Do people still think that Japanese devs that are not Capcom are suddenly going to care about the PC market?
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Japan going back to its roots according to Tales producer
- Thread starter cosmicblizzard
- Start date
Do people still think that Japanese devs that are not Capcom are suddenly going to care about the PC market?
look at FF6 -> FF7 -> FF8 -> FF10 -> FF13. What I'm saying is that it's the natural expansion of the formula with technological advances. Each one of those games refines itself from a technical proficiency point of view, but the worlds become more and more limited because of the impracticability of doing it. It's like drawing a fractal - it's much more difficult the more you expand outward, and consequently you draw less. So that's why I think FF13 is the natural expansion of at least Final Fantasy, if not JRPGs in general.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
In context, I think he means jRPG development. It's not like Square just forgot how to make jRPGs. They made them in the same development process they always had, but the needs of HD graphics and assets meant that it would be deficient in many ways.
I'm fine with them not following Western devs as both the East and West are great in certain areas with games. However, I do hope that the Tales franchise evolves at some point. After playing the awful Tales of Graces f, I hope Tales of Xilla is better. I don't think I can play any more of these types of games but I'll give Xilla a chance.
That's exactly what I mean.
Not only that, but the series has always been comprised of battles that were basically hitting X, X, X over and over to select "fight" 100x with the occasional spell or cure thrown in. XII tried to streamline that and eliminate cumbersome, repetitive and unnecessary button presses. XIII pretty much followed XII but added in more interactivity in the battle system. The goal for the last two was streamlining. FFIII and IV re-releases both have auto-battle added in now as a really nice feature to get through repetitive grinding sections.
XIII is really similar to X in more ways than that, just taken another step further.
I think with XII and XIII they basically hit the limits of a non-MMO, command menu-based battle system. The next step is action RPGs.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
And the same might be applied to the stories, too. I've railed against XIII's bizzare plot twists where villains turn on a dime and don't make much sense, but if those same lines were delivered by Golbez in an simplistic art context that didn't fool you into thinking this was supposed to be like a movie...?
HolyBaikal
Banned
Dark Souls is Ghouls and Ghosts given 3D and free roaming.
Unless for some reason PC gaming gets super popular in Japan, Yeah.
Not happening though.
HolyBaikal
Banned
Stranger things have happened.
I see. I agree that HD and further graphical improvements will hamstring expansive worlds previously featured in JRPGs, but I think XIII was such an absolute gross misstep that we should take it as an exception rather than the norm. I also do not agree with increasing linearity being the natural evolution of JRPGs, since you have Ni No Kuni following tradition with an expansive overworld. Rather, I posit that the linearity was a result of Japanese developers coming to grips with the HD systems, leaving less time to build on the actual game, its systems and its world.
What I saw of the NNK demo looked like a lot of maps similar to FFXIII. Very tight "corridors" that were largely linear.
Making an overworld map like SNES isn't difficult. I think they avoided it in FF because they felt it was a dated, childish style of exploration that didn't really fit with their games anymore. In that sense, NNK isn't really trying to evolve so they just keep the old way.
InfiniDragon
Member
I sure the hell hope so.
I like Japanese games for what they were and don't want them to ape Western ones. I feel there is a place for both.
Now if we could also get Japanese devs to dropkick like 90% of the rampant fanservice they're pulling lately in games that would be perfect.
I like Japanese games for what they were and don't want them to ape Western ones. I feel there is a place for both.
Now if we could also get Japanese devs to dropkick like 90% of the rampant fanservice they're pulling lately in games that would be perfect.
HolyBaikal
Banned
You forgot SEGA. They have a fairly decent history with the PC market.
And Namco was recently made to care about the PC market via the Dark Souls petition. Which was in general pretty big gaming news. There's also Ridge Racer Unbounded and Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.
Not exactly particularly Japanese games. But baby steps are still steps.
Yeah definitely. I can be fun though. As much as I thought 13 was terrible from a story/character perspective the combat was well done and interesting.
I think part of the reason you can get away with that in the older games is because they are so simple you expect a level of weirdness. They are also so much more minimalistic from a plot point of view it makes you fill in the blanks with your own imagination. That's why I think Demon's Souls and Dark Souls have some of the best stories of this generation - what their worlds are are mostly up to you. The same was true of Ico and SotC last generation. And that brings us back to Japanese developers doing what Japanese developers do best - which I think is minimalism and simplicity. It's when they try to get baroque that they get into trouble. a lot of times less is more.
HolyBaikal said:
yeah it is. Good call.
No no, NNK does have an overworld.
I wonder how much money went into making NNK though.
