The 'towns' in FFXIII weren't towns in the RPG sense of the word (As in, the locations which are not Field and Dungeon). In story terms they were places where people live. In gameplay terms they are just different looking dungeons. Except maybe Nautilus, but you don't exactly spend long there kicking back.
I agree with the fact that people care way too much about visuals.
Sure, a game that looks pretty is a nice BONUS, but it's not the end all of the game. Uncharted 2 is considered awesome because of the story and gameplay, the visuals just added. A lower graphic version of it would have received the same hype. Fallout New Vegas honestly looks like crap compared to today's games (running on a 2006 engine) but so many people love the game. If that's not the perfect example, I don't know what else would be. I'll say it a bazillion times, gameplay over graphics any day. It's why I love my Nintendo systems, because I know the games, I know what gameplay to expect, and I enjoy that gameplay. I have my PS3 as well for those other games that I enjoy, that Nintendo doesn't offer, such as Assassin's Creed, or Demon's Souls. Both of which would be just as amazing with Wii level graphics.
Essentially, if The Last Story is amazing, as it seems it will be, then it doesn't have to be HD, and I think that's his point. When you make a game on an HD system, you worry about HD graphics, and some of the more important aspects of it can be dropped off. It has happened in some games(FFXIII), and it should never happen.
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Unfortunately, the people who drive sales are generally not the educated gamers who might be able to handle a little less graphical fidelity for some pure fun. In this HD age, if your game is not from an established franchise (Fallout, Final Fantasy) and does not look at least really good (Assassin's Creed) then most people will not pay attention to it. Assassin's Creed is the most successful 'new IP' of the generation. Uncharted 1 got hype because it was an amazing looking PS3 exclusive in a time when the PS3 still did not have a whole lot of amazing looking exclusives.
Graphics are important to the people who want to make money from their games and don't have any pedigree or gimmick to hook people with otherwise.
More importantly though, Japan is just a different culture altogether. I want you guys to keep discussing it because it is interesting, but I'll just say that it's really not fair to compare what Western developers can and have done when a Japanese developer says they can't do it, because of the culture.
Perhaps the most obvious difference is that Japan is dominated by 'low resolution' gaming systems. The PSP and the DS rule over there and it's difficult for any high budget, high definition game (without a pedigree or gimmick) to sell well enough to recuperate the development costs of that expensive game. This is why it's been so important for them to reach out to the west to sell their games and make money--but that's stuff that a lot of us already know.
Something I didn't know until recently was brought up in an interview with Keiji Inafune (English translation here--it's long), the creator of Mega Man and other Capcom properties who just quit the company basically out of frustration last week. Inafune has probably been the most vocal about why Japan sucks, technically, compared to the west. Something I didn't realize until he brought it up is that a key difference between the development studios in Japan and those in the West is the motivation of the development staff themselves.
Japan has a culture of Employer Loyalty--basically, once you work for a company, you're there forever. You're safe. Regardless of how hard you work, you're guaranteed a paycheck until you retire. In the west, especially in the recent years, a game company can disappear just like that. The attitude of the workers in a safe environment is much different than the attitude of those who need to compete to either keep their job, or be lucrative in their next job. This is especially dangerous in the bigger franchises, like Final Fantasy, where they can say 'towns are too hard' out loud, but then they are thinking 'but you are all going to buy it in droves anyway and I'm still getting my paycheck'. I know FF13 had other circumstances, but the attitude of 'oh well, we give up' is something that just won't happen in a competitive employment environment.
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To be honest I lost interest in writing this about 6 times tonight. It's not finished and not proofread, but I don't feel like wasting all that text. Sorry for this incomplete rambling.
Well, to be fair, it didn't have a whole lot of amazing exclusives period. But it came out in the first year, and Heavenly Sword and Motorstorm were also pretty unbelievable-looking, even Resistance was pretty good for its time. However, pretty much any PS3-exclusive that shows "Teh Powa of da Cell" will instantly attract overeager enthusiasm and premature hate. I think that's why inFAMOUS was so successful, because it was a fun PS3 exclusive that managed to escape the pre-launch flamewars of Killzone or God of War III.Originally Posted by JKTrix
So I would say inFAMOUS is an exception to your rule, although it's pretty hard to think of other examples.
