Petition to Square Enix to create a new 16 bit FF game

[champagne supernova]

I don't think anyone is saying that Final Fantasy XVII should be done in the 16 bit graphical style (though nothing would please me more) because, no, that wouldn't be marketable to the masses.

But there are those of us who would like new 16-bit style FF games made. Perhaps FF Legends can become a spin off series and release games in this vein for the iPhone or Wii ware or something. Some of us actually prefer that graphical style and gameplay style to the modern entries in the series.

I think it would have to be more than a rehash of an old-school FF to cut it in this day and age, even if it's on a phone. I think 16-bit done well could work really well on a RPG similar to Dark Cloud - where there is world building as well as role playing.

[Loony BoB]

If you want more of those kind of games, don't worry about SE, there are hundreds of people who have made use of RPGMaker2000 over the years and I'm sure you can get all the 16-bit action you want on the best of their created games. I'm certain there must be thousands of those games made by now, so surely that includes at least a dozen great games.

[Slothy]

I'll also add that Cid didn't tell her to jump from the cliff. He told her that others had but asked her not to give up hope because he didn't want her to die.

Those others who were here... when they were feeling down they'd
take a leap of faith from the cliffs up north... perked 'em right
up!

There's an exclamation mark in there. Not really discouraging her from jumping off a cliff.

Ugh. The SNES translation does needlessly obfuscate things doesn't it? It's been a long time since I played that version. Unfortunately, the censorship forced on games by Nintendo of America at the time was legendary, and FFVI tackling a subject like people killing themselves was certainly not something which was able to dodge it. The GBA version was much closer to the original intent of the scene and makes the fact that they were committing suicide much clearer.

Cid: Ever since that day, the world's been sliding deeper and deeper into
ruin. Plants wither, and animals waste away. The other people who
were here with us all gave up hope... One after the next, they flung
themselves from the northern cliffs in despair...
Celes: So...everyone could already be...
Cid: Celes... Try not to take it so hard. We can still live out our lives
together in peace! You're the closest thing to family I have left in
this world...

If you haven't played the GBA version before I'd really recommend it over the SNES version as the translation is overall a massive improvement.

It's suicide. Cid literally says people jumped off a cliff and Celes ran off and jumped off a cliff. I'd hope people have more of a think down when they attempt suicide than this.

She jumped off of a cliff when the only family she had, and for all she knew the only other living person besides herself, died. That was the final straw that drove her to try and end it because at that point she literally had nothing else to keep her going. I'm not sure why you find how quickly she turned to suicide after losing the last bit of hope she had to live for hard to believe. Or why not having her sit around saying how depressed she is all the time somehow makes it impossible to infer her depression. Depression seems a pretty logical reaction to every single thing that had happened to her, and to its credit, the GBA script makes it much clearer that Cid was trying to give her a reason to keep going.

But most of this you are inferring. Nowhere in the game does it suggest this takes place over days. It's fairly easy to suggest time has gone past - fade to black and then from back. And yes, you can understand why she'd try to kill herself. But there is never any indication, apart from 2 lines of dialogue, that she understood why she should kill herself. And yes, this is a video game and we can't have weeks of gameplay of Celes getting slowly depressed. But they could just show snippets of scenes: Celes burying Cid, her sitting around doing nothing at the house, sitting at the beach, so on, until she finally says something akin to what she says there: everybody's gone.

If they had done something like that, it would have been a good example of storytelling. The way it comes across is - let's do something dramatic and make our character jump off a cliff.

Compare this to the end of Disc 2 of VII.

...

What happens there is fairly (if not deliberately) ambiguous, but the way I see it, it is a much more realistic representation of how the two of them would get together than Celes is a representation of how despair would drive someone to jump off a cliff.

Again, I'm not sure why you think she would have to hang around for days while she slowly spirals into suicide. To me, that's really not the least bit unbelievable. In fact, I'd say it would be more unbelievable if she spent days or weeks on the island alone before falling into despair and jumping. The world was already destroyed, everything is slowly dying, and she's lost all of her friends. And after all of that, she slowly watches the man she considers to be like a father to her die and leave her alone. Her losing all hope and deciding to kill herself then isn't the least bit difficult to understand. I think the problem is that you're assuming that because she didn't state what was going through her mind at all that it can't be inferred from the events that happen around her.

But that's inherently silly since anyone who even imagines being in that situation could undoubtedly understand her frame of mind and why she would choose suicide so soon after Cid dies. It's not like his death was sudden or anything, it was clearly coming for a while.

All of that out of the way, I don't disagree that that scene from FFVII wasn't a good scene. It's actually one of the better scenes in the game if you ask me. But I don't think the Solitary Island segment of FFVI would have benefited from more dialogue or more scenes. The only thing I would have done differently might be a more distinct indication that it takes place over a longer period of time, but I think that was somewhat obvious simply from how many fish you catch and feed him, but if you feel that it wasn't obvious enough then clearly it could be done a bit better. But just because Celes' state of mind is subtly presented and needs to be inferred from what's going on doesn't undermine the scene as far as I'm concerned. I'd say it actually improved it because it didn't have any hokey dialogue that so many later FF's could fall into.

[champagne supernova]

The GBA translation is definitely an improvement. Maybe that's why I've been so biased against the old ones, because that dialogue actually makes sense. I think there should have been an indication of time between Cid's death and Celes' action, but yeah, that translation makes it a whole lot better.

