Final Fantasy Megathread: I, Jack, will knock you all down

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Final Fantasy Megathread: I, Jack, will knock you all down

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Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Evil Fluffy posted:

And gave us things like Vaan's abs.

If you're going to have a character who painted an ab texture onto his chest to look tougher, Vaan's the one to do it.

# ? Jun 1, 2021 22:58

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# ? May 31, 2024 16:09

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

stev posted:

I'd say this is true for FF7R as well. It might not be the most ridiculous graphical powerhouse on the system but it made really good use of the PS4 and managed to play smoothly throughought while looking beautiful.

Meanwhile FF15 was a technical abomination. Hopefully that's not an omen for 16.

How hard could it be to render someone named Clive?

# ? Jun 1, 2021 23:01

Agents are GO!: Dec 29, 2004

Snow Cone Capone posted:

SE has a tendency to really push a system to its limits once the hardware is well-understood; see also FF6/Chrono Trigger and FF9 (also I'm currently playing through FF3 NES and it's fairly impressive for an NES RPG, nothing mind-blowing so far though)

I remember, waaaaay back in the day when FF7 was new, arguing with people who hated it and wished Square would go back to focusing on gameplay rather than graphics, and pointing out that Square always has pushed the envelope for graphics on the consoles they developed for.

# ? Jun 1, 2021 23:31

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Agents are GO! posted:

I remember, waaaaay back in the day when FF7 was new, arguing with people who hated it and wished Square would go back to focusing on gameplay rather than graphics, and pointing out that Square always has pushed the envelope for graphics on the consoles they developed for.

Man I had sour grapes for so long re: 7, I was the Nintendo fanboy who saw the FF64 prototype in a magazine. We couldn't afford a PSX so I disdained it for a long time until I got it on PC

I guess what I'm saying is gently caress system exclusivity even that far back

# ? Jun 1, 2021 23:34

Schwartzcough: Aug 12, 2009; Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

Harrow posted:

I've never found FFXII's audio quality to be that big of a problem. Is it because I don't play with headphones or something? Would it be a lot worse then?

Same. I think people have a tendency to be extra hyperbolic about this for some reason.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 01:42

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Snow Cone Capone posted:

Man I had sour grapes for so long re: 7, I was the Nintendo fanboy who saw the FF64 prototype in a magazine. We couldn't afford a PSX so I disdained it for a long time until I got it on PC

I guess what I'm saying is gently caress system exclusivity even that far back

But it's okay, we were the real winners, because we got Paper Mario, and... and Quest 64, and... a Harvest Moon (but not in Europe)... Pokemon Stadium, I guess?

I'm thankful for Pokemon, because otherwise I wouldn't have even learned what an RPG was until like, mid-Gamecube.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 01:42

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Snow Cone Capone posted:

Man I had sour grapes for so long re: 7, I was the Nintendo fanboy who saw the FF64 prototype in a magazine. We couldn't afford a PSX so I disdained it for a long time until I got it on PC

I guess what I'm saying is gently caress system exclusivity even that far back

That step from sprites into polygons hurt.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 01:46

Twelve by Pies: May 4, 2012; Again a very likpatous story

Bruceski posted:

That step from sprites into polygons hurt.

Could've been worse, what if Sega had been right that live action video was the future of gaming?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9bGbkiyKw

# ? Jun 2, 2021 01:56

Blockhouse: Sep 7, 2014; You Win!

tbf system exclusivity was kind of a necessary with VII since no way in hell was that thing running on the N64

# ? Jun 2, 2021 02:00

CharlieFoxtrot: Mar 27, 2007; organize digital employees

I was out of the console world for the PS360 era so I don't know how much of that narrative that "Japanese devs struggled because it was either develop for the PS3's weird architecture or develop for nothing since no one in Japan owned a 360" was true

# ? Jun 2, 2021 02:02

Hellioning: Jun 27, 2008

Blockhouse posted:

tbf system exclusivity was kind of a necessary with VII since no way in hell was that thing running on the N64

Wouldn't you want a 24 cartridge game that would rely on Stop 'n' Swap technology for cartridge changes?

