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[Acosta]

SCEA rejected it because both games look BAD when compared to 640x480 16-bit color titles like Stella Deus and Atelier Iris. G2/G3 are 320x240, use 8-bit color, have terrible animation and lame FMV effects. They look like last-gen 2D, and mediocre last-gen 2D at that.

Come on Drinky, be fair. Imagine you are a SCEA approval team member, and you get Magna Carta and Growlanser 2&3, would choose Magna Carta over GW because it has better presentation?

There are terrible games out there, and Growlanser, old and all, is better than much of the crap you can find nowadays on the shops. Thas is my main complain forward SCEA.

 

[Shouta]

SCEA rejected it because both games look BAD when compared to 640x480 16-bit color titles like Stella Deus and Atelier Iris. G2/G3 are 320x240, use 8-bit color, have terrible animation and lame FMV effects. They look like last-gen 2D, and mediocre last-gen 2D at that.

I'll give you resolution and color but Stella Deus and Atelier Iris otherwise suffer from being pretty damn awful looking. Atelier Iris looks like a cheap anime flash game that you'd find online. Stella Deus, while having a unique art style, still ends up as a stiff and drab looking game.

As for depth; well, any game can be argued as deep given a certain perspective, but the point remains that G2/G3 had few customization options or branches for characters, and that the maps were largely linear tactical puzzles. Shallow doesn't make it bad -- and nor does depth have anything to do with challenge -- but neither G2 nor G3 were eminently replayable games.

I figured you'd go with this. However, I really don't want to clutter up this thread any so if you'd like, we could take this to another thread and discuss depth in general for RPGs.

I will say that I disagree with you on the fact that any game can be argued deep given a certain perspective. You'd have to be stretching it pretty far to say that something like Vandal Hearts 1 was deep from any angle. That aside, I'm talking in the more general sense anyway.

 

[jaundicejuice]

After reading that Gamespot interview with Vic Ireland I have to fix my intial post...

GG Vic Ireland GG

Really, what else is there to say? You sunk your own battleship.

Vic basically ran his own company into the ground trying to vainly hammer through three games through SCEA's approval process. He ran his company with the passion of a fan, and in the end that's what did Working Designs in.

 

[CO_Andy]

Defending Vic:

I heard there was a change in the approval staff over at SCEA around 2001 - 02. The original execs were removed and replaced w/ newbies. Thus you have the situation today: it's either gotta have good graphics or be a guaranteed success.

 

[Tortfeasor]

Defending Vic:

I heard there was a change in the approval staff over at SCEA around 2001 - 02. The original execs were removed and replaced w/ newbies. Thus you have the situation today: it's either gotta have good graphics or be a guaranteed success.

But still, SCEA lets you know very early in the process if there are going to be any major issues with this. After gaining initial approval the only thing to keep you from manufacturing is failing cert.