Maybe I'll play VI again on GBA and it will hold my attention. I found a lot of the dialogue to be quite weak, but this is probably why (seeing that I loved Chrono Trigger and it had a proper translation, it is quite plausible).

[Bastian]

If you want more of those kind of games, don't worry about SE, there are hundreds of people who have made use of RPGMaker2000 over the years.

I'm one of those people... and my RPG is considered one of the "good ones" (with almost 3000 downloads) but 99% are absolutely awful. I've only played two (apart from my own) that I actually liked.

That's not the point, though. The point is that I was more 16-bit FINAL FANTASY, specifically.

I think it would have to be more than a rehash of an old-school FF to cut it in this day and age, even if it's on a phone.

Huh? What does "this day and age" have to do with anything? FF4,5,6 are great games. Something done in that style with that same level of quality would also be a great game, regardless of the day and age.

[Wolf Kanno]

I was going to lay the smack down in this thread but Vivi22 beat me to it.

Actually, the DS has pretty much proven that old school gaming is still relevant and has an audience. I mean old school PC dungeon crawlers where everything is a FP view and you never see your party beyond their names and stats have been doing fairly well on the system. DQ itself is a game that has rarely changed in its history from a design point of view and it still outsells FF in parts of the world.

I feel 16-bit games still have an audience out there, and I feel that at this point in time, this comes down to what Capcom said when they made MM9 and 10. That they chose to make it retro cause it was the style they wanted. FFLegends and FFIV:TAY were purposely done in a 16-bit style, cause its the creative direction the director wanted. FFIV:TAY is a sequel to the DS version of the game, and yet he still chose to make it 16-bit and chose the cell phone as the platform, when he could have easily just used Matrix to build it as a DS title. SE itself has been pushing out lots of 8-bit/16-bit style games in their ports and whatnot, so I don't feel SE agrees with the idea that 16-bit can't turn a profit in this day and age.

As for my thoughts on why 16-bit FFs are so great? I like to keep things in historical context and ultimately it was the 16-bit era that actually shaped and created the FF series identity, and in many instances, several popular franchises that are still big sellers today.

In FFII, Firion, Maria, Gus, Leon, and the rest of the cast are characters, only so far in that they have distinct names and dialogue. In FFIV, Cecil, Kain, Rosa, Tellah, and Edward actually have backstories and events in the game that flesh them out as characters.

Firion's claim to fame is chased down by imperial guards and barely surviving to join the rebels, Cecil starts his game remembering the brutal slaughter of people and then begins to question if his home is truly the benevolent kingdom he was raised to believe it was. When placed into historical context, its obvious what IV did for the series. Hell, before FFIV, characters didn't have last names in the series.

So there is the historical contribution, but my other issue is that while the PSX generation certainly improved several aspects of the series, I felt other sections began to falter, that the 16-bit does better. FFVI is able to at least give some closure and character growth to 13 of its 16 member cast, sure its not as detailed or its quantity of moments is less than some characters get in later titles (i.e. one character gets at least two moments in the game just about them, as opposed to a later installment where the plot may actually revolve around one characters problems) but it was still able to do so while later titles can't even give a fair closure or screen-time to its cast of six characters.

I also find the dungeons more involving in earlier games cause they are actually gameplay specific set pieces as opposed to being visual canvas for the story. The Lodestone Cavern in FFIV or the Ancients Tower in FFIII are more entertaining dungeons than the Lunatic Pandora in VIII, Macalania Woods in FFX, and most of XIII's dungeon cause they were designed for gameplay, not some set piece for the story. I feel the ratio between story and gameplay has shifted in the series, and I personally feel the 16-bit era is kind of the happy middle ground with FFVII included.

I feel VII ultimately falls into some of the problems of the 16-bit era, but it brings about also one of the bigger problems I have with the later games. Using the scene from VII you quoted, you could easily condense that dialogue, both characters often repeat sentiments made before in the same conversation and even references things the player has already seen and heard in the game. The dialogue has more repetition than it really needs. Granted, I feel this scene is better than some later examples in the series like FFXIII... (please, you don;t need to remind me every cutscene how screwed you people are, and how unfair it all is, we got it the first 20 times you said it... we get it, being a l'Cie sucks, now stop your bitching)

My point comes back to the difference between the Celes scene and the Cloud/Tifa scene is that the player is given more responsibility to understand the content and context of the moment in the Celes scene, whereas the scene in VII leaves little to the players imagination cause it repetitively verbalizes what the characters are thinking and feeling. The scene in VI is the player taking the role of Celes, whereas the scene with Cloud and Tifa is the player watching them. Both have their strengths and weakness as medium for story telling, but I have to be bias towards VI in this because the scene asks more from the player whereas VII's scene is pretty straightforward about what the characters are trying to convey and leaves little for the player to think about. You just take it for face value, you never really stop to think what the characters are thinking cause they already told you. I feel this is the difference between watching a story and experiencing it, cause part of what makes the story special is what you bring to it.

[champagne supernova]

Agree with you on the fact that the older FFs tend to focus more evenly on characters. But I think I prefer more development on some characters than equal but less development on all characters. Personal thing.

