MP3s. What can I say about MP3s? Yesterday, I commented that most game companies would be extremely wary about using MP3 technology in their game systems. Some people wrote in to trash me for that statement. Apparently, at least one game (Heroes III?) uses MP3s for its music. However, I maintain that built-in MP3 decoding will not be a feature of a console system any time soon. Why? MP3 is a very handy format. It's cheap, it compresses sound like nobody's business, and could be of great use to game developers. It is not, in itself, illegal at all. But two of the three hardware producers (Sony and, via NEC, Sega) are losing revenue from piracy already, and building what would amount to a publically-available MP3 CD player would be bad for business. The developers of WinAmp have recently been sued. A company that developed a portable MP3 CD player had their product pulled off the market right quick. MP3s are a hot topic, linked closely with piracy, and I simply can't imagine any major company playing around with such a "hot" format if there are other options. Which there are. So, in my opinion, we'll almost certainly see MP3s in PC games in the future, but on major consoles? Built into the hardware? Not likely | Have trunk, will travel | Anyway, just a brief point. 'Trey' yesterday cited Fallout 2 as a good source of non-linear gaming. He had a very good point, but we seem to have overlooked one crucial point: the company cannot release patches following the game's console release. Fallout 2 is a good example in this respect as well. Though certainly not as bad as some (the game was at least functional out of the box), there were glaring errors in the gameplay which cut off certain (non-vital) facets. For instance, the 'boxing' section was buggy beyond usability, and the trunk of your car followed you everywhere (not the CAR, mind you; the trunk.) Naturally, the PC format meant that a patch was on the Internet within weeks ... but Playstation has no such luxury. In essence, that level of freedom is impossible in a console format, unless the designers are gods among men. Anyway, I sense I'm rambling. The point is that computer freedom is nigh-impossible on consoles, period. I wish it were otherwise, but there you are. - S. Dietrich |
Point taken, monsieur. That is a point I've failed to address - non-linear games tend to be the subject of more patches than other types of games. The most obvious example is Ultima Online, arguably the least linear game ever made. UO has been the subject of how many patches? Could anyone count? And it's still the focus of more complaints about balance and bugs than any product I can think of, with the possible exception of Windows 95. The more freedom and variety gameplay receives, the more opportunity there is for things to get screwed up. It's all well and good to say "well, on console, you just would playtest until it works right", but realistically, that's unlikely to happen. | Greatist [sic] hits! | Why don't Squaresoft do some remake of his ***greatist hits*** of the SNES,I think that will be great like Secret of Evermore or Chrono Trigger. |
Retro games and collections chew up time, spots on release schedules, manpower, and as a rule, never sell as well as new products. Moreover, neither Secret of Evermore, nor Chrono Trigger sold well enough to justify rereleasing them less than five years after their initial foray into the market. Only the biggest titles are even considered for rerelease this soon, as displayed by the FF Collection. | Legend of Legaia SMASH puny gamers! Raaaaaagh! | After playing Legend of Legaia for a few hours (alright, a bunch. Whatdo you expect, it was vacation?) today, I have to admit that it was thehardest RPG I have ever played. And I've played a LOT of RPGs. I havejust about every RPG on the PSX, except maybe Wild ARMS and Ogre Battle,and almost all on the SNES. And none of them are as hard as Legend. How hard is that? Well, take Xenogears battles. Then cube thedifficulty. Done? Now cube that. Still with me? Good. Now cubethat. I'm talking about bosses so hard, that I thought I was supposedto lose to them. They do 3/4 of your max HP with their weakest singleattack, and 1/2 of your max HP to everyone in the party. And this isbefore you even get your third guy. So all those people who have beenbitching about RPGs not being hard enough, this is your ticket. I can'trecomend this game enough to you. SLADE "Hey, now PC coverage? I like it!" PS: I hope you guys get that walkthrough done soon, I've come so closeto dying and I'm only on the fifth dungeon. Damn that Songi! |
