to get something out of a game that had been so thoroughly jammed in development hell. FF7 Remake was something like their third attempt at it too. It does seem like they'd spread too many senior people too thin and so project management went out of the window in that era.
Now Square Enix are actually getting games out there as a company, at different budget levels, and I think they're producing some of their best lineups of games for ages. Have you seen that Star Ocean 2 remake? I think it looks amazing and that came out of nowhere.
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Tuffty
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Post by Tuffty on Jun 24, 2023 8:29:21 GMT
And it's in those games that people might actually find something that's for them. Bravely Default and Octopath Traveller has turn based combat. Triangle Strategy and Diofield Chronicle are two different kinds of tactics games. They're smaller budget sure but if they took a chance they could be satisfied.
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Post by uiruki on Jun 24, 2023 8:34:55 GMT
Yeah, 16 didn't hit the parts I wanted it to but it doesn't matter because I've bought loads of other S-E games in the last 6-9 months. Octopath 2 in particular I really liked a lot. Diofield is really interesting and I hope it gets a sequel too as it's a bit of tuning away from being an excellent, unique game.
I do find it frustrating when people dismiss those kinds of games out of hand and simultaneously loudly pining for their older games because I think most of what made those games good is still there, just without expensive and unskippable FMV.
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rajin
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Post by rajin on Jun 24, 2023 8:46:59 GMT
Past year I felt Square actually released too many games and remasters:
Valkyrie Profile Lenneth
Valkyrie Profile Eleysium
Live A Live
Front Mission 1 Remake
Ocotpath Traveler 2
Harvestellla
Chrono Cross
This is just straight out of my head. I could not keep up with these releases at all.
I am glad FF16 has a clear vision (FF7 Remake definitely shares some of it). I do hope the next game does not stick to linearity this much. I really dont care about any chests in the "open" world and any drops.
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Post by uiruki on Jun 24, 2023 8:51:54 GMT
You missed Star Ocean, Saga Minstrel Song and Diofield. They definitely could have done with spacing things out a little bit, but most of the games are kinda different to one another in fairness. I still need to get hold of Harvestells at some point as people seemed to really like it but I've got too many games on the go at once right now.
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 24, 2023 8:54:27 GMT
Are people dismissing them? The Octopath Traveller games are pretty well regarded, right? And Bravely Default too, though I personally didn't get along with it.
I think those games are more evoking the style and nostalgia of the 2D FF, taking that top down-approach, pulled-out look and making it beautiful. There's obviously a whole bunch of RPG-Maker stuff in that direction too. What I'm hoping to see one day, is the same pixel nostalgia for the early 3D games styles. Maybe some games exist in that space, but the only ones that really comes to mind for me are Anachronox and Costume Quest, which were both a little while ago now.
I think its probably a bit of a niche ask; most people aren't calling out "oh, where are the games inspired by early 3D rpg games!"
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 24, 2023 8:56:29 GMT
Oh, I guess forgot Star Ocean and the million Trails of games!
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Post by starchildhypocrethes on Jun 24, 2023 9:04:58 GMT
I reckon I’m around 10 or so hours into this and so far I think it’s fine.
I’m just finding it a bit middle of the road. It’s not really an FF game, but it’s also not much of a DMC game.
From an FF standpoint the story is ok I guess, but there no sense of adventure as it’s the most linear corridor game I’ve played in years. The whole world feels quite confined too. Everything is small and feels like it’s just down the road. The side quests are absolute pish too, just the worst examples of fetch quest filler.
As an action game the combat is pretty simple and because it’s so easy and there’s no ranking system or anything, there isn’t anything to encourage you to engage with the systems that are there.
I don’t know. It’s just a bit disappointing after all the insanely glowing reviews.
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Post by Humperfunk on Jun 24, 2023 9:29:44 GMT
Octopath Traveler 2 is probably my GOTY this year, above even Zelda. Spent 85 hours with it and it was utterly glorious.
Re: the mention of the Star Ocean 2 remake above, will be surprised if that isn't in my GOTY conversation at the end of the year.
I'm probably around 7 hours into this or so (they're so determined to move away from it being a JRPG it doesn't even have a clock in the menu anymore) and I'm really enjoying it for what it is. As a FF game, it's absolute dogshit. You can talk about FF games changing everytime but this is such a departure it can't even really be considered as one. As a Bayonetta type game with FF nods, it's absolutely brilliant.
I do worry though the repeat of walk forward, fight, walk forward, cutscene, walk forward, another cutscene, walk forward, fight loop will get boring way before the reported 50 hour playtime.
