Final Fantasy XV (PS4 / XB1 / PC)
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Siliconemelons
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Or when the good square games (BD, B2nd) come from their historic "C" team that gave us mystic quest... while the A team is sitting there jacking it and the B team is MIA.
Noodleface
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DrSpooge
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I don't really think it's a recent development. Atlus caught up mid-to-late PS2 era and overtook them covertly and permanently sometime soon thereafter - I just don't think anybody really realized it at the time, because Shin Megami was (and to a real extent still is) a lesser-known, more niche franchise. Both are still shitting out high-quality handheld games, and both -- and because I can't imagine Atlus makes that much money, I'm not sure how -- benefit from the ability to work on higher-profile games as they see fit and to release them when they're deemed ready, but their philosophies diverge wildly.
There was a really revealing interview prior to FFXIII's release that I wish I could find. Some gaming journalist was interviewing one of the programmers, and the guy seemed to be doing his best to communicate his enthusiasm, but it was obvious that he was hired to make rocks. I mean that literally - his sole task was to design the rocks strewn about the world. I can't imagine Atlus has a rock engineer, and I can't imagine they really want one. Squeenix has become a purveyor of flash, Atlus of substance.
AladainAF
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Right this is the problem. Like in the XV video, you can hear the guy talking something about the FFXV team went to a real mine to survey and get the feeling of it in order to design it.
Like.. why? You can't hire a level designer? You need to take the entire dev team to a mine in the real world to figure out how to design a level which for all intents and purposes is a cave?
Like.. why? You can't hire a level designer? You need to take the entire dev team to a mine in the real world to figure out how to design a level which for all intents and purposes is a cave?
Namon
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I think overall the game looks fine. It's just that battle system makes absolutely no sense at all. Tabata worked on Type 0 and Crisis Core as well, I believe, and I thought both of those battle systems were ass. And if the battle system sucks in a JRPG, that's pretty much the entire game, because god knows, Square's ability to tell a coherent story has been absent for quite some time now.
Siliconemelons
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The sad thing is... they have been at this game FOREVER through literally 2, or 2.5 generations of consoles.
They then either..
A) thought so highly of this game they moved it to a number FF series... but 15 a landmark number (def in Roman numerals non repeated or predecessor characters.. I, V, X etc. So so much is on this.
B) halfway thru they realized they had nothing for 15 and just said screw it.
They then either..
A) thought so highly of this game they moved it to a number FF series... but 15 a landmark number (def in Roman numerals non repeated or predecessor characters.. I, V, X etc. So so much is on this.
B) halfway thru they realized they had nothing for 15 and just said screw it.
Noodleface
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Xalara
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You do realize that game devs do this all the time from Hideo Kojima, Naughty Dog, to Ubisoft.
Anyway, I got to play the game at PAX West for an hour, they fixed all of the major issues I had with Episode Duscae and the combat system seems pretty good.
AladainAF
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I get that they might do stuff in the real world to get an idea on something they are unfamiliar with -- so long as it has a meaningful impact on gameplay. Taking your dev team to a mine, so you can make a level in a game that is as meaningful as random_cave_level00 in a game seems ridiculous to me. You'll get the same effect watching a youtube video.
DrSpooge
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I'd wager Kojima was allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted, until he wasn't. Authorizing a Kojima mining trip isn't really the same thing as authorizing an FFXV mining trip, and for a number of reasons. He's always struck me as the embodiment of the attributes that artsy people invariably convince themselves that they possess, yet seldom do. He's a genuine visionary, and I don't find it difficult to buy into the notion that indulging his artistic whims ultimately makes for a better game.
I'm with Aladain, though, in that I can't fathom the existence of any correlation between time spent in a fucking mine and the quality of the latest entry in Final fucking Fantasy.
edit: well, I'll concede the possibility of a negative correlation.
Xalara
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My point is: Every game studio does location research for level design, so to get hung up on that is stupid.
Now if you want to complain, bitch about the graphics since anything outside of the immediate area is fairly blurry/non-detailed. Granted Square-Enix created the best transition from low to high detail that I've seen in a game but it is still distracting.
Now if you want to complain, bitch about the graphics since anything outside of the immediate area is fairly blurry/non-detailed. Granted Square-Enix created the best transition from low to high detail that I've seen in a game but it is still distracting.
Some facts about FFXV.
1.) This game will never be as good as people hope it is.
2.) This game will either by overly worshiped by RPG fans, or this game will be overly hated by RPG fans.
3.) The game will be worth the price tag, and worth playing to the end at least once. (Even if the only reason is to talk about how much you hate it.)
1.) This game will never be as good as people hope it is.
2.) This game will either by overly worshiped by RPG fans, or this game will be overly hated by RPG fans.
3.) The game will be worth the price tag, and worth playing to the end at least once. (Even if the only reason is to talk about how much you hate it.)
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AladainAF
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I'm not getting hung up on it -- it was specifically mentioned in the video and quite franky, it's stupid for it to be mentioned. This kind of shit gets mentioned constantly in videos from these Japanese publishers. Keep in mind, I'm a rabid JRPG fan, Sean level or greater. I play anything from weaboo cutesy anime girl dating sims to SMT: Devil Saga.. (and Nocturne, holy shit good game!). But this shit is a waste of time and resources and why we get games that are produced well, but executed poorly. Too much focus is being put into things that don't matter. Star Ocean 5 is another great example -- so much emphasis about how great seamless cutscenes and battles and stuff. And yes, it's a great idea, except it was actually executed in the most shit way ever (eg: unskipable cutscenes, and don't get me started on PAs), because they spend too much time on the idea, not the execution.
Sometimes it makes sense and works out: Yoshi had the entire FFXIV dev team load up WoW and said "this is how MMO interfaces should work". That's something that makes sense -- FFXI and other square "pc" games generally had terrible or at best sub-par user interfaces. FFXIV, while not an incredible interface, is far far beyond anything square has done in the past for the PC. Do you know what square was focused on during the original FF14? How "detailed" the levequest "cards" were. That shit was mentioned video after video. So yeah, building a good UI isn't easily explained. So he had them load it up and "feel it". Perfect sense and good use of resources. Having an artist spend an extreme amount of time for something that is basically a quest icon -- not so much.
You don't need to visit a mine in order to know what a mine looks like.
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Malakriss
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Still an improvement over FF13, I played that through exactly once and did not bother with any of the extras.
Wantonsoup95
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