"Now PC coverage" was a typo in last night's column, which was corrected, but apparently after this letter was sent. To set the record straight, GIA is not covering PC RPGs. Sorry. Ouch. That sounds might in the ways of Smack My Ass Down. Anyone else have similar experiences with LoL? Anyone have anything to say about it, period? I haven't played it quite yet, but I can get most questions answered nevertheless. :) | Quick saves | I'm not trying to harp on her, but Invisgirl obviously never played theill-fated Sega Saturn. The game saves on there are just as quick as onthe N64 (press the button, return to game), and it's CD based, so youget all the advantages of that too! Ah well.. like I said, I'm not complaining.. just pointing out thatcarts are not the only way to go (would have been nice if sony hadincluded a battery backup, eh?) -Brad Williams
Okay, instant saving is nice, but I basically have two arguments againstit: Number one, the PSX does appear to be able to hold a small amount ofsave data until switched off (a la Saga Frontier), which is a featurethat would REALLY make saving a lot less annoying if more save-heavygames incorporated it. My second argument is Controller Paks. I wouldpay a large amount of money to be able to hang the idiot who inventedthose things by his guts from a poke in front of Nintendo's heaquarters.Firstly, the goddamned things cost fifteen dollars. A PSX memory cardcosts twice that, and can hold fifteen saves(for most games, anyway).The controller pak holds, what, one? It's just reprehensible, but whatREALLY gets me is that then a lot of companies got the idea that theyDIDNT HAVE TO INCLUE CARTIDGE SAVES because of the bloody things. Ohjoy, I think I'll go out and spend $45 on cartrige paks so that I canhave three saved games. Whoopee. Honestly, this is one of the mainreasons I became disgusted with the Nintendo 64 to begin with. Bloodythings.
Hey Allan, I just wanted to point out a very nice feature that SagaFrontier had (yes, you heard me right): the quick save. Since Invisigirlpointed out the biggest pet peeve of all PSX players, I thought I shouldpoint out that fast saves can be done, then when you want to turn off thesystem, you just do a full save once, instead of at every save point. Of course, if a company such as Square could combine this feature with theone found in Parasite Eve, where your memory card was checked when youturned on the game, so that there was no loading time either, that wouldbe optimal. Couldn't they just make it so that when you hit a save point,it automatically checks the card, so that when you go to the menu and hitsave, you don't even have to wait for the blocks to load? Just a coupla thoughts. Nation |
Basically, while carts do have instant saves, good programming can overcome the slow-ish saves that CD-based systems tend to have, which sort of negates the advantage of carts vs. CDs. And yes, I think the PSX should have internal memory, and I'll be seriously pissed off if the PSX2 doesn't either. Plug-and-play game systems are Good. | Questing | Since you like Dragon Warrior/quest and have played all the games (eventhe Japan only SNES versions) I was wondering if parts 4 through 6 (andnow 7) are in any way connected to parts 1 through 3? To me, that's whatreally set DW apart from the FF series -- the fact that the games areconnected. Since I haven't finished 4 (yet!-Someday I plan to! If I ever finishXenogears, BOF3, SaGa Frontier, Brave Fencer, oh and then Lunar shouldfinally be out, and a thousand others, darn it! Why so many games!? I'llnever get to them all! But I digress...) Since I haven't finished 4 orplayed 5 through 7 (someone, please, come out with a FINISHEDtranslation patch for 5 and 6! Darn, I keep digressing...) Anyway, I just wondered how the later games are connected to the earlyones, if at all. I mean are they directly connected like the first threeor just connected in the same way FF games are connected. --The Bad Guy |
The Dragon Quest series is a series of trilogies. The first three, the Roto series, are all interconnected. Likewise, 4-6 are connected, in what is called the Tenkuu series. Therefore, the seventh game will be the start of a new, unrelated trilogy of its own. It'll share gameplay, stylistic, and monster designs, of course, but not the direct links within a trilogy. | Plastic surgery | Hey Allan, I was wondering about those design sketches you guys picked up that you speculated were possible sketches for an FF1 remake. I'm curious, do you think that FF1 had enough substance to recreate? I mean, your characters were nameless, faceless heroes who never said a word throughout the entire game. If they did decide to give them personalities as well, like FF5 maybe, wouldn't that remove some of the appeal of reliving an old classic? The entire adventure was also pretty basic. There wasn't much more to the story than the four elements and the final boss. Even if they remake the game, won't the plot be too weak as a public draw? - Ted "The dark priest called Shaft" Adler |
