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Mega64 posted:Isn't that why FF3 never got a remake in the vein of FF1 and 2? I've heard they lost the source info on it, which meant it never got a remake until they finally did the terrible 3D one. I feel like I am the only person who loved the 3D FFIII. Like, literally. I can't even put my finger on why I liked it so much. Maybe it was the novelty of having a Final Fantasy remake in updated graphics? Because I've never been a big fan of the early NES sprites. They don't fill me with any sense of nostalgia, they just make me thankful that graphics have since taken a step up.
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Dec 9, 2013 23:39
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That loving Sned posted:Final Fantasy III was actually in development for the Wonderswan Color, and there are a few screenshots of it.  That is pretty cool...now I'm disappointed that we didn't get this version.Captain Mog posted:I feel like I am the only person who loved the 3D FFIII. It's alright to like it, but you've got to ask, "holy hell, what were they thinking with some of their design choices?" Things like trying to give the Onion Kids character traits...then cutting most of their dialogue? Making 90% of that game a turgid slog through bullshit bosses, where the RNG reigns supreme, and it loving hates the player's guts. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Dec 9, 2013 |
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Dec 9, 2013 23:39
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BottledBodhisvata posted:I, too, would like to see my serious melodramas about the nature of life, death and sacrifice be followed up by Charlie's Angels meets Josie and the Pussycats with magic. X2 was fun as hell. It's story wasn't the greatest, but then the same can be said for a lot of FF's. They all seem to fall apart near the end.
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Dec 9, 2013 23:41
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Captain Mog posted:I feel like I am the only person who loved the 3D FFIII. The graphics are fine, what sucks are the engine limitations forcing the devs to rebalance the game by letting enemies attack like twice as much. Also the encounter rate seems absurdly high, the 3D remake of FFIV does not seem to have even 1/2 as many random battles.
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Dec 9, 2013 23:43
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That, and they didn't really fix many of the major design flaws in the original, like the lack of save points or the mini dungeons. The only thing the remake improved gameplay-wise was rebalancing all the classes so that they'd be useful, but you ended up with a lot of jobs being nerfed in a game that's already more difficult.
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Dec 10, 2013 00:08
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BottledBodhisvata posted:I, too, would like to see my serious melodramas about the nature of life, death and sacrifice be followed up by Charlie's Angels meets Josie and the Pussycats with magic. This but unironically. X-2 is a blast to play and it's fun to see what happens after your plucky JRPG heroes throw out the status quo.
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Dec 10, 2013 00:19
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They already made a good FF3 remake where they fixed all the flaws, improved the graphics, and even gave personalities to the four main characters. It was called Final Fantasy 5.
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Dec 10, 2013 00:24
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Yeah, pretty much. I liked III and the remake well enough, but it blows my mind at how little they actually changed for the remake. The lack of save points, the tedious airship hopping, crappy jobs that aren't even fun for gimmick play…
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Dec 10, 2013 00:38
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They actually shat up the job system even worse for the DS version because they gutted the direct upgrade jobs, presumably because using a Knight the whole game worked in FF5 so why not 3?
