@kalosn Yeah, but I was just trying to say, it's not just that it looks better and allows for more variety, but maybe even more importantly, it should cause less effort for developers.
While scalability is always a major aspect with Unreal Engine, I would not expect much in terms of Switch UE5 games. So, first of all remember that it is going to be a while, like 2022 at least I wager, before we will see games taking advantage of this on next-gen consoles. So even assuming it's possible to bring one of these games over to the Switch, that will take some time on top of that 2022 window. Assuming it's possible, because even with scalability there are four things here:
1st, this was a 1440p demo running in 30fps on PS5. The gap between PS5 and Switch is ... huge and in terms of the SSD, there is no gap, just different galaxies really.
2nd, Nanite seems to scales with resolution like there is no tomorrow. That might proof to be a ... challenge with a system designed resolutions from -soon- two generations ago.
3rd, I assume that all these assets will make from some very hefty space requirements. That is of course not just an issue with Switch, with theoretical support up to 2TB, but still something to keep in mind.
4th, UE5 will not be the best engine for any game. Simple as that. For many different reasons dev might want to stick with other engines for their projects that might be due to the game being on Switch, but also entirely irrespective of that.
I really enjoyed the show, as basically all the stuff del Toro is involved this, but licensed stuff is still ... pretty worthless honestly. There have been a few exceptions, but if I had to wager, I'd say it's best to just forget about.
I'm tired of reading "Dark Souls" everywhere. One defining aspect of Souls is the quality of it's art direction, world building and level design, the way these aspects excell individually and yet make for a cohesive whole. That is not just one marginal aspect of the experience, it's one of the core tenets of these games.
How many "Souls-likes" can offer anything even in the same general vicinity on a cosmic scale? Right, close to none. Few exceptions like Hollow Knight aside, most games are perfeclty fine copying the basic gameplay loop and call it a day. That can still make for fun moments, but calling it Souls-like is doing the actual Souls games more of a disservice by the day.
I wonder how many folks never played a Souls game, but only (cheaper) Souls-likes of one variety or another, and who will thus never know that there is so much more beauty to a Miyazaki game than just the underlying gameplay loop. Kinda breaks my heart.
Not really surprising, given the state of affairs, but still a tough pill to swallow for everyone involved with these huge events. We shouldn't forget that there are thousands of people whose livelihood is dependent on these big conventions happening. Still, it is the only reasonable decision to make right now.
That aside, I do hope the online event will be worth it. The Xbox "gameplay reveal" yesterday was a real disappointment in terms of ... well, next-gen gameplay being shown. I do not expect the rest of the year to play out the same way, but let's just say that it made for anything but not a stellar first impression. There is still the 1st-party Xbox reveal in July, which should be alot more enticing. We are also going to get Summer Games Fest and Playstation will also have some kind of big event in the near'ish future (I expect within the next 4 weeks).
@Krull I was actually first and foremost also thinking of SMT V. Thinking back on how SMTxFE was announced and then went awol for years, I am not too worried about the project moving forward in general, but by now it would really be nice to have an honest-to-god sign of life being provided. TGS seems like the best avenue for that, outside of an E3-style Nintendo Direct, which is apparently not happening this year
@nimnio I was about to argue that IGN's list is invalid, but then I realized that we are talking about IGN and the year 2000 no less. Hence I rest my case.
PS: For posterity though ... any such list that does neither feature Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Rogue Squadron, Wave Race 64 nor Conker's Bad Fur Day is wrong. 11 out of 10 scientists agree with that statement.
Well, I'd like to see things like the squad management improvements from PC being brought over to the console version for instance. I already played the 1st one to death of course on PC, but the games are good enough to warrant those half a dozen playthroughs.
Anybody remembering MK: Shaolin Monks? I do and I want more of it! Hell, I'll take a port to Switch to boot. It's a PS2 game, so it should be utterly doable. Make it happen!
@Razmoudah As for Marvel, well, I'm used to reading these story arcs that extend over the course of months, spread between 100s of individual isses, released across a dozen or more different series using release guides to boot, but .. that is not something that has mainstream appeal. I feel people got as much consecutive storytelling with 2 or 3 movies a year as they could handle. To call it condensed is a bit of understatement. In fact, we will soon see how all of this pans out once Disney+ starts demanding you have seen hundreds of hours of their Marvel shows to be able to really keep up with the latest movie releases. Then we might be getting close to testing how willing the audience is to keep up here. I am not quite sure what you mean by "secondary parts", but small details falling by the wayside is the nature of the beast here with only so many 2h+ movies being made to deliver on particular narrative string and a lot of on-the-fly retooling being necessary to account for e.g. Spider-Man being in (and out again, and then in again), the deal with Fox bringing certain Mutants in, then the Fox Merger ... upheavals with certain key players like James Gunn.
SOme movies doing better than expected, demanding a stronger focus for the future. GoG is not a huge deal in the comics. Ever since Operation Galactic Strom, which is still one of my favourite event ever, I've been a huge fan of the Cosmic Marvel Universe. I'm still waiting to see that made in to a movie event btw, particularly I want to see Quasar on the big screen! Anyways, that is still somewhat an outlier within the comics. It was in no way clear that GoG would be that big a success and a key movie franchise for Marvel. Personally, I love the GoG movies, they are easily my favourites out of the bunch by any margin.
Then you have actors that want to renegotiate because they realize that their worth has increased by an order of magnitude within years ... Accounting for all for all of that, things have to be flexible. I think that is the reason most studios shied away from doing these decade-plus long narrative experiments.
As for Corona, yeah, no doubt there. It's going to stick with us for at least another 18+ months. Expect a second wave to hit later this year before a vaxine can even start mass production. That is assuming of course, that the virus is not going to mutate into something more nasty or combine itself with material from other viruses within some host. Some of the poorest and least protected populations on the planet have not yet been hit at all. There are, without being cynical, billions of hosts out there, that have not been infected, that will get infected over the course of the next year or so and that have the potential to be the wellspring of the next evolution of the disease.
It's impossible to get that particular curse back into Pandora's box.
@Razmoudah That's the beauty of these 1st-party and partnership games though, they do not have to be economically feasible on their own. To me, that is really the underlying reason many of these games are so appealing. They do not suffer from the same creative constraints about every other type of content does. That said many of them end up being economically viable on their own of course. Halo Infinite can totally loose dozens of millions of dollars ... so long as it sells Series X to early adopters that get the train going. It will in all likelihood make it's investment back and then some though.
For jRPGs the story is typically different. The market is smaller, tastes are harder to pin down, so outside of some very big studios with strong name/brad recognition like Square with FF, it is ... lacking in prudence, let's say, to make a game that is operates on a truly epic scale as well as one that is in any significant way experimental, be it mechnical or narrative-wise.
I dunno, I think the Japanese industry is in a tough spot there. Games get more costly to make, the domestic market is hardly growing (absolutely not in regards to the revenue vis-a-vis the costs) and the formula in use were outdated a long time ago, with limited appeal in outside markets.
I'm very curious to hear what Mistwalker would have done without that support from Microsoft. Would they even exist? Would they have gone straight to mobile or handheld games? It would have been utterly irresponsible to make a game like LO - which would have been a do-or-die-project right out of the gate.
Sony doesn't really have to bother with all of this. For many of these developers, despite digital platforms on PC and maybe the Switch these days, it still their "lifeboat" of sorts to the west. Bringing a game to Steam is dandy and all, but that market is gigantic. Each games runs the risk of being drowned out out within days of it's release. PC porting is also not an easy task and not something that pays dividends domestically, plus not something Japanese devs have had grad technical success in the past general.
In other words, Sony can feel confident that if there is a Persona game being made, it will show up on their system. They might even have enough clout there to keep it as an exclusive forever without much effort.
@Razmoudah The way you put and the way I remember it, it ought to have been WKCI then Yeah, bittersweet is a good fit for describing the ending and really most of the show. I really dug it. hell, I really dug his take on Godzilla, which was just plain weird and out there, but with a great oppressive mood and some unique ideas thrown in. Not perfect, but a fun watch, something done differently with the material to some decent effect.
I agree about Apple, but the funny part is, being reasonably priced would hurt them, I think. They would have to compete on margin, and that would run counter to their image, which is competing on their own brand on obsinate uniqueness. It seems to work them, so more power to them. I had one Macbook in my life and while I liked working with XCode, I still felt no further desire to stick with MacOS. Of course, the way Xbox is now integrated into Windows, running OS is an unfeasible proposition once more as a gamer, not that it was ever really feasib in the 1st place. Bootcamp is also annoying and yeah ... my sis is an Apple person though, through and through, but then again, she can afford it so why not - rather run 4K OLEDs and mutiple gaming platforms than having an $500 smartwatch I never use!
As for Japan, I would theorize by virtue of hindisight that the interference of Microsft resulted in the games we got. Otherwise LO might have felt like FFXIII - or possibly more like it? I'm okay with just three FFXIII experinces on 360 though Maybe as you say, it was just the way the could now talk creative risks they could not take before? LO really makes me wonder time and time again. It's just such a lavish game, money thrown at the screen at every turn, such grand ambition ... nothing like that existed outside of FFXIII back then. Maybe Ni No Kuni, but that was build on an entirely different technical premise, which I feel came much cheaper.
In terms of DC and Marvel ... the movies are doing fine in Japan from what I can tell, so I am not all taht sure that the narratives are the deal breaker as the movies do a good job of emulating the narrative strains of the comic - condensed and less opaque to newcomers, sure, but otherwise not all that dissimilar.
Stay safe out there, the news coming out of the states are still very scary. You guys really had some bad luck as far as timing goes. Trump is really doing his utmost to **** all of this up.
About Neptunia, I actually looked into it once more yesterday, since that and Fairy Fencer are like $5 or something. But I couldn't quite bring myself to it. Like, the reviews are as rough as during the PS3 era and just watchting two like 10 minute Youtube reviews for each (like Dark Advent and N:VIIR) just turned me off once again for all reasons. I don't think I can relate to anything that goes on screen. Neptunia in particular just strikes me as a child of Japanse daytime TV, which from the small sampling I partook, is loud and shrill and really an assault on the senses with mostly senseless interjections and panels reacting to frigging reaction panels, reacting to some gameshow shenanigans. It's silly and not really in that genuinely playful manner I can deal with.
One question though, how do feel about Tales of BERSERIA? It's literally only 8€ on the Eu store, and I actually read some good things about. Having not really loved the series outside of Symphonia, Vesperia and Eternal Sonata of course, will it work for me you think? Its alot darker and mature with some stronger character writing I hear and decent Voice Acting. I feel I should give it a try, beyond the demo I tried, which was okay, but has little story input of course. I tihnk I'll pick it up.
It's just running Vagrant Story for instance on my TV doesn't work. It looks truly unbearable. Since every pixel is stretched beyond recongnition. It's okay on the Vita screen, but at 4k (also the issue of 4:3 of course), it's actually looking bad. THese are things that should be adressed by emulation in 2020. I feel that you really do not have to be a graphics whore for thinking that PSX era 3D graphics hold up purely. 2D assests with strong art direction typically fair better. My all time favourite Baldurs Gate 2 is still very much playable these days.
Even if we could move beyond the Uncanny Valley, and I think we will, just looking at what can already be acomplised with machine learning, photorealism leaves no room for artistic impression. Something is either photorealistic or it is not.
As for Operation Darkness, you must be definitely thinking about a different game. It does not get mch more interesting in terms of alternative history than that game. Like I said it's basically Hellsing, with some Hellboy inspired characters thrown in for good measure like Cordelia Blake aka Liz. There is also a rich cast of historical Nazi figures you rarely see actually portrayed like Rommel, Himmler and Hitler himself. It's neat to see a game not shy away from this. And yes, mixing tiger tanks with werewolfs, dragons and vampires and magic and bazookas is just as fun as it sounds. You literally cannot go wrong with that.
@Razmoudah It's really impressive work on a technical level as well, having that PowerPC code run on X86, and it runs better. It did not in the beginning, but they worked tirelessly on it. Some games received liek a dozen backwardscompabiltiy-patches. Like ... imagine that, they were doing it for free and never stoped improving on it, going backs to older releases and bringing those up to snuff with stuff they learned with current ones. I still think it's one of the most consumer friendly and technological imrpessive efforts in gaming conservation done to that, definitely by a commercial player. What they did for FFXIII was absolutely unprecented. I still maintain that there is no other scenario where this would not have been done -> released and repacked and sold as a remaster. They were just doing it for free.
As someone with a deep appreciation for gems like LO and Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery, I really appreciatd that effort.
I have long critized Microsoft for their handling of Microsoft Studios. Rare is an obvious example, but it goes beyond that . Bungie leaving is another, the aforementioned cancellation of their cooperation with Platinum Games. It's a long list of things gone very wrong due to poor management. And it cost them dearly as well, as it should. I still have hopes that they are turning the ship around. THey bought so many new studios .... we have to wait and see. I would love for those 360 days of exclusive jRPG content to come back. I'd love to see them partner with From Software for their own take on Souls. Competition is a good thing.
I am very curious to see what they are doing with PS5. Xbox has a huge lead by now despite Sony being a strong supporter for BWC even with the 1st gen PS3, with basically were a PS2 as well before we got software emulation and then nothing. Microsoft has moved far beyond mere faithful emulation a long time ago though, as I described, really upgrading legacy content to make it worthwhile with modern displays, ironing out performance dips and such.
I think, not having played FFXIV before, that is all stuff I can deal with and I am glad to hear the controllers actually provide benefits here. It's more convient than KB+M on the couch. It's also free of any movement penality when using the triggers, which ought to come in handy with FFXIV. That's interesting, but I do not plan to go back to TOR, definitely not for PvP - ben there dan that, so to speak ^^
I actually tried watching some of the Persona anime stuff, but didn't end up liking it. Dunno why really, it's just ... boring to me. Maybe due to having played the games, I cannot say really. It's just not as engaging an experience, not at all. Might be that Golden leans more heavily into upbeat characters and stuff, I do have the original P4 as a PS3 classic but never felt the need to play it, since everyone and their mom agreed that "Golden" was the definitive version and the best reason to own a Vita (argueably that is Muramasa Rebirth the most beautiful game ever created - argueably ^^).
@Razmoudah I can see that, linear TV has too many issues. I still kinda of watch public german television, for political discussions and news reports and such, since I consider it a good source, being publicaly funded and all, but not for entertainment purpose at all. German TV is the worst, and I hate german localizations anyways. I moved to watching my TV shows and movies in English almost half my life ago, in fact, I would often pay premiums going to theater farther away so I can see OV runs of new movies!
Also really help bring up my grades in English class + spending hundreds of hours playing Line Age 2 on US servers, chatting my fingers off -> having to learn to a) type and b) learn the damn language, before moving to voice chat. Funny story: one of my Professors once asked me where I learned my English (he felt he detected a Californian accent of all things ^^) and once I told him that story, he laughed out loud and told me, that he can relate, he got much of his language proficiency from watching Cartoons as a kid!
I didn't have an Xbox One at launch. It was a joke a complete laughing stock. Actually, I got one for game like Scalebound and Phantom Dust Remake, which were both sadly canceled. Which would have been enough for me to get rid of it. Alas, I really enjoyed the system for other reasons at that point. Forza Horizon 2 had turned the series from dont-care-go-away to a series I deeply enjoy. Halo and Gears provided the best coop shooting experience there is, as they probably always have and like I laid out before, I am not annoyed using the Xbox One, unlike the PS4.
Things came to a tipping point with Xbox One X, which was just ... better for anything outside of the PS4 exclusives. So I moved my 3rd party gaming there almost entirely. For instance, the system is silent. My PS4 Pro playing God of War forced me use headphones. That never happened to me before in all my gaming time. Hell, Mark Cerney adressed that even in this "Road to PS5"-talk. The system would for some games peform like an airplane turbine. It was ... beyond the plae for a new $400 device.
Backwards compability is an amazing feature on Xbox One. It's what I most look forward to with Series X as well. I salviate at the notion of getting to play Dead Space 1/2 or Resident Evil Remake or all the Final Fantasy in 4K/HDR. Like truly, that is gonna upgrade these games to remaster status for free basically. It is insane what they are doing. They are already running Xbox games at native 4x resolution. Performance is consistnetly better, load times are better (huge deal for a game like Lost Odyssey, which is now 50% more enjoyable and adding SSD and HDR to that, will pretty much make it a complete package.). As a piece of hardware, the build quality of the X1 is superior to the PS4. I have no hard data on the failure rate, put my PS4 harddrive actually corrupted causing loss of some savegames, I had not MANUALLY uploaded yet. I won't say that is representative though, still the X1X is smaller, ALOT more silent and provides more power. No way around that.
@Razmoudah I share accounts with my best friend on all my platforms, so we can access each others games. It's cool because we have similar taste but also some different preferences, so I get exposed to games, I might otherwise skip. And of course, it makes sense for coop games, like Halo, Gears, and so on to only have to buy them once, splitting the cost. The thing is, the X1 in the MS store shows me when I can install a game I have not bought, thus effectively telling me it's on the other activated account. On Ps4? I have to log unto my buddies account and manually check (just as I have to manually upload my saves, uninstall games to make room and so on and so forth). I actually missed that he had already bought SO The Last Hope, so now I have 3 copies (360 and 2x PS4 )
I have a bunch of complaints, to many to list. Like for instance, the search function in the browser version is horrible. It only lists EXACT matches. It's pretty much less typo-agnostic than google was 2 whole decades ago. It's an embarassement in 2020 really.
I do kinda agree about the PS4 Pro. The same way I was and still hankering for a Switch Pro with that atrocious screen of theirs. I mean, that's harsh, it is not horrible, it is just a cheap LCD screen and I have moved beyond these with all of my devices but my 3DS. It's always a dismay to have to go back to that. Like someone threw clouds up, obstructing the sun, making everything look just one whole step more dull and depressing really. BUt what can you do ...
I am a bit concerend about storage for the PS5 and XS1. I think PS5 might have an leg up there long term, even though at launch, it will be hard to get anything to expand storage. I do have noticed though that the PSN speed, which have historically always been bad for me, seem to have improved over the last 2 years or so. I can more consistently get 100mbits. I have a Gigabit connection like I said, but both consoles are still on 100mbit wired connections, so more is not really possible outside of Wireless, which only provides better speeds in theory. Anyways, Xbox has been hitting 90 to 100 mbits consistenly, which makes downloading of anything under 100 Gb not much of an issue, so given these circumstances, I am more relaxed in terms of getting my games on the fly and being okay with onl a bunch of them installed at the same time. I might upgrade to gigabit wired for the next gen and then it might not matter whether I have a game stored on an external HDD or whether I am download it (so the latter wil be more eco firendly of course).
@Razmoudah Well sure, there were plenty of hacks, but frankly not on that scale. Almost 80 million accounts were compromised and it took them a while to tell folks. Also, the entirety of the system was down for over three weeks. That time alone accounts for more offline time by several orders of magnitude than I experienced in using Xbox for the last 12 years or so. It's not something I would compare at all, unless Microsoft has been covering up an hack of historical proporitions for a while now. My personal experience here is of course only anecdotal in nature, but the last weeks as well as 2011 definitely inform my feelings toward PSN; as well as the objective lack of features and/or quality of said features (like voice chat etc.). It's just natural as well, because Microsoft was ahead of the curve there, pushing this kind of online platform.
I generally loath credit information being stored anywhere, so I either use PayPal or as with both Sony and Microsoft, I use prepaid cards from Amazon - which I gotta trust by necessity of convenience. Microsoft is running the second biggest cloud service out there behind Amazon, and they might actually be considered more popular and growing faster. I'm just saying that they can afford and definitely have some of the best software engineers working for them that literally money can buy. That does not make them immune to anything, but still a major target, but at least it's an era that they have competency in as one of the most succesful tech company in history. Sony is hardly a tech company, it's an electronic and entertainment one and it's hard to oversell how poorly implemented even basic secure measures were going back to the 2011 hack. It was just an embarrasement. They were not outsmart by some high profile group or anything. They invited anyone who happened to stumble on their outdated Avalanche server to wreak some real havoc and harm. In short, it was their fault for not even remotely doing their due diligence. No one is perfect, but that does excuse negligence.
I was talking about the X1 actually. I barely use the 360 as 90% of my games for it are on X1 and play actually better. I think though, that the OS of the 360 was okay for the time, no worse than the PS3, even though I felt the PS3 looked more appealing. In terms of functionality, I definitely and vastly prefer the Xbox One for features that bother offer as well as stuff only the Xbox One even bothers with.
I'd be down for Baten Kaitos most of all. Skies of Arcadia Legend is always welcome as an evergreen.
Don't really care about Skyward Sword and Windwaker HD. Both are fine on WiiU and I am not sure what the Switch would really add. I'm not against ports here, I just don't see any immediate need or huge benefit. Who is really into Zelda games but hasn't played either one yet? Everyone and their Mom had a Wii, and hence could play both games.
Xenoblade X I can see. It was kinda of wasted as a WiiU exclusive, I get that. Not sure I would buy it again, but I just might at some point.
I'd really love to see a FE PoR/RD collection on top of that. Should be easy enough to get these GC/Wii games, which went largely unnoticed by the general public back then, unto the Switch.
Invisible Inc. is one indie I realy miss on the Switch, would be a great fit, too. But frankly, portbegging is so whatever.
What are folks going to do next year, when the system gap becomes gargantuan? Go nuts about Cyberpunk citing Witcher 3 (a game that started development in during the Wii era back in 2011...)?
Had never heard of the game, but having just seen the trailer ... it's tragic if a game's budget runs so thin that it just covers like 2D assests and the 3D execution has to run on fumes
@Xansies Haha true that, but whether this is a good thing is a different question entirely, I feel. There is nothing wrong with consistency of course, then again I liked that neither of the three games felt really all THAT same'y. Mostly though, like I said, it's an overused aesthetic. It's just nice to tell games apart by looking at the characters, without knowing the characters - just by style so to speak. Not a big deal though, and you are probably right about wanting to stick closer to XBC2 - on the same system no less.
@Razmoudah Well, I would argue objectively: no. First off, PSN Hack! - nuff said basically. But no, that aside, just earlier this month, I tried to play Nioh 2 with 2 friends. No dice on PSN before midnight, at least one of us would definitely drop out of the game and/or PSN party chat randomly. We moved to playing AFTER midnight - it was the only option. No such issues on Xlive, during all those weeks. Things got better last week, but early April, it was broken for us. We are living in the same city and are running 100mbit at the low end and 1Gigabit at the top end as far as connections go ...
It's only the tip of the iceberg though. PSN limits what you can do, e. g. in terms of automatic save-game backups, when your account is not "primary". Xbox does not give a **** about that, or if you even have Gold. It just automatically backs your stuff up, and shares it - no problem - between X360 and X1 and I assume Series X.
To be frank though, I never had anyone argue in good faith, that PSN is better, hell, this clearly extend to the PS OS a well. I love my PS4 for it's games, not for it's super ***** Operating System and "okay"-Network. Anyone who says different: Does not use Xbox, has had really bad luck or is just flat-out lying.
I was installing Last Hope the other day. What do I do to install it? Randomly deletin other stuff, I no longer need, until it downloads. Xbox tells you, that the game is too big, how much space you need, it takes you too a menu, where you can pick stuff and "fill the bar" of storage you need. It even recommends stuff, that takes up a lot of space and is rarely used. It shows you DLC/Addons that are orphaned, due to the "main" application no longer being installed. It let's you remove 4K assests to save space from certain games.
The list just goes on and on. The one thing I really like about PS4 here: SHARE PLAY. RIght off the top of my head, that is the only thing, that I think is really unique and/or works better on PS4. PS4 caught up in some areas, like voice chat does not longer make you sound like voice acting extra for a 90s slasher movie, like it used to, but it's still not better than Xlive.
Laptops are tricky. I am at this point myself, I have a pretty new Dell XPS, but it only has "1060" in it. Back then, I figured that was enough for the stuff I play on Laptop, really only Steam indie games, stuff like Slay the Spire an such. It works okay to that end. My Desktop is 10+ years old, and I have no bothered to update it. It's basically my Datacenter, and that is it. Unfortunately, my mainboard, I pressume, the BIOS chip, is dying. On top of that, I've been fooling around with Machine-Learing stuff for Videoupscaling recently. I really like some of the results, scaling up older anime/cartoon favourites that never went beyond DVD quality (or really poor multipleDVDonOneBluRay releases). The results can be pretty amazing actually. Unfortunately, I can only run that on my laptop and the "1060" hits only the minimal requirement, with each frame taking about 6-8 seconds to render. If you multiplay that by 30p/24p depending on the content and that by 24 minutes per episode ... well, it takes more than a day to render out a single episode. A day where the device is basically occupied.
I am think of either replacing my Desktop, or ... buying an old 1080 ti and an eGPU enclosure. That would dramatically increase the speed of that all to a point where "re-rendering" entire seasons becomes kinda feasible as a long-term project. RIght now, it is just me fooling and experimenting with stuff. Interesting, but without actual usability.
Anyways you say, is pretty true. I do think so, that on the CPU side, there could have been rather signfiicant performance upgrades be done, without blowing the cost out of the water. Especially for PS4 Pro at the time. And yeah, if they had been okay with a $600 machine plus some loss per system, a lot more could have been done with the vanilla system as well. Tech was there, but not at the kind of price Sony was look for!
I barely watch any TV anymore, but the advertisements are always loud and often TOO loud. It is pretty obnoxious. I think many TVs do have similar features though, definitely most Audio-Video-Receivers. If you get a new TV, really make sure you get a "proper" HDR-capable one, not just one that is labeled like that. I can be done with $1000 upwards for a small current-gen device. Less, if it's a last-year device or smaller than 55". There are not many TVs that can deliver "proper" HDR (the kind of contrast that creates a life-like picture) under 55" though. I would personally never ever go back to LCD from OLED. Maybe MicroLED or something one day, but here and now, there is no beating that infinite static contrast radio. Infinite because OLED can provide 0 cd/m pixel, which makes the whole fraction shoot for infinite, no matter what the actual brightness is. The human eye sees in contrasts, which in a nutshell, is why OLED looks so stunning right out of the box. OLED also has the best pixel response time outside of legacy technology like CRT and Plasma.
As for Sega, I think it was just the fact, that they couldn't support it. At least that is my assumption. Pushing out the Dreamcast, preparing to support that, most likely took all their ressources (and them some ^^). I still think that they did not have much of a choice. The N64 and PSX were strong competitors. I remember getting a VHS Demo Reel from a toy store as a kid with stuff like Star Fox 64 footage on it among others. Boy ... oh boy was I blown away. I pestered my parents relentless into getting me one. I doubt I would have had any interest in a Saturn at that point no matter what they had running on it!
I agree about the BWCs there, as major thrid party support was most unlikey in that Saturn scenario at that point in history. Generally, that is a good point to keep in mid. I was thinking about this just yesterday:
So we talked about Final Fanasty XIII on the Xbox360, right? Were you aware, that all the XIII series is running on Xbox One? On XBX you almost get a native 4K picture and a very steady 30fps. That is not the clue here though, Microsoft did sometihng unprecedented. They took the pre-rendered Videos from the PS3 blu-ray version, reencoded them and patched them into the Backwardscompatible release for XIII. They upgraded the core assests of this game A DECADE after release. If anyone thought, that over at Microsoft noone cared about games, or that they simply do not listen ... well, SOMEONE very much seems to care, because that is not normally the stuff you see companies do for COMPLETELY FREE. It's basically a remaster, since they also scaled up the 2D UI elements.
ANyways, meanwhile I am playing Vagrant Story on my Vita and I wonder: Why can my PS4 not play even PSX games? Even PS3 only "plays" them, even if it could easily render them a much higher internal resolution and apply all kind of post-processing filtering to make it look sharper on a modern TV. I do not expect for PS4 to run Cell-Cpu-PS3 games, but PSX and PS2 games.... YES, I did expect them to run at native 1080p no problem. What does Sony do though? They release a couple of dozens of old PS2 games - and sell them to you again, with 00000 legacy support for old cusomters, while also leaving literally 1000s of classic games in the dust.
This baffles me to this day. Sony has one of the richest software libraries of any Platform Holder for anything ever. They just pretend it does not exist. Even Nintendo, NINTENDO!, puts more effort into services like these. How hard could it have been to bring an emulator like PCSX2 to the PS4 after some fashion. They engineers have access to everything .. stuff the rest of us needs to reverse-engineer. That is just such bull**** if you ask me. ANd it hurts my souls, becasue if Vagrant Story looked like a half-way modern game, and it's is COMPLETELY rendered in 3D, so everything can be up-rendered, even though obviously the texturs would still be shoddy, more people would be likely to bother with it even today. But oh well, Sony is doing so good with Ps4, they do not need to bother with anything that happened before.
I'll blow a casket if PS5, a system powerful enough to emulate multiple PS2 games at 4K at the same time, will not feature any kind of legacy features for PSX and PS2 (never mind PS3, I tihnk I established that I could not care any less for a systems library than I do for the PS3).
That's interesting about the changes in FFXIV. I read some stuff, and it seems that people are kind split. I'm not deep enough into it, to really make that much sense of it, or how it really affects particular classes and actual gameplay. As for TOR, I definitely played that, yeah. Good to know, that this is similar in structure. Storytelling, while not perfect given the unique constraints of an MMORPG, was still one of the games strongest suits. Still is, it's still running after all.
Personally, I really enjoyed the PvP in TOR. Like in principle, we had a very active guild in that regard, with some veteran players like myself and it was a good time. Unfortunately, outside of arena pvp the game had massive technical problems to the point of being unplayable. It had balancing problems with drastic what felt like weekly shifts. Arena PvP was brought down by a lack of variation in maps and some mods (like the one with that ball) that people never really clicked with and a bunch of other stuff. Mechanically though and in terms of class synergy (where you could actually use like taunts in PvP as well) it was pretty strong. Good teamplay was not only rewarded but enforced, and there were plenty of things to consider.
It's the only MMORPG where I had upwards of 30 active skills to manage, everyone absolutely necessary for PvP. It took me weeks to find the perfect keyboard/mouse setup to fit all of them within reach. I played Jedi Consular and outside of Rare instances where a Trooper could really go nuts with AoE, I always managed to come out top DPS, even though I was a skilled for single-target burst damage. It was a huge satisfying class for me, with a high skill ceiling and alot of variety (DoT-builds were viable as well, and of course you could also tank ^^). That was despite the fact, that smugglers one-on-one were considered OP for like ... my whole time with the game. My average burst averaged a tad lower I guess, but it was much more sustained.
But before I get completely sidetracked into reminsicing about TOR and how broken Ilum was at launch (a friend of my got banned for two days, because he headed straight for Ilum and farmed the planet right after launch, before ANYONE else was there ^^), I'll stop digressing ^^ What you say about the controller is a relief though. I was planning on picking it up for PS4 if anything, but I was scpetical about playing an MMO with a controller (again, my setup for, I think, in the end it were 35 active keymaps in TOR was insane, but "clicking" would not have been an option in PvP at least).
As for Persona 4, no, well, I think Persona 3 felt darker to me. I mean, you literally shoot yourself in the head, the color grading was much darker as well, with dark blue being the prevalent color theme. The atmosphere was definitely darker. The actual meat of the plot ... I dunno. Of course neither are Nocturne or SMTIV - or Persona 1/2.1/2.2 at that. It might just be nostalgia of sorts, but having played on P4 Golden, I remember a somewhat bright and colorful mood for the most part. Even the characters were more "peepy" for sure in my mind. P4 leaned more into that whole dating sim aspect than 3, I feel.
I think, if you are trying to pull of an interesting, heartfelt and, well, lacking a better term, "relateable" narrative, no matter how weird, you gotta create the right circumstances. I can relate to anime characters. Hell, Made In Abyss really shock me for instance, despite the aesthetic. BUT, that "despite" is crucial, because if you have some kawaii-characters telling a tale that could have also with fit well with GoT-like aesthetic, all other elements have to be on point. Like the animation, color grading, voice acting, music (shout out to Kevin Penkin who did the music on MiA), animation, sound design, and so on and so forth. There is no room for "solid" here, it has to perfect. In fact, I think MiA is one of the most disturbing stories I've seen, but also one with the most kawaii-designs I bothered with and still, it works very well, and inf act, having read the manga up to Volume 8 (I actually bought the books, not just scanlations ^^), I feel it is actaully better than the manga original. Shocking I know! ^^
There are not that many examples however of jRPGs doing that. We already talked about the prevalence of shoody voice acting for instance, but the list of course is longer, way longer. Persona is a good example of how to do traditional mechanics, full-on anime aesthetic and (mostly) serious, disturbing, fantastic and yet relateable story-telling. IT's not perfect, but Persona gets close, esp. 5 which really fixed some flaws from the prequels (like the pseudo-random dungeons, that were just not fun in the long-run).
I can't honestly say whether I realized at the time that Neptunia was supposed to be a parody (if I got that correctly). Parody is a difficult subject though, because just aping something is not parody, you have to exaggerate the effecto the point where it betrays itself for what it is in a very obvious way. Maybe Neptunia did not go far enough then? I don't know, but frankly, the issue might be, that PLENTY of games out there are extreme, peak-"anime" out there and are not meant as parody, not that I can tell at least. They might wink at you while playing, but it is never CLEAR that you are not supposed to take anything serious about them, within the trappings of their own chosen framework, like say all those games that relate to the "harem"-anime genre. Just really going with that, leaning into that deeply, has nothing to do with parody. If you cannot bring out what is inherently so-silly-it's-funny with the source material, then you are just imitating it after all.
That adds well into my point though, IF you want to pull such a tight-rope walk, particularly with a genre so steeped in it's own stereotypes and cliches going back decades, then I'D say perfection is really called for as far as execution goes. "Pretty good" might not really work. The genre is itself often so over-the-top-self-referrential that a single misstep at a crucial point will blur or eradicate any line between supposed commentary and flat out imitation.
I do like almost all SMT games, which are all kinda similar, so similarities are not per se a bad thing. Unless they become, well, too ... I dunno, unless they take on a life of their own, that's also why I refered to many of these games being self-referential. I often felt taht games like Tales had moments, let's say some joke was thrown into your face, and it wasn't really funny, cultural difference aside, but it was kind of setup and the whole scenario, that it referenced a very similar or identical scene in a previous game, that you might have actaully found amusing and charming at some point before. So, you might smile or you might not, but the actual "thing" presented to you, was not funny at all, and it is never clear to the player, or at least me, if that was intentional or not. It's hard to describe. Much of it feels like an ultra-deep level of fanservice and if I had to put up one term, I absolutely abhorre, it is "fanservice". Basically, if a game has it, I am troubled, if a game is actually focused on it, I am out. I do not like being pandered to by way of "we are referencing that thing you know and like" ... even though there is absolutely no point in it. American movies are doing this alot these days as well. Pointless name dropping and cameos and stuff. Marvel in particular has become so self-obsessed that it is sometimes sickening. JRPGs I feel are often very much self-obsessed in the same way.
I actually have Vanguard Bandits on my Vita (with a bunch of other similar PSX games). I have not yet came around to trying it, but with that endorsement, I will definitely make sure I will. I was intrigue enough to buy it of course, on the strength of that first impression, you prett much described already. Looking forward to actually dipping into it, maybe right after finishing up my run on vagrant story! Then I'm already atuned to PSX style visuals after all! ^^
Like I said above, I absolutely agree about these PSX games, I just wish that Sony would care enough to bring them to current and next-gen systems as well. I don't mind playing in my vita, but some of these games can really benefit from some modern tech as well to make them look at least decent on a modern TV. It's just such a waste. It's all the more true for the PS2 era, which was basically all 3D assests and thus scales even better. Again, such a shame on Sony's end.
I do not mind sprites in general, I think I might have mentioned that I looked at the original Seiken Densetsu 3, and I find it visually more charming than Trials to be honest. One of the android games I really enjoy is "wayward souls", really great game with spire visuals. Actually, some of the best sprite-work I've seen in a long time. Sea of Stars on Kickstarter also looks pretty amazing. It's really all about the details here, like I said above. You can do alot here, with subtle lighting, "baked shadows", quality animation.
