Comments on: Square Enix Discuss The Obstacles Of Developing For High-Definition Platforms

By: Joanna

Joanna — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:23:41 +0000

from what I understood of the discussion was that people were complaining about the lack of a bigger world/towns. You said that while WRPGs do have those they are buggy. Everyone was suggesting (or at least that is what I understood) that these cities/ bigger worlds are so difficult to do because of the graphics/technology. So I was suggesting making weaker games, graphically with bigger worlds and no bugs. Rather then bigger game, better graphics and bugs. Make sense? I think I assumed my jump from bugs to graphics was understood.

By: Joanna_T

Joanna_T — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:23:41 +0000

By: Ereek

Ereek — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:45:51 +0000

I'm not talking about graphics. I'm talking about buggy games.

I don't know if you play a lot of WRPGs, but almost all “big” WRPGs are buggy, a trait that JRPGs don't share. Bethesda is the best known culprit of this, but BioWare is at fault as well. I use those two because they're two “large” companies, like Square. Square's big games are not buggy. In fact, you'd actually have to look for the bugs to actually find them. By just casually playing a Bethesda game you're going to run into a bug. A complete playthrough will give you countless bugs, stuck characters (they don't know how to program their followers. Period), and freezing. BioWare is a bit better, as their bugs happen mostly on quests, but some can be potentially bad.

By: Joanna_T

Joanna_T — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:08:29 +0000

I'd rather have a bigger game with decent graphics, then a smaller game with amazing graphics. But that's just me. I'm still going to pick up FFXIII just to see how the game is, but I won't be picking it up day one. I'll probably wait for a price drop.

By: Aoshi00

Aoshi00 — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:01:15 +0000

I just gave the OST a listen, despite how many feel about the game, I guess all would agree this is a phenomenal soundtrack by Hamauzu. My favorites are “The Sunleth Waterscape” and “Serah's Theme” on disc 2, both are vocal remixes of the track “Promise”, also the chocobo vocal theme was cute. I especially like the character themes of Lightning, Sazh (jazz), and Vanille. I just finished listening to the Episode Zero drama CD, I wish they could have incorporated those scenarios into the actual game somehow (and towns like Team Nora's base, lol), it was quite moving and would've made me care a lot more about the characters. After all, it's these little touches that make the characters come alive you know.. I have a thing for Hope's mom lol :) Kind of short overall, so it would be nice if they record all 3 chapters instead of just the first one, hearing it w/ all the dialogue and sound effect is better than just reading you know… I like Drama CDs, like Magna Carta 2's.

By: Aoshi00

Aoshi00 — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:26:19 +0000

I never thought about it that way, I thought the combat was diverse enough, like there are so many ways to take out a crowd, different guns or grenade, shoot or close quarter combat, use the environment to your advantage (cover system), steal enemies weapons and shields, stealth kills or run and gun, etc, also now they added online multiplayer mode in U2 and Bioshock 2, some value one over the other, I am always fine w/ just single player campaign. I mean that's what it is, Gears and Uncharted are shooters that look like movies (w/ Uncharted having some platforming elements), Megaman is a platformer, SFIV is a fighter, FFXIII is a linear JRPG, Mass Effect is an open ended WRPG. Just that even w/in that mold, XIII is a weak JRPG, because they pretty much took out the essences of what makes a good RPG, for one reason or another, be it sloppiness/negligence, developer's skills levels, poor design choice, time/budget constraint, seems here everybody has their views. I really lean toward complacency, like S-E thinks graphics and combat are good enough, throwing out the towns wouldn't affect the quality or the gameplay experience, or time constraint that they had the desire to do so but the game had to be rushed out 80% finished.

By: Jirin

Jirin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:37:28 +0000

Offering a cinematic experience certainly isn't bad. Just, I get the feeling in games like Gears of War/Uncharted I'm just being dropped in a place and led by the nose through a linear path, with stuff to shoot at showing up every once in a while. The gameplay is entirely driven by the plot, whereas the gameplay should be the core of the experience, and the plot should be extra.

