Video Games

[MGuy]

Are you thinking of Final Fantasy XIII? XII had only one sequel, and it had nothing to do with time travel.

You would be right, I'm thinking of 13 not 12.

[OgreBattle]

FFXIII has an interesting world where there's no separation between magic or mundane, so the automated food factory that has existed since the dawn of human civilization is the god of agriculture both in a literal and figurative way, wild beasts like the behemoth can do things like stand up on their hind legs and unsheath their headcrest-sword.



The gameplay was too bare bones tho', it would've been nice if FFXIII had the paradigm system control your party members while you had more direct control over the party leader (something like Lightning Returns perhaps), or if it focused on 'tech attacks' between 2-3 party members like Chrono Trigger.

The addition of a minimap was also unecessary as most 'dungeons' could be pretty simply navigated just by visual cues, and the 'field' portion of the game opened up way too late. They treated the first 20 hours of the game like a tutorial.

[MGuy]

FFXIII has an interesting world where there's no separation between magic or mundane, so the automated food factory that has existed since the dawn of human civilization is the god of agriculture both in a literal and figurative way, wild beasts like the behemoth can do things like stand up on their hind legs and unsheath their headcrest-sword.



The gameplay was too bare bones tho', it would've been nice if FFXIII had the paradigm system control your party members while you had more direct control over the party leader (something like Lightning Returns perhaps), or if it focused on 'tech attacks' between 2-3 party members like Chrono Trigger.

The addition of a minimap was also unecessary as most 'dungeons' could be pretty simply navigated just by visual cues, and the 'field' portion of the game opened up way too late. They treated the first 20 hours of the game like a tutorial.

It would've been a nice game if it were interesting, the story was any good, the characters weren't stupid/annoying to listen to, the combat wasn't terrible, and the lore wasn't something you mostly had to read up on while you weren't playing the game, etc. If I were to give the game any credit at all it's that it looked pretty.

[Chamomile]

If I were to give the game any credit at all it's that it looked pretty.

That's the drain the Final Fantasy series has been circling for a long time, and XIII is the point they finally fell in.

[DSMatticus]

If I were to give the game any credit at all it's that it looked pretty.

That's the drain the Final Fantasy series has been circling for a long time, and XIII is the point they finally fell in.

Hm. Let's toss out 11 and 14 because they're MMORPG's. Let's toss out 1, 2, and 3 because no one has ever played them and even if you did they're kind of underwhelming. That leaves us with 9 games: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13.

So which ones are great? That's easy: 4, 6, 7, 9.
Which ones are good-enough? That's also easy: 5, 8, 10.
Which ones are shit? Still easy: 12, 13.

It's more like a sporadic mix of good and great followed by whatever the hell 12 and 13 were than a gradual decline.

[Koumei]

Every Final Fantasy is the best or worst Final Fantasy, depending on who you ask. It's just like Gundams.

(For the record, 8 is shit. This is an objective fact.)

[Chamomile]

-words-

I'm not talking about Final Fantasy's entire history, I'm talking about the trend of the last twenty years, which I hope we can both agree is long enough to count for "a long time." Ever since Final Fantasy VI, the games have increased the focus on visuals (with the exception of IX, which doesn't really debunk a trend of five other games on its own). It just wasn't until FFX that it became clear that everything else but the visuals wasn't keeping pace. The emphasis on graphical beauty (although really admirable because the Final Fantasy people know what they're doing and that you need spectacular, interesting environments to make something beautiful, not just incredibly faithfully rendered brown chest-high walls) had become a cancer that was slowly killing the games. FFXII slowed, but did not reverse the trend, and FFXIII embraced it quite whole-heartedly.

In FFVI, FFVII, and FFVIII the games focused on pushing the envelope of making games that looked spectacular and followed that until it became the niche that Final Fantasy fulfilled. Square was Japanese Pixar and people played their games for the cut scenes and that was fine. VIII was a low point compared to its neighbors, but it was #1 still good and #2 not as obsessed with visual splendor as later games were.

FFIX didn't really pull back on this throttle, even, it just plateaued for a while (which is fine, because they'd hit the sweet spot, even if those games aged poorly for having their main focus be wringing graphics out of the PS1 which, in today's market, just look less terrible). In FFX they overspecialized. The cutscenes were still gorgeous and now the regular gameplay looked pretty spectacular too, but the quality of the rest of the game was beginning to suffer for it. Then FFXIII had bad characters, completely linear gameplay, a plot that went nowhere for hours, uninspiring combats that often took 10+ minutes to complete while demanding absolutely nothing from the player but the patience to keep cycling their characters' stances every 45 seconds, but it looked amazing. The fall was complete.

EDITS: SO MANY TYPOS

[DSMatticus]

If you only look at the last 20 years, then this

So which ones are great? That's easy: 4, 6, 7, 9.
Which ones are good-enough? That's also easy: 5, 8, 10.
Which ones are shit? Still easy: 12, 13.

becomes this

So which ones are great? That's easy: 7, 9.
Which ones are good-enough? That's also easy: 8, 10.
Which ones are shit? Still easy: 12, 13.