Graphics matter alot to me, but it is NOT about photorealism at all. In fact, shooting for photorealism is the worst that could happen to games. People fail to realize that no one watches movies that are photorealsitic unless they are documentaries. People hate anything that even approaches photorealsitic movie aesthetic on any level. Be it going beyond 24p and the judder that comes with it, be it dropping the "Hollywood DoP" (which is why, that is my longstanding contention, so many "foreign" films have such a hard time finding a mainstream audience), doing the "proper" color-grading mowrk etc. ...
It's even worse for games. Hell, I would argue that Resident Evil Remake (for the 1st one) is still one of the best looking games ever made. It has some if not the best lighting I've yet seen. It's baked of course, but the way it is setup, is very strong from an artsitic and directorial standpoint. It's in a word: timeless.
And as far as the 360 goes in general, I also feel that Infinite Undiscovery is very much unrated. One of the last Triace proper games and just a very good strong entry into the genre. In fact, I would simply say that for all intends and purpose it the best "Ys" game out there, definitely the most polished one, with some really strong world building and unique ideas. It's also one of the best looking ones of the era, with oh so many particle effects in combat even back then. Thankfully, the games main issue, the frame rate tanking due to all those effects, has largely been fixed on the XBX. Not gonna lie, I am looking forward to playing that game again on Series X. That should iron out all the performance issues once and for all, and with added HDR, the colorful, bright, effects heavy presentation and combat, should look like a proper next-gen experience, esp. if the rumors are true and Series X is gonna render this at 4k natively. The Textures will still look iffy of course, but the rest ... very excited about seeing details, that I never could see before, all in silky smooth performance! ^^
Another one we missed, I think, last time, is operation Darkness. It's a bargin bin, "shuffleware" game of the worst kind when it comes to 3D graphics, boy it's ugly, and the camera is the worst, but outside of that, the game is really decent. Amazing 2D art even, strong voice acting (better than Infinite Undiscovery ^^), decent systems and crucial the sRPG with the coolest setting and premise in all of sRPG'dom. It's basically: Hellsing: The Videogame (I do love me some Hellsing). You are replaying all crucial european battles from WWII, but with several twists, among them Nazi-SS-Vampires and Scotish Werewolfs with bazookas blowing up Tiger Tanks. It's so cool, it makes up for all the visuals shortcomings! Sadly, the camera really still drags it down to just "decent" in my book. It is still one thing not at all: GENERIC, it is not generic. So yeah, in that regard, it is also, as you set, really 'dissimilar' to what else is out there.
I actually met Uematsu once after a concert in Leipzig. Seemed like a real down-to-earth dude, just like Miyamoto. But yeah, really like alot of his stuff, but there are several great composers when it comes to jRPGs (like I said, I really loved the music in Trials as well, very good stuff, best part of the game from the time I spend with it).
WEll, I do not necessarily disagree, like I said, there is a strong anime-genericness with Legend of Heroes as well. But I do appreciate just the scope and ambition of their narrative vision. Most other jRPGs that are similarly generic in many ways they handle everything from cute-nondescript-anime-girl-waifu-material to bland-version0.1-made-it-to-retail-menu design, never bother with that ambition. THey are content to be ... referencing their own past
I am not 100% sure about WKC, I only played a copy from a friend if I recall, for like an afternoon, maybe and some of his save file from later on, I think at least. Might very well have been WKC1!
About Fariy Fencer, so the trouble for me is that many of these games, as mentioned, feel and look very similar to me. I have a really hard time to distinguish between them. So, I could never tell what I particularly disliked between Xilia 1 and Xilia 2 for instance. But really, outside of some particular aspects, like the combat in one game or such, much of that series blurs together.
I can definitely say that i never played the enhanced verison, that much is certain. I only played on PS3, so it can't be. And no, I did not get far into it (assuming I am not mixing it up with something else entirely, which is possible ^^). Well, darker stories I do prefer, but the exection, not the idea, is still kinda the crucial aspect. Do think revisiting it on PS4 or Switch might be worth it? I mean, I am not gonna lie, I just checked it out and just looking purely at the promotional cover art, I am kinda turned off. It is either putting an emphasis on stuff, I do not really care for, or it is really not good promotional material.
That whole anime-girl-in-skimpy-shirt ... well, not really a draw for me. I do not mind, it's not a deal breaker. I always point to Puella Magi Madoka Magica here. Sure, judging it by it's cover, as they say, I should hate it. I did kinda love it, like most of Urobochi's controversial work. It subverted expections, which I always think has some merit, and really executed well on that theme within it's narrative (as the characters themselves have expectations that get severly subverted). It is dark, but with a particular, well defined edge to it. It is not just torture porn, even if one could mistake it for it.
I'm willing to reconsider my position on any thing, if I feel there is real merit in doing that. I too like to be just entertained by games, but that works best for me, if a game just really veers close to what I like. I do not necessarily knwo what exactly I want, I did not know at all that I wanted Death Stranding, but I do know what I like.
When I scroll through the releases of Compile Heart, I do not see anything I tried and really loved, not even Agarest, which was not bad to be fair. Zero I played a bit, I think, and yeah ... did not repel me ^^ Still, cheap and fan service'y are things that keep poping into my mind. Either one is kinda an issue, but the combo is really a problem.
About Folklore, sorry at that point in my textwall, I probably had forgotten that you had limited yourself to your collection! ^^ It was such an exhaustive list ...
Yeah, Eternal Sonata did for sure make it to PS3. I actually have both versions and that is pretty much the case all in all. Either version is great though. I do not specifically remember the added content in the PS3 version.... so I cannot speak to that. Game is fantastic though. Again, it had many jRPG staples and by all accounts should be considered A Tales of .. game, absolutely a spin-off, but it had such a unique tone to it, that I can only describe as: pure melancholia. The game was drenched in that. At it was really decidely not cheap. It was very lovingly crafted. It is clear that tri-crescendo had the deepest of respect for one of the finest artists ever, and wanted to do right by him.That might sound hyperbolic, and it was still "just" a jRPG, but still, I really always felt, that there was a honest attempt on the developers part to do whatever they could to make it a compelling piece of Chopins legacy. The fact that this really drew me in deep enough to care for his music, even read up his biography outside of the game, speaks to me volumes about their success. It just struck a chord me that way, unlike an tales games before or after. There was a human quality about it, that I deeply appreciate.
I think, it's an excellent case for going the extra mile and trying to make something unique within a very fixed and well-known framework. Because if you look at the moment to moment gameplay, there is little difference to your average Tales of ... experience really. The magic is in what lies beyond and the finer details. Like how your Weapons are Swords crafted like instruments or music notes at the grip. It is not just that, but it is also that.
You make it sound like the 360 sold well at any point. I dunno about it, I think more along the lines it sold less worse than the PS3. My deepest insights actually come from my aunt, who worked for a major Japanese company for most of her life and had to adapt to some particular cultural practices. I have little knowledge about Japanese culture beyond what you get from a massive consumption of their pop media, particular manga and anime, and games obviously. Based on what I know or was told anyways, I do not think I would appreciate living in that culture though. I am very much a contrarian by nature. When it came to debate club, there was never really any need to convince me to act the "advocatus diaboli". I prefer to disagree, as I find it yields stronger reactions and thus more truth. Compliance is often just a euphemism for "lack of thoroughness", at least, that is what I found at university. I'm not sure, that my tendency to rock the boat, would be a super great fit Anyways, I find the culture fascinating still and I am no stranger to their history or business practices though.
I definitely do not know nearily enough to judge what roll Sakaguchi played in terms of the 360's success in Japan. Like here in the west, to few people would have cared, to make an entire platform a failure. The red ring of death, I know him well, is definitely a factor, but given how succesful the 360 was despite that and how it affected the whole global supply, it's dubious how that played a major role.
I would think, that the PS3 launched at a time, when Japanese consumers were moving away from consoles for abit, so the situation was rough no matter how you looked at it. An US console was not ideally poised to win them back. Really, the home console market in Japan is declining, has been for a long time, and around 2006/7 it came back hard, but hardly due to Xbox OR PS3, but more du to the one-hit-wonder called Wii. Things changed late in the game more in favour of the PS3, but for a while there, within an otherwise declining market, the Wii really pushed the home console market in Japan to what seemed new heigths. We now know, taht this was unsustained though.
Apple has a different marketing strategy altogether though. I feel, they are pretty much culture agnostic in a way. Personal vanity is pretty much universal. And Apple is doing great in selling tech as personal vanity objects, best of all and crucial in some parts of Asia: universally accepted vanity
The culture thing does carry far yet I think. Just comparin the sales charts from Japan vs say UK, not even the US then, shows some easy to spot differences in preference. I think jRPGs are the best example though. jRPG historically speaking were like a "spin-off" a early western, particularly american RPG system. They were not a japanese invention at all. There as just little available over there and it took forever, so it kinda created .. entrepreneurs if you will, who saw demand - theirs and beyond. Now, if you look at the early years and really 1-1,5 decades, the differences are apparent in the emphasis that these games put versus the ones that the "originals" in the west did. That gap widended, but it was there pretty early on. I still sit up straight if I see a jRPG with even a basic character creator for instance. Individual expression is not a theme here. It's very much a theme in the west though, where some games used their character creation to market their games. Neither is exploration, any jRPG exploration is always more diversion than genuine mechanic.
In other words, pretty much everything associated with Xbox, was not really hitting japanese sensibilites at the time. I think most people saw that, esp. outside of the folks that you could consider hardcore or "early adopters". In a way, many of the games I dislike on PS3 might have been better jRPGs for Japan, than the games I celebrate on Xbox. Lost Odyssey was a FInal Fantasy'esque game, but you would be hard pressed to find a moment were you ride a chocobo to evade silly birds in a minigame That kind of weirdness was largely absent, and I think that was by design. Superficialy, it migt have been target at Japan, but under the hood, there were some other design ideas at play. If that was Microsoft "meddling", possible for sure, it worked out fine as far as I am concered at least either way.
I mean, this goes far beyond games doesn't it? Marvel and DC had some good times in Europe as well. I don't know if anyone in Japan ever bothered with a comic. Yeah yeah, someone did for sure and they do watch the movies, but really, how would the typical Marvel or even DC narrative speak to the average Japanese consumer. It is hardly 100% relateable for the continental European mindset, so ... the heroes in mangas and comics are not really of the same making for the most part, that much I can say with high confidence.
That's a big topic though. I would love to be wrong actually, but as far as cultural exports go, I feel Japan is mostly a rough terrain. Not for every company at all times, but as a rule of thumb, yeah. I do not know to what degree concepts of loyality for instance play into that. Is a Sony employee likely to get this kid an Xbox, no matter how much that kid might crave it?
I can only put it this way: If my Aunt had worked it Sony (it was a similar, but different company), and if she ever had gotten me an Xbox (she never did anything like - unfortunately), I think she would have never managed that at work, not even in a casual conversation. Hell, she barely ever left before her boss did- work or not (not that this is in and of itself a jap.-exclusive ^^). It was just unseemingly apparently.
I do gather though, that your success in mixing romance and friendship were of very limited success ultimately? The notion is beautiful and I want to say I am with you on that, but ... not really. Might be just my bad though, I have no real wisedom to offer here: "She is like my best friend..." sure who hasn't heard that before, right? Didn't really work for me. I think, it might be asking too much of one person to be. I say that as a romantic at heart. Also, I do think that it's good, on pratical level, or maybe even crucial, to have like social needs that other people fulfil. Naturally, that gives you your own space, which no one can do without, while not offending anyone. Wish I could say I figured that out, but I didn't and most "advice" by couples is usually .. well meant but kinda useless ^^
Also, sadly my days off are almost at an end, so any future correspondence might be somewhat delayed on my end and/or way less meandering (so I do have tendency there for sure ) and/or delivered in smaller parts. Just a heads up, but cruel daily life is about to reclaim my soul (and time) unfortunately
@Xansies Yeah, I guess so. While I have no issue with the anime aesthetic (hell, I for one loved Alita, even bought the Artbook for it), it' can be problematic, if like 90% of the games of one genre look the same - more or less. I would also argue, that this aesthetic does not necessarily fit every atmosphere a title might want to deliver on.
Depending on performance and image quality, I might be interested in XCOM 2. Also curious to see how Xenoblade shakes out. I'm just not sure whether this Definitive Edition will really adress the gripes I had with the game 10 years ago. If it doesn't, then I'm happy to stick with something else. Also, I really liked the original design of the chracters a tad better, it did not lean that heavily into the anime aesthetic, although the ingame difference is probably negligible. Plus the original was just too much on the easy side, but maybe there'll be a fix for that as well - dunno. I'm interested but not sold yet.
Well, that is their official line, and it does make sense, whether PS+ is a necessity though is probably a different story. When it launched in 2010 it was in the midst of whole "It's $599"-shellshock-aftermath so to speak. Sony also failed to provide an adquate service, in my view, even to this day - at least compared to Xbox Live.
The PS4 and X1 were in part outdated when they launchend. Like 4K was not something, no one saw coming, esp. not Sony, which still makes TV, well Sony Corp. did at least. The CPUs were also woefully underpowered even at launch and remain a bottleneck to this day.
I do think developers care about that, sure the capabilities are important, but they also care very much about their experiences and tools continuing to remain relevant. They are after all heavily invested in those skills and tools.
So a mid-gen upgrade, that creates fresh revenue, keeps the system relevant and does not bother developers too much, because it's basically the same architecture, just beefier makes sense.
PSVR was most likely supposed to drive PS4Pro sales as well for sure. Just as PS4Pro was meant to drive 4K TV set sales
I think there are so many considerations that go into this: You already pointed out that Sony tends to sell their systems at a loss initially, unlike Nintendo aims to do. Microsoft is as you stated very much correctly a whole different beast. They could sell an entire generation at a loss, and as far as their bottom line goes, it would hardly make a dent. They are giant company (going by market capitalization), Sony is ... just a mid-tier Entertainment company. As things stand Azure revenue can easily offset anything the Xbox division i doing - or failing to do ^^
Generally, there is an incentive to ride console generations for as long as possible, but yeah, I do think, if one factor is probably most decisive, it's saturation and with that: attach rate. As long as your attach rate is consistently good, you could probably due with sales dropping severely. Rarely are these two factors independent of each other though, for many reasons.
The technology for a "proper" upgrade over the base consoles is available and has been for years. Adressing the CPU and memory bottlenecks were not really technological decisions, but economic ones. Sony was not going to have that "It's $599"- moment again after all.
I would not recommend a 4K TV to anyone btw, on the merit of 4K. It's barely a merit at all. If you look at diagonals and adquate view distance on an average 4K set, you will find that in practive, that the actual different to a small 1080p TV is not that pronounced even on native 4K content. It's more viable for games than movies, but in general, it is a loosing proposition.
That said, there are huge gains to be had from 4K sets, like live changing ones. I absolutely adore my OLED TV. I was running Pansonic Plasmas for a while (Panasonics Kuro was conidered THE state of the art set in terms of blackpoint performance for years) and even that felt like magic to me initially. But compared to my LG OLED, my trusty old Pana has only one benefit and that is motion resolution. For everything else, he gets utterly crushed by OLED.
I'll put it this way, once you have seen true black, actual true black, and the resulting STATIC contrast, you will not want to go back. One you pair that with some really good HDR content and let the TV flex it's muscle, you cannot go back. It's like going from (1080p) to 480p, just much, much worse. Standart Dynamic Range gaming feels like gaming with sunglasses in a dark room. Everything is just super dark, dull and lifeless - worst of all the image suddenly appears so flat, that you wonder what "3D" actually meant all those years.
I'm glad LG is finally doing a 48" TV for their new line. This will make the jump to OLED HDR that much more affordable for many people, plus actually possible to realize, since not everyone can go for 55" or even 65".
As for Sega, well, I'm not sure we are disagreeing there. They did not retire the Saturn out of Spite. They were in financial straits, the system was from their view not competitive and though they pushed for a hail mary. Whether the Dreamcase came to soon, or the Saturn was retired to early is kinda the same thing, is it not? Just a matter of perspective.
So you are still playing FFXIV? That is interesting, just today I was once again thinking of picking that game up. I am really hearing greating things about the latest addon and like I already laid out, I am a huge fan of Yasumi Matsuno's work, so I am more than curious to see his work on Shadowbringer and the previous addon as well. I've had sworn myself to never bother with an MMORPG ever again, and I managed to stick with for many years now, but alas, that part about FFXIV has me tingly
Care to share your view? How good is the content, esp. story wise? Worth getting into 14 for those scenarios? I'm a pretty veteran MMORPG player from the haydays of the beta for Dark Age of Camelot, so I do get the gist of the MMO trappings, thus asking specifically for that story content! ^^
The thing that bothers me about Neptunia, and all those, let's say, non-AAA jRPGs is not really so much the tone, in terms of lightheartedness. While I already admitted to having a weak point for darker, more mature (dangerous term to use) and just more somberly built games, I am not opposed to lighthearted content.
Hell, no one would really call Persona 4 dark, mature and somber
What really bothers me about Neptunia is the lack of ambition and an identity. If you strip Persona of it's style, like the amazing art direction for Persona/Demons, the visual theme, the gorgeous menus and scene transitions, the music by Shoji Meguro, the strong characterization and writing in that regard (though not all dialogues are gold of course), you are left with a pretty mediocre run of the mill jRPG.
If you further strip out the deeper themes of the series, rooted in different primarly philisophical conceps and others, like the very prominently featured Jungian into which Persona 3 and 5 in particular really lean deeepp into for a mere videogame, then all you have left is a mechnical stale if competent shell of a game.
IF you then fill that void with fanservice and really all-that-is-wrong-with-anime-cliches, like promiscous loli characters at worst ^^, then you get to that kind of content we're talking about.
Now, not all games go that far, some are actually not at all interest in fan service and shota characters or whatever, like YS for example. Still, even though I like YS, I can hardly deny, that the game is pretty much a one trick pony, and without the combat, I would not care for it. I'm not a sucker for the music, I would never buy an art book for it, and I'll wouldn't play an Etrian Odyssey spin-off featuring any of it's cast.
There is just no comparing even the character design from purely a visual standpoint between these series. I never got the appeal of all these series. I remember trying Conception once, and Magna Carta (which was actually a rather "somber" game), which both lacked any sense of consistent style or cohesive theme. The games were just cheap.
Ar Tonelico I have never tried as far as I can recall, neither did I ever play an Atelier game. I've seen reviews though and uncut gameplay. It's not like I don't care about anything outside of mainstream games. Hell, my favourite jRPGs are hardly mainstream, who besides me and 10 other people on the planet has actually played, enjoyed and finished Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Contact, Knights in the Knightmare and Yggdra Union - hell, most people haven't even played Resonance of Fate or Vagrant Story, despite their very-much-AAA-production-values at the time.
The thing is, like take Knights in the Nightmare: The game is incredible, like truly. I LOVE the Art Direction. Somewhere I still have that Artbook that came with the preorder or whatever, had to get it second hand but toally worth it. We are talking a Nintendo DS game (later ported to Vita) here. Really, one - if not the most dense and complex and multi-layered RPG I've ever played, but just so strong in terms of atmosphere and art direction, that it was blast to really engage with it.
I tried the 1st Neptunia on PS3 on a whime and ... well, just no. It's a bunch of cute anime girls. I could hardly tell them apart, their is no distinct visual language to them, that speaks to their personality, not that I could tell, the colors for the game are all over the place. Combat was interesting, even had some visual flair given that is was fully 3D.
It was not bad or horrible or anything. The thought I always have playing any of these titles is that I could be playing something similar, but very much better. I actually kinda feel like Disgaea is cool, like I do like sRPGs. But it's just a bit too whacky for my taste, and definitely to grindy. I came to sRPGs with Fire Emblem, which - hard to believe these days- prided itself on strategic aspects, like very limited ressources incl. experience. The fact that grind was flat-out impossible, was pretty appealing to me. Hence, I am not all that excited about grinding INSIDE one of my weapons for hours on end, like inside ... omg, so much grind
I mean, Ogre Tactics, once again, has all this political intirgue, you have decisions to make, that affect the story outcome quite drastically, you get the amazing art direction by Akihiko Yoshida (although I freely admit, that it clashes with the battle map art quite hard) .. I just rather play THAT It's harsh, but just how I feel and have felt for a very long time.
Funny you bring up the Trials collection. It's one of the very, very, very few reasons I still have my PS3 around. I do like Symphonia. It's my favourite. Might be because it was my first, played it on the Gamecube (also did some grinding there ^^), and having that on an HD system was and still is cool. Still, I had already played it to the fullest (I actually started over, when I realized I missed requirement for one of the ultimate weapons on some sidepath rather early on in the game - I have only vague memories here, but I remember being pretty annoyed with the game there for a while), hence I never really played deep in to the PS3 version. I just like to have it around in case I get an itch.
I would never call the Xilia games shuffleware. I have no strong feelings about either game. I played both for a bit, but they simply did not stand out ot me personally. I can't say I really felt they did anything that Symphonia had not also delivered on after a fashion. Honestly, I think I tried almost all Tales and that feeling has been 100% consistent. 10 hours or so in, I loose all interest, because I feel that I played this already, just ... better, not every game in every aspect (again Graces in terms of combat stood out to me a bit).
Ultimatley though, not even Symphonia grabbed me as hard as Eternal Sonata. I really liked the Light/Dark mechanic, the whole a-world-drenched-in-music theme was pretty unique and at least in part well executed, the music of course, made me fall in love with the works of Chopin, and from there many others classics, like Liszt and Stravinsky (so I kinda was exposed to the original inspiration, before I got to engage with One-Winged Angle, which is probably a rare occurence ^^) and it actually made me cry a bit once or twice. In that regard, if you count Sonata as Tales games, I would definitely say i love that even more than Symphonia.
Its just a very special experience, like none I had since or before.
Haha, yeah, darn Lost Dimension, jesus! Never even got close to seeing that through, interesting setup though. But also like a posterchild for what I said above. It's pretty much Persona ... adjacent? ... just drained of all the artistic genius.
Many of the titles you listed, I know only by name and having seen some gameplay. I do think I checked up on all PS3 jRPGs, because I spend a fair amount of time actively looking for what people call "niche gems" or "cult classics" or "fan favourites", you know like the games I mentioned above, but at one point in time also: DEMON SOULS - folks are so quick to forget, or for an xbox example: Phantom Dust, which ... are the kind of games, you rarely meet people in real life that have even heard of them, basically you have to go the GameFAQ message board for that game, to talk about it
White Knight Chronicles was a thing that happend. Not gonna lie, it did not lack ambition for once. The execution however ... I only remember disappointment with that game. I was going in like "so cool, this is going to be like vision of escaflowne with me writing the sto..." ... did not quite live up to that expectation, which to be fair, it never claimed it would. Didn't have to be so clunky and ugly though It's if Level 5 decided to make an action-MMORPG, but realized, that it was really hard to do that, so they just kind of made an action-RPG that still kinda feels like an MMO, I guess? But then decided that they definitely DID want to do SOMETHING online and then they tacked a mode unto the game, what was online and .... I dunno, it's just a weird thing that happend.
The Legend of Heros games are pretty unique. Like, they have the same issue in many ways I alluded to above in terms of artistic appeal, but they kinda make up for it with the strong writing and I am really amazed and the scope of the franchise. I do not think that I know of any jRPG series that is doing something similar, like building this vast interconnected world over so many games, accross so many platforms and generations. It's baffling. I only scratched the surface of course, and I do think there are some issues, like decent combat, but little challenge, on top of the "meh" production values, but overall, it's definitely of the games, I'll happily consider worthwhile.
Personally, I would't even count Magna Carta 2 for the Xbox really. But to me, that misses the point. Like how am I going to compare Lost Odyssey and White Knight Chronicles for instance? Like ... I mean, how to I square these two games? Is there like a single element where the latter can even reasonibly compete? I guess, we could argue about combat, sure, things can be said for either one, but outside of that?
And no to be rude, but I think the same could be said for most of these games. Hell, I'm sorry, but I am gonna include even the Xilia games in that. I would take them over White Knight Chronicles any day, but compared to Lost Odyssey, they just lack ... everything. It's the difference between a seasoned craftsman creating a tried and true staple and something else entirely. By the sheer numbers, the PS3 blows the 360 out of the water. I will not argue that, and I don't think I have. But there is no amount of WKCs or games with a comparable ambition, that can make up for that, and WKCs was hardly the least ambitious PS3 jRPG.
It's subjective for sure, but 20 medicore to more or less low-effort-low-cost prodcutions can't replace one thoroughly great experience. I'm not objective here for sure, since I have a deep apprecation for about every aspect of LO: the music by Nobuo Uematsu, the dreams-writing by Kiyoshi Shigematsu (which like I said, to me, still stand as the single best piece of written text I have ever seen in any japanese Videogame ever, no matter the genre), the main character design by Takehiko Inoue, which I found out only later is a very famous mangaka, and whose series "Real" and "Vagabond" I really love and whose amazing Coverart for the LO OST I just adore to this day ... it's an amalgation of things. I have no idea who designed anyone in WKCs, maybe someone famous did, but I cannot really care, since playing it at the time, it did not stand out to me.
LO tried to elevate the genre, while also staying true to it's root. It had ambition and integrity. Most of the jRPGs you brougt up, at least those I can speak to at least in part, had integrity and I don't think much more.
I still think about LO, as one can tell. Until you brought it up, it has been a very long time since I thought about WKCs or even Xilia. I feel bad for being so dismissive. I really do, esp. since I wanted to love quite a few of these games. I bought a PS3 because I thought it was going to be next PS2. But having tried a fair number of the games, and done enough research into almost the entire rest of the PS3 jRPG library,
By the by, I think you forgot to mention "Folklore". I thought that game was pretty cool, in terms of setting, combat and just it's aesthetic. It was definitely not a run of the mill anime jRPG. Not an amazing game, but still something of stand out title for the PS3, among all those Ateliers, Neptunias and Fairy Fencers with their pretty anime teenagers swinging around swords
I have only played the demo for, I think, it was the 1st DQ Heroes games. Did not really strike me as something special, bascially the musou action version of DQ, no more no less? I'm not fond of the genre as such, I did kinda'ish like Hyrule Warriors and Warriors, cos I felt the had some more mechanical and strategic depths, esp. warrior with the triangle and all, and I am attached to many of the characters, but even that could not hold my interest for too long. Sometimes a button smasher like that is nice though.
I have high hopes for the new Persona one, looks like the most ambitious one yet!
I do not believe the Xbox ever had a chance in asia. Consumers do not really care about how Microsoft might or might not have interfered (and I am the first to critize MS for their flatout horrenouds handling or not only their own studiso but esp. outside partners). I'm as positive about that as I can be. Who even reads up on this stuff besides like nerds like us? The games were there, and the Xbox had a strong start, given the PS3's price tag, the fact that few japanse developers were eager or well prepared for the jump to HD (one reason why handhelds were so relevant to the japanese market for soooo long and now mobile, just one though), and yes, the PS3 was reportedly not easy to develop there. Still, point being, like I said, the games were there. It just did not make any difference. Japan is a unique market, that is hard for western companies to penetrate, esp. with products that are this deeply conected to the culture at hand, like videogames. You know, I'm kinda dismissive about the whole "anime"-thing in jRPGs, but I'll grant, that this is my euro-centric perspective speaking and that most of the jRPGs I really loved, where very much build for me, like LO and Vagrant Story, which have thes strong and obvious European medieval influences. But at the same time, amazing things can come out of that culture rift, like all these other games I love, like Persona, SMT in general, basically every Sting game ever made, Shadowhearts and so many more. Who knew that a niche jRPG studio would be able to capture the life of a polish 19th century piano composer with such gusto? No one, totally out of left field!
I had to google Cross Edge, but the cover image right away jugged my memory. I dunno, when ever I hear the name, my mind wanders to project X Zone for some reason
I do know OF Zoids Assault. That is all I can say about sadly. I never played it nor anything else connected with it. It looked really bad to me. Which does not deterr me at all, since Operation Darkness also looked ugly as f*** to me, but looking into a handful of reviews, I did not get the sense, that there was "much there" either. I don't remember which youtuber it was, but yeah, the fact that it had nothing at all to do with the Series as such, not being representative of it all, is something he was very clear about. But yeah, the concepts that could have been realized certainly sound interesting, but the actual game, as you descibred it all, sounds just as bad as I had gathered
As for dates, yeah, I guess, no disagreement from me. Therein lies the rub: finding that seed for a relationship worth bothering with. It's not just something that gets dropped in your lap and it can be pretty rough to even try to go after, to the point where anyone at least for a while wonders, if it's worth it at all. I still fundamentally feel it is, but it's not like it never occured to me, that I am just a hopeless romantic. Then again, I've been told, that this in itself can be an endearing trait. "Gals actually legitimately looking for someone" are not really a lucky occurence. If you want something to happen really badly, you morph yourself into something that you are actually not - I found that women do that just as guys. That inevitable leads to really serious problems down the road in my experience. Nietzsche was famously wrong in that regard (though there probably was never a human being less able to make sense of women than him): What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger ------ NOT!^^
Read this on PSBlog and it made me laugh out loud:
"New voiceover
As you’d expect from a 1995 RPG, the original Trials of Mana didn’t include any spoken dialogue. That’s not the case in the new game. It features fully acted scenes, which helps the characters’ personalities shine like never before."
Not saying that they're wrong. It might help them shine. But maybe that is not always a good thing
@FargusPelagius I remember Resistance 3! The PS3 actually had some really good stereoscopic 3D games. I particularly enjoyed StarDust and Wipeout, the latter of which incidentially also being brilliant VR game these days. I still keep my old Panasonic VT30-series Plasma in the other room, as it's sometimes just a blast to go back to these games. Plus, Lion King 3D looks absolutely stunning on it.
I actually kinda regret not picking up one of the early LG 4K OLEDs to that end. A buddy of mine has one, and 3D is real treat on it! But I'm also happy with my new model, both have their ups and downs, I'm okay with at least one 3D TV in the house. Plus, you can also watch 3D content on PS4+PSVR, if you are alone that is.
I agree, that the New 3DS XL was only a small step forward, but I still kinda adore it because I can really finally enjoy games like Kid Icarus in 3D (which also looks amazing imho). It was pointless to use the feature on my old 3DS XL, as I was always slipping out of that tiny sweetspot ...
Yeah, really too bad Sony and Nintendo abandoned that feature alltogether.
@Giygas_95 Fully agreed here! I'd even go so far as to say, that I don't care for a Switch version. This and games like OutRun really look impressive on the 3DS, with a great sense of speed. If you remove that, well, all you are left with an okay retro-arcade racer, with a decent sense of style through out. Too bad many later 3DS games dropped the stereoscopic effect, just when the New3DS really had made it viable.
I'm still miffed that Persona Q2 and Radiant Historia just ignored it, even though it really helped bring the somewhat dead world of the other later EQ games at least somewhat to life. It also added desperately needed visual flair to the 1st Persona Q, given how static all of these games really are at heart. Every little bit helps, and a well implemented (not all were sadly) stereoscopic effect, can make a real difference.
I always considered myself a "core gamer" after a fashion, but given that most folks that would subscribe to that label seemed to really hate on any kind of innovation, be it 3D or motion controls ... whatever. I really LOVED playing Metroid Prime with pointer controls. Red Steel 2 equally was a mediocre game, elevated to something truly engaging thanks to it's excellent controls. Let's not even talk about Resident Evil 4, which was almost broken by the pointer's precision.
It's kind of annoying to see these games or similar ones, coming to Switch and at best we get Gyro controls to make due, when pointers are so much more precise and engaging due to apping a "natural" interaction for a shooter. I would also have killed for something like Hollow Knight to have an added 3D effect. Would have looked incredible I imagine, esp. paired with a higher res 720p display of the Switch.
@Razmoudah Well, if you put it that way, it's more about optimization and having a better time with it, than sheer necessity or missing out on major pieces of relevant content without outside help, which seems fair to me. I mean, it's not a dealbreaker either way with games from that era to me. I said I love Vagrant Story, and I do, and there is ALOT about this game, that you'll have to figure out for yourself, even if you read the in-game manual, that is not always really presented to you in any fair manner. The game is not hard, it's just hard if you don't fully grasp it's mechanics, and those mechanics are only partially explained or hinted at. Matsuno said in an interview, that this was an intentional choice to let the player figure out stuff themselves by EXPERIMENTATION - thus in part the Demon Souls comparison. I think that is legitimate, although I wish the game had then used a "save" system like the Souls games, instead of the classic saving it does, which just looses your progress if your experiment fails
It's a small flaw on a gem of the game (like the too long spell animations, the lack of a quick access to weapon selection, the too short buff duration, the necessity to save every time you leave the itembox and a bunch more). But I guess just like with Star Ocean, these games were still children of their time, and thus some flaws must be forgiven.
Even speaking about remasters or full-on remakes, I would hope that while the things I listed above would be fixed for sure, as they are just hurting the experience by dragging out play time and killing momentum at times. While the whole experimentation angle is part of what makes the game so compelling.
Sure, the story and world, excellent writing/localization, amazing art direction, perferct cutscene direction, brilliant atmosphere would survive, but the game would feel mechanically less engaging, if all mechanics were just put into a tutorial. Vagrant Story is a hard game to learn, it's not a hard game to execute what you learned. It's like the opposite of Sekiro, where you know pretty quickly how is done "correctly" ... it's just the doing that is rather hard, with those tiny i-frames and parry windows and combat animations purposefully delayed to trick you into triggering those just mere frames to early
Star Ocean in that regard seems comparable to Vagrant Story from what you described. You can brute force much of the game,but it will take waaaayyyy longer and be waaaaayyyyy less rewarding.
As for the PS5, no I don't quite see it that way. First of all, a new console is only in part dictated by technology progress. Part of the equation, the most important one, is still market saturation. If you sold through a majority of available market at the optimal price, it is time to move on. You better hope that by that time you have recovered the initial cost of investment and then some, to be able to invest into the next cycle. That is also why rapid cycles are destructive. Sega figured that out way to late, killing themselves of with rapid iteration, confusing consumers ... sure, their hand was forced by the competition, but that is just how it goes.
Secondly, technology will continue to progress. We actually see major jumps pretty soon if we finally manage to move from silicon into graphite, but I dunno if and when this will actually be realized. Even if we don't though, there is always room to improve on optimization. In fact, I am confident that the largest long-term gains in visuals and performance on the next-gen devices, will not stem primarly from "more horsepower", but much smarter technology like VRS for example. Smart memory management will be a huge factor in general and will effectively multiply the actual memory developers can make use of, plus PS5 might actually pull of enough datathroughput to get pretty close to utterly breaking that barrier that has plagued game design for decades (there is a fascinating interview with some of the Square staff on Vagrant Story, where they in painstakingly detail reveal, how they made the best looking PSX full-polygonal game, even having little to zero experience with that technology - it's fascinating stuff, how they went over scenes again and again and again, to really nail down the precise polygon count they could deliver on the system down to a 't' and tailoring their textures precisely to the PS4 memory).
I'm very curious to see how long the PS5 will last. PS3 was bascially 7 years, which is always considered the rule of thumb for a generation. The last one or two of which were really rough so, strechting things to the breaking point in my view. PS4 will also make it effectively to 7 years, but ... frankly, only by cheating. In fact, I would argue, that with the launch of the PS4 Pro only 3 years after the original PS4, they admitted defeat. To this day, the CPU remain woefully underpowered even on the Pro. IF the Pro had not come to market, the PS4 would not have made it longer than 2018 at best in my view, clocking in at best at a 5 year cycle, which I feel is also a fair assessment.
In that regard, I would argue, they cycle has gotten shorter.
So about FFVIIR, the big upside here is the use of Unreal Engine. This should make iteration and jump to next-gen significantly easier than what they had to deal with with previous engines like say the Crystal Tools for the XIII games. Still, FFVIIR has it's issues as it stands, we already talked about the texture resolution and streaming have even severe issues. Generall speaking, the density and quality of assessts really drops tangibly after the first two or so hours in and around the reactor.
