If you regard SquareEnix as "masters of storytelling" in the video game world, I've got a couple titles I'd like to point you towards for evidence to the contrary.
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It's a good thing SE doesn't actually read our forums :roll2
i really liked teh ff13 series :(
for real
What, just because this is a Final Fantasy forum I have to blindly praise everything they produce? I'm not saying that everything that SE does is crap; they've made some of my favorite games of all time. That said, their recent efforts--specifically in regards to the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy--have been incredibly disappointing in a number of ways. I could go into a whole rant about it, but I think the problem is that I (like a majority of the people who are still interested in RPGs), am growing up, and the Final Fantasy series, for the most part, is not growing up with me.
I find some of the complaints made by people completely out of line though. I criticize FFXIII for the reasons it should be criticized. I'm not going to start criticizing this game's story based on a 2 minute clip of primary game-play (nice surprise actually). Nor will I Lightning over dramatic in the scene she was in. It was a trailer it's suppose to be overly dramatic to build hype. I think there's a difference between criticizing and instinctively looking for something to complain about.
I played through all of Final Fantasy XIII, which featured a plot defined by melodrama and resolved by cheesy "love conquers all" deus ex machina that completely contradicted any gravitas the melodrama might have been building toward. Nothing from either XIII-2 or now XIII-3 has given any indication that this trend has been reversed. We have Lightning running through some comparatively bland city environments with a dramatic voice over narration culminating in her taking off a pair of sunglasses like the reverse of CSI: Miami. A trailer is designed to excite, and this trailer does nothing for me.
But I wasn't even exclusively referring to Final Fantasy XIII when I made the disparaging comment about stories in Square Enix games. I wasn't even referring exclusively to Final Fantasy games. Hell, Kingdom Hearts--as much as I have loved damn near every entry in the series--has become an absolute mess of storytelling. While I've found the stories of many Final Fantasy games enjoyable, there is much better writing going on in the industry.
And you should know me better than to think I'm actively looking for something to complain about, GoBo. I've gone from one of the most vocal critics to one of the most vocal proponents of Final Fantasy XIV on this forum. I want nothing more than for Square Enix to succeed and start making games that excite me again. I'm genuinely excited for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I'd love to get a proper US release of Bravely Default: Flying Fairy. I keep hoping that we hear something new about the progress with Versus XIII.
Final Fantasy XIII was the first Final Fantasy game I have ever sold after completing. It was the first time I have reached the end of a Final Fantasy game and felt completely unmoved and underwhelmed. It's the first Final Fantasy game that I do not just regard as a bad Final Fantasy title but as a bad game (and believe me, there's a significant distinction between the two). Excuse me for being utterly disappointed that Square continues to dump effort into FFXIII when they have other projects sitting on the sidelines that I find much more interesting.
I'll take something said like that, but too many of the snips made at the entire FFXIII franchise are low-blows and judgement before something is even released. Personally I didn't think FFXIII was a bad game, merely a bad Final Fantasy, and I've heard some surprisingly positive things about FFXIII-2 so I'm picking that up (low price tag helps). As someone who's covering and providing the news, it was generally annoying to read 3-5 word negative baseless responses, that statement wasn't specifically at you, you were just the only one to answer it. If you want to make a post about why FFXIII was disappointing and how this doesn't change your mind from that, I can accept that.
That's fair. I'd mostly kept my mockery to snippets because I've been trying to avoid writing an essay every time I post. Don't want to become Steve.
I was being facetious. Square Enix are not merely copying stories.
anyway gosh you guys got aggro in here so I'll just wait outside.
Trailer's only got me even more excited for the game. Can't wait to explore Novus Partus and try out the new battle system! I've always been a sucker for exploration in games, so the fact that this one places emphasis on it has got me sold.
Funny thing is that this trailer was part "trailer" and part "teaser". While we did get a pretty good look at the game, the fact that it was rather short and gave us only glimpses of the exploration and combat provides the balance between giving us just enough for a basic picture of the main ideas, and yet just enough to open new questions and let our imaginations run wild with speculation. Tricky of SE, but it's effective marketing.
It interests me more than XIII-2 did. I'm still intrigued by the setting and the gameplay elements so I'm gonna give it some time to see how it plays out.
The FFXIII games have certainly been the most polarizing to date.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/b7d971af9...uo3io1_500.png
i dunno
i think ff7 is the most polarizing even if it's an uneven polarity
ff13 is just people who hate it and then people who like it but they don't really attack each other from what i've seen