My point comes back to the difference between the Celes scene and the Cloud/Tifa scene is that the player is given more responsibility to understand the content and context of the moment in the Celes scene, whereas the scene in VII leaves little to the players imagination cause it repetitively verbalizes what the characters are thinking and feeling. The scene in VI is the player taking the role of Celes, whereas the scene with Cloud and Tifa is the player watching them. Both have their strengths and weakness as medium for story telling, but I have to be bias towards VI in this because the scene asks more from the player whereas VII's scene is pretty straightforward about what the characters are trying to convey and leaves little for the player to think about. You just take it for face value, you never really stop to think what the characters are thinking cause they already told you. I feel this is the difference between watching a story and experiencing it, cause part of what makes the story special is what you bring to it.

But I am going to argue that you are putting your own perspective on a story, adding additional meaning that was not intended or accurately portrayed in the older stories. Basically, you are fitting a meaning that you want to evidence that is ambiguous. Of course, I just found out that the SNES translations of FF games are appalling, so I'd probably have to play the GBA versions to more accurately comment on what is what.

Gameplay is a bit of an iffy one. I find that the dungeons in all FFs can get very tedious except for XIII because I spend half my time recovering after a fight and worrying about items etc (or in XII, waiting for my MP to recover). Because of this, many ordinary battles were just a grind of attack etc, which becomes very dull, especially as you cannot avoid them (and that is not a technology thing - Chrono Trigger). XIII was less of a slog because enemies were more challenging (as you automatically recovered after battle) and you were unrestrained in using abilities (because there was no MP). However, it definitely pulled the balance to something too simple, and definitely needs to be more intricate going forward. And it also got tiring near the end to continually stagger enemy, maul them, etc etc.

Anyway, my point is that FF's gameplay has always had its issues. I find that the older ones had more grinding than the newer ones as well, and I HATE grinding. If I want to battle enemies, I will battle enemies. But don't force me too.

EDIT: I think there is still a market for fixed focus, 2D-ish titles. But that isn't really 16-bit. If Square are going to do it, they could at least have detailed scenery etc, because nobody wants to play through a world that is visually so repetitive as VI (and yes, I know it is varied and awesome for its generation, but it's not 1991 anymore). As I said, there are games that combine the old-school with new-school graphics and design style and do it very well. That is something I would like Square to do, but perhaps in a new IP.

[Wolf Kanno]

Agree with you on the fact that the older FFs tend to focus more evenly on characters. But I think I prefer more development on some characters than equal but less development on all characters. Personal thing.

I'm the opposite, I feel if your character is important enough to be playable, they need to have justification. Course, I prefer ensemble casts cause trying to play through a game where you don't like the leads (VII, X) makes it unbearable cause the game won't shut up about them. Whereas I always feel bad when some characters (like most of VIII's cast) had the potential to be interesting, but are constantly shoved into the background so the game can focus more on the leads.

My point comes back to the difference between the Celes scene and the Cloud/Tifa scene is that the player is given more responsibility to understand the content and context of the moment in the Celes scene, whereas the scene in VII leaves little to the players imagination cause it repetitively verbalizes what the characters are thinking and feeling. The scene in VI is the player taking the role of Celes, whereas the scene with Cloud and Tifa is the player watching them. Both have their strengths and weakness as medium for story telling, but I have to be bias towards VI in this because the scene asks more from the player whereas VII's scene is pretty straightforward about what the characters are trying to convey and leaves little for the player to think about. You just take it for face value, you never really stop to think what the characters are thinking cause they already told you. I feel this is the difference between watching a story and experiencing it, cause part of what makes the story special is what you bring to it.

But I am going to argue that you are putting your own perspective on a story, adding additional meaning that was not intended or accurately portrayed in the older stories. Basically, you are fitting a meaning that you want to evidence that is ambiguous. Of course, I just found out that the SNES translations of FF games are appalling, so I'd probably have to play the GBA versions to more accurately comment on what is what.

Play the GBA versions of the 16-bit games. They are significantly better in terms of translation and localization. VI definetly needed it, but I feel FFIV and V benefited more from it. As for bringing your own point of view...

That's the point though, you the player yourself are able to add your own touch to the story, which I feel is far better than having the author say "this is how it is and its not debatable, unless I change my mind 10 years later..."

Honestly though, I feel that the argument Vivi22 had about the buildup for the Celes Suicide is anything but a leap of the imagination, when you really think about it. Is it so unreasonable to believe time was passing by as Celes fished? That after learning all the horrible truths of the WoR, and watching her father figure pass away, as she vainly tried to save him, on top of the realization she may be all alone in the world, is not enough to make her snap, and commit towards suicide? I mean, its not a very big leap here and I don't feel that driving it home with extra scenes would really strengthen the moment, it would simply just prove that the writer had little faith in its audience to get the meaning.

Hell, the VII example you gave, implies that Tifa and Cloud got it on, but its just as easy for someone to think that they just fell asleep next to each other. Its not like they were naked when they woke up, and had to get dressed, or you even see them kiss and imply a more energetic physical exchange, yet fans were still able to understand what the author was implying. Sometime, its better to let the audience come to their own interpretation, instead of holding their hand the whole time, cause you're afraid they may misinterpret the meaning. If they do, its because you didn't do a good job writing it, or you had a shoddy translation.

