Do you feel this game is innovative?

[Wolf Kanno]

Because I often hear the detractors say it was samey like the earlier games and not as groundbreaking as the later titles, so my question is do you feel VI was actually innovative for its time?

[Ayen]

What are we looking for in terms of innovation? Because I would think the game's ability to balance such a large cast would be pretty innovated. FFV was the only other classic Final Fantasy I had to compare it to when I first played it on the PS1 (you can mourn for me later) and even then I felt it was different from my experience with V. It had more in common with VII, really. Now that I have I and II charted down to memory I can't see how it's the same as the earlier ones.

[Slothy]

Considering none of the games until XII really changed the formula substantially post-FFVI I don't get the argument that this was samey and the later ones were innovative. I suppose you could argue the FFVIII battle system was innovative at least, though it didn't actually work very well.

But let's think about what FFVI did do. It gave us actual cutscenes. I don't really think cutscenes are innovative. It's more shoehorning passive video into an interactive experience, but they have their place and FFVI was using those, as well as story sequences in battle more expansively than any of the games before it really did. The full on mode 7 stuff actually looked really cool too. Earlier games certainly played around a little bit in that area, but Vi was on another level from what I remember.

It also balanced the massive cast as Tori said. Having a cast that big with such rich back stories, and excellent development just didn't really happen back then. Hell, most later games couldn't pull off as much satisfying character development with casts half the size and scripts four times as long. But the real interesting stuff it did were things like multi-party dungeons, puzzles, and a completely non-linear second half of the game.

Looking back at it, it kind of set the style for the PSX era games, but also did some cool things that those titles never actually matched. And considering they were trying to do the PSX style cutscenes in 2D on the Super Nintendo (similar in purpose and tone, not in tech obviously), I'd say the later titles are less groundbreaking since that was one of FFVII's claims to fame when it released.

[Jiro]

Innovation is such a bullshit term to throw around anyway. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q)

[Ayen]

So people didn't like Virtual Boy and aren't buying the Wii U. Well, in PART 2 of our "What Gamers Want" series, we look at sales data to uncover a shocking secret in the games industry: Gamers DON'T want innovation! Despite all our calls for increased creativity, we just don't buy creative games. And our inconsistency is singlehandedly killing Nintendo.

I-I'm sorry! :whimper:

*falls down to knees and bury hands in face*

I'M SORRY!:crying:

[Slothy]

Innovation is such a bulltrout term to throw around anyway. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q)

Someone please tell me that video is parody. Because I'm having trouble thinking of another time that someone so blatantly misinterpreted data so they could felate their pet console/company.

EDIT: I should probably explain myself a little bit more just to make sure there's some actual discussion about that video. He compares games based on sales and under the assumption that the only difference between them is how innovative they are.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that there's a lot more separating a title like Call of Duty from a game like Journey or any other small title known for being innovative. There'sdifferences in budget, marketing, whether it's part of a popular franchise with name recognition, whether it's from a major developer or publisher with an established reputation.

They also compare sales of games on consoles which sold around 20 million units to games on other consoles which sold more than five times that. They compare pack in titles to titles released well after a consoles release. There's just so many flaws in their simple analysis that it makes the entire video laughable.

I mean honestly, you can't compare the sales of Super Mario Bros. which was included with the majority of NES consoles ever sold to games like Mario Sunshine which was released well after launch for a console that didn't even sell as much as the original Mario Bros. did. Not even close in fact. Or how about comparing the sales of FFVI, a game released before FF titles being million sellers was even a thing, to series titles released after FFVII when the series was selling more by an order of magnitude at least. And he ignores the fact that some of those multimillion selling FF's released after FFVI were pretty damn innovative in their own right.

[Jiro]

Some of the biases are not accounted for in the data but it's hard to argue with the general trend.

[Slothy]

To add another comment to my edit, he conveniently stops looking at COD franchise sales with MW3, ignoring the fact that sales declined after that point, to the point that Ghosts sales are only around half that of the highest seller.

[Jiro]

This is true. There is some backlash against franchises like Call of Duty, and Mario has done some interesting new things in that latest Super Mario title. But my point is still that innovation doesn't always equal good sales. It's not 1:1 the opposite way, of course, but there is a broad market audience that isn't interested in ground breaking stuff. Don't expect 100% accurate information from that channel -- it's designed to water down "science" to basically start a discourse -- but it is (shaky) proof that it isn't necessarily a lack of innovation that hampers a game's success.

[Slothy]

Considering I don't think I've ever heard anyone make the argument that innovationleads to sales or that lack of it hampers sales, I'm not sure what the relevance is though. You're essentially arguing something that isn't in dispute then?

[black orb]

>>> This was the first FF game with limit breaks right?, that was innovative..:luca: