The Shrine

Hopefully they fix some of the issues that FF13 had; my biggest issue was no towns - towns are one of my favourite things in Final Fantasy games.




Also, I hope they don't make it a crappy looking action title like Versus has turned out to be.

Take this plot and set of characters and BURN THEM.

This is going to be fucking X-2 all over again.

Towns would be nice. Anything to break up the monotony of corridor running, battle, cut scene, repeat.

But I'll not get my hopes up. Final Fantasy will probably never mean to me what it once did.

Blotus wrote:Final Fantasy will probably never mean to me what it once did.

Thats the sad realization. Whether it is our ages or the path the games have taken, im not sure.

That might be true - that future Final Fantasies won't mean what they once did - but I thought FF12 was fantastic.

And I haven't played FF13, but I know what you guys are talking about. I think our age is part of it, but it's not just FF itself that is the rest. I think Japanese game development in general has split from what Western audiences want.

I've found that gaming in general doesn't mean to me what it once did. God damn do I miss Black Isle Studios and Interplay.

Funny, when I think of Interplay, I think of that awesome Star Trek game they did. That and Out of This World.

Kupek wrote:That might be true - that future Final Fantasies won't mean what they once did - but I thought FF12 was fantastic.

And I haven't played FF13, but I know what you guys are talking about. I think our age is part of it, but it's not just FF itself that is the rest. I think Japanese game development in general has split from what Western audiences want.

Only 2 good FF games since the SNES days: FF9 and FF12. That's a bad, bad trend. And like Blotus said, the cast for the new one is by far the worst RPG cast I've ever seen. Just proves how much of a touch Squeenix's lost.

Age is certainly a part, but it's more an extension of the entire Japanese gaming industry in general. Think about it: other than a remake or a blast-from-the-past game, and almost exclusively on handhelds, what big current gen game that you absolutely loved is made in Japan?

SineSwiper wrote:Funny, when I think of Interplay, I think of that awesome Star Trek game they did. That and Out of This World.

Out of this World 1 and 2 were great games. I remember back in the SNES days my buddy and I from school rented the original, hooked up our SNES to a VCR, and actually recorded ourselves finishing it to make it out like a movie. That's how neat that game was for its time. BTW, did you know Interplay released a free ROM of the original for the GBA that you can grab?

I haven't really found the characters to be compelling in ff games, except for 4,6,7, and 9. They need to change this.

I thought half of the cast on your side in FF12 was retarded but it was still a good game, though I guess FF13 was more than half.

Depends want you mean by retarded. Cliche and foolish? That's all of them except for MAYBE Fang. Maybe the major improvement could be giving us characters not going through lame identity crises.

Games in general are very bad with the 'unlikely hero' concept. If the guy is unlikely to be a hero he better be great in other ways since he is still the hero. Usually they just make you wonder how desperate the world was to have to bring these losers together as its only hope.

If you look at say Bosch, he's not particularly interesting or deep, but he's actually a likely hero so at least you're not wondering why is this loser in our party, unlike say, Vaan and Penelo. The cat (I forgot her name, don't think I ever used her) fits too but I guess she's sort of there as Balthier's sidekick.

Don wrote:Games in general are very bad with the 'unlikely hero' concept. If the guy is unlikely to be a hero he better be great in other ways since he is still the hero. Usually they just make you wonder how desperate the world was to have to bring these losers together as its only hope.

If you look at say Bosch, he's not particularly interesting or deep, but he's actually a likely hero so at least you're not wondering why is this loser in our party, unlike say, Vaan and Penelo. The cat (I forgot her name, don't think I ever used her) fits too but I guess she's sort of there as Balthier's sidekick.

She is just sexy Chewbacca.

bovine wrote:
She is just sexy Chewbacca.

I find Chewbacca to be a more interesting character than the cat, but since that's the template I guess you can't expect too much character depth.

Well i totally and completely missed the boat on 13. I havent seen 30 seconds of it or played 2. I seriously thought the last FF was the one with Vaan and crew. They need to make these for PC, too, and then i can play them.

Flip wrote:Well i totally and completely missed the boat on 13. I havent seen 30 seconds of it or played 2. I seriously thought the last FF was the one with Vaan and crew. They need to make these for PC, too, and then i can play them.

You missed out on FF13? I'm envious.....

FF9 = Super SD, fuck that.
FF10 = Decent game, decent story
FF11 = Not a bad MMO, but not great, either
FF12 = Great game, almost zero story. A lot of story potential turned to shit because of creative cockblocking. Probably the most anticlimactic ending I've played in an FF in a while.
FF13 = Even better gameplay, better story. Ending wasn't great and didn't really explain a lot, but overall the story was good.
FF14 = Two Worlds in MMO form.

FF9 was a decline from the previous 3, I felt; the beginning of the series decline. It did have Treno, which was a fairly cool town. Everything was more simplistic than 8, the plot, the art, the gameplay, the characters, the world, the extras, etc... 8 is still the most complex of the series, and with the most to do.

FF10 had better characters than 9, better design; I thought the battle system was excellent. The towns were really bland though, very empty feeling. The world was also very corridor feeling. This is the game where it started to feel that technology was having an impact on creativity.

