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Portable titles is where the money is at over in Japan. SE does dumb stuff, but I don't think they are that dumb.
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Sep 24, 2014 20:42
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Himuro posted:To the guy who suggested FF8 mods, I tried em out. These are the results. I'm really impressed. My only issues so far: the stuttering in the intro as well as the clipping of the backgrounds (class room) or the weird black outlines at places like Ifrit's pit. I also have to say I don't like having to go through menus with an analog stick. Is there any way I can get over that? I need a d-pad. Other than that, it's easily the best way to play FF8, assuming mods are used. The framerate issue I never encountered, but I think it's being caused by the SweetFX shader. Comments are suggesting it can be pretty hardware intensive. FF8's controller support, especially for 360 and PS3 controllers, is pretty bad. I recommend a program like Xpadder, (Run it XP compatibility mode. Newer versions aren't free) and just map the PC controls to the relevant buttons. The remixed music sounds great. Personally, I've steered away from music mods because they tend to pull arrangements from various sources, and the music ends up really inconsistent. I could be wrong, though, so let me know if the Roses and Wine arrangements maintain their quality compared to the early stuff. I'm curious to hear about the rest of your modding experience, and sorry for making you sort of a guinea pig 
tonberrykng fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 20:45
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Xavier434 posted:Eh...I don't know. The only thing from this statement which is even suggestive of development problems is the engine. There was a very vague comment about those engine issues recently which didn't actually say much of anything other than that they were having some problems of some sort. We have no idea what they are though, how severe they were, or how much they persist now if at all. Tons of games suffer from engine challenges throughout development. Even then, there is a big difference between dealing with some problems and being in a state of"development hell". I agree with this actually. As far as KH3 goes, it's still super early in development so nothing really concrete can be said about what kind of troubles the development team are having yet. They are saying that they are having engine problems but at this point it's still so early that it doesn't mean much. I do think that them having worked on Luminous for so long without having much to show for it is quite troublesome when it comes to games that are in pre-production like KH3 because it makes the prospect of having engine troubles much more prevalent. If they had a solid engine up and running that they've developed or are developing multiple games for then it would be a lot less likely that they would run into troubles with the engine. Instead it seems like they're still basically creating bespoke engines for each individual product while sort of taking bits and pieces from Luminous that are just about fully developed and working them into said bespoke engines. This doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing and it doesn't really signal problems for games like XV that seem to be coming along smoothly at this point and the engine they have developed for that game is up and running but for games like KH3 that are still early the task of making a bespoke engine inherently means more options for trouble present themselves.
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Sep 24, 2014 21:28
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Yeah, there being zero games released using Luminous is probably the biggest concern to date, but even that isn't much to work with. We just have to be patient and wait for more useful information. This is the internet though so I don't expect that to happen. Patience is a myth.
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Sep 24, 2014 21:34
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ARR used a lot of Luminous Engine tech because they brought the main developer on as part of the "all hands" thing. With him out of the company, I get the feeling Luminous Engine is sort of a bust at this point and we won't know what kinds of decisions were made and why as part of the engine stuff with 15 and KH3 until their respective post-mortems.
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Sep 24, 2014 23:05
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I finally managed to get matched up against someone who had a Quest Medley with 3 Black Shards as a reward for one of the bosses!  It's a level 94 Long Quest full of nothing but Ultimate-difficulty scores!  Had to burn through all of my Fortune Spheres and a few Teleport Stones but I managed to make it all the way to the end. Also got 16 Purple Shards out of it, which was enough to finish off that set of characters. Now I only need 2 more Black Shards to unlock the ultimate momma's boy.