# ? Jun 2, 2021 02:09

Moofia Boss Val: May 14, 2021

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

I was out of the console world for the PS360 era so I don't know how much of that narrative that "Japanese devs struggled because it was either develop for the PS3's weird architecture or develop for nothing since no one in Japan owned a 360" was true

It was a combination of different factors that raised the expense of developing a game, namely consumer expectations for what a $60 game should be:

An "HD console" meant that consumers were now expecting to play their games to be 3D, to be in HD, and to look good in HD.

Related to the above, there was now a demand for more detailed character animations. Animations are one of the most expensive aspects of game development. You might have an animator spending weeks just working on a single run cycle. Now you need to hire dozens of animators and have them work over several months - possibly years - to do all of the animations in the game.

Voice acting was becoming a standard expectation, which raises expenses. The Japanese voice acting industry is notoriously very expensive, far more so than the American VA industry.

Before working from home started becoming an acceptable industry practice in the mid 2010s, the gaming studios were based in megacities with very high costs of living, namely Los Angeles in California, Austin Texas, Ontario in Canada, or Tokyo in Japan. This means that the company's expenses increase dramatically, as they have to pay relatively high wages (or else no one could afford to work for them) and it raises the costs of their properties, etc.

The box price of video games capped off at $60 and did not continue to rise with inflation. This was before DLC began becoming acceptable, so developing for HD became very expensive and your profits were decreasing.

In the west, during the 2000s, gaming journalists began heavily stigmatizing Japanese games, usually deriding them as weird or shoddy. Every JRPG that came out was compared unfavorably to FF7, which they worshipped at the bestest thing ever.

Western game journalists heavily stigmatized games that didn't look high fidelity with a realistic artstyle like Uncharted. "PS1/Gamecube era graphics" were often had the negative connotation of being a shoddy game. "Cheap 2D graphics" also developed a negative connotation in the West.
So all of these factors eventually led to the Japanese deciding to just not even trying to bother with the big consoles, and instead move on over to portable development on the DS and the PSP. It helped that portable consoles became insanely popular in Japan. It was okay to not have voice acting. It was okay not to have the bestest Uncharted graphics. It was okay to be 2D. Also notably, at this time pretty much every Japanese dev not named Nintendo or Square Enix abandoned all hope of breaking into the Western market and just concentrated and their fans already in Japan. Localization costs also went up (inflation, need for English voice actors because original Japanese voices were stigmatized in the West for a long time outside of really niche communities, need to hire localizers based in LA or Austin so their salaries will be high, etc), so the West simply just didn't get most of the games made over there. JRPGs didn't start making a come back in the West until Dark Souls' PC port went viral.

With the release of the Switch, the Western mainstream are now getting a taste of what Japanese games coming out on handheld were like. Pokemon Sword & Shield came out on Switch, but rather than living up to the grand dreams of Westerners... it instead just turned out to be another "budget" handheld Japanese game. The Japanese were apparently okay with it but the backlash in the West was huge. Similarly, people seem to be surprised when they try out Atelier, or Trails, and find them "lacking" compared to your usual Western AAA production.

Moofia Boss Val fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Jun 2, 2021

# ? Jun 2, 2021 02:59

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

I was out of the console world for the PS360 era so I don't know how much of that narrative that "Japanese devs struggled because it was either develop for the PS3's weird architecture or develop for nothing since no one in Japan owned a 360" was true

barely anyone in Japan owns a Microsoft console at all lol

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:03

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Im one of those 43,000 baybeeee

Edit: Oh I'm gonna be able to get a PS5 pretty soon here really easily

Barudak fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jun 2, 2021

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:05

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Moofia Boss Val posted:

It was a combination of different factors that raised the expense of developing a game, namely consumer expectations for what a $60 game should be:

An "HD console" meant that consumers were now expecting to play their games to be 3D, to be in HD, and to look good in HD.