This tells me, that Square has still not come 100% to grips with the UE development and given that future chapters kind of demand huge (semi-)open spaces to remain faithful, I am sceptical, that they will be able to do this with a 2 year turn-around time. I might be wrong though. Things is, who is to say they are even going to do that after Final Fantasy XV? They might see the light and go back to an abstraction, be it the overworld map we've seen in FFVII and so many other games of it times, or the "region"-abstraction seen in FFXII to simulate - aka give the illusion of - a vast open world. I alway prefer the abstraction, as actually vast open worlds are just empty spaces that waste your time and kill any sense of density of realism (Skyrim is supposed to be a big part of an entire continent, still you can WALK across it in roughly two hours or a 15 minute drive, if you had a car handy - it's positively TINY by any real-life-continent-comparison and still, much of it is empty despite their best efforts).
Therefore I think much will depend on whether the PS5 generation will see a mid-gen upgrade and how long the turn-around time on each of the Episodes will be (and if we are looking at like 3-4 more episode here or just 2 obviously).
But frankly, I do expect a) a mid-gen upgrade 3-4 years down the line once more, b) I think 3 years turn-around is much more likely than 2 years, which c) would limit them to a trilogy on PS5, as I really do not forsee something close to 15 years or a decade.
Like, for instance, full global ray-traced illumination is not going to be a thing on PS5, not on 1080p and definitely not on 4K or 8K, no matter if you are shooting for 30fps, 60fps or 120 fps. Even today, that is one of those things that are in the pipeline, but that will not be realized on any next-gen console. Things might be different for Minecraft to some degree, as tech demos have suggested, but that is hardly the baseline for visual fidelity people are looking for here - ray tracing or not
Well, yes and know. If you count every single game, that is part of the genre, like say, all the Neptunia games, then yes, the PS3 build a big library. I'll be harsh here. That is the same calculus by which the Wii had a vast library. Every week there were dozens of releases, but a the vast majority of it was shuffleware, plain and simple. Quality games were far and few between.
The jRPGs that I feel deserve recognization last generation, were almost all either X360 exclusives or timed-exclusives. Also, my point was that the middle finger goes to players/consumers which did support Square on the 360. I have no doubt about Microsoft meddling, they have a long and storied history in that regard, and that history continued into the current gen (just ask Platinum ^^).
Anyways, I do think that is a one-sided tale. First off all, Lost Odyssey released on 4 (!) discs. I'm not sure why they would be okay with Sakaguchi doing that on LO, but not with his former employer doing that on FFXIII. Obviously though, the DVD format was a restriction on 360, that PS3 not shared, true enough, some concession had to be made and Microsoft had a vested interest in coming out of those looking as good as possible. It's not pretty, but understandable in my book.
As for the sequelSS, there were two after all, I think you are leaving out an important part of the story here: the aforementioned Sakaguchi. From what I read, Sakaguchi was OBSESSED with worldbuilding, to the point that he insisted that each entry to the FF-series had to be set in it's own unique world.
With the development of these worlds for 3D HD systems, that approach became apparently untenable for Square, esp. given the fact, that they were in the horrible habit of not only ditchting the worlds they had created, but also the engine and development tools that came with it, mor or less starting from scratch.
I still think the whole idea of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy is in large part to adress that issue: It gave them room to massively reuse assets and development tools for multiple consecutive releases, plus it had the added benefit of not having to reinvent the world either at every turn, and it gave them an excuse to expand deeply into the cheap and quick-turn-around side of the mobile games business, all under one convenient roof.
The time with Sakaguchi leaving the same year, the conception of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy was completed is ... well, it's hard to believe that any of this is any sort of coincidence. And sure enough, Sakaguchi went on to Mistwalkers and continued his massive undertaking of relentlessly building massive, unique and completely original worlds.
I'm not saying that Microsoft is any sort of angle, but neither is Square. According to interviews I read, the struggle about the direction of FF came to ahead as early as FFX-2 and had been going on probaly since 8 or 9 where some in Square felt a sequel to VII had been called for much more pressing. It is relevant I think because Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus and also Advent Children were all realised within like 3 years after Sakaguchi had left.
Again, Microsoft meddled? Sure, but to blame all those change son them is bonkers. Spirits Within was a huge bomb, even threatening the merger with Enix at the time. A course correction was necessary and that included a successfuly jump to 3D production with X, decidely not starting from scratch to bring cost and turn-around time down evident with X-2 and really changing the company's scope, which Nomura did with Kingdom Hearts, as a key part of the puzzle. Nomura is also incidently the Director behind Advent Children and given that ever since FFX or X-2 for that matter, Square was on an unyielding quest to make combat that looked as flashy as it would in Advent Children (that vision being finally realized under Nomura in FFVIIRemake of course, as we now know), it seems obvious that there were was ALOT of stuff going on that is not at all related to Microsoft. The whole 2000s were a big shake up for Square. I am not saying Microsoft was not a part of it, but who knows how much they made off of Microsoft? To pretend that Microsoft did not BUY those meddling rights after some fashion strikes me as ludicrous.
Same goes for Mistwalker. I really love their work, but what did they do after Lost Odyssey? What?
First, they shifted to handeld development, which is cheaper, than to Wii development, which is definitely cheaper than 360 was an then ... they went to mobile, which is the cheapest for sure and they NEVER went back. They would have been free to develop for PS3 when they made The Last STory. The could have developed for PS4 when they made Terra Battle. Microsoft had no hand in those decisions. They got burned by making a big, expensive AAA traditional FF game, that did not really work commercially. I would argue, that this game would have never been made without Microsoft in the 1st place. They did what Square said shouldn't be done anymore, because it was a prohibitively risky venture. They did it anyway. It did not quite pan out. I mean it was an amazing game, my favourite in that particular subgenre for sure, and it sold well, just not enough to continue down that fraught path. It's easy and cheap to blame Microsoft, but the game would most likly not exist without them, so it's also pretty hypocritical of them, at least in my view.
But yeah, there is no doubt that the strategy of Microsoft failed. It's odd though to really phrase it that way. Lost Odyssey, The Last Hope, Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata, Infinite History, Blue Dragon, Enchanted Arms and Tales of Vesperia were good games, some of them even great games, and more so unique ones among them as well, and definitely my favourites of the entire generation, some of them like LO and RoF, as I said sevearl times, I count as my two of my hands-down favourite experiences in the entire genre. IF games are what matters here, then Microsoft did anything other than fail, the furthest from it. They helped bring to life some of the best the genre had to offer, and still has.
I'll put it another way: I take Eternal Sonata over 50 Neptunia games. These ports, they were the saving grace of the PS3 in terms of jRPGs. All the Ps3 really did if you ask me, was to add Valkyria Chronciles, The Legend of Heroes and Ni No Kuni to the stack. Depending on one's taste, sure enough good stuff, but if I had to pick between exclusives for both, I still go with the 360 every time. If those games mentioend above had not been ported, I don't think we would have need to discuss whether platform was the "jRPG machine" of the last generation. There simply had not been any contest. Microsoft was pulling all stops out, using it's deep pockets to make stuff for the platform happen like Sony never (had to) bother(ed).
Haha, I can see how the Switch might be super-appealing to you in your profession. Must be godsend to finally have a console-level experience on the go!! I still haven't had time to check out Trials again, I'm kinda split between my Vagrant Story rerun now, Radiant History Perfect Chronology on the 3DS and Operation Darkness on 360. All of these a very long, deep and involved RPGs that you could spend weeks on individually! ^^
Dating can be fun, but it can also be really painful. "More" of it is not necessarily a good thing in my book. It depends on who you are. I also envied friends who stuck with their highschool sweetheart (successfully so far). Some may think in terms of "boring" here, but ... yeah, not my view of things.
@Shinobi1Kenoby I still play Virtua Tennis 3 on my 360. I'm not sure if I would buy a console for a sequel, but hell ... I just might actually, given the number of games, that came after and managed to get even close, which still clock in at just around .... 0,0000 If they added another Panzer Dragoon into the mix, that would enough for me and I only really got into that with Orta on X1 rather recently ^^
@Razmoudah I gotta say, the Skill System for Departure R sounds really deep and interesting! I had no idea! In an ideal world, the game itself provides all the information you need to succeed and gives you enough hints and room for experimentation to figure out the rest on your own, if you want to take the deep dive. It's alright with me, if a game is build in such a way, that areas or items can get by you, if you don't quite know what you are doing esp. in your 1st run, but for a skill system that is kind of problematic of course. Well, then again, we used to have handbooks back in the day, which are not a thing anymore, so all of this is actually more complicated now in that sense. The best handbooks were like ingame items, just physically, companion pieces if you will. That's also a valid approach, even though one no longer practical.
I agree about The Last Hope. From what I played, it was fairly unreliable and thus of very limited usefulness, esp. in moments were you might have need it most. The risk vs reward balance was not on point imho.
I've thought about that issue for FFVIIR as well. RIght now, I would assume that there is no progression between titles. I would kind of hate that, because progression is one, if not the, center piece of any RPG. The thing is though, that the sequels will be released on a different console, so "addons" would be curious, even if the "old" game will also run on the same system. Hell, with the magnitude they are shooting here for, I have to wonder if they'll be able to finish the whole thing within the PS5 generation, since as I said, I am not quite sure this is a three-and-done deal. It's definitely not, if other parts of the game will be expanded upon (and in some instances padded), like Midgard.
Then there is the fact, that it will take more time to create the open-world areas of the game than it did to create Midgard. Given how much of an effort the 1st game obviously took .. it's going to be a while. After all, these areas do not hold up, I feel, and are in a need for a serious overhaul. That is going to take alot of time, to the point, where I am sceptical, that more than two games can be done during next-gen. Which ... yeah, it either has to be trilogy, with seems doubtful to me, or it has to go on well into the PS6 generation.
Sounds like Grandia has some good old fashioned difficulty spikes towards the end. I don't really mind these fortunately. Well, at least as long as they are still within reason that is Plenty of jRPG had that, it's in a way not ideal of course, as a consistent difficulty curve is more rewarding than: steamrolling -> boss aka brick wall -> grinding -> steamrolling ...
And yeah, I was born in 1985. That's why I do not have the deepest attachement to SNES and PSX. I never even had an SNES of my own, but my best friend at the time had one. I only had a used PSX for a while, before I got a PS2. Hence, I am nore attached to the PSX than the SNES and more attached to the N64 and PS2 -where I really feel in love with jRPGs- than even the PSX.
I've actually had very little exposure to jRPGs on the PSX. It was more like Resident Evil, Armored Core, Metal Gear Solid and such. Hell, even Vagrant Story is not really a "jRPG", if we are frank about it. It's neither set in an anime setting, nor does it share in any of the trappings that really make up the genre. Like I said before, it's basically the Demon Souls of the PSX era. I know that is technically Kings Field, but I never played those until much, much later, and then I was not really impressed. Anyways, booting up Demon Souls did not and still does not scream: jRPG. PErsona 5 does, in a good way of course (for the most part), but DeS and VS did not - for good reason.
I'm thinking of picking uf Faithlessnes. It's like $10 during the current Golden Week sale on PSN. I already picked up The Last Remnant. That's a game I always wanted to play. It shares the same aesthetic as Final Fantasy XII, which in turn, is set in the same universe as Vagrant Stoy basically. It's my kind of jam
I only played for 10 mins last night, but I gotta say, at least visually, the game looks INCREDIBLE. Apparently, they ported it to Unreal Engine 4. It's a huge step-up from the 360. More importantly though, it ran like s**t on 360, which is why I never got deeper into it back then, it was just obnoxious. Still, the Remastered plays really smoothly. I am kinda iffed that just like the other former 360 centric jRPGs, neither Resonance of Fate 4K, The Last Hope 4k nor The Last Remanant saw a X1 release. I think that is uncalled for an probably means, that neither of those games will ever be seen in HDR, given that neither is backwards compatible either.
That's a big middle finger to anyone, who feel in love with these games on the 360, like me. In fact, as far as jRPGs goes, the 360 was superior to the PS3, there I said it, but it is true. There more of them, they came out earlier before being ported (shoddily at times), and the best ones were only on 360, aka Lost Odyssey. There were other really good exclusives as well, like Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery, and unique ones like Operation Darkness.
It's odd that Square would pretend that part of their history never happened. Maybe they are still sour about Sakaguchi and the whole Mist Walker chapter? I dunno, but it seems REALLY petty and also bad business. Who is to say that the PS5 will dominate next-gen? They might need the good will of the wider Xbox audience going forward. I do not understand, it since porting from PS4 to Xbox One should be rather trivial, much more so than 360 to PS3 for sure.
Anyways, I'm excited to try out The Last Remnant when I can find the time. The game really starts on a strong note, just as FFVII(R) and Lost Odyssey. In fact, it reminded SO MUCH of Lost Odyssey, since it also throws you right into a large scale battle, with issuing a battle command being the 1st thing you ever do, even before you can so much as run around. Obviously, the game's color palette and art direction are also similar, since LO took more than one queue from the likes of Vagrant Story.
The thing that also came up for me with booting it up, is how poorly received The Last Remnant was back on the 360 just like .... Resonance of Fate. Thinking back today it is obvious, that many western "game journalists" just could not figure out the combat system. That's not to say both games are perfect. RoF certainly wasn't, but it was much, much, much better than reviews made it out to be, many of which I suspect never actually beat the last boss in fact. Plus, if you "got" the combat, it played and still plays like NOTHING ELSE out there. I have a feeling, and high hopes, that the same is true for The Last Remnant, which kinda makes me excited
Oh and btw, The Last Remnant Remastered on PS4 is also only currently like $10, jut like all the Star Ocean games. Considering it's a massive game by all accounts, which like I said looks gorgeous on Unreal Engine 4, I feel that price is a steal.
Edit: Oh, and I also took a look at the original Trials of Mana. I gotta say, I like the sprite based visuals more. They look more charming and less ... honestly? Cheap! I also think the original had a bit more a darker edge to it, visually, than the Trials remake. It's hard to compare, but the whole Disney-vibe I got from the Remake, did not come across the same way in the footage of the original. Still, I also saw a fair bit of the recent remake of the 1st one and that looks ugly as **** and was obviously made on the super cheap. It also features even worse voice acting than Trials - like horrendously bad to the point you'd want to mute it for sure Oo
@Razmoudah @Razmoudah I'll keept that in mind about First Departure R. Generally, I strongly dislike reading any kind of guide before I start playing a game. Particularly with RPGs, I very much enjoy the process of uncovering the game's mechanics for myself - with the help of some tutorials of course - which is kinda undone with guides. Of course, if it's about some obscure conditions for e.g. recruiting characters, that the game itself never makes clear ... yeah well ^^
You sound rather positive about Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. I just dismissed it because the critical reaction was so overwhelming negative. Maybe I'll take another look then.
I'm surprised to hear you seem to have no texture loading issues. I've seen reports from people using various PS4 kits, and all pretty much report the same issue. Hell, even users with SSD report them, just with faster pop-in times. It's also not a issue in every region to the same degree in my experience. Still, it's not even as bad as the fact that some texture seem completely missing or incredibly low-res.
I'm not sure where they are going with FF Remake. I feel the whole setup with those arbiter of fate and the ending, without any spoilers, points to the possibility, that future games will involve actual decision making. I'm also not sure whether it'll end up being a trilogy, it seemed likely, but given how little ground has been covered over those 40h+, I'm rather sceptical now.
I definitely think so, that this will be more like Kingdom hearts, meaning that future entries will be just $60 sequels. I think that was at least partially the point here. They do want to make money after all
"Hawkeye as your hero with Riesz and Kevin as your companions, I haven't done that specific combination before (in my Hawkeye/Riesz saves I have either Charlotte or Duran along as my healer), but it would be an entertaining team, especially with how Kevin gets you out of jail before joining your team........." Sounds interesting!!
With these older games, so much is reliant on art direction and actual cinematography. Both are excellent in Vagrant Story. I'd go so far, as do say, that Vagrant Story is up to the highest standarts of even today in that regard. Replaying it now, it really brings into focus just how much of gem it was, ahead of it's time in so many ways. Pretty much the Demon Souls of the PSX era to be honest
Since I don't really remember much about Grandia III's story, I imagine you could be right on the money about the story. How's the difficulty in I and II btw?
Yeah, God of War is pretty much reboot in every mechanical sense. There is also no real need to have any insight into the story before that point. It probably helps though, to watch a youtube video about the characters of Kratos. There is not much to him, but it helps knowing here he came from basically, to really appreciate what they've done with the reboot, just the magnitude of the undertaking, if you will.
Like I said, both takes on God of War are legitimate, and I really loved several of the previous GoW titles as well, but GoW (2018) just takes everything I loved about GoW, fundamentally reshapes it and then takes it to a whole new level. The combat was fun and challenging in the previous games, totally, but now it is fun, challenging, but also gorgeous, (more) complex, really visceral, way-way-way more varied and thus utterly compelling. This applies to just about every aspect of the game.
Really pretty much like FFVIIR. GoW also has some pretty good writing going on imho and strong voice acting ("Boy!"-memes aside ^^). There is also an audio book even, which I enjoy. It's fittingly voiced by Alastair Duncan, which voices Mimir in God of War (basically, your 'Grimoire Weiss' in terms of Nier, and while he is not THAT brilliant, he still is brilliant. He also voiced Nihlus in ME fyi.
Sorry to hear that you had a rough going of it the last couple of days. At least you're back safe & (mostly ^^) sound now. Enjoy your copy of Trials!
Game was pretty good on PSVR. Not sure how effective it'll be as a regular release, but it should be okay. Obviously, it cannot have the same impact, but it should still make for an engrossing and challenging couple of hours.
I wasn't initially a big fan of the show with season 1, but I came to really appreciate it and season 3 had a strong sense of place and good characterization, with some intense moments for all major players. I also seemed alot more focused to me, with a clear narrative purpose from the 1st episode through to the finale. Pacing was never an issue.
I'm still not 100% in love with the animation and some of the designs, esp. the monsters, but having just watched one episode of the GitS show, I can safely say that Castlevania looks grand by comparison. I do hope that monster design will further improve. That was always something I appreciated about Castlevania, and while not bad, it is also not something I can hugely laude this show for so far - which is a shame imho.
I still think that there is the issue that much of what made the game's work, is really lost on the show. I do feel in that regard Season 3 did a bit better though, at least if you compare it to Lord of Shadows. It would be grand if the could recapture some of the sensation given by the game's dungeon crawling, exploration and tight combat.
I acknowledge that this is a hard task, but outside of a few particular sequences (like the one when they find Alucard), they did not even try, which is shame. Season 3 at least, starts out with a strong combat scenario, that does feel "game'y" in a good way imho (again, I think referencing the 3D games, like Lord of Shadows, is way easier here than the 2D ones).
@LunarFlame17 Yeah, coming off Final Fantasy VII Remake, hearing Duran talking even like 2 minutes in was a cold harsh reminder of the reality of jRPG voice acting in general. One brilliant exception makes for no rule ... even if it's a game remake by the same company, being released in the same month.
It's also worth noting that the game is lacking HDR support on PS4, which FFVII Remake offered handily.
I'm glad that this is a game retro fans can enjoy. Personally, I did not click with me at all. And no, it's not because it is oldschool. I'm currently replaying Vargrant Story on my Vita (like 15 hours in), and I highly enjoy it despite it's age and some archaic design choices.
I'm sadly just not into that whole shonen'esque anime angle 95% of all jRPGs have going these days.
I pray to the gaming gods, that Square will give us an annoucement for a Vagrant Story remake/remaster or even sequel. A while back I'd say that is never going to happen, but with FFVIIR, Shemnue 3 and Nier Automata and the NIER Remaster ... I dunno, everything is up for grabs apparently and February was the 20th anniversary for VS.
Also, Square is actually releasing Playarts Kai FIgures for Ashley and Syndey, soooooo
@Razmoudah Think along the lines of dates, not years ... obviously
I think most people that were offended (which is the right word, I guess) were more concerend with the ending, as well as the whole arbiter-of-fade entities showing up all the time, screwing with events. And I haven't bothered with anything other than Normal myself. I'll keep hard for my second playthrough down the line. I hope the PS5 can address the texture loading issue, as I found it to be most annoying technical issue with the game for sure, and would very much like to play it once more without that ^^
But yeah, in general I am not sure that a 1:1 to remake, even as far as the basic plot goes, was ever promised. Looking back now, I do feel the title itself was a clever subversion. I alway wondered why it was not named Episode 1 or something like that. Now we know why, it's not really Remake the noun, but more like: Final Fantasy 7: remake! - the verb ^^
Jim Sterling made a good point there I think: whether you consider the ending and changes in general false advertisement/"a betrayel" or a clever subversion, is really subjective and hinges on whether the game is bad, then it's former, or good, than it is the latter.
I'm firmly in the camp of clever subversion, well, I would be, if I knew how the original unfolded going forward. I'm in the camp of: I hope Part 2 will be just as fun to play, I do not care about their faithfulness to the original, like not one bit. In fact, my personal experience with FF leads me to believe, that I would prefer a game that heavily deviates from their usual fare. I know, that might be harsh to hear for a long-time fan, but ... ah well, it's just the truth.
Given your experience with Trials then, which character would you suggest to take for a spin? I figured that Duran might have been an unlucky pick on my end, but then again, just going by the visual design of each character, I was not confident, that I would really fare THAT much better with one of the others ^^
I'm definitely not down for Charlotte to be honest. Not a fan of the design, and the voice ... no, just not for me, no offense
I hear you on the Grandia Collection. I wager I'll pick it up during it's next sale! The thing with graphic is like, earlier today I started playing a bit of Vagrant Story once more (the game is just one of those titles, that really sticks me like few other media ot there) and while it's probably one of the very best looking fully polygonal-rendered PSX games out there, with incredibly strong architecture and general art direction and character design (Akihiko Yoshida is a genius in my book, I pretty much only played Bravely Default due to him being involved ^^), it's not always a joy too look at these days. It works pretty well on Vita though. Running it on my 4K TV would be ill advised though, even at a higher native resolution.
Anyways, sprite-based games, as well as games with hand-drawn backgrounds, do fare better still I feel, better than early days 3D rendered ones that is. I still feel that Baldurs Gate II looks grand, not the characters, but all the backgrounds. Just beautiful art, that never really gets old. Some of the sprite works on like Suikoden 1 and 2 also stands the test of time pretty okay, I feel. In short, the more artistic the original approach and the less technical, the better PSX games hold up in my view.
Vagrant Story is nevertheless brilliant of course - back then, and still today (Speaking of Vagrant Story, have you ever tried Crimson Shroud on 3DS? It's like 5 hours long, but also by Matsuno, and I really enjoyed it alot - not sure if I mentioned it before). Therefore, I do not think that visuals really deter me by themselves.
Grandia III was pretty much carried by the combat for me. I honestly don't remember much about it outside of that I'm curious to see how the others will click with me. It is really great to have these games conveniently available on the Switch like that (and legal on top of that). I wish we'd also get games like Valkyrie Profile 1&2 for instance.
Eternal Sonata, I can definitely recommend, I tried almost all Tales of ... games, and that one, even if not part of the official series, is by far my favourite. It's a few unique quirks compared to the others, that can be hit and miss, and Tales of Symphonia and Vesperia have their own strong appeal, with Graces probably featuring the best combat, but Sonata packed the most punch, as it just featured the most humane story of the bunch by far, and everything else was also solid, like the combat, or really great, like the music -even if the music lacked a bit of range, as it was obviously very Chopin-centric.
Are you talking about God of War for the PS4 or the original series? I mean, I can recommend both, but I'd consider the PS4 reboot to be a most play. Do NOT play it starting with the PS4 one. I mean, I wouldn't. Kratos will feel like a very one dimensional character if you go down that route. If you start with the original games, it's not something that will initially bother you, but it very well might coming off of the reboot.
If you want to try just one game from the original series, that also kinda works as a standalone game, I would suggest Ghost of Sparta. It was probably my favourite of the bunch incl. God of War III; but that one heavily relies on existing knowledge of previous stuff to really make any sense and give you a sense of closure.
I cannot recommend Ascension, it's the only game in the series I never got through. Part of it is that the series had run it's course for me then, but part of it is also that it's just an entry that nobody asked for, devoid of anything to add to an epic saga, that had reached it's climax already.
Well, then I hope you have a couple of successful work days, and ... do stay safe out there!
@Razmoudah Fair enough But yeah, I kinda feel that way, the majority for sure feature some kind of turn-based systems, in fact most franchise I am ware of, rely entriely on it. Truly full on action-combat systems are certainly rare - and again, not in and off itself objectively "better".
I actually have the collection on my wish list, as I only ever played Grandia III and remember kinda liking the combat. Still, the last couple of months or maybe even years have given me pause. I really tried to get into a bunch of jRPGs the same way I used to, but I found all these issues I laid out before - in relation to combat, but also to narrative stereotypes - harder and harder to deal with. I wanted to love DQXI, I really, really did, but I could not look beyond the combat. It is such an integral part of the experience, and even with the changes you described so eloquently to me, it never clicked, I never felt engaged, and more crucially, I also never get that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction out of it, I kinda really do need these days to stick with a game for some odd 60+ hours.
I wonder if it will be different for Grandia. I am still very much willing to try just about everything though to see if it works for me. VOice acting is not a deal breaker for me, despite what I said here for FFVIIR. It is more a thing that can elevate a game beyond it's initial graps, than a thing that drags an otherwise brilliant game down into the mud.
As for FFVIIR, I was consistently blocking, esp. since there are materia, that incentize it, plus on Cloud ... there are a handful of attacks that are better to be dodged though, but like, really only some, I feel, and only on a limited number of enemies. As a rule of thumb, I found blocking to be the way to go if in doubt I also liked how you coul dodge out of Punisher mode. That might have been OP in a way, because it eliminates the implied trade-off movement speed vs damage/parry for the most part, but it still made it super useful and those parries are so damn satisfying to watch
I never tried the game on easy, because as I said, it's not really a mind- and/or finger bender on normal either. I doubt I played any other jRPG for like 48 hours dying LITERALLY less than a handful of times - with 0 seconds of grinding on top of that. That is still surreal to me, having spend hundreds of hours grinding in my life! ^^ That alone might be one thing I will have a hard time coming back from to older games and that is true in particular because I actually deeply enjoyed fighting in FFVIIR. I was never annoyed to enter into a fight even once. Few jRPGs can lay such claim, none with random encounters for instance
Interesting, having no really experience with the Trials demo, I did not pay any attention to it that aspect at all. I was just pushing on to see what else there was to unlock, as I remember many a jRPG unlocking it's full combat potential rather far into the game (cough FFXIII cough).
Haha - oh no! So you're saying the two EO's I do not own do better with combat presentation? Darn ^^ I picked up about every Atlus game on the 3DS, I did not already on, when they were on sale last week. That's also how I ended up with the lovely Radiant Historia, but I skipped on EO V and NExus, because they were still pretty expensive and like I said, EO is one of the series, that I should love, I used to love all those D&D inspired Dungeon Crawling games on PC going back 20+ years as well, but it just was too stale for IN actual combat encounters. Did love the whole 1st party exploration though.
Do you know the "The Quest" and "Orcs & Elves" (on the NDS, and amazingly designed by THE John Carmack)? Two of my favourite games right there, not kidding. I loved the Turn-Based combat in those, as it cover the whole player engagement and applied equal rules for both player and NPCs. Just LOVED them Sadly "Orcs & Elves 2" never made it outside of a java mobile release .... still hoping to see some "remasters" for Switch for example some day. I would instantly grab those day one. They were also pretty challenging games honestly. The Quest would also be an amazing game for the Switch, even though I already own it on Steam and Android.
I do remember those days quite well indeed. I can definitely tell, that you are much more deeply versed in the genre than myself. I've always had a rather ecclectic games in general, with little adherence to one particular genre (actually that goes for all media). But I am well aware of Square's efforts, because two of my best friends were and still are pretty much die hard fans. They were playing FF games, while I was pretty much doing stuff like Vagrant Story, Shadow Hearts, Xenogears/Xenosaga, Nocturne and everything else SMT, particuarly Digital Devil Saga later on, and such.
In short, I liked the games with a more somber cast and atmosphere, the less kids I played the better, and a stronger reliance on philosophical themes than just ... drama, be it romantic or apocalyptic.
I also really only came to the genre as something I favoured in the PS2 era, not before. Before that I was much more invested in western RPGs. I always say, that what FFVII was to many of my friends, Incubation was to me (and also MGS1) - the kind of formative experience, you get as a kid I loved tactical games, with a strong puzzle'esque nature and punishing difficulty ever since, I also always loved Scifi more than Fantasy.
I think in many regards, Square did play a pivotal role to drag the industry forward, particularly in their golden years on PSX. From what I understand, they were pretty much struggling to recreate FFVII going forward until Kingdom Hearts showed up, also basically open the door for the merger with Enix, after having lost tons of money on failed projects like The Spirits Within. And yeah, I hear you on both their role on FMVs (which to be fair, were always a thing on PC, just think like Diablo, which released in the same year as FFVII as well, plus a year later on PSX.
As for FFX, you are absolutely right! I forgot about the character swapping, Funnily enough, I just laid for @retro_player_77 above, how much I enjoyed that every character in FFVIIRemake played differently and thus mattered from a MECHANICAL standpoint (and also how you never had more than 3 characters anyways, so "neglecting" a bunch, was a non-issue from a narrative point as well). So yeah, absoutely, point well taken.
I will definitely have to try to get into Star Ocean. I got First Departure R on Switch, and I'll make sure to give that fair shake. I also have Tilll The End of Time on PS4.
How did you fell about Integrity and Faithlessness then, if I may ask? Most reviewers seemed to hate it apparently, and since I did not particularly love Last Hope outside of combat, I steered clear.
Haha, oh man, you are like the first person I can recall, that ever brought this up. I HATED how they changed the name, like seriously: Resonance of Fate sounds more generic, these namechanges are 9/10 entirely pointless anyways, be it movies or games, and in a narrative sense, End of Eternity did make SENSE in the game's actual context ... Resonance of Fate did not, well Fate plays a crucial role for sure, with some characters resigning themselves to theirs and others not, but the Resonance Of ... I could never quite make heads or trails of that. Still most people have never heard of RoF, so End of Eternity would just cause utter confusion ...
I do think they changed it up quite a bit: Positioning is key in this game, but not just that, but also "Sightlines", meaning that actual 3D enviroments matter ALOT in this game. Also, the way you expend the same ressource for action as ressembles your "lifebar", means that there always trade-offs involved, which is just a basic premise I always appreciate. Like, do I kill the adds for the boss first ... normally, that is what you do, because these tend to be high dps, low hp enemies, plus they often offer up debuffs and interrupt combos etc.
In RoF though, that is not necessarily the way to go, as you can "break" them to regain your bezels, or more to the point: you will probably NEED them as a bezel-kind-of resservoir. This combined with the fact, that an enemy, any enemey, was a PHYSICAL object within in the combat space impeding movement and sightlines as far as I recall, made any such decision 10x more meaningful than in any other turn-based jRPG I can remember.
The whole question of: Will not-having-that-enemy-alive hurt me a couple of turns from now ... I dunno, but that is not a question I can quite recall ever asking myself outside of RoF.
Also, I loved the setting, like LOVED. The simple fact, that we were playing young adults really, in a mature, non-fantasy world, with GUNS instead of swords&sorcery, was such a piece of fresh air, and yeah, obviously the sheer presentation on the combat is still the best in class, like so much dynamic movement and intrinsically linked to combat, like how jumping above an enemy is actually flashy, but also serves a mechanical purpose ...
I still think that the game's combat had several genuine moments of brilliance, and I keep coming back to time and time again. Sadly, even the 4K remaster did little for people to notice it, hence we will probably not ever see anything like that ever again
So as for Trials, no I haven't played the original or any previous Mana game at all. But yeah, the way you lay it out, it makes me think, that I might have to give the game another look at some point actually. I mean, like I said above, I was hoping for it to get more engaging later on, with a bigger party, a wider selection of skills, less tutorial-esque enemy and so. Thanks for that, also for your point about the narrative structure. That was I guess unfair then on my end, to pass this kind of quick, summary judgement. I wil say this though: Having started out with Duran, it's not really all that important, if he is really a chose one fighting an ancient evil, or just the legacy of great and loyal house, trying to right a wrong done to his kingdom. It's like ... it's hitting the same beats, I feel, like Dragon Quest. Not in the details, but certainly in tone. Duran is not a Joe-Nobody, that is made clear 2 minutes into the game. He is not thrust into that situation by an outside force. In fact, the game pretty much tells you, he was going to be an adventures of sorts, because ... daddy and stuff. It's still rather generic in that regard, at least his origin as far as I can tell based on the game's beginning.
In terms of FFXV, I do think it looks pretty and the combat does LOOK kinda exciting (just google the Leviathan fight for instance). While we established that this matters to me, it does not change that everything you say about it, is utterly true.
Like, not a FF nerd here, but even I noticed how FF had this -intentionally or not- message at heart, that group of diverse people, a ragtag band of inviduals of all races, colors and ages, can band together, can become friends, and make the world a better place.
All FFXV has is 4 DUDES, wearing the SAME CLOTH, having lived their entire LIVE in the SAME city ... it's odd to say the least. Also, the narrative is split off into several other medium. Like you will not understand why these are basically "brothers" unless you watched at least the brotherhood mini-series anime on youtube. Like ... the game tells you they are super close, but never ever how and why. Well, not quite, there are the DLCs that get into it I guess, but those released after the fact and are entirely decoupled from the main game once more.
It's baffling really, like ... I do NOT understand the point of any of this at all.
And yeah, despite the combat looking appeal for sure, it is mechanically broken. I will leave it at that, as I said enough before. It just is ... on so many levels, not at all about the player making choices, it is anti-player-agency in fact.
it's even more baffling to me than the narrative media experiment, because I see no point in a combat system, that is meant NOT TO ENGAGE THE PLAYER. WTF
Hell, I hated much about FFXIII, but looking back to day, the combat was by far it's strongest assest, I actually kinda really liked it in fact. I hated hope, and really msot of the cast, the story was arcane non-sense with so much lore-name-dropping, that a couple of hours of wiki-reading-up, was necessary not to rage quit the world building (in a SquareEnix game, I mind you, consider that fact for a moment if you will) ... but the combat was neat.
I mean, you had to turn off "Auto Battle" in the options menu, but as far as the normal, non-boss encounters game, I will say that I found FFXIII to be the most challenging and demanding game in the series, based on what I have played. The game was also very strong in terms of it's use of buffs and debuffs.Those were integral parts of your tactic ... if they weren't you were in trouble, and this goes beyond haste for sure. Few FF games I can recall, put that much emphasis on those.
The combat was also super-faced, like this ATB-version on steroids. It was not for everyone, but I liked it. It also shared a similar "dynamic presentation" like in FFX, which also worked in it's favour. I did not really like the upgrade systems though, neither for weapons nor for characters.
Anyways, the game had many flaws, but it was a technical achievement, still looks excellent on Xbox One X to this day btw, and the combat was highly enjoyable - if you'd ignroe the auto-battle system. Too bad, the world and characters were actively annoying, not as bad but kinda like in FFXV.
I never had much "faith" in FF to begin with, but FFVII Remake, like this is first time in my life I care about FF I am actually considering giving Tetsuya Nomura's other brainchild, Kingdom Hearts, which never looked appealing to me at all, even as a Disney fan at heart, a shot. I'm not quite there yet, but I think eventually, I will pick up the first remaster, and just take a gander.
I'll also go back and really get into FFX again for sure. Actually, I'm just kinda waiting for Xbox Series X to arrive. FFX was a pretty colorful game with many effects going on through-out. The XBX actually also renders in 4K. Anyways, I have really high hopes for the "Auto-HDR" features announced for Series X. It's the main reason, I plan to pick it up. I think something like FFX will really benefit from this. Kingdom Hearts potentially as well, offensively bright and colorful as it is I found HDR to offer the most visual bang-for-buck and I have a hard time these days, as any SDR games, at least for the first 30 minutes or so, really looks "off" in a fundamental way. Like the first time you put on toned glasses during summer. Everything dulls down in that uncanny way. After a while you stop noticing, but the first time is always very off-putting to me, as the world just looses it's luster. That is what SDR feels like to me: A virtual world, having lost it's luster.
