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1000 Words was the most J-Pop, anime, bullshit, cringe worthy piece of poo poo I have ever seen in any video game or hell, anime, in all of history. 1000 Years from now, 1000 wordsmiths of the Cogs Empire dedicated to the revolving wings of Lan Shopur, a living carpet emperor, will look back on this as the entire start of the downfall of 1000 years of anime influencing games. On the other hand, can I interest you in Symphony of the Night's I Am the Wind? Or are your tastes so refined as to grasp Lunar's Wind's Nocturne?
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Dec 23, 2013 22:45
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So you are fully aware that your stereotyping of anime and J-Pop is kinda ignorant and wrong, right? Fair enough if you hate 1000 Words but it's so boring when people use the terms "anime" and "J-Pop" like they mean anything. It's no different from lumping Justice League Unlimited and Jem and the Holograms together, or Michael Jackson and Britney Spears.
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Dec 23, 2013 23:08
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1)Pretty sure that was a joke post 2)lol if you think those things aren't related in any way
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Dec 23, 2013 23:17
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Well they are related in that the first two are cartoons and the second two are music. ...and similarities end there really.
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Dec 23, 2013 23:21
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Yes, they have as little to do with each other as an Apple IIc and a MacBook. They're made with the same parts and follow all the same rules and aim for the same goals and want to do the same things... but the only thing they have in common is that they are both computers. So you just don't know anything about how pop music is made, then? Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 00:03
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NikkolasKing posted:Fair enough if you hate 1000 Words but it's so boring when people use the terms "anime" and "J-Pop" like they mean anything. "Anime" - specifically cartoons created in Japan, as well as South-East Asia. Also descriptive of the stock characters and cliches found there within. See loving Vanille. Or pertaining to an artistic aesthetic of limited, stiff, animation brought on by a lack of budget. Or, extravagant, ostentatious, but impractical character designs. Or something that captures the feel of the aformentioned. It's like trying to define kitsch. When you see it, you know it. Ditto for anime. "J-Pop" - Popular modern Japanese music. Primarily associated with upbeat "peppy" songs - though lyrics themselves either nonsensical or overtly sappy. See Real Emotion...or 1000 Words. [e]: It's that as well  It's the everyterm. VVV Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 00:09
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No one loving cares what your definition of anime is, and that turn is just used as a lazy criticism. If something is stupid, lazy, cliche, and hackneyed, just say that.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:17
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Gologle posted:1000 Words was the most J-Pop, anime, bullshit, cringe worthy piece of poo poo I have ever seen in any video game or hell, anime, in all of history. 1000 Years from now, 1000 wordsmiths of the Cogs Empire dedicated to the revolving wings of Lan Shopur, a living carpet emperor, will look back on this as the entire start of the downfall of 1000 years of anime influencing games. No Japanese video game song will ever be as terrible/wonderful as FLY from Chaos Legion. It's like a cheap knockoff of an Aerosmith ballad and I love it for just that reason.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:19
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MonsieurChoc posted:I think a problem I have with the newer Final Fantasies is that they are clearly very "marketing"-driven. These are products made to be sold at particular demographics and designed as such in committees. Final Fantasy IV was made by a team of, what, 16 people? XIII was made by hundreds, the credits go on forever. Most of these teams were not even on the same building, did not communicate, just giant cogs in a machine. It's the exact same thing with Hollywood, budgets have ballooned so high that in order to make a profit, they need to target as many people as possible to buy it. This kills creativity. And I can't really blame them, with that much money on the line I would probably do the same. But it does sadden me. While tailoring to demographics has caused some massive problems in the XIII series, I think the broad appeal of the series is what sets it apart from other JRPGs. Instead of pandering to people who specifically like anime or JRPGs, they always aim to impress people who've never played one before. In XIII's post-mortem, focus testing was performed in western markets, although far too late to change anything in the game. For the sequel, they took a lot of these responses and tailored the game to that. Personally, I couldn't stand XIII-2, since it was filled with everything I hated about JRPGs, and showed a clear lack of understanding of how to make a tight, coherent game. Giving creative control to a single person can result in unique, brilliant games, for instance the Metal Gear series, but in the wrong hands you can end up with games that ruin people's interest in the series, as evident by the sales of XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, or even almost destroy the company, in the case of XIV. They need to at least have separate writers and directors, since even a half-decent writer who's never written a story for a game before could do better than these experienced game directors at SE.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:29
