I give him credit for properly steering the ship.
He recognized talent, organized it and kept his own touches throughout and the output from the company at large was fantastic.
Wired: Final Fantasy Isnt Dying. Its Already Dead
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
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He recognized talent, organized it and kept his own touches throughout and the output from the company at large was fantastic.
This is me exactly, my first experience with JRPG's was FFVII which was life changing. 8-10 were great for me albeit with diminishing returns. Haven't played one since unfortunately. I'm hoping with the next gen change SE can once again get back to good story telling. I suspect the PS3 era of development kinda derailed SE (and many other developers) due to the advent of HD and difficulty in programming the PS3.
Chance Hale
Member
I wish Downpour's enemy design hadn't been so absurdly bland, it was really a return to form in a lot of ways and is a decent game in general, especially the sidequests. But man the enemy design just saps a lot of the fear away. Felt like something I'd shoot in a doom game, and certainly something that didn't belong anywhere near a Silent Hill title.
I was gonna say Itou but I couldn't remember which games he worked on. But he's obviously super critical. I never see anyone mention him though. He might as well be invisible. But dayum yo, dat nomura and his like 1 character design in FFXIII (who is nao ikeda lol) ruining the series
The character design had put me off originally, but I have heard good things.
I want the return of a powerful male lead character, and I dont mean to offend anyone by saying that. It's just the recent focus on female leads, and designer type styles, is not what initially drove the series success. It's no wonder when you essentially do a 180 on the entire demographic that you start to dwindle the base. With lightning and the MMO, in particular, if anything make it something else, like its own IP.
I admit I didn't know much of Itou before this whole XIII debacle where I started to care the names of some of the more invisible staff members.
You can't be fucking serious.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I think his role as company manager was always his strong point. It's even more indicative then ever before. But most won't look past his game development and see that.
MAX PAYMENT
Member
Only the hardest of core FF fans don't realize it died years ago.
Chance Hale
Member
I liked most of the designs in XIII outside of the PSICOM soldiers which are awful. Why bees! If nothing else I wish they'd keep whoever did the backgrounds/environments, so colorful and full of life.
I'll always be a FF fan, more from nostalgia than anything else these days. I'm willing to give them a chance on FFXV. It's all about the characters and the story not being absolutely bonkers. Is that too much to ask? I forced myself through FFXIII and still don't understand what the point was for the characters to keep trudging onward. I had to give up on FFXIII-2 a few hours in.
Really most of their games since the 16-bit era have aged poorly and IMO aren't that memorable. The 32-bit games have aged the worse. X holds up and the HD rerelease will do it good. XII was interesting but completely forgettable other than Belthier being a badass.
I still can't understand how the company that once gave us Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI within a year of each other has given us FFXIII, thought we wanted more of it, gave us FFXIII-2, and thought we needed thirds. Every generation has given us a trio of FFs. That is this long gens trio. I know times change, but the new generation at Square has completely lost sight of what once made FF so special.
Really most of their games since the 16-bit era have aged poorly and IMO aren't that memorable. The 32-bit games have aged the worse. X holds up and the HD rerelease will do it good. XII was interesting but completely forgettable other than Belthier being a badass.
I still can't understand how the company that once gave us Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI within a year of each other has given us FFXIII, thought we wanted more of it, gave us FFXIII-2, and thought we needed thirds. Every generation has given us a trio of FFs. That is this long gens trio. I know times change, but the new generation at Square has completely lost sight of what once made FF so special.
Mistwalker games are all developed externally anyways, aren't they? Like they all say 'co-developed' and I heard Mistwalker comes up with like concepts or some shit, and gets other developers to actually make the games, which would explain things too..
I just wish that XV was more like their tech demo and not filled with those anime/j-pop characters that by now have become a trademark of the series.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I'm not the expert on Mistwalker. I really should keep an eye out for them though.
Do we have the names of those that need to be held accountable for the abomination that FF has become. I'd certainly like to know who to blame. The fingers must be pointed.