IGNORANCE REALLY IS BLISS, let me tell you ^^
Oh and on Trials again, still, as you say, the fact does not quite change that it is - at least thematically and I'd argue artistically - geared towards a younger audience, or if you will, towards nostalgia of older players. Well, that is unfair, too, there is nothing inherently wrong with a colorful, fairtale esque setting and shonen'inspired idealistic heroes. I just had my fill of it, I guess, at least for now. I do not want to protray my personal preferences in that regard as "superior".
I do enjoy the occasional shonen, for instance I watch Kimetsu no Yaiba, FMA, Hunter X Hunter and definitely Haikyu! with great joy, with the later maybe being my favourite anime of all
I just find that many games hitting those tropes, are just not meant to for me. You pointed out the intricacies of the leveling system in the original, but the thing is, that most of these games are just devoid of the challenge that makes me want to dive that deep, or the combat is just too dull for me to spend any more time with it, than I have to, to see the story through.
Oh, and btw, my age is right in my name
I'm really curious to see how SMT V will shake out. That is one "traditional" jRPG, I am very much looking forward to. I really hope that some, if not all of the lessons they learned going from Persona 4 to Persona 5, will be applied to SMTV. I'm talking like the scene transitions, the small animations that you get for everything (like opening a menu even), the fact that many basic actions are mapped to buttons, keeping menu interactons to a minimum, the dynamic camera, the proper combat animations for just everything and all that. Persona 5 really goes out of this way to obfuscate the rote and archaic nature of it's combat, even accounting for additions like batton pass and and such, and it does so really succesfully.
It's artistical cohessiveness and clarity are really one of the kind, and this time they managed to really translate into all aspects of the game, going way beyond P3 and P4.
I do not want them to hit the same tone as Persona, not at all, but as far as presentation goes, there is ALOT here, that needs to be accounted for in a new 3D SMT Mainline game, running on (somewhat) modern hardware. I'll loose my **** if the game unfolds like Nocturne, which was not so much bad, as a chidl of it's Pre-Persona 5 time
Edit: For some reason, I just keep thinking about Voice acting a bit, since you brought it again, and I feel that 1997/8 must really have been like the pivotal year here in hindsight, because it also gave us Star Fox 64, which ... I mean, has some super cheesy over-the-top voice acting, but delivered so perfectly, fitting the game beyond well, that it really left a strong impression of me and became completely linked to my memory of the game. And I'm not just talking about "Do a barrely roll" (enter that into google though 4fun ^^), but the game's cartoon vibe was really brought to live with the voice acting.
@retro_player_77 Interesting perspective, first off, which system did you play on? I played on PS4 pro, and aside from the texture loading issue/pop-in I had zero technical issues. It might have dropped a frame here and there, but I certainly never noticed it. I'm susceptible to it, but not overly so in general I say. Digital Foundry also found the game to be an almost perfect performer. I'm extremely susceptible to input lag, as I've been playing on Gamemode consistently for 10 years now, first on Panasonic Plasmas now on LG OLEDs, and I definitely did not notice that either, like not at all.
Plus, this is hardly Dark Souls, you can just hold your guard in punisher and will get that parry, it does not matter if you do it a second early or late. So even if there were input lag issues, which again, I did not notice at all, I do not think it would be a big deal at all. I would certainly dislike it, as I feel it creates a disconnect between me and the game, on a very fundamental level, but still, as long as it is consistent (and not spikes, like you mentioned, and it's not an action game per se ...).
I do agree that there are problems. I alluded to quite a couple around here already: The camera is sometimes unable to deal with narrow spaces you fight in particular with bosses, leading to situations of utter confusion. Generally speaking, the game does not deal super well with large group of enemies, particularly fast moving ones. The game desperately needed a jump button (one thing I liked about Trials of Mana here), because otherwise flying enemies becoming an annoying chore.
The game is clearly geared towards prolonged single-enemy encounters, since otherwise neither summons nor limit breaks nor buffs and debuffs make any sense (this ain't FFXIII by a long shot), yet 80% of your encounters are with groups of small, fast moving enemies in tight spaces ...
Still, I refuse to except your Mario Run comparison, like even on it's premise. Mario Run is a severly dumped down version, geared towards a particular input theme, that does not allow for much more interaction that what it actually offers.
The input scheme for FFVIIR is more complex though than with the original, there are more moving parts, things to consider... crucial you make more meaningful decision over a shorter period of time, which I consider more engaging as long as I am not overtaxed. I am never overtaxed though, because I can pause the game at any time and plan my next moves. Crucially, all characters in FFVII remake play entirely differently and serve different purposes (like Barret is strong against flying enemies, see above, Tifa excells at stagger increases, Cloud's parry devastates certain enemy types solo ...). That was not the case in the original and a clear improvement.
So yeah, the changes bring with it new problems, that did not exist before. But they also remove problems (think for instance: random battles, which no one ever liked as far as I can tell, same'y and interchangeable characters etc.) the original had. I will say this clearly: Personally, for me these are changes for the better all-around and I am perfectly confident, that the system will shine much more in the more open areas I fully except to be playable in Episode 2. In fact, I think the system was ironically designed with encounters in these areas in mind, and just had to fit the bill for the 1st episode as well.
Just my thoughts though, I really loved FFVIIR. It was one of the most mechanically engaging jRPGs I have played so far, certainly the most technical accomplished, and yet also one of the most moving and most humanized one.
I can totally understand though, that the story bits are controversial, particularly the ending. I felt the added bits really shined bright and made me care, for instance about Avalanche, in a way I never did before. But that is up to one's personal taste.
The thing is, in the grander scale of things, not knowing at all what is going to happen next, is more exciting to me. Simple as that. I'm looking forward to finding out what is going to happen, is it really and literally an "unknown journey"? I feel that is pretty cool, evne if they are going to continue to hit major story beats. FFVIIR really has a stromg romantic rom-com going, one I finally care about, and just on that level some liberties they might take, might offer a big emotional pay off for me, even if the actual "plot" plays out much the same.
So anyways, in your analogy, I would flip it, and argue that FFVIIR is definitely the richer and more engaging game, different yes, but the original would to me be the simplistic Mario-Run-esque version.
I'm also not entirely sure why everyone expected this to be a faithful 1:1 remake. We've spend half a decade seeing snippets of footage and it was immedtiately obvious, that this was going to be a very different beast than the original - even to me, someone who never in his life cared much about FF as a franchise, with only passing knowledge and interest for the most part.
@Priceless_Spork Depends, personally, I did not like it. It felt like a new coat of paint (that might be a bit to harsh but still) for a game that might not really have aged incredibly well, despite the combat being ahead of it's time - back then I wager.
If you don't mind the fairtale'esque setting, shonen-inspired characters, comically bad voice acting, glacial pace, sterile towns and environments, and everything else we stereotypically associate with generic jRPGs, then you might still find a highly enjoyable game here.
Music is great, the graphics are pretty nice and set the mood and tone effectively, and the combat I probably only disliked because I came straight of 48 hours of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Just don't expect anything with the amibiton of said FFVIIR or the quality of that game in it's individual parts (visuals, voice acting, animation, art direction, combat, etc.).
I hope that was more digestible and concise enough Full disclosure, I have no attachement to the original or to the series as a whole. If you are an established fan, this might be EXACTLY what you were looking for. If you are looking for another "modern" jRPG Remake coming off FFVIIR like me ... this is not it, not at all.
@Razmoudah I did not mean to imply that there were no jRPGs using anything other than turn-based combat (did it come across that way?), in fact, I do not even have a problem with turn-based combat itself.
For me, like I tried to lay out, it matters most if a) the game feels turn-based, meaning that often times, my actual experience is just paused and on-hold and b) does it offer player engagement in terms of meaningful decision above and beyond what could be done in real-time, without overtaxing the player (not everyone is a pro player with 250 actions-per-minute after all ^^).
While you are obviously well versed in the minutae of many a jRPG turn-based system (incidentially, I kinda liked the combat in FFX quite a bit, of the bit I have played so far, without ever thinking to much about why that may be so), I think the problem with FFXI is not the mechanical refinements, but that the presentation.
On a very basic level, I enjoy the combat in SMT games for instance. Without getting into the nuts and botls of it, I think there is a striking difference in my expereince of SMT III vs SMTIV/A and esp. vs Persona 5 and Tokyo Mirage Session: animations.
Simply out, the 3DS ones do not let you see the action play out. It's just literally bunch of 2D art pieces (which are gorgeous) shaking a bit on screen and some fire effect or whatever being thrown up the screen. It's supremely static.
Pretty much the exact same type of combat feels entirely different if you compare it to the other games mentioend. Particularly TMS#FE head so much going on visually, that watching it felt exciting. I mean, I don't do streaming, but I imagine a stream of SMTIV would be nauseating beyond belief. I mean, do love the game, there is brilliance to it, but the combat felt about as engaging as watching slow-mo replay of 20 year old chess tournament.
As for Tales, I do appreciate the combat, and I LOVED Symphonia on the Gamecube, but beyond that, I could never really get into the series, just as with Star OCean, for reason utterly unrelated to combat. Just could not stand the characters. Star OCean Last Hope had actual combat. Played back then on the 360, but the art direction was super uninspired, the music so-and-so, and for the life of me, I did not care for anyone in my party. It just felt very generic and cookie-cutter jRPG stuff.
I will say, that one of my favourite jRPGs of all time remains Eternal Sonata. It had the Tales system, with some clever twist like the dark/light mechanic, but mostly, it was the unique setting centered around the life of Chopin and the OUTSTANDING interpretation of his music, that captured me entirely. I even got the OST, because I totally dug the Nocturnes interpretation most of all.
I do agree with your sentiment about shake ups to established turn-based tropes. The basic party one turn, party two turn, rinse and repeat is not just the most mechanical unengaging, but also the most artificial and sterile one to look at. It feels like a battle from the early days of infantry combat. Just lines standing there, shooting at each other. Utter madness in it's own way, for a purpose sure, but looking back: utter madness.
There is nothing about that I can relate to, that can pull me. And yeah, I agree about Grandia as well, at least III as I don't recall actually playing any other, and Dragoon for sure.
Hell, I currently in the process of playing Operation Darkness on X360, one of Atlus' most obscure releases I think, and I really like how there Turn-Order and number of actions is determined not just by speed but also by weight: Thus if you bring more, say bazooka rockets, to a fight, you pack a lot of destructive punch, but the flip-side is, that some of your characters will get to act 3 times as often as others. It's something you have to weight, because you might actually face a scenario, were you are killed off, before you can do ****.
In that regard, I also like what Radiant Historia did: You get to determine the turn-order, linking many characters together for repeated terms in a row, grants devastating combos, which are essential for winning, but this comes at the cost of putting your characters in a vulernable state, where there are almost certain to receive critical hits.
Basically, if you swap place with an enemy at a later turn, but whos turn comes within the rest of your chain, thus breaking it, you will get a longer combo, but your swapping character will also likely be crit'ed, even by the enemy you swapped up.
The other DQ I really played was DQVIII, which stil think highly off all in all, so no, I do not really notice those changes playing the demo at least. I gotta say though, I was more looking forward to the option to freely move while in combat. Sadly ... yeah, this does nothing ultimately, not even for the general sensation of the ebb and flow of the combat. It does not make it feel any more dynamic.
On that note, thinking backt to FFX, I'm not postive here, as it's been a very long time, but I vaguely remember the game having a pretty decent camera, that dynamically framed the characters movement and actions. I do think that is probably part of why FFX clicked more with me than any previous FF I had laid hands on - not all of it, but part of it.
That is alos something absent from DQXI, it's so static, it almost seems entirely purpusefully. Like movement is kept to a minimum. It's odd to, because it has this colorful cartoonish vibe and one thing cartoons tend not to be: is static.
I said this on the comments for the DQXI review back then, I do not need the game to play as action'y like FFVIIR for instance. But I DO NEED to be presented as excited as something as TMS#FE or Peronsa 5, even Lost Odyssey, or preferably Resonance of Fate
That is still my favourite turn-based system fo all time, if go by both criteria, engagement and presentation - just as a sidenote. There are deeper systems, that I enjoy more mechanically, but only a handful, but still the combination of position, decent 3D visuals and music, paried with John-Woo-style acrobatics made even the grind-hell that was RoF mostly tolerable
As for the whole problem of personal skill ceiling. I hear you on that. I am not like a god tier player myself, but I can definitely handle any action in any jRPG I've seen yet, plus most of what Soulsborne can throw it me, incl. Nioh, though Sekiro pushed me to my breaking point many times over, with no little frustration involved. FFVIIR then though, felt entirely "fine". Like I said, I did like 4-5 times on normal playing roughly 48h hours to the point almost. The "normal" fights, which lasted like 20 seconds, I doubt those gave anyone any trouble. Some of the bosses were no push-overs, but it was still - in my book - more about management skills than about relfexes or timing.
It's not like active parrying or doging was a big deal in FFVIIR. As a rule of thumb, you want to maximize all your characters meaning that ideally, you were never on any of your characters for more than 3-4 actions really. They would wander of doing crazy stuff, or pointlessly standing there, so it was your job to keep in the game and in the right spot. It was actually pretty hectic.
Thing here is, I might have enjoyed like top-down version, with pause function as well. Like being able to navigate these characters around, giving them act orders and such, while being able to jump into anyone of them at any time, as AI was just flat out bad. Hell, I would have prefered such an option to be honest, and I feel that would it also make it more accesible still to less action oriented players.
Having said that, there is classic mode. Plus, and that is my main concern here, all these other series, like EQ for instance, which you mentioned as well, are NOT going anywhere. Atlus is never going to throw millios nand millions at a series like EQ to create anything akin to EQ. They would never take that risk and the money is unlikey to be made back for sure.
Trials of Mana the demo was a good example though, of how "action combat" is not a cure-all by itself, not by a long shot. Personally, like I laid out, I did not like it at all. The way the game went along with me just hammering Square-Button was an unpleasant reminder of FFXV, which just played itself, as you are probably ware. Sure it picked up with later, with one encounter in particular, but it was still pretty darn basic.
Sad part is, the button smasher feeling is one thing, but even back on the PS2, games like God of War nailed that formula to perfection. Trials has nothing on those games, as fluidity goes, combat animation, impact of hits, frange of movement, variety of enemies, attack patterns, speed ... it's like granny version of GoW drenched in the Disney-color-palette. It was an odd experience to be honest, as I had to wonder: who is this for?
I felt Star Ocean last Hope on the 360, as I mentioned, had about 100 times more engaging feedbackloops going on that this and that was back in 2009 ... like wtf party people?
Like, the way the Blinding Siding was animated, really gave it a decent feeling of momentum, if you will. I still feel it was too unreliable an just going for a normal dogde the better option, but the visual feedback was pretty good and actual incentive to pull it off, more so in view than the free hit. Strange ... I know, but a game this grindy makes you imho think about these things
The problem I see in the whole action-combat appraoch we are talking about here, like with Trials, is the point of reference. The combat invites, as I did above and in my original comment, comparison to games from an entirely different genre. I do not mean necessarily in terms of mechanics (like DMC combos or whatever, parrying windows, i-frames and such), but certainly presentation.
I think that is fair, and given that this 2020, I do think any comparion should be to the gold standart here and this remains GoW (2018). That is also unfortunate, because there is no apt comparison to be made here. I imagine that is also one reason, some developers shy away from this for sure, as producing a system, that is is engaging and also looks the part (and sounds frankly, the SFX are also an issue in Trials for me) takes time and is expensive, for many projects prohibitevly though.
On the upside, as I said, it is pretty much a guarantee that you will never round out of EQ or Demon Gaze'like games. I mean, EQ is alos a prime example of a game, where the combat presentation killed an experience, that I found otherwise rather engrossing. I own all of them except V and Nexus on 3DS, but never really got toooo deep into either one. I have the same problem with it as with SMTIV, which I finished though: it's once more mind-numbingly static. Having a bunch of 3D modells doing their thing on screen would have done wonders for me. (No, I am not the type for text adventures, certainly not anymore ^^).
Persona Q works actually much better for me in that regard. Some small subtle changes made a world of difference there. Funny, I know, but that is just the way it is. I do feel justified in expecting a game to entertain my senses as well as my intellect.
Hell, XCom had it's own like fancy slow-down killcam. Did not make the game any less deep or iron man any less taxing, just all-around more engaging to play.
Thanks for the write-up about the Black Rabite, I had like no idea as someone really not invisted in the Mana series at all. That's kinda the stuff, that can become like a myth if you experience it as a kid. Made me laugh out with joy! ^^
Edit: I forgot to say, I do feel like FFVIIR is the culmination of Square's work in their quest for a flashy, yet tactial combat system, that I feel started with X. FF XIII and FFXV are both parts of that progression and so seems is Kingdom Hearts. It's an interesting journey in and off itself, and I feel they've kinda gotten there now, and this then made worth in retrospective the mess that was XIII, the only one I really finished though for some reason, and the broken, broken, oh so very broken game, that was Versus XIII aka XV.
Think about that! That is an almost 20 year journey for them, starting at the turn of the millenium to now. They pushed out Advent Children in like 2005. 15 years later, they have a game that looks as good, sometimes better, but more crucial it captures the game's flashy action without loosing VII original variety and depth (not that it was ever theee most deepest system out there).
That is just ... I dunno, that just feels mythical in it's own way. I imagne it must have been a relieve for them, when they shipped VII and it was received by and large this well. 15-20 years is a long time trying to refining a system ...
@dudujencarelli Never played Castle of Illusion, but I do think I know what you mean. Basically, you get meaningful dialogue, likely exposition dumped on you during "normal" gameplay, and that causes issues with SFX and well, just your ability to concentrate on it.
That's pretty poorly done, granted, but that is not what I mean. FFVII R also did not do that. 1st of all, the banter I was talking about, was not essential exposition or character building of any sorts, that what the game uses cutscenes for, but just pieces, mostly rather humurous or mundane, to flesh out the world or characters a tiny bit. It also did not delivers them almost exclusively when you are pretty much just running or walking around. One could argue, that these moments should be cut entirely, no pointless travel time (there is a quick travel option later on), but then again, some people are already apparently angry as it is.
I would also suggest that FFVII is going for a different objective here than Castle of Illusion (or any platformer I guess) entirely: It sets out to create a believe world, fantastical sure, but not that personal level of the characters and their interactions and their good old feelz.
Yes, let me put it clear as day, for that to really succeed you need strong voice acting. I could imagine a scenario, where really on-point art, framing&direciton and music might be able to deliver an emotional punch and a level of relateability compareable to strong voice acting, but that is mostly academic.
Plus, it would still pose the problem, that you pretty much have to stop all player engagement and pretty much just deliver a cutscene, because relaying emotion without voice acting and facial animation ... gee, that is a task that will fail miserably 99% of the time.
One thing I can think of, that worked for me personally, were the "A Thousand Years Dream" in Lost Odyssey. Those packed an incredibly punch, but that was due to really good choices in music, proper framing within the games grander narrative and handsdown, without even a smidge of doubt THE BEST writing I've ever come across in a jRPG, maybe in a game at all.
Shook me to the core, even if it was as basic as it gets from a visual standpoint and there was literally not human emotion on display neither visually nor accustically.
Hell, I did go back and booted FFVII up on my vita, the original PSX version. I wanted to feel it, the humor, the sadness, just the humanity of the characters if you will, and not too sound to pretentious here, but I am sorry, neither the chibi'Esque cutscenes, nor the stilted text within the artificial textboxes was doing anything for me.
I have zero doubt, that like 20 years ago, in a different time, and much younger me, would have been deeply impacted by what I saw and read. Here, now and today, I am not though. This kind of stuff is in my view NOT actually "forever".
The Divine Comedy is forever. The art direction in Dante's Inferno is rather incredible, but it's not like anyone ever even entertained the thought of it like 'replacing' the Divine Comedy. That is not going to happen. That art form is pretty much unchanged. Sure, new styles and formats have emergered, but the fundamentales are the same.
This is decidely not true for videogames. The fundamentals are very much not the same now, as they have been in 1997. Hell, I remembered being AMAZED by Metal Gear Solid back then, pretty much around the same time really, when I first booted it up. As soon as I heard David Hayter I was like ... what is this? He sounds gruff, like ... like a badass mercenary gruff. I was hooked right then and there, on the game itself, but also Hayter as a voice actor, and really just the concept of voice acting in general.
It's not something that meant anything to me before MGS1 on the PSX. It certainly did after. It made MGS the experience it was, not by it's lonesome, but it played a friggin huge role in it.
Voice Acting was not entirely new at this point, but to me, I would argue, it kinda was at least at that scale and in this quality. I didn't understand what "cinematic" meant back then, but I sure as hell FELT it. Snake, Meryl, Naomi, Psycho Mantis .... Sniper Wolf ... gee, after all this time I still choke up here.
The voice acting was far from perfect or the best ever, but back then, it was certainly felt that way and put the whole experience on a completely different level for me. I hadn't really actively noticed the PSX audio capabilities until the opening moments of MGS ...
I will say this, just looking before that point, let's say Resident Evil, and also what Square did with FF after VII, I can see how many folks never really placed high value on voice acting, or really much cared for it. There was more horrendously bad voice acting being produced, particularly for jRPGs in the west (with no option for the original VO more often than not), that a certain irritation or even disregard is highly understandable. I mean, this is kind true to this very day.
I don't think it's true for FFVIIR though. I personally found tifa, JEssie and Aerith in particular to be absolutely outstanding, and really carrying these characters, like making me care for crying out loud, not 20 hours in, but even 2 hours in (later with AErith obviously). Also Barret ... a bit over the top for sure, but a couple of hours in, I did not longer care, because I had become a believer. There was conviction in his voice and all his theatrics were just part of his personality, a personality build around loyality and honesty and an insurmountable drive to see justice done.
Nothing conveyed that part of his nature stronger to me than his voice performance, nothing. It was integral to really sell me on this at heart super goofy character. An obvious racial stereotype -sorry, but the angry-black-guy-stereotype was just an unavoidable assocation- with a mini-gun for a hand ... is not exactly an easy sell, and the original just can't do it for me.
To each their own though, but I do agree that voice work should be delivered in a way, that the player can pay attention to it, without having to stand still and create their own cutscenes. Many games tend to this constantly, I know, but that is just bad design. Many games have parts of their level desgined for no other purpose than to mask loading times. These are ideal areas for that kind of VO banter to pass the time, just one example really.
@retro_player_77 Hmm, I'm honestly not sure that is a good reason, as the original still exists. What would be the point of it playing the same way?
I haven't really ever played Kingdom Hearts, as it's just too ... I dunno, like abstract for me? I watched a couple of reviews and gameplay moments, but it all just feels weirdly throwing together to me, without much rhyme or reason, plus unncessarily convoluted starting with the very names of different entries
Mostly though, I do not feel the setting, like not at all. It's just my cup of tea I guess, which is fine. The combat was actually the one thing that looked kinda entertaining, at least a first glance.
Since FFVII Remake and KH share the same director, it would only make sense for them to have a strong semblance.
As for FFXV ... I have to strongly disagree. There is very little those two titles have in common, besides them both featuring action-based combat. The combat in FFXV is broken, like complet and utterly broken. It basically consists of three things: holding down square, holding down circle and spamming heal potions, which have zero opportunity cost and are dirt cheap. Hell there are entirely battles that look amazing, but feature no input beyond pressing down square. Magic is also broken, with little reason to use. You are often fighting groups, that make it impossible to tell when to phase-evade and not, with just a jungle of limbs flailing all around you. There are attacks that cannot be phase-evaded, but must be dodge-roll-evaded ... sadly the game does not give you any clear visual clue as to what attacks that may be (unlike say Arkham or Sekiro with clear visual indicators poping up).
All of this is meaningless so, as taking damage has zero bearing on your success. There is no ATB gauge, there is zero just (besides like 100 gil) associated with healing, you have unlimited access to even elixirs (up to 99 per fight ....) ....
Buffs or Debuffs, timing, positioning, spell "equipment", none of this matters one single lick. Summons are also broken.
The whole combat exists for one purpose: too look cool. You as the player have virtually zero agency in it. Hell, for the most part of the game's existence you could even only control Noct.
This extends to the other mechanics as well. Though mechanics is a lie. Take link attacks. Since you have zero control over positioning in this game, link attacks happen almost exclusively at random (you influence your own position to a degree of course).
It's the worst combat I've ever played, in fact, it was so bad, that it baffled me enough to put the controller away 3 or 4 hours into the game to read up on it ... I mean, I was 100% CERTAIN I was just missing something crucial. I was not missing a single thing though.
So, while the combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is up to one's taste, I really cannot accept the comparison drawn to XV. Nothing about VIIR is broken. The camera is often an issue in narrow spaces, sure, like many 3rd person action games, and some of the mechanics like Limitbreakers, summons, debuffs, etc. fall apart with all the short & easy battles in the game ... yeah granted, the combat is best when fighting one - three single powerful enemies over a long period, but that just means it is not perfectly suited to each and every scenario.
Personally, I loved the combat and if Dragon Quest XI had had a similar combat, I would have been eagerly spend a 100 hours playing it. Alas, it stuck to the stare-down-duel-style of traditional turn-based combat, we've got to enjoy the last 30 odd years. I'm kinda done with that. I'm fine with turn-based combat, if it's done like in say Resonance of Fate, with crucial elements to positioning and foresight involved while feeling and looking like a John-Woo-flick, but this nonsense ... thanks but not thanks.
Fire Emblem also offers crucial elements, like (optional) flashy battle animations and of course positioning as a crucial element. I can digg that, hell I can even digg the turn-based combat in games like Persona/Tokyo Mirage Sessions, because it is so well put together.
Other games so like DQ? It is soooooooooooo static. There is this movie: The men who stare at goats. I always think of it when playing something like DQXI. It's more like "adventures staring at Slimes".
Important to me is engagement and feelz. The combat has to offer meaningful choices for me to take, the more over a given period of time, the better. It also has to feel like ... COMBAT. Combat tends to be an energetic, visceral affair - or like a battlefield form the view of a commander, which tends to be a hectic, yet cerebreal affair, which is all about adapting to changing circumstances, and having the foresight to be prepared to those.
I can digg both scenarios. FF VII Remake, I feel, got pretty darn close of offering both of these engagement triggers. There is viscearl action, with some fantastic presentation going on, but there are also ways to just pause everything and carefully consider your next moves, plan ahead and prepare to adapt for your enemies next move.
Like say, you expect Leviathan to throw up a tidal wave anytime soon, so you get your hp up or buffs going. Or, another example, you are getting close to feeling your enemies stagger gauge, so you carefully consider your ATB stock, to be ready to unleash devastation in a few moments across three characters.
I absolutely loved that and while the game was rather easy, I never had to grind one single second in this entire game and I still only died like four times on Normal when all was said and done. The game was decently balanced and rewarded you for being aware of what was happening on the battlefield.
To me, so far, it was the best mixed of action- and turn-based combat I have yet played and I hope it will become a model for more jRPGs going forward. Not for everyone, mind you, Fire Emblem is mechanically mostly fine for instance, but for something like DQ for sure. It won't happen, because DQ seems at this point specifically designed to pretend that we are still bound by the same limitations that we had in the PS2 era, but oh well, for other series then.
I feel I would have alot more symphaty for your point, if traditional turn-based combat had really become a rarity of sorts, even given the fact, that hundreds and hundreds of classic games in it's vein still exist. But there are so many jRPGs that still stick to their roots, as you put it, and have done so for 2+ decades, that it feels like a crucial part of the story, that is the decline of jRPGs in popularity.
Other genres have become really god in providing the kind of high-stakes, deeply personal, dramatic, character-driven story-telling that jRPGs have led for 20 years. The reason to play these games are slowly but steadily diminsing. I feel like Persona found a way to counteract it, but outside of that ... there are the traditionalist series, who are struggling to find broad appeal among new fans, which means their are on a dying track long term and then there is, as you point out, stuff like Final Fantasy, that is willing to experiment with each new entry to various success.
I think it paid off here big time: When FFXV was broken, as I said, FFVII was resounding success. I feel they nailed 90% of it. A few minor changes here and there, mostly to the encounter design, rather than the system itself, and they will have a recipe for success going forward for at least another 2 console generations.
That's the really good news here. This is a big jRPG that is not just run on nostaliga or narrative prowess or world building, but also technical achievement and mechanical appeal on top of that. Good news for the industry, which felt borderling on the brink of disappearing in the PS3 era, with failed projects like FFXII and the 10 year odyssey of FFXV ending in desaster (it has indeed been 10 years between 2006 and 2016, more actually given that the game was in development before 2006).
Edit: Oh yeah, that fact that Square has mastered Unreal Engine 4 is also frigging huge. They done great with for a coupel of games now, but FFVII is their crowning achievement. This used of established middleware, that is not abadoned and rebuild from scratch for each game, will dramatically lower turn-around time for developments and thus lower cost and thus lower risk. It has been a long time coming, but I think this will eventualyl catch on with other japanese Developers. Esp. for the new generation, I expect dramatic gains here. Just a sidenote of course, but another thing that feels me not just with hope for the future of the genre, which looked so very bleak for many years, but actual exitement. I wanna see where FFVIIR goes next on PS5, but I also want to see where Square takes their other IPs. I might actaully be excited for the 1st time in my life, for a new mainline Final Fantasy Game.
Also: I want badly for them to remake FFVI in this fashion. The game's world and narrative and setting has so much appeal, like VII's, it would be ashme not to see it brought to life in such splendid fashion as VIIR!
@retro_player_77 I'd say so, as far as the literaly "remaking" goes, based on the demo, I'd also say though, that Final Fantasy VII Remake is the technical superior game, vastly better voice acting and pacing, much, much stronger beginning and alot more engaging combat. And while I might catch flak for that, FFVII Remake seems mostly geared to it's audience from the late 90s, as far as demographic goes, while trials still feels to target teens to be quite frank. Which is fine, it probably did back then, and as a faithful remake, it has not much choice in the matter, but as a no-longer-teen - who has since devoured dozens up dozens of jRPGs as well as animes and mangas that have the exact same tone and narrative beats as well as structure - I found myself bored to tears by it.
FFVIIR has the benefit of having young adult characters, inhabitating a uniquely designed jRPG world, not intitally pitting you against some ancient evil or evil empire. It feels like a breath off fresh air almost in that regard. All of this is not entirely unique of course, but it IS definitely on the rare spectrum for the media, as for every FFVII, Lost Odyssey or Resonance of Fate, you get to play about 50 teenage boys on a mythical Hero's Journey to defeat the most evil dragon XYZ about to devour the land. Just saying!
@Priceless_Spork Kinda glad to hear someone else feeling this way to be honest. I know FFVIIR is getting and going to get alot of flake for it's changes, it'S ending (which is already controversial according to the internetZ), but I think the game add value to invest more time into the same world this way, beyond being just pretty as hell. It's going to garner even more outrage going forward, as big changes are up ahead - I mean the game literally tells you, the journey forward will be UNKNOWN - but that makes me excited. Can't wait to see what happens next.
And maybe even more importantly, the gameplay is shaken up so significantly and modernized in such smart and engaging ways (90% of it actually works thankfully), that it feels less like a remake of an almost quarter century old game, and more like the next Final Fantasy.
Maybe they just should have called it XVI, but then again, the marketing power of FFVII is probably too sweet a seduction to ignore. Still, to me, this is just the better version in almost every way.
Thing is, given the action roots of Trials, I can totally see how they could have done something similar here, be it VASTLY more ambitious reimaging or an entirely new game. It's cheaper to do the reimanging part, as you can rely on established characters, plot points and most importantly marketing nostalgia.
@Wavey84 Haha fair enough, I mean, if jRPGs are not your jam typically, I can totally see how Trials would definitely bore you to tears and then some. It is guilty of several of the major sins so many jRPGs tend to fall victim to, like you mentioned already. I also really feel the whole glacial-pace-beginning-it'll-get-exciting-10-hours-in is hurting these games pretty bad. I can normally stomach that (just look at Persona), but FFVII Remake really made me feel like more jRGPs need to hit the ground running in the future. None of that b*s* we're you have played 30mins to an hour before you run into a battle.
I also wanna give a shout out to Lost Odyssey which is definitely my favourite Final Fantasy. I noticed that LO does two things the same way FFVII does: It starts with a mood-setting cutscene, then almost seemingly (the FFVIIR at least) transitioning to gameplay, while having you engage in a battle RIGHT AWAY, with exactly zero delay. It's the way to start an epic adventure, as you are instantly getting the sense, that stuff is happening, things matter and your actions have meaning. That is not the case, if the game has you meandering around for an hour - worst of all, spending that hour telling you, that you need to do stuff, because the fate of the world demands it .... right.
@Ulysses Well, if done right, I think voice acting can ADD a lot to a game's ability to draw you in and bring it's characters to live. I really appreciated the voice acting they added to Radiant Historia, as I mentioned. While not always 100% perfect (which VO-track ever was, no matter the medium), it enhanced the characters personality and added - in my view - significant value to the remake.
Same goes for FFVII Remake. There were a small number of characters, I felt the voice acting was a bit of with, but overall most on them were on point. In fact, all of the main cast was just flawless to me, particularly Tifa, Aerith and Jessie. I cannot imagine having enjoyed this game half as much without the outstanding voice work to be brutally frank.
There is another thing to consider: Voice acting allows gameplay AND narrative to occur simulanteously. So you can run around, do quests even fight (to some degree), while banter happens and sometimes actual narrative dialogue unfolds. That is also a much more natural way for content to be delivered than just cutting gameplay off entirely for everyone to stand around and talk at each other.
In fact, this is what made the dull sidequests in FFVIIR work for me to be tolerable. There was always another character with me, and there was always someone talking. It just felt alive and a quip or something by Aerith or Tifa, that made me smile or laugh, was never more than mere moment away.
It also made the sheer act of running along those corridors the world is build out of a less tedious task. So .. that's my view on this at last.
Thing is, jRPGs in particular have a horrible track record mit Voice Acting. As a big jRPG player, that has always bothered me, more so now than 20 years ago of course, when the fact that VO existed was a feat in and off itself. I remember Baten Kaitos Origins, a game I really revere, being one of those featuring in part downright horrific VO. I still love the game, but as you imply at times the VO was sadly hurting the experience.
Again, though, if done right, and I was pleasently surprised with the Radiant Historia remaster here, it can really bring alot of gains to the table. I could never really care for much of FF, not even FFVII, but the remake drew me in good. The voice work was absolutely crucial to that end, of that I am 100% sure. Having had only textboxes (that again would have killed the game's incredible momentum und mostly tight pacing), it would have made for a different, vastly inferior experience.
Comments 2,303
Re: Unreal Engine 5 To Support Current-Generation Consoles And Mobile Platforms
@kalosn Yeah, but I was just trying to say, it's not just that it looks better and allows for more variety, but maybe even more importantly, it should cause less effort for developers.
Re: Unreal Engine 5 To Support Current-Generation Consoles And Mobile Platforms
@kalosn I think the key about Lumen is that it is not pre-set, no baked shadows and all that. It's just less work and way more flexible.
Re: Unreal Engine 5 To Support Current-Generation Consoles And Mobile Platforms
While scalability is always a major aspect with Unreal Engine, I would not expect much in terms of Switch UE5 games. So, first of all remember that it is going to be a while, like 2022 at least I wager, before we will see games taking advantage of this on next-gen consoles. So even assuming it's possible to bring one of these games over to the Switch, that will take some time on top of that 2022 window. Assuming it's possible, because even with scalability there are four things here:
1st, this was a 1440p demo running in 30fps on PS5. The gap between PS5 and Switch is ... huge and in terms of the SSD, there is no gap, just different galaxies really.
2nd, Nanite seems to scales with resolution like there is no tomorrow. That might proof to be a ... challenge with a system designed resolutions from -soon- two generations ago.
3rd, I assume that all these assets will make from some very hefty space requirements. That is of course not just an issue with Switch, with theoretical support up to 2TB, but still something to keep in mind.
4th, UE5 will not be the best engine for any game. Simple as that. For many different reasons dev might want to stick with other engines for their projects that might be due to the game being on Switch, but also entirely irrespective of that.
