Wolf Kanno's Hatred For FFX vs. My Hatred for SO3

[Forsaken Lover]

I put forward the assertion that there is nothing good about Star Ocean Till the End of Time except for:
1. Nel.
2. The soundtrack.

Graphics? Bad.
Voice-Acting? Bad.
Story? Bad.
Gameplay? MP Death.
World? Completely unoriginal. There is more worldbuilding in the Dictionary than there ever was in the actual game. I think they had all their competent writers work on the Dictionary and had the in-game story written by some deranged homeless man who wandered in off the streets. In exchange for a sandwich he came up with a "plot."

Now go, WK. Feed me your hostility (for FFX)- pierce me with your hatred(for FFX)!

[The Man]

It's ok. There's no law against being wrong.

[Ayen]

Are you smurfing insane!? Wolf's hatred will kill us all!

[The Man]

To be fair, his hatred for FFX pales in comparison to his hatred for FFXIII.

[Slothy]

Hell, my hatred of FFXIII might only be eclipsed by his hatred of it.

[Pumpkin]

I like FFX, I don't like SO3 (that's the PS2 one right?)

Sorry Wolfie

[Wolf Kanno]

Honestly, I like FFX more than I like SO3. FFX was just a mediocre game that did little to move the genre forward nor did it really refine things like its predecessor. It was a sub-par game that broke a strong track record for FF design but even I'll admit it has more redeemable elements than SO3 and FFXIII. I at least occasionally get in the mood to play FFX until a few minutes in I am reminded why I dislike it but I've never really felt much reason to go back to SO3 and it killed my interest in SO4.

While I am amused by the novelty of SO3's franchise killing plot twist, it doesn't change the fact its a franchise killing plot twist that seriously diminished the entire franchise.

XIII has Sahz and a decent soundtrack, I can't really say anything else good about it and even the two good things are terribly managed by the game designers.

[Pumpkin]

Why is that plot twist so hated

[Ayen]

So, does that mean FL wins?

[Wolf Kanno]

Why is that plot twist so hated

Because you basically discover that none of the prequels (1,2, and 4) actually matter. It's kind of like watching a twisted series where the ending reveals it was all just a dream and thus none of it really happened or at the least was never really relevant. It was also poorly explained and its ramifications of the previous entries raises some questions the game never feels like addressing. I still laughed though, I had been waiting for an RPG to try and be this meta.

[Forsaken Lover]

So, does that mean FL wins?

Nel: "I did it, Clair!" .... Nel: (I did say "it" before Clair, right...? Damn Freudian slips)

Nel x Clair = Best part of SO3.

[Wolf Kanno]

So, does that mean FL wins?

Um... I guess?

[metagloria]

These are two of my top 10 favorite games of all time and the plot twist in SO3 is the best plot twist and it doesn't make the other games irrelevant WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE

[Wolf Kanno]

These are two of my top 10 favorite games of all time and the plot twist in SO3 is the best plot twist and it doesn't make the other games irrelevant WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE

It's kind of hard to take the end of the universe seriously in the other games when you know the "gods" would never let it happen.

I guess what I can say about the two is that I did find SO3 to be a better game, I'm not terribly fond of action-rpgs but it was more engaging than X's CTB system. SO3 also had a better world design from a gameplay standpoint.

[Forsaken Lover]

There is an interview with the makers of SO4 that does kind of imply that SO3 was its own thing and the other games didn't take place in the Eternal Sphere:

http://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/212/212052/index-3.html

This translation is provided to me by the user Gwendal who i and many other Xenosaga/Xenogears fans owe a great deal to.-

"As far as I can tell, the short answer to your question is that I can't really say for sure, since it seems pretty vague to me. Then again, my knowledge about the Star Ocean series is extremely limited, so maybe I'm missing something. I know you said you didn't need a full translation, but I think the best thing to do would just be to give you one and let you draw your own conclusions. It's not that much text anyway.

Interviewer: About the shocking conclusion to the last game (Star Ocean 3), do you plan to follow that in some way in this game?

Mr. Yamagishi: We're making Star Ocean 4 as a story of beginnings, and it takes place before the First Age. [Probably not the correct term used in the games]
And the Star Ocean series was originally structured to be more or less complete as a trilogy. As for the way 3 ended, I think it'd be okay to consider it something thrown at the users by Tri-Ace. In my opinion, there's many ways to interpret it. Whether the world was destroyed in 3, whether you could say the world of Star Ocean ceased to exist, or if this was a false world created as a parallel dimension, which one is the real world, these are all things that are still unknown in terms of the Star Ocean world. So I'd be grateful if people wouldn't necessarily interpret that conclusion to mean the end of everything.

Interpret that as you will.