Do you trust Squenix?
My simple answer is no. I do not trust them, as developers, to make a game that would appeal to me. I only realised this today. It was strange. Like meeting an old friend and realising that you have absolutely nothing in common, because you don't take crack and occasionally soil yourself in public.
I trust them as publishers, though. There are many great developers sitting under the SE banner, and I love playing a lot of SE branded games.
Anyway, what's your take?
Not anymore no, not since FFXIV, although they're starting to turn themselves around.
I think I lost it around 2006. I just take everything as it comes now.
But then again I can only really think of one game developer that I trust to buy on reputation alone.
>>Am willing to change opinions based on data<<
Everyone pretty much already said my opinion. They've become a pretty atrocious development house as far as making fun games is concerned, at least with their big-name titles... it seems that the smaller and less supported stuff is where they get to do the most experimentation and do stuff that people end up finding really engaging.
They're a publishing powerhouse these days, though, for real. I hope the support they've thrown behind Eidos titles, as well as the strength of the old Enix brands, will bring the Square titles back to their old quality eventually. They just have so many commitments from what were (imo) bad decisions in the mid-2000s that they haven't been able to change their focus.
I trust them completely.
...to make as much money as possible by releasing games that are nowhere near their previous standards.
I don't think it is necessarily fair to criticize them for not being able to make games like they used to. Gaming has changed, even if they brought their 90s glory A game to modern games there is no guarantee that the spark that made 16 & 32 bit titles so good would translate to modern gaming.
So while I do think that SE has changed for the worst I also think that gaming technology has also changed underneath them to something they weren't as capable as working with at any point.
>>Am willing to change opinions based on data<<
I haven't played any of the recent games. The last FF game I picked up was made well over a decade ago. When I look at the Final Fantasies released since then, I feel no inclination to play them. I don't feel the "FF magic" that I felt playing the games from the 90's. Nothing stands out to me or speaks to me in a way that makes me think that any of the recently released Final Fantasy games are worth my time.
Of course, I haven't done much research about them and this is all from first glances and impressions. But since I choose to focus on other games instead, I think it's safe to say that I don't trust them to make any more games that appeal to me. I think that it's entirely possible to be done in the future and I would have hope if they made some sort of revamp, but the answer is generally no at this time.
Have they even tried to make a modern FF that resembled a classic? Overworld map? Lots of towns and exploration? No it's just been a linear story now. 12 was the last greatest thing they made and even that wasn't the best it could have been.Originally Posted by VeloZer0
Probably part of the problem is how games are rated too.
I believe most games with a large amount of exploration have quite a few bugs in them, and would take especially long to make. You can't blame them when it costs so much. They can't release something they aren't going to make money off of.
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 03-22-2013 at 04:27 AM. Reason: w~post
My point was that if you took a game like FF6 and just added better graphic it would look really stupid. You would have to add a bunch of dialogue and extra scripting to get the character interactions to look half decent, all the locations would have to be re-designed for different camera angles/ proportions and a bunch of stuff I'm sure that I haven't even though of.
A full modern day title written on less than 20,000 words of dialogue would look awfully stupid and un-natural. My point is that in order for SE to make games as 'good' as they used to they not only would have to maintain their old skills, but would also have had to develop a whole bunch of new ones in the process.
>>Am willing to change opinions based on data<<
Nothing changed to me, I just don't like their retro minded games, standard medieval and overly focused on western games.
I don't mind Square that much because i have seen far worse. I honestly just think FF fans are spoiled by other games and nostalgia like usual.
I think Square's recent output as a developer has been awful. They were caught completely off guard with the jump to HD graphics and did not know how to scale their technology or development to adapt. But that's only a part of the problem. I don't think they have the right people leading their development. Tetsuya Nomura's character designs are so samey, and who the smurf knows what's happened with Versus XIII under his leadership.
Yoshinori Kitase, who has produced/directed the Final Fantasy XIII games, is far worse. I honestly don't know how much blame to ascribe to him versus Square in general, but his games have really strayed from the elements that made earlier entries in the series great, focusing on tropey characters and stupid plots to cater to the niche Japanese audience.
What I mostly want to know is what Hiroyuki Ito has been doing. He hasn't lead a project in the past five years--at least not anything that's been made public--but before that he co-directed XII, directed IX, and co-directed VI. He's also helped write and design the battle systems of several of their games. Basically, he's the smurfing man. If anyone can make another great game there, it's him.
Also, I'm not a big Dragon Quest fan, but it seems like the Enix side of the equation is still doing okay? People loved DQIX, and DQX seems to be doing okay, if not great, in Japan. They certainly haven't had the same quality drop off as Square's games.
Wha?
Master of the Fork
Cid's Knight
Hhaha I remember when we interviewed Toriyama and Kitase, and a chick from penny arcade asked him how do they feel about fans near hating the recent games and what would they do to bring those die hard fans back? When it was translated he, toriyama, looked so offended. Kitase was like "What? o.o" And toriyama was all fumbling wiht what to say about it. They then gave some "well we are wanting to bring ff to a whole new era while throwing back some to the old fans but times have changed blah blah." It was funnnnyyyy
Haha. Ouch. x)
Why would you blame Nomura here? We had 4 different entries by different directors, Matsuno with XII, Toriyama with XIII, Tanaka with XIV and Nomura with non-main title which is Versus XIII, all of them suffered from same management problems or long development cycle or under delivering or some backlash so tell me why would a Hiroyuki Ito game would fair better with same management, teams or producers?I think Square's recent output as a developer has been awful. They were caught completely off guard with the jump to HD graphics and did not know how to scale their technology or development to adapt. But that's only a part of the problem. I don't think they have the right people leading their development. Tetsuya Nomura's character designs are so samey, and who the smurf knows what's happened with Versus XIII under his leadership.
Yoshinori Kitase, who has produced/directed the Final Fantasy XIII games, is far worse. I honestly don't know how much blame to ascribe to him versus Square in general, but his games have really strayed from the elements that made earlier entries in the series great, focusing on tropey characters and stupid plots to cater to the niche Japanese audience.
What I mostly want to know is what Hiroyuki Ito has been doing. He hasn't lead a project in the past five years--at least not anything that's been made public--but before that he co-directed XII, directed IX, and co-directed VI. He's also helped write and design the battle systems of several of their games. Basically, he's the smurfing man. If anyone can make another great game there, it's him.
Also, I'm not a big Dragon Quest fan, but it seems like the Enix side of the equation is still doing okay? People loved DQIX, and DQX seems to be doing okay, if not great, in Japan. They certainly haven't had the same quality drop off as Square's games.
Wha?
It is worth to mention that a big budget game like Last Remnant suffered from management problems which lead to canceling PS3 version.
My point is Nomura, Matsuno ,Tanaka, Toriyama and kitase all managed to create wide range of successful titles in the past but all of them hit a wall, so why would we need to blame one or two leaders when the majority suffered from same problems.
Second point, Tetsuya Nomura didn't design characters in XII,XIII Saga and XIV with exception of the 5 lead characters in XIII. His role in the series has been greatly reduced to point that he might did more work in FFV and FFVI.
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