As ridiculous as this comment sounds, I don't think Square Enix is a good place to look to as far as JRPGs anymore. Dragon Quest is the only thing of consistent quality from them, and that too might go off the cliff if any of the big 3 stop working on it.
No no, NNK does have an overworld.
I wonder how much money went into making NNK though.
I know it does. I guess you misread my post.
An overworld like that is not hard to make. They were doing that on NES.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Square has good rpgs. It's just the ones with Toriyama working on them kinda suck ass. But let's not turn this into a FF XIII series derailing debate.
Ok that's fair. I can agree with it. Maybe though that now Japanese developers are learning how to better compromise HD graphics and detail with expansive worlds.
HolyBaikal
Banned
That isn't a ridiculous sounding comment.
In fact I thought it had become common wisdom for a while now.
BassForever
Member
Yes please do, for every Xenoblade that does a fantastic job of combining western and eastern design I play far too many shitty games trying to do both and failing miserably. Stick to what made your games good/popular in the first place that's why we are/were buying them.
Derp. Okay let's see if I can get this right.
I think that Square Enix doesn't know what to do with Final Fantasy anymore. They have lost their way. XIII had such poor world-building that it really did feel like a bunch of interconnected corridors since what those corridors were were given very little importance or focus. Compare to X, which was a bunch of corridors but because of world-building each section felt distinct and in place. Not to mention that gaining access to the airship shows the world map which further reinforces the concept of a lived-in world.
I'd rather they tone back the flash, and just make a decently nice looking game if they have to scale things back that much.
No no, NNK does have an overworld.
I wonder how much money went into making NNK though.
I seriously cant wait to get into this.
That's not what I said at all. I love XIII. I don't know how you got that from my post.
What I was saying is that XIII is a natural progression from FFX, especially combined with the demands of HD development. The battle system is a natural progression for the series as well. I thought the areas in XIII were awesome, and very distinct and memorable. I don't really demand having a world map or airship in every single RPG I play. I was fine with them trying something new. XIII-2 strings the areas together from a menu just like X did.
I said that they didn't include a shrunken overworld map because they didn't want to, not because they couldn't. They're relatively easy to make. Even indie JRPGs have them. They didn't include it because it wouldn't fit with XIII at all, and would come across as a bit childish. FFX, XI, XII, XIII all don't have it. I think Versus toyed around with one but decided not to do it either.
NNK having an old style world map isn't them evolving. It's them just using the old, relatively easy way to tie together linear environments. The main environments I saw didn't have paths much bigger than XIII did. Does NNK have any area as big as the Archylte Steppe in XIII?
Agree or disagree, up to you. But that's how I see it. Thinking that SQEX is incapable of making an overworld map seems pretty ridiculous to me.
I still dont see what is so great about FFXIII's combat system. Sure it looks cool in action, but I never like a JRPG battle system that takes away the control of other party members (Persona 3 included). It would have been nice if they figured out how to do something similar to Grandia series, yet kept the flashiness of XIII's combat (even though the spell effects seemed a little confined as well).
EDIT: It doesnt have to be shrunken, something like Dragon Quest VIII or Xenoblade would have been great. And I wish they would stop relegating airship travel to just points on a map. One thing I liked about Lost Odyssey is that once you got a vehicle, you got to actually travel around the world (even though they used a point to point system for standard travel).
EDIT: It doesnt have to be shrunken, something like Dragon Quest VIII or Xenoblade would have been great. And I wish they would stop relegating airship travel to just points on a map. One thing I liked about Lost Odyssey is that once you got a vehicle, you got to actually travel around the world (even though they used a point to point system for standard travel).
Wait why would including an overworld be childish?
Also I don't think I said SE couldn't make an overworld map.
HolyBaikal
Banned
People say they like the XIII system because "old systems weren't really any better". But yeah, choosing specific attacks was fun and had an extra element of strategy. The new combat system is basically a race with no steering wheel. And you just shift gears.
The Tales folks know how to do a combat system. So do Tri-Ace, though in my opinion to a slightly smaller degree than the Tales Studio. If Final Fantasy isn't going to keep a strictly turn based combat system, it would be best to go the Tales route than what they're doing now.
The Tales folks know how to do a combat system. So do Tri-Ace, though in my opinion to a slightly smaller degree than the Tales Studio. If Final Fantasy isn't going to keep a strictly turn based combat system, it would be best to go the Tales route than what they're doing now.
Paracelsus
Member
Because it would be too much of a game and less of an interactive movie, which is their wet dream ever since they started stuffing their "rpg" with cg.
I agree. Think about how Fallout 1 and 2 treated overworld maps. It's depicted as a map computer with geographic survey data. You can definitely take the metaphors taken for granted in low fidelity RPGs and conceptualize them into more concrete abstractions.