Related to the above, there was now a demand for more detailed character animations. Animations are one of the most expensive aspects of game development. You might have an animator spending weeks just working on a single run cycle. Now you need to hire dozens of animators and have them work over several months - possibly years - to do all of the animations in the game.

Voice acting was becoming a standard expectation, which raises expenses. The Japanese voice acting industry is notoriously very expensive, far more so than the American VA industry.

Before working from home started becoming an acceptable industry practice in the mid 2010s, the gaming studios were based in megacities with very high costs of living, namely Los Angeles in California, Austin Texas, Ontario in Canada, or Tokyo in Japan. This means that the company's expenses increase dramatically, as they have to pay relatively high wages (or else no one could afford to work for them) and it raises the costs of their properties, etc.

The box price of video games capped off at $60 and did not continue to rise with inflation. This was before DLC began becoming acceptable, so developing for HD became very expensive and your profits were decreasing.

In the west, during the 2000s, gaming journalists began heavily stigmatizing Japanese games, usually deriding them as weird or shoddy. Every JRPG that came out was compared unfavorably to FF7, which they worshipped at the bestest thing ever.

Western game journalists heavily stigmatized games that didn't look high fidelity with a realistic artstyle like Uncharted. "PS1/Gamecube era graphics" were often had the negative connotation of being a shoddy game. "Cheap 2D graphics" also developed a negative connotation in the West.

So all of these factors eventually led to the Japanese deciding to just not even trying to bother with the big consoles, and instead move on over to portable development on the DS and the PSP. It helped that portable consoles became insanely popular in Japan. It was okay to not have voice acting. It was okay not to have the bestest Uncharted graphics. It was okay to be 2D. Also notably, at this time pretty much every Japanese dev not named Nintendo or Square Enix abandoned all hope of breaking into the Western market and just concentrated and their fans already in Japan. Localization costs also went up (inflation, need for English voice actors because original Japanese voices were stigmatized in the West for a long time outside of really niche communities, need to hire localizers based in LA or Austin so their salaries will be high, etc), so the West simply just didn't get most of the games made over there. JRPGs didn't start making a come back in the West until Dark Souls' PC port went viral.

With the release of the Switch, the Western mainstream are now getting a taste of what Japanese games coming out on handheld were like. Pokemon Sword & Shield came out on Switch, but rather than living up to the grand dreams of Westerners... it instead just turned out to be another "budget" handheld Japanese game. The Japanese were apparently okay with it but the backlash in the West was huge. Similarly, people seem to be surprised when they try out Atelier, or Trails, and find them "lacking" compared to your usual Western AAA production.

There's a ton of generalizations and some stuff that's just untrue about this but the main thing is it has nothing to do with the Xbox360 vs PS3 question OP was asking about

I mean Namco/Bandai alone made some of the prettiest games on PS3, just for starters

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:11

CharlieFoxtrot: Mar 27, 2007; organize digital employees

Moofia Boss Val posted:

It was a combination of different factors that raised the expense of developing a game, namely consumer expectations for what a $60 game should be...

Thanks, this is interesting history and I should probably read more on it lol

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:15

Bleck: Jan 7, 2014; No matter how one loves, there are always different aims. Love can take a great many forms, whatever the era.

Moofia Boss Val posted:

In the west, during the 2000s, gaming journalists began heavily stigmatizing Japanese games, usually deriding them as weird or shoddy. Every JRPG that came out was compared unfavorably to FF7, which they worshipped at the bestest thing ever.

to be fair, they're right

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:18

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Barudak posted:

Im one of those 43,000 baybeeee

Edit: Oh I'm gonna be able to get a PS5 pretty soon here really easily

how did they react at the store when you asked for a Series X?

