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[Mael]

I am curious as to what sort of 'western players' they had in this focus group.

Gaf =/= western players

I mean GAF is just a part of the western players, considering the vast sales of the game it's not THAT surprising that people actually liked it.
Kinda like the criticisms that people level at most popular franchises.

And for the record, I really like it for right and wrong reasons too

 

[discoalucard]

I hate the word "focus group" because it implies that everyone involved are probably nimrods. But if someone were to sit them down (or practically any JRPG developer that's not Atlus) and tell them that, in North America and Europe, people over the age of 16 actually play their games, and would appreciate if their stories weren't written for middle schoolers. I think that's the only major problem I had with FFXIII that wasn't in some way involved with the tech/rushed development, and seems to be a pretty universal stumbling block for a lot of people.

 

[Mael]

With this game it's easy:

1. There's very little exploration.
2. Make the "run to the next cutscene" structure less obvious.
3. If you're going to make the game use a similar structure to a game that came out almost ten years ago, evolve it, don't devolve it. FF13 is nothing but a straight line aside from Pulse, FF10 considerably less so.

Funny there's a game I played just after FFXIII that fit this way more than this game, that game was fairly awful too and had bad music to boot.
for what it's worth I also really loved FFXII too,
makes me an anomaly I guess :lol

 

[dallow_bg]

Any places sell the print copy? I tried B&N and had no luck.

I wanted the last issue with Deadly Premonition.

 

[StarEye]

I have a dream that FFXV will be the next classic in the series. FFXII had plenty of freedom, but forgot the story. FFXIII had plenty of story, but forgot the freedom. FFXV will have both (or neither).

 

[Flakster99]

It comes off as company bullshit, covering their basses, but none-the-less, thanks for posting the link and snippet.

There are many games out there that fulfill MY needs, and I have MANY varried RPG needs and tastes, as someone who has been playing and enjoying RPG's since the early 80's the development structure, choices and decisions that formed and created FF13 leave me scratching my head.

Case in point:

5) INTERNATIONAL PLAYER TESTS THAT CAME TOO LATE - Even before the current generation of consoles was introduced, it was obvious that the game market of the West was gaining momentum, and we couldn't ignore it. The sentiment that stood out the most to us at the time was the increasingly harsh criticism towards JRPGs, Linearity and command-based battles were tow of the features being perceived negatively. This was something that the team was very conscious about, and there were concerns about whether JRPGs would still be accepted in the West. Because Final Fantasy XIII's mission was to succeed worldwide, we could not ignore this issue, as we felt it could deeply affect the future of the franchise.

Around the same time, we were experimenting with Western development methods, and there were talks within the team of global focus groups, which we had rarely conducted with previous projects. At the same time, Square Enix set up international focus groups for certain titles, including Final Fantasy XIII. Unfortunately, we were already quite far along in development, and knew it would be too late to implement most of the feedback from the player test sessions.

<snip>

So they list linearity as a harsh criticism, yet, create a FF mainline game that is absurdely linear, arguably blowing the fine line the series has remarkably kept in-check right out of the water. Boggle.

Next. Westernisation. What worked in the 80's, 90's, and sparingly in the early 00's, are no longer valid business decisions? Fuck if I know, honestly, but I have always enjoyed it's non-Western themes, specifically, 75% Japan themes, 25% whatgaveyou themes. Equally important, not once did they bring up the possibility it's art direction, it's cast of characters, it's writing, it's intense, extreme focus on point A to point B as issues.

Or heck, toss some of that blame on themselves, as a company, for getting into bed with Sony and it's PS3 at such an early stage. For making the call that FF13 will be a PS3 (and later 360) game and not a PS2 game. Toss some of that blame towards Sony for fucking things up for countless devs with it's 599 price point, for making the system difficult to develop for and Sony's decision making that hurt the health of the video game industry for non-gaming benefits and profits.

Oh well.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

I have a dream that FFXV will be the next classic in the series. FFXII had plenty of freedom, but forgot the story. FFXIII had plenty of story, but forgot the freedom. FFXV will have both (or neither).

I think at this point, after the FFXIII disappointment and the FFXIV launch debacle, the best thing they could do is put XV on the backburner and actually make a full HD, bottom up FF7 remake. The gameplay can be tweaked/sped up to hold up to today's standards and the fanservice alone will bring all the skeptics and disappointed fans back into SE's arms. It would probably sell pretty damn well too. It would be a welcome "I'm sorry, please don't hate me " letter from Square.

 

[Scythesurge]

Mismanagement is pretty much what I was attributing the development troubles with and it looks like I was right. I just hope the team can learn from their mistakes for the development of FF XIII and have a smoother design process for the next project.

 

[Clear]

Who knows what the balance of linear to open-world play was originally intended to be.

The Gran Pulse sections do function as a non-linear hub for the "hunts", but there's clearly a whole lot more that could have been done with that space.

 

[Mael]

I think at this point, after the FFXIII disappointment and the FFXIV launch debacle, the best thing they could do is put XV on the backburner and actually make a full HD, bottom up FF7 remake. The gameplay can be tweaked/sped up to hold up to today's standards and the fanservice alone will bring all the skeptics and disappointed fans back into SE's arms. It would probably sell pretty damn well too. It would be a welcome "I'm sorry, please don't hate me " letter from Square.

Dear god let the fucking FF7 lie in its crappy cg grave thank you!
How about a new fucking game instead?
And if what I read is right here, then SE management is made of morons that can't handle software developpments I mean in 2010 to use the waterfall method on such a big project :lol
that's textbook for disaster. We should be glad we even got the game at all :lol

 

[ULTROS!]

Not even close. FFX was a massive hit due to it being the first FF game on PS2. I think it's the second best selling FF behind 7.

Huh?

FFVIII: The game has shipped 8.15 million copies worldwide as of March 31, 2003. (wiki)
FFIX: Final Fantasy IX was commercially successful, selling 5.30 million units worldwide as of March 31, 2003. (wiki)
FFX: The game has sold 6.32 million units worldwide. (wiki)
FFXII: As of March 2007, the game has shipped over 5.2 million copies worldwide. (wiki)

The game already beat FFXII (in terms of shipment).

FFVIII is the second best selling FF (and the best selling FF in Japan).

 

[DaBuddaDa]

Huh?

FFVIII: The game has shipped 8.15 million copies worldwide as of March 31, 2003. (wiki)
FFIX: Final Fantasy IX was commercially successful, selling 5.30 million units worldwide as of March 31, 2003. (wiki)
FFX: The game has sold 6.32 million units worldwide. (wiki)
FFXII: As of March 2007, the game has shipped over 5.2 million copies worldwide. (wiki)

The game already beat FFXII (in terms of shipment).

FFVIII is the second best selling FF (and the best selling FF in Japan).

The wiki entry also says X sold 6.6 million as of January 2004. I highly doubt FFXIII, at it's current known ~5.5 million, is going to sell another 1.1 million copies.

 

[Londa]

I still plan to buy this game once I get myself a PS3. Will be the first game I buy for the system.

 

[ULTROS!]

It shipped 5.8m according to miladesn's previous post. (FFXIII)

Like what I said, it will more-or-less do the same amount as FFX. That doesn't necessarily mean it will reach FFX's sales. I'm guessing 6.1-6.2 by the end of 2011.

 

[JWong]

Overall I'd say it's a pretty mixed bag, but with more right than wrong. The battle engine is absolutely brilliant.

And I think the battle system is pure trash. Monotonous, uncontrollable button mashing that has its "strategy" rendered into the most shallow theft of the MMO class system that should have no part in a linear JRPG.

Just sayin' that people's hate for it is not unfounded. It is critically one of the worst Final Fantasy games.

 

[ElFly]

Who knows what the balance of linear to open-world play was originally intended to be.