Welcome to the hell known as remaking games. If you don't improve the game dramatically, most older games will seem dated, inferior, and not worth playing to most of its audience. But if you do change it, the diehards will riot. What to do? If indeed Square does an FF1 remake, I suspect they'd do quite a number on it. While they might not add personalities to the characters, they'd almost certainly flesh out the plot considerably, probably adding a lot more classes to choose from, changing gameplay mechanics, raising interaction levels, and so forth. FF Collection aside, Square strikes me as the sort of company to go whole hog if they remake games, and given FF1's age, they'd probably toss close adherence to the original out the window and go to town, taking the basic concepts (Light Warriors, Garland, Chaos, Elemental Fiends), and rebuild the game from the ground up around it. | Aaaaand the world of cinematic RPGs | I fail to see how Final Fantasy going back to a traditional style would hurt the RPG genre as a whole. You may or may not have known, but Final Fantasy lost a lot of fans in Japan when they went with the totally new design (I'm not talking going from traditional to cinematic, I'm talking axing almost all the Final Fantasy traditions in favor of something newer, something more simplified and less Final Fantasy-like). But that didn't matter to Square because the graphics of FF7 sold the game like crazy, opening up for millions of new fans. Same thing happened with Final Fantasy VIII. Older fans scoff at how Final Fantasy has become, while people new to gaming eat the game up. Which one is in the majority? Maybe it is just my preference, but I would much rather see Final Fantasy go back to it's roots then continue evolving into a science fiction story on a stick where traditional role playing elements and Final Fantasy themes are disappearing and being replaced with radically different designs. If they're going to keep changing Final Fantasy in this way, what is the point of keeping the Final Fantasy name? Ike Sato, the guy who started one of the first and best english Final Fantasy 7 webpages, was really disappointed with Final Fantasy 7, and he felt the game should have been named something else other than Final Fantasy. Now, I want to tell you something about cinematic games. They don't have to be RPGs. On the computer, we've seen cinematic games come and go. Some are very successful and develop a following (Wing Commander), while others proved that cinematic-based games are NOT the way to go (Phantasmagoria and just about everything else). You look at the Sega CD and you see Night Trap. Now of course, with today's "cinematic RPGs" (heck there's even one for the N64 - Hybrid Heaven), they're using CG instead of live action, but it's basically the same thing. I'm not going to oppose a cinematic RPG as long as it still emphasises great gameplay (ala Panzer Dragoon Saga), and my preference will always be in those RPGs with a more hardcore emphasis (so a cinematic RPG with Dragon Quest length and detail would probably be icing on the cake). But in the long run of things, there really is no reason to promote or have cinematic-type games. They just drive game production costs up and go against the meaning of video gaming. And sure the ones with the best graphics will sell the most and be profitable, but I think in this day and age companies should be trying to create better and more innovative games rather than better looking games. A lot of people (who haven't even played Dragon Quest) criticize Dragon Quest VII because it's "more of the same", when they forget the fact that innovation includes improving upon traditions, and that is something that every Dragon Quest sequel has accomplished (or tried to). A certain Final Fantasy VIII reviewer may think that better CG = innovation, but I whole heartily disagree. Now as for people complaining about cinematic games when the games really are in the minority, the fact is that the biggest selling RPGs are cinematic based. The ONLY reason why they sell is because of the graphics. How many copies a game sells is only marginally reflective of the game's quality, if the game's graphics are substantially better than anything else out there. You could take all those traditional RPGs you mentioned and combine their sales, and Final Fantasy VII still sold more than that here. I mean, Tactics Ogre, a game which did not sell very well here, would have probably sold like Final Fantasy VIII if they replaced the in-game cut-scenes with FF8-like FMV. Also, cinematic RPGs actually HURT the RPG genre, because then they create a wrong pre-concieved notion in new RPG fans that all RPGs should feel like a movie. The best RPGs immerse you in a world where you role play a character. People who grow up on cinematic RPGs will think it's about controlling a character in a movie. - Desmond Gaban |
