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Square Enix teasing their E3 booth

One last thing that I found rather funny:

FF13 has a slightly better user rating than 12 on Metacritic.

Not surprising to me. Final Fantasy 13 is very much a love it or hate it game, where as 12 has people who love it and then people who thought it was just a bland boring game in the series they couldn't care less about. I've said on numerous occasions that 12 is the worst game in the series IMO because how mediocre and forgettable it is. At least I hated 13, much stronger feelings (even if negative) compared to just meh.
 
Says the 20 pages of people who want to have hate sex with Toriyama.

I wish he would be tried as a war criminal.

Seriously, I know he's not entirely to blame for the state of FF, but I have absolutely despised his role as a writer and director. If he never touches another game by Square again I would only be too happy.

Remember Nomura's priorities with Versus? Open worlds, customizable party, tragic story and character development through interactive cutscenes.

What does Toriyama prioritize? Make the characters pretty, make it like Call of Duty, HD towns are hard and here's this bullshit J-pop band doing vocals for the soundtrack.
 
He's Wada's fuck buddy. I've heard that is literally the only reason they keep using him.

He's the go-to guy for quickly making an FF game in under two years.

Not to mention Kitase covers his ass. All the time. Makes me feel because of Kitase Toriyama has been riding the "gravy train".
 
Toriyama only utterly demolished Parasite Eve and Front Mission. Dunno why he deserves a free pass.

Toriyama is actually quite good at a very specific job, and that is event direction. The actual direction of the cutscenes in FFXIII, from the camera work to how the characters acted out the script, was very well done. The problem was mostly with the script itself and some of the overall design decisions made in the game. In my opinion, he should be put back into the more narrowly defined Event Director role he assumed for FFX, and let someone else handle the writing and the game design.
 
Toriyama is actually quite good at a very specific job, and that is event direction. The actual direction of the cutscenes in FFXIII, from the camera work to how the characters acted out the script, was very well done. The problem was mostly with the script itself and some of the overall design decisions made in the game. In my opinion, he should be put back into the more narrowly defined Event Director role he assumed for FFX, and let someone else handle the writing and the game design.

Many have been saying that for years. I've said this a couple times as well.
 
I didn't think the scene direction in FFXIII was good, but it definitely was in 3rd Birthday. Although I guess that would be Tabata, not Toriyama. Too bad it was wasted on such a terrible, terrible plot.

"Here's a picture of nothing. Looking forward to the day when I can tell everyone~" lol what a troll.
 
Toriyama is actually quite good at a very specific job, and that is event direction. The actual direction of the cutscenes in FFXIII, from the camera work to how the characters acted out the script, was very well done. The problem was mostly with the script itself and some of the overall design decisions made in the game. In my opinion, he should be put back into the more narrowly defined Event Director role he assumed for FFX, and let someone else handle the writing and the game design.

You know what I wanted, more than anything? An actual exposition scene in FFXIII, where everyone is sitting around a campfire and Hope asks something like "Hey, what's Pulse like?". And then Vanille starts talking about it, and then we get a mental image of one of the central plot points without a flipping codex entry
 
Toriyama is actually quite good at a very specific job, and that is event direction. The actual direction of the cutscenes in FFXIII, from the camera work to how the characters acted out the script, was very well done. The problem was mostly with the script itself and some of the overall design decisions made in the game. In my opinion, he should be put back into the more narrowly defined Event Director role he assumed for FFX, and let someone else handle the writing and the game design.

I agree.

If it's story it should definitely be headed by Nojima.
 
If Toriyama was a good event director, he would have directed events that fleshed out the story without the datalog. Also he would have had characters with believable body language and dialogue.

Truly the only one I think actually has any cinematic chops over at SE is Jun Akiyama. Vagrant Story has crazy good direction.
 
Toriyama is actually quite good at a very specific job, and that is event direction. The actual direction of the cutscenes in FFXIII, from the camera work to how the characters acted out the script, was very well done. The problem was mostly with the script itself and some of the overall design decisions made in the game. In my opinion, he should be put back into the more narrowly defined Event Director role he assumed for FFX, and let someone else handle the writing and the game design.
Except Toriyama didn't direct the cutscenes in XIII. The director of a large scale video game is not going to have the time to properly direct cutscenes.

Edit: Koji Kobayashi is credited for the cutscene direction. Takeshi Nozue and Eiji Fujii are credited for the FMVs.
 
Except Toriyama didn't direct the cutscenes in XIII. The director of a large scale video game is not going to have the time to properly direct cutscenes.

Barely had time to direct a game considering they didn't even know how it would play until they made that extremely restrictive demo.
 
It really wasn't.

That said even I can admit that Lightning Returns should be better than Dirge of Cerberus.

Maybe.

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Except Toriyama didn't direct the cutscenes in XIII. The director of a large scale video game is not going to have the time to properly direct cutscenes.

Edit: Koji Kobayashi is credited for the cutscene direction. Takeshi Nozue and Eiji Fujii are credited for the FMVs.