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That loving Sned posted:In XIII's post-mortem, focus testing was performed in western markets, although far too late to change anything in the game. For the sequel, they took a lot of these responses and tailored the game to that. Personally, I couldn't stand XIII-2, since it was filled with everything I hated about JRPGs, and showed a clear lack of understanding of how to make a tight, coherent game. Seperate writers/directors would be a start. At least then, there's less chance of things like FFXIII turning into the Lightning & Friends Show, just because the unopposed writer-director suddenly decides that, that is the best way forward. Or having writers and editors who are willing to say, "That doesn't work, cut it", rather than putting it in, and then trying hard to write around it. If nothing else, the XIII games, and XIV's inital release are signs enough that something needs to change at how SE handles development, if it hasn't already. I'm still rather baffled by the drastic change in story for XIII-2. I understand the gameplay changes for exactly the reasons who've stated above. But the story? Were they really so limited with what they felt they could do to progress the story that a godawful time-travel story, featuring Lightning as Jesus, was really the only option they felt they had? [e]: You're just being pedantic now. VVV Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 01:05
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Defiance Industries posted:Yes, they have as little to do with each other as an Apple IIc and a MacBook. They're made with the same parts and follow all the same rules and aim for the same goals and want to do the same things... but the only thing they have in common is that they are both computers. So exactly why are there so many subgenres ofmusic if they are all the same exactly? Take for example The Human League. They are synthpop. Why does the term synthpop even exist if all pop music is the same? Pesky Splinter posted:"Anime" - specifically cartoons created in Japan, as well as South-East Asia. Also descriptive of the stock characters and cliches found there within. See loving Vanille. Or pertaining to an artistic aesthetic of limited, stiff, animation brought on by a lack of budget. Or, extravagant, ostentatious, but impractical character designs. Or something that captures the feel of the aformentioned. So what we're saying here is that an "anime game" like FFX-2 evokes the same feeling and cliches as Rurouni Kenshin or Berserk?
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Dec 24, 2013 01:09
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NikkolasKing posted:So exactly why are there so many subgenres ofmusic if they are all the same exactly? Take for example The Human League. They are synthpop. Why does the term synthpop even exist if all pop music is the same? What does the human league or synthpop have to do with you not understanding how there are more similarities in structure and style than "they are both music" between Michael Jackson and Britney Spears? You picked two things that used similar styles of composing, a style of marketing that relies heavily on the presentation of a lead musician, and were both aimed at reaching as broad an audience as possible, and said the only thing they had in common were "they are music." To use your other lovely example, JLU and Jem and the Holograms, they were similar in more ways than "they are cartoons." Both were aimed at children in late childhood or early adolescence as their primary audience, and both were created with the idea that their main stream of revenue would be merchandising. Both revolve around larger-than-life characters with supernatural powers engaged in battles where good and evil are clearly designated. Do you have any experience doing more than a superficial analysis of things?
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Dec 24, 2013 01:53
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Pesky Splinter posted:I'm still rather baffled by the drastic change in story for XIII-2. I understand the gameplay changes for exactly the reasons who've stated above. But the story? Were they really so limited with what they felt they could do to progress the story that a godawful time-travel story, featuring Lightning as Jesus, was really the only option they felt they had? The idea behind FNC was that they wrote this big mythology thing up front and then each game was supposed to broaden the scope on it a little until we had the whole picture. Start with something relatively small and self-contained, then once that's all understood we add another layer that re-contextualises it as part of a larger conflict, and repeat from there. That's not such a terrible approach in itself, but the specific mythology they wrote is incredibly shallow ("gods make other gods and humans, one of the gods is stupid, one of the gods is mad") and the way they split up the layers makes it escalate way too quickly. The humans vs. fal'cies plot is supposed to be our foundation-level entry point into the universe but it's just loaded with so much terminology and abstract concept from the get-go, then once it's over you've already saved the entire world. That means the next layer up is the gods themselves (already) and they're fighting over... all possible worlds! And now we're basically out of layers. The really crazy part is that in each game, in theory, Lightning is perfectly positioned to be our eyes into the relevant tier of existence (on the ground -> with Etro -> working for Bhunivelze) but we always come across her after she's already established herself in her role, so we miss the part where she learns how l'cies work or what Etro is all about, so here we are trying to catch up on what the gently caress is going on through context clues and datalogs.
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Dec 24, 2013 01:55
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NikkolasKing posted:So what we're saying here is that an "anime game" like FFX-2 evokes the same feeling and cliches as Rurouni Kenshin or Berserk? The way I see it, anime just means something that's off-putting to a normal person. It can mean taking strangeness, violence and sexuality to an uncomfortable extreme. It's easier for nerds to enjoy, since it's a part of counter-culture.
