Hey, Drew

Just thought I'd clear things up on the reason for the diminishing times between Final Fantasys. First off, a short development time isn't that uncommon for the series. There were only 12 months between I and II, and just a little over a year between III and IV. Second, the recent games are actually in development for longer than the time between the games. The games aren't being made by the same teams. Look at the credits for FFVIII and IX. You won't see much consistency. That's because the team from VIII went on to develop X while another team is handling IX. So even though X will be released a mere eight months after its predeccesor, it will have been in development for two full years. That's hardly rushed.

-BadMonkey

Drew,

The two most prevalent mainstays of the RPG that need to go the are random encounters and separate battle screens. Nothing succeeds at jarring a gaming experience than having the screen disappear every five seconds and reappear as a generic battle ground in which you fight generic enemies. In addition, the time lag between the nifty swirly effect and the start of the battle kills the flow of the game.

Chrono Trigger represents the best way to handle battle transitions. However, modern RPGs have not followed suit, instead opting to switch the player to a 3D battle field in order to allow for a more dynamic camera. In the future, RPG developers will have the power to allow for a dynamic camera without switching battle fields, since more RPGs will be fully 3D. Let's hope that they do.

- Jeff

Drew,

One question: why do people keep saying FFIX is a game with a good difficulty level?

I didn't know what the "Game Over" screen looked like until the beginning of disk 3, and have died a total of *does quick math* 5 times, three out of those five times at the hand of Behemoths (they should be made into a final boss...), while all the bosses... Yes even the final one... Were fairly easy fare!!!

About npcs not caring you pillage their home for items... Every other game I've played since Xenogears does have a couple of instances where you walk into an npc's home, and they tell you to stop looking for stuff in their house...

As for foes dropping cash... It was done away with in FFVIII, so there's hope Square will do it again in X (we didn't see it repeated in IX because that one was allegedly a return to "tradition"...)

-Princess Jemmy

Well:

this topic has me being pulled a little in both directions, and it's hard to say what I wanna' see happen in RPG's. On one hand, there are a few things that could be done to improve these games, but at the same time, so many games are doing what they do so well that you gotta' ask yourself; why fix it if it's not broken? [I hate that stupid argument. Videogame genres aren't cars, people. -Drew]

A great example of this is FF9. Squares been pretty much delivering the same formula for gameplay since FF6, not changing too much. Similarly to FF6's character abilites -- each character has had an "ability" of his/her own in later games (limit breaks.) Exploation has been done pretty much the same way, and control has remained consistent and familiar -- largly unchanged. Though systems may change in the games, the core gameplay remians the same and that's what I love about Square and FF. Though the genres changing, they've remained true to the formula that works, that makes Final Fantasy one of the best series in history -- and for that I've got nothing but respect.

At the same time though, I do wanna see changes in the genre. And not these crappy small changes like the option to finally be able to simply walk up a flight of stairs or run without pressing an additional button -- these are all things we shouldn't have had to wait so long to see. I'm not like, "ah man, these changes are crap-o-licious" but at the same time I'm not, "Oh man, you mean I DON'T have to inspect the stars to go up?? Yes!! Dammit yes!!" No, I wanna see real changes in the games that make them more fun to play.

I want to see better character interaction -- between everyone. Calling on the FF series again, we see a great example of this, but it's not all there. Look at the fantastic relationship between Squall and Rinoa (FF8), developed from disc one. It's amazingly deep and easily one of the best displays of character interaction in gaming history. But what about the rest of the characters? Did anyone else notice that they're hardly developed or payed extensive attention? That their individual stories are barely there? It's when we start realising this and creating better chracter interaction that we'll get better characters. Sticking to interaction between characters -- how about some consequences? Remember in Chrono Trigger (and it's still visible in Chrono Cross) how certain events you didn't even notice were important, like finding that stupid girls cat, had you engaging in activity that could totally alter the games story? That was amazing, but it's not enough. I wanna see more plain ones like -- for example -- you go into a town with your weapon drawn. Now that towns gaurds see you and maybe intiate a persecution or something. Accuse you of being an enemy. While on the other hand, you go into the same town with weapon undrawn, and those same gaurds'll but you a drink! Wouldn't that rule....yeah, it would.

Finally, something I think would rule in RPG's is less linear worlds. I wanna be granted the option to explore more freely and with less limitations. I really love a game where you spend hours at a time hunting down treasure or exploring a town and uncovering new items and weapons without worry of that next dungeon. It's always fun to find that last item you've been secrectly questing for, or uncovering a new fact about a chracter through exploration.