The Gran Pulse sections do function as a non-linear hub for the "hunts", but there's clearly a whole lot more that could have been done with that space.

But it is actually a pretty poor hub as far as these things go. There's nothing to do besides hunting, and the hunts themselves are pretty content-less (just a text from the stone at the beginning and at the end for 99% of them).

And the stupid restriction of only having one hunt open at a time killed any interest in them for me.

All in all the game would have been improved if they had removed the gran pulse hunts and added something else; another chapter, or character, or an inhabited town would have been better for the game than Gran Pulse.

And I think the battle system is pure trash. Monotonous, uncontrollable button mashing that has its "strategy" rendered into the most shallow theft of the MMO class system that should have no part in a linear JRPG.

This is unfair; the battle system makes most fights count; in other Final Fantasies the random battles are much more of a chore than in XIII, where being distracted can get you killed fast.

 

[Flakster99]

SEN/SAB/SYN
RAV/RAV/COM
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
MED/MED/SAB
HEAL
RAV/RAV/COM
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE
AUTO BATTLE

Really, that's all there was to it, and it lead me to cringing every single time I entered a battle. To little variety in the end. If this was SE's idea of Westernization, then seriously, they can fuck right off.

 

[Rahxephon91]

That's better then

Gambit 1-Curawhatever ally under 60%
Gambit 2-Attack Party Leaders target.

Game over.

 

[Pureauthor]

So we're agreed that both FFXII and FFXIII's battle systems were decent ideas that were hampered by the actual games they were inserted into?

 

[Zoe]

Next. Westernisation. What worked in the 80's, 90's, and sparingly in the early 00's, are no longer valid business decisions? Fuck if I know, honestly, but I have always enjoyed it's non-Western themes, specifically, 75% Japan themes, 25% whatgaveyou themes. Equally important, not once did they bring up the possibility it's art direction, it's cast of characters, it's writing, it's intense, extreme focus on point A to point B as issues.

its its its its its

 

[Kagari]

Interesting. So essentially they didn't give the PS3 a chance to gain momentum before making a decision. The decision about Versus could have been made back then and they could have been lying to us all this time.

I can't remember what article it was in, but the decision was made early on. I'll try and find it in a bit.

 

[badcrumble]

That's better then

Gambit 1-Curawhatever ally under 60%
Gambit 2-Attack Party Leaders target.

Game over.

Actually, because it involves the clunky and quite frankly last-gen notion of a separate battle screen rather than battles taking place on the field screen, it's not.

 

[Kagari]

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/03/12/final-fantasy-xiii-as-rated-by-focus-groups/

Here's an article about the focus groups... which I somehow missed back in March.

 

[Scythesurge]

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/03/12/final-fantasy-xiii-as-rated-by-focus-groups/

Here's an article about the focus groups... which I somehow missed back in March.

Interesting that the US rated field higher than Japan, but it's clear that neither group appreciated that aspect of the game. Good.

 

[Pooya]

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/03/12/final-fantasy-xiii-as-rated-by-focus-groups/

Here's an article about the focus groups... which I somehow missed back in March.

So everybody both in US and JP loved the story, great...

 

[Scythesurge]

It's interesting that the sound was rated low by both groups too!

Maybe they got the story and sound results mixed up?

 

[Rahxephon91]

Actually, my point is that IS Final Fantasy 13. That's all there is: battles, and not often very good ones either. What does this game think it is a dungeon crawler with a deep battle system?

Oh I agree that in XIII all there is to do is battle and nothing more and that is a pretty big problem. But I also think you're just over simplyfing it's system like you can for every FF. Sure a lot of battles require the same strategy(not unlike other FFs), but at least in my experience XIII had more battles that required more thought and strategy in order to beat the enemies as quickly as possible. But that's just how I see it.

But honestly we are two diffrent gamers. Most of the extra stuff you listed I don't really care about in FF much less jrpgs in general. XIII still did the things I care about.