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Dec 10, 2013 00:52
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Hellioning posted:Same here! I love Charlie's Angels. I liked the gameplay a lot, but the issue of tone really can't be just swept aside. I mean, for one thing, the game isn't just "cheerful". Kirby's Epic Yarn is cheerful. Mario Galaxy is cheerful--Rayman Origins is cheerful. Legend of Mana is cheerful. Final Fantasy X-2 is just plain stupid. It's too stupid to just ignore--Rikku has gone from a sort of happy-go-lucky tech wizard teenager to a completely coked out loving lunatic, spouting insipid noises and bizarre, random catch phrases left and right, Yuna's...actually alright, I genuinely enjoy seeing Yuna's character develop in X-2--but then you have loving Paine who is the laziest character Squaresoft has ever designed. But it's not just the aesthetics, it's just the complete lack of substance every single scene has. None of the main characters act or speak like actual human beings--certainly not women. The game is almost blanketly misogynistic, and I'm not using that term lightly here. The whole point of the main cast being girls is so they can dance around in skimpy outfits--the entire purpose of the game's plot, story and direction is to showcase their sexuality in a myriad of exploitative ways, whilst at the same time taking the original story and retroactively cheapening every one of its major plot twists by expanding upon them pointlessly and clumsily. It's absolutely god-awful at almost every turn, and the only way you can possibly glean enjoyment out of it is if you are somehow capable of enjoying watching a bunch of air-headed twits babble at each other in moonspeak and nonsense.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:10
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Pesky Splinter posted:
The weird thing is that the enemies are lined up like they are in Final Fantasy II, in four rows of two. In that game, being in the back row made you completely immune to physical damage, as well as incapable of attacking without a long-range weapon, and the same would go for enemies in the third or fourth rows. FFI and FFIII both use a 3x3 arrangement for small enemies, and it doesn't matter where they're placed, so it might have just been a mock-up shot using FFII's engine with the sprites replaced. E: VVV Thanks Mega64, I guess I forgot. The music in Final Fantasy III is awesome no matter what version you're playing. The chiptunes are really catchy, but the orchestrated versions are amazing. The boss battle theme and the main theme are particularly memorable. BottledBodhisvata posted:But it's not just the aesthetics, it's just the complete lack of substance every single scene has. None of the main characters act or speak like actual human beings--certainly not women. The game is almost blanketly misogynistic, and I'm not using that term lightly here. The whole point of the main cast being girls is so they can dance around in skimpy outfits--the entire purpose of the game's plot, story and direction is to showcase their sexuality in a myriad of exploitative ways, whilst at the same time taking the original story and retroactively cheapening every one of its major plot twists by expanding upon them pointlessly and clumsily. It's absolutely god-awful at almost every turn, and the only way you can possibly glean enjoyment out of it is if you are somehow capable of enjoying watching a bunch of air-headed twits babble at each other in moonspeak and nonsense. I wish SE would bring in a proper writer for one of their games. A good story isn't necessary for a game, but having context for what you're doing can make it more enjoyable. However, games that feature significant amounts of time devoted to cutscenes shouldn't be as poorly written, uninteresting, or confusing as what SE has consistently made since Final Fantasy VIII. Pretty much the only thing tying together the series right now are wacky outfits and terrible writing, and they almost seem afraid to deviate from that. If XV has a sensible, coherent, and enjoyable story, along with the professionally designed clothing, then they'll have redeemed themselves. I'm not against unconventional or bizarre stories, but the potential of games like Kingdom Hearts is wasted by having hours of boring characters eating ice cream and talking about their feelings. That Fucking Sned fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 01:12
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It did bring us the best line.Yuna posted:I don't like your plan. It sucks. You have no idea how many times I've wanted to say that in video games.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:21
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That loving Sned posted:The weird thing is that the enemies are lined up like they are in Final Fantasy II, in four rows of two. In that game, being in the back row made you completely immune to physical damage, as well as incapable of attacking without a long-range weapon, and the same would go for enemies in the third or fourth rows. FFI and FFIII both use a 3x3 arrangement for small enemies, and it doesn't matter where they're placed, so it might have just been a mock-up shot using FFII's engine with the sprites replaced. FF3 also had the 4x2 layout. I think you could target back-row enemies with physical attacks in that game for half-damage like the rest of the series, though I don't really remember.  And FF3's probably got my favorite music of any FF game, which is a pretty big achievement considering the music of the other games.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:24
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That loving Sned posted:I wish SE would bring in a proper writer for one of their games. A good story isn't necessary for a game, but having context for what you're doing can make it more enjoyable. However, games that feature significant amounts of time devoted to cutscenes shouldn't be as poorly written, uninteresting, or confusing as what SE has consistently made since Final Fantasy VIII. Pretty much the only thing tying together the series right now are wacky outfits and terrible writing, and they almost seem afraid to deviate from that. If XV has a sensible, coherent, and enjoyable story, along with the professionally designed clothing, then they'll have redeemed themselves. The problem with bringing in actual writers is that most of the time those actual writers don't understand the capabilities and limitations of the medium, so you end up with something that isn't any better than what you'd get from the normal writers. There is only one exception to bad video game writing as a general rule, and that is the Kirby series. Kirby games are the best written of all video games, and we can only hope that maybe someday all others will reach at least that standard. This is not sarcasm. I genuinely consider Kirby games to be the best written and directed games if for no other reason than because they are capable of telling a story, conveying characters' personalities, and generating emotion entirely without words. Return to Dreamland really didn't need any text at all and you could have completely understood it. chumbler fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 01:32