Gameplay is a bit of an iffy one. I find that the dungeons in all FFs can get very tedious except for XIII because I spend half my time recovering after a fight and worrying about items etc (or in XII, waiting for my MP to recover). Because of this, many ordinary battles were just a grind of attack etc, which becomes very dull, especially as you cannot avoid them (and that is not a technology thing - Chrono Trigger). XIII was less of a slog because enemies were more challenging (as you automatically recovered after battle) and you were unrestrained in using abilities (because there was no MP). However, it definitely pulled the balance to something too simple, and definitely needs to be more intricate going forward. And it also got tiring near the end to continually stagger enemy, maul them, etc etc.

Anyway, my point is that FF's gameplay has always had its issues. I find that the older ones had more grinding than the newer ones as well, and I HATE grinding. If I want to battle enemies, I will battle enemies. But don't force me too.

I disagree here, and I know we've had this discussion before. For me, saying you don't like item management/grinding in an RPG is like saying you don't like aiming in a FPS. You're literally attacking the only real challenge in the game, and a gameplay mechanic that has been part of the genre since Dragon Quest. Once you take it away, there is no real challenge anymore, without implementing other, oftentimes just as stupid mechanics like XIII did. I actually prefer the longer dungeons with a few puzzles thrown in for good measure. It makes each new story event feel like an accomplishment

I pretty much hate the dungeons of the more modern FFs. While FFXII were mostly fine, I did miss the heavier puzzle aspects from the older titles, and FFX and XIII's dungeon were so tediously simple, I often wonder why the game bothered having them in the first place cause they present no challenge and they were rarely connected to the events of the story in XIII's case. Once the challenge is stripped from them, everything else begins to lost its purpose.

The best RPGs I've played in the last couple of years are often times the ones that actually adhere to the old rules of utilizing item management, labyrinth-style dungeons, and more focus on exploiting weaknesses. I don't see how you can have fun in a game where everything is simply handed to you; as long as you're willing to navigate a character to the next plot point.

I also disagree with XIII being challenging, the fights are fairly easy when the game doesn't screw you over by making Hope the lead character or cast an instant death spell that every character survives except for your hopeless leader, is more annoying than challenging, and having your failure simply zap you back to just before the fight with no consequences just defeats the entire point of making this a "life or death" struggle. Its almost like playing in god mode and I wonder what is the point of it all? You actually need the item management aspect to give RPGs a challenge. If the FF series only wants its audiance to enjoy the story and characters, it needs to end as a game series and just become a film project cause once you remove the relevancy of the gameplay side, their is no point cause it doesn't add anything to the game. XIII is a title where the gameplay and story are simply divorced from each other. You could easily get the same experience from XIII by watching the cutscenes on Youtube.

EDIT: I think there is still a market for fixed focus, 2D-ish titles. But that isn't really 16-bit. If Square are going to do it, they could at least have detailed scenery etc, because nobody wants to play through a world that is visually so repetitive as VI (and yes, I know it is varied and awesome for its generation, but it's not 1991 anymore). As I said, there are games that combine the old-school with new-school graphics and design style and do it very well. That is something I would like Square to do, but perhaps in a new IP.

It was 94 actually, and you act like VI fans spend all day bemoaning VI's graphics. I'm sorry to say this, and I don't really mean any offense by this, but I feel your issue with the graphics is kind of some irrelvant personal OCD issue, cause most people I talk to about older RPGs and such don't seem to care, they just accept it and go on with their life.

As I said, Etrian Odyssey is a rather successful RPG series nowadays yet its mostly like this:

s30671_nds_64.jpg

So, I feel your argument of people not wanting to see 16-bit style graphics, and repetitive backgrounds is simply a sad attempt at trolling. I don't feel that people place as much priority onto graphics like some game developers and people do. Often times, I'm too busy fulfilling some task to care how much detail went into making the scenery. I want to get to the boss battle, I don't have time to look at the background and notice I've seen that same rock formation three times before.

SE has been making 16-bit titles, more often than modern games lately. The countless FFI/II ports, FFIV:TAY, FFLegends, FFIV PSP Collection, and Chrono Trigger DS. Even Disgaea is one of the better rated SRPGs on the market; and its style is mostly 2D sprites on a 3D background, with cutscenes using pictures with voice overs. So I simply can't agree that 2D doesn't sell and retro games won't sell. I'm surrounded by a generation of kids wearing T-Shirts that reference games that existed before they were even born. So I would say 16-bit is still hip.

[champagne supernova]

I disagree here, and I know we've had this discussion before. For me, saying you don't like item management/grinding in an RPG is like saying you don't like aiming in a FPS. You're literally attacking the only real challenge in the game, and a gameplay mechanic that has been part of the genre since Dragon Quest.

To use the FPS example, I'm saying I don't like spending my time running around for a medikit. And, if we look at FPS these days, what do most of them have? Regenerating health systems.

Once you take it away, there is no real challenge anymore, without implementing other, oftentimes just as stupid mechanics like XIII did. I actually prefer the longer dungeons with a few puzzles thrown in for good measure. It makes each new story event feel like an accomplishment

I pretty much hate the dungeons of the more modern FFs. While FFXII were mostly fine, I did miss the heavier puzzle aspects from the older titles, and FFX and XIII's dungeon were so tediously simple, I often wonder why the game bothered having them in the first place cause they present no challenge and they were rarely connected to the events of the story in XIII's case. Once the challenge is stripped from them, everything else begins to lost its purpose.

