Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
Brilliant.
I like how you underline the title with a picture of Tidus. Well done.
I'm going to go over each section and offer an alternative viewpoint.
Camera Controls
This is an interesting observation. I find FFX has a lot in common with the PSX games in this respect. VII, VIII, and IX don't have camera controls for the towns, either. They're on equal footing, and the comparisons can be explained due to FFX being an early game in the PS2's life cycle so the possibilities of the hardware haven't been fully realized yet. But what's the contrast? Why does the criticism stem heavier on FFX?
The lack of world map.
The place that interconnected all the different cities. That was where you could control the camera and better explore your surroundings. FFX removed that piece of the puzzle entirely and changed the game because of it. Why? It seems like such a poor decision to remove something so vital. Could it be due to many of the places being separated by bodies of water? But there's still plenty of land for a physical world map to exist. For the water part, why not a mechanic to control a ship and sail from one place to the next to make backtracking more accessible at the beginning? And of course, once the airship is introduced why not just be able to control that like the games that came before? Maybe they were trying to experiment with new ideas, but the other games managed to give us an outside view for controlling and the inside view where we explored the interior. Removing these factors don't make sense at face value. Is there anything that could explain why they were removed?
Linearity
This is going to overlap in some of the above, but once again we can compare to past games. You mention the Macalania Forest, but what about the forest near the beginning of FFIX after the airship crashed? That wasn't much bigger. It didn't branch off into that many directions. The same with the ice cave you find later. It was limited by the technology available at the time, just like FFX. How would they be able to improve on these elements given the current limitations and what are examples of games that did it better in the same development cycle?
It's hard for me to form an opinion on the Sphere Grid at the moment without being able to compare and contrast the US version with the International. From what I understand at the moment they're night and day.
Same Ol' Same Ol'
This is going to overlap too much into my thoughts on sidequests, so I'll be skipping it.
Predictable Fights
I wonder. Is the predictability bad in and of itself, or is it due to execution? Remove the game flat out telling you how to line up each character to each monster and what happens? It becomes harder, doesn't it? We have to discover for ourselves what the best course of action is. That way when we realize how to properly utilize each character's strengths and weaknesses the game becomes more fun, and you feel like you're actively getting better. The game outright telling us what to do was the biggest mistake they could've made.
Extra Character Bonding Scenes
I'm going to stick with the ATE from FFIX you mention since that's the only one I'm familiar with. The problem becomes in how we can space these out so they don't become annoying to the player. While I enjoyed them in FFIX, some times they happened a bit too close together and it was somewhat an inconvenience seeing them pop up on the screen. True, you don't have to do them, but they're taking up space. So what would be a good way to space them out enough for the best possible execution? Or perhaps for them to take up less space? I admit I'm working on vague memory of how IX implemented them, so my thinking could be flawed.
Extra Character Bonding Scenes
I'm curious by what you mean of 'Tales of skits'. Haven't seen the phrase used before.
Lack of Sidequests
I agree on the potential, and why I think it overlaps with Same Ol' Same Ol' as it fuels the repetitive nature of the game. Let's go in even broader strokes. Given what we know about Spira, what all could have been written to add more sidequests and alternative paths to enrich the game and increase replayability? How would these ideas be implemented given the technological restrictions?
I propose that the reason you've come to the conclusion you have is because of how far games have come in the long run. We see now what is possible for them with modern technology which we wouldn't have considered back in 2001 because games like FFX was modern gaming. We had nothing to compare it to but what came before. And after that you have to ask if it compares well to what came before. This is the meaning of 'dated' and how we can assess which games hold up well over time, and which games fall to dust. Some of these problems may not have been fixed due to the technology without remaking it entirely from scratch like Square is doing with FFVII. I wonder how X would play if it was made today with the same game engine as FFXV?
Your article was an interesting read.
How were the characters cliched, how was the drama forced, and what basic understanding of human psyche and emotional spectrum was absent, and how can we amend these things, if at all?
Is the ultimate weapon necessary to complete the game? If not, then technically, aren't they still optional? I never played much into any of those. That doesn't excuse their quality however. Do you think there were ways they could've made the minigames more enjoyable?
My goodness, they were challenging his masculinity. There was more psychology to that subplot than I first realized. I love it!
Let me know if you think I should spoiler these multi-quotes. I'm not sure if the rules for them from Academia apply to the other sections.
Last edited by Ayen; 07-01-2016 at 08:55 AM.
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