Of course he wasn't involved at as low a level as he was in FFX (which also had very good cutscene direction), but he was still heavily involved in the scene planning. FFXIII was basically designed to move you from cutscene to cutscene with not much else in between, so you would expect the director to carry some weight in such a major part of the game, especially considering it was for the scenario that he co-authored.
 
Trying soo hard to ignore some of the posts in here. Omg. I swear there is no better way to learn self control than to be a Lightning fan in neogaf. ;-;
 
Dirge of Cerberus is one of the most mechanically inconsistent games I have ever played.

Design-wise, it's a complete mess because they clearly didn't know what they wanted to do with it.
 
I honestly believe that Dirge of Cerberus is the worst game I've ever played. And I'm not just saying that because it's in the current discussion. Thinking about all the games I've ever encountered across all genres, it's the one I look least fondly at.
 
Of course he wasn't involved at as low a level as he was in FFX (which also had very good cutscene direction), but he was still heavily involved in the scene planning. FFXIII was basically designed to move you from cutscene to cutscene with not much else in between, so you would expect the director to carry some weight in such a major part of the game, especially considering it was for the scenario that he co-authored.
Sure, he deserves some credit, but you were crediting him with the cinematography.
 
I barely remember anything about that game. Just that Cloud was slapped on the back of the cover box like 3 times, but he was only in the game for ONE cg cutscene. Not that I'm a Cloud fanatic, but talk about abusing your characters.
 
I honestly believe that Dirge of Cerberus is the worst game I've ever played. And I'm not just saying that because it's in the current discussion. Thinking about all the games I've ever encountered across all genres, it's the one I look least fondly at.

Dirge of Cerberus is painfully mediocre.

An entirely drab experience. There's no emotional heights to be experienced within its context. Just a big old ball of bland.

There was no potential. It was always meant to be a black hole.
 
That game is equivalent to Dirge of Cerberus at this point.

Yoichi Wada is rehired. All games are cancelled. All development is refocused on producing one final masterpiece that will save the company. Final Fantasy XIII-4: Dirge of Lightning: Lightning Departs.
 
Yoichi Wada is rehired. All games are cancelled. All development is refocused on producing one final masterpiece that will save the company. Final Fantasy XIII-4: Dirge of Lightning: Lightning Departs.

I kind of want them to keep making Lightning games as a running gag.

Each one having barely anything to do with the last.
 
Masashi Hamauzu did the OST.
As much as I love Hamauzu, I think it's among my least favourite albums of his. Like, I like Oolong Tea Story better, for example, and that was only 8 tracks long and mostly consisted of piano work and some violin. I just like the melodies and the general mood so much better. Granted, I fell in love with Hamauzu when I played Sigma Harmonics, and it's hard to compare other things to that!

And now that he's freelance, he's doing some really neato stuff!

What positive things can be said about DoC?
The CG looks ok? I dunno.

I honestly believe that Dirge of Cerberus is the worst game I've ever played. And I'm not just saying that because it's in the current discussion. Thinking about all the games I've ever encountered across all genres, it's the one I look least fondly at.
I don't know what it says about me when I can say that I've played considerably worse. :/
 
I don't know what it says about me when I can say that I've played considerably worse. :/

It says that you should stop playing games that are obviously bad.

I don't understand how some people on GAF can go out of their way to play bad games. Maybe they search for more of the unintentional greatness that was Sonic 06? Not every game can be as hilarious as that one though.
 
Yeah, I've got all 3 of those and they're all really good. I definitely recommend them for Hamauzu fans. He also had a guest track with Mina on a Taito compilation album that came out in December.

Dirge's OST isn't one of my favorites of his, but it has a few tracks I do really like.
Ooooh, I liked that one too. And yes, Dirge has some stuff that sticks out here and there. Shame that the album isn't as cohesive as Sigma Harmonics's or Unlimited SaGa's for me.

I'll say that I'm looking forward to Lightning Returns's soundtrack.

And I'm usually the type of person who can derive enjoyment even out of sub-par or mediocre games. Not DoC.
What I really didn't like about DoC is that it just didn't know what it wanted to be. It felt like it changed its tune at different times, and that's what frustrated me about it the most. It was very inconsistent, and I didn't find it remarkable in general. Not its narrative, nor its level design/gameplay. Looking back on it, I think the game was just straight-up boring to me.

It says that you should stop playing games that are obviously bad.

I don't understand how some people on GAF can go out of their way to play bad games. Maybe they search for more of the unintentional greatness that was Sonic 06? Not every game can be as hilarious as that one though.
Yeah, I mean... Sonic 06 can be worth it for the laughs if you're playing it drunk, or if you're playing it with friends or other people. I played through Sonic 06 twice, but at least I can say that I'm not like a friend of mine who got the 1000G for it because I'm not as insane.

But I've played games where I've derived absolutely no enjoyment from whatsoever, and just finished them off for the sake of finishing them, or saying that I did finish them back my arguments up better. I've played some complete jank, stuff that didn't work properly, things that were glitchy to hell and back, etc. Completely unenjoyable at times.
 
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