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Yeah, 'good writer' is a fairly limited thing. A good novel writer or comic book write or even a good movie writer is not going to inherently be a good game writer. Games are a different medium and you have to have an understanding of what you're writing, even for cutscene-fests. You have to be able to mesh gameplay design with writing to form a cohesive whole or else you end up with something that is far less fun. And that's for a simple cutscene-fest. Making something that actually have variation and reaction is insanely hard and not something you can write like a television script or novel.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:37
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, 'good writer' is a fairly limited thing. A good novel writer or comic book write or even a good movie writer is not going to inherently be a good game writer. Games are a different medium and you have to have an understanding of what you're writing, even for cutscene-fests. You have to be able to mesh gameplay design with writing to form a cohesive whole or else you end up with something that is far less fun. See: Kingdoms of Amalur where they paid millions for R.A. Salvatore (who, yes, isn't an amazing writer) to write a game plot that was just boring. To be fair, the game had some interesting lore.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:39
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, 'good writer' is a fairly limited thing. A good novel writer or comic book write or even a good movie writer is not going to inherently be a good game writer. Games are a different medium and you have to have an understanding of what you're writing, even for cutscene-fests. You have to be able to mesh gameplay design with writing to form a cohesive whole or else you end up with something that is far less fun. On the other hand, getting someone in who can write believable dialogue would have helped FF13 a ton.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:51
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Dross posted:So you're saying that much like everyone that plays it, Square washed their hands of FFVIII as soon as they were done. It's almost definitely the same way with Final Fantasy VII. Shockingly, Japanese companies really didn't start archiving materials until very recently.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:56
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BottledBodhisvata posted:But it's not just the aesthetics, it's just the complete lack of substance every single scene has. None of the main characters act or speak like actual human beings--certainly not women. The game is almost blanketly misogynistic, and I'm not using that term lightly here. The whole point of the main cast being girls is so they can dance around in skimpy outfits--the entire purpose of the game's plot, story and direction is to showcase their sexuality in a myriad of exploitative ways, whilst at the same time taking the original story and retroactively cheapening every one of its major plot twists by expanding upon them pointlessly and clumsily. It's absolutely god-awful at almost every turn, and the only way you can possibly glean enjoyment out of it is if you are somehow capable of enjoying watching a bunch of air-headed twits babble at each other in moonspeak and nonsense. Still better than X
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Dec 10, 2013 02:15
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BottledBodhisvata posted:but then you have loving Paine who is the laziest character Squaresoft has ever designed. Paine's design amuses me because it's another example of Nomura having no idea how the gently caress clothes work. Specifically, that black piece of cloth she wears around her chest to keep her breasts covered? Nomura has stated that he has no idea what the hell keeps that thing in place.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:25
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Nihilarian posted:It did bring us the best line. X2 is both ironically the best FF and unironically the best FF
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Dec 10, 2013 02:30
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W.T. Fits posted:Paine's design amuses me because it's another example of Nomura having no idea how the gently caress clothes work. I always thought that the leather shawl thing snapped to the red suspenders somehow. It was the only way that article of clothing made sense to me and my friends but those discussions paled in comparison to the Great Ashe Debates of the mid-aughts. Was it a microskirt? A skort? No one knows.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:33
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Mokinokaro posted:See: Kingdoms of Amalur where they paid millions for R.A. Salvatore (who, yes, isn't an amazing writer) to write a game plot that was just boring. To be fair, the game had some interesting lore. I liked the Dark Elf and Icewind Dale Trilogies.... BottledBodhisvata posted:I liked the gameplay a lot, but the issue of tone really can't be just swept aside. I would describe X-2 as lighthearted and poppy. Whereas X's tone was possibly the dreariest and most consistently dark in the series, X-2, being our first real sequel, offers a fresh perspective on the ever after bit. So you saved the world - then what? Spira is throwing off a pall of a millennium of tyranny and fear of Godzilla. The results are generally cheerful but of course there's the whole civll war between the Youth League and New Yevon. Then there's Shuyin. I would at least completely disagree with Paine being lazily written. Next to Yuna, her subplot is the best thing in the game. The whole Crimson Squad stuff is criminally optional but if you watch all the spheres and visit the Den of Woe, you will witness one of a few genuinely atmospheric and intense moments in the game.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:33
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X-2 is the most optimistic FF because after centuries of literally universal worship in a death cult Society at Large just wants to have fun and be free.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:41
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Defiance Industries posted:On the other hand, getting someone in who can write believable dialogue would have helped FF13 a ton. Even that is a matter of good localization as much as it is good original writers. (Not that FFXIII had great original writers, mind.) "Believable dialogue" can mean a lot of things in a lot of contexts. Stephen King, for example, does a wonderful job with memorable and often unnerving dialogue but the most extreme of it tends to convert poorly to actors because a lot of it sounds more ridiculous outside of our imaginations than it does on paper. On the other hand Joss Whedon can do snappy irrelevant dialogue that just looks goofy and forced on paper without the actors putting it off. This is doubled when translating from another language because you have to take dialogue that can 'work' in another language and make it work in English and then also make it work as something English voice actors can believably say aloud. (Which FFXIII seems to have done a piss-poor job of even ignoring the original lackluster script.) So even a writer who can do good dialogue might not be a good choice to write unless you're sure they can write the proper kind of good dialogue. For video games It's a hell of a lot of work for relatively little praise and it's really a shame because it contributes so much to the experience. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 02:41
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NikkolasKing posted:I liked the Dark Elf and Icewind Dale Trilogies....
