Quote Originally Posted by champagne supernova View Post
Okay, this is how I look at it. Videogames are similar to movies. They are told through a combination of dialogue, visuals and music. Now, dialogue is very important. But, just as a movie with great dialogue can fail because of poor acting, so can a game with great dialogue fail because of poor visuals. For a story to be told effectively, one has to see how the events affect the characters. As roughly 90% of our communication is done through body language, great graphics that allow the player to see these emotions increase the gaming experience.
I agree to a point but I don't really feel that until recently that games have come far enough to convey proper body language. I don't feel X really had it and what it did have always felt automated and or unrealistic. I blame this on Square forgetting the fundamentals of animation, something they should have learned from the Spirits Within.

A better way to understand the games is to view the 3D FFs as movies and the 2D ones as books. Its up to the player to put in the gaps that are missing due to body language. Most books don't give detail to all the body language but we can envision it when the author points out emotion and this is something the FF have done since the beginning. Even VII-IX with their limited technology still utilized this technique. The older games have the ability to be stunning but the player has to put the effort to believe in it and if one cannot because the visuals throw them off then I feel sorry that they are missing out and their ability to enjoy storytelling is a bit more limited.

And, again, dialogue cannot set the mood as effectively as visuals. Again, in FFVI, the only reason I knew the Empire was bad was because I was told so. Yes, what they did was bad, and as you played the game, you knew that they were bad. But, I never felt that they were bad. When I played VII, walking around through Midgar, I felt that Shinra was bad.
I agree to apoint though music also helps which is something VI did have going for it as well as the earlier titles. Music, I find is much more important sometimes as its a medium that solely evokes human feeling. MGS is also an exception cause many of the groundbreaking moments in the titles are during codec scenes which have very limited visuals but excellent VA and musical work.

I also would like to point out it seems obvious to me the empire is evil in VI and it even shows it through visuals. The game starts with you invading a town and gunning down lightly armed resistance, you watch the soldiers and Kefka try to torch Figaro Castle, we see South Figaro under marshal law, the streets vacant with the exception of an overwhelming military force, these soldiers attack you when you confront them. We watch Celes get brutally beaten as a prisoner by the very people she once commanded (unless you're playing the GBA version). Just watching the soldiers capturing the espers and then seeing them in the Magitech laboratory under inhuman conditions. I think its very obvious they are not exactly a good group and its not just from listening to Locke and Banon drone on and on about them being bad.

Again, I am not bashing VI. VII was able to achieve this because the technical limit had been raised heavily since VI. But my point is that the use of graphics elevated the game to a new level.
I understand but again I disagree. Its hard for you to use VII as a comparison cause they are the cast I'm the least sympathetic for. Except for Cid, I never felt any feeling or connection with its cast. Sorry...

I feel that in a visually intensive medium such as video games, artistic style is needed to make the game more substantial. Look at Sin City. It is a great movie, and would probably have been great if they didn't make it in the style that they did. But, because they did, it was able to reinforce the game itself.
Visuals are important but not at the cost of everything else. It doesn't matter how good the actors are if the script is bad and the characters are flat and boring. This was fundamentally my issue with later titles. It always felt like the visuals got better and the story and characters got worse as time went on. But games have the ability to transcend the norms of movies. I felt it was great they borrowed techniques from the movie industry but games are fundamentally an interactive medium and I feel SE has been neglecting this. As I said before, their games always have this distinct separation of gameplay and story, they are not exactly as connected to each other and at times I feel story takes greater precedence and gameplay becomes a means to an end.

The greatest story moments I've had in recent years was from the MGS series where you actively participate in the climatic moments that are usually just cutscenes in other games. I love the story and characters in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, not because it was a bit of gameplay that separated high end movie quality story scenes with wonderful dialogue, it was mostly gameplay and in the course of the game itself, you began to build a bond with the characters. I probably care more for the Colossi and MGS bosses than I ever did for most RPG villains cause I built a relationship through an interactive medium. FF has only flirted with the concept of combining storytelling and gameplay yet sadly its been slowly removed from their games. Even XII, a game I liked, did little to bring this into fruition.