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Dec 24, 2013 03:23
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That loving Sned posted:The way I see it, anime just means something that's off-putting to a normal person. It can mean taking strangeness, violence and sexuality to an uncomfortable extreme. It's easier for nerds to enjoy, since it's a part of counter-culture. So what you're saying is that God of War is the biggest anime.
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Dec 24, 2013 03:25
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ImpAtom posted:So what you're saying is that God of War is the biggest anime. Of course, it's basically Dragon Ball Z meets Bezerk.
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Dec 24, 2013 03:30
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Vanderdeath posted:No Japanese video game song will ever be as terrible/wonderful as FLY from Chaos Legion. It's like a cheap knockoff of an Aerosmith ballad and I love it for just that reason. The Messenger from Dissidia is pretty ridiculous. I can't take it seriously when the lyrics going on about "the marching band howling" and other silly things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMj7_HARRZI
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Dec 24, 2013 03:43
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Anime can be tricky though, because the Souls games aren't particularly anime, but are really heavily influenced by Berserk (which the developers themselves claim). I think maybe a few rape scenes or a 10 year old witch would be the tipping point.
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Dec 24, 2013 03:49
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Talked to a coworker today whose favorite FF is IX and doesn't really care for VII. You guys would love him.
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Dec 24, 2013 04:06
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Defiance Industries posted:What does the human league or synthpop have to do with you not understanding how there are more similarities in structure and style than "they are both music" between Michael Jackson and Britney Spears? You picked two things that used similar styles of composing, a style of marketing that relies heavily on the presentation of a lead musician, and were both aimed at reaching as broad an audience as possible, and said the only thing they had in common were "they are music." I want to know where you found whatever version of Jem and the Holograms you watched. Jem and the Holograms was a show about two rock bands, later three, one of which used a holographic projector to change the singer's looks, who happened to be rivals on different record labels and whacky hijinks ensued. Supernatural powers? Clearly designated good and evil? Are you sure the brightly-coloured hair didn't confuse you and you actually mean She-Ra? /offtopic
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Dec 24, 2013 04:07
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Would you prefer "protagonist and antagonist" then?
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Dec 24, 2013 04:09
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:Talked to a coworker today whose favorite FF is IX and doesn't really care for VII. You guys would love him. 7 is nice, but I'm ambivalent on it. My favorite thing about the game is how the stars on your Materia get filled in. Aside from that, it's inoffensive and sure, I enjoy it when I play it, but seriously when I think "replaying FF7," I don't think of the story or the music or the setting very much. The first thing that springs to mind is "turning all the stars on Cloud's Bolt Materia green, that'll make the Materia screen look so pretty" 
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Dec 24, 2013 04:13
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The White Dragon posted:Yeah, I would! Are you secretly me? Because that's the most fun I ever have with FF7. Well, that and chocobo breeding.
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Dec 24, 2013 04:16
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Hellioning posted:Are you secretly me? Because that's the most fun I ever have with FF7. We must be triplets then, because playing around with materia and chocobo breeding are the only reasons I ever replay it. FF9 I can pop in and pick up from any point and be totally engrossed. What a game 
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Dec 24, 2013 04:26
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MonsieurChoc posted:I think a problem I have with the newer Final Fantasies is that they are clearly very "marketing"-driven. These are products made to be sold at particular demographics and designed as such in committees. Final Fantasy IV was made by a team of, what, 16 people? XIII was made by hundreds, the credits go on forever. Most of these teams were not even on the same building, did not communicate, just giant cogs in a machine. It's the exact same thing with Hollywood, budgets have ballooned so high that in order to make a profit, they need to target as many people as possible to buy it. This kills creativity. And I can't really blame them, with that much money on the line I would probably do the same. But it does sadden me. You don't seem to realize the techology today and what was used in the 90s are two completely different beasts. A fairly common concern is the new gen consoles will keep costs rising and we will end up having to spend 100 million to make a AAA game while it took far less 1-2 consoles ago.
