Domination - December 1st, 2001 - Drew Cosner
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I'm so sick of these damned ninja zombie robot raptor assassins. Don't say we didn't warn you.
I love weekends. After a week of hard work, nothing beats being able to sleep in until 3 in the afternoon. I personally like to leave my alarm set for its usual time so I can sneeringly turn it off and return to bed. My roommate always complains, but it's not my fault he has to be such a damn sleep nazi.
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Drew -
Sqaure has been dominating the RPG market for a long time, and will probably
continue to do so.
That spoof page with FFXII reviews really sums everything up perfectly. I
haven't played a Final Fantasy title I didn't enjoy, and I've played all of
those available stateside, and I don't expect to play one either. So with the
solid money maker that is FFX, and the garuanteed sucess of XII, even if XI
and the whole online thing don't take off, Sqaure will still be very high up,
if not totally dominating the RPG pecking order.
Let's not forget the loan from Sony, which no matter how they dress it up
will keep Sqaure on the PS2, as well as fill up some of the companies empty
coffers.
It also strikes me that all of these potential upsetters aren't really
introducing anyhting new into the genre. Grandia Xtreme, Suikoden III, Star
Ocean 3...notice anything about the titles? That are all sequels. Even when
Sqaure gets obsessed with their baby, they still put out qaulity non-FF
titles, such as Vagrant Story, Xenogears(yeah, I hated Babel just as much as
you, Drew, but it was a good game), and the not quite as trumped but still
enjoyable Legend of Mana.
However, I definatly applaud any attempts by any company to rule the RPG
roost, as to even attempt a hostile takeover of Sqaure's coveted
position(well, in Japan, anyway) they will need GOOD RPGs. And I can't think
of a single reason why good RPGs could ever be considered a bad thing.
That also applies if someone can oust them. That just means more qaulity
games for me to enjoy and bitch about not having the money for.
Peace,
Ray Stryker...oooh...pretty colors...
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While I've complained in the past about the relative lack of innovation in the RPG genre, I don't think "sequel" necessarily translates to an uninventive game. Take my personal favorite current example, Grand Theft Auto III; sure, in a lot of ways, it is more of the same, but it does everything so much better that it makes the first two titles in the series obsolete while being one of the first games I've seen that honestly couldn't have been done on an earlier system. An entire living, breathing, virtual city in 3D on the Playstation 1? Forget about that.
As for FFXI and XII, I agree with you. Even if FFXI totally tanks, XII isn't that far off, and Square has deep enough pockets to make a few misfires, especially now that Sony is looking after it.
And finally, to address your comments about a "good FF" being like Xenogears and Vagrant Story: those were two titles intended to be entirely different entities from the FF series, which has always been about more refined "traditional RPGs." If you can't dig that, that's fine, but Square would be remiss to wholly change the direction of the series, especially since it's a formula that quite a few people seem to enjoy. Some innovative takes on the formula are always appreciated, and I think the FF series has performed admirably well in implementing such. Although I think we can all do without those random encounters by now.
| Tough break |
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As far as Square's losses are concerned, they only
really had a bad break with their movie. That doesn't
affect how gamers feel about the games they produce.
Every aspect of the games is usually above average.
Even if a sub par game is made (FFVIII), it doesn't
effect the high sales of the next game released.
-Sylvia
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What's with everybody taking shots at Square games and/or series they don't like today, anyway? This is supposed to be a discussion of Square's dominance in the industry, not everyone's chance to proclaim in passing that Game X blew. There are plenty of people on this staff alone who would beg to differ regarding FFVIII.
| References to Douglas Adams' books never stop being funny |
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Drew -
After expending six boxes of chalk, three physics textbooks, twelve
erasers, two chalkboards, and a copy of "Tensor Calculus for Dummies," I
managed to whittle down the laws of the universe into the following Unified
Field Theory:
Square's future = Chrono 3
- An'Desha - And you thought it was 42.
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You know, after all of the time I've spent hosting this column, this sort of letter strikes me as amusing. It's just like what happened with Chrono Cross: everyone insisted that it was Square's duty to come out with a sequel to Chrono Trigger, and as soon as news of a sequel arrived, the Internet community at large wasted not a moment asserting that Square was ruining the series. I imagine that in a matter of months, when the inevitable sequel is announced, the same thing will happen.
| That there is some nice hair
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I don't see them making movies anymore, that's for sure. Which is a
shame, really. Has there been any talk about them doing special effects
for other studios or anything like that?
Aki's hair was so pretty.
~Ian P.
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Yeah, when I saw the news that Square was getting out of the filmmaking industry, I think I was one of 5 people that wondered what the hell the company's execs were thinking. Sure, TSW wasn't exactly Oscar material, but c'mon; who gets it right the first time? They spent so much money on the technology, they may as well stick to their guns, I figure. But, then, I'm not partially in charge of the management of one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, so take my views with a grain of salt.
| Spoiler: really long letter |
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Drew,
There are many things that have been happening over the past
months that have made me deeply question the rpg dominance of Square. Let
me say them so I don't just come across as a blind madman hoping for the
death of a company so many hold dear.
First, there is the obvious one of them losing all that money over
the Final Fantasy Movie. I fully recognize that something like this is
(hopefully) just a temporary setback. However, due to the massive amount
of effort put in to this movie, it seems Square has stopped working on so
many games at a time. As far as I know, they're working on one or two
games for the WonderSwan, Final Fantasy XI, Kingdom Hearts, lots of ports
of old Final Fantasy games, and there have been rumors of a new Chrono
game in the works. Hmmm, I guess when I say it like this, it isn't all
that bad, unless compared to what they seemed to do on the playstation.