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Dec 10, 2013 02:41
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, 'good writer' is a fairly limited thing. A good novel writer or comic book write or even a good movie writer is not going to inherently be a good game writer. Games are a different medium and you have to have an understanding of what you're writing, even for cutscene-fests. You have to be able to mesh gameplay design with writing to form a cohesive whole or else you end up with something that is far less fun. This is why I will consistently say that the guys who work at Atlus writing the SMT games are incredibly good game writers. Persona 3 is basically one enormous, sprawling novel complete with story-spanning subplots playing out between NPCs and Main Characters alike, complete with metaphors, literary allusions, a central theme and a multi-layered message. Persona 4 is basically a TV series, complete with filler episodes, mid-season plot twists, a static but evolving cast and an episodic gameplay format (each dungeon is effectively an episode, complete with a midpoint checkpoint (boss battle) as a commercial break. Even before that, Persona 2 had a tone of really interesting discussions of pop psychology and Carl Jung's theories of the collective unconscious, with each character subscribing to some sort of non-scientific belief (tarot, Chinese fortune-telling, their own arrogance) which grants credence to the notion of "rumors becoming reality"--human beings acting on the impulses of uncertain or possibly even untrue foundations, and thus enabling or creating these untruths--rumors--simply through believing in them. This is taken to its absolute logical extreme, and in the style of Kurt Vonnegut the whole world comes crashing down, complete with a Nazi invasion and the whole world being flooded or something. Strange Journey, the first person maze dungeon crawler game, has REALLY good writing--so good, in fact, that you don't notice the absurd amounts of text you are constantly scrolling through. It characterizes everybody--as soon as the supporting cast is established, they are constantly and consistently developed and diversified and every single character kind of stands out in their own way. They play on the repetition of gameplay, making you grow attached to characters whom you regularly interact with, like real co-workers. It gives you something to work towards, a goal to inspire you to keep loving going come on it's the final level and oh god moving floors in darkness WHYYYYY Final Fantasy IX is also really good in its game writing, if only due to the sheer amount of life and attention to detail each individual location receives. The Shakespearian influence is also notable and pretty fantastic. VIII is a jumbled mess, but I'd also say that the original Final Fantasy VII script is pretty loving amazing, albeit for its time. There's a really adult feel to the game--it's sleazy and crass and it isn't really all that serious. I mean, it has a serious tone, but it's got this "well, gently caress the future, right?" attitude towards it, with every location basically being a junkheap or a wasteland, with patches of paradise strung along. Every single character is this sort of collossal gently caress-up in some way or another--you have kill-crazy Barret who is literally a terrorist and your sweet, manipulative childhood sweetheart who is also a terrorist. You have a genetic experiment/talking dog, The Messiah (who doesn't even know it),you have an alcoholic pilot who is violent and abusive, the main character is an ex-special forces member who was scientifically enhanced to become a super soldier. The game isn't even a "fantasy" game, really. Every single magical element, with the exception of the final Macguffin and a few side things, is explained as some sort of science thing. The main villain is basically The Thing, complete with shape-shifting abilities and an emphasis on tentacles and blades. Your primary antagonists are a Blade Runner-esque corporation who basically rule the world from its single major city. Your magic comes from super uranium, your party members use guns (sometimes) and you can chuck grenades at monsters, who are all mutated humans or weird biological weapons built by the Evil Corporation. This was loving mindblowing when this game dropped--Final Fantasy VII basically redefined what could be done in an RPG and, I think in a lot of big ways, in what you could do in video games period.It introduced a generation to cyberpunk, to the Final Fantasy series, and to all of the mad jumble of radical ingredients that make it up.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:42
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bobservo posted:There's a 100% chance Square no longer has access to the resources that would allow them to re-render the backgrounds at a higher resolution. What I don't understand is why don't they just get an art intern and ask him to re-render or vectorize the backgrounds at higher resolution over let's say, a month? Would that really break bank?