FF12 - great battle system, WAY too much fighting. World was nice, towns much improved over FF10, but a lot of emptiness. The story started nice, but then became very sparsly delivered.

FF13 - I like the characters, but as I said, the lack of real towns left me with a big empty space where satisfaction normally is when I play FF games. Graphics were very pretty, and it was very cool that they made one world very artificial feeling, and the other very organic. Too many battles. Encounter system felt like Mystic Quest with more animations until Pulse.

Overall, the newer games have improved in some areas; graphics quality (as a natural tech progression) and battle systems. They have also been declining sharply in others such as towns, plot, and the world. FF12 seemed like a failed attempt at creating a huge FF-like world that fit in with the new tech, if they would have let it succeed, it would have probably been the best. Nowadays, I fear Square has lost too much of their original talent.

I havent really liked any of the newer games' characters. Why does everyone dress emo punk? We need more Vivi's, Terra's, or even Ramza's.

Need more Kain/Cecil/Rosa, Locke/Celes, Cloud/Aeris/Tifa!

SineSwiper wrote:FF9 = Super SD, fuck that.
FF10 = Decent game, decent story
FF11 = Not a bad MMO, but not great, either
FF12 = Great game, almost zero story. A lot of story potential turned to shit because of creative cockblocking. Probably the most anticlimactic ending I've played in an FF in a while.
FF13 = Even better gameplay, better story. Ending wasn't great and didn't really explain a lot, but overall the story was good.
FF14 = Two Worlds in MMO form.

FF9 was an awesome game, definitely the best of the post-SNES era (aside from 12, I haven't played that one). Who cares about the SD look when the game is that great?

Flip wrote:I havent really liked any of the newer games' characters. Why does everyone dress emo punk? We need more Vivi's, Terra's, or even Ramza's.

And what the hell is this:



Isn't that emo?

SineSwiper wrote:

Isn't that emo?

No thats psycho. Big diff. This girl is not crazy in the head, but still wears a belt dress in addition to goth:

SineSwiper wrote:And what the hell is this:



Isn't that emo?

Now you're dissin' on Kefka, arguably the greatest villain in RPG history?

Kekfa was a moron. And frankly, he just looked stupid in his original SNES glory.

This is what emo people look like:

SineSwiper wrote:Kekfa was a moron. And frankly, he just looked stupid in his original SNES glory.

He's still the best RPG boss ever, man. No one made rage like he did. By the time I fought it, I WANTED to kick his ass into oblivion. Never felt that way about any other RPG boss ever

Zeus wrote:

SineSwiper wrote:Kekfa was a moron. And frankly, he just looked stupid in his original SNES glory.

He's still the best RPG boss ever, man. No one made rage like he did. By the time I fought it, I WANTED to kick his ass into oblivion. Never felt that way about any other RPG boss ever

+1

Mmm, I liked Kefka until the 2nd act. Like he destroyed the world, which was awesome, but then he basically sat on his Throne for the remainder of the game and you didn't see him again until you assaulted his Tower.

Compared to other Final Fantasy villains he was certainly more involved until he became a god.

Eric wrote:Mmm, I liked Kefka until the 2nd act. Like he destroyed the world, which was awesome, but then he basically sat on his Throne for the remainder of the game and you didn't see him again until you assaulted his Tower.

Compared to other Final Fantasy villains he was certainly more involved until he became a god.

For sure, the initially hatred was built up in the World of Light. But that's what made the build up from absolute desolation in the World of Ruin and trying to find your friends claw your way back to fuck his ass up that much better. You had that super-hatred for him to start 'cause he kept showing up to annoy the fuck out of you, then he destroys the entire world, nearly kills you, separates you from your entire team so you have to go find them all to have a chance, then climb through his relatively long tower 'til you can finally fight him. He was the fuck who destroyed EVERYTHING and messed you up, you wanted to kick his ass and send him to oblivion for what he did. He made you hate him intensely.

Odd, I felt the same way about Hope, Snow, and Vanille but they were actually on my team.......

I'm sorry. I just can't get into villians that act like a doofus half the time. I mean, just look at the shitty dialogue:

"Phooey! Emperor Gesthal's stupid orders! Edgar, you pinhead! Why do you have to live in the middle of a stinking desert?!? These recon jobs are the pits! ...AHEM! There's SAND on my boots!"

"Oh, Edgar... You know you only stand to lose from trying to hide her from us! Hee-hee-hee... I truly hope nothing happens to your precious Figaro!"

"Son of a Submariner! You'll pay for this!"

"You really are a slow one. And always, always...ALWAYS such a little goody two-shoes!!! "

I mean, those are the good quotes, according to Wikiquote. I think all this guy is missing is one of those 1920's villain mustaches. Hee-hee-hee? Real people don't laugh like that. He's about the worse villian I've ever seen in a RPG, and I've played some fucking shitty RPGs.

Amazing. Sixteen years later, same conversation.

Kupek wrote:Amazing. Sixteen years later, same conversation.

It's a timeless argument.