Re: Netflix And DreamWorks Animation Trollhunters Is Getting Its Very Own Game
I really enjoyed the show, as basically all the stuff del Toro is involved this, but licensed stuff is still ... pretty worthless honestly. There have been a few exceptions, but if I had to wager, I'd say it's best to just forget about.
Re: Feature: Blue Fire Mixes Zelda, Dark Souls And Platforming - Exclusive Gameplay Footage And Character Reveal
I'm tired of reading "Dark Souls" everywhere. One defining aspect of Souls is the quality of it's art direction, world building and level design, the way these aspects excell individually and yet make for a cohesive whole. That is not just one marginal aspect of the experience, it's one of the core tenets of these games.
How many "Souls-likes" can offer anything even in the same general vicinity on a cosmic scale? Right, close to none. Few exceptions like Hollow Knight aside, most games are perfeclty fine copying the basic gameplay loop and call it a day. That can still make for fun moments, but calling it Souls-like is doing the actual Souls games more of a disservice by the day.
I wonder how many folks never played a Souls game, but only (cheaper) Souls-likes of one variety or another, and who will thus never know that there is so much more beauty to a Miyazaki game than just the underlying gameplay loop. Kinda breaks my heart.
Re: Tokyo Game Show 2020 Officially Cancelled, Will Be Replaced By An Online Event
Not really surprising, given the state of affairs, but still a tough pill to swallow for everyone involved with these huge events. We shouldn't forget that there are thousands of people whose livelihood is dependent on these big conventions happening. Still, it is the only reasonable decision to make right now.
That aside, I do hope the online event will be worth it. The Xbox "gameplay reveal" yesterday was a real disappointment in terms of ... well, next-gen gameplay being shown. I do not expect the rest of the year to play out the same way, but let's just say that it made for anything but not a stellar first impression. There is still the 1st-party Xbox reveal in July, which should be alot more enticing. We are also going to get Summer Games Fest and Playstation will also have some kind of big event in the near'ish future (I expect within the next 4 weeks).
@Krull I was actually first and foremost also thinking of SMT V. Thinking back on how SMTxFE was announced and then went awol for years, I am not too worried about the project moving forward in general, but by now it would really be nice to have an honest-to-god sign of life being provided. TGS seems like the best avenue for that, outside of an E3-style Nintendo Direct, which is apparently not happening this year
Re: The 64Mate - A New All-In-One N64 Storage Add-On Goes Live On Kickstarter
@nimnio I was about to argue that IGN's list is invalid, but then I realized that we are talking about IGN and the year 2000 no less. Hence I rest my case.
PS: For posterity though ... any such list that does neither feature Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Rogue Squadron, Wave Race 64 nor Conker's Bad Fur Day is wrong. 11 out of 10 scientists agree with that statement.
Re: That Rumoured HD Remaster Of The Mass Effect Trilogy Might Be Coming To Switch
Well, I'd like to see things like the squad management improvements from PC being brought over to the console version for instance. I already played the 1st one to death of course on PC, but the games are good enough to warrant those half a dozen playthroughs.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
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Re: Mortal Kombat News Is Coming, New Reveal Planned For Tomorrow
Anybody remembering MK: Shaolin Monks? I do and I want more of it! Hell, I'll take a port to Switch to boot. It's a PS2 game, so it should be utterly doable. Make it happen!
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah As for Marvel, well, I'm used to reading these story arcs that extend over the course of months, spread between 100s of individual isses, released across a dozen or more different series using release guides to boot, but .. that is not something that has mainstream appeal. I feel people got as much consecutive storytelling with 2 or 3 movies a year as they could handle. To call it condensed is a bit of understatement. In fact, we will soon see how all of this pans out once Disney+ starts demanding you have seen hundreds of hours of their Marvel shows to be able to really keep up with the latest movie releases. Then we might be getting close to testing how willing the audience is to keep up here. I am not quite sure what you mean by "secondary parts", but small details falling by the wayside is the nature of the beast here with only so many 2h+ movies being made to deliver on particular narrative string and a lot of on-the-fly retooling being necessary to account for e.g. Spider-Man being in (and out again, and then in again), the deal with Fox bringing certain Mutants in, then the Fox Merger ... upheavals with certain key players like James Gunn.
SOme movies doing better than expected, demanding a stronger focus for the future. GoG is not a huge deal in the comics. Ever since Operation Galactic Strom, which is still one of my favourite event ever, I've been a huge fan of the Cosmic Marvel Universe. I'm still waiting to see that made in to a movie event btw, particularly I want to see Quasar on the big screen! Anyways, that is still somewhat an outlier within the comics. It was in no way clear that GoG would be that big a success and a key movie franchise for Marvel. Personally, I love the GoG movies, they are easily my favourites out of the bunch by any margin.
Then you have actors that want to renegotiate because they realize that their worth has increased by an order of magnitude within years ... Accounting for all for all of that, things have to be flexible. I think that is the reason most studios shied away from doing these decade-plus long narrative experiments.
As for Corona, yeah, no doubt there. It's going to stick with us for at least another 18+ months. Expect a second wave to hit later this year before a vaxine can even start mass production. That is assuming of course, that the virus is not going to mutate into something more nasty or combine itself with material from other viruses within some host. Some of the poorest and least protected populations on the planet have not yet been hit at all. There are, without being cynical, billions of hosts out there, that have not been infected, that will get infected over the course of the next year or so and that have the potential to be the wellspring of the next evolution of the disease.
It's impossible to get that particular curse back into Pandora's box.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah That's the beauty of these 1st-party and partnership games though, they do not have to be economically feasible on their own. To me, that is really the underlying reason many of these games are so appealing. They do not suffer from the same creative constraints about every other type of content does. That said many of them end up being economically viable on their own of course. Halo Infinite can totally loose dozens of millions of dollars ... so long as it sells Series X to early adopters that get the train going. It will in all likelihood make it's investment back and then some though.
For jRPGs the story is typically different. The market is smaller, tastes are harder to pin down, so outside of some very big studios with strong name/brad recognition like Square with FF, it is ... lacking in prudence, let's say, to make a game that is operates on a truly epic scale as well as one that is in any significant way experimental, be it mechnical or narrative-wise.
I dunno, I think the Japanese industry is in a tough spot there. Games get more costly to make, the domestic market is hardly growing (absolutely not in regards to the revenue vis-a-vis the costs) and the formula in use were outdated a long time ago, with limited appeal in outside markets.
I'm very curious to hear what Mistwalker would have done without that support from Microsoft. Would they even exist? Would they have gone straight to mobile or handheld games? It would have been utterly irresponsible to make a game like LO - which would have been a do-or-die-project right out of the gate.
Sony doesn't really have to bother with all of this. For many of these developers, despite digital platforms on PC and maybe the Switch these days, it still their "lifeboat" of sorts to the west. Bringing a game to Steam is dandy and all, but that market is gigantic. Each games runs the risk of being drowned out out within days of it's release. PC porting is also not an easy task and not something that pays dividends domestically, plus not something Japanese devs have had grad technical success in the past general.
In other words, Sony can feel confident that if there is a Persona game being made, it will show up on their system. They might even have enough clout there to keep it as an exclusive forever without much effort.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah
The way you put and the way I remember it, it ought to have been WKCI then Yeah, bittersweet is a good fit for describing the ending and really most of the show. I really dug it. hell, I really dug his take on Godzilla, which was just plain weird and out there, but with a great oppressive mood and some unique ideas thrown in. Not perfect, but a fun watch, something done differently with the material to some decent effect.
I agree about Apple, but the funny part is, being reasonably priced would hurt them, I think. They would have to compete on margin, and that would run counter to their image, which is competing on their own brand on obsinate uniqueness. It seems to work them, so more power to them. I had one Macbook in my life and while I liked working with XCode, I still felt no further desire to stick with MacOS. Of course, the way Xbox is now integrated into Windows, running OS is an unfeasible proposition once more as a gamer, not that it was ever really feasib in the 1st place. Bootcamp is also annoying and yeah ... my sis is an Apple person though, through and through, but then again, she can afford it so why not - rather run 4K OLEDs and mutiple gaming platforms than having an $500 smartwatch I never use!
As for Japan, I would theorize by virtue of hindisight that the interference of Microsft resulted in the games we got. Otherwise LO might have felt like FFXIII - or possibly more like it? I'm okay with just three FFXIII experinces on 360 though Maybe as you say, it was just the way the could now talk creative risks they could not take before? LO really makes me wonder time and time again. It's just such a lavish game, money thrown at the screen at every turn, such grand ambition ... nothing like that existed outside of FFXIII back then. Maybe Ni No Kuni, but that was build on an entirely different technical premise, which I feel came much cheaper.
In terms of DC and Marvel ... the movies are doing fine in Japan from what I can tell, so I am not all taht sure that the narratives are the deal breaker as the movies do a good job of emulating the narrative strains of the comic - condensed and less opaque to newcomers, sure, but otherwise not all that dissimilar.
Stay safe out there, the news coming out of the states are still very scary. You guys really had some bad luck as far as timing goes. Trump is really doing his utmost to **** all of this up.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah
About Neptunia, I actually looked into it once more yesterday, since that and Fairy Fencer are like $5 or something. But I couldn't quite bring myself to it. Like, the reviews are as rough as during the PS3 era and just watchting two like 10 minute Youtube reviews for each (like Dark Advent and N:VIIR) just turned me off once again for all reasons. I don't think I can relate to anything that goes on screen. Neptunia in particular just strikes me as a child of Japanse daytime TV, which from the small sampling I partook, is loud and shrill and really an assault on the senses with mostly senseless interjections and panels reacting to frigging reaction panels, reacting to some gameshow shenanigans. It's silly and not really in that genuinely playful manner I can deal with.
One question though, how do feel about Tales of BERSERIA? It's literally only 8€ on the Eu store, and I actually read some good things about. Having not really loved the series outside of Symphonia, Vesperia and Eternal Sonata of course, will it work for me you think? Its alot darker and mature with some stronger character writing I hear and decent Voice Acting. I feel I should give it a try, beyond the demo I tried, which was okay, but has little story input of course. I tihnk I'll pick it up.
It's just running Vagrant Story for instance on my TV doesn't work. It looks truly unbearable. Since every pixel is stretched beyond recongnition. It's okay on the Vita screen, but at 4k (also the issue of 4:3 of course), it's actually looking bad. THese are things that should be adressed by emulation in 2020. I feel that you really do not have to be a graphics whore for thinking that PSX era 3D graphics hold up purely. 2D assests with strong art direction typically fair better. My all time favourite Baldurs Gate 2 is still very much playable these days.
Even if we could move beyond the Uncanny Valley, and I think we will, just looking at what can already be acomplised with machine learning, photorealism leaves no room for artistic impression. Something is either photorealistic or it is not.
As for Operation Darkness, you must be definitely thinking about a different game. It does not get mch more interesting in terms of alternative history than that game. Like I said it's basically Hellsing, with some Hellboy inspired characters thrown in for good measure like Cordelia Blake aka Liz. There is also a rich cast of historical Nazi figures you rarely see actually portrayed like Rommel, Himmler and Hitler himself. It's neat to see a game not shy away from this. And yes, mixing tiger tanks with werewolfs, dragons and vampires and magic and bazookas is just as fun as it sounds. You literally cannot go wrong with that.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah It's really impressive work on a technical level as well, having that PowerPC code run on X86, and it runs better. It did not in the beginning, but they worked tirelessly on it. Some games received liek a dozen backwardscompabiltiy-patches. Like ... imagine that, they were doing it for free and never stoped improving on it, going backs to older releases and bringing those up to snuff with stuff they learned with current ones. I still think it's one of the most consumer friendly and technological imrpessive efforts in gaming conservation done to that, definitely by a commercial player. What they did for FFXIII was absolutely unprecented. I still maintain that there is no other scenario where this would not have been done -> released and repacked and sold as a remaster. They were just doing it for free.
As someone with a deep appreciation for gems like LO and Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery, I really appreciatd that effort.
I have long critized Microsoft for their handling of Microsoft Studios. Rare is an obvious example, but it goes beyond that . Bungie leaving is another, the aforementioned cancellation of their cooperation with Platinum Games. It's a long list of things gone very wrong due to poor management. And it cost them dearly as well, as it should. I still have hopes that they are turning the ship around. THey bought so many new studios .... we have to wait and see. I would love for those 360 days of exclusive jRPG content to come back. I'd love to see them partner with From Software for their own take on Souls. Competition is a good thing.
I am very curious to see what they are doing with PS5. Xbox has a huge lead by now despite Sony being a strong supporter for BWC even with the 1st gen PS3, with basically were a PS2 as well before we got software emulation and then nothing. Microsoft has moved far beyond mere faithful emulation a long time ago though, as I described, really upgrading legacy content to make it worthwhile with modern displays, ironing out performance dips and such.
I think, not having played FFXIV before, that is all stuff I can deal with and I am glad to hear the controllers actually provide benefits here. It's more convient than KB+M on the couch. It's also free of any movement penality when using the triggers, which ought to come in handy with FFXIV. That's interesting, but I do not plan to go back to TOR, definitely not for PvP - ben there dan that, so to speak ^^
I actually tried watching some of the Persona anime stuff, but didn't end up liking it. Dunno why really, it's just ... boring to me. Maybe due to having played the games, I cannot say really. It's just not as engaging an experience, not at all. Might be that Golden leans more heavily into upbeat characters and stuff, I do have the original P4 as a PS3 classic but never felt the need to play it, since everyone and their mom agreed that "Golden" was the definitive version and the best reason to own a Vita (argueably that is Muramasa Rebirth the most beautiful game ever created - argueably ^^).
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah I can see that, linear TV has too many issues. I still kinda of watch public german television, for political discussions and news reports and such, since I consider it a good source, being publicaly funded and all, but not for entertainment purpose at all. German TV is the worst, and I hate german localizations anyways. I moved to watching my TV shows and movies in English almost half my life ago, in fact, I would often pay premiums going to theater farther away so I can see OV runs of new movies!
Also really help bring up my grades in English class + spending hundreds of hours playing Line Age 2 on US servers, chatting my fingers off -> having to learn to a) type and b) learn the damn language, before moving to voice chat. Funny story: one of my Professors once asked me where I learned my English (he felt he detected a Californian accent of all things ^^) and once I told him that story, he laughed out loud and told me, that he can relate, he got much of his language proficiency from watching Cartoons as a kid!
I didn't have an Xbox One at launch. It was a joke a complete laughing stock. Actually, I got one for game like Scalebound and Phantom Dust Remake, which were both sadly canceled. Which would have been enough for me to get rid of it. Alas, I really enjoyed the system for other reasons at that point. Forza Horizon 2 had turned the series from dont-care-go-away to a series I deeply enjoy. Halo and Gears provided the best coop shooting experience there is, as they probably always have and like I laid out before, I am not annoyed using the Xbox One, unlike the PS4.
Things came to a tipping point with Xbox One X, which was just ... better for anything outside of the PS4 exclusives. So I moved my 3rd party gaming there almost entirely. For instance, the system is silent. My PS4 Pro playing God of War forced me use headphones. That never happened to me before in all my gaming time. Hell, Mark Cerney adressed that even in this "Road to PS5"-talk. The system would for some games peform like an airplane turbine. It was ... beyond the plae for a new $400 device.
Backwards compability is an amazing feature on Xbox One. It's what I most look forward to with Series X as well. I salviate at the notion of getting to play Dead Space 1/2 or Resident Evil Remake or all the Final Fantasy in 4K/HDR. Like truly, that is gonna upgrade these games to remaster status for free basically. It is insane what they are doing. They are already running Xbox games at native 4x resolution. Performance is consistnetly better, load times are better (huge deal for a game like Lost Odyssey, which is now 50% more enjoyable and adding SSD and HDR to that, will pretty much make it a complete package.). As a piece of hardware, the build quality of the X1 is superior to the PS4. I have no hard data on the failure rate, put my PS4 harddrive actually corrupted causing loss of some savegames, I had not MANUALLY uploaded yet. I won't say that is representative though, still the X1X is smaller, ALOT more silent and provides more power. No way around that.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah I share accounts with my best friend on all my platforms, so we can access each others games. It's cool because we have similar taste but also some different preferences, so I get exposed to games, I might otherwise skip. And of course, it makes sense for coop games, like Halo, Gears, and so on to only have to buy them once, splitting the cost. The thing is, the X1 in the MS store shows me when I can install a game I have not bought, thus effectively telling me it's on the other activated account. On Ps4? I have to log unto my buddies account and manually check (just as I have to manually upload my saves, uninstall games to make room and so on and so forth). I actually missed that he had already bought SO The Last Hope, so now I have 3 copies (360 and 2x PS4 )
I have a bunch of complaints, to many to list. Like for instance, the search function in the browser version is horrible. It only lists EXACT matches. It's pretty much less typo-agnostic than google was 2 whole decades ago. It's an embarassement in 2020 really.
I do kinda agree about the PS4 Pro. The same way I was and still hankering for a Switch Pro with that atrocious screen of theirs. I mean, that's harsh, it is not horrible, it is just a cheap LCD screen and I have moved beyond these with all of my devices but my 3DS. It's always a dismay to have to go back to that. Like someone threw clouds up, obstructing the sun, making everything look just one whole step more dull and depressing really. BUt what can you do ...
I am a bit concerend about storage for the PS5 and XS1. I think PS5 might have an leg up there long term, even though at launch, it will be hard to get anything to expand storage. I do have noticed though that the PSN speed, which have historically always been bad for me, seem to have improved over the last 2 years or so. I can more consistently get 100mbits. I have a Gigabit connection like I said, but both consoles are still on 100mbit wired connections, so more is not really possible outside of Wireless, which only provides better speeds in theory. Anyways, Xbox has been hitting 90 to 100 mbits consistenly, which makes downloading of anything under 100 Gb not much of an issue, so given these circumstances, I am more relaxed in terms of getting my games on the fly and being okay with onl a bunch of them installed at the same time. I might upgrade to gigabit wired for the next gen and then it might not matter whether I have a game stored on an external HDD or whether I am download it (so the latter wil be more eco firendly of course).
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah Well sure, there were plenty of hacks, but frankly not on that scale. Almost 80 million accounts were compromised and it took them a while to tell folks. Also, the entirety of the system was down for over three weeks. That time alone accounts for more offline time by several orders of magnitude than I experienced in using Xbox for the last 12 years or so. It's not something I would compare at all, unless Microsoft has been covering up an hack of historical proporitions for a while now. My personal experience here is of course only anecdotal in nature, but the last weeks as well as 2011 definitely inform my feelings toward PSN; as well as the objective lack of features and/or quality of said features (like voice chat etc.). It's just natural as well, because Microsoft was ahead of the curve there, pushing this kind of online platform.
I generally loath credit information being stored anywhere, so I either use PayPal or as with both Sony and Microsoft, I use prepaid cards from Amazon - which I gotta trust by necessity of convenience. Microsoft is running the second biggest cloud service out there behind Amazon, and they might actually be considered more popular and growing faster. I'm just saying that they can afford and definitely have some of the best software engineers working for them that literally money can buy. That does not make them immune to anything, but still a major target, but at least it's an era that they have competency in as one of the most succesful tech company in history. Sony is hardly a tech company, it's an electronic and entertainment one and it's hard to oversell how poorly implemented even basic secure measures were going back to the 2011 hack. It was just an embarrasement. They were not outsmart by some high profile group or anything. They invited anyone who happened to stumble on their outdated Avalanche server to wreak some real havoc and harm. In short, it was their fault for not even remotely doing their due diligence. No one is perfect, but that does excuse negligence.
I was talking about the X1 actually. I barely use the 360 as 90% of my games for it are on X1 and play actually better. I think though, that the OS of the 360 was okay for the time, no worse than the PS3, even though I felt the PS3 looked more appealing. In terms of functionality, I definitely and vastly prefer the Xbox One for features that bother offer as well as stuff only the Xbox One even bothers with.
Re: Random: "Games I Want Ported To Nintendo Switch" Twitter Hashtag Goes Viral In Japan
I'd be down for Baten Kaitos most of all. Skies of Arcadia Legend is always welcome as an evergreen.
Don't really care about Skyward Sword and Windwaker HD. Both are fine on WiiU and I am not sure what the Switch would really add. I'm not against ports here, I just don't see any immediate need or huge benefit. Who is really into Zelda games but hasn't played either one yet? Everyone and their Mom had a Wii, and hence could play both games.
Xenoblade X I can see. It was kinda of wasted as a WiiU exclusive, I get that. Not sure I would buy it again, but I just might at some point.
I'd really love to see a FE PoR/RD collection on top of that. Should be easy enough to get these GC/Wii games, which went largely unnoticed by the general public back then, unto the Switch.
Invisible Inc. is one indie I realy miss on the Switch, would be a great fit, too. But frankly, portbegging is so whatever.
What are folks going to do next year, when the system gap becomes gargantuan? Go nuts about Cyberpunk citing Witcher 3 (a game that started development in during the Wii era back in 2011...)?
That's going to be ... fun I guess.
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Delivers Its Verdict On The Switch Version Of Streets Of Rage 4
@DTfeartheBEARD Same here, I had no idea until DF mentioned it. 15 minutes later I was happily playing Might pick it up on Switch as well, we'll see.
Re: Kemco And City Connection Apologise Over New Switch JRPG Revenge Of Justice
Had never heard of the game, but having just seen the trailer ... it's tragic if a game's budget runs so thin that it just covers like 2D assests and the 3D execution has to run on fumes
Re: Gallery: Huge Batch Of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Screenshots Show Characters And Environments
@Xansies Haha true that, but whether this is a good thing is a different question entirely, I feel. There is nothing wrong with consistency of course, then again I liked that neither of the three games felt really all THAT same'y. Mostly though, like I said, it's an overused aesthetic. It's just nice to tell games apart by looking at the characters, without knowing the characters - just by style so to speak. Not a big deal though, and you are probably right about wanting to stick closer to XBC2 - on the same system no less.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah Well, I would argue objectively: no. First off, PSN Hack! - nuff said basically. But no, that aside, just earlier this month, I tried to play Nioh 2 with 2 friends. No dice on PSN before midnight, at least one of us would definitely drop out of the game and/or PSN party chat randomly. We moved to playing AFTER midnight - it was the only option. No such issues on Xlive, during all those weeks. Things got better last week, but early April, it was broken for us. We are living in the same city and are running 100mbit at the low end and 1Gigabit at the top end as far as connections go ...
It's only the tip of the iceberg though. PSN limits what you can do, e. g. in terms of automatic save-game backups, when your account is not "primary". Xbox does not give a **** about that, or if you even have Gold. It just automatically backs your stuff up, and shares it - no problem - between X360 and X1 and I assume Series X.
To be frank though, I never had anyone argue in good faith, that PSN is better, hell, this clearly extend to the PS OS a well. I love my PS4 for it's games, not for it's super ***** Operating System and "okay"-Network. Anyone who says different: Does not use Xbox, has had really bad luck or is just flat-out lying.
I was installing Last Hope the other day. What do I do to install it? Randomly deletin other stuff, I no longer need, until it downloads. Xbox tells you, that the game is too big, how much space you need, it takes you too a menu, where you can pick stuff and "fill the bar" of storage you need. It even recommends stuff, that takes up a lot of space and is rarely used. It shows you DLC/Addons that are orphaned, due to the "main" application no longer being installed. It let's you remove 4K assests to save space from certain games.
The list just goes on and on. The one thing I really like about PS4 here: SHARE PLAY. RIght off the top of my head, that is the only thing, that I think is really unique and/or works better on PS4. PS4 caught up in some areas, like voice chat does not longer make you sound like voice acting extra for a 90s slasher movie, like it used to, but it's still not better than Xlive.
Laptops are tricky. I am at this point myself, I have a pretty new Dell XPS, but it only has "1060" in it. Back then, I figured that was enough for the stuff I play on Laptop, really only Steam indie games, stuff like Slay the Spire an such. It works okay to that end. My Desktop is 10+ years old, and I have no bothered to update it. It's basically my Datacenter, and that is it. Unfortunately, my mainboard, I pressume, the BIOS chip, is dying. On top of that, I've been fooling around with Machine-Learing stuff for Videoupscaling recently. I really like some of the results, scaling up older anime/cartoon favourites that never went beyond DVD quality (or really poor multipleDVDonOneBluRay releases). The results can be pretty amazing actually. Unfortunately, I can only run that on my laptop and the "1060" hits only the minimal requirement, with each frame taking about 6-8 seconds to render. If you multiplay that by 30p/24p depending on the content and that by 24 minutes per episode ... well, it takes more than a day to render out a single episode. A day where the device is basically occupied.
I am think of either replacing my Desktop, or ... buying an old 1080 ti and an eGPU enclosure. That would dramatically increase the speed of that all to a point where "re-rendering" entire seasons becomes kinda feasible as a long-term project. RIght now, it is just me fooling and experimenting with stuff. Interesting, but without actual usability.
Anyways you say, is pretty true. I do think so, that on the CPU side, there could have been rather signfiicant performance upgrades be done, without blowing the cost out of the water. Especially for PS4 Pro at the time. And yeah, if they had been okay with a $600 machine plus some loss per system, a lot more could have been done with the vanilla system as well. Tech was there, but not at the kind of price Sony was look for!
I barely watch any TV anymore, but the advertisements are always loud and often TOO loud. It is pretty obnoxious. I think many TVs do have similar features though, definitely most Audio-Video-Receivers. If you get a new TV, really make sure you get a "proper" HDR-capable one, not just one that is labeled like that. I can be done with $1000 upwards for a small current-gen device. Less, if it's a last-year device or smaller than 55". There are not many TVs that can deliver "proper" HDR (the kind of contrast that creates a life-like picture) under 55" though. I would personally never ever go back to LCD from OLED. Maybe MicroLED or something one day, but here and now, there is no beating that infinite static contrast radio. Infinite because OLED can provide 0 cd/m pixel, which makes the whole fraction shoot for infinite, no matter what the actual brightness is. The human eye sees in contrasts, which in a nutshell, is why OLED looks so stunning right out of the box. OLED also has the best pixel response time outside of legacy technology like CRT and Plasma.
As for Sega, I think it was just the fact, that they couldn't support it. At least that is my assumption. Pushing out the Dreamcast, preparing to support that, most likely took all their ressources (and them some ^^). I still think that they did not have much of a choice. The N64 and PSX were strong competitors. I remember getting a VHS Demo Reel from a toy store as a kid with stuff like Star Fox 64 footage on it among others. Boy ... oh boy was I blown away. I pestered my parents relentless into getting me one. I doubt I would have had any interest in a Saturn at that point no matter what they had running on it!
I agree about the BWCs there, as major thrid party support was most unlikey in that Saturn scenario at that point in history. Generally, that is a good point to keep in mid. I was thinking about this just yesterday:
So we talked about Final Fanasty XIII on the Xbox360, right? Were you aware, that all the XIII series is running on Xbox One? On XBX you almost get a native 4K picture and a very steady 30fps. That is not the clue here though, Microsoft did sometihng unprecedented. They took the pre-rendered Videos from the PS3 blu-ray version, reencoded them and patched them into the Backwardscompatible release for XIII. They upgraded the core assests of this game A DECADE after release. If anyone thought, that over at Microsoft noone cared about games, or that they simply do not listen ... well, SOMEONE very much seems to care, because that is not normally the stuff you see companies do for COMPLETELY FREE. It's basically a remaster, since they also scaled up the 2D UI elements.
ANyways, meanwhile I am playing Vagrant Story on my Vita and I wonder: Why can my PS4 not play even PSX games? Even PS3 only "plays" them, even if it could easily render them a much higher internal resolution and apply all kind of post-processing filtering to make it look sharper on a modern TV. I do not expect for PS4 to run Cell-Cpu-PS3 games, but PSX and PS2 games.... YES, I did expect them to run at native 1080p no problem. What does Sony do though? They release a couple of dozens of old PS2 games - and sell them to you again, with 00000 legacy support for old cusomters, while also leaving literally 1000s of classic games in the dust.
This baffles me to this day. Sony has one of the richest software libraries of any Platform Holder for anything ever. They just pretend it does not exist. Even Nintendo, NINTENDO!, puts more effort into services like these. How hard could it have been to bring an emulator like PCSX2 to the PS4 after some fashion. They engineers have access to everything .. stuff the rest of us needs to reverse-engineer. That is just such bull**** if you ask me. ANd it hurts my souls, becasue if Vagrant Story looked like a half-way modern game, and it's is COMPLETELY rendered in 3D, so everything can be up-rendered, even though obviously the texturs would still be shoddy, more people would be likely to bother with it even today. But oh well, Sony is doing so good with Ps4, they do not need to bother with anything that happened before.
I'll blow a casket if PS5, a system powerful enough to emulate multiple PS2 games at 4K at the same time, will not feature any kind of legacy features for PSX and PS2 (never mind PS3, I tihnk I established that I could not care any less for a systems library than I do for the PS3).
That's interesting about the changes in FFXIV. I read some stuff, and it seems that people are kind split. I'm not deep enough into it, to really make that much sense of it, or how it really affects particular classes and actual gameplay. As for TOR, I definitely played that, yeah. Good to know, that this is similar in structure. Storytelling, while not perfect given the unique constraints of an MMORPG, was still one of the games strongest suits. Still is, it's still running after all.
Personally, I really enjoyed the PvP in TOR. Like in principle, we had a very active guild in that regard, with some veteran players like myself and it was a good time. Unfortunately, outside of arena pvp the game had massive technical problems to the point of being unplayable. It had balancing problems with drastic what felt like weekly shifts. Arena PvP was brought down by a lack of variation in maps and some mods (like the one with that ball) that people never really clicked with and a bunch of other stuff. Mechanically though and in terms of class synergy (where you could actually use like taunts in PvP as well) it was pretty strong. Good teamplay was not only rewarded but enforced, and there were plenty of things to consider.
It's the only MMORPG where I had upwards of 30 active skills to manage, everyone absolutely necessary for PvP. It took me weeks to find the perfect keyboard/mouse setup to fit all of them within reach. I played Jedi Consular and outside of Rare instances where a Trooper could really go nuts with AoE, I always managed to come out top DPS, even though I was a skilled for single-target burst damage. It was a huge satisfying class for me, with a high skill ceiling and alot of variety (DoT-builds were viable as well, and of course you could also tank ^^). That was despite the fact, that smugglers one-on-one were considered OP for like ... my whole time with the game. My average burst averaged a tad lower I guess, but it was much more sustained.
But before I get completely sidetracked into reminsicing about TOR and how broken Ilum was at launch (a friend of my got banned for two days, because he headed straight for Ilum and farmed the planet right after launch, before ANYONE else was there ^^), I'll stop digressing ^^ What you say about the controller is a relief though. I was planning on picking it up for PS4 if anything, but I was scpetical about playing an MMO with a controller (again, my setup for, I think, in the end it were 35 active keymaps in TOR was insane, but "clicking" would not have been an option in PvP at least).
As for Persona 4, no, well, I think Persona 3 felt darker to me. I mean, you literally shoot yourself in the head, the color grading was much darker as well, with dark blue being the prevalent color theme. The atmosphere was definitely darker. The actual meat of the plot ... I dunno. Of course neither are Nocturne or SMTIV - or Persona 1/2.1/2.2 at that. It might just be nostalgia of sorts, but having played on P4 Golden, I remember a somewhat bright and colorful mood for the most part. Even the characters were more "peepy" for sure in my mind. P4 leaned more into that whole dating sim aspect than 3, I feel.
I think, if you are trying to pull of an interesting, heartfelt and, well, lacking a better term, "relateable" narrative, no matter how weird, you gotta create the right circumstances. I can relate to anime characters. Hell, Made In Abyss really shock me for instance, despite the aesthetic. BUT, that "despite" is crucial, because if you have some kawaii-characters telling a tale that could have also with fit well with GoT-like aesthetic, all other elements have to be on point. Like the animation, color grading, voice acting, music (shout out to Kevin Penkin who did the music on MiA), animation, sound design, and so on and so forth. There is no room for "solid" here, it has to perfect. In fact, I think MiA is one of the most disturbing stories I've seen, but also one with the most kawaii-designs I bothered with and still, it works very well, and inf act, having read the manga up to Volume 8 (I actually bought the books, not just scanlations ^^), I feel it is actaully better than the manga original. Shocking I know! ^^
There are not that many examples however of jRPGs doing that. We already talked about the prevalence of shoody voice acting for instance, but the list of course is longer, way longer. Persona is a good example of how to do traditional mechanics, full-on anime aesthetic and (mostly) serious, disturbing, fantastic and yet relateable story-telling. IT's not perfect, but Persona gets close, esp. 5 which really fixed some flaws from the prequels (like the pseudo-random dungeons, that were just not fun in the long-run).
I can't honestly say whether I realized at the time that Neptunia was supposed to be a parody (if I got that correctly). Parody is a difficult subject though, because just aping something is not parody, you have to exaggerate the effecto the point where it betrays itself for what it is in a very obvious way. Maybe Neptunia did not go far enough then? I don't know, but frankly, the issue might be, that PLENTY of games out there are extreme, peak-"anime" out there and are not meant as parody, not that I can tell at least. They might wink at you while playing, but it is never CLEAR that you are not supposed to take anything serious about them, within the trappings of their own chosen framework, like say all those games that relate to the "harem"-anime genre. Just really going with that, leaning into that deeply, has nothing to do with parody. If you cannot bring out what is inherently so-silly-it's-funny with the source material, then you are just imitating it after all.
That adds well into my point though, IF you want to pull such a tight-rope walk, particularly with a genre so steeped in it's own stereotypes and cliches going back decades, then I'D say perfection is really called for as far as execution goes. "Pretty good" might not really work. The genre is itself often so over-the-top-self-referrential that a single misstep at a crucial point will blur or eradicate any line between supposed commentary and flat out imitation.
I do like almost all SMT games, which are all kinda similar, so similarities are not per se a bad thing. Unless they become, well, too ... I dunno, unless they take on a life of their own, that's also why I refered to many of these games being self-referential. I often felt taht games like Tales had moments, let's say some joke was thrown into your face, and it wasn't really funny, cultural difference aside, but it was kind of setup and the whole scenario, that it referenced a very similar or identical scene in a previous game, that you might have actaully found amusing and charming at some point before. So, you might smile or you might not, but the actual "thing" presented to you, was not funny at all, and it is never clear to the player, or at least me, if that was intentional or not. It's hard to describe. Much of it feels like an ultra-deep level of fanservice and if I had to put up one term, I absolutely abhorre, it is "fanservice". Basically, if a game has it, I am troubled, if a game is actually focused on it, I am out. I do not like being pandered to by way of "we are referencing that thing you know and like" ... even though there is absolutely no point in it. American movies are doing this alot these days as well. Pointless name dropping and cameos and stuff. Marvel in particular has become so self-obsessed that it is sometimes sickening. JRPGs I feel are often very much self-obsessed in the same way.
I actually have Vanguard Bandits on my Vita (with a bunch of other similar PSX games). I have not yet came around to trying it, but with that endorsement, I will definitely make sure I will. I was intrigue enough to buy it of course, on the strength of that first impression, you prett much described already. Looking forward to actually dipping into it, maybe right after finishing up my run on vagrant story! Then I'm already atuned to PSX style visuals after all! ^^
Like I said above, I absolutely agree about these PSX games, I just wish that Sony would care enough to bring them to current and next-gen systems as well. I don't mind playing in my vita, but some of these games can really benefit from some modern tech as well to make them look at least decent on a modern TV. It's just such a waste. It's all the more true for the PS2 era, which was basically all 3D assests and thus scales even better. Again, such a shame on Sony's end.
I do not mind sprites in general, I think I might have mentioned that I looked at the original Seiken Densetsu 3, and I find it visually more charming than Trials to be honest. One of the android games I really enjoy is "wayward souls", really great game with spire visuals. Actually, some of the best sprite-work I've seen in a long time. Sea of Stars on Kickstarter also looks pretty amazing. It's really all about the details here, like I said above. You can do alot here, with subtle lighting, "baked shadows", quality animation.