You're going to have to explain the childish part. Moreover, where did it ever say that Versus decided not to go for it?
I agree that I don't think that SE was incapable of making a world map. But the bigger question is should they. In some cases, they do not have to. Nor does any other RPG developer have to make a world-map. But the issue with XIII was not so much the existence of linear paths; it was the fact that outside of Gran Pulse, the entire progression of the game is itself linear. FFX is almost just as bad, but it at least offers incentives for exploration stretching as far back as Besaid Village at certain points in the game. NNK has linear areas more akin to FFX more than FFXIII (where yes, there are linear paths, but paths actually lead to completely different areas on the overworld at times, as opposed to FFXIII where different paths led the player either to chests or to nothing at all).
Basically, it's how you tie all of these different areas together that is the key. And more often than not, RPG developers have more leeway to add in an element of exploration by using a worldmap. FFX and FFXII did not have world maps, but still encouraged an atmosphere of exploration and path branching that RPGs were typically known to have. XIII just didn't do it nearly as well even despite Pulse's bulk.
I have a lot of problems with both the ATB system and the stagger system. The ATB gauge has too little segments boiling down all attacks to DPS. All debuffs are applied because there's no drawback to casting them all besides losing a few seconds. The stagger meter further exacerbates the ATB-DPS problem since it just becomes a damage race once activated that's easy to keep up since the enemy flinches from attacks or is otherwise disabled. It's pretty brain-dead besides some trick fights/optional bosses at endgame.
TheFLYINGManga_Ka
Member
Good to hear. More XenoBlades and Ni no Kunis the better.
To Far Away Times
Member
If anything, it's western development that should go back to it's roots. I miss the fast paced, arena style, demanding as hell FPS games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament.
Japanese development is great as long as it doesn't try to imitate current western trends. They never needed to change.
Japanese development is great as long as it doesn't try to imitate current western trends. They never needed to change.
Yep, I like Japanese games because of their Japanese-style design and they can make combat systems like no other. I don't mind if they take inspiration from the west but it should be cherry picked with full understanding of why it was done that way and incorporate that into Japanese design.
Shrunken characters walking huge distances along a shrunken map. It just seems kind of ridiculous the closer you get to photo realism. Seems extremely obvious to me. Not sure how else to explain it. It's far from an ideal method for exploration.
NNK gets away with it because the whole game is childish and a bit retro.
HolyBaikal
Banned
If you mean "please no more games that attempt to sell based upon cute or sexual content alone, to make up for flawed gameplay" like in Compile Heart's Neptunia franchise, I agree. Well, Neptunia wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so flawed in many ways.
It's a rather mediocre title. Not worthless but certainly you get the feeling that the "ecchi" and "moe" was carrying the sales of that game. This isn't going to change because there are people who will buy anything will moe in it, just like there are people who will buy anything with sci-fi in it, anything with guns in it, anything with whatever x hobby that exists in it. There's also always going to be cheap cash ins on any market. While I'm not against moe designs, I am against them being used to disguise a shoddy product.
If you mean designs like the one in my avatar period. No thank you. All hail the dragon princess!
Also, given the culture around cute adoration has been snowballing in popularity both within and outside of the otaku culture since before the 80s, I don't think it is going anywhere anytime soon.
This is a comic from 1980. Probably before both of us were born. From the same person who designs the characters from Dragon Quest. The most successful jRPG franchise ever.
cj_iwakura
Member
Yay for innovation.
oconnomiyaki
Member
Early Japanese games never felt Japanese to me. Probably because too many of them weren't trying to tell a narrative.
Does Super Mario Bros. feel Japanese?
What about Sonic the Hedgehog?
Contra? Mega Man? Space Invaders? Pac-Man?
Hell, even Street Fighter II didn't feel especially Japanese.
Somewhere around the PlayStation era things started becoming a little more Japanese, for lack of a better way to say it. And for some reason, this generation they decided to try and replicate the Western style rather than look at the fact that their original successes didn't really feel like they came from a certain country at all.
Does Super Mario Bros. feel Japanese?
What about Sonic the Hedgehog?
Contra? Mega Man? Space Invaders? Pac-Man?
Hell, even Street Fighter II didn't feel especially Japanese.
Somewhere around the PlayStation era things started becoming a little more Japanese, for lack of a better way to say it. And for some reason, this generation they decided to try and replicate the Western style rather than look at the fact that their original successes didn't really feel like they came from a certain country at all.
Lady Bird
Matsuno's Goebbels
I would say that, when it comes to filling in content into a linear structure, Final Fantasy X is the natural evolution of Final Fantasy XIII. It comes at no surprise that FFX is one of the most loved FF games in the series, and FFXIII one of the most bashed. And FFX wasn't even perfect at that.