 

[Regulus Tera]

That's better then

Gambit 1-Curawhatever ally under 60%
Gambit 2-Attack Party Leaders target.

Game over.

Being able to choose which of my party members gets Protega/Esuna/Haste/whatever and in what order makes it immensely better.

 

[Rahxephon91]

Being able to choose which of my party members gets Protega/Esuna/Haste/whatever and in what order makes it immensely better.

Does it really matter when the AI does its job in 5 secs? No, it dosen't. XIII's AI does a better job then any AI in any jrpg.

How am I oversimplifying the problem?

Thats not what I meant. I meant I think you're simplifying the battle system in XIII to just basically auto battle, just like I simplified XII's as basically only needed two gambits. I don't think that's correct, at least not in my book. And for me the only important gameplay aspect of jrpgs are battle mechanics, which I found XIII to be far better then past FFs.

 

[Pureauthor]

Dungeon Crawlers, well, good dungeon crawlers also integrate the dungeon crawling itself into the gameplay. For a recent example, see Etrian Odyssey series.

FFXIII certainly doesn't do that. It's a series of tubes.

 

[Regulus Tera]

Does it really matter when the AI does its job in 5 secs? No, it dosen't. XIII's AI does a better job then any AI in any jrpg.

Fucking Dragon Warrior IV on the NES had better AI than FFXIII.

 

[Rahxephon91]

Fucking DQIV on the NES had better AI than FFXIII.

Nah, if you died in XIII, its your own fault. XIII's ai always did it's job and if you used auto battle in this game, which seems to be everyone big sticking point you must agree.

That was the bulk of my experience though.

That's fine. Thats why I said "in my book". I could see how someone would think otherwise, but it wasn't the case for me. XIII took way more thought then any of the previous 3d FFS outside of VIII and X.

But almost every single FF from FFIV on has been very easy by jRPG standards, easy enough that 'Attack + Heal' gets you through most of the thing. In my view, the strength of an FF battle system is how much the game lets you play around, which is one of the reasons why I love FFV so much. The sheer amount of ways for you to snap the game on your knee is astonishing.

FFXIII doesn't have that, so the battle system fell pretty flat for me.

It's true. Every element from story progression to character progression is pretty linear in XIII. No one can argue that. Now I won't say the game dosen't eventually let you play around with it. Different party combos changed my level of play and it was fun to play around with that aspect.

 

[Pureauthor]

Thats not what I meant. I meant I think you're simplifying the battle system in XIII to just basically auto battle, just like I simplified XII's as basically only needed two gambits. I don't think that's correct, at least not in my book. And for me the only important gameplay aspect of jrpgs are battle mechanics, which I found XIII to be far better then past FFs.

But almost every single FF from FFIV on has been very easy by jRPG standards, easy enough that 'Attack + Heal' gets you through most of the thing. In my view, the strength of an FF battle system is how much the game lets you play around, which is one of the reasons why I love FFV so much. The sheer amount of ways for you to snap the game on your knee is astonishing.

FFXIII doesn't have that, so the battle system fell pretty flat for me.

 

[Skilletor]

I don't get why anybody would ever defend the lack of control you have over your characters in FF13. I really don't. How can a person say, "Well, you don't NEED to have control over your characters" and think that's a good thing?

 

[Scythesurge]

XIII's AI does a better job then any AI in any jrpg.

wat

Fucking Dragon Warrior IV on the NES had better AI than FFXIII.

.

 

[Zoe]

It's interesting that the sound was rated low by both groups too!

Maybe they got the story and sound results mixed up?

The sound was pretty awesome with my setup. I played the Japanese version though and I've read that the US version got messed up.

 

[Scythesurge]

The sound was pretty awesome with my setup. I played the Japanese version though and I've read that the US version got messed up.