Die Squirrel Die
Member
What was horrible about his XIII character work. I thought all his designs were appropriate for the character's background, bar some sexifying of Lightning.
Lightning - part of the Guardian Corp, a small provincial branch of the military, wears a vaguely uniform looking outfit, not as high tech or formal as the more elite military members you meet in the world.
Sazh - Pilot. Also wear something that looks like a formal uniform.
Hope - Civilian kid in high tech futuristic society. Wears casual looking high-tech sci-fi clothes.
Snow - Layabout douchebag gang leader. Wears a bandana.
Serah - Layabout douchebad gang leaders girlfriend. Younger and less serious than Lightning, her clothing reflects that.
Fang/Vanille - Originally come from Pulse a more rustic, tribal society than the machine god driven society of Cocoon. Both look more rustic with outfits that emphasise more natural materials and accessories.
Chance Hale
Member
Why bother, they're only releasing surfing ios games from now on.
Objective joining pretentious as words misused for emphasis. Literally will have company in the dictionary soon.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
It's better to ignore them.
I bash Square Enix too much to pay attention to them. I'm all about Monolith and Musou games.
How did the assumption of Nomura being in charge of all things Final Fantasy start? Did Square-Enix send him to speak with games press or something like that? I really don't understand.
When did this happen to XV?
When did this happen to XV?
Meccanical
Member
Some idiot spoke out of ignorance somewhere and it's been parroted to hell and back ever since.
I think you're joking, but in all seriousness: I've heard Kitase seems pretty jaded these days. Of course Toriysma isn't good. His cutscene direction on FFX was super solid, I think, but clearly he can't produce anything remarkable as general game director. He should be directing two-bit light novel adaptions.
It would probably be safe to assume that for any given fandom, every franchise is dead, except theirs, or maybe exclusively theirs, and thus it is their prerogative to make sure that everyone else knows.
We should probably just agree that major videogame companies are good at making money, but money and culture rarely lead to anything other than mediocrity, frequently marked by devolution.
Or... giving people making dumb comments about dumb games attention is exactly what they want. Welcome to rule 14 of the internet.
I don't disagree with that. It's fairly obvious in retrospect that the series has been lacking more than anything in the last decade is proper management, and it's probably not a coincidence that directly followed his leaving the company.
I just get sick of him being deified. People present him as an auteur, and the soul of Final Fantasy, as if he was designing the series by himself. Not surprisingly, the people who do this tend to be the same people who blame Nomura for single-handedly ruining the series.
I don't want to break off a discussion, but come on. The main characters could be straight out of an anime.
I'm actually serious, I'd feel bad blaming Nomura is it was others stinking up the series.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Nomura has been and always will be a artist at heart. He deserves none of the slander he gets.
And he created GILGAMESH. GILGAMESH.
And he created GILGAMESH. GILGAMESH.
Chance Hale
Member
So Kawaii
Everytime I hear this damaging to the brand comment, I want to scream so loud at my monitor. Stop trying to justify why you did not like an entry in a long series. Plenty of people did and FFXIII was a huge hit for SE. FFXIV hurt the brand because it was a catastrophic failure.
Now, was FFXIII-2 needed? You can argue it was not needed and I would agree. Didn't change the fact that the game was fun and had some great DLC.
Even if I hated Nomura once (which I cannot recall if I did), I can't now. The man gave us The World Ends With You.
How could anybody in this thread possibly hate The World Ends With You? Such a good game.
I don't know who we're referring to in terms of designers, here, but Hope and Snow's designs were terrible. Snow's because we saw this same exact costume worn by TWEWY's Beat and KHII's Seifer. Hope because that clashing ascot gloves poncho combo is atrocious.
Fang and Lightning look great, though.
Man, I still wish we could play as that guy. Make him the lead and not Noctis. I mean, he's got that mustache and pinstripes and is baller as heck.
kunonabi
Member
Weekend at Bernie's 8
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Explain the reason why Lightning Returns is a thing. Other then quick cash.
thatsafakewebsitebro
Member
Final Fantasy Tactics 2. Tell us a story of what happened to
Make the game using the new Xcom engine or even the Valkyria Chronicles engine. Oh, and make sure Yasumi Matsuno writes and directs this story with of course Sakimoto doing the soundtrack.