By: Aoshi00

Aoshi00 — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:58:37 +0000

Personally I dont think there's anything wrong w/ the old school method of story telling, or the traditional turn based battle system. Lost Odyssey by Sakaguchi was great and as I mentioned before I thought of it as practically being FFXI. Kaim, Seth, Jensen, etc are all interesting and memorable. I think the main problem for JRPG is the Western audience who enjoyed the PS/PS2 era of RPGs have shrunk in general, and is very niche now. It's not a popular genre, but the FF brand still carries a lot of weight because of the success established by the previous installments. If they do something like FFXII by making it more MMO-like catering to the West, the Jpn audience would not like it which was what happened, nobody there liked gambits. I mean look at DQ IX, it's pretty much the same thing design wise (Toriyama art, Sugiyama music) and gameplay wise, no drastic changes and people gobbled it up, because they think that's the essence of the Dragon Quest series. W/ Sakaguchi gone though, I think the identity of FF (mostly the human touch, as corny as that theme sounds) has been lost w/ the series being taken into all sorts of direction, XI online, XII MMO-like, XIII being X-Lite w/ no towns, XIV being online II, it's like all sorts of different games even w/in the flagship series, not even counting the CC or Tactics spinoffs.

I like FF 1-10 because they were that sort of game, even though the settings may range from medieval fantasy to futuristic, but they all told a good story (well, the NES ones were more primitive) and have memorable characters, we might not think that because we are all older now. Frankly I have to say right now I'm looking forward to Sakaguchi's Last Story more than XIII Versus, 14 , or what they're cooking up for 15. I remember I used to look forward to every new FF that comes out, but not anymore (I still do but found myself disappointed by 12 & 13 now). If you asked gamers who have grown up playing FF I'm sure they probably feel the same.

I don't think it's fair to ask a JRPG to emulate elements from other titles because they are essentially different genres, Heavy Rain being an thriller/adventure game. Choices are good like in Mass Effect 2, but JRPGs were never really about choices in the first place. Story was pretty much set like a book, what's important is how it is "presented", and Lost Odyssey did a bang up job, even though it did "cheat" w/ the novellas, they were beautifully written though, not like the bland summaries here in XIII.

Not sure what m point is anymore haha.. but the conclusion is that XIII is just underwhelming in many respects. Linear is fine if it's done correctly, like MGS4, you don't get to go anywhere, but it was a story well done even if it's a little Kojima kind of over the top. But here the main problem is there is no immersion factor. There are very few JRPGs that I can say I don't care about the characters at all.

By: badmoogle

badmoogle — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:29:58 +0000

No i haven't played the game yet (only the demo),but i can see your point.
From what i've seen and read so far (while trying to stay away from spoilers) i can't say that i'll be interested in the plot and characters.

But my point is that the linear structure and the focus on story may have been great 10 years ago but i don't think it's the way forward.There were many things i didn't liked in FFXII but i think it's design is more towards the right direction than say,FFX (even though personally i liked FFX more.)

I think SE should try and find new ways to tell their stories by playing more with the medium's strengths rather than weaknesses.
For example the developers of Heavy Rain found a unique way to combine the strengths of video games with traditional movie storytelling and managed to make the story itself "open ended".And when you have an open ended story i imagine that it will be difficult for people saying "i didn't liked the plot" when your choices play so big a role.
Another different example is the way Team Ico tells their stories.Again it's hard to find someone saying he didn't liked the story in Ico or SotC.

I'm not saying that SE should copy the storytelling style of the games i mentioned,but i think they should at least rethink and re evaluate the ways of conventional storytelling if they want their games (and stories) to appeal to as many people as possible.I always thought of SE as a company that is willing to take risks and try new things so maybe the polarized reactions regarding FFXIII may finally ring some alarm bells.

By: Aoshi00

Aoshi00 — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:15:45 +0000

I don't know, the pacing and character development are kind of screwy in FFXIII. If Toriyama wanted to tell a good story w/ good characters, then he didn't do a good job of that either. In fact I feel even less for them than I do the chars in XII, and that's saying a lot. I'm not sure if you've played the game yet, but the way the story is told is very shallow, the background of the characters are spotty at best. I loved FFX to death, X-2 was fun, XII I'm mixed because the license board was a pain in the neck and it was just too much MMO-like, and I don't like MMOs. Problem is that the same audience who liked X do not like XIII now, I still remember fondly Tidus, Yuna, Wakka, Rikku, Auron, and Kimahri, and probably wouldn't forget them in the years to come, but sadly I can't say the same about Lightning, Snow, Fang, Hope, Vanille, and Sazh. Sazh is probably the only interesting character and even then he's still not that deep... If you think the main chars are bad, wait till you see what happen to the bad dudes (you know the spiky hair general dude and librarian glasses chick) who were featured so prominently in the trailer, you would never have guessed. I dont' want to spoil, but it's pathetic (people seem to have a hard time believing me.. I don't blame them, I refused to trust the reviews either, but they were all true) I can't imagine how Versus is going to be, like a modern J-pop boy band or something...

Again, I didn't want to think they were lazy either, but getting rid of the towns is a huge mistake. I thought for sure I was going to like the game, because it looked like a combination of VIII and X in design, and a bit of X-2 and Xenosaga 2 when it comes to its battle system. If I'm not mistaken, I think this is one of the least liked FFs, well FXII in Jpn too because they didn't like MMOs as much as the West.

By: badmoogle

badmoogle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:57:28 +0000

Personally i never thought that they were being "sloppy",if there's one thing i can give to SE is that they are always striving to reach the highest standards of quality in their games.And i wouldn't say that FFXIII's game design was a "good" or "bad" choice.
It was just a choice,a choice to aim for a movie-like experience that flows smoothly and with as few interruptions as possible.I don't believe that technical difficulties determined the design of the game because to put it simply that's not like the Square Enix we know.
I believe that Toriyama and his team concsiously decided to recreate the success of FFX.
However this kind of game design is a double edged sword IMO.It can work extremely well if you happen to like the story and characters (like i did with FFX) but if you don't happen to like them then the game can become very boring no matter how good the battle system may be.
On the other hand if you have a more open-ended design,with lots of exploration,sidequests and mini games,in the end you may end up enjoying the game even if you don't care about the story and characters.That was the case for me (and many others) with FFX-2 and FFXII.
Toriyama gambled with the design of FFXIII when he decided to focus on the story and characters so he should at least stay by his choice IMO.

Also if we are to believe what Toriyama says is true,then we must assume that Versus will also be full of corridors and have no towns,something that i find very hard to believe.
If anything from a couple of (blurry) screens that we have seen so far from Versus,there are indications that at least it will have an overworld.

By: Ereek

Ereek — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:01:47 +0000

They make open world games, but many are glitchy as hell. Just for fun, look at the Oblivion or Fallout wiki. On some pages there's more space devoted to “bugs” than there is actual information on quests and areas to explore. This isn't limited to Bethesda either, a lot of western companies have this problem. Dragon Age -not even open world -has its fair share of glitches and bugs too.

SE has a good QA department at the very least. I'd rather have a smaller game without the bugs and glitches.

By: Aoshi00

Aoshi00 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:42:02 +0000

At first I thought S-E was just being "sloppy" or it's bad design choice, if that's the case, then it's a very poor decision since I felt they have pulled out all the stops for all previous main FFs up until now, and this one shouldn't be an exception. I'm not sure if these are excuses, maybe they are, I'm no expert on programming and development cost, but I can't fathom how much some extra towns would cost, I thought they were too lazy to write dialogues for the NPCs too. Maybe like MisterNiwa mentioned, this is S-E's first next gen game (but then the LO team had an even worse hurdle w/ Unreal Engine code being written in English).. If it's not a money issue, then it's most likely a time issue. Because like I said, the team was probably forced to make this Dec 2009 deadline, and maybe they could use another half year or a year. Also since they are doing mulitple XIII games, like this, Versus, and Agito, maybe resources are spread further thin too?

At any rate, this is very disappointing, since obviously this game should have much more but don't, for one reason or another.

By: MisterNiwa

MisterNiwa — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:19:10 +0000

Hey but you gotta understand! Its their first PS3 game! And they just do DS or PSP games, which are still last gen Graphic so they arent really familiar with that!
Square Enix is a special case, dont forget that!

As if, because THEY ARE Square Enix, we should think they would do something like this in no time.
But nooooo, they need to suck, once more.

By: badmoogle

badmoogle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:59:06 +0000

"Also, tying in the fact that it was made for 360 as well as PS3 doubled their work."

But it also doubled (or tripled) their budget.;)

Honestly i think FFXIII is the outcome of design choices rather than budget and time constrains.
The people responsible for these choices should be brave enough to stand by them rather than hiding behind lame excuses.
I think they own it to the people who worked so hard under their orders to make the game as good as possible.