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Dec 24, 2013 06:40
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:Talked to a coworker today whose favorite FF is IX and doesn't really care for VII. You guys would love him. Man I love IX, but I would not ever put it above VII because of just how bad FFIX's actual combat is and the game being pretty slow for the most part. VII's just got so much more substance and speed to the combat and even the materia is a super rad mechanic that it's hard to not get engrossed with making your preferred style of team. I love everything else about IX, but I am in no mood to have a 10 second loading screen between every random battle. Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 06:47
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Evil Fluffy posted:You don't seem to realize the techology today and what was used in the 90s are two completely different beasts. A fairly common concern is the new gen consoles will keep costs rising and we will end up having to spend 100 million to make a AAA game while it took far less 1-2 consoles ago. I don't think it's so much a matter of the technology changing as it is that the leadership style hasn't changed to fit it. Sex_Ferguson posted:Man I love IX, but I would not ever put it above VII because of just how bad FFIX's actual combat is and the game being pretty slow for the most part. VII's just got so much more substance and speed to the combat and even the materia is a super rad mechanic that it's hard to not get engrossed with making your preferred style of team. I don't think I'd say that FF7's combat has any more substance to it than 9's. They're both pretty standard "navigate a menu, press a button, watch an animation" games where the combat never has much going on. If I was to say anything, it's that 9's got a more robust system for armor and weapons, and it has more status effects, I guess? 7 sure as hell has more speed to it, though. 9 needed either to cut its animation times in half or make the ATB meter quit charging while they were playing. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 06:48
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7 has just aged so badly. It's one of the ugliest FF games out there and its translation is comically bad. Just make that drat remake, Square.
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Dec 24, 2013 06:52
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Defiance Industries posted:I don't think it's so much a matter of the technology changing as it is that the leadership style hasn't changed to fit it. The biggest problem with 9's combat are it being slow (As previously stated), Trance activating automatically, and the whole weapons and armor thing really only being a way to get skills. Like, it's the same problem with 6's development, in that you effectively just keep certain objects to learn abilities then throw them away until you get the next best thing. So characters sort of just fill into their own niches and that's it. 7 falls more into what 5 does, where not only do you get a myriad of tools to mess with (Jobs, Materia) but it opens up when you max it out to give you more options to mess with and approach situations in a myriad of different ways and this also combines with the equipment you have to manage throughout the game which will at times limit you and test you to try different combinations of Materia and Wutai which also makes you strategize with just attacks, limits, and items. TheEggsBenedict posted:7 has just aged so badly. It's one of the ugliest FF games out there and its translation is comically bad. Just make that drat remake, Square. The look of it has aged poorly, but it's not aged so bad the game is impossible to play past it. The translation is seriously awful though, like jesus is it insanely bad.
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Dec 24, 2013 07:09
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Evil Fluffy posted:You don't seem to realize the techology today and what was used in the 90s are two completely different beasts. A fairly common concern is the new gen consoles will keep costs rising and we will end up having to spend 100 million to make a AAA game while it took far less 1-2 consoles ago. It's not that I don't realize it. It's that I think it's part of the problem.
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Dec 24, 2013 07:14
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Sex_Ferguson posted:The look of it has aged poorly, but it's not aged so bad the game is impossible to play past it. The translation is seriously awful though, like jesus is it insanely bad. Off course it is! I'm not engaging in this conversation, as I recognize that I have a massive nostalgia boner for FF VII that cannot be reasoned with. I do really like the ability system in IX after spending more time with it. Pretty much everything Square did on PSX is right up my alley, and by the end of the SNES' life their RPGs were top-notch. (Wish they had more puzzle-oriented games like Lufia 2 though.)
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Dec 24, 2013 07:16
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What're you talking about? FFVII has a wonderful translation!  Seriously though, replaying VII on the PC and for the first time I went into the Honeybee Inn. 
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Dec 24, 2013 07:26
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There's a surprising amount of Plot in the Honeybe Inn. One of the rooms you can spy in has Shinra goons talking, right? And one of the rooms you can go in - the one where Cloud doesn't get gangbanged - has the first hint that Cloud is not right in the head. And I think the whole Inn is optional. You can completely skip it if you don't want to "win" with the Don. Square really liked just throwing in what I guess you can call "Non Tone Fitting Moments" in its PSX JRPGs. At least the ones I've played. This random poo poo happened in all three PS1 FFs and Xenogears.
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Dec 24, 2013 07:36
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Actually Xenogears was entirely on tone from start to finish. It's just that Japanese Mecha anime is weird as poo poo and a lot of the things they were directly referencing were incoherent to US audience members through a combination of "didn't know the show" + "kinda weird translation." Even the running-out-of-budget-and-expositioning-the-plot-via-a-chair-and-spotlight was a reference to a mecha anime in one of the most meta thing Squaresoft has ever done.
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Dec 24, 2013 07:38
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It really sounds like I need to finish reading that LP of Xenogears because I need to see what all of the fuss is about.
