And together with Kazushige Nojima, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Nobuo Uematsu, they've revolutionized video games as we know them and took the medium to a new plateau the universe never could have predicted.Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
One has made FF synonymous with crazy anime hair and belt buckles, the other made them synonymous with being easy interactive movies.
HAHAHAHA you actually win for this statement, but let me indulge:Dude, I've played this game for like 10 years now, while I admit the platforming is not great, I don't actually have problems with it cause I gots skillz boy!
Customization System - accessories? Really? Most of the games we've brought up have customization systems and awesome accessory systems, namely FFVI which took it to the next level with all the equipment/acc combinations and quirky hidden side loot to fill it with
Difficulty - to me, the hallmark of difficulty in JRPGs boils down to one question: how quickly can you beat this game without grinding? If the difficulty isn't staying adequate enough just playing straight through, RUN! There's more than one reason the run command was integrated into random encounter systems, obviously it's not just for when you're too weak because you'd obviously die. I ran from every battle in the Sector 1 reactor and FFVII actually maintained a really decent difficulty all the way to the end of the game. It was awesome! FFVII 4 LYFE!!!
The problem with the Difficulty is also the Battle System - everything is designed to go down after 1 combo or slightly more. Very few enemies do something unique and usually it's a very cheap way to prolong the battle system, and it's horribly inbalanced so that things drag out for longer than they should in boring stalemates. But the worst part is that you're always engaging in the same EXACT lengthy animations over and over again. That's why FF and DQ are the masters - they know how not to waste your time. It's also hilarious how Xenogears tries to use camera angles like FFVII but it's always the same camera angle and to boot - i've noticed plenty of times where objects are in between the camera and the sprites, obscuring the action!
Puzzles don't have to be hair pulling or overly creative to be effective. They have to be just difficult and creative enough to make you feel like you've accomplished something. That's how you make great pacing. DQ games are littered with neat little novel puzzles that give you that feeling. And I don't think you're giving FF enough credit.
Some of the Dungeon design in FF has been insane, and incorporates puzzles in a lot of meaningful ways. I'm talking specifically about the multi-party dungeon crawls in FFVI, ESPECIALLY the final dungeon which had a lot of great switches, levers, and buttons to make it a great puzzle challenge. I guess I usually don't give VI enough credit because the game actually did a fantastic job at creating compelling dungeons all throughout the game. Then there's FFVIII, whose final dungeon is like a crowning achievement for the series at the time. Tons of great puzzles, a really huge castle.
I think making something a labyrinth, like Xenogears, is a cop-out, especially if that labyrinth isn't compelling. The Solaris trek had only 4-5 different room archetypes, many of which were empty, others with novel items, and still more with the "caged experiments" which was such lame side content. There was no reason to explore the labyrinth or even care what was out there. It was the definition of time waster.
Here's where we get to the heart of the thread. If DQVII has the same, novel challenges, delightful artwork, wonderful music, quirky dialogue, accessible combat, and constant feeling like you're really accomplishing something, whether it's levelling up or completing neat little puzzles or accomplishing major quests, I'm going to absolutely lose myself in a long journey like that. The DQ games are the opposite of what so many story-focused JRPGs like Xenogears do wrong. And that's take the time to make a good GAME. Because if you're just focusing in 100% on telling a compelling story, all your left with is a really great tale inside of a really bad GAME. I could go on for days about the beauty of DQ, but I'll save that for another day and just come to the realization that:I'm going to tell you now, if you find issues with all those elements in Xenogears, you are not going to like DQVII, if the game wasn't so damn huge, it could have been a 16-bit RPG. Still, I'll never grasp your love of DQ let alone DQVIII which I felt wasn't as good as its predecessors. To each their own I guess.
An online game will have more focus on gameplay. I haven't played IX yet but I can only assume this online-only nature will be good for the title.
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