So that's pretty much it. There's not hordes that RPG's can do to improve themselves in my mind -- most of them are already doing things right. But there are a few things out there that could seriously increase the pleasure of a good RPG, and when developers start realising them is when we'll get a flawless Role Playing Game.

-Michael, the gameplaying goat

I was playing FFIX the other day, when something interesting happened... I needed to fight some random battles to level up!... Now wasn't that a "pleasant" nostalgia trip?

Don't get me wrong, I loved FFIX's old-school style of play, but I think we should get back to FFVIII's theory of breaking tradition! I just feel they were breaking the wrong traditions.... I don't think that many people were lying awake at night wondering "why do monsters carry Gil?"

As for FFX, I'm hoping for a total overhaul, besides graphics. Let's eliminate the random battles! Let's vary the battle music a little! And for gods sake, you don't need to pan the camera around at the beginning of -every battle-! It's not at all dramatic when you're fighting Imps...

Since the game is supposedly fully polygonal, I think Square has a marvelous opportunity here... Pop up the menu and zoom in during a battle, instead of using a screen transition, a la Chrono Trigger. Make the overworld more detailed, Zelda-style...

And about the level-building thing? Scrap it altogether and focus on equipment and ability building, however they choose to do it for this sequel.

And to add another thing to this bitchy letter: Orchestrated music. There's the potential for multiple DVDs, here. It can and should be done!

~Alex M.

P.S. Anyone else feel FFX is the bastard child of the "holy three" FFs announced at the beginning of the year? This is poised to become what FFVII was to PSX, and it's getting no attention...

Drewbert,

All right, since you have given the complaint topic of the year, I'm only going to use two topics. Those topics happen to be the age of protagonists, and stealth in RPGs.

First, an old favorite, the age of protagonists. If the protagonist is going to be 12 years old, I want some damn good explanation as to why s/he can take out armies (I'm talking to you, Lunar). Also, I want whoever comes up with game plots to accept the idea that to have a long, mysterious background, the character should be sufficiently old to have lived through the background. I mean, Fei was destroying full cities at 15 years old. absurdly powerful being who transcends time or not, he should be fighting zits, not gears.

Stealth in RPGs. The complete lack thereof is absurd. I mean, gamers are penalized for avoiding conflict. How about just a little Metal Gear Solid "avoid the stupid grunts" to go along with "charging headfirst into insurmountable odds." The closest practical application of this is attempting to shoot the sorceress in FF8, which failed, but at least they tried. Oh, and if you sneak up on enemies, you don't get one free shot for double damage. You lob their damn heads off. I'll stop now before I start to get emotional.

-Garvey- "Interceptor still rocks, after all these years"

I really think we need to see RPGs taking the Shenmue route. I'm not saying they should be EXACTLY like Shenmue, but that game has many good aspects that should be stolen and implemented into more games.

To ramble off a few really good things about Shenmue... the fact that you have to earn your money. Not by fighting. By working. I think it'd be fun as all hell to have to go to 'work' in your game. It sure was fun in Shenmue seeing how fast you could wheel those crates. In fact, to build on this, I wouldn't mind people in RPGs actually having some sort of normal routine. If they can get it with as much effectiveness as Shenmue did, anyway... Another aspect that I really enjoyed in Shenmue was the freedom you had to do really anything you want whenever you want. If they could just eliminate that repetiveness... ("I'm sorry. Talk to someone else." "I guess they're not home." Did you ever notice that NO ONE was home? And if they were they were cooking or taking a bath.)

I guess basically what I'm trying to get at is the fact that RPGs need to be more realistic. Sure, we can still have our goofy RPGs and stuff, but I want to see some more Shenmues and Vagrant Stories. But maybe that's just me.

I wouldn't mind some relevant mini-games either. Relevant meaning 'pertaining to the actual plot'. And of course it'd have to be fun. And of course I'm done now.

×chris×

Howdy there troubadour,

i must say, the element of gaming that i would like to see disposed is certainly the gamer. The gamers always seem to be the ones complaining about games, eventhough the developers are trying to do what the gamers want them to do.

Gamer: "give us harder games!"
developer: "okay, here's a harder game"
gamer: "well now, that's a bit too hard. what i meant by harder was "strategic".

no more gamers = no more whining

yours cruelly,

opultaM Forward