SE could probably improve upon FFX's structure by going the Uncharted role: adding more interaction to the maps, effectively making the linearity less obvious, and the game richer without sacrificing the linearity itself; having a more natural flow between gameplay and storytelling; etc;
Instead, they decided to "improve upon" the formula by scrapping gameplay whenever they see it. They didn't even bother to adapt or re-design some of the missing non-battle content. No, it was scrapped entirely.
In the end, excluding the battle system, I don't think FFXIII is the natural evolution of anything (FFX already did it better before it, with the exception of Calm Lands -> Pulse), but simply the attempt at doing that with complete disregard to game design. So all we have gotten was more of the same, but with less depth.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
And take inspiration from outside the borders, too, and make it sing. *avatar quote*
And the realization they were chasing a different form of erratic mediocrity they thought was a perfect ideal.
That's going to require a return of better sales from non-otaku, otherwise it'll keep spreading in percentages of games far above the percentage of gamers who react favorably to it.
And the realization they were chasing a different form of erratic mediocrity they thought was a perfect ideal.
That's going to require a return of better sales from non-otaku, otherwise it'll keep spreading in percentages of games far above the percentage of gamers who react favorably to it.
That's the issue I had with Mass Effect 2 as well. Sure the shooting was better, but Bioware completely stripped out inventory/equipment, weapon customization and a cohesive, explorable world and severely dumbed down the skill trees. They weren't great in ME1, but I'd rather see them expand and refine those systems rather than just lobotomize them.
HolyBaikal
Banned
Surprisingly so. Though if anything for the time it was an innovative game on innovative hardware. There's loads of Japanese culture in even the earliest Super Mario games.
There's an interesting thing with Sonic the Hedgehog in that in many cases SEGA purposely went for appealing to the West. They set up office in the United States and often went for a very hip image. While Nintendo did a lot of what they thought would make Japanese families happy and comfortable. SEGA seemed to have an extreme fondness for American pop culture as well.
Though even though SEGA had even fewer very Japanese franchises than Nintendo, by the release of the Sega Saturn they went from more popular in America to ridiculously more popular in Japan. And has had of course franchises like Shining Force, Shenmue, and the ultra "moe" Puyo Puyo franchise they bought off of Compile.
And Sonic the Hedgehog certainly has its Japanese moments. Jet Set Radio, Virtua Fighter... a surprising number of examples. And let's not forget the very anime Ninja Princess. I didn't even mention Phantasy Star yet.
But I went off on a tangent comparing Nintendo and SEGA. Needless to say even in their earliest days Nintendo and SEGA had many incredibly Japanese games.
Mega Man was a blantantly Japanese game with huge Osamu Tezuka influence.
I don't know, there's quite a few very Japanese games that came before that.
Here's a list:
Hello Kitty World
Panel de Pon
Magical Pop'n
Ninja Princess
Puyo Puyo
Ninja Gaiden
Street Fighter
Seiken Densetsu/Secret of Mana
Kiki Kaikai/Pocky and Rocky
Dragon Ball games
Final Fantasy
Dragon Quest
Chrono Trigger
Cocoron
Mega Man
Tales of Phantasia
Star Ocean
Phantasy Star
Eggerland/Adventures of Lolo
Bubble Bobble
Ganbare Goemon
Sailor Moon games
Tenchi Muyo RPG
Magic Knight Rayearth RPG
Gundam games
Nazo no Murasame Jou
Valkyrie no Bouken
Monster Party
And that just scratched the very tip of the iceberg. I realized I'm too lazy to go through and list every little one. There's thousands of them and the market, particularly the Japanese market, was littered with them.
Sounding like a broken record at this point, but I think most fans would be ok with a non-shrunken overworld (DQ VIII, Xenoblade). Even XIII almost had this down once you hit Gran Pulse. I think that is the way everyone pictured the entire game would be from the start, regardless of environment.
Even without overworlds, XIII seemed too straightforward and "dungeon" areas never really felt like challenges.
People keep asking me to repeat the same shit. Not much else to add to it.
Xenoblade's world is technical wizardry, I don't know how Monolith did it. It also manages to feel extremely large due to huge areas and to-scale terrain and buildings and the fast run speed and fast-travel helps alleviate the tediousness of travel.
Oh god yeah, they seem very Japanese to me. It's a je ne sais quoi character for sure, but it's there. They could have only been created in a Japanese cultural context. You mention SF2, but compare that to Mortal Kombat, a game that was contemporaneous to it. SF2 is obviously Japanese and Mortal Kombat obviously Western. The others are more difficult to contrast with a specific Western games, but I'd never mistake them (and didn't as a child either) as being anything other than Japanese.