I had no idea about that - it seems to have a lot of probative value to the situation. But for some reason I still think a lot of Japanese developers, who innovated most of the genres around today, ask the same question many of us in this thread already asked: is HD really necessary?Japan has a culture of Employer Loyalty--basically, once you work for a company, you're there forever. You're safe. Regardless of how hard you work, you're guaranteed a paycheck until you retire. In the west, especially in the recent years, a game company can disappear just like that. The attitude of the workers in a safe environment is much different than the attitude of those who need to compete to either keep their job, or be lucrative in their next job. This is especially dangerous in the bigger franchises, like Final Fantasy, where they can say 'towns are too hard' out loud, but then they are thinking 'but you are all going to buy it in droves anyway and I'm still getting my paycheck'. I know FF13 had other circumstances, but the attitude of 'oh well, we give up' is something that just won't happen in a competitive employment environment.
In fairness, I believe Mistwalker is still a fairly small company in house. The fact that The Last Story is the first game they've developed without the assistance of another developer would certainly seem to support that. But that actually shows that they're smarter than some Japanese developers when it comes to developing next gen games for a reason I'll go into a bit more below.
This is certainly true, but another problem that arises from the lifelong employment model, and the fact that most Japanese companies do everything in house is one that David Sirlin pointed out in a post on his website not long ago which I had never really considered before (you can read his post here: Game Design, Psychology, Flow, and Mastery - Blog - Inafune and Starcraft Genetic Algorithms (unrelated) ):when you have a massive payroll every month, if you don't have projects going constantly then you end up paying people for possibly as much as a few months when the project is getting going, or just as bad, towards the end of development when things are winding down for some departments.
On the other hand, contracting out portions of the game to independent contractors and other design firms is surprisingly common on large titles in the west, and by going the co-development route, Mistwalker probably saved quite a bit during the pre-production phase of their next-gen titles. Something that's tremendously important for any company, not even just the small ones.
Last edited by Slothy; 11-10-2010 at 05:16 AM.
I'm surprised Bolivar agreed with Sakeguchi on something, well, that wasn't FFVII related.
Anyway, I do agree with Sakeguchi that the real problem with HD is that it creates the temptation of going overboard in utilizing it. I will not be the first or last to say this was XIII's failure as a game. As for the comments on Western style Rpg getting HD right, I'm with Bolivar on this one. I've been playing through DQVIII and while it lacks the visual quality of FFXII even, the game is still very pretty and grand in its scale.
Fallout 3 is an ugly game with a terrible "FPS color palette" consisting of mostly shades of brown, gray, and black but what makes Fallout 3 a good game isn't its HD quality graphics, its the size and scope of its world. The same goes for XII and DQVIII. The point here isn't really whether a JRPG can be made in HD but whether its actually important for the game and I sorta feel that's what Sakeguchi was getting at.
I'll take a dive in realistic visuals over gameplay and content any day, but this is because I feel the artistic style can come through and make the game better despite the quality of the images. Okami is a visually beautiful game that doesn't require photo-realistic HD caliber graphics. Just because you have a platform that can use an option doesn't mean you have to use it. Art direction can easily make up for lack of fluff on polygon models.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
"The previous games can be considered puppet-shows compared to this one [FFVII]" - H. SakaguchiI'm surprised Bolivar agreed with Sakeguchi on something, well, that wasn't FFVII related.
Vivi22, your link was crazy (it needs fixing though :P ). I always thought Infaune was just pompous with his consistency in "popping out of my mole hill every 2 months to talk about how much Japan sucks. Western! Western! Western!!!!"
But apparently it's living hell over there. I really hope someone can figure something out so I can start getting games I actually want to play again
Good catch. Fixed it.
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