The Final Fantasy Thread

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Maybe I'm retarded, but it looks like a FF14 texture mod. More action combat that looks me to me.
 
My mini-essay on why Final Fantasy VII was the last hit JRPG that could ever be made

If you were creating the ultimate JRPG, what would be the basic high-level factors that would have to be set in stone?

First, you'd make it relatable, in the same way that Stephen Spielberg made all his main characters characters that audience members could relate to like Marty McFly or Elliott from ET. That means making it take place in a late capitalist social context like one that the JRPG-buying public would be used to.

Next, you'd have to create a monolithic bad guy. Late capitalism + monolithic bad guy = evil megacorporation with a massive tower.

Then, you have to have a bigger narrative of good vs evil built out of your monolithic bad guy. If the megacorporation is the bad guy, then the larger force for evil is technology, and some Miyazaki-esque notion of nature would be the greater force for good. Thus we get the Lifestream/Gaia.

There's really only one winning formula that can be applied to JRPG's, given how formulaic JRPG's are to begin with, and thus there's only one game you can make.
 
jorgoth said:
My mini-essay on why Final Fantasy VII was the last hit JRPG that could ever be made

If you were creating the ultimate JRPG, what would be the basic high-level factors that would have to be set in stone?

First, you'd make it relatable, in the same way that Stephen Spielberg made all his main characters characters that audience members could relate to like Marty McFly or Elliott from ET. That means making it take place in a late capitalist social context like one that the JRPG-buying public would be used to.

Next, you'd have to create a monolithic bad guy. Late capitalism + monolithic bad guy = evil megacorporation with a massive tower.

Then, you have to have a bigger narrative of good vs evil built out of your monolithic bad guy. If the megacorporation is the bad guy, then the larger force for evil is technology, and some Miyazaki-esque notion of nature would be the greater force for good. Thus we get the Lifestream/Gaia.

There's really only one winning formula that can be applied to JRPG's, given how formulaic JRPG's are to begin with, and thus there's only one game you can make.
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I'd have to say an obstacle for JRPGs now is that they now need to focus on worldbuilding as much as story. Much like how the great ancestor of all RPG related fare, Lord of the Rings was so massively, meticulously, and scrutinously detailed to its every feature, JRPGs currently could honestly use some of that, and this especially goes ten times more for Final Fantasy. What JRPGs lack in presentation, they have more raw creative potential that's never tapped into. You're practically given colorful worlds to play in and a major quest to fulfill, but while the story and aesops are down pat, you're never given more than the obvious.

You're right in how Final Fantasy VII was an ultimate JRPG, but I'd argue it worked for its time. It made use of themes that hit the general consensus and it also had literal Hollywood production values behind it, from a promotion campaign and hiring CGI artists who worked on The Terminator and Jurassic Park. But ask around, you'll find many who want another Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger or Live-A-Live. Those games are also considered ultimate JRPGs too.

Back to Final Fantasy, this poor lack of worldbuilding is why Final Fantasy XIII was love or hate, along with showing how different RPG needs are for their audiences. We all joke about how Final Fantasy XIII is a tunnel, yet Skyrim was an overhyped piece of typical fantasy stereotypes threaded down from the big line and made everyone go on fetch quests for an underwhelming Gary Stu/Mary Sue chosen one story about dragons. Final Fantasy Type-0 and XV had attempts at worldbuilding, but they all had a strange focus on revolving around the player characters due to their importance in the backstory. Final Fantasy XIV has some good worldbuilding, but that's mainly an MMO.

We'll see what XVI brings to the table.
 
Final Fantasy lacks internal consistency in its world building. They can explain more, or explain less. But when the parts they do bother to detail do not line up with one another, it shatters suspension of disbelief and prevents the player from being able to fill in the blanks and enhance the experience.

Put more bluntly: Square's writers and editors are mediocre and they lack discipline; and they either need to proof read their work more or get an independent second opinion on their creations.

Time and time again Square's plots and scenarios reek of a team of people that became steeped in their creation and began taking for granted that the players are going into their game with a blank slate. Just because a plot requires extensive references to other works (like LOTR), does not necessarily mean it is deep and compelling.

More often it is obtuse and incongruous and the extra layers simply hide foundational flaws. For all of their flaws, games like Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest V and Final Fantasy IV retain enough internal consistency to tell a good story without explaining everything; which allows the player to fill in some of the spaces, granting them ownership over their experience. This cannot happen without internally consistent worlds and disciplined world building.
 