Graphics matter alot to me, but it is NOT about photorealism at all. In fact, shooting for photorealism is the worst that could happen to games. People fail to realize that no one watches movies that are photorealsitic unless they are documentaries. People hate anything that even approaches photorealsitic movie aesthetic on any level. Be it going beyond 24p and the judder that comes with it, be it dropping the "Hollywood DoP" (which is why, that is my longstanding contention, so many "foreign" films have such a hard time finding a mainstream audience), doing the "proper" color-grading mowrk etc. ...
It's even worse for games. Hell, I would argue that Resident Evil Remake (for the 1st one) is still one of the best looking games ever made. It has some if not the best lighting I've yet seen. It's baked of course, but the way it is setup, is very strong from an artsitic and directorial standpoint. It's in a word: timeless.
And as far as the 360 goes in general, I also feel that Infinite Undiscovery is very much unrated. One of the last Triace proper games and just a very good strong entry into the genre. In fact, I would simply say that for all intends and purpose it the best "Ys" game out there, definitely the most polished one, with some really strong world building and unique ideas. It's also one of the best looking ones of the era, with oh so many particle effects in combat even back then. Thankfully, the games main issue, the frame rate tanking due to all those effects, has largely been fixed on the XBX. Not gonna lie, I am looking forward to playing that game again on Series X. That should iron out all the performance issues once and for all, and with added HDR, the colorful, bright, effects heavy presentation and combat, should look like a proper next-gen experience, esp. if the rumors are true and Series X is gonna render this at 4k natively. The Textures will still look iffy of course, but the rest ... very excited about seeing details, that I never could see before, all in silky smooth performance! ^^
Another one we missed, I think, last time, is operation Darkness. It's a bargin bin, "shuffleware" game of the worst kind when it comes to 3D graphics, boy it's ugly, and the camera is the worst, but outside of that, the game is really decent. Amazing 2D art even, strong voice acting (better than Infinite Undiscovery ^^), decent systems and crucial the sRPG with the coolest setting and premise in all of sRPG'dom. It's basically: Hellsing: The Videogame (I do love me some Hellsing). You are replaying all crucial european battles from WWII, but with several twists, among them Nazi-SS-Vampires and Scotish Werewolfs with bazookas blowing up Tiger Tanks. It's so cool, it makes up for all the visuals shortcomings! Sadly, the camera really still drags it down to just "decent" in my book. It is still one thing not at all: GENERIC, it is not generic. So yeah, in that regard, it is also, as you set, really 'dissimilar' to what else is out there.
I actually met Uematsu once after a concert in Leipzig. Seemed like a real down-to-earth dude, just like Miyamoto. But yeah, really like alot of his stuff, but there are several great composers when it comes to jRPGs (like I said, I really loved the music in Trials as well, very good stuff, best part of the game from the time I spend with it).
WEll, I do not necessarily disagree, like I said, there is a strong anime-genericness with Legend of Heroes as well. But I do appreciate just the scope and ambition of their narrative vision. Most other jRPGs that are similarly generic in many ways they handle everything from cute-nondescript-anime-girl-waifu-material to bland-version0.1-made-it-to-retail-menu design, never bother with that ambition. THey are content to be ... referencing their own past
I am not 100% sure about WKC, I only played a copy from a friend if I recall, for like an afternoon, maybe and some of his save file from later on, I think at least. Might very well have been WKC1!
About Fariy Fencer, so the trouble for me is that many of these games, as mentioned, feel and look very similar to me. I have a really hard time to distinguish between them. So, I could never tell what I particularly disliked between Xilia 1 and Xilia 2 for instance. But really, outside of some particular aspects, like the combat in one game or such, much of that series blurs together.
I can definitely say that i never played the enhanced verison, that much is certain. I only played on PS3, so it can't be. And no, I did not get far into it (assuming I am not mixing it up with something else entirely, which is possible ^^). Well, darker stories I do prefer, but the exection, not the idea, is still kinda the crucial aspect. Do think revisiting it on PS4 or Switch might be worth it? I mean, I am not gonna lie, I just checked it out and just looking purely at the promotional cover art, I am kinda turned off. It is either putting an emphasis on stuff, I do not really care for, or it is really not good promotional material.
That whole anime-girl-in-skimpy-shirt ... well, not really a draw for me. I do not mind, it's not a deal breaker. I always point to Puella Magi Madoka Magica here. Sure, judging it by it's cover, as they say, I should hate it. I did kinda love it, like most of Urobochi's controversial work. It subverted expections, which I always think has some merit, and really executed well on that theme within it's narrative (as the characters themselves have expectations that get severly subverted). It is dark, but with a particular, well defined edge to it. It is not just torture porn, even if one could mistake it for it.
I'm willing to reconsider my position on any thing, if I feel there is real merit in doing that. I too like to be just entertained by games, but that works best for me, if a game just really veers close to what I like. I do not necessarily knwo what exactly I want, I did not know at all that I wanted Death Stranding, but I do know what I like.
When I scroll through the releases of Compile Heart, I do not see anything I tried and really loved, not even Agarest, which was not bad to be fair. Zero I played a bit, I think, and yeah ... did not repel me ^^ Still, cheap and fan service'y are things that keep poping into my mind. Either one is kinda an issue, but the combo is really a problem.
About Folklore, sorry at that point in my textwall, I probably had forgotten that you had limited yourself to your collection! ^^ It was such an exhaustive list ...
Yeah, Eternal Sonata did for sure make it to PS3. I actually have both versions and that is pretty much the case all in all. Either version is great though. I do not specifically remember the added content in the PS3 version.... so I cannot speak to that. Game is fantastic though. Again, it had many jRPG staples and by all accounts should be considered A Tales of .. game, absolutely a spin-off, but it had such a unique tone to it, that I can only describe as: pure melancholia. The game was drenched in that. At it was really decidely not cheap. It was very lovingly crafted. It is clear that tri-crescendo had the deepest of respect for one of the finest artists ever, and wanted to do right by him.That might sound hyperbolic, and it was still "just" a jRPG, but still, I really always felt, that there was a honest attempt on the developers part to do whatever they could to make it a compelling piece of Chopins legacy. The fact that this really drew me in deep enough to care for his music, even read up his biography outside of the game, speaks to me volumes about their success. It just struck a chord me that way, unlike an tales games before or after. There was a human quality about it, that I deeply appreciate.
I think, it's an excellent case for going the extra mile and trying to make something unique within a very fixed and well-known framework. Because if you look at the moment to moment gameplay, there is little difference to your average Tales of ... experience really. The magic is in what lies beyond and the finer details. Like how your Weapons are Swords crafted like instruments or music notes at the grip. It is not just that, but it is also that.
You make it sound like the 360 sold well at any point. I dunno about it, I think more along the lines it sold less worse than the PS3. My deepest insights actually come from my aunt, who worked for a major Japanese company for most of her life and had to adapt to some particular cultural practices. I have little knowledge about Japanese culture beyond what you get from a massive consumption of their pop media, particular manga and anime, and games obviously. Based on what I know or was told anyways, I do not think I would appreciate living in that culture though. I am very much a contrarian by nature. When it came to debate club, there was never really any need to convince me to act the "advocatus diaboli". I prefer to disagree, as I find it yields stronger reactions and thus more truth. Compliance is often just a euphemism for "lack of thoroughness", at least, that is what I found at university. I'm not sure, that my tendency to rock the boat, would be a super great fit Anyways, I find the culture fascinating still and I am no stranger to their history or business practices though.
I definitely do not know nearily enough to judge what roll Sakaguchi played in terms of the 360's success in Japan. Like here in the west, to few people would have cared, to make an entire platform a failure. The red ring of death, I know him well, is definitely a factor, but given how succesful the 360 was despite that and how it affected the whole global supply, it's dubious how that played a major role.
I would think, that the PS3 launched at a time, when Japanese consumers were moving away from consoles for abit, so the situation was rough no matter how you looked at it. An US console was not ideally poised to win them back. Really, the home console market in Japan is declining, has been for a long time, and around 2006/7 it came back hard, but hardly due to Xbox OR PS3, but more du to the one-hit-wonder called Wii. Things changed late in the game more in favour of the PS3, but for a while there, within an otherwise declining market, the Wii really pushed the home console market in Japan to what seemed new heigths. We now know, taht this was unsustained though.
Apple has a different marketing strategy altogether though. I feel, they are pretty much culture agnostic in a way. Personal vanity is pretty much universal. And Apple is doing great in selling tech as personal vanity objects, best of all and crucial in some parts of Asia: universally accepted vanity
The culture thing does carry far yet I think. Just comparin the sales charts from Japan vs say UK, not even the US then, shows some easy to spot differences in preference. I think jRPGs are the best example though. jRPG historically speaking were like a "spin-off" a early western, particularly american RPG system. They were not a japanese invention at all. There as just little available over there and it took forever, so it kinda created .. entrepreneurs if you will, who saw demand - theirs and beyond. Now, if you look at the early years and really 1-1,5 decades, the differences are apparent in the emphasis that these games put versus the ones that the "originals" in the west did. That gap widended, but it was there pretty early on. I still sit up straight if I see a jRPG with even a basic character creator for instance. Individual expression is not a theme here. It's very much a theme in the west though, where some games used their character creation to market their games. Neither is exploration, any jRPG exploration is always more diversion than genuine mechanic.
In other words, pretty much everything associated with Xbox, was not really hitting japanese sensibilites at the time. I think most people saw that, esp. outside of the folks that you could consider hardcore or "early adopters". In a way, many of the games I dislike on PS3 might have been better jRPGs for Japan, than the games I celebrate on Xbox. Lost Odyssey was a FInal Fantasy'esque game, but you would be hard pressed to find a moment were you ride a chocobo to evade silly birds in a minigame That kind of weirdness was largely absent, and I think that was by design. Superficialy, it migt have been target at Japan, but under the hood, there were some other design ideas at play. If that was Microsoft "meddling", possible for sure, it worked out fine as far as I am concered at least either way.
I mean, this goes far beyond games doesn't it? Marvel and DC had some good times in Europe as well. I don't know if anyone in Japan ever bothered with a comic. Yeah yeah, someone did for sure and they do watch the movies, but really, how would the typical Marvel or even DC narrative speak to the average Japanese consumer. It is hardly 100% relateable for the continental European mindset, so ... the heroes in mangas and comics are not really of the same making for the most part, that much I can say with high confidence.
That's a big topic though. I would love to be wrong actually, but as far as cultural exports go, I feel Japan is mostly a rough terrain. Not for every company at all times, but as a rule of thumb, yeah. I do not know to what degree concepts of loyality for instance play into that. Is a Sony employee likely to get this kid an Xbox, no matter how much that kid might crave it?
I can only put it this way: If my Aunt had worked it Sony (it was a similar, but different company), and if she ever had gotten me an Xbox (she never did anything like - unfortunately), I think she would have never managed that at work, not even in a casual conversation. Hell, she barely ever left before her boss did- work or not (not that this is in and of itself a jap.-exclusive ^^). It was just unseemingly apparently.
I do gather though, that your success in mixing romance and friendship were of very limited success ultimately? The notion is beautiful and I want to say I am with you on that, but ... not really. Might be just my bad though, I have no real wisedom to offer here: "She is like my best friend..." sure who hasn't heard that before, right? Didn't really work for me. I think, it might be asking too much of one person to be. I say that as a romantic at heart. Also, I do think that it's good, on pratical level, or maybe even crucial, to have like social needs that other people fulfil. Naturally, that gives you your own space, which no one can do without, while not offending anyone. Wish I could say I figured that out, but I didn't and most "advice" by couples is usually .. well meant but kinda useless ^^
Also, sadly my days off are almost at an end, so any future correspondence might be somewhat delayed on my end and/or way less meandering (so I do have tendency there for sure ) and/or delivered in smaller parts. Just a heads up, but cruel daily life is about to reclaim my soul (and time) unfortunately
Re: Gallery: Huge Batch Of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Screenshots Show Characters And Environments
@Xansies Yeah, I guess so. While I have no issue with the anime aesthetic (hell, I for one loved Alita, even bought the Artbook for it), it' can be problematic, if like 90% of the games of one genre look the same - more or less. I would also argue, that this aesthetic does not necessarily fit every atmosphere a title might want to deliver on.
Re: Gallery: Huge Batch Of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Screenshots Show Characters And Environments
Not sure they had to lean even stronger into that anime aesthetic with the character faces, but ah well, what are you gonna do.
Re: Video: 19 Exciting New Games Coming To Nintendo Switch In May
Depending on performance and image quality, I might be interested in XCOM 2. Also curious to see how Xenoblade shakes out. I'm just not sure whether this Definitive Edition will really adress the gripes I had with the game 10 years ago. If it doesn't, then I'm happy to stick with something else. Also, I really liked the original design of the chracters a tad better, it did not lean that heavily into the anime aesthetic, although the ingame difference is probably negligible. Plus the original was just too much on the easy side, but maybe there'll be a fix for that as well - dunno. I'm interested but not sold yet.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah
Well, that is their official line, and it does make sense, whether PS+ is a necessity though is probably a different story. When it launched in 2010 it was in the midst of whole "It's $599"-shellshock-aftermath so to speak. Sony also failed to provide an adquate service, in my view, even to this day - at least compared to Xbox Live.
The PS4 and X1 were in part outdated when they launchend. Like 4K was not something, no one saw coming, esp. not Sony, which still makes TV, well Sony Corp. did at least. The CPUs were also woefully underpowered even at launch and remain a bottleneck to this day.
I do think developers care about that, sure the capabilities are important, but they also care very much about their experiences and tools continuing to remain relevant. They are after all heavily invested in those skills and tools.
So a mid-gen upgrade, that creates fresh revenue, keeps the system relevant and does not bother developers too much, because it's basically the same architecture, just beefier makes sense.
PSVR was most likely supposed to drive PS4Pro sales as well for sure. Just as PS4Pro was meant to drive 4K TV set sales
I think there are so many considerations that go into this: You already pointed out that Sony tends to sell their systems at a loss initially, unlike Nintendo aims to do. Microsoft is as you stated very much correctly a whole different beast. They could sell an entire generation at a loss, and as far as their bottom line goes, it would hardly make a dent. They are giant company (going by market capitalization), Sony is ... just a mid-tier Entertainment company. As things stand Azure revenue can easily offset anything the Xbox division i doing - or failing to do ^^
Generally, there is an incentive to ride console generations for as long as possible, but yeah, I do think, if one factor is probably most decisive, it's saturation and with that: attach rate. As long as your attach rate is consistently good, you could probably due with sales dropping severely. Rarely are these two factors independent of each other though, for many reasons.
The technology for a "proper" upgrade over the base consoles is available and has been for years. Adressing the CPU and memory bottlenecks were not really technological decisions, but economic ones. Sony was not going to have that "It's $599"- moment again after all.
I would not recommend a 4K TV to anyone btw, on the merit of 4K. It's barely a merit at all. If you look at diagonals and adquate view distance on an average 4K set, you will find that in practive, that the actual different to a small 1080p TV is not that pronounced even on native 4K content. It's more viable for games than movies, but in general, it is a loosing proposition.
That said, there are huge gains to be had from 4K sets, like live changing ones. I absolutely adore my OLED TV. I was running Pansonic Plasmas for a while (Panasonics Kuro was conidered THE state of the art set in terms of blackpoint performance for years) and even that felt like magic to me initially. But compared to my LG OLED, my trusty old Pana has only one benefit and that is motion resolution. For everything else, he gets utterly crushed by OLED.
I'll put it this way, once you have seen true black, actual true black, and the resulting STATIC contrast, you will not want to go back. One you pair that with some really good HDR content and let the TV flex it's muscle, you cannot go back. It's like going from (1080p) to 480p, just much, much worse. Standart Dynamic Range gaming feels like gaming with sunglasses in a dark room. Everything is just super dark, dull and lifeless - worst of all the image suddenly appears so flat, that you wonder what "3D" actually meant all those years.
I'm glad LG is finally doing a 48" TV for their new line. This will make the jump to OLED HDR that much more affordable for many people, plus actually possible to realize, since not everyone can go for 55" or even 65".
As for Sega, well, I'm not sure we are disagreeing there. They did not retire the Saturn out of Spite. They were in financial straits, the system was from their view not competitive and though they pushed for a hail mary. Whether the Dreamcase came to soon, or the Saturn was retired to early is kinda the same thing, is it not? Just a matter of perspective.
So you are still playing FFXIV? That is interesting, just today I was once again thinking of picking that game up. I am really hearing greating things about the latest addon and like I already laid out, I am a huge fan of Yasumi Matsuno's work, so I am more than curious to see his work on Shadowbringer and the previous addon as well. I've had sworn myself to never bother with an MMORPG ever again, and I managed to stick with for many years now, but alas, that part about FFXIV has me tingly
Care to share your view? How good is the content, esp. story wise? Worth getting into 14 for those scenarios? I'm a pretty veteran MMORPG player from the haydays of the beta for Dark Age of Camelot, so I do get the gist of the MMO trappings, thus asking specifically for that story content! ^^
The thing that bothers me about Neptunia, and all those, let's say, non-AAA jRPGs is not really so much the tone, in terms of lightheartedness. While I already admitted to having a weak point for darker, more mature (dangerous term to use) and just more somberly built games, I am not opposed to lighthearted content.
Hell, no one would really call Persona 4 dark, mature and somber
What really bothers me about Neptunia is the lack of ambition and an identity. If you strip Persona of it's style, like the amazing art direction for Persona/Demons, the visual theme, the gorgeous menus and scene transitions, the music by Shoji Meguro, the strong characterization and writing in that regard (though not all dialogues are gold of course), you are left with a pretty mediocre run of the mill jRPG.
If you further strip out the deeper themes of the series, rooted in different primarly philisophical conceps and others, like the very prominently featured Jungian into which Persona 3 and 5 in particular really lean deeepp into for a mere videogame, then all you have left is a mechnical stale if competent shell of a game.
IF you then fill that void with fanservice and really all-that-is-wrong-with-anime-cliches, like promiscous loli characters at worst ^^, then you get to that kind of content we're talking about.
Now, not all games go that far, some are actually not at all interest in fan service and shota characters or whatever, like YS for example. Still, even though I like YS, I can hardly deny, that the game is pretty much a one trick pony, and without the combat, I would not care for it. I'm not a sucker for the music, I would never buy an art book for it, and I'll wouldn't play an Etrian Odyssey spin-off featuring any of it's cast.
There is just no comparing even the character design from purely a visual standpoint between these series. I never got the appeal of all these series. I remember trying Conception once, and Magna Carta (which was actually a rather "somber" game), which both lacked any sense of consistent style or cohesive theme. The games were just cheap.
Ar Tonelico I have never tried as far as I can recall, neither did I ever play an Atelier game. I've seen reviews though and uncut gameplay. It's not like I don't care about anything outside of mainstream games. Hell, my favourite jRPGs are hardly mainstream, who besides me and 10 other people on the planet has actually played, enjoyed and finished Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Contact, Knights in the Knightmare and Yggdra Union - hell, most people haven't even played Resonance of Fate or Vagrant Story, despite their very-much-AAA-production-values at the time.
The thing is, like take Knights in the Nightmare: The game is incredible, like truly. I LOVE the Art Direction. Somewhere I still have that Artbook that came with the preorder or whatever, had to get it second hand but toally worth it. We are talking a Nintendo DS game (later ported to Vita) here. Really, one - if not the most dense and complex and multi-layered RPG I've ever played, but just so strong in terms of atmosphere and art direction, that it was blast to really engage with it.
I tried the 1st Neptunia on PS3 on a whime and ... well, just no. It's a bunch of cute anime girls. I could hardly tell them apart, their is no distinct visual language to them, that speaks to their personality, not that I could tell, the colors for the game are all over the place. Combat was interesting, even had some visual flair given that is was fully 3D.
It was not bad or horrible or anything. The thought I always have playing any of these titles is that I could be playing something similar, but very much better. I actually kinda feel like Disgaea is cool, like I do like sRPGs. But it's just a bit too whacky for my taste, and definitely to grindy. I came to sRPGs with Fire Emblem, which - hard to believe these days- prided itself on strategic aspects, like very limited ressources incl. experience. The fact that grind was flat-out impossible, was pretty appealing to me. Hence, I am not all that excited about grinding INSIDE one of my weapons for hours on end, like inside ... omg, so much grind
I mean, Ogre Tactics, once again, has all this political intirgue, you have decisions to make, that affect the story outcome quite drastically, you get the amazing art direction by Akihiko Yoshida (although I freely admit, that it clashes with the battle map art quite hard) .. I just rather play THAT It's harsh, but just how I feel and have felt for a very long time.
Funny you bring up the Trials collection. It's one of the very, very, very few reasons I still have my PS3 around. I do like Symphonia. It's my favourite. Might be because it was my first, played it on the Gamecube (also did some grinding there ^^), and having that on an HD system was and still is cool. Still, I had already played it to the fullest (I actually started over, when I realized I missed requirement for one of the ultimate weapons on some sidepath rather early on in the game - I have only vague memories here, but I remember being pretty annoyed with the game there for a while), hence I never really played deep in to the PS3 version. I just like to have it around in case I get an itch.
I would never call the Xilia games shuffleware. I have no strong feelings about either game. I played both for a bit, but they simply did not stand out ot me personally. I can't say I really felt they did anything that Symphonia had not also delivered on after a fashion. Honestly, I think I tried almost all Tales and that feeling has been 100% consistent. 10 hours or so in, I loose all interest, because I feel that I played this already, just ... better, not every game in every aspect (again Graces in terms of combat stood out to me a bit).
Ultimatley though, not even Symphonia grabbed me as hard as Eternal Sonata. I really liked the Light/Dark mechanic, the whole a-world-drenched-in-music theme was pretty unique and at least in part well executed, the music of course, made me fall in love with the works of Chopin, and from there many others classics, like Liszt and Stravinsky (so I kinda was exposed to the original inspiration, before I got to engage with One-Winged Angle, which is probably a rare occurence ^^) and it actually made me cry a bit once or twice. In that regard, if you count Sonata as Tales games, I would definitely say i love that even more than Symphonia.
Its just a very special experience, like none I had since or before.
Haha, yeah, darn Lost Dimension, jesus! Never even got close to seeing that through, interesting setup though. But also like a posterchild for what I said above. It's pretty much Persona ... adjacent? ... just drained of all the artistic genius.
Many of the titles you listed, I know only by name and having seen some gameplay. I do think I checked up on all PS3 jRPGs, because I spend a fair amount of time actively looking for what people call "niche gems" or "cult classics" or "fan favourites", you know like the games I mentioned above, but at one point in time also: DEMON SOULS - folks are so quick to forget, or for an xbox example: Phantom Dust, which ... are the kind of games, you rarely meet people in real life that have even heard of them, basically you have to go the GameFAQ message board for that game, to talk about it
White Knight Chronicles was a thing that happend. Not gonna lie, it did not lack ambition for once. The execution however ... I only remember disappointment with that game. I was going in like "so cool, this is going to be like vision of escaflowne with me writing the sto..." ... did not quite live up to that expectation, which to be fair, it never claimed it would. Didn't have to be so clunky and ugly though It's if Level 5 decided to make an action-MMORPG, but realized, that it was really hard to do that, so they just kind of made an action-RPG that still kinda feels like an MMO, I guess? But then decided that they definitely DID want to do SOMETHING online and then they tacked a mode unto the game, what was online and .... I dunno, it's just a weird thing that happend.
The Legend of Heros games are pretty unique. Like, they have the same issue in many ways I alluded to above in terms of artistic appeal, but they kinda make up for it with the strong writing and I am really amazed and the scope of the franchise. I do not think that I know of any jRPG series that is doing something similar, like building this vast interconnected world over so many games, accross so many platforms and generations. It's baffling. I only scratched the surface of course, and I do think there are some issues, like decent combat, but little challenge, on top of the "meh" production values, but overall, it's definitely of the games, I'll happily consider worthwhile.
Personally, I would't even count Magna Carta 2 for the Xbox really. But to me, that misses the point. Like how am I going to compare Lost Odyssey and White Knight Chronicles for instance? Like ... I mean, how to I square these two games? Is there like a single element where the latter can even reasonibly compete? I guess, we could argue about combat, sure, things can be said for either one, but outside of that?
And no to be rude, but I think the same could be said for most of these games. Hell, I'm sorry, but I am gonna include even the Xilia games in that. I would take them over White Knight Chronicles any day, but compared to Lost Odyssey, they just lack ... everything. It's the difference between a seasoned craftsman creating a tried and true staple and something else entirely. By the sheer numbers, the PS3 blows the 360 out of the water. I will not argue that, and I don't think I have. But there is no amount of WKCs or games with a comparable ambition, that can make up for that, and WKCs was hardly the least ambitious PS3 jRPG.
It's subjective for sure, but 20 medicore to more or less low-effort-low-cost prodcutions can't replace one thoroughly great experience. I'm not objective here for sure, since I have a deep apprecation for about every aspect of LO: the music by Nobuo Uematsu, the dreams-writing by Kiyoshi Shigematsu (which like I said, to me, still stand as the single best piece of written text I have ever seen in any japanese Videogame ever, no matter the genre), the main character design by Takehiko Inoue, which I found out only later is a very famous mangaka, and whose series "Real" and "Vagabond" I really love and whose amazing Coverart for the LO OST I just adore to this day ... it's an amalgation of things. I have no idea who designed anyone in WKCs, maybe someone famous did, but I cannot really care, since playing it at the time, it did not stand out to me.
LO tried to elevate the genre, while also staying true to it's root. It had ambition and integrity. Most of the jRPGs you brougt up, at least those I can speak to at least in part, had integrity and I don't think much more.
I still think about LO, as one can tell. Until you brought it up, it has been a very long time since I thought about WKCs or even Xilia. I feel bad for being so dismissive. I really do, esp. since I wanted to love quite a few of these games. I bought a PS3 because I thought it was going to be next PS2. But having tried a fair number of the games, and done enough research into almost the entire rest of the PS3 jRPG library,
By the by, I think you forgot to mention "Folklore". I thought that game was pretty cool, in terms of setting, combat and just it's aesthetic. It was definitely not a run of the mill anime jRPG. Not an amazing game, but still something of stand out title for the PS3, among all those Ateliers, Neptunias and Fairy Fencers with their pretty anime teenagers swinging around swords
I have only played the demo for, I think, it was the 1st DQ Heroes games. Did not really strike me as something special, bascially the musou action version of DQ, no more no less? I'm not fond of the genre as such, I did kinda'ish like Hyrule Warriors and Warriors, cos I felt the had some more mechanical and strategic depths, esp. warrior with the triangle and all, and I am attached to many of the characters, but even that could not hold my interest for too long. Sometimes a button smasher like that is nice though.
I have high hopes for the new Persona one, looks like the most ambitious one yet!
I do not believe the Xbox ever had a chance in asia. Consumers do not really care about how Microsoft might or might not have interfered (and I am the first to critize MS for their flatout horrenouds handling or not only their own studiso but esp. outside partners). I'm as positive about that as I can be. Who even reads up on this stuff besides like nerds like us? The games were there, and the Xbox had a strong start, given the PS3's price tag, the fact that few japanse developers were eager or well prepared for the jump to HD (one reason why handhelds were so relevant to the japanese market for soooo long and now mobile, just one though), and yes, the PS3 was reportedly not easy to develop there. Still, point being, like I said, the games were there. It just did not make any difference. Japan is a unique market, that is hard for western companies to penetrate, esp. with products that are this deeply conected to the culture at hand, like videogames. You know, I'm kinda dismissive about the whole "anime"-thing in jRPGs, but I'll grant, that this is my euro-centric perspective speaking and that most of the jRPGs I really loved, where very much build for me, like LO and Vagrant Story, which have thes strong and obvious European medieval influences. But at the same time, amazing things can come out of that culture rift, like all these other games I love, like Persona, SMT in general, basically every Sting game ever made, Shadowhearts and so many more. Who knew that a niche jRPG studio would be able to capture the life of a polish 19th century piano composer with such gusto? No one, totally out of left field!
I had to google Cross Edge, but the cover image right away jugged my memory. I dunno, when ever I hear the name, my mind wanders to project X Zone for some reason
I do know OF Zoids Assault. That is all I can say about sadly. I never played it nor anything else connected with it. It looked really bad to me. Which does not deterr me at all, since Operation Darkness also looked ugly as f*** to me, but looking into a handful of reviews, I did not get the sense, that there was "much there" either. I don't remember which youtuber it was, but yeah, the fact that it had nothing at all to do with the Series as such, not being representative of it all, is something he was very clear about. But yeah, the concepts that could have been realized certainly sound interesting, but the actual game, as you descibred it all, sounds just as bad as I had gathered
As for dates, yeah, I guess, no disagreement from me. Therein lies the rub: finding that seed for a relationship worth bothering with. It's not just something that gets dropped in your lap and it can be pretty rough to even try to go after, to the point where anyone at least for a while wonders, if it's worth it at all. I still fundamentally feel it is, but it's not like it never occured to me, that I am just a hopeless romantic. Then again, I've been told, that this in itself can be an endearing trait. "Gals actually legitimately looking for someone" are not really a lucky occurence. If you want something to happen really badly, you morph yourself into something that you are actually not - I found that women do that just as guys. That inevitable leads to really serious problems down the road in my experience. Nietzsche was famously wrong in that regard (though there probably was never a human being less able to make sense of women than him): What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger ------ NOT!^^
Re: Review: Trials of Mana - Old And New Combine To Create A Fine RPG Adventure
Read this on PSBlog and it made me laugh out loud:
"New voiceover
As you’d expect from a 1995 RPG, the original Trials of Mana didn’t include any spoken dialogue. That’s not the case in the new game. It features fully acted scenes, which helps the characters’ personalities shine like never before."
Not saying that they're wrong. It might help them shine. But maybe that is not always a good thing
Re: Persona 5 Scramble Localisation 'Still Being Planned', According To Koei Tecmo Report
Looking forward to Scramble, having at first dismissed it, but given the fact, that it's actually more likea sequel, I'm kinda hyped.
Nioh 2 was also dope as hell, looking forwad to the DLCs.
Re: Retro-Inspired Racer 80's Overdrive Speeds Onto The Switch eShop Early Next Month
@FargusPelagius I remember Resistance 3! The PS3 actually had some really good stereoscopic 3D games. I particularly enjoyed StarDust and Wipeout, the latter of which incidentially also being brilliant VR game these days. I still keep my old Panasonic VT30-series Plasma in the other room, as it's sometimes just a blast to go back to these games. Plus, Lion King 3D looks absolutely stunning on it.
I actually kinda regret not picking up one of the early LG 4K OLEDs to that end. A buddy of mine has one, and 3D is real treat on it! But I'm also happy with my new model, both have their ups and downs, I'm okay with at least one 3D TV in the house. Plus, you can also watch 3D content on PS4+PSVR, if you are alone that is.
I agree, that the New 3DS XL was only a small step forward, but I still kinda adore it because I can really finally enjoy games like Kid Icarus in 3D (which also looks amazing imho). It was pointless to use the feature on my old 3DS XL, as I was always slipping out of that tiny sweetspot ...
Yeah, really too bad Sony and Nintendo abandoned that feature alltogether.
Re: Retro-Inspired Racer 80's Overdrive Speeds Onto The Switch eShop Early Next Month
@Giygas_95 Fully agreed here! I'd even go so far as to say, that I don't care for a Switch version. This and games like OutRun really look impressive on the 3DS, with a great sense of speed. If you remove that, well, all you are left with an okay retro-arcade racer, with a decent sense of style through out. Too bad many later 3DS games dropped the stereoscopic effect, just when the New3DS really had made it viable.
I'm still miffed that Persona Q2 and Radiant Historia just ignored it, even though it really helped bring the somewhat dead world of the other later EQ games at least somewhat to life. It also added desperately needed visual flair to the 1st Persona Q, given how static all of these games really are at heart. Every little bit helps, and a well implemented (not all were sadly) stereoscopic effect, can make a real difference.
I always considered myself a "core gamer" after a fashion, but given that most folks that would subscribe to that label seemed to really hate on any kind of innovation, be it 3D or motion controls ... whatever. I really LOVED playing Metroid Prime with pointer controls. Red Steel 2 equally was a mediocre game, elevated to something truly engaging thanks to it's excellent controls. Let's not even talk about Resident Evil 4, which was almost broken by the pointer's precision.
It's kind of annoying to see these games or similar ones, coming to Switch and at best we get Gyro controls to make due, when pointers are so much more precise and engaging due to apping a "natural" interaction for a shooter. I would also have killed for something like Hollow Knight to have an added 3D effect. Would have looked incredible I imagine, esp. paired with a higher res 720p display of the Switch.
Ah well, it is what it is
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah Well, if you put it that way, it's more about optimization and having a better time with it, than sheer necessity or missing out on major pieces of relevant content without outside help, which seems fair to me. I mean, it's not a dealbreaker either way with games from that era to me. I said I love Vagrant Story, and I do, and there is ALOT about this game, that you'll have to figure out for yourself, even if you read the in-game manual, that is not always really presented to you in any fair manner. The game is not hard, it's just hard if you don't fully grasp it's mechanics, and those mechanics are only partially explained or hinted at. Matsuno said in an interview, that this was an intentional choice to let the player figure out stuff themselves by EXPERIMENTATION - thus in part the Demon Souls comparison. I think that is legitimate, although I wish the game had then used a "save" system like the Souls games, instead of the classic saving it does, which just looses your progress if your experiment fails
It's a small flaw on a gem of the game (like the too long spell animations, the lack of a quick access to weapon selection, the too short buff duration, the necessity to save every time you leave the itembox and a bunch more). But I guess just like with Star Ocean, these games were still children of their time, and thus some flaws must be forgiven.
Even speaking about remasters or full-on remakes, I would hope that while the things I listed above would be fixed for sure, as they are just hurting the experience by dragging out play time and killing momentum at times. While the whole experimentation angle is part of what makes the game so compelling.
Sure, the story and world, excellent writing/localization, amazing art direction, perferct cutscene direction, brilliant atmosphere would survive, but the game would feel mechanically less engaging, if all mechanics were just put into a tutorial. Vagrant Story is a hard game to learn, it's not a hard game to execute what you learned. It's like the opposite of Sekiro, where you know pretty quickly how is done "correctly" ... it's just the doing that is rather hard, with those tiny i-frames and parry windows and combat animations purposefully delayed to trick you into triggering those just mere frames to early
Star Ocean in that regard seems comparable to Vagrant Story from what you described. You can brute force much of the game,but it will take waaaayyyy longer and be waaaaayyyyy less rewarding.
As for the PS5, no I don't quite see it that way. First of all, a new console is only in part dictated by technology progress. Part of the equation, the most important one, is still market saturation. If you sold through a majority of available market at the optimal price, it is time to move on. You better hope that by that time you have recovered the initial cost of investment and then some, to be able to invest into the next cycle. That is also why rapid cycles are destructive. Sega figured that out way to late, killing themselves of with rapid iteration, confusing consumers ... sure, their hand was forced by the competition, but that is just how it goes.
Secondly, technology will continue to progress. We actually see major jumps pretty soon if we finally manage to move from silicon into graphite, but I dunno if and when this will actually be realized. Even if we don't though, there is always room to improve on optimization. In fact, I am confident that the largest long-term gains in visuals and performance on the next-gen devices, will not stem primarly from "more horsepower", but much smarter technology like VRS for example. Smart memory management will be a huge factor in general and will effectively multiply the actual memory developers can make use of, plus PS5 might actually pull of enough datathroughput to get pretty close to utterly breaking that barrier that has plagued game design for decades (there is a fascinating interview with some of the Square staff on Vagrant Story, where they in painstakingly detail reveal, how they made the best looking PSX full-polygonal game, even having little to zero experience with that technology - it's fascinating stuff, how they went over scenes again and again and again, to really nail down the precise polygon count they could deliver on the system down to a 't' and tailoring their textures precisely to the PS4 memory).