Of course this isn't going to happen. It's Square-Enix we're talking so these are just pipe dreams.
Ramza and Alma after they left Ivalice. Tell us the story of Ivalice after the "death" of Delita and Ovelia.
Of course this isn't going to happen. It's Square-Enix we're talking so these are just pipe dreams.
and then I die a little inside due to sadness. ;__;
This is like forgiving Suda51 for all the crap he made because he made Killer7.
That is probably the real problem with a lot of these big game companies though. There's no consistency of quality between games, even games made by the same group of people. It's very strange to have that happen, and have it happen so frequently, but that seems to be the case. I can only attribute such egregious shifts in quality as having something, or maybe everything, to do with money.
Chance Hale
Member
Because Lightning cannot be forgotten.
And i want a new Tactics Ogre before a new FF Tactics.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
that's how it's always been, don't say "anime" as a derogatory term anyways. SE has their best team behind XV so I'm sure it'll be fine, the guys behind 13 aren't getting anywhere near it.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Who? I can't remember this person. I'm so forgetful.
It is indeed others. I generally like Nomura's art, myself and I think he's a competent game director as well.
I think he's a Ken Levine-type though. He has a vision that's his own, but he wants to get as close to perfectly realizing it as possible. He needs a producer to get on his ass and make sure he gets projects done in a timely fashion that gives him creative leeway, but still allows the company to, you know, release a game.
thatsafakewebsitebro
Member
Agreed. Thank you.
Chance Hale
Member
It's fair to use anime as a derogatory term, at least for today's anime. The 1980s and 90s had some good stuff... but good god what the hell happened in the past decade?
Every FF game that SE releases that does not do well is damaging the brand to put it extremely simply. FFXIV did hurt the brand in a devestating manner. XIII didn't damage it as much, however, the amount of criticism it received about its gameplay problems from its fans indicated that the game wasn't nearly as good on the gameplay quality compared to its predecessors. XIII-2 was a game that was both a quick fix to XIII's problems and a cash grab. It's low sales and lukewarm reception from fans indicate that fans are not interested in it. To further worsen it is a sequel to a sequel that wasn't largely successful which is being perceived as even worse. You'd be wrong to assume that there is minuscule damage to the brand and that XIV is the only thing that did so.
Yeah, personally, I don't think FFXIII itself damaged the brand, there have been controversial FFs before. FFXIV's development contributed to it a lot more, as a resource hog. If they could have pumped out FFXV by now and didn't make people wait, no one would be talking about XIII as they do now.
It's just for non-MMO FF fans, 8 years(after XII was released, will likely be 10 years by the time XV comes out) of nothing but XIII is a bit much regardless. The average fan of any franchise isn't the kind to go out and post opinions on the internet, but there have probably been many to give up on the franchise even if only for lack of other mainline titles since XIII's release.
But Nomura hasn't done anything terrible. Not like Toriyama. Nomura's given me TWEWY, and KHBBS recently. Yeah, sure, DDD and Days and Re:Coded weren't that swell, but I mean, if the man's put out two games that good in the last four years, that alone is reason to give him the benefit of the doubt for Versus. That and he's working on this game with Tabata, who gave me Crisis Core and Type-0.
Yeah XV has been in development hell and I most definitely have my doubts about the game and I certainly have complaints with Square Enix's management, but I don't think Nomura is much of a problem. Really he seems like one of the few big-name people there who has his act together.
I don't think it's fair to say that, really. Based on interviews I've read, it certainly seems to me that Square benefited from his creative vision. Ever since he left, he hasn't really produced anything particularly special, but there is a long list of talented developers who work or once worked at Square and can be attached to a number of mediocre products. How many of the people who constituted the "dream team" behind Chrono Trigger have made anything of note recently?
It's not like anything would dramatically change were Sakaguchi to suddenly return, though. SE's issues go far beyond any single person.