The problem with your "slowly circling the drain" theory is there is no gradual decline. None. It's just not there. You have great, good, great, good, shit, shit. There is nothing special about the 7-10 era to set it apart, quality-wise, from 1-6; it's a string of hits and homeruns in no particular order.

Final Fantasy doesn't begin to flub until 12, which features one of the blandest casts I have ever seen in any piece of entertainment ever, and 13, which is a god-awful story wrapped in a barely-game. But those are the fifth and sixth entries in the (main, non-MMORPG) series since the "moar pixels!!1! moar pretty!!1!" trend set by FF7. That's four whole games - 2/3rds of the entire era we're talking about - that doesn't fit the pattern you're describing, but instead fits the exact same pattern of that which came before.

No, what actually happened is that Square decided they wanted to start pushing the graphical envelope in 1997 and, completely separately, started sucking at making Final Fantasy games in 2006.

[GreatGreyShrike]

FF8's plot and story and most of it's characters were even more risible than is standard for Final Fantasy games, and I won't try to defend any of them. The plot was more incomprehensible and bizzarely stupid than usual, and the characters less relatable. There was some cool settings and artwork, and a lot of Disk 1 was extremely cool in concept if not always in execution, but mostly it was bad.

What I did like about it in hindsight is that it tried to break new ground and created the most tolerable level/stats/etc progression system ever seen in a Final Fantasy game - If, and only if, you knew about it's idiosyncrasies.

The game was unique for final fantasies in that as you levelled up enemies scaled up with you like in Oblivion or whatever - but they got MORE stat gains than you did. This means that for the first time (the only time?) people who hated grinding, people who just wanted to run to all the story/plot events while running from enemies instead of grinding... were rewarded, and people who grinded were punished.

Since it never told you it was doing this it ended up being sort of a trap - people would get stuck somewhere and grind to make it easier, but the grinding would unlike in every other FF game make it harder instead. This sucked if you didn't know about it and expected it to be like other FF games, where the solution to a tough boss was often 'go get 5 levels and come back and try it again'

Similarly, the 'drawing magic' system was bullshit and annoying as fuck, the real way to get a large amount of powerful magic was refining it out of cards and items - meaning that the single best minigame FF has ever had, the Triple Triad card game, was ALSO a strong path to Real Ultimate Power, while fighting with the draw command was a snare and a delusion. Again, not something that's obvious, but good for the game once you know about it.

I actually played and enjoyed a perfect no-level run in the game.

If they'd explained any of this ("Drawing magic is bullshit, card games are both fun and real power, levelling up is bad") during the introduction to the game, the experience would be way better for most people. As it was, the way these were all set up was hidden nerd-lore, which made all these gameplay improvements actually turn to shit for most people's experience because the trap options were super obvious and the actually effective options a little hidden.

[Chamomile]

But those are the fifth and sixth entries in the (main, non-MMORPG) series since the "moar pixels!!1! moar pretty!!1!" trend set by FF7.

You've conceded most of the point just by admitting that this trend is there at all. My argument was never that there has been a consistent decline in quality, it's that the trend that was started by FF7 grew and grew until it eventually became the cancer that killed XIII completely. That trend was good until Square hit the point of diminishing returns and kept on going anyway, and in the meantime unrelated trends caused individual games to be hits or relative misses.

EDIT: Although, it is also worth noting that FFXII was the first FF not scored by Nubuo Uematsu. If you're going to bank your game on its visuals, having a good soundscape to support them makes a big difference, and I'll definitely say that the music of FFXII really underwhelmed me and FFXIII couldn't even manage to underwhelm me. I can't even remember a track from FFXIII to be underwhelmed by, except the J-Pop iteration of the Chocobo Theme which, okay, I guess after this many games finding new musical genres for it is getting pretty hard, but that was not the way to go. Or maybe it just seems bad because the chocobo theme park would've been great fun in any other Final Fantasy game, but in this one it's just a linear dungeon that doesn't have monsters in it.

[OgreBattle]

Every Final Fantasy is the best or worst Final Fantasy, depending on who you ask. It's just like Gundams.

(For the record, 8 is shit. This is an objective fact.)

Gundam Unicorn is the best overall

[DSMatticus]

If the quality trend doesn't match the "Japanese Videogame Pixar" trend, why in the sweet fuck do you think it's what is ultimately responsible for the latest entries being so crap? If we're going to pin the quality of Final Fantasy games on random things that happen to be happening at the same time, I'm going with weather. Fuck the weather.

It's also worth noting that FF12's flaws aren't even the result of an attempt to cinematize the game and show off those sweet, sweet pixels. The game is the usual open-ish-world side-quest-laden murder-all-the-random-things affair. It's just... really fucking bland. FF13 is the first entry which truly takes it that way, and even then the writing continues to be the among the most glaring problems.