Somewhere in the midst of all this controversy of what RPGs should or should not be, there's a few truths to be seen. First off, graphics do sell. They are not the only thing that determines the success of a game, as Rise of the Robots proved with the utmost of skill, but it helps. If nothing else, superb graphics make advertising a game a very simply prospect: simply show prospective buyers the eye candy, tell them that there's a great game to go with it, and that's that. It's another truth that there are some Final Fantasy fans who have become alienated by the move of the series, eschewing tradition, and moving in a very clear and bold new direction. It's a truth that Final Fantasy VII has opened up the US market to RPGs like no game before it, and virtually all RPGs are enjoying higher sales because of it. Do they sell as well as FF7? Of course not. But they're selling substantially better than they were in the days of 7th Saga and Lufia, traditional style or not. Preconceived notions of what an RPG should be or not, the genre is selling and is expanding. The last truth is that money talks. For all the hand-wringing and moaning, Final Fantasy VII stands as a worldwide success. Good for it. It'd be a dry, horrible, inbred gaming industry if there weren't games like that. Someone's got to innovate, someone's got to toss out the preconceptions of what should and should not be an RPG and remake the wheel. Sega did that to the fighting game genre with Virtua Fighter. They created a genre from the whole cloth. They received a lot of flak, and maybe their first moves are a little halting. But at least they're trying to innovate. At least they're trying to do something new. Final Fantasy VIII has a modern-styled setting. It has no armor, no chests, and your characters don't switch weapons like they were diapers on a baby that's weaned on bran muffins. Bless it. I hope it sells gangbusters. It's a strange sensation to see everything I took for granted, everything I loved about RPGs since I was a wee lad completely replaced, but without experimentation, there is no progress. The moment you set down in writing what an RPG is supposed to be, you're dead wrong, because there's already someone out there breaking your definition with a sledgehammer. That's the nature of progress. Cinematic RPGs, with roving camera angles, FMV sequences, dramatic lighting, and more cutscenes with more plot is one direction for games to develop in. It's not just an improvement in eye candy, it's a total change in what the game is about, and how it's played. Growth games like Wonder Project J and the Monster Rancher-esque games is another style opening up. They are not intrinsically bad. They are not always used well, and they don't appeal to everyone, but they are not evil in and of themselves. It's just a tool, a style, an aspect of a game. If Square stops doing what it's doing with the Final Fantasy series, a horrible and frightfully public precedent is set. Progress is shat upon for the sake of keeping tradition. Not every experiment turns out, not every foray into a new area works out, but better to try and fail than to be perpetually stuck with the tools and ideas of yesterday. I'll support originality over the better mousetrap every day of the week.
Closing comments Austen wrote in to mention that the SD series are supposedly interrelated somehow. I've been told that too, but to be quite honest, I've never figured out how it works. If they are linked, it's not exactly explicit. Anyone have any clear explanation of how they're interlinked, or is this just one of those RPG fandom rumors? Wandering Prophet wondered if Legend of Mana would see US release. Considering that, for the time, Secret of Mana did very good business for an RPG of any stripe, and Square EA's pledge to release a bunch of games this year, I'd bet on it. Lastly, please note that the Deep Thoughts section is back, with a letter I received a while ago, and should have DTed a long time past. Good stuff. Enjoy. - The Double Agent | | | |