Well in regards to the game's "sound" which I'm assuming just means all audio components, the sound mix was really quite awful in XIII. That one chapter that has the blaring alarms play throughout the entire chapter over the beautiful music is one instance that comes to mind. I think the music was very good for the most part, so I'd probably rate the sound in the game pretty well.

 

[Rahxephon91]

I don't get why anybody would ever defend the lack of control you have over your characters in FF13. I really don't. How can a person say, "Well, you don't NEED to have control over your characters" and think that's a good thing?

Because this battle system is different then other FF and that wouldn't work into it. I never saw the big deal and the ai never pissed me off like it did in Persona 3. I'll never understand why people think the AI is bad and then claim to just auto battle which is just using the AI's commands!

I've played the game almost 5 times through now. The ai is about as good as you can get. Does it have little annoyances such as how it ques up attacks? Yes it does, but that's the battle systems fault, not the ai.

 

[Scythesurge]

Look, I didn't use auto battle and the AI still made awful decisions for my party members. To be fair it handled some classes better than others, but there were still many occasions where I got angry with the AI controlled party members. And just because it was better than P3's terrible AI doesn't make it good.

 

[Wazzim]

I have a dream that FFXV will be the next classic in the series. FFXII had plenty of freedom, but forgot the story. FFXIII had plenty of story, but forgot the freedom. FFXV will have both (or neither).

Being conservative will be the death of JRPG's...in the west. Only a small niche group in the west love that stuff and that is not what Square want FF to be. The majority of the fans only joined in the 3D saga and have never played any of the classic 2D games.
So, doing a game as big as FFXIII in a classic style will probably cost too much and sell less because of the conservative style but it would certainly be better.

My dream would be a extremely good animated 2D FFXV, have the sprites be really 1:1 to Amano's art (or close to) and bring the fantasy back in the series.
It would probably sell like shit compared to XIII but it would be better in respect to the series.

 

[ElFly]

Fucking Dragon Warrior IV on the NES had better AI than FFXIII.

This is a ridiculous lie.

On that note, given how much I use the AI in DQ IX, I wish it had the quick AI switches from FF XIII.

 

[LuCkymoON]

INTERNATIONAL PLAYER TESTS THAT CAME TOO LATE :lol

How about. "Finding the fun came too late"

Postmortems are a joke these days. Nine times out of ten they are reviewed and rewritten by producers. I don't even know why they bother with them anymore, you never learn anything relevant.

I would love to read postmortem on Shadowrun.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Only big problem I had with the AI was the fuckin Sentinel class. Other than that, it worked great and only gave me minor trouble in the post game.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

So we're agreed that both FFXII and FFXIII's battle systems were decent ideas that were hampered by the actual games they were inserted into?

Even though the battle systems were great on a basic level, they were hampered by the systems surrounding them.

XII had to deal with:
The License Board, offensive magic being nerfed, having to buy Gambits(seriously, who thought of having to buy the ability to target yourself with spells).

XIII had:
Crystarium, badly balanced enemies(in many ways), the AI got really dumb near the endgame.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Dungeon Crawlers, well, good dungeon crawlers also integrate the dungeon crawling itself into the gameplay. For a recent example, see Etrian Odyssey series.

FFXIII certainly doesn't do that. It's a series of tubes.

If the battle system's fun enough on its own, I wouldn't mind the "series of tubes" style of level design. See Grandia III as an example.

 

[Aeana]

If the battle system's fun enough on its own, I wouldn't mind the "series of tubes" style of level design. See Grandia III as an example.

Cool, now there are 2 Grandia 3 fans.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Cool, now there are 2 Grandia 3 fans.

Is that enough for them to greenlight Grandia 4 then?

 

[Neverwinter27]

I think Grandia 3 battle system is better than FF13 as well

 

[XiaNaphryz]

I think Grandia 3 battle system is better than FF13 as well

In my book, Grandia's battle systems have always been the best among JRPGs.

 

[Beth Cyra]

Loved Grandia II, didn't make it past the first three hours in Grandia III despite owning the game twice.