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Dec 10, 2013 02:52
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Calaveron posted:What I don't understand is why don't they just get an art intern and ask him to re-render or vectorize the backgrounds at higher resolution over let's say, a month? Would that really break bank? That isn't the kind of thing you assign to an untrained intern and not have it coming out looking like complete and utter poo poo.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:54
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BottledBodhisvata posted:the main character is an ex-special forces member who was scientifically enhanced to become a super soldier. Calaveron posted:What I don't understand is why don't they just get an art intern and ask him to re-render or vectorize the backgrounds at higher resolution over let's say, a month? Would that really break bank?
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Dec 10, 2013 02:59
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Mustach posted:He wasn't. Well...he thinks he is, which counts for something.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:00
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Well...he thinks he is, which counts for something. Are we seriously spoiler tagging a 17 year old game? He knows he isn't
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Dec 10, 2013 03:05
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ninjewtsu posted:I've never played FF6, but I think the Tactics Ogre remake proves that modern Square-Enix, for all it's faults, can occasionally pull its poo poo together for one game. Everyone who worked on Tactics Ogre has now left Square. We'll never get the March of the Black Queen remake I wanted, or a new game in the Ogre series. 
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Dec 10, 2013 03:09
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Barudak posted:Are we seriously spoiler tagging a 17 year old game? He knows he isn't  It's, like, a better-kept secret than Aeris.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:10
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Barudak posted:Are we seriously spoiler tagging a 17 year old game? He knows he isn't Wait, does he? I honestly thought even he was not aware until after he gets a serious brain injury/radiation poisoning.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:10
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What the FF7 LP has told me is that even people that played the game completely forgot the plot of the game, most commonly attributing Tifa and Aeris with the opposite personalities (Tifa is the sweet, nice girl while Aeris is the tomboy).
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Dec 10, 2013 03:12
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Barudak posted:Are we seriously spoiler tagging a 17 year old game? He knows he isn't Not consciously, he doesn't. He's pretty much a catatonic vegetable until Tifa stumbles across him in the slums, at which point, his fractured psyche incorporates parts of Zack's persona into his own in order to allow him to function without facing the reality that he's a washout loser who couldn't become the big shot hero he wanted to be.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:14
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This guy gets it.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:15
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W.T. Fits posted:Not consciously, he doesn't. He's pretty much a catatonic vegetable until Tifa stumbles across him in the slums, at which point, his fractured psyche incorporates parts of Zack's persona into his own in order to allow him to function without facing the reality that he's a washout loser who couldn't become the big shot hero he wanted to be. I guess to be fair he knows and doesn't know. Those fractured psyche are all active parts of Cloud at various parts of the adventure and the main reason he never has to come out and admit that he wasn't actually where he said he was is because Tifa is covering for him. For instance, note that he freaks out seemingly insanely but quite logically in hindsight when Hojo starts talking about numbers and failed experiments. The point of that scene in the Mako is that all the various bits that are true and not true are merged into the truth and that Cloud can own up to what he is without throwing away what the lies enabled him to do. Not a spoiler; FF7 has the most daring narrative construction in video games and would give most books a run for their money.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:18
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Barudak posted:Not a spoiler; FF7 has the most daring narrative construction in video games and would give most books a run for their money. It really makes me wish it had a good translation, some of what's going on went right over my head until I saw what it was like in the original. It's like FFXIII in that way, only the story actually was interesting enough that I went through that extra effort.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:24
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