SolidSnakex
Member
All this talk about east and west has me thinking of this game:
Super Ultra Sexy Hero!
All this talk about east and west has me thinking of this game:
I don't think Ni no Kuni or Dark Souls fit into those two descriptions. There's a big difference between those and something like Quantum Theory. And not just in terms of quality.
Super Ultra Sexy Hero!
Ni no Kuni is pretty exceptional. Outside some CC2 efforts, it is a bit unprecedented. Dark Souls is often called a "WRPG" lol.
There is very little out that is quite like Quantum Theory (though I haven't actually haven't played the game, so I can't really talk about it). Binary Domain is probably the most similar to a western TPS, but that has quite a few distinct qualities thanks to Team Yakuza putting their mark on it.
XIII's original was pretty clearly a response to western action games. XIII-2 attempted to include western style story branching dialogue
Ni no Kuni is pretty exceptional. Outside some CC2 efforts, it is a bit unprecedented. Dark Souls is often called a "WRPG" lol.
There is very little out that is quite like Quantum Theory (though I haven't actually haven't played the game, so I can't really talk about it). Binary Domain is probably the most similar to a western TPS, but that has quite a few distinct qualities thanks to Team Yakuza putting their mark on it.
Those are fair points, but I do feel like it had some Western influences on it. The story presentation reminded me of Lost quite a bit with the flashbacks. Lazy one-liner dialogue that might have been inspired from Michael Bay movies. They tweaked the class names to stuff like Commando and Medic in the english versions, though I suppose that is a minor after-the-fact thing.
Whether or not the Call of Duty thing is bullshit or not I wouldn't say I know for sure, but it certainly was a good excuse for the linearity and simplification.
This is all just my opinion on it though, and could have been colored in retrospect from what the company has said themselves.
It certainly doesn't meant that a Japanese developer in unable to create a western style game. BD is obviously fantastic, but then you have something like RE6. A game where the developer seemed to tick every western shooter bulletpoint. And the end results weren't surprising. I don't think anyone is against western influences. Look at something like Dragon Quest, which was influenced by Ultima and Wizardry. Then you have the Souls series. The key there is to just find a balance.
It's more that they had a whole bunch of art assets when they started full development, and they thought "how can we quickly turn this into a full game, we've established it has to be pretty, and we've established it has to have a highly advanced Advent Children-like battle system".
The inevitable result is that level design takes a back seat.
I'm sure that they looked around and said "can we get away with making a linear game?" *looks at what gaijin are playing* "Ok CoD exists. We can get away with making a linear game".
But do I think for a second they say around a table in 2007 and said "guys we need some of this CoD money... let's leverage its greatest asset, linearity, and the kids around the world will eat it up!" ? hell no. That didn't happen. The inspiration from CoD was mainly to say "hey stop hating our linear game, we're not the only one". Not that they went out of their way to copy it. Notice that CoD was only trotted out after the Japanese release earned intense criticism for linearity.
Can you show me an example?They were talking about taking inspiration from western FPS games since early 2009.
Can you show me an example?
Good. Persona 4 and Dark Souls are niche as fuck and they blew up over here. Hopefully that says something.
There's a pretty long post-mortem of FFXIII in Game Developer Magazine in one of the 2010 issues. One of the points that stood out to me is that although everybody was working on their respective portions of the game, no one knew what the final product was going to even look like. It wasn't until a demo was mandated when everybody finally had a common vision to work towards. Absolutely astounding.Final Fantasy has always had overt western influences. Yoshinori has described his game design as an extension of his childlike love of film, particularly Star Wars, and the influences Lucas's films had on the early FF games are pretty obvious. The idea of kicking off Final Fantasy 6 and 7 with action sequences came from the Indiana Jones intros.
The Final Fantasy XIII development process was an interesting mess. I'd love to get a postmortem, but Square would never breathe a word of it, so we have to go by scraps of information to know what that development process was like. Toriyama had said that for Final Fantasy XIII-2, they visited western studios and attended GDC panels to find out how they did things. What they learned about was the Scrum development process, basically a method of software development that iterates on the Agile methodology, where the team makes monthly milestones and "sprints" towards them. And so they applied that development method to FFXIII-2. That seemingly innocent reveal begs the question- wait, you weren't doing that before?
Let's hope they plan to include good PC ports in all of this.
Sometimes the combat systems are significantly different: Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia (Tales of Destiny II here, not to be confused with Tales of Destiny 2 that's a direct sequel to the first) are both purely 2D, Tales of Symphonia moves to 3D though you can't move freely in 3D, though the targets are placed on a 3D field rather than a 2D plane, Tales of Legendia went with the 3D graphics on a 2D plane, Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia upgraded Symphonia's with an (unlockable) ability to move freely in 3D, and I think Graces f went full 3D while dropping the traditional MP/SP system.Can someone tell me how many tales games there are? It seems to me that there was 1 on the snes and then nothing for years and suddenly each console gets about 5 each?
Ate they just the same games like street fighter with tweaks or completely different games each time?
This is the same thing that the director of Puppeteer said. He mentioned that he's talked to several game makers in Japan and they all mentioned moving away from chasing the west and just getting back to what they're comfortable with. Should be a great sign for the upcoming generation.
Is this guy the leader of all Japan?
It's not lying, it's spin.Looks like I'm not entirely correct. Still, I think it does point toward being inspired by the west in some ways and I don't think they're lying about the CoD thing.
Can someone tell me how many tales games there are? It seems to me that there was 1 on the snes and then nothing for years and suddenly each console gets about 5 each?
Ate they just the same games like street fighter with tweaks or completely different games each time?
But that rate's dropped. It's just 25% now, versus just a few years ago where it seemed that if they weren't hitting every platform at once they weren't doing their job.He's responsible for about 75% of the JRPG output each year.
