I blame this guy.
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I blame this guy.
http://www.creativeuncut.com/images/profile-nomura2.jpg
WTF ? why ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rase
Editaga: Well, he run away, I think blaming Nomura for anything that happens with Final Fantasy is nonsensical, Nomura didn't influence/direct/game design FF11, FF12 , FF13, FF14. This is fact. Hell, Nomura did more work on FFVI than FFXIII :eep:.
You seem to be unhappy with my half-serious (since he has become a larger role in games I have found them less enjoyable overall and I find his character designs and stories laughable) and half-to-piss-people-off response. Also, you seem to think I take issue with more recent FF's, when infact it is FFVII-X and Kingdom Hearts that I find ridiculous.
lol, yep. Ran away to that silly thing called life. I'll skip the exam next time to discuss a Japanese guy on a forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShinGundam
Really? I feel fine blaming him for the direction it has gone since FFVII. We can say crediting instead of blaming if it makes you feel better.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShinGundam
Indeed. Never said he did. He was too busy making :bou::bou::bou::bou: like Kingdom Hearts and eight FFVII spin-offs.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShinGundam
As for this, I'd put "Battle & Minor Characters Designer" on par with "Main Character Designer" personally, and him not working on those games because he was stuck trying to squeezeQuote:
Originally Posted by ShinGundam
creativityblood fromFFVIIa stone may be why I enjoyed XII.
Well, Rase, you have to admit it's a little unfair to blame Nomura since you admittedly liked XII (which he had nothing to do with) and XI and XIV are essentially online re-imaginings of the first four games by senior Square staff who created the franchise. While the extent of his responsibility for XIII is debatable, I'll admit that's definitely more in his influence.
It seems like you have more of a problem with where the series went as opposed to where it is today.
Like what ? give me examples.Quote:
While the extent of his responsibility for XIII is debatable, I'll admit that's definitely more in his influence.
I'm really not equipped to make the argument (I'm kinda with you on this one) but if I had to guess, I'm sure every basher in this forum will come out the woodwork to point out how spikey hair, androgyny, belt buckles, and melodrama/teen angst are the aesthetics they place the blame on Nomura for.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShinGundam
I think you're right though about him doing more work on FFVI than FFXIII, which I'm sure will really set off the fanboys :D
If you really want to nail anyone from the PS1 era, its Nojima cause he wrote most of the offending games. Kitase, cause he's the one who cares more about cinematics and graphics than gameplay, and finally Motomu who is basically their protege. Nomura gets knocked cause he was the one who sorta got thrown into the forefront when Sakeguchi took a backseat from making the games.
XII has its own series of issues we can blame but mostly it was internal bickering much like XIII's staff. Still, I would like to point out that game design in Japan is very different than the West. In the West, everyone has a job to play and that's the extent of their contribution. In Japan its a collaborative process, meaning that people from other departments can have a say in how the story and gameplay function as long as the whole team agrees. This is why its so difficult to discern who did what in Japanese games cause one guy may have actually had a hand in a multitude of factors in a game. In other words don't trust the credits.
Example is that Nomura is credited in VI for creating the sprites and some monster designs for the game. What the credits don't tell you is that he came up with the character design for Setzer and Shadow.
but that's the side of the game he was responsible for in FFV and presumably FFVI. I thought Nomura and Itou handled the battles well in VII and VIII, respectively.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
but he was who put in all the little events and mini-games which were a large reason of what made FFVII possibly the best-paced game in the series. Too bad he didn't do that for his newest game... :(Quote:
and finally Motomu who is basically their protege.
You know I heard it was the other way around in something Tim Rogers wrote, but I wouldn't really put too much stock in his insight... And your VI example kinda shows what it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf
I never claimed to be fair, and admitted that half of my reason for posting that was a dickish one (riling people up). I'm not sure I follow on how liking one of the more recent games he had no involvement in makes blaming him for the overall direction work less though. However, I'm not silly enough to think that one man could have single-handedly "ruined" a franchise, anymore than I think Final Fantasy is "ruined". I do find his style (as seen in the Kingdom Hearts games, which if I'm not mistaken are his babies) to be not for me, and so if I see similarities between KH and FF's that I don't like and he is involved, I tend to shift the blame to him in my mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bolivar
Meh, I see where it is today as just part of where it is going (which includes where it went :p). I fully admit that part of it is my general lack of enthusiasm for JRPG's in general, and I think I would have a more favorable look on FFVII had I only played it once when it came out and not again seven years afterward. Same with VIII, and I never played IX again (I did play X twice and found the game very "meh" both times except for the battle system). I also get that one reason I can probably play through IV so much is it's so tied with nostalgia that I don't care if it's old, it makes me happy. I do think that general pacing, gameplay, and music are better than most stuff today though. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Bolivar
Should this be true, I have another person to not like. :D I really can't stand mini-games in RPG's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bolivar
You must adore XIII then ;)
My main issue with battle systems starting with VI is that series began to take a nose dive into easy street for my taste, for all their customization, the game as a whole can't throw anything at you that you can't curb stomp two seconds flat unless you purposely handicap yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bolivar
As for Kitase, I feel that bringing a cinematic quality to the series was a right move but I feel that lately the series has been taking it too far, and I find myself more often playing FF games with my controller on the ground while I sit and watch the actions going on. Even in the battle systems of XIII, I sorta felt a major disconnect from my input to what is going on in the screen. Like a press of the button leads to canned awesomness and I don't even need to be strategic anymore, just press a few buttons or hit auto battle and let the visual feast unfold before me.