The best RPGs I've played in the last couple of years are often times the ones that actually adhere to the old rules of utilizing item management, labyrinth-style dungeons, and more focus on exploiting weaknesses. I don't see how you can have fun in a game where everything is simply handed to you; as long as you're willing to navigate a character to the next plot point.

I agree that there isn't much in the way of puzzle mechanics in modern FFs and I agree that this is a dynamic that would improve the gameplay. But trawling through lots of the same/similar enemies isn't my idea of fun. And games have been successful in only having big, boss-like battles. Shadow of the Colossus springs to mind.

I also agree with you that XIII took away too much control from the player. Continuous auto-attack is taking the complaints about XII playing itself to another degree. Although it did look mighty dramatic (I've always thought XIII is definitely style over substance). However, a lot of individual battles in XIII had the potential to trip you up, which I enjoyed, rather than grinding.

I also write a bit (although I'm not yet published), so I thought about the Celes scene and found some more issues with it (from a technical perspective).

1) Cid mentions that there were people on the island as he dies. As far as I remember, they aren't mentioned at any stage beforehand nor is there any evidence of their existence on the island.

2) Cid then says that everybody apart from him ended it by jumping off a cliff. To say that an entire community all decided to end it is quite a leap of faith. Especially as they weren't in the position Celes was. They still had a community.

3) Why would Cid mention on his deathbed to Celes that a whole lot of people jumped off a cliff, but she should retain hope. Especially when we consider 4.

4) Cid had made a raft for Celes to go to the mainland and find her friends. If that was his intention, surely he would have told her that on her deathbed, instead of writing it in a letter and directing Celes to the quickest life exit.

5) The 5 stages of grief say that people go through denial, anger and bargaining before they hit depression (and then after that, acceptance). I'm not saying that everybody grieves in the same way, but generally, it takes some time for people to process that someone close to them is dead. Celes just went from Cid dying to depression in about 5 seconds flat.

6) The entire scene is avoidable if you feed Cid enough fish. Which is just weird if it's supposed to be so important.

So, from my point of view, the Celes suicide scene seems more to be something the development team decided to tack on rather than something that was thoughtfully built up.

Also, Kefka's motivation as a mad pseudo-nihilist stems from lines such as this:

And time will destroy all of those as well. Why do people insist on creating things that will inevitably be destroyed? Why do people cling to life, knowing that they must someday die? ...Knowing that none of it will have meant anything once they do?

&

Life... Dreams... Hope... Where do they come from? And where do they go...? Such meaningless things... I'll destroy them all!

And the VI fans laud him as the greatest villain in the series.

However, another villain says something like this:

Reflect on your... Childhood...
Your sensation... Your words... Your emotions...
Time... It will not wait...
No matter... ...how hard you hold on. It escapes you...
And...

Which is exactly the same pseudo-nihilistic rubbish that Kefka is talking about. Yet Ultimecia is criticised, mostly by the same VI fans who love Kefka, as the weakest villain in the series whose actions are unmotivated. Despite the fact that her dialogue suggests loss and the background of the world suggests she would be persecuted, while Kefka comes across more as a pseudo-intellectual emo git.

As much as this comes across as a massive bashing session of VI, I really do admire the game. I think, for it's time, it was an amazing game. But I feel the story in FF has developed since VI, although no FF will ever rate as a great story, because they are supposed to be escapist melodramas. And gameplay as a whole has moved on since 1991.

But maybe the only way to prove this point is if Square-Enix do release a rehash of their SNES games. If it gets critically panned as outdated, I win. If it gets critical acclaim as taking the genre back to its roots, you win.

[Loony BoB]

*joins the long post crew and makes a few points based on things he's read in recent-ish posts*

You can point to older games focusing more evenly on characters, but FFXIII probably does that better than any of the other FF's. Admittedly, it makes it easier when you consider that there are only six characters, but I don't think every game needs a cast of sixteen - my preference is around eight characters, but I guess everyone has their own personal opinion on that matter. But XIII definitely gives an even distribution of character time.

One thing I do miss in FF is something I've only seen once that I can remember (possibly more if I try harder, but I can't be arsed) - player-driven storyline. The ability to change the outcome, even if only marginally, by playing the game in a different way. The thing I'm thinking of is fairly blatantly obvious - the FFVII dating scene. I know FFVI has differing outcomes at certain points depending on your actions, too. This is something that I personally feel the new games lack due to the FMV sequences. Hover, having said all that, VII managed to do it in 3D so I don't see why we would have to go back to 16 bit just to get that kind of thing done effectively. Just make more FMVs if you have to. They spend long enough as it is on developing the games. They could even sacrifice a few FMV sequences so that you still have the same total number of FMVs on a disk but only see a certain number in any one playthrough.

Hell, the VII example you gave, implies that Tifa and Cloud got it on, but its just as easy for someone to think that they just fell asleep next to each other. Its not like they were naked when they woke up, and had to get dressed, or you even see them kiss and imply a more energetic physical exchange, yet fans were still able to understand what the author was implying.

I love how there are two different versions of this event, too. One of them she's just a little embarrassed about it, the other she is mortified that they were seen. I think that kind of makes it obvious what happened in the latter scenario and gives a good idea of how you, again, can influence the storyline. But yeah, these things aren't written in stone, they are implied - but the same can be said for many things out there in 16 bit, 32 bit and even in the current games. It's what allows for so much debate in FF forums, which is obviously good for us. xD Or bad, depending on how much you enjoy such debates.