Honestly the design philosophies they seem to share (Kitase/Toriyama and Infinity Ward) aren't so different, for single player at least they want to make cinematic thrill rides, and Kitase has stated he's a fan of Half Life (wonder if that influenced FFX?) and CoD, along with other western shooters I think. How else do you think they came to the idea Dirge of Cerberus was a good idea?A very insular Japanese team, before their fall in reputation at the height of their hubris, looks to what was then a very fringe gaijin game in their home country, and chooses to incorporate an insignificant and divisive aspect of it (linearity)? It's just silly.
Let's hope they plan to include good PC ports in all of this.
I want to see it, too.This is something I never see happening. As much as I'd like it to... unfortunately. ><
On XIII:
The "linear" maps are nothing new to the series. See FFX. The fact is if you make a linear game, it is easier to make it pretty. Given how long it took them to make the game as it is, I can't imagine them handling even more areas like Gran Pulse.
It is a pretty empty association altogether. Linearity in Call of Duty =/= linearity in FFXIII. In CoD linearity has a very strong effect on the combat, whereas it doesn't matter much at all for XIII. XIII doesn't even have set pieces.
But that's different. If you're saying that they both just happened to value making linear thrill rides, then I agree.But that rate's dropped. It's just 25% now, versus just a few years ago where it seemed that if they weren't hitting every platform at once they weren't doing their job.
Honestly the design philosophies they seem to share (Kitase/Toriyama and Infinity Ward) aren't so different, for single player at least they want to make cinematic thrill rides, and Kitase has stated he's a fan of Half Life (wonder if that influenced FFX?) and CoD, along with other western shooters I think. How else do you think they came to the idea Dirge of Cerberus was a good idea?
I agree completely.On XIII:
The "linear" maps are nothing new to the series. See FFX. The fact is if you make a linear game, it is easier to make it pretty. Given how long it took them to make the game as it is, I can't imagine them handling even more areas like Gran Pulse.
It is a pretty empty association altogether. Linearity in Call of Duty =/= linearity in FFXIII. In CoD linearity has a very strong effect on the combat, whereas it doesn't matter much at all for XIII. XIII doesn't even have set pieces.
Well, I also think it's because consoles can be cheaper, reliably work (less of a key advantage now), and can incorporate some things that don't work as well on PC like certain controllers being mandatory and expected along with same system multiplayer. Which is part of why the idea of a standard, very expensive and high end console seems like a dead end: you lose the cheap angle, and if you go with a standard controller I can just stick one into the PC now (usually the 360 one) and use that. Hell, many of those games had been abandoning offline multiplayer, further ruining the edge consoles have.If it's true that the Orbis and Durango are using x86 architecture... that and the advent of the Oculus Rift may cause Japan to consider the PC platform more strongly. Really, the only reason the console is dominant in Japan is because of Nintendo. A tendency that has had several decades to fade.
Well, it's possible they feel it enables them, or they look and see what else they could do with that. But yeah, it does seem primarily for ease of development and to more easily make the games look really nice. And since those two specifically seem to value story and the cinematic experience more they really may've looked at freedom as being a nuisance to what they want to do.But that's different. If you're saying that they both just happened to value making linear thrill rides, then I agree.
But their linearity did not come from looking at FPS, or to the broader point, from western inspiration.
Fantastic.
One would hope that Capcom would also be doing this, but I'm sure instead they're trying to buy out Slant Six and Ninja Theory so they can co-develop the Mega Man reboot.
oh hell no.
man I was so close on getting every Japanese developer to make a hallway simulator game that everyone loves and adores and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling Tales producer, Baba.
Are Kitase and Toriyama fans of tabletop RPGs? I feel like games made by them tend to overlook DnD/tabletop philosophies whereas someone like Yasumi Matsuno understands where RPGs originally came from and thus makes his games more in tune with the expectations of the genre.Honestly the design philosophies they seem to share (Kitase/Toriyama and Infinity Ward) aren't so different, for single player at least they want to make cinematic thrill rides, and Kitase has stated he's a fan of Half Life (wonder if that influenced FFX?) and CoD, along with other western shooters I think. How else do you think they came to the idea Dirge of Cerberus was a good idea?
Are Kitase and Toriyama fans of tabletop RPGs? I feel like games made by them tend to overlook DnD/tabletop philosophies whereas someone like Yasumi Matsuno understands where RPGs originally came from and thus makes his games more in tune with the expectations of the genre.
I wouldn't have said Square Enix was particularly guilty of this. Their response to the westernization of gaming was to just buy a western studio, and it's operated very separately from their Japanese output. Their games are still made through the exact same Japanese development culture as in decades past.... and actually, their stagnant nature is probably the root of most discontent toward their recent games.
(now if you mean, we need more Japanese flavored games that don't suck, and Square Enix just isn't doing it there... then I agree)
I'd sooner think of Inafune when he was at Capcom.
Riposte said:Ni no Kuni is pretty exceptional. Outside some CC2 efforts, it is a bit unprecedented. Dark Souls is often called a "WRPG" lol.
There is very little out that is quite like Quantum Theory (though I haven't actually haven't played the game, so I can't really talk about it). Binary Domain is probably the most similar to a western TPS, but that has quite a few distinct qualities thanks to Team Yakuza putting their mark on it.
I completely agree. FF13 sucks, but it's a natural evolution of JRPGs and Final Fantasy in particular. The problem with FF13 isn't that it's sufficiently Japanese it's that it would be next to impossible to create an RPG that is as large as say FF7 but as detailed as FF13 is without it taking a decade to make and millions and millions in the process. Square is also creatively bankrupt, but that's a different issue.