I don't shell out $60 to play a slightly interactive movie, if I wanted to do that I would watch cable and get my "gameplay" from switching to other shows during commercials and trying to see if I can time it back for film coming back on air. I feel Kitase's titles usually have flat gameplay to them and I partially blame it on more focus being on the story and the visuals used to tell it but sometimes I feel its excessive (VIII, X, and XIII).
I can't find a source anywhere that says he did any of that. Event Planner to me, sounds like a person who helps with translating the scenes from a script into the game format. Someone who is more likely to tell you where the camera is suppose to be for this shot rather than, let's add a racing game here. I feel this is more likely since some sources have said he was the Story Even Planner for VII instead of just Event Planner so I feel its more likely his role had more to do with the story than thinking up game content.Quote:
but he was who put in all the little events and mini-games which were a large reason of what made FFVII possibly the best-paced game in the series. Too bad he didn't do that for his newest game... :(
I read it in a few articles back in the day but who knows, things might be changing and the articles could have been on fringe elements rather than the standard, and simply confused the two. It just struck me as being quite amusing.Quote:
You know I heard it was the other way around in something Tim Rogers wrote, but I wouldn't really put too much stock in his insight... And your VI example kinda shows what it is.
Reading some background information about what goes on in development for some Japanese games, it sounds like this is usually the case. I feel where the articles I read might be incorrect is in how Western Games are produced cause most of the successful series I know seem to follow the "group development" style as well so who knows.
Dunno, haven't played it for more than an hour. I've mess around some with the later game stuff on a friends file and did enjoy the combat; I dunno if I could stand the 20+ hours to get to that though. :p Busy playing Etrian Odyssey III and League of Legends.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoB
FFXIII prioritizes the story before all else. This makes the game awesome for those who enjoy it (myself for example), and not so much for those who don't. I think it's that sort of thing that people are viewing as a "problem."
Games such as Hotel Dusk that present themselves as novels tend to have a very small (but very devoted) fanbase, while games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are like "okay you are a blue hedgehog now run and jump on :bou::bou::bou::bou:" are massively popular. Both are excellent games, but the more story driven something is, the narrower of an audience it will appeal to. A lot of people like running around and jumping like an idiot in a game, but some people would prefer to do that as a flower girl while some would prefer to do that as a warrior of ultimate do-gooding.
The problem isn't simply just the lack of game content, its also the fact the story isn't that good. At least for me, I played through the Xenosaga series and I actually like Episode 2 which is designed similar to XIII in the fact its just constant rails and corridors, little customization, and very minor sidequests that don't really open up until the end of the game or usually in small windows of opportunity. The game design is terrible but I still like the game cause I like the story, even if it was the weakest in the bunch.
XIII has been nailed a lot for its terrible game design but it has also been equally nailed for its bad plot, its terrible pacing, cliched cast of characters and terrible plot twists and deus ex machinas, its not just a one sided issue. The games plot is a mess, it has some great moments, don't get me wrong but they are frighteningly few and damn near non-existent after the 8th chapter.
Secondly, its fine for a game like Hotel Dusk or Phoenix Wright or Heavy Rain to sacrifice game play for storytelling, that's their genres. FF is an RPG and for the most part until the recent generation and part of the last console generation, RPGs have tended to have several gameplay options. Transforming FF into a visual novel with a battle system after years as an RPG was not really the best of design choices. I don't think I've ever known a genre of gaming to work better by reducing the amount of options. With the better technology that systems have, you think developers would be doing everything in there power to use it to its fullest by allowing the player to have greater options and depth of game. XIII is an incredibly underwhelming RPG in that regard, hell even FFX was able to to throw out a few new tricks and show off what the PS2 could do back in the day and that should be saying something coming from me.
On the contrary, while a number of people didn't like the plot (mostly the ending, it should be noted, rather than the entire plot) and certainly many criticised the lack of things to do in the game, the lack of typical towns, the lack of interaction... the characters were arguably the most praised aspect of the game. Pacing is something that was both good and bad for me in the game. It was good in how they paced the story but it would have been better if there were other things to do besides story/battle. But the way the story moved forward for me was pretty damned good. Although I suppose you could say the pacing of the supposed "tutorial" was pretty horrific. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
XIII's characters were no more cliché than any of the previous FF's. The only reason they might feel cliché on some level is if someone were to point out that "but we've already seen this before". But the same could be said for characters in every recent FF. That's because of course you've seen them before. Every character can be boxed up into a personality type these days. Tough male, tough female, wussy male, wussy female, intellectual male, intellectual female, etc. So long as there are personalities, they will to some extent be considered cliché by someone who has played a large number of games because by that point you've seen so many characters that it's easy to pigeon-hole them. However, I actually thought XIII's characters broke the mould pretty well. They added far more male characteristics to both Lightning and Fang than they did to any of the males. The characters developed very well, and for the most part were multi-layered, which for me made them, well, much more believable I suppose. They seemed to react to their situation far more realistically than any group of characters had before.
Your criticisms don't seem to be on par with most of the more universal criticisms I noted during the XIII backlash. Perhaps this is due to the sheer number of games you've played making you see things differently to most people - particularly with things that are to do with characters and story. When you "read" video game stories over, more often than not they are the same as something that's been done before. So it's only the first time you play one of those types of stories that they are interesting. Sadly, making completely new storylines with no similarities to previous stories in hundreds of RPGs is something that is very difficult to do, likewise for characters. I think XIII did a decent enough job.