[Longes]

I like FF13's combat system as a concept, but I think they should have taken the change further. Once you've abstracted combat into stances, there just shouldn't be individual spells and attack actions. They are just too slow and too minor bullshit. Just leave one "attack" button, and create complexity by having a large variety of stances and making them interact in interesting ways.

[Chamomile]

If the quality trend doesn't match the "Japanese Videogame Pixar" trend, why in the sweet fuck do you think it's what is ultimately responsible for the latest entries being so crap?

Because every time Square has gone out of their way to be pretty, quality has dropped. In VIII, they gave Squall a fur jacket just to show that they can, and it was markedly lesser compared to its neighbors because its gameplay was a mess. There were still plenty of good ideas in there, but they showed incredible lack of polish. There were also some atrocious ideas in there. Level scaling will never be a good thing. IX was a pretty plateau, it was not markedly prettier than its predecessors (if only because there was nowhere else for the PS1 to go), and it was a dramatic improvement.

X was a pretty increase, but its big combat innovation was a slightly different turn order, a level up system with a million percent more circles, and quicktime events in the limit breaks. Also they removed the world map, which was definitely the right way to go but I can't really consider removing something to be an innovation. It did have a fun minigame to it, though. God I love blitzball. The gameplay was a marked lack of innovation compared to other Final Fantasy games, though.

And now we're coming to the point I was avoiding earlier because I was hoping to make my point without going down this rabbit hole, but clearly we're going to have to go there: You are stupid for disliking Final Fantasy XII and should feel bad for being so wrong about it. I mean, yes, the writing isn't that great, but I'm not sure what you were expecting from a Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy XII had more interesting limit breaks than X, an almost-realtime combat system with programmable allies which, once you got the hang of it, made them the least frustrating realtime allies of all time and made me wish I could give gambits to every other companion I've had in any RPG ever. It had more total content than almost any other Final Fantasy game ever made, maintained the combat system innovation that X had dropped the ball on, and got rid of the clunky divide between exploration and combat that had otherwise plagued the series.

And it was another pretty plateau. In fact, it was kind of a pretty backpedaling. FFXII had the prettiest deserts I've ever seen, but they all look the same and are two-thirds of the game. So even though it has more content, better combat, and a connection between the combat and exploration that doesn't have you sighing in frustration every time the screen goes swirly for yet another random combat between you and the goddamn exit, it went backwards on the thing that people most expect Final Fantasy to be good at so I'm not surprised people didn't like it. Plus, every Final Fantasy game is the worst Final Fantasy game. But then FFXIII went hard in the other direction and suddenly the spell was broken and FFXIII was the only worst Final Fantasy game.

[Kaelik]

Since I play games for gameplay and not being pretty, all Final Fantasy games suck dick.

[MGuy]

13 wasn't the only worst one. Crystal Chronicles was so bad I couldn't make it through the beginning of it. At least in 13 I had made it (unknowingly) to the final dungeon before throwing it in the trash (then taking it out and giving it back to the person who actually owned it).

[OgreBattle]

A new Vagrant Story would be nice. The story and combat is reminiscent of later titles like Dark Souls and the 3D Fallout's, even tho' this came out on the PSX



Man butts

[Wiseman]

I actually liked 13-2. The characters were interesting, the setting and mechanics were improved, and the story didn't take itself to seriously, which was a major plus in my book. 13-3 on the other hand was total shit, and I found myself unable to give a fuck about it. I only managed to play it for about 2-3 hours before giving up and never touching it again. Thankfully I had checked it out from my library and didn't have to pay a dime for it.

[Shrapnel]

A new Vagrant Story would be nice. The story and combat is reminiscent of later titles like Dark Souls and the 3D Fallout's, even tho' this came out on the PSX



Man butts

That's a dude?! Wow.

Also, is the goat-headed thing strumming a banjo? Cuz that's what it looks like.

[Leress]

Yes, Shrapel, the Riskbreaker, Ashley Riot.

[OgreBattle]

Akihiko Yoshida says he designs characters butt first, then equal attention is given to the head and foots.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

If they'd explained any of this ("Drawing magic is bullshit, card games are both fun and real power, levelling up is bad") during the introduction to the game, the experience would be way better for most people.

In fact, fuck levels entirely. Instead of drawing magic endlessly you just junction a card to your stats, or you can keep the cards in your hand to cast spells or gain battle abilities. That might work if done well.

[Longes]

http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/nextgen_b ... estop.html

[name_here]

At some point late in the last console generation, AAA sales projections ceased to have any connection to reality. As far as I can tell, they come from picking a desired profit margin, calculating expenses, determining how many total games the studio needs to sell to hit that profit margin, and arbitrarily distributing that number between releases.

e.g., Tomb Raider sold 3.4 million copies in its first month. It had been "conservatively" projected to sell 5-6 million

[Stahlseele]

PIRACY! I TELLS YA!