I agree with charlie rather than WK when it comes to XIII and how challenging fights were. They were far more challenging in XIII than they were in older games. You could die in almost any fight, whereas in older games your first battle after a sleep in an inn would almost always be an absolute walk in the park. But, of course, this is all dependant on how you play the game, how much time you spend fighting, etc. However, WK is right that if you die, you appear back where you were just before the battle... but that means the game is easier, not the battle. Basically, you die more often, which means battles are harder. You are more limited in your ability to level, which means you can't over-level, which means battles will (for most of the plot) rarely become easy. However, does it mean that the game is harder because the battles are harder? No, because in VII, you can have a save point a very long way away and have to get from one end to another without dying once through multiple battles. This can be easier and can be harder depending on your level in the older games. To be honest, comparing the two and saying that one game is harder than the other... it's not something I would do. They're all beatable in one way or another, for a start, and there are no difficulty levels in any of them. There are simply too many angles to look when it comes to difficulty in these games that, unless it's VIII (where you can be literally invincible for large periods of the game), I would not say any one game is easier than the others. And I suppose you could even make VIII harder if you pushed through the game at speed without making huge efforts in drawing magic, using item/card mod, etc.

I wouldn't say anyone is trolling. It's just opinion based on preference and maybe in some cases lack of knowledge in any one area.

Also, I agree that Kefka is one of the better main villains while Ultimecia is not. This is mostly because for me, the whole Ultimecia time compression thing makes no sense whatsoever. But more importantly, the constant changing of the main enemy in FFVIII makes you less "attached" if you get what I mean. Also, her weird talking just makes her look stupid rather than unique. For me, VIII was about battling sorcerors about as much as Shaun of the Dead was a romantic movie (it was marketed as "A romantic comedy - with zombies" ). I mean, sure, it's there, but let's face it - we were watching that movie for the zombie comedy side. Likewise, the game FFVIII was not about the enemy but about Squall and Rinoa doing their thing. And TripleTriad. I love the game but not for the plot.

I honestly don't think it matters how critically acclaimed another 16 bit main-series numbered FF would be because I don't think it would feel right not having FF push the boundaries of the system like it always does with it's graphics. I mean, I'm playing the old FFs lately (and I've already finished I, II and V this year... and have played a notable chunk of IV and VI long ago, too, but am replaying VI now) and they're great at £6.99 games, but if they were released as a main game today I would be insanely disappointed. Not in the game for it's price, but in the lack of ambition shown by Square Enix. SE is great because it has constantly pushed the boundaries to try to come up with something new. Now, recently that hasn't worked as well (for most people, I still liked FFXIII), but that doesn't mean that they should stop trying altogether and go back to making games that will operate fine on a GBA.

[champagne supernova]

Oh, I definitely think Kefka is a better villain than Ultimecia. I just don't like the hypocrisy in saying that Kefka has a great motivation because of his mad pseudo-nihilistic take on the world while Ultimecia has no motivation because of her pseudo-nihilistic take on the world. But Kefka is woven into the story and the player is shown what a evil nutcase he is, whereas Ultimecia feels tacked on at the end.

And I agree that having lots of easier fights can be as hard/harder than one hard fight. I just prefer having more harder fights because it keeps each individual battle more interesting, whereas I find in the older FFs, I get bored of attack, attack, attack, end battle, heal, repeat. Not that XIII is not guilty of getting boring. Because the battle system is so automated, it does get boring because you just mash auto-attack. Although it is saved by having some fairly stylish looking animation. It just looks cool. Style over substance, true, but still, more interesting than a sprite jumping across to another sprite and hacking it.

And that gives me a new point. Graphics allow people to be immersed in the world. As much as XIII is flawed, it is a stunning game and I can just run around and just enjoy what I see. I spent a lot of time in XII, and I had a lot of issues with XII (pacing and Penelo mainly), just running around the world and thinking how amazing it was too. RPGs especially should benefit from better graphics because they are about suspension of belief and immersion in a game world.

But I have no problem with a 16-bit-esque game being developed by Squenix, as long as they modernise it. Something more in the mould of 3D Dot Game Heroes. I mean I saw a game called D-Pad Hero which runs on a NES emulator and is basically an 8-bit version of Guitar Hero. Thought it was a genius concept (although it's bloody hard to play without a gamepad). But once the nostalgia wore off, I really started wanting to play Guitar Hero. That's the problem that this type of game has to overcome. Once the nostalgia wears off, if they haven't modernised it, people will get bored.

[Loony BoB]

I just realised that's the second time I've got you confused with charliepinayi today. I need to read more than the first three letters of a username when replying to posts. Oops.

Yeah, I get what you're saying regarding Kefka/Ultimecia in that case.

While some battles can be easy in XIII if you overlevel, it should be noted that the cap in XIII means that even with maximum leveling done at any point, some battles will still be very difficult without a guide. Especially if you are trying for the five star thing. In most other games, the cap is so insanely out of reach without endless, endless grinding that by the time you're at cap (usually "Level 99"), you can beat the most powerful enemy without much effort at all. I really like the limiting factor brought in by XIII.

EDIT: I agree totally with the paragraph you edited in just now regarding modernising the games. I do tend to switch off from FFVI very easily, whereas with modern games I want to play endlessly.