SNES was > Genesis btw.

*Flees*

SineSwiper wrote:I'm sorry. I just can't get into villians that act like a doofus half the time. I mean, just look at the shitty dialogue:

"Phooey! Emperor Gesthal's stupid orders! Edgar, you pinhead! Why do you have to live in the middle of a stinking desert?!? These recon jobs are the pits! ...AHEM! There's SAND on my boots!"

"Oh, Edgar... You know you only stand to lose from trying to hide her from us! Hee-hee-hee... I truly hope nothing happens to your precious Figaro!"

"Son of a Submariner! You'll pay for this!"

"You really are a slow one. And always, always...ALWAYS such a little goody two-shoes!!! "

I mean, those are the good quotes, according to Wikiquote. I think all this guy is missing is one of those 1920's villain mustaches. Hee-hee-hee? Real people don't laugh like that. He's about the worse villian I've ever seen in a RPG, and I've played some fucking shitty RPGs.

Its because hes fucking nuts and would laugh at you or kill you in 2 seconds! ADD, bipolar, and powerful all at the same time... whats more terrifying than that?

Ill have this same conversation in 16 more years.

Sine, I am fairly sure we had a conversation where you supported this kind of insane super villain in movies as the best villains ever in film; even over villains portrayed by guys like Daniel Day Lewis who will probably break the tie, and become the #1 Best Actor winner in Oscar history after he gets his almost inevitable Best Actor's award for Lincoln.

In fact, I think you mentioned the Joker; and now you dis a villain in a videogame for the exact same reasons that made him one of your favourite villains in film?

Sorry, not my fault if I can't feel emotional over a 12x12 pixel sprite. Again, the dialogue. Name one villain I supported that had super cheesy dialogue like that.

Alright, here is my crappy argument...

The best villains are he ones that you understand where they are coming from, and where you can see yourself as just as easily making the choice that they did in their situation that got them to this point of being "evil".

The only real example of this that I can think of in a videogame context is The Boss from MGS3.

The forward to the first volume of Justice (http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Vol-1-Ale ... 401211038/) has an excellent explanation of that idea.

Most of the time trying to add depth to villian just means they have a sob story so it's somehow supposed to be justify their actions.

I saw a random quote from a manga somewhere that can be paraphrased as such:

A: "After blah blah blah I have come to realize the only way to protect everyone is to kill everyone."
B: "We call guys like that crazy."

I mean it's perfectly fine the villian has a different set of values compared to the good guys, but too much stuff try to make force their messed up viewpoints on the players as if you're really supposed to think like that. Death Note comes to mind. There's really no justification for what Light did, and yet the story tries to force you his twisted sense of justice as if it's actually true. It's okay he thinks that killing more people deters other from doing crime but there's no way that's an acceptable viewpoint on life. I think it's an example of a weak story development and maybe Blizzard is responsible for this since they overuse this gimmick way too often in their games. It's okay good and evil isn't absolute, but the devil looking guys in the heroes of Might and Magic world aren't your friendly neighbor. They really do want to burn everything down because they don't like you. Yes they have their own society and values and stuff, but it's totally irreconciliable with just about every other guy not part of their society, so they are the 'bad' guys.

I prefer anti-heroes myself. Bad guys turned good, or good guys with darker flaws. Baltar from BSG, Dexter Morgan, John Creasy from Man on Fire, Vegeta, Riddick, Yuri Orlov from Lord of War, etc.

Of course, those are ultimately heroes, but the villians that fall under similar lines are also interesting, like Light from Death Note or Orochimaru. Or you can just go for one that is insanely funny and evil at the same time, like the Valentine Brothers from Hellsing.

Anybody who says "Son of a Submariner" doesn't fit into any of those.

bovine wrote:The best villains are he ones that you understand where they are coming from, and where you can see yourself as just as easily making the choice that they did in their situation that got them to this point of being "evil".

I assume that Darth Vader and the T-1000 are exceptions to this rule of yours? They are, after all, two of the best movie villains of all time.

There's nothing wrong with a villian who is embodiment of pure evil, which Darth Vader would certainly fit (and definitely the Emperor). They might not be too interesting but there certainly is a place for them. Most anti-hero type don't really work well because it can really backfire on you if the author gets too attached to his ideas. Light Yagami is a perfect example where you can see clearly the author must have thought what he did was really alright since Death Note keeps on tell you having basically a fascist society where you cannot make any mistake is good because crime rate went down.

There's a difference between say a villian being firm in his conviction versus the author trying to actually tell you it's okay. For example in Rourni Kenshin, Shishio believes Japan needs an absolute ruler so that Japan wouldn't just become a colony for the western powers. He says that idea all the time, and from his viewpoint his belief is irreconciable with Kenshin's. But the story doesn't tell you that his viewpoint is the right one. It simply lets you know this is what the villian thinks and that's why he acts the way he is. He isn't really seeking the reader's approval, so he is a successful character. A lot of the time, the modern 'more developed' villian just means they have some crazy belief but before they die you see that when they were little they got abused by a stranger and all they wanted is some love. That's not character development. That's just a cheap sob story.