Dark Edea said:
Final Fantasy lacks internal consistency in its world building. They can explain more, or explain less. But when the parts they do bother to detail do not line up with one another, it shatters suspension of disbelief and prevents the player from being able to fill in the blanks and enhance the experience.

Put more bluntly: Square's writers and editors are mediocre and they lack discipline; and they either need to proof read their work more or get an independent second opinion on their creations.

Time and time again Square's plots and scenarios reek of a team of people that became steeped in their creation and began taking for granted that the players are going into their game with a blank slate. Just because a plot requires extensive references to other works (like LOTR), does not necessarily mean it is deep and compelling.

More often it is obtuse and incongruous and the extra layers simply hide foundational flaws. For all of their flaws, games like Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest V and Final Fantasy IV retain enough internal consistency to tell a good story without explaining everything; which allows the player to fill in some of the spaces, granting them ownership over their experience. This cannot happen without internally consistent worlds and disciplined world building.
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Be thankful that everything relating to Fabula Nova Crystallis bombed. Holy shit the lore is more tedious to get through than the Simarilion. It's also longer too, because they now have the competing timelines for the world of Orience and a whole slew of bullshit where Lightning is The Goddess while also not being The Godesss depending on the timeline. And the grand collective consciousness where people can transform into different versions of themselves from other universes because the universe is a giant DNA strand and you can gene edit your place in the universe.

You also have not one but two defunct mobile games based around this mess of a continuity
 
Marissa Moira said:
Be thankful that everything relating to Fabula Nova Crystallis bombed. Holy shit the lore is more tedious to get through than the Simarilion. It's also longer too, because they now have the competing timelines for the world of Orience and a whole slew of bullshit where Lightning is The Goddess while also not being The Godesss depending on the timeline. And the grand collective consciousness where people can transform into different versions of themselves from other universes because the universe is a giant DNA strand and you can gene edit your place in the universe.

You also have not one but two defunct mobile games based around this mess of a continuity
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that was really what put me off about XIII, it wasnt the linearity everyone talks about, the combat was not great but not the worst i suppose, the game looked great, it was beautiful, for me it was the awful convoluted lore they kept on pilling on you that did it.

XV i also don't remember a single thing about the lore, the difference is in XV the game really doesn't bother you that much with it, i just knew i was beating weird dinos with my bishoujo buds and that was good enough i guess. I got from point A to point B and i got the thingamagoo and put it in the thingamawhat and then everybody clapped, i don't think the stakes of the world or the backstory really added anything to the game but at least it didn't substract that much either. In XIII i was constantly annoyed by all this bs exposition that i would forget instantly.
 
Marissa Moira said:
Be thankful that everything relating to Fabula Nova Crystallis bombed. Holy shit the lore is more tedious to get through than the Simarilion. It's also longer too, because they now have the competing timelines for the world of Orience and a whole slew of bullshit where Lightning is The Goddess while also not being The Godesss depending on the timeline. And the grand collective consciousness where people can transform into different versions of themselves from other universes because the universe is a giant DNA strand and you can gene edit your place in the universe.

You also have not one but two defunct mobile games based around this mess of a continuity
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LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV] said:
that was really what put me off about XIII, it wasnt the linearity everyone talks about, the combat was not great but not the worst i suppose, the game looked great, it was beautiful, for me it was the awful convoluted lore they kept on pilling on you that did it.

XV i also don't remember a single thing about the lore, the difference is in XV the game really doesn't bother you that much with it, i just knew i was beating weird dinos with my bishoujo buds and that was good enough i guess. I got from point A to point B and i got the thingamagoo and put it in the thingamawhat and then everybody clapped, i don't think the stakes of the world or the backstory really added anything to the game but at least it didn't substract that much either. In XIII i was constantly annoyed by all this bs exposition that i would forget instantly.
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In the vein of Zoidberg, "that's right, the worldbuilding for XIII...."

Again, I blame the shitty mythologization and an underlying want to go full fedora and say "lol nope power of mankind is the only kind, don't rely on the gods kids". For one, the mythologization is absolutely poor; while Square Enix does have Shinto and Emishi mythologies to draw upon, they don't have that folklorish mystery correlation with the natural world, like how Amaterasu is the goddess of the sun, Zeus is the god of the sky and ruler of the Olympians, or like how the world came from an egg or the dead body of a giant. Instead, Fabula goes for fetishization, which is very bad. They just interject that crystals are magical and have godly powers that came into being out of nothing. There is nothing natural about this. There is little understanding of theology in this.