[champagne supernova]

Agreed about XIII. The Adamantoises and the later marks will always be difficult, irrespective of how much you've played. It was the vampires in Vanille's village that were my particular irritation. Maybe because I was trying to enjoy the scenery. VIII also tried to make battles more consistent, but failed because of the junction system being RIDICULOUS.

Yeah, I think that I may come across as bashing VI, which I'm not. I just get frustrated that nobody will pick up its flaws. VII was the first FF I played and I will always enjoy it and want to play it, but I am willing to admit it has its flaws. And I get more frustrated when anybody tries to sell a FF story as if it setting new standards in the way that stories are told. They are video game stories and, although the gap is closing, they are not in the same class as great books or great movies.

[Slothy]

I was catching up on the posts here on my phone last night in bed and early this morning so hopefully I don't miss anything I wanted to comment on.

I also write a bit (although I'm not yet published), so I thought about the Celes scene and found some more issues with it (from a technical perspective).

1) Cid mentions that there were people on the island as he dies. As far as I remember, they aren't mentioned at any stage beforehand nor is there any evidence of their existence on the island.

2) Cid then says that everybody apart from him ended it by jumping off a cliff. To say that an entire community all decided to end it is quite a leap of faith. Especially as they weren't in the position Celes was. They still had a community.

3) Why would Cid mention on his deathbed to Celes that a whole lot of people jumped off a cliff, but she should retain hope. Especially when we consider 4.

4) Cid had made a raft for Celes to go to the mainland and find her friends. If that was his intention, surely he would have told her that on her deathbed, instead of writing it in a letter and directing Celes to the quickest life exit.

5) The 5 stages of grief say that people go through denial, anger and bargaining before they hit depression (and then after that, acceptance). I'm not saying that everybody grieves in the same way, but generally, it takes some time for people to process that someone close to them is dead. Celes just went from Cid dying to depression in about 5 seconds flat.

6) The entire scene is avoidable if you feed Cid enough fish. Which is just weird if it's supposed to be so important.

So, from my point of view, the Celes suicide scene seems more to be something the development team decided to tack on rather than something that was thoughtfully built up.

1) Celes and Cid literally exchange 11 lines of dialogue before he mentions this. I'm not sure why it matters whether or not he says it right after she wakes up, or if it's revealed as part of a conversation with him when he's ill less than five minutes later. It's also difficult to say there's no evidence of their existence on the island. We don't know how long they were there, or whether that house was on the island from before the world ended. Presumably, they wouldn't have simply happened to have the tools with them to build it, so it's entirely possible that a single house is all that survived on that island and they wouldn't have been able to make any other permanent shelters or beds. This is a bit like saying because there are no bathrooms in FFVI no one ever takes a piss.

2) You assume there were a large number of people there to begin with, or that simply having a large number of people would be enough to stave off depression. It also never says that they all decided to kill themselves at once. For starters, the island is very small, presumably with limited resources to keep a large number of people alive, and those resources were dying off even without being used. Second, these people had just watched the world end and were suddenly faced with dead loved ones, and little hope of ever escaping the island to anything better. In a survival situation, losing hope can quickly lead to depression and your will to go on quickly dwindling. Even in a group, these feelings of hopelessness can be contagious and spread quickly, especially after the first person makes that leap from the cliff. Make no mistake, in a situation like that, hope would fade fast and even with a community of a dozen or maybe even more people, coping with the harsh reality of survival in such a situation would be far from a cake walk. Some people in those situations will simply stop caring about going on and that is poison to the rest of the group when survival is at stake and there's little reason to believe things will get better.

3 & 4) He mentions it as soon as he starts to become ill. At this point it's possible he doesn't realize he's dying. He may have simply planned on recovering and making the trip with her. But you also need to keep in mind that we're talking about taking a raft out on the ocean in hopes of finding either the main land or some other form of rescue. To say that it's a simple matter of let's hop on and find your friends is to ignore the reality that you may never find land or rescue, end up worse off if you do, or even die of dehydration in a matter of days before you get to safety. Such an escape attempt isn't a simple decision if you're able to survive where you are. It's entirely possible that he may have written the letter shortly before Celes comes back to find him dead, knowing he didn't have long and may not last to tell her about the raft himself. It could be a simple matter of him not being ready to accept that he was dying until it was almost too late.

5) The assumption that she has to grieve according to a five stage process isn't necessarily realistic since as you said, everyone grieves differently. It also ignores the fact that Cid's death had been coming for a while, giving her time to process the inevitable before it happened, not to mention that taking care of him was likely the only reason she kept going. You're assuming her depression is the result of his death, but it's far more reasonable to assume that it started before that and taking care of him was the only thing that kept her from succumbing to it.

6) I've never seen or heard of anyone avoiding this scene on their first playthrough. In fact, it requires some pretty specific knowledge that you're not likely to have or notice on a first playthrough. I don't think I even found out you could save Cid until quite a few years after I first played through the game, and the first time I heard about it I didn't even believe it given the number of rumours that had formed around the game over the years. The scene is important, but I don't think being able to save him undermines it when many people will never even realize that they can save him. Certainly not on the first try anyway.

I just don't like the hypocrisy in saying that Kefka has a great motivation because of his mad pseudo-nihilistic take on the world while Ultimecia has no motivation because of her pseudo-nihilistic take on the world. But Kefka is woven into the story and the player is shown what a evil nutcase he is, whereas Ultimecia feels tacked on at the end.