I don't watch that much anime to pick up the references you are making to X and so I cannot comment.
Its okay, many of its older stuff, in fact things that were around when Nojima and Nomura were most likely impressionable teens. The Yamato-no-Orochi on the other hand is a famous Japanese folktale and its storyline is seen in many animes. Inu-Yasha has a few episodes based on the legend and Blue Seed was a series solely based around the legend. I'll jusat quote myself to explain it.

Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
X is almost the tale of Orochi verbatim. Two earthly dieties (Spira) are terrorized constantly by the evil Orochi (Sin), the hero Susan-O (Tidus) appears before them while on his travels, he had been cast out of heaven (Zanarkand) and thrust into the strange world of mortals. He learns the Dieties sacrifice their daughters (summoners) in order to appease the beast only to have it return to wreak havoc later (Spiral of Death theme) Susano-O decides to kill the beast after meeting the last maiden to be sacrificed Kushi-inada-hime (Yuna), first he lulls it to sleep by feeding it sake (Hymn of the Fayeth) and finally kills the beast. Other versions of this story has the dieties replaced with a village and even focus on the misguided notions of the villages belief in sacrificing the maidens as the only way to save themselves. Thus you have your reference to the Yevon religion.
That's my major refernece.


Now, I can guess that the reason you like IX is because it is a throwback to the earlier games, a signing off of sorts. But the thing is, Final Fantasy cannot be about swords and sorcery all the time. They needed to move in a new direction.
Not true, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm really not much of a fan of high fantasy. I like IX cause it had a good cast and story. It has its share of faults but I found them more acceptable than the two previous installments. In fact it brought back the interactive story telling that VII had been flirting with. Unfortunately, like VII, I felt the storylines of most of the cast was poorly tied up. I actually don't mind the sci-fi tones, I actually like VI's steam punk setting and VII's enviromental cyber punk settings. Even VIII's design was a nice change. I didn't feel X's was done well but its more about me not liking the direction they chose to go with it. I probably would have minimized the amount of machina that was seen in the game and probably would have made a stronger emphasis on the Shinto/Buddhist concepts. I actually like the idea of a sword made of water...

I actually don't care for many of the airship designs in XII cause I felt they borrowed too heavily from Star Wars. I also felt it partially conflicted with the rest of Ivalice's technology level. XIII only bothers me cause its basically pure sci-fi. Pulse looks like a prehistoric Spira but Cocoon looks like something straight out of Xenosaga. I geverally find the best designs in the series were ones where the sci-fi and fantasy elements balance each other out but I feel XIII and vXIII will fall into the same trappings as Spirits Within. A heavy sci-fi/modern story with one or two fantasy elements that can easily be explained in sci-fi terms. I don't care for high fantasy but I feel mysticism and magic is very important to a fantasy story and when its imbalanced (Like it seems to be in the two main XIII projects) it doesn't come off as well as it should.

And, although I will admit that the opera scene in VI is awesome, what substance does it add to the story? Surely that is a prime example of style over substance...
It hints to the beginning of Celes and Locke liking each other, it expanded on the world of VI by establishing more of its Victorian steam punk setting, it showed another side of Celes who up until this point was a cold and tough general, now we could see a softer side of her. It was a comcial moment to ease the tension brought on by Zozo and leading to the Empire arch. It was an interactive moment that allowed the player to control the story and the characters in a cinematic experience which is something I was speaking about on how games can allow a greater level of interactivity when one can actually particiapte in the story scenes. Its because of that reason alone it is one of the famous and most highly regarded scenes in the FF series

It also brought us one of the greatest FF tracks which many feel influenced another fabulous and great track, Aerith's theme.