One thing I do love is I'm really invested in the story, they've gone to town on it which is really important and appreciated. FFXV was so so shite in that regard, I'm always baffled when I see people talking about Noctis as one of the greatest FF protagonists and the story being so meaningful and deep etc...there wasn't a story? I remember them trying to pull a big "omg plot twist with Prompto" and my immediate reaction was basically "who the fuck is this guy? Has he been here the whole time?!"
Tldr; good game, enjoying it.
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Post by uiruki on Jun 24, 2023 9:31:49 GMT
Are people dismissing them? The Octopath Traveller games are pretty well regarded, right? And Bravely Default too, though I personally didn't get along with it. I think those games are more evoking the style and nostalgia of the 2D FF, taking that top down-approach, pulled-out look and making it beautiful. There's obviously a whole bunch of RPG-Maker stuff in that direction too. What I'm hoping to see one day, is the same pixel nostalgia for the early 3D games styles. Maybe some games exist in that space, but the only ones that really comes to mind for me are Anachronox and Costume Quest, which were both a little while ago now. I think its probably a bit of a niche ask; most people aren't calling out "oh, where are the games inspired by early 3D rpg games!" You don't see the posts shitting on S-E whenever they're mentioned online? I think that's pretty common, especially in places like Resetera where people just drive by. It's just people not thinking and actually seeing what's out there. I thought the Octopath and Bravely sequels are way, way better than their originals even though they don't particularly splinter off the originals that far; they just did a really good job of improving on their second go so if you haven't tried them, I recommend giving them a go.
I'd argue that Anachronox was more of a contemporary, being released in '01, but Tom Hall was very specific in terms of mentioning Chrono Trigger in interviews etc so I think that's more a SNES era take.
And Trails is Falcom; they're doing a decent job catching up to Japanese releases in the West and Ys 10 is coming in September in Japan. They're basically one game every two years but they seem like more often because there was a huge gap; Trails of Azure is a port of their 2011 PSP game and that just came out in English this year!
As for early 3D nostalgia, I'd probably argue that the Star Ocean 2 remake's doing a good job of that, taking what were pre-rendered backgrounds and bringing them into realtime 3D. On the other side you have this HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest 3 coming too, that should be really good. The closest you get to actually new games in that PS1 style is probably the Kemco RPGs; a lot are straight up 2D SNES style but I remember some of them moving to 3D battles at the very least.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Jun 24, 2023 10:58:16 GMT
All those new releases, re-releases, remasters, and remakes, and Square *still* can't find it within themselves to bung Yoko Taro a few quid to overhaul the Drakengard trilogy?
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Post by uiruki on Jun 24, 2023 11:27:26 GMT
I think he's happy doing his own thing with anime and stage shows and mobile games and stuff.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Jun 24, 2023 12:04:53 GMT
I think he's happy doing his own thing with anime and stage shows and mobile games and stuff.
You may well be right.
Still, he did say a while ago that he'd remaster the Drakengard games if Square would fund it, so I'm still blaming them for this one  |
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Post by deekyfun on Jun 24, 2023 12:24:51 GMT
You don't see the posts shitting on S-E whenever they're mentioned online? I think that's pretty common, especially in places like Resetera where people just drive by. I honestly haven't. I'm aware of people kicking Square Enix, but mostly around weird business stuff like canning games due to poor sales because their expectations are too high, or the stuff around NFTs. Though, I dont really go looking either - this forum is the only place I go on the net for discussion, and I try to stay away from it elsewhere. I've seen the Star Ocean games pop up but never given them a try, so I may take a look and see if they do the trick. |
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Post by uiruki on Jun 24, 2023 12:53:30 GMT
Star Ocean 2 is probably still the best one; you’re probably best off hanging on for that remake in November, iirc. The latest is pretty alright but on PC at least it does have some performance issues which have been slowing my progress.
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Solid-SCB-
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Post by Solid-SCB- on Jun 24, 2023 20:30:14 GMT
If you happen to come across any scarecrows on your travels in this game; take a little bit of a closer look for a cool little Easter egg.
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Post by elstoof on Jun 24, 2023 21:01:55 GMT
It's different from other games that came before, which has been true of every game, either mechanically or spirtually. People will bemoan the shift to all action or it's grimdark fantasy setting, but these are things I am all about so I don't mind actually. I like how 16 games in, with each one mechanically or spiritually different from the one that came before, we are still arguing over what makes a true Final Fantasy game or that is has to have a checklist of things to be constituted as one. But that measure you would think FF1 is the least FF of them all. Would you say these posts are mechanically or spiritually the same as each other? |
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Tuffty
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Post by Tuffty on Jun 25, 2023 6:47:10 GMT
Shares the same sentiment but making different points so prob spiritually.
Gotta say I understand items on the ground being like crafting materials, but the money pickups like 2G seem pretty useless, don't know why they're there.
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