I don't think I've ever seen an FFVI fan claim this, and for the record, I'm perfectly willing to cop to any flaws the earlier games actually have, including Kefka's weak backstory. I'm pretty sure WK is more than willing to do the same as well, and we're probably two of the bigger FFVI and SNES era fans and defenders on the forum. But as Bob already covered, Kefka isn't a great villain because of his backstory. In fact, I'll outright state for your benefit that anyone who says he's great because of his backstory is either an idiot or thinking of a different villain. He's a great villain because he's entertaining, and really smurfing successful. Not many villains can claim to have wiped out an entire kingdom, and entire race of magical creatures and destroyed the world. Though I will admit that I do enjoy his reasons for doing it a bit. It wasn't just for power or some thirst for conquest. He did it because he wanted to, for no other reason than to do it. It's the same sort of reason that I like the Joker I suppose who Kefka seems to riff off of at least a little.

And that gives me a new point. Graphics allow people to be immersed in the world. As much as XIII is flawed, it is a stunning game and I can just run around and just enjoy what I see. I spent a lot of time in XII, and I had a lot of issues with XII (pacing and Penelo mainly), just running around the world and thinking how amazing it was too. RPGs especially should benefit from better graphics because they are about suspension of belief and immersion in a game world.

I have to disagree with this statement just about in it's entirety to be honest. First, I think the general concept of immersion in gaming in the sense that if we keep making things more real and up the detail and fidelity on everything that players will get lost in the game is a complete and utter lie. For starters, the player is never going to forget that they're a person playing a game. Nor do better graphics mean the player is better able to suspend disbelief. If that were the case then hand drawn animation in film and TV would be utterly pointless with the advent of computer animation, and companies like Pixar would be making Beowulf or The Polar Express, not The Incredibles, Cars, and Toy Story.

I'd say getting the player engrossed in the experience is a more accurate term for the sort of feeling and state of mind that most people are actually aiming for when they talk about immersion, but saying it's dependent on graphics is a joke. If it were dependent on our ability to create and consume more realistic experiences then gaming would have died and stayed dead in the 70's and 80's. In fact, some of the most immersive games (to use the common term) that I've played don't have great graphics by modern standards. Games like Half-Life, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid, the SNES FF games, Chrono Trigger, Mario 64, Mario World, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and more but I don't want to spend half of a post listing games.

What makes a game immersive isn't graphics and it never has been. They can certainly help to deliver an immersive experience but they aren't the make or break aspect. The things that the truly great games of any era have in common are that they offer the player a great deal to explore and reward them for doing so. That exploration can come in terms of searching every nook and cranny of a well developed cohesive world to learn more about it's history, people's and characters while still leaving the player feeling like there's always more to discover, or it could be as simple as offering an exploration of the gameplay systems. Super Mario Bros is an incredibly simple game. You start off with the ability to run and jump and in theory could beat the entire game using only those two movements, but the number of new and interesting challenges you'll be faced with overcoming with those two simple movements are too numerous to count and the satisfaction that comes with mastering those abilities is what leads to people getting engrossed in those games. And none of it has to do with the graphics.

FFXII is engrossing for me because it easily has one of the most vast and highly developed worlds I've ever seen in gaming, not to mention having a combat system which was detailed enough and challenging enough to make me feel as though I was accomplishing something when I beat a dungeon or a boss or a mark hunt. The fact that I liked it's art style helped greatly as well. FFXIII wasn't because while there was plenty of HD scenery to look at, the character, level and monster designs looked utterly boring to me, and there was nothing to do in these levels except fight. Nothing to explore, no history to learn about from the locals, no sense that there was always more out there aside from another corridor to slog through. And even worse was that I agree with WK completely about the combat in that game, and even agree with you in a lot of ways. A lot of player agency was removed by adding auto-battle and essentially requiring the player to switch between a handful of paradigms, and the only time's I really died were like WK said, when the game decided to cheese by hitting my party leader with an instant death attack I couldn't have seen coming the first time.

[Loony BoB]

If those are the only times you died in the game then you must be freakishly good. Firstly, you can not be strong enough to take on a boss fight due to dodging too many battles. Secondly, you can use the wrong set of characters, meaning you miss out on vital options that other characters provide. Thirdly, despite how automated you can make the game, you are still in control of what your character is doing and there is every possibility that you can wind up "doing it wrong". And, of course, you can have the wrong paradigm setup or not switch in time or... well, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, let's face it. If you felt the battles were playing themselves then... well, with the amount of times I died in that game, you are a FF God amongst FF men. Some of those battles were incredibly frustrating for me.

I agree with you that graphics do not make immersion, but I hope you can also see where I'm coming from when I can say exactly the same thing about old-school graphics not making gameplay and story. And when I say that, I mean in relation to the original purpose of this thread: 16 bit graphics will not suddenly make amazing gameplay and incredible story. So for me, petitioning for a thing in the hope that somehow a 16 bit game will fix Square Enix's creativity is silly.

Whatever SE can do with 16 bit graphics, I am confident they can do the same in a 3D environment. Maybe it will take longer and maybe it will be heavier in the amount of disks it will take up or something, but 16-bit is not the answer to the real problems at SE. One of the biggest problems they have lately is their inability to make games that appeal to the masses. If that is the case, how will 16-bit appeal to the masses? Put simply, it won't.