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Sep 25, 2014 00:13
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Xavier434 posted:Eh...I don't know. The only thing from this statement which is even suggestive of development problems is the engine. There was a very vague comment about those engine issues recently which didn't actually say much of anything other than that they were having some problems of some sort. We have no idea what they are though, how severe they were, or how much they persist now if at all. Tons of games suffer from engine challenges throughout development. Even then, there is a big difference between dealing with some problems and being in a state of"development hell". I don't think KH3 is in development hell since it's in pre-production after an early announcement and SE Osaka is still in the process of hiring. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it winds up missing deadlines due the issues that plagued their game development and continue to do so. Likewise, we shouldn't have been surprised that a director heading a troubled project was removed through a CEO PR statement since there have been two previous incidents of that happening under a set of similar circumstances. It's not an unearned reputation for a company that has struggled for the past decade and hasn't shown it's turned a corner. For a big global publisher, it's not the norm to have your key franchise go so widely behind schedule and over budget with each new entry. It's not the norm for your projects to go through director turnover. It's not the norm for your CEO to publically comment on staff changes. It's not to the norm to have your CTO position left vacant. It's not the norm to have interviews where you readily admit engine issues are affecting your design before full production has even began. However, this has become the norm for Square-Enix. bloodychill posted:I get the feeling SE is very aware of their dev problems and are working their rear end off at fast-tracking anticipated projects. They've been looking for development solutions since FF12. The Last Remnant development team said they were looking into Criterion's Renderware during their PS2 development days. However, EA bought them out and the plan was abandoned. So they've been trying address their issues for quite some time. However, there's just always been a strong cultural inertia to doing things out of house and revamping their development methodology. It's like fixing a plane that's in mid-flight. Developers are pressured to keep to the production schedule by producing assets and features even if it means that contents gets thrown due to technical issues. A lot of this could have been avoided if management had put their foot down on addressing these issues early and thoroughly even if it led to delays and upset the development heads. Mischitary posted:I agree with this actually. As far as KH3 goes, it's still super early in development so nothing really concrete can be said about what kind of troubles the development team are having yet. They are saying that they are having engine problems but at this point it's still so early that it doesn't mean much. The crux of their core development issue is that how they develop their games and technology is largely incompatible with how most developers handle modern game development with large teams. They way SE designs games is that the game scenario and visuals are created and near-finalized before other aspects of that game, such as the gameplay, is locked down. The White Engine/Crystal Tools suffered because it was developed alongside FFXIII visual design and the specific needs of that game's focus on visuals. So when it came time to make FFXIII's gameplay and that of the other major FF titles, they were working within the limitations of tool chain that focused on FFXIII's game specific visuals. So development hurdles and project management issues would arise later in development with more severity rather than being addressed early during rapid prototyping. In the past, this meant that development costs rose due to creating game specific technology that couldn't be shared between projects with different technical demands. Furthermore, staff couldn't readily move between projects since there would be gaps in technological know-how. Luminous Studios was supposed to be a full-fledged game engine rather than a toolchain linking the team together. Headed by one Japan's best technical and prolific technical directors, it was supposed to reboot SE's development methodology by offering an engine with great tools and a way to integrate different parts of development, such as cutscene direction. We already saw Yoshihasa do great work for A Realm Reborn. However, something must have gone wrong because no game has shipped on it after several years in development and a critical CTO role was left vacant. We got a non-interactive tech demo with expensive master quality assets that took a year to make, which seems indicative of the development issues facing past projects. There seems to be too much internal inertia for an outsider to come in and fix it issues. It would be a huge, expensive step back to having game specific engines for each new game in a single genre but that might be the case. We might have to accept there is no easy answer to their Japanese technical issues other than tearing down the company culture in Tokyo that built the company in the first place.
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Sep 25, 2014 00:13
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I don't think that not using a shared engine between games is a bad thing on it's face, but it's more that getting a shared engine like Luminous up and running would've been more directly indicative of a change in Square-Enix. I think that trying to work on a shared engine like Luminous can be extremely helpful if they get it up and running but if they can't or are having a hard time doing so they basically just need to work on the games they have in development now and try to get those out as soon as possible. XV and KH3 need to both be out by like, fall of 2017. A KH3 released later than that would be a disaster because that series has basically reached it's limit, it's been stretched as far as it can go. I'd gladly play as many Kingdom Hearts games that they can release but I'm the exception and not the rule and even I'm more than ready for KH3.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:34
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Maybe it's because I've only done a handful of short and medium quests but the RPG-lite elements in Quest Medley are so lite that they may as well be inconsequential. I can pimp out my team in fancy skills so I can kill monsters faster and run faster to get more loot but I never use the loot I have so it's for nothing. I also wonder why we gain XP and items while playing random songs in the normal mode. Maybe they should have taken that stuff out and kept it contained in the Quest Medley mode because as it stands now Quest Medley seems like a dolled up random playlist. Maybe the RPG elements start showing up when it decides to throw Ultimate difficulty songs at me but it's content to have me play basic level Mt. Gulg over and over 
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Sep 25, 2014 02:41
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Quest Medley is primarily for farming shards so you can get more characters, and is also a good way to level because of the stacking experience boost. I think around the mid-50s rotating slide triggers also start showing up, though infrequently. If you really want more challenge, do Versus Mode.
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Sep 25, 2014 02:51
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Mischitary posted:I don't think that not using a shared engine between games is a bad thing on it's face, but it's more that getting a shared engine like Luminous up and running would've been more directly indicative of a change in Square-Enix. When you're dealing hundreds of people and big budget projects, it's a huge handicap to have developers located in the same geographic location to