Wada: Development has become weaker than expected...

[Wolf Kanno]

Seriously, I don't blame their developers for falling behind the times, I just feel like the genre of JRPG has hit a brick wall and no one has any clue on where to take it now. Seriously, how many good console RPGs have you played this generation? Like really good ones, not ones where the devs are testing the next gen waters with a new concept that either hits or misses. Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls are two of my favorite PS3 games, but they were really just new ideas that happened to come together well in the end rather than not. Plenty others have failed. This is why we're seeing all the big RPG developers retreating to handhelds (or the Wii) so they can keep working with familiar technology where they can work within some kind of known boundaries of what they can do.

I partly agree here, no one has really stepped up and made a definitive JRPG unless you count the amount of name dropping Lost Odyssey gets on the 360 (please Sakaguchi, get over yourself and work with Sony to port this game), but where I disagree is with the retreat to handhelds being one simply of knowing the tech, I only feel that is part of the issue. I still believe the handhelds do better cause they don't suffer the same level of expectation as the console releases do. Partly cause gamers still don't really think of handhelds as real gaming systems even though they have been wiping the floor with this generation of consoles but handhelds don't get the same level of feedback. Lower development cost combined with less oversight from marketing and corporate components of the companies keep these games from becoming generic sludge like other games.

Listening to Takashi Tokita's interview concerning the development of FFIV remakes, The After Years, and FFLegends, it sounds like SE's development model has reached a point where strong creativity is generally squandered due to poor communication and planning. Considering FFXII was hounded by executive meddling and FFXIII lacked a shared vision among the team, it sounds like SE has to remake the model for building next gen console games cause its too large and unfocused. The real disturbing part of all is that its not like XII and XIII didn't have developers who are inexperienced.

I get the impression that the handhelds have an advantage cause the teams are actually smaller, and they tend to have a strong focus thanks to good leadership.

Like I said in another thread, I don't think your typical turn based or strategy RPG where all the characters stand around waiting for orders would cut it anymore.

I have to seriously disagree here, cause I don't think there is any real basis for this that fans couldn't accept a traditional RPG battle system down to to its graphical components. Citing Lost Odyssey as a game that has slowly gained a weird reputation as the "last great JRPG on console" I don't think people would honestly care. I mean it was silly for decades and technically game developers have had the technology to move away from it since the 16-bit era but it persisted even to this generation in some titles. I personally don't think I would care. If VII was remade, I would be more pissed if they ditched the traditional battle system for something like XIII's or something new cause it was the battle system I liked.

I feel that only the game developers and jaded game journalist really feel that a traditional turn base system wouldn't work this generation on a major console, and yet while they toil to create the next model of turn base or something new to replace it, games like the DQ series and MegaTen are racking up sales on the handheld market despite using old and antiquated styles of "your guy on this side, and my guy on this side, lets trade blows." combat visuals. Would it look silly on a high def console game at 1080pi? Most likely. Would people care? A few, but these are people who need to realize that sometimes the gameplay needs to trump the visual storytelling.

One of my main beefs with action rpg systems (like Tales series and Star Ocean specifically) and XII/XIII's combat systems is that combat has become so fast and furious, I can't even really enjoy it cause I'm too focused on one aspect to appreciate the rest of the game. In titles like Tales and SO, I'm too focused on what the guy I'm controlling is doing that I never actually get to watch the cool spells or aerial acrobatics of my other characters, I might as well be playing a solo adventure at that point. For XII and XIII, more XIII but XII is definitely not innocent either, combat is going so fast that I spent most of my time watching my parties health bars or the Chain Gauge, or the top screen to read if an enemy is preparing a powerful attack that I'm not even watching the combat anymore. I couldn't even describe half the magic effects or tell the difference when one character is attacking over another.

Having the old school design lets the player actually appreciate the special attacks, the spell effects, or even the scenery. A developer can go back to using the battle camera to create the sense of urgency in combat. I argue its a better system for creating a cinematic experience over having speed that requires A.I. control and seamless battle modes you can't appreciate cause your spending more time watching gauges and health bars located in the corner of the screen. I'm not saying XII and XIII are terrible systems, but I don't feel they created anything that is more enduring than what had come before.

It just seems to me like before every FF they made a game that tested out the engine and worked out some ideas. Like Parasite Eve looked a lot like FFVIII and even had similar sound effects for finding items I believe. The Bouncer came out before X with a similar style. And as in the other thread, I hold on to my belief that FFVII was large a product of experience gained after working on Chrono Trigger! Square needs to do this again, instead of gathering data from other Final Fantasies in order to make the next Final Fantasy. You need fresher ideas and I hope this would be a way to do it.

I can agree with this. Though Versus XIII seems to be following this as the game is closer to the KH system than FF titles.

Until then, I'll be having a blast playing Dragon Quest V on DS and Tactics Ogre on PSP (SE never fell behind).

They never fell behind cause they keep remaking games that were big hits 15 years ago? I had to, it was just an easy set-up from your game choices.

And Justy's point was that FF titles have been selling based on the strength of the brand, not on the strength of the product. So saying they have sold well doesn't really affect the assertion that the games have all sucked.

I'm with Justy here, comparing SE's game quality to some of the stuff from the 16 bit/32 bit era, I feel the gems are few and far between. Even new franchises like KH and Dissidia are mostly successful due to the very novelty of the concept itself. XII and XIII are financial successes but browsing through most gaming forums will show that the fanbases are largely divided on their quality and most "What SE needs to do to get back on their feet" editorials tend to use these two games as examples of everything that is wrong with FF.

Sales don't denote quality, there have been some major turds that got excellent sales (movie tie-in-games anyone? or how about 50cents games?) that have sold millions of copies despite most journalist and most gamers coming back and saying they were awful. A powerful brand name is all you need to get the high numbers. A much better example would be seeing what the high turn over rate of a game is. XIII was a game that had a steady supply of used copies in most game stores I frequent within a week of its release.