I'm very curious to see how long the PS5 will last. PS3 was bascially 7 years, which is always considered the rule of thumb for a generation. The last one or two of which were really rough so, strechting things to the breaking point in my view. PS4 will also make it effectively to 7 years, but ... frankly, only by cheating. In fact, I would argue, that with the launch of the PS4 Pro only 3 years after the original PS4, they admitted defeat. To this day, the CPU remain woefully underpowered even on the Pro. IF the Pro had not come to market, the PS4 would not have made it longer than 2018 at best in my view, clocking in at best at a 5 year cycle, which I feel is also a fair assessment.
In that regard, I would argue, they cycle has gotten shorter.
So about FFVIIR, the big upside here is the use of Unreal Engine. This should make iteration and jump to next-gen significantly easier than what they had to deal with with previous engines like say the Crystal Tools for the XIII games. Still, FFVIIR has it's issues as it stands, we already talked about the texture resolution and streaming have even severe issues. Generall speaking, the density and quality of assessts really drops tangibly after the first two or so hours in and around the reactor.
This tells me, that Square has still not come 100% to grips with the UE development and given that future chapters kind of demand huge (semi-)open spaces to remain faithful, I am sceptical, that they will be able to do this with a 2 year turn-around time. I might be wrong though. Things is, who is to say they are even going to do that after Final Fantasy XV? They might see the light and go back to an abstraction, be it the overworld map we've seen in FFVII and so many other games of it times, or the "region"-abstraction seen in FFXII to simulate - aka give the illusion of - a vast open world. I alway prefer the abstraction, as actually vast open worlds are just empty spaces that waste your time and kill any sense of density of realism (Skyrim is supposed to be a big part of an entire continent, still you can WALK across it in roughly two hours or a 15 minute drive, if you had a car handy - it's positively TINY by any real-life-continent-comparison and still, much of it is empty despite their best efforts).
Therefore I think much will depend on whether the PS5 generation will see a mid-gen upgrade and how long the turn-around time on each of the Episodes will be (and if we are looking at like 3-4 more episode here or just 2 obviously).
But frankly, I do expect a) a mid-gen upgrade 3-4 years down the line once more, b) I think 3 years turn-around is much more likely than 2 years, which c) would limit them to a trilogy on PS5, as I really do not forsee something close to 15 years or a decade.
Like, for instance, full global ray-traced illumination is not going to be a thing on PS5, not on 1080p and definitely not on 4K or 8K, no matter if you are shooting for 30fps, 60fps or 120 fps. Even today, that is one of those things that are in the pipeline, but that will not be realized on any next-gen console. Things might be different for Minecraft to some degree, as tech demos have suggested, but that is hardly the baseline for visual fidelity people are looking for here - ray tracing or not
Well, yes and know. If you count every single game, that is part of the genre, like say, all the Neptunia games, then yes, the PS3 build a big library. I'll be harsh here. That is the same calculus by which the Wii had a vast library. Every week there were dozens of releases, but a the vast majority of it was shuffleware, plain and simple. Quality games were far and few between.
The jRPGs that I feel deserve recognization last generation, were almost all either X360 exclusives or timed-exclusives. Also, my point was that the middle finger goes to players/consumers which did support Square on the 360. I have no doubt about Microsoft meddling, they have a long and storied history in that regard, and that history continued into the current gen (just ask Platinum ^^).
Anyways, I do think that is a one-sided tale. First off all, Lost Odyssey released on 4 (!) discs. I'm not sure why they would be okay with Sakaguchi doing that on LO, but not with his former employer doing that on FFXIII. Obviously though, the DVD format was a restriction on 360, that PS3 not shared, true enough, some concession had to be made and Microsoft had a vested interest in coming out of those looking as good as possible. It's not pretty, but understandable in my book.
As for the sequelSS, there were two after all, I think you are leaving out an important part of the story here: the aforementioned Sakaguchi. From what I read, Sakaguchi was OBSESSED with worldbuilding, to the point that he insisted that each entry to the FF-series had to be set in it's own unique world.
With the development of these worlds for 3D HD systems, that approach became apparently untenable for Square, esp. given the fact, that they were in the horrible habit of not only ditchting the worlds they had created, but also the engine and development tools that came with it, mor or less starting from scratch.
I still think the whole idea of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy is in large part to adress that issue: It gave them room to massively reuse assets and development tools for multiple consecutive releases, plus it had the added benefit of not having to reinvent the world either at every turn, and it gave them an excuse to expand deeply into the cheap and quick-turn-around side of the mobile games business, all under one convenient roof.
The time with Sakaguchi leaving the same year, the conception of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy was completed is ... well, it's hard to believe that any of this is any sort of coincidence. And sure enough, Sakaguchi went on to Mistwalkers and continued his massive undertaking of relentlessly building massive, unique and completely original worlds.
I'm not saying that Microsoft is any sort of angle, but neither is Square. According to interviews I read, the struggle about the direction of FF came to ahead as early as FFX-2 and had been going on probaly since 8 or 9 where some in Square felt a sequel to VII had been called for much more pressing. It is relevant I think because Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus and also Advent Children were all realised within like 3 years after Sakaguchi had left.
Again, Microsoft meddled? Sure, but to blame all those change son them is bonkers. Spirits Within was a huge bomb, even threatening the merger with Enix at the time. A course correction was necessary and that included a successfuly jump to 3D production with X, decidely not starting from scratch to bring cost and turn-around time down evident with X-2 and really changing the company's scope, which Nomura did with Kingdom Hearts, as a key part of the puzzle. Nomura is also incidently the Director behind Advent Children and given that ever since FFX or X-2 for that matter, Square was on an unyielding quest to make combat that looked as flashy as it would in Advent Children (that vision being finally realized under Nomura in FFVIIRemake of course, as we now know), it seems obvious that there were was ALOT of stuff going on that is not at all related to Microsoft. The whole 2000s were a big shake up for Square. I am not saying Microsoft was not a part of it, but who knows how much they made off of Microsoft? To pretend that Microsoft did not BUY those meddling rights after some fashion strikes me as ludicrous.
Same goes for Mistwalker. I really love their work, but what did they do after Lost Odyssey? What?
First, they shifted to handeld development, which is cheaper, than to Wii development, which is definitely cheaper than 360 was an then ... they went to mobile, which is the cheapest for sure and they NEVER went back. They would have been free to develop for PS3 when they made The Last STory. The could have developed for PS4 when they made Terra Battle. Microsoft had no hand in those decisions. They got burned by making a big, expensive AAA traditional FF game, that did not really work commercially. I would argue, that this game would have never been made without Microsoft in the 1st place. They did what Square said shouldn't be done anymore, because it was a prohibitively risky venture. They did it anyway. It did not quite pan out. I mean it was an amazing game, my favourite in that particular subgenre for sure, and it sold well, just not enough to continue down that fraught path. It's easy and cheap to blame Microsoft, but the game would most likly not exist without them, so it's also pretty hypocritical of them, at least in my view.
But yeah, there is no doubt that the strategy of Microsoft failed. It's odd though to really phrase it that way. Lost Odyssey, The Last Hope, Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata, Infinite History, Blue Dragon, Enchanted Arms and Tales of Vesperia were good games, some of them even great games, and more so unique ones among them as well, and definitely my favourites of the entire generation, some of them like LO and RoF, as I said sevearl times, I count as my two of my hands-down favourite experiences in the entire genre. IF games are what matters here, then Microsoft did anything other than fail, the furthest from it. They helped bring to life some of the best the genre had to offer, and still has.
I'll put it another way: I take Eternal Sonata over 50 Neptunia games. These ports, they were the saving grace of the PS3 in terms of jRPGs. All the Ps3 really did if you ask me, was to add Valkyria Chronciles, The Legend of Heroes and Ni No Kuni to the stack. Depending on one's taste, sure enough good stuff, but if I had to pick between exclusives for both, I still go with the 360 every time. If those games mentioend above had not been ported, I don't think we would have need to discuss whether platform was the "jRPG machine" of the last generation. There simply had not been any contest. Microsoft was pulling all stops out, using it's deep pockets to make stuff for the platform happen like Sony never (had to) bother(ed).
Haha, I can see how the Switch might be super-appealing to you in your profession. Must be godsend to finally have a console-level experience on the go!! I still haven't had time to check out Trials again, I'm kinda split between my Vagrant Story rerun now, Radiant History Perfect Chronology on the 3DS and Operation Darkness on 360. All of these a very long, deep and involved RPGs that you could spend weeks on individually! ^^
Dating can be fun, but it can also be really painful. "More" of it is not necessarily a good thing in my book. It depends on who you are. I also envied friends who stuck with their highschool sweetheart (successfully so far). Some may think in terms of "boring" here, but ... yeah, not my view of things.
Re: Sega Shiro Needs To Stop Sega Going Bankrupt In This New Video
@Shinobi1Kenoby I still play Virtua Tennis 3 on my 360. I'm not sure if I would buy a console for a sequel, but hell ... I just might actually, given the number of games, that came after and managed to get even close, which still clock in at just around .... 0,0000 If they added another Panzer Dragoon into the mix, that would enough for me and I only really got into that with Orta on X1 rather recently ^^
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah I gotta say, the Skill System for Departure R sounds really deep and interesting! I had no idea! In an ideal world, the game itself provides all the information you need to succeed and gives you enough hints and room for experimentation to figure out the rest on your own, if you want to take the deep dive. It's alright with me, if a game is build in such a way, that areas or items can get by you, if you don't quite know what you are doing esp. in your 1st run, but for a skill system that is kind of problematic of course. Well, then again, we used to have handbooks back in the day, which are not a thing anymore, so all of this is actually more complicated now in that sense. The best handbooks were like ingame items, just physically, companion pieces if you will. That's also a valid approach, even though one no longer practical.
I agree about The Last Hope. From what I played, it was fairly unreliable and thus of very limited usefulness, esp. in moments were you might have need it most. The risk vs reward balance was not on point imho.
I've thought about that issue for FFVIIR as well. RIght now, I would assume that there is no progression between titles. I would kind of hate that, because progression is one, if not the, center piece of any RPG. The thing is though, that the sequels will be released on a different console, so "addons" would be curious, even if the "old" game will also run on the same system. Hell, with the magnitude they are shooting here for, I have to wonder if they'll be able to finish the whole thing within the PS5 generation, since as I said, I am not quite sure this is a three-and-done deal. It's definitely not, if other parts of the game will be expanded upon (and in some instances padded), like Midgard.
Then there is the fact, that it will take more time to create the open-world areas of the game than it did to create Midgard. Given how much of an effort the 1st game obviously took .. it's going to be a while. After all, these areas do not hold up, I feel, and are in a need for a serious overhaul. That is going to take alot of time, to the point, where I am sceptical, that more than two games can be done during next-gen. Which ... yeah, it either has to be trilogy, with seems doubtful to me, or it has to go on well into the PS6 generation.
Sounds like Grandia has some good old fashioned difficulty spikes towards the end. I don't really mind these fortunately. Well, at least as long as they are still within reason that is Plenty of jRPG had that, it's in a way not ideal of course, as a consistent difficulty curve is more rewarding than: steamrolling -> boss aka brick wall -> grinding -> steamrolling ...
And yeah, I was born in 1985. That's why I do not have the deepest attachement to SNES and PSX. I never even had an SNES of my own, but my best friend at the time had one. I only had a used PSX for a while, before I got a PS2. Hence, I am nore attached to the PSX than the SNES and more attached to the N64 and PS2 -where I really feel in love with jRPGs- than even the PSX.
I've actually had very little exposure to jRPGs on the PSX. It was more like Resident Evil, Armored Core, Metal Gear Solid and such. Hell, even Vagrant Story is not really a "jRPG", if we are frank about it. It's neither set in an anime setting, nor does it share in any of the trappings that really make up the genre. Like I said before, it's basically the Demon Souls of the PSX era. I know that is technically Kings Field, but I never played those until much, much later, and then I was not really impressed. Anyways, booting up Demon Souls did not and still does not scream: jRPG. PErsona 5 does, in a good way of course (for the most part), but DeS and VS did not - for good reason.
I'm thinking of picking uf Faithlessnes. It's like $10 during the current Golden Week sale on PSN. I already picked up The Last Remnant. That's a game I always wanted to play. It shares the same aesthetic as Final Fantasy XII, which in turn, is set in the same universe as Vagrant Stoy basically. It's my kind of jam
I only played for 10 mins last night, but I gotta say, at least visually, the game looks INCREDIBLE. Apparently, they ported it to Unreal Engine 4. It's a huge step-up from the 360. More importantly though, it ran like s**t on 360, which is why I never got deeper into it back then, it was just obnoxious. Still, the Remastered plays really smoothly. I am kinda iffed that just like the other former 360 centric jRPGs, neither Resonance of Fate 4K, The Last Hope 4k nor The Last Remanant saw a X1 release. I think that is uncalled for an probably means, that neither of those games will ever be seen in HDR, given that neither is backwards compatible either.
That's a big middle finger to anyone, who feel in love with these games on the 360, like me. In fact, as far as jRPGs goes, the 360 was superior to the PS3, there I said it, but it is true. There more of them, they came out earlier before being ported (shoddily at times), and the best ones were only on 360, aka Lost Odyssey. There were other really good exclusives as well, like Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery, and unique ones like Operation Darkness.
It's odd that Square would pretend that part of their history never happened. Maybe they are still sour about Sakaguchi and the whole Mist Walker chapter? I dunno, but it seems REALLY petty and also bad business. Who is to say that the PS5 will dominate next-gen? They might need the good will of the wider Xbox audience going forward. I do not understand, it since porting from PS4 to Xbox One should be rather trivial, much more so than 360 to PS3 for sure.
Anyways, I'm excited to try out The Last Remnant when I can find the time. The game really starts on a strong note, just as FFVII(R) and Lost Odyssey. In fact, it reminded SO MUCH of Lost Odyssey, since it also throws you right into a large scale battle, with issuing a battle command being the 1st thing you ever do, even before you can so much as run around. Obviously, the game's color palette and art direction are also similar, since LO took more than one queue from the likes of Vagrant Story.
The thing that also came up for me with booting it up, is how poorly received The Last Remnant was back on the 360 just like .... Resonance of Fate. Thinking back today it is obvious, that many western "game journalists" just could not figure out the combat system. That's not to say both games are perfect. RoF certainly wasn't, but it was much, much, much better than reviews made it out to be, many of which I suspect never actually beat the last boss in fact. Plus, if you "got" the combat, it played and still plays like NOTHING ELSE out there. I have a feeling, and high hopes, that the same is true for The Last Remnant, which kinda makes me excited
Oh and btw, The Last Remnant Remastered on PS4 is also only currently like $10, jut like all the Star Ocean games. Considering it's a massive game by all accounts, which like I said looks gorgeous on Unreal Engine 4, I feel that price is a steal.
Edit: Oh, and I also took a look at the original Trials of Mana. I gotta say, I like the sprite based visuals more. They look more charming and less ... honestly? Cheap! I also think the original had a bit more a darker edge to it, visually, than the Trials remake. It's hard to compare, but the whole Disney-vibe I got from the Remake, did not come across the same way in the footage of the original. Still, I also saw a fair bit of the recent remake of the 1st one and that looks ugly as **** and was obviously made on the super cheap. It also features even worse voice acting than Trials - like horrendously bad to the point you'd want to mute it for sure Oo
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah @Razmoudah I'll keept that in mind about First Departure R. Generally, I strongly dislike reading any kind of guide before I start playing a game. Particularly with RPGs, I very much enjoy the process of uncovering the game's mechanics for myself - with the help of some tutorials of course - which is kinda undone with guides. Of course, if it's about some obscure conditions for e.g. recruiting characters, that the game itself never makes clear ... yeah well ^^
You sound rather positive about Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. I just dismissed it because the critical reaction was so overwhelming negative. Maybe I'll take another look then.
I'm surprised to hear you seem to have no texture loading issues. I've seen reports from people using various PS4 kits, and all pretty much report the same issue. Hell, even users with SSD report them, just with faster pop-in times. It's also not a issue in every region to the same degree in my experience. Still, it's not even as bad as the fact that some texture seem completely missing or incredibly low-res.
I'm not sure where they are going with FF Remake. I feel the whole setup with those arbiter of fate and the ending, without any spoilers, points to the possibility, that future games will involve actual decision making. I'm also not sure whether it'll end up being a trilogy, it seemed likely, but given how little ground has been covered over those 40h+, I'm rather sceptical now.
I definitely think so, that this will be more like Kingdom hearts, meaning that future entries will be just $60 sequels. I think that was at least partially the point here. They do want to make money after all
"Hawkeye as your hero with Riesz and Kevin as your companions, I haven't done that specific combination before (in my Hawkeye/Riesz saves I have either Charlotte or Duran along as my healer), but it would be an entertaining team, especially with how Kevin gets you out of jail before joining your team........." Sounds interesting!!
With these older games, so much is reliant on art direction and actual cinematography. Both are excellent in Vagrant Story. I'd go so far, as do say, that Vagrant Story is up to the highest standarts of even today in that regard. Replaying it now, it really brings into focus just how much of gem it was, ahead of it's time in so many ways. Pretty much the Demon Souls of the PSX era to be honest
Since I don't really remember much about Grandia III's story, I imagine you could be right on the money about the story. How's the difficulty in I and II btw?
Yeah, God of War is pretty much reboot in every mechanical sense. There is also no real need to have any insight into the story before that point. It probably helps though, to watch a youtube video about the characters of Kratos. There is not much to him, but it helps knowing here he came from basically, to really appreciate what they've done with the reboot, just the magnitude of the undertaking, if you will.
Like I said, both takes on God of War are legitimate, and I really loved several of the previous GoW titles as well, but GoW (2018) just takes everything I loved about GoW, fundamentally reshapes it and then takes it to a whole new level. The combat was fun and challenging in the previous games, totally, but now it is fun, challenging, but also gorgeous, (more) complex, really visceral, way-way-way more varied and thus utterly compelling. This applies to just about every aspect of the game.
Really pretty much like FFVIIR. GoW also has some pretty good writing going on imho and strong voice acting ("Boy!"-memes aside ^^). There is also an audio book even, which I enjoy. It's fittingly voiced by Alastair Duncan, which voices Mimir in God of War (basically, your 'Grimoire Weiss' in terms of Nier, and while he is not THAT brilliant, he still is brilliant. He also voiced Nihlus in ME fyi.
Sorry to hear that you had a rough going of it the last couple of days. At least you're back safe & (mostly ^^) sound now. Enjoy your copy of Trials!
Re: Survive The Sci-Fi Scares Of The Persistence, Jumping From PSVR To Switch Next Month
Game was pretty good on PSVR. Not sure how effective it'll be as a regular release, but it should be okay. Obviously, it cannot have the same impact, but it should still make for an engrossing and challenging couple of hours.
Re: The Third Season Of Castlevania On Netflix Was More Popular Than Season Two
I wasn't initially a big fan of the show with season 1, but I came to really appreciate it and season 3 had a strong sense of place and good characterization, with some intense moments for all major players. I also seemed alot more focused to me, with a clear narrative purpose from the 1st episode through to the finale. Pacing was never an issue.
I'm still not 100% in love with the animation and some of the designs, esp. the monsters, but having just watched one episode of the GitS show, I can safely say that Castlevania looks grand by comparison. I do hope that monster design will further improve. That was always something I appreciated about Castlevania, and while not bad, it is also not something I can hugely laude this show for so far - which is a shame imho.
I still think that there is the issue that much of what made the game's work, is really lost on the show. I do feel in that regard Season 3 did a bit better though, at least if you compare it to Lord of Shadows. It would be grand if the could recapture some of the sensation given by the game's dungeon crawling, exploration and tight combat.
I acknowledge that this is a hard task, but outside of a few particular sequences (like the one when they find Alucard), they did not even try, which is shame. Season 3 at least, starts out with a strong combat scenario, that does feel "game'y" in a good way imho (again, I think referencing the 3D games, like Lord of Shadows, is way easier here than the 2D ones).
Re: Review: Trials of Mana - Old And New Combine To Create A Fine RPG Adventure
@LunarFlame17 Yeah, coming off Final Fantasy VII Remake, hearing Duran talking even like 2 minutes in was a cold harsh reminder of the reality of jRPG voice acting in general. One brilliant exception makes for no rule ... even if it's a game remake by the same company, being released in the same month.
It's also worth noting that the game is lacking HDR support on PS4, which FFVII Remake offered handily.
I'm glad that this is a game retro fans can enjoy. Personally, I did not click with me at all. And no, it's not because it is oldschool. I'm currently replaying Vargrant Story on my Vita (like 15 hours in), and I highly enjoy it despite it's age and some archaic design choices.
I'm sadly just not into that whole shonen'esque anime angle 95% of all jRPGs have going these days.
I pray to the gaming gods, that Square will give us an annoucement for a Vagrant Story remake/remaster or even sequel. A while back I'd say that is never going to happen, but with FFVIIR, Shemnue 3 and Nier Automata and the NIER Remaster ... I dunno, everything is up for grabs apparently and February was the 20th anniversary for VS.
Also, Square is actually releasing Playarts Kai FIgures for Ashley and Syndey, soooooo
Re: Lack Of Switch Stock In Japan Is Driving Up The Value Of Animal Crossing: New Leaf
I'm confused, why pay like 4x the price of the digital version? Oo
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah Think along the lines of dates, not years ... obviously
I think most people that were offended (which is the right word, I guess) were more concerend with the ending, as well as the whole arbiter-of-fade entities showing up all the time, screwing with events. And I haven't bothered with anything other than Normal myself. I'll keep hard for my second playthrough down the line. I hope the PS5 can address the texture loading issue, as I found it to be most annoying technical issue with the game for sure, and would very much like to play it once more without that ^^
But yeah, in general I am not sure that a 1:1 to remake, even as far as the basic plot goes, was ever promised. Looking back now, I do feel the title itself was a clever subversion. I alway wondered why it was not named Episode 1 or something like that. Now we know why, it's not really Remake the noun, but more like: Final Fantasy 7: remake! - the verb ^^
Jim Sterling made a good point there I think: whether you consider the ending and changes in general false advertisement/"a betrayel" or a clever subversion, is really subjective and hinges on whether the game is bad, then it's former, or good, than it is the latter.
I'm firmly in the camp of clever subversion, well, I would be, if I knew how the original unfolded going forward. I'm in the camp of: I hope Part 2 will be just as fun to play, I do not care about their faithfulness to the original, like not one bit. In fact, my personal experience with FF leads me to believe, that I would prefer a game that heavily deviates from their usual fare. I know, that might be harsh to hear for a long-time fan, but ... ah well, it's just the truth.
Given your experience with Trials then, which character would you suggest to take for a spin? I figured that Duran might have been an unlucky pick on my end, but then again, just going by the visual design of each character, I was not confident, that I would really fare THAT much better with one of the others ^^
I'm definitely not down for Charlotte to be honest. Not a fan of the design, and the voice ... no, just not for me, no offense
I hear you on the Grandia Collection. I wager I'll pick it up during it's next sale! The thing with graphic is like, earlier today I started playing a bit of Vagrant Story once more (the game is just one of those titles, that really sticks me like few other media ot there) and while it's probably one of the very best looking fully polygonal-rendered PSX games out there, with incredibly strong architecture and general art direction and character design (Akihiko Yoshida is a genius in my book, I pretty much only played Bravely Default due to him being involved ^^), it's not always a joy too look at these days. It works pretty well on Vita though. Running it on my 4K TV would be ill advised though, even at a higher native resolution.
Anyways, sprite-based games, as well as games with hand-drawn backgrounds, do fare better still I feel, better than early days 3D rendered ones that is. I still feel that Baldurs Gate II looks grand, not the characters, but all the backgrounds. Just beautiful art, that never really gets old. Some of the sprite works on like Suikoden 1 and 2 also stands the test of time pretty okay, I feel. In short, the more artistic the original approach and the less technical, the better PSX games hold up in my view.
Vagrant Story is nevertheless brilliant of course - back then, and still today (Speaking of Vagrant Story, have you ever tried Crimson Shroud on 3DS? It's like 5 hours long, but also by Matsuno, and I really enjoyed it alot - not sure if I mentioned it before). Therefore, I do not think that visuals really deter me by themselves.
Grandia III was pretty much carried by the combat for me. I honestly don't remember much about it outside of that I'm curious to see how the others will click with me. It is really great to have these games conveniently available on the Switch like that (and legal on top of that). I wish we'd also get games like Valkyrie Profile 1&2 for instance.
Eternal Sonata, I can definitely recommend, I tried almost all Tales of ... games, and that one, even if not part of the official series, is by far my favourite. It's a few unique quirks compared to the others, that can be hit and miss, and Tales of Symphonia and Vesperia have their own strong appeal, with Graces probably featuring the best combat, but Sonata packed the most punch, as it just featured the most humane story of the bunch by far, and everything else was also solid, like the combat, or really great, like the music -even if the music lacked a bit of range, as it was obviously very Chopin-centric.
Are you talking about God of War for the PS4 or the original series? I mean, I can recommend both, but I'd consider the PS4 reboot to be a most play. Do NOT play it starting with the PS4 one. I mean, I wouldn't. Kratos will feel like a very one dimensional character if you go down that route. If you start with the original games, it's not something that will initially bother you, but it very well might coming off of the reboot.
If you want to try just one game from the original series, that also kinda works as a standalone game, I would suggest Ghost of Sparta. It was probably my favourite of the bunch incl. God of War III; but that one heavily relies on existing knowledge of previous stuff to really make any sense and give you a sense of closure.
I cannot recommend Ascension, it's the only game in the series I never got through. Part of it is that the series had run it's course for me then, but part of it is also that it's just an entry that nobody asked for, devoid of anything to add to an epic saga, that had reached it's climax already.
Well, then I hope you have a couple of successful work days, and ... do stay safe out there!
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah Fair enough But yeah, I kinda feel that way, the majority for sure feature some kind of turn-based systems, in fact most franchise I am ware of, rely entriely on it. Truly full on action-combat systems are certainly rare - and again, not in and off itself objectively "better".
I actually have the collection on my wish list, as I only ever played Grandia III and remember kinda liking the combat. Still, the last couple of months or maybe even years have given me pause. I really tried to get into a bunch of jRPGs the same way I used to, but I found all these issues I laid out before - in relation to combat, but also to narrative stereotypes - harder and harder to deal with. I wanted to love DQXI, I really, really did, but I could not look beyond the combat. It is such an integral part of the experience, and even with the changes you described so eloquently to me, it never clicked, I never felt engaged, and more crucially, I also never get that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction out of it, I kinda really do need these days to stick with a game for some odd 60+ hours.
I wonder if it will be different for Grandia. I am still very much willing to try just about everything though to see if it works for me. VOice acting is not a deal breaker for me, despite what I said here for FFVIIR. It is more a thing that can elevate a game beyond it's initial graps, than a thing that drags an otherwise brilliant game down into the mud.
As for FFVIIR, I was consistently blocking, esp. since there are materia, that incentize it, plus on Cloud ... there are a handful of attacks that are better to be dodged though, but like, really only some, I feel, and only on a limited number of enemies. As a rule of thumb, I found blocking to be the way to go if in doubt I also liked how you coul dodge out of Punisher mode. That might have been OP in a way, because it eliminates the implied trade-off movement speed vs damage/parry for the most part, but it still made it super useful and those parries are so damn satisfying to watch
I never tried the game on easy, because as I said, it's not really a mind- and/or finger bender on normal either. I doubt I played any other jRPG for like 48 hours dying LITERALLY less than a handful of times - with 0 seconds of grinding on top of that. That is still surreal to me, having spend hundreds of hours grinding in my life! ^^ That alone might be one thing I will have a hard time coming back from to older games and that is true in particular because I actually deeply enjoyed fighting in FFVIIR. I was never annoyed to enter into a fight even once. Few jRPGs can lay such claim, none with random encounters for instance
Interesting, having no really experience with the Trials demo, I did not pay any attention to it that aspect at all. I was just pushing on to see what else there was to unlock, as I remember many a jRPG unlocking it's full combat potential rather far into the game (cough FFXIII cough).
Haha - oh no! So you're saying the two EO's I do not own do better with combat presentation? Darn ^^ I picked up about every Atlus game on the 3DS, I did not already on, when they were on sale last week. That's also how I ended up with the lovely Radiant Historia, but I skipped on EO V and NExus, because they were still pretty expensive and like I said, EO is one of the series, that I should love, I used to love all those D&D inspired Dungeon Crawling games on PC going back 20+ years as well, but it just was too stale for IN actual combat encounters. Did love the whole 1st party exploration though.
Do you know the "The Quest" and "Orcs & Elves" (on the NDS, and amazingly designed by THE John Carmack)? Two of my favourite games right there, not kidding. I loved the Turn-Based combat in those, as it cover the whole player engagement and applied equal rules for both player and NPCs. Just LOVED them Sadly "Orcs & Elves 2" never made it outside of a java mobile release .... still hoping to see some "remasters" for Switch for example some day. I would instantly grab those day one. They were also pretty challenging games honestly. The Quest would also be an amazing game for the Switch, even though I already own it on Steam and Android.
I do remember those days quite well indeed. I can definitely tell, that you are much more deeply versed in the genre than myself. I've always had a rather ecclectic games in general, with little adherence to one particular genre (actually that goes for all media). But I am well aware of Square's efforts, because two of my best friends were and still are pretty much die hard fans. They were playing FF games, while I was pretty much doing stuff like Vagrant Story, Shadow Hearts, Xenogears/Xenosaga, Nocturne and everything else SMT, particuarly Digital Devil Saga later on, and such.
In short, I liked the games with a more somber cast and atmosphere, the less kids I played the better, and a stronger reliance on philosophical themes than just ... drama, be it romantic or apocalyptic.
I also really only came to the genre as something I favoured in the PS2 era, not before. Before that I was much more invested in western RPGs. I always say, that what FFVII was to many of my friends, Incubation was to me (and also MGS1) - the kind of formative experience, you get as a kid I loved tactical games, with a strong puzzle'esque nature and punishing difficulty ever since, I also always loved Scifi more than Fantasy.
I think in many regards, Square did play a pivotal role to drag the industry forward, particularly in their golden years on PSX. From what I understand, they were pretty much struggling to recreate FFVII going forward until Kingdom Hearts showed up, also basically open the door for the merger with Enix, after having lost tons of money on failed projects like The Spirits Within. And yeah, I hear you on both their role on FMVs (which to be fair, were always a thing on PC, just think like Diablo, which released in the same year as FFVII as well, plus a year later on PSX.
As for FFX, you are absolutely right! I forgot about the character swapping, Funnily enough, I just laid for @retro_player_77 above, how much I enjoyed that every character in FFVIIRemake played differently and thus mattered from a MECHANICAL standpoint (and also how you never had more than 3 characters anyways, so "neglecting" a bunch, was a non-issue from a narrative point as well). So yeah, absoutely, point well taken.
I will definitely have to try to get into Star Ocean. I got First Departure R on Switch, and I'll make sure to give that fair shake. I also have Tilll The End of Time on PS4.
How did you fell about Integrity and Faithlessness then, if I may ask? Most reviewers seemed to hate it apparently, and since I did not particularly love Last Hope outside of combat, I steered clear.
Haha, oh man, you are like the first person I can recall, that ever brought this up. I HATED how they changed the name, like seriously: Resonance of Fate sounds more generic, these namechanges are 9/10 entirely pointless anyways, be it movies or games, and in a narrative sense, End of Eternity did make SENSE in the game's actual context ... Resonance of Fate did not, well Fate plays a crucial role for sure, with some characters resigning themselves to theirs and others not, but the Resonance Of ... I could never quite make heads or trails of that. Still most people have never heard of RoF, so End of Eternity would just cause utter confusion ...
I do think they changed it up quite a bit: Positioning is key in this game, but not just that, but also "Sightlines", meaning that actual 3D enviroments matter ALOT in this game. Also, the way you expend the same ressource for action as ressembles your "lifebar", means that there always trade-offs involved, which is just a basic premise I always appreciate. Like, do I kill the adds for the boss first ... normally, that is what you do, because these tend to be high dps, low hp enemies, plus they often offer up debuffs and interrupt combos etc.
In RoF though, that is not necessarily the way to go, as you can "break" them to regain your bezels, or more to the point: you will probably NEED them as a bezel-kind-of resservoir. This combined with the fact, that an enemy, any enemey, was a PHYSICAL object within in the combat space impeding movement and sightlines as far as I recall, made any such decision 10x more meaningful than in any other turn-based jRPG I can remember.
The whole question of: Will not-having-that-enemy-alive hurt me a couple of turns from now ... I dunno, but that is not a question I can quite recall ever asking myself outside of RoF.
Also, I loved the setting, like LOVED. The simple fact, that we were playing young adults really, in a mature, non-fantasy world, with GUNS instead of swords&sorcery, was such a piece of fresh air, and yeah, obviously the sheer presentation on the combat is still the best in class, like so much dynamic movement and intrinsically linked to combat, like how jumping above an enemy is actually flashy, but also serves a mechanical purpose ...
I still think that the game's combat had several genuine moments of brilliance, and I keep coming back to time and time again. Sadly, even the 4K remaster did little for people to notice it, hence we will probably not ever see anything like that ever again
So as for Trials, no I haven't played the original or any previous Mana game at all. But yeah, the way you lay it out, it makes me think, that I might have to give the game another look at some point actually. I mean, like I said above, I was hoping for it to get more engaging later on, with a bigger party, a wider selection of skills, less tutorial-esque enemy and so. Thanks for that, also for your point about the narrative structure. That was I guess unfair then on my end, to pass this kind of quick, summary judgement. I wil say this though: Having started out with Duran, it's not really all that important, if he is really a chose one fighting an ancient evil, or just the legacy of great and loyal house, trying to right a wrong done to his kingdom. It's like ... it's hitting the same beats, I feel, like Dragon Quest. Not in the details, but certainly in tone. Duran is not a Joe-Nobody, that is made clear 2 minutes into the game. He is not thrust into that situation by an outside force. In fact, the game pretty much tells you, he was going to be an adventures of sorts, because ... daddy and stuff. It's still rather generic in that regard, at least his origin as far as I can tell based on the game's beginning.
In terms of FFXV, I do think it looks pretty and the combat does LOOK kinda exciting (just google the Leviathan fight for instance). While we established that this matters to me, it does not change that everything you say about it, is utterly true.
Like, not a FF nerd here, but even I noticed how FF had this -intentionally or not- message at heart, that group of diverse people, a ragtag band of inviduals of all races, colors and ages, can band together, can become friends, and make the world a better place.
All FFXV has is 4 DUDES, wearing the SAME CLOTH, having lived their entire LIVE in the SAME city ... it's odd to say the least. Also, the narrative is split off into several other medium. Like you will not understand why these are basically "brothers" unless you watched at least the brotherhood mini-series anime on youtube. Like ... the game tells you they are super close, but never ever how and why. Well, not quite, there are the DLCs that get into it I guess, but those released after the fact and are entirely decoupled from the main game once more.
It's baffling really, like ... I do NOT understand the point of any of this at all.
And yeah, despite the combat looking appeal for sure, it is mechanically broken. I will leave it at that, as I said enough before. It just is ... on so many levels, not at all about the player making choices, it is anti-player-agency in fact.
it's even more baffling to me than the narrative media experiment, because I see no point in a combat system, that is meant NOT TO ENGAGE THE PLAYER. WTF
Hell, I hated much about FFXIII, but looking back to day, the combat was by far it's strongest assest, I actually kinda really liked it in fact. I hated hope, and really msot of the cast, the story was arcane non-sense with so much lore-name-dropping, that a couple of hours of wiki-reading-up, was necessary not to rage quit the world building (in a SquareEnix game, I mind you, consider that fact for a moment if you will) ... but the combat was neat.
I mean, you had to turn off "Auto Battle" in the options menu, but as far as the normal, non-boss encounters game, I will say that I found FFXIII to be the most challenging and demanding game in the series, based on what I have played. The game was also very strong in terms of it's use of buffs and debuffs.Those were integral parts of your tactic ... if they weren't you were in trouble, and this goes beyond haste for sure. Few FF games I can recall, put that much emphasis on those.