Second, everything is built up solely for the sake of tearing it down to get the word across of the whole "defy fate and the gods" theme. Like, fuck off, Tales and Lunar and just about every other JRPG prior 2000 got this because they were the products of their times and did them justice because they got their ideas across when needed. Square by this time was absolutely late to the party, holy shit. It also doesn't help that they try to use scientific elements while using Chrono Cross's and Chrono Trigger's ideas of both time travel and the theories of probabilities and different universes and dimensions while thinking that would just fit in with the themes of mythology and a shared universe when that kind of stuff are the last things you should focus on. The only thing good about this was that XV was a departure from the whole "go full fedora and defy the gods" deal and used its crystal mythology aspect in a way that kind of does make sense, like how the Crystal is a vessel of divine power created by the communion of heaven and earth itself.

Personally, I feel Final Fantasy tries to play itself off as a reenactment of a tabletop game campaign and a bit of a fever dream, when the reality is that it is trying to be something that is more than a video game. There's nothing wrong with being a video game. Even for Sakaguchi, who said that he was great at telling stories than making games, he knew the fundamental rule that a video game is a game, first and foremost, and that should the be the medium by which to carry the story on as the reward. Like, I know that I don't need to know how people use the bathroom or what kinds of things you'd have to do to make monster meat edible, but the main point is a saying crucial to adventure storytelling: "The quest is the story, the story is not the quest." I'd care more about probability theory and the nature of time by divine perspectives if it was done with a good foundation and wasn't the entire crux of a story and its universe.
 
Honestly this series was best when it coasted on emotions and didn't go into detail.
Taking Seven as an example.
It only went into detail about the world as much as it needed to. The Compilation, which sucks and especially in comparison, got hung up on explaining things. Usually retconning or disrupting the original, more nuanced and more flexible, explanation.

Worldbuilding is something I've always appreciated but it's never made me love something. Except in LOTR and other BOOKS because BOOKS can afford to take that time. And frankly. books are smarter.
 
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Well this is interesting, the whole event with Yoko Taro happened and Square Enix was very aware about how the western world was displeased with the initial reveal. They seem to want to build up good relations with the western fanbase and want to build back up the franchise in terms of quality.

They made a Joke about getting more info in the year 2035.
 
Berrakh said:
"Oh no!"
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Then stop overspending the Japanese in game purchases.

The entire reason why Yoko taro was even there to begin with was because Americans got into nier and made the series a top seller for the company.

hell the Soulsborne series is only thing because of Americans

Americans now have spent equal of the amount of time and money on Monster Hunter so much so that Capcom is now doing a global release for future titles.

Persona overtaking SMT is the fault of Americans

Spike Chunsoft now self publishing is because Americans made Dangan Ronpa so profitable that there is now a stable market for titles like that.

This is all your fault because you have disposable income!
 
Marissa Moira said:
Then stop overspending the Japanese in game purchases.

The entire reason why Yoko taro was even there to begin with was because Americans got into nier and made the series a top seller for the company.

hell the Soulsborne series is only thing because of Americans

Americans now have spent equal of the amount of time and money on Monster Hunter so much so that Capcom is now doing a global release for future titles.

Persona overtaking SMT is the fault of Americans

Spike Chunsoft now self publishing is because Americans made Dangan Ronpa so profitable that there is now a stable market for titles like that.

This is all your fault because you have disposable income!
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I don't mind them taking our money. I mind that they will start listening to retards on social media.
 
Berrakh said:
I don't mind them taking our money. I mind that they will start listening to retards on social media.
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Japan doesn't internet the way the west does. They still use Yahoo as a major site.

US Social media isn't much of a concern outside of these web events. Most feedback is probably going to be from in person events if those are ever going to be allowed again and stuff like reviews and feedback from that.
 
Marissa Moira said:
Japan doesn't internet the way the west does. They still use Yahoo as a major site.

US Social media isn't much of a concern outside of these web events. Most feedback is probably going to be from in person events if those are ever going to be allowed again and stuff like reviews and feedback from that.
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Western wings that listen to social media might not have much influence on game development, but they can influence the localization. Press F to pay respects to Fire Emblem Fates.
 
Pissmaster said:
Western wings that listen to social media might not have much influence on game development, but they can influence the localization. Press F to pay respects to Fire Emblem Fates.
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I'm not so sure since Square Enix seems to have about 50/50 on all localization teams since they want voice actors for their games out the wazoo.

There's more quality control when it comes to things like that since there's more money involved.
 
Can anyone recommend FF titles for any iterations of the DS ?
 
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