There just doesn't seem to be the volume of cool new games in the near
future that there was when the Playstation was in its prime.
And thinking of the Playstation brings me to another big point.
When an rpg came out for the Playstation, it may have been tons of fun
(Suikoden II, Persona 2, Star Ocean 2, and many many Atlus games), but
never can I think of a game that came near the graphical impressiveness of
Square games. However, many of the rpgs that are coming out for the PS2
in the near future seem to look at least as good as their Square
competition. Of course, I may be wrong since I've just seen brief clips
and screenshots of these new games, but these make me think Square is not
necessarily the one with the prettiest rpgs anymore.
Finally, there is one more thing that concerns me in Square's
status. It seems people are leaving that company regularly to make games
somewhere else. I can only think of Monolith Soft (people from Xenogears)
and Brownie Brown (people from Legend of Mana) offhand, but when the
director of Xenosaga said he and his teammembers left Square mainly
because they wanted to focus primarily on the Final Fantasy franchise,
that really sounded like another nail being hammered into Square's coffin.
Don't get me wrong. I love much of what Square has done in the
past, and who knows? Maybe everything I said above is obvious to Square
and perhaps this will encourage them to get their collective asses in gear
to start putting out games to rival their "summer of gaming" (or whatever
it was called). And by that I mean quantity and quality together.
There's been plenty of talk about how healthy competition is, and it seems
Square may finally be getting some serious competition. However, since it
also seems they've got all their eggs in just one or two baskets, it makes
me think twice about holding on to my status as an official Square Whore.
-Kirk B.
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Where a smaller number of games being in development is concerned, I'm ambivalent. Maybe the PS2 requires a larger number of people working on a title to finish it in a reasonable amount of time, maybe Square is just playing things on the safe side. Either way, as long as the games are good, I'm there. I can't really afford to be buying games left and right like during the "Summer of Adventure" campaign anymore, anyhow.
As for staffers departing to start their own projects, I don't think that's necessarily a "nail being hammered in Square's coffin." Just look at id; some guy could come into id's offices and use the phone to call a tow truck and he'd probably have been there longer than most of the staff. Yet the company still cranks out some pretty decent games. Large development firms always have enough cash to attract new talent, and if anything that would help to keep things fresh.
| What domination? |
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I'm not sure if Square can "continue" to dominate in the near future since
they haven't, by my reckoning, "dominated" for at least a year. Sure, the
Summer of Adventure was capped off by another Final Fantasy game, but all
we've seen since then are touch-ups to a couple of older games. (Great
older games, yes, but hardly something to establish "dominance" by.)
I want to say Enix is the current champ, but then I remember we're not
really counting touch-ups of older RPGs, which is mostly what they've been
releasing save for last month's excellent DWVII--and one game is hardly
dominating anything. (Yes, I know about Valkyrie Profile. It was released
over a year ago, thanks.)
I guess I hadn't noticed until I sat down to write this letter what a fallow
period we're going through for RPGs, and I also hadn't noticed how little I
cared. It'll end soon with the (eventual) release of the Arc collection and
Final Fantasy X, but I'm not sure any one company can still be said to
"dominate" the way that Square used to with their SNES slate and Summer of
Adventure lineup.
-Nich Maragos
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I think that Square is still the big player, if in dormancy. The remakes are really just a quick-and-dirty buck for Square while it readies its PS2 projects for release. Sure, Enix may give Square some competition in Japan, but when you consider how much more influence Square has elsewhere, it's really no contest. If you ask the average casual gamer to name off some RPGs, I'm pretty sure "Final Fantasy" would come before "Grandia" or "Suikoden," at any rate.
| Nobody knows how we DAs work, my friend |
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Hey Drew,
I don't know why DA decided to have a topic dedicated to Square (the
majority of the letters are usually Square-related in some form, anyway),
but I'll bite.
With the recent announcement of Square's president stepping down, I say
GOOD. Square needs to realize that they're a game developer, not a
Hollywood film maker. I wish they had never made that movie, but they did,
and for that, they're paying for it. Now Square needs to do some
restructuring, and hopefully it'll involve going multiplatform. Once again,
Square has expressed their interest in the GBA (EGM #150), because it's a
huge money-maker. But will that happen? If Square hadn't added insult to
injury (leaving Nintendo was enough), and if Yamauchi wasn't so set in his
ways, then yes.
-Mike M.
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One thing you should probably understand: Hisashi Suzuki's resignation was really a gesture more than anything else. It's an extremely common business practice amongst the Japanese: when a company performs poorly, some high-level executive steps down as a gesture of regret. These men invariably retain decent jobs after the fact, sometimes even getting their old job back once things all blow over. Case in point, you'll note that Hisashi Suzuki "will remain as the company's chairman."
Although props for the amazing level of bitterness you harbour simply because Square tried to expand into other, potentially lucrative, forms of entertainment. If there's one thing I hate, it's when a game company I like makes lots of money and can afford to be more daring and prolific in game development. That really burns me up.
Closing comments:
I can't really think of a good topic, so instead you're getting a stupid one. I'd say that suits you. At any rate, here it is, and try not to get hit in the eye with my softball: if you could reside in a living, breathing version of any game world, which game would you go with? Be sure to let me know, otherwise I'll have to post junk mail or something.
-Drew Cosner, staring blankly
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