The combat was also super-faced, like this ATB-version on steroids. It was not for everyone, but I liked it. It also shared a similar "dynamic presentation" like in FFX, which also worked in it's favour. I did not really like the upgrade systems though, neither for weapons nor for characters.
Anyways, the game had many flaws, but it was a technical achievement, still looks excellent on Xbox One X to this day btw, and the combat was highly enjoyable - if you'd ignroe the auto-battle system. Too bad, the world and characters were actively annoying, not as bad but kinda like in FFXV.
I never had much "faith" in FF to begin with, but FFVII Remake, like this is first time in my life I care about FF I am actually considering giving Tetsuya Nomura's other brainchild, Kingdom Hearts, which never looked appealing to me at all, even as a Disney fan at heart, a shot. I'm not quite there yet, but I think eventually, I will pick up the first remaster, and just take a gander.
I'll also go back and really get into FFX again for sure. Actually, I'm just kinda waiting for Xbox Series X to arrive. FFX was a pretty colorful game with many effects going on through-out. The XBX actually also renders in 4K. Anyways, I have really high hopes for the "Auto-HDR" features announced for Series X. It's the main reason, I plan to pick it up. I think something like FFX will really benefit from this. Kingdom Hearts potentially as well, offensively bright and colorful as it is I found HDR to offer the most visual bang-for-buck and I have a hard time these days, as any SDR games, at least for the first 30 minutes or so, really looks "off" in a fundamental way. Like the first time you put on toned glasses during summer. Everything dulls down in that uncanny way. After a while you stop noticing, but the first time is always very off-putting to me, as the world just looses it's luster. That is what SDR feels like to me: A virtual world, having lost it's luster.
IGNORANCE REALLY IS BLISS, let me tell you ^^
Oh and on Trials again, still, as you say, the fact does not quite change that it is - at least thematically and I'd argue artistically - geared towards a younger audience, or if you will, towards nostalgia of older players. Well, that is unfair, too, there is nothing inherently wrong with a colorful, fairtale esque setting and shonen'inspired idealistic heroes. I just had my fill of it, I guess, at least for now. I do not want to protray my personal preferences in that regard as "superior".
I do enjoy the occasional shonen, for instance I watch Kimetsu no Yaiba, FMA, Hunter X Hunter and definitely Haikyu! with great joy, with the later maybe being my favourite anime of all
I just find that many games hitting those tropes, are just not meant to for me. You pointed out the intricacies of the leveling system in the original, but the thing is, that most of these games are just devoid of the challenge that makes me want to dive that deep, or the combat is just too dull for me to spend any more time with it, than I have to, to see the story through.
Oh, and btw, my age is right in my name
I'm really curious to see how SMT V will shake out. That is one "traditional" jRPG, I am very much looking forward to. I really hope that some, if not all of the lessons they learned going from Persona 4 to Persona 5, will be applied to SMTV. I'm talking like the scene transitions, the small animations that you get for everything (like opening a menu even), the fact that many basic actions are mapped to buttons, keeping menu interactons to a minimum, the dynamic camera, the proper combat animations for just everything and all that. Persona 5 really goes out of this way to obfuscate the rote and archaic nature of it's combat, even accounting for additions like batton pass and and such, and it does so really succesfully.
It's artistical cohessiveness and clarity are really one of the kind, and this time they managed to really translate into all aspects of the game, going way beyond P3 and P4.
I do not want them to hit the same tone as Persona, not at all, but as far as presentation goes, there is ALOT here, that needs to be accounted for in a new 3D SMT Mainline game, running on (somewhat) modern hardware. I'll loose my **** if the game unfolds like Nocturne, which was not so much bad, as a chidl of it's Pre-Persona 5 time
Edit: For some reason, I just keep thinking about Voice acting a bit, since you brought it again, and I feel that 1997/8 must really have been like the pivotal year here in hindsight, because it also gave us Star Fox 64, which ... I mean, has some super cheesy over-the-top voice acting, but delivered so perfectly, fitting the game beyond well, that it really left a strong impression of me and became completely linked to my memory of the game. And I'm not just talking about "Do a barrely roll" (enter that into google though 4fun ^^), but the game's cartoon vibe was really brought to live with the voice acting.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@retro_player_77 Interesting perspective, first off, which system did you play on? I played on PS4 pro, and aside from the texture loading issue/pop-in I had zero technical issues. It might have dropped a frame here and there, but I certainly never noticed it. I'm susceptible to it, but not overly so in general I say. Digital Foundry also found the game to be an almost perfect performer. I'm extremely susceptible to input lag, as I've been playing on Gamemode consistently for 10 years now, first on Panasonic Plasmas now on LG OLEDs, and I definitely did not notice that either, like not at all.
Plus, this is hardly Dark Souls, you can just hold your guard in punisher and will get that parry, it does not matter if you do it a second early or late. So even if there were input lag issues, which again, I did not notice at all, I do not think it would be a big deal at all. I would certainly dislike it, as I feel it creates a disconnect between me and the game, on a very fundamental level, but still, as long as it is consistent (and not spikes, like you mentioned, and it's not an action game per se ...).
I do agree that there are problems. I alluded to quite a couple around here already: The camera is sometimes unable to deal with narrow spaces you fight in particular with bosses, leading to situations of utter confusion. Generally speaking, the game does not deal super well with large group of enemies, particularly fast moving ones. The game desperately needed a jump button (one thing I liked about Trials of Mana here), because otherwise flying enemies becoming an annoying chore.
The game is clearly geared towards prolonged single-enemy encounters, since otherwise neither summons nor limit breaks nor buffs and debuffs make any sense (this ain't FFXIII by a long shot), yet 80% of your encounters are with groups of small, fast moving enemies in tight spaces ...
Still, I refuse to except your Mario Run comparison, like even on it's premise. Mario Run is a severly dumped down version, geared towards a particular input theme, that does not allow for much more interaction that what it actually offers.
The input scheme for FFVIIR is more complex though than with the original, there are more moving parts, things to consider... crucial you make more meaningful decision over a shorter period of time, which I consider more engaging as long as I am not overtaxed. I am never overtaxed though, because I can pause the game at any time and plan my next moves. Crucially, all characters in FFVII remake play entirely differently and serve different purposes (like Barret is strong against flying enemies, see above, Tifa excells at stagger increases, Cloud's parry devastates certain enemy types solo ...). That was not the case in the original and a clear improvement.
So yeah, the changes bring with it new problems, that did not exist before. But they also remove problems (think for instance: random battles, which no one ever liked as far as I can tell, same'y and interchangeable characters etc.) the original had. I will say this clearly: Personally, for me these are changes for the better all-around and I am perfectly confident, that the system will shine much more in the more open areas I fully except to be playable in Episode 2. In fact, I think the system was ironically designed with encounters in these areas in mind, and just had to fit the bill for the 1st episode as well.
Just my thoughts though, I really loved FFVIIR. It was one of the most mechanically engaging jRPGs I have played so far, certainly the most technical accomplished, and yet also one of the most moving and most humanized one.
I can totally understand though, that the story bits are controversial, particularly the ending. I felt the added bits really shined bright and made me care, for instance about Avalanche, in a way I never did before. But that is up to one's personal taste.
The thing is, in the grander scale of things, not knowing at all what is going to happen next, is more exciting to me. Simple as that. I'm looking forward to finding out what is going to happen, is it really and literally an "unknown journey"? I feel that is pretty cool, evne if they are going to continue to hit major story beats. FFVIIR really has a stromg romantic rom-com going, one I finally care about, and just on that level some liberties they might take, might offer a big emotional pay off for me, even if the actual "plot" plays out much the same.
So anyways, in your analogy, I would flip it, and argue that FFVIIR is definitely the richer and more engaging game, different yes, but the original would to me be the simplistic Mario-Run-esque version.
I'm also not entirely sure why everyone expected this to be a faithful 1:1 remake. We've spend half a decade seeing snippets of footage and it was immedtiately obvious, that this was going to be a very different beast than the original - even to me, someone who never in his life cared much about FF as a franchise, with only passing knowledge and interest for the most part.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Priceless_Spork Depends, personally, I did not like it. It felt like a new coat of paint (that might be a bit to harsh but still) for a game that might not really have aged incredibly well, despite the combat being ahead of it's time - back then I wager.
If you don't mind the fairtale'esque setting, shonen-inspired characters, comically bad voice acting, glacial pace, sterile towns and environments, and everything else we stereotypically associate with generic jRPGs, then you might still find a highly enjoyable game here.
Music is great, the graphics are pretty nice and set the mood and tone effectively, and the combat I probably only disliked because I came straight of 48 hours of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Just don't expect anything with the amibiton of said FFVIIR or the quality of that game in it's individual parts (visuals, voice acting, animation, art direction, combat, etc.).
I hope that was more digestible and concise enough Full disclosure, I have no attachement to the original or to the series as a whole. If you are an established fan, this might be EXACTLY what you were looking for. If you are looking for another "modern" jRPG Remake coming off FFVIIR like me ... this is not it, not at all.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Razmoudah I did not mean to imply that there were no jRPGs using anything other than turn-based combat (did it come across that way?), in fact, I do not even have a problem with turn-based combat itself.
For me, like I tried to lay out, it matters most if a) the game feels turn-based, meaning that often times, my actual experience is just paused and on-hold and b) does it offer player engagement in terms of meaningful decision above and beyond what could be done in real-time, without overtaxing the player (not everyone is a pro player with 250 actions-per-minute after all ^^).
While you are obviously well versed in the minutae of many a jRPG turn-based system (incidentially, I kinda liked the combat in FFX quite a bit, of the bit I have played so far, without ever thinking to much about why that may be so), I think the problem with FFXI is not the mechanical refinements, but that the presentation.
On a very basic level, I enjoy the combat in SMT games for instance. Without getting into the nuts and botls of it, I think there is a striking difference in my expereince of SMT III vs SMTIV/A and esp. vs Persona 5 and Tokyo Mirage Session: animations.
Simply out, the 3DS ones do not let you see the action play out. It's just literally bunch of 2D art pieces (which are gorgeous) shaking a bit on screen and some fire effect or whatever being thrown up the screen. It's supremely static.
Pretty much the exact same type of combat feels entirely different if you compare it to the other games mentioend. Particularly TMS#FE head so much going on visually, that watching it felt exciting. I mean, I don't do streaming, but I imagine a stream of SMTIV would be nauseating beyond belief. I mean, do love the game, there is brilliance to it, but the combat felt about as engaging as watching slow-mo replay of 20 year old chess tournament.
As for Tales, I do appreciate the combat, and I LOVED Symphonia on the Gamecube, but beyond that, I could never really get into the series, just as with Star OCean, for reason utterly unrelated to combat. Just could not stand the characters. Star OCean Last Hope had actual combat. Played back then on the 360, but the art direction was super uninspired, the music so-and-so, and for the life of me, I did not care for anyone in my party. It just felt very generic and cookie-cutter jRPG stuff.
I will say, that one of my favourite jRPGs of all time remains Eternal Sonata. It had the Tales system, with some clever twist like the dark/light mechanic, but mostly, it was the unique setting centered around the life of Chopin and the OUTSTANDING interpretation of his music, that captured me entirely. I even got the OST, because I totally dug the Nocturnes interpretation most of all.
I do agree with your sentiment about shake ups to established turn-based tropes. The basic party one turn, party two turn, rinse and repeat is not just the most mechanical unengaging, but also the most artificial and sterile one to look at. It feels like a battle from the early days of infantry combat. Just lines standing there, shooting at each other. Utter madness in it's own way, for a purpose sure, but looking back: utter madness.
There is nothing about that I can relate to, that can pull me. And yeah, I agree about Grandia as well, at least III as I don't recall actually playing any other, and Dragoon for sure.
Hell, I currently in the process of playing Operation Darkness on X360, one of Atlus' most obscure releases I think, and I really like how there Turn-Order and number of actions is determined not just by speed but also by weight: Thus if you bring more, say bazooka rockets, to a fight, you pack a lot of destructive punch, but the flip-side is, that some of your characters will get to act 3 times as often as others. It's something you have to weight, because you might actually face a scenario, were you are killed off, before you can do ****.
In that regard, I also like what Radiant Historia did: You get to determine the turn-order, linking many characters together for repeated terms in a row, grants devastating combos, which are essential for winning, but this comes at the cost of putting your characters in a vulernable state, where there are almost certain to receive critical hits.
Basically, if you swap place with an enemy at a later turn, but whos turn comes within the rest of your chain, thus breaking it, you will get a longer combo, but your swapping character will also likely be crit'ed, even by the enemy you swapped up.
The other DQ I really played was DQVIII, which stil think highly off all in all, so no, I do not really notice those changes playing the demo at least. I gotta say though, I was more looking forward to the option to freely move while in combat. Sadly ... yeah, this does nothing ultimately, not even for the general sensation of the ebb and flow of the combat. It does not make it feel any more dynamic.
On that note, thinking backt to FFX, I'm not postive here, as it's been a very long time, but I vaguely remember the game having a pretty decent camera, that dynamically framed the characters movement and actions. I do think that is probably part of why FFX clicked more with me than any previous FF I had laid hands on - not all of it, but part of it.
That is alos something absent from DQXI, it's so static, it almost seems entirely purpusefully. Like movement is kept to a minimum. It's odd to, because it has this colorful cartoonish vibe and one thing cartoons tend not to be: is static.
I said this on the comments for the DQXI review back then, I do not need the game to play as action'y like FFVIIR for instance. But I DO NEED to be presented as excited as something as TMS#FE or Peronsa 5, even Lost Odyssey, or preferably Resonance of Fate
That is still my favourite turn-based system fo all time, if go by both criteria, engagement and presentation - just as a sidenote. There are deeper systems, that I enjoy more mechanically, but only a handful, but still the combination of position, decent 3D visuals and music, paried with John-Woo-style acrobatics made even the grind-hell that was RoF mostly tolerable
As for the whole problem of personal skill ceiling. I hear you on that. I am not like a god tier player myself, but I can definitely handle any action in any jRPG I've seen yet, plus most of what Soulsborne can throw it me, incl. Nioh, though Sekiro pushed me to my breaking point many times over, with no little frustration involved. FFVIIR then though, felt entirely "fine". Like I said, I did like 4-5 times on normal playing roughly 48h hours to the point almost. The "normal" fights, which lasted like 20 seconds, I doubt those gave anyone any trouble. Some of the bosses were no push-overs, but it was still - in my book - more about management skills than about relfexes or timing.
It's not like active parrying or doging was a big deal in FFVIIR. As a rule of thumb, you want to maximize all your characters meaning that ideally, you were never on any of your characters for more than 3-4 actions really. They would wander of doing crazy stuff, or pointlessly standing there, so it was your job to keep in the game and in the right spot. It was actually pretty hectic.
Thing here is, I might have enjoyed like top-down version, with pause function as well. Like being able to navigate these characters around, giving them act orders and such, while being able to jump into anyone of them at any time, as AI was just flat out bad. Hell, I would have prefered such an option to be honest, and I feel that would it also make it more accesible still to less action oriented players.
Having said that, there is classic mode. Plus, and that is my main concern here, all these other series, like EQ for instance, which you mentioned as well, are NOT going anywhere. Atlus is never going to throw millios nand millions at a series like EQ to create anything akin to EQ. They would never take that risk and the money is unlikey to be made back for sure.
Trials of Mana the demo was a good example though, of how "action combat" is not a cure-all by itself, not by a long shot. Personally, like I laid out, I did not like it at all. The way the game went along with me just hammering Square-Button was an unpleasant reminder of FFXV, which just played itself, as you are probably ware. Sure it picked up with later, with one encounter in particular, but it was still pretty darn basic.
Sad part is, the button smasher feeling is one thing, but even back on the PS2, games like God of War nailed that formula to perfection. Trials has nothing on those games, as fluidity goes, combat animation, impact of hits, frange of movement, variety of enemies, attack patterns, speed ... it's like granny version of GoW drenched in the Disney-color-palette. It was an odd experience to be honest, as I had to wonder: who is this for?
I felt Star Ocean last Hope on the 360, as I mentioned, had about 100 times more engaging feedbackloops going on that this and that was back in 2009 ... like wtf party people?
Like, the way the Blinding Siding was animated, really gave it a decent feeling of momentum, if you will. I still feel it was too unreliable an just going for a normal dogde the better option, but the visual feedback was pretty good and actual incentive to pull it off, more so in view than the free hit. Strange ... I know, but a game this grindy makes you imho think about these things
The problem I see in the whole action-combat appraoch we are talking about here, like with Trials, is the point of reference. The combat invites, as I did above and in my original comment, comparison to games from an entirely different genre. I do not mean necessarily in terms of mechanics (like DMC combos or whatever, parrying windows, i-frames and such), but certainly presentation.
I think that is fair, and given that this 2020, I do think any comparion should be to the gold standart here and this remains GoW (2018). That is also unfortunate, because there is no apt comparison to be made here. I imagine that is also one reason, some developers shy away from this for sure, as producing a system, that is is engaging and also looks the part (and sounds frankly, the SFX are also an issue in Trials for me) takes time and is expensive, for many projects prohibitevly though.
On the upside, as I said, it is pretty much a guarantee that you will never round out of EQ or Demon Gaze'like games. I mean, EQ is alos a prime example of a game, where the combat presentation killed an experience, that I found otherwise rather engrossing. I own all of them except V and Nexus on 3DS, but never really got toooo deep into either one. I have the same problem with it as with SMTIV, which I finished though: it's once more mind-numbingly static. Having a bunch of 3D modells doing their thing on screen would have done wonders for me. (No, I am not the type for text adventures, certainly not anymore ^^).
Persona Q works actually much better for me in that regard. Some small subtle changes made a world of difference there. Funny, I know, but that is just the way it is. I do feel justified in expecting a game to entertain my senses as well as my intellect.
Hell, XCom had it's own like fancy slow-down killcam. Did not make the game any less deep or iron man any less taxing, just all-around more engaging to play.
Thanks for the write-up about the Black Rabite, I had like no idea as someone really not invisted in the Mana series at all. That's kinda the stuff, that can become like a myth if you experience it as a kid. Made me laugh out with joy! ^^
Edit: I forgot to say, I do feel like FFVIIR is the culmination of Square's work in their quest for a flashy, yet tactial combat system, that I feel started with X. FF XIII and FFXV are both parts of that progression and so seems is Kingdom Hearts. It's an interesting journey in and off itself, and I feel they've kinda gotten there now, and this then made worth in retrospective the mess that was XIII, the only one I really finished though for some reason, and the broken, broken, oh so very broken game, that was Versus XIII aka XV.
Think about that! That is an almost 20 year journey for them, starting at the turn of the millenium to now. They pushed out Advent Children in like 2005. 15 years later, they have a game that looks as good, sometimes better, but more crucial it captures the game's flashy action without loosing VII original variety and depth (not that it was ever theee most deepest system out there).
That is just ... I dunno, that just feels mythical in it's own way. I imagne it must have been a relieve for them, when they shipped VII and it was received by and large this well. 15-20 years is a long time trying to refining a system ...
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@dudujencarelli Never played Castle of Illusion, but I do think I know what you mean. Basically, you get meaningful dialogue, likely exposition dumped on you during "normal" gameplay, and that causes issues with SFX and well, just your ability to concentrate on it.
That's pretty poorly done, granted, but that is not what I mean. FFVII R also did not do that. 1st of all, the banter I was talking about, was not essential exposition or character building of any sorts, that what the game uses cutscenes for, but just pieces, mostly rather humurous or mundane, to flesh out the world or characters a tiny bit. It also did not delivers them almost exclusively when you are pretty much just running or walking around. One could argue, that these moments should be cut entirely, no pointless travel time (there is a quick travel option later on), but then again, some people are already apparently angry as it is.
I would also suggest that FFVII is going for a different objective here than Castle of Illusion (or any platformer I guess) entirely: It sets out to create a believe world, fantastical sure, but not that personal level of the characters and their interactions and their good old feelz.
Yes, let me put it clear as day, for that to really succeed you need strong voice acting. I could imagine a scenario, where really on-point art, framing&direciton and music might be able to deliver an emotional punch and a level of relateability compareable to strong voice acting, but that is mostly academic.
Plus, it would still pose the problem, that you pretty much have to stop all player engagement and pretty much just deliver a cutscene, because relaying emotion without voice acting and facial animation ... gee, that is a task that will fail miserably 99% of the time.
One thing I can think of, that worked for me personally, were the "A Thousand Years Dream" in Lost Odyssey. Those packed an incredibly punch, but that was due to really good choices in music, proper framing within the games grander narrative and handsdown, without even a smidge of doubt THE BEST writing I've ever come across in a jRPG, maybe in a game at all.
Shook me to the core, even if it was as basic as it gets from a visual standpoint and there was literally not human emotion on display neither visually nor accustically.
Hell, I did go back and booted FFVII up on my vita, the original PSX version. I wanted to feel it, the humor, the sadness, just the humanity of the characters if you will, and not too sound to pretentious here, but I am sorry, neither the chibi'Esque cutscenes, nor the stilted text within the artificial textboxes was doing anything for me.
I have zero doubt, that like 20 years ago, in a different time, and much younger me, would have been deeply impacted by what I saw and read. Here, now and today, I am not though. This kind of stuff is in my view NOT actually "forever".
The Divine Comedy is forever. The art direction in Dante's Inferno is rather incredible, but it's not like anyone ever even entertained the thought of it like 'replacing' the Divine Comedy. That is not going to happen. That art form is pretty much unchanged. Sure, new styles and formats have emergered, but the fundamentales are the same.
This is decidely not true for videogames. The fundamentals are very much not the same now, as they have been in 1997. Hell, I remembered being AMAZED by Metal Gear Solid back then, pretty much around the same time really, when I first booted it up. As soon as I heard David Hayter I was like ... what is this? He sounds gruff, like ... like a badass mercenary gruff. I was hooked right then and there, on the game itself, but also Hayter as a voice actor, and really just the concept of voice acting in general.
It's not something that meant anything to me before MGS1 on the PSX. It certainly did after. It made MGS the experience it was, not by it's lonesome, but it played a friggin huge role in it.
Voice Acting was not entirely new at this point, but to me, I would argue, it kinda was at least at that scale and in this quality. I didn't understand what "cinematic" meant back then, but I sure as hell FELT it. Snake, Meryl, Naomi, Psycho Mantis .... Sniper Wolf ... gee, after all this time I still choke up here.
The voice acting was far from perfect or the best ever, but back then, it was certainly felt that way and put the whole experience on a completely different level for me. I hadn't really actively noticed the PSX audio capabilities until the opening moments of MGS ...
I will say this, just looking before that point, let's say Resident Evil, and also what Square did with FF after VII, I can see how many folks never really placed high value on voice acting, or really much cared for it. There was more horrendously bad voice acting being produced, particularly for jRPGs in the west (with no option for the original VO more often than not), that a certain irritation or even disregard is highly understandable. I mean, this is kind true to this very day.
I don't think it's true for FFVIIR though. I personally found tifa, JEssie and Aerith in particular to be absolutely outstanding, and really carrying these characters, like making me care for crying out loud, not 20 hours in, but even 2 hours in (later with AErith obviously). Also Barret ... a bit over the top for sure, but a couple of hours in, I did not longer care, because I had become a believer. There was conviction in his voice and all his theatrics were just part of his personality, a personality build around loyality and honesty and an insurmountable drive to see justice done.
Nothing conveyed that part of his nature stronger to me than his voice performance, nothing. It was integral to really sell me on this at heart super goofy character. An obvious racial stereotype -sorry, but the angry-black-guy-stereotype was just an unavoidable assocation- with a mini-gun for a hand ... is not exactly an easy sell, and the original just can't do it for me.
To each their own though, but I do agree that voice work should be delivered in a way, that the player can pay attention to it, without having to stand still and create their own cutscenes. Many games tend to this constantly, I know, but that is just bad design. Many games have parts of their level desgined for no other purpose than to mask loading times. These are ideal areas for that kind of VO banter to pass the time, just one example really.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@retro_player_77 Hmm, I'm honestly not sure that is a good reason, as the original still exists. What would be the point of it playing the same way?
I haven't really ever played Kingdom Hearts, as it's just too ... I dunno, like abstract for me? I watched a couple of reviews and gameplay moments, but it all just feels weirdly throwing together to me, without much rhyme or reason, plus unncessarily convoluted starting with the very names of different entries
Mostly though, I do not feel the setting, like not at all. It's just my cup of tea I guess, which is fine. The combat was actually the one thing that looked kinda entertaining, at least a first glance.
Since FFVII Remake and KH share the same director, it would only make sense for them to have a strong semblance.
As for FFXV ... I have to strongly disagree. There is very little those two titles have in common, besides them both featuring action-based combat. The combat in FFXV is broken, like complet and utterly broken. It basically consists of three things: holding down square, holding down circle and spamming heal potions, which have zero opportunity cost and are dirt cheap. Hell there are entirely battles that look amazing, but feature no input beyond pressing down square. Magic is also broken, with little reason to use. You are often fighting groups, that make it impossible to tell when to phase-evade and not, with just a jungle of limbs flailing all around you. There are attacks that cannot be phase-evaded, but must be dodge-roll-evaded ... sadly the game does not give you any clear visual clue as to what attacks that may be (unlike say Arkham or Sekiro with clear visual indicators poping up).
All of this is meaningless so, as taking damage has zero bearing on your success. There is no ATB gauge, there is zero just (besides like 100 gil) associated with healing, you have unlimited access to even elixirs (up to 99 per fight ....) ....
Buffs or Debuffs, timing, positioning, spell "equipment", none of this matters one single lick. Summons are also broken.
The whole combat exists for one purpose: too look cool. You as the player have virtually zero agency in it. Hell, for the most part of the game's existence you could even only control Noct.
This extends to the other mechanics as well. Though mechanics is a lie. Take link attacks. Since you have zero control over positioning in this game, link attacks happen almost exclusively at random (you influence your own position to a degree of course).
It's the worst combat I've ever played, in fact, it was so bad, that it baffled me enough to put the controller away 3 or 4 hours into the game to read up on it ... I mean, I was 100% CERTAIN I was just missing something crucial. I was not missing a single thing though.
So, while the combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is up to one's taste, I really cannot accept the comparison drawn to XV. Nothing about VIIR is broken. The camera is often an issue in narrow spaces, sure, like many 3rd person action games, and some of the mechanics like Limitbreakers, summons, debuffs, etc. fall apart with all the short & easy battles in the game ... yeah granted, the combat is best when fighting one - three single powerful enemies over a long period, but that just means it is not perfectly suited to each and every scenario.
Personally, I loved the combat and if Dragon Quest XI had had a similar combat, I would have been eagerly spend a 100 hours playing it. Alas, it stuck to the stare-down-duel-style of traditional turn-based combat, we've got to enjoy the last 30 odd years. I'm kinda done with that. I'm fine with turn-based combat, if it's done like in say Resonance of Fate, with crucial elements to positioning and foresight involved while feeling and looking like a John-Woo-flick, but this nonsense ... thanks but not thanks.
Fire Emblem also offers crucial elements, like (optional) flashy battle animations and of course positioning as a crucial element. I can digg that, hell I can even digg the turn-based combat in games like Persona/Tokyo Mirage Sessions, because it is so well put together.
Other games so like DQ? It is soooooooooooo static. There is this movie: The men who stare at goats. I always think of it when playing something like DQXI. It's more like "adventures staring at Slimes".
Important to me is engagement and feelz. The combat has to offer meaningful choices for me to take, the more over a given period of time, the better. It also has to feel like ... COMBAT. Combat tends to be an energetic, visceral affair - or like a battlefield form the view of a commander, which tends to be a hectic, yet cerebreal affair, which is all about adapting to changing circumstances, and having the foresight to be prepared to those.
I can digg both scenarios. FF VII Remake, I feel, got pretty darn close of offering both of these engagement triggers. There is viscearl action, with some fantastic presentation going on, but there are also ways to just pause everything and carefully consider your next moves, plan ahead and prepare to adapt for your enemies next move.
Like say, you expect Leviathan to throw up a tidal wave anytime soon, so you get your hp up or buffs going. Or, another example, you are getting close to feeling your enemies stagger gauge, so you carefully consider your ATB stock, to be ready to unleash devastation in a few moments across three characters.
I absolutely loved that and while the game was rather easy, I never had to grind one single second in this entire game and I still only died like four times on Normal when all was said and done. The game was decently balanced and rewarded you for being aware of what was happening on the battlefield.
To me, so far, it was the best mixed of action- and turn-based combat I have yet played and I hope it will become a model for more jRPGs going forward. Not for everyone, mind you, Fire Emblem is mechanically mostly fine for instance, but for something like DQ for sure. It won't happen, because DQ seems at this point specifically designed to pretend that we are still bound by the same limitations that we had in the PS2 era, but oh well, for other series then.
I feel I would have alot more symphaty for your point, if traditional turn-based combat had really become a rarity of sorts, even given the fact, that hundreds and hundreds of classic games in it's vein still exist. But there are so many jRPGs that still stick to their roots, as you put it, and have done so for 2+ decades, that it feels like a crucial part of the story, that is the decline of jRPGs in popularity.
Other genres have become really god in providing the kind of high-stakes, deeply personal, dramatic, character-driven story-telling that jRPGs have led for 20 years. The reason to play these games are slowly but steadily diminsing. I feel like Persona found a way to counteract it, but outside of that ... there are the traditionalist series, who are struggling to find broad appeal among new fans, which means their are on a dying track long term and then there is, as you point out, stuff like Final Fantasy, that is willing to experiment with each new entry to various success.
I think it paid off here big time: When FFXV was broken, as I said, FFVII was resounding success. I feel they nailed 90% of it. A few minor changes here and there, mostly to the encounter design, rather than the system itself, and they will have a recipe for success going forward for at least another 2 console generations.
That's the really good news here. This is a big jRPG that is not just run on nostaliga or narrative prowess or world building, but also technical achievement and mechanical appeal on top of that. Good news for the industry, which felt borderling on the brink of disappearing in the PS3 era, with failed projects like FFXII and the 10 year odyssey of FFXV ending in desaster (it has indeed been 10 years between 2006 and 2016, more actually given that the game was in development before 2006).
Edit: Oh yeah, that fact that Square has mastered Unreal Engine 4 is also frigging huge. They done great with for a coupel of games now, but FFVII is their crowning achievement. This used of established middleware, that is not abadoned and rebuild from scratch for each game, will dramatically lower turn-around time for developments and thus lower cost and thus lower risk. It has been a long time coming, but I think this will eventualyl catch on with other japanese Developers. Esp. for the new generation, I expect dramatic gains here. Just a sidenote of course, but another thing that feels me not just with hope for the future of the genre, which looked so very bleak for many years, but actual exitement. I wanna see where FFVIIR goes next on PS5, but I also want to see where Square takes their other IPs. I might actaully be excited for the 1st time in my life, for a new mainline Final Fantasy Game.
Also: I want badly for them to remake FFVI in this fashion. The game's world and narrative and setting has so much appeal, like VII's, it would be ashme not to see it brought to life in such splendid fashion as VIIR!
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@retro_player_77 I'd say so, as far as the literaly "remaking" goes, based on the demo, I'd also say though, that Final Fantasy VII Remake is the technical superior game, vastly better voice acting and pacing, much, much stronger beginning and alot more engaging combat. And while I might catch flak for that, FFVII Remake seems mostly geared to it's audience from the late 90s, as far as demographic goes, while trials still feels to target teens to be quite frank. Which is fine, it probably did back then, and as a faithful remake, it has not much choice in the matter, but as a no-longer-teen - who has since devoured dozens up dozens of jRPGs as well as animes and mangas that have the exact same tone and narrative beats as well as structure - I found myself bored to tears by it.
FFVIIR has the benefit of having young adult characters, inhabitating a uniquely designed jRPG world, not intitally pitting you against some ancient evil or evil empire. It feels like a breath off fresh air almost in that regard. All of this is not entirely unique of course, but it IS definitely on the rare spectrum for the media, as for every FFVII, Lost Odyssey or Resonance of Fate, you get to play about 50 teenage boys on a mythical Hero's Journey to defeat the most evil dragon XYZ about to devour the land. Just saying!
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Priceless_Spork Kinda glad to hear someone else feeling this way to be honest. I know FFVIIR is getting and going to get alot of flake for it's changes, it'S ending (which is already controversial according to the internetZ), but I think the game add value to invest more time into the same world this way, beyond being just pretty as hell. It's going to garner even more outrage going forward, as big changes are up ahead - I mean the game literally tells you, the journey forward will be UNKNOWN - but that makes me excited. Can't wait to see what happens next.
And maybe even more importantly, the gameplay is shaken up so significantly and modernized in such smart and engaging ways (90% of it actually works thankfully), that it feels less like a remake of an almost quarter century old game, and more like the next Final Fantasy.
Maybe they just should have called it XVI, but then again, the marketing power of FFVII is probably too sweet a seduction to ignore. Still, to me, this is just the better version in almost every way.
Thing is, given the action roots of Trials, I can totally see how they could have done something similar here, be it VASTLY more ambitious reimaging or an entirely new game. It's cheaper to do the reimanging part, as you can rely on established characters, plot points and most importantly marketing nostalgia.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Wavey84 Haha fair enough, I mean, if jRPGs are not your jam typically, I can totally see how Trials would definitely bore you to tears and then some. It is guilty of several of the major sins so many jRPGs tend to fall victim to, like you mentioned already. I also really feel the whole glacial-pace-beginning-it'll-get-exciting-10-hours-in is hurting these games pretty bad. I can normally stomach that (just look at Persona), but FFVII Remake really made me feel like more jRGPs need to hit the ground running in the future. None of that b*s* we're you have played 30mins to an hour before you run into a battle.
I also wanna give a shout out to Lost Odyssey which is definitely my favourite Final Fantasy. I noticed that LO does two things the same way FFVII does: It starts with a mood-setting cutscene, then almost seemingly (the FFVIIR at least) transitioning to gameplay, while having you engage in a battle RIGHT AWAY, with exactly zero delay. It's the way to start an epic adventure, as you are instantly getting the sense, that stuff is happening, things matter and your actions have meaning. That is not the case, if the game has you meandering around for an hour - worst of all, spending that hour telling you, that you need to do stuff, because the fate of the world demands it .... right.
Re: Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG
@Ulysses Well, if done right, I think voice acting can ADD a lot to a game's ability to draw you in and bring it's characters to live. I really appreciated the voice acting they added to Radiant Historia, as I mentioned. While not always 100% perfect (which VO-track ever was, no matter the medium), it enhanced the characters personality and added - in my view - significant value to the remake.
Same goes for FFVII Remake. There were a small number of characters, I felt the voice acting was a bit of with, but overall most on them were on point. In fact, all of the main cast was just flawless to me, particularly Tifa, Aerith and Jessie. I cannot imagine having enjoyed this game half as much without the outstanding voice work to be brutally frank.
There is another thing to consider: Voice acting allows gameplay AND narrative to occur simulanteously. So you can run around, do quests even fight (to some degree), while banter happens and sometimes actual narrative dialogue unfolds. That is also a much more natural way for content to be delivered than just cutting gameplay off entirely for everyone to stand around and talk at each other.
In fact, this is what made the dull sidequests in FFVIIR work for me to be tolerable. There was always another character with me, and there was always someone talking. It just felt alive and a quip or something by Aerith or Tifa, that made me smile or laugh, was never more than mere moment away.
It also made the sheer act of running along those corridors the world is build out of a less tedious task. So .. that's my view on this at last.
Thing is, jRPGs in particular have a horrible track record mit Voice Acting. As a big jRPG player, that has always bothered me, more so now than 20 years ago of course, when the fact that VO existed was a feat in and off itself. I remember Baten Kaitos Origins, a game I really revere, being one of those featuring in part downright horrific VO. I still love the game, but as you imply at times the VO was sadly hurting the experience.
Again, though, if done right, and I was pleasently surprised with the Radiant Historia remaster here, it can really bring alot of gains to the table. I could never really care for much of FF, not even FFVII, but the remake drew me in good. The voice work was absolutely crucial to that end, of that I am 100% sure. Having had only textboxes (that again would have killed the game's incredible momentum und mostly tight pacing), it would have made for a different, vastly inferior experience.