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Dec 24, 2013 07:47
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Oh I'm well aware of Xenogears being at least in part a love letter to mecha. But I don't think stuff like the Old Butler swooping in to save everyone on his Helicopter Robot and then it breaking and falling down so he must hop to safety was a reference to anything. It was just...bizarre. Hilarious but bizarre. One moment you have to go "oh poo poo! They saw through our plan and have us dead to rights!" and then next second Maison shows up and you don't know what the gently caress. Xenogears gets ribbed on for being pretentious drivel but there's a lot of zaniness on the first disk. All of which vanished by Disk 2. ...kinda like the second part of NGE. Huh. I just thought of that. (just watched Evangelion for the first time a couple months ago)
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Dec 24, 2013 07:47
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Sex_Ferguson posted:The biggest problem with 9's combat are it being slow (As previously stated), Trance activating automatically, and the whole weapons and armor thing really only being a way to get skills. Like, it's the same problem with 6's development, in that you effectively just keep certain objects to learn abilities then throw them away until you get the next best thing. So characters sort of just fill into their own niches and that's it. 7 falls more into what 5 does, where not only do you get a myriad of tools to mess with (Jobs, Materia) but it opens up when you max it out to give you more options to mess with and approach situations in a myriad of different ways and this also combines with the equipment you have to manage throughout the game which will at times limit you and test you to try different combinations of Materia and Wutai which also makes you strategize with just attacks, limits, and items. Learning abilities from FF9 is the best part of the gameplay though? It's really cool to go to a town and see what new pieces of equipment you can pick up since it means more abilities, and doing sidequests feels legit rewarding since you can get good skills like AP UP and MP Attack really early, at least IMO. I don't really have a problem with the FF5/7/8 style of characters essentially being skins for your job/matera/junction setups, but it's really more of an apples and oranges thing as opposed to one game doing it flat out better than the other like FF5's job system compared to FF3. I guess the whole Trance activating automatically is stupid, but frankly, it seems silly to consider it even a minor complaint since it would be completely gamebreaking if it had manual input. On another note, am I the only one who thinks FF5's ability system is pretty bad? I don't mean jobs, the job system itself is pretty fantastic even among current JRPGs for being able to make so many party combinations at any time, and have nearly all of them, within reason, be viable. The actual ability system kinda...sucks though. Compared to something like Final Fantasy Tactics, where you can equip a secondary command, a support ability, a counter skill and a movement skill, Final Fantasy 5 feels lacking in that regard. Hell, most non-mages don't have a skillset to equip, just a command you probably never touch in the actual job itself. It never feels like you're customizing and building up a unit like in Tactics, because you're just giving a Black Mage !White or a melee job like Samurai Two-Handed. Which is still cool in its own way, it just feels like it could work better if you could replace the Attack command with stuff like !Mug or !Aim, and had a slot dedicated to the Equip X skills.
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Dec 24, 2013 08:09
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Last Celebration posted:Learning abilities from FF9 is the best part of the gameplay though? It's really cool to go to a town and see what new pieces of equipment you can pick up since it means more abilities, and doing sidequests feels legit rewarding since you can get good skills like AP UP and MP Attack really early, at least IMO. I don't really have a problem with the FF5/7/8 style of characters essentially being skins for your job/matera/junction setups, but it's really more of an apples and oranges thing as opposed to one game doing it flat out better than the other like FF5's job system compared to FF3. I guess the whole Trance activating automatically is stupid, but frankly, it seems silly to consider it even a minor complaint since it would be completely gamebreaking if it had manual input. The idea of making something uncontrollable in a game where you control everything about your character because of the fear of breaking the game is rather silly especially since they fixed that in the game after IX. Like JRPGs by nature are games where once you figure out the gimmick they become easy to break, it's a part of the genre at this point. Making them unintuitive because you want to make it more challenging is something that never really works and serves to only frustrate the player. The rest of your point is your opinion and whatnot, but I don't like skills being attached to equipment because I prefer having my skills be separate from my equipment as that allows me to actually focus on growing stats while separating it from my skill progression. Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 08:14
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The whole point is to master a job and then get all the passive abilities with a freelancer or mime, then give them whatever commands you want.
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Dec 24, 2013 08:17
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NikkolasKing posted:Oh I'm well aware of Xenogears being at least in part a love letter to mecha. But I don't think stuff like the Old Butler swooping in to save everyone on his Helicopter Robot and then it breaking and falling down so he must hop to safety was a reference to anything. And you'd be wrong because that was in fact a direct reference to a sequence in... I believe it was Trider G7. One of those "kid with a robot with a butler" shows. NikkolasKing posted:Xenogears gets ribbed on for being pretentious drivel but there's a lot of zaniness on the first disk. All of which vanished by Disk 2. Did you miss Bart literally piloting the giant pink Hyper Dimensional Macross-reference Yggdrasil IV made out of a city? ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 08:17
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