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:22

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Snow Cone Capone posted:

how did they react at the store when you asked for a Series X?

I got mine from Amazon, Japan preorders in store are a lottery system so fuuuuck that and hence why Im waiting another month to waltz in and buy a PS5.

I have bought accessories in store and I think they're just like "oh its the foreigner, again"

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:32

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Barudak posted:

I got mine from Amazon, Japan preorders in store are a lottery system so fuuuuck that and hence why Im waiting another month to waltz in and buy a PS5.

I have bought accessories in store and I think they're just like "oh its the foreigner, again"

drat, they did a lottery system even for the Series X that nobody bought?

I'm just trying to imagine what JP game store personnel's funny stereotype of NA gamers would be

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:34

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Moofia Boss Val posted:

In the west, during the 2000s, gaming journalists began heavily stigmatizing Japanese games, usually deriding them as weird or shoddy. Every JRPG that came out was compared unfavorably to FF7, which they worshipped at the bestest thing ever.

Western game journalists heavily stigmatized games that didn't look high fidelity with a realistic artstyle like Uncharted. "PS1/Gamecube era graphics" were often had the negative connotation of being a shoddy game. "Cheap 2D graphics" also developed a negative connotation in the West.

While yeah this is largely unrelated to the original 'PS3/360 hardware differences' issue, this did come up recently as something that got REALLY bad in that era. I saw a thread on Twitter with a bunch of examples, but the stigmatization around Japanese games at the time (both in journalism and game development) is most noticeable now around Nier.

Nier's not perfect, it has its jank and the remaster's reviews acknowledge that. But looking at the reviews for the original compared to the remaster is like night and day, people were downright cruel to the original. And it's not like it was even the roughest RPG on the market that year, that was the same year as New Vegas.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:36

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Snow Cone Capone posted:

drat, they did a lottery system even for the Series X that nobody bought?

I'm just trying to imagine what JP game store personnel's funny stereotype of NA gamers would be

Series X is sold out, fully (granted MS shipped a token amount) but yes lottery system for that.

My coworkers believe all Xbox gamers are American, love shooters, and are jealous but not willing to buy a console over the fact it has extremely good racing games that come out regularly

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:40

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I remember Xplay of all loving things being pretty nice to Xenosaga III. So I dunno about this whole anti-Japanese game bias.

Also Nier isn't fun to play. That was a big part of TDI's LP, Nier was full of lovely sidequests nobody liked. And as cool as the C/D endings are, it still means doing the same poo poo over and over again, a bad tactic when your gameplay sucks. New Vegas has pretty different endings and routes, you aren't just doing the same thing repeatedly.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 03:50

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Plus even as relatively early as the Wii, obscure-ish JRPGs were getting fan-fueled releases in the West like Last Story, Pandora's Tower, Muramasa, and a couple of Tales games. Not to mention Xenoblade which was so popular it spawned an entire franchise.

e: every review I read for Muramasa absolutely fawned over how good it looked

# ? Jun 2, 2021 04:29

Mustached Demon: Nov 12, 2016

zedprime posted:

How hard could it be to render someone named Clive?

I might even not rename Clive to Dong if given the chance. That's such a great name.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 06:19

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

You know, with the advances in speech replication technology lately, it's not inconceivable that you could rename the main character and have that name still be voiced.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 06:23

Booky: Feb 21, 2013; Chill Bug

i do deffo recall (albeit sorta vaguely) that there was a big stigmatization of games that were thought to be "too japanese" a while back, so it seems like there was kind of a bias against it

# ? Jun 2, 2021 06:29

CharlieFoxtrot: Mar 27, 2007; organize digital employees

NikkolasKing posted:

I remember Xplay of all loving things being pretty nice to Xenosaga III. So I dunno about this whole anti-Japanese game bias.

Also Nier isn't fun to play. That was a big part of TDI's LP, Nier was full of lovely sidequests nobody liked. And as cool as the C/D endings are, it still means doing the same poo poo over and over again, a bad tactic when your gameplay sucks. New Vegas has pretty different endings and routes, you aren't just doing the same thing repeatedly.

Sure but
https://twitter.com/JustinMcElroy/status/13039042655?s=19

# ? Jun 2, 2021 06:48

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Didn't Metal Gear Solid 4 get rave reviews from everyone?

And I will always remember when XIII-2 came out a lot of praise was thrown its way for fixing all the poo poo FFXIII did.... But god it's been forever and those were comments on forums not necessarily reviews. Hm.

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

Sure but
https://twitter.com/JustinMcElroy/status/13039042655?s=19

That is excessive and stupid. But it was also the popular thing at the time to engage in angry hyperbole when reviewing anything.

Maybe I just didn't read enough reviews of Japanese games.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Jun 2, 2021

# ? Jun 2, 2021 14:12

Sakurazuka: Jan 24, 2004; NANI?

Nier and MGS 4 are both good

# ? Jun 2, 2021 14:20

CottonWolf: Jul 20, 2012; Good ideas generator

Sakurazuka posted:

Nier and MGS 4 are both good

# ? Jun 2, 2021 15:20

Barudak: May 7, 2007

MGS4's multiplayer had a very baffling fundamental mistake in having both invulnerability frames on damage and locational damage. I remember playing about two rounds and realizing this was gonna be a bad time.

Thank god 2/5ths of the single player was really good!

# ? Jun 2, 2021 15:53

SettingSun: Aug 10, 2013

I replayed MGS4 very recently and it's still great.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 15:56

stev: Jan 22, 2013; Please be excited.

MGS4 will remain forever great in my memory. Mostly because it's physically impossible to play legally on hardware released in the last decade.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 15:59

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

MGS4 should have been sold in brown paper bags behind the register because you are forced to smoke cigarettes with Snake for 15 minutes while it installs.

The install time was critically and popularly panned but it was a vision of the future.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 15:59

Barudak: May 7, 2007

stev posted:

MGS4 will remain forever great in my memory. Mostly because it's physically impossible to play legally on hardware released in the last decade.

Hey the PS3's production officially ended in 2017 because some idiot was buying one in 2016

# ? Jun 2, 2021 16:01

Schwartzcough: Aug 12, 2009; Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

I've been trying to watch Chip Cheezum's LP of MGS4, and even the uncut commentary version is almost unbearable because the cutscenes are just so endless and boring and pointless. I don't know how many half hour episodes have just been a single uninterrupted cutscene. Also, the totally unironic Male Gaze depiction of all the "Beauty and the Beast" bosses is, I think, the only time a game has made me uncomfortable from its depiction of women.

I'm sure the gameplay is good, though.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:29

Mr. Locke: Jul 28, 2010

I don't got much to say about MGS4 but I mean, most of the original takes on Nier weren't wrong. It was the ultimate 5-out-of-10 average in it's best moments miserable pile of barely adequate game salvaged entirely by it's weird and wild plot and setting that are entirely best experienced anymore by watching someone else play it for your amusement. It also ran like donkey on both X360 and PS3 but I can't imagine such a boring and monotonous game is any more fun to actually play when it isn't trying to kill itself on your system's processor.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:38

Barudak: May 7, 2007

At the time (and I got Nier at launch) I really liked the projectile system and thought it was super neat. Every other aspect of actually playing Nier is a bad time but the music and setting carry you through if that successfully appeals. Theres basically no correct score for the game since it feels like a litmus test for how you prioritize game experiences.

The DLC was an insult (I owned it)

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:43

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# ? May 31, 2024 16:09

WaltherFeng: May 15, 2013; 50 thousand people used to live here. Now, it's the Mushroom Kingdom.

Left Alive is MGS4 but with ~~good~~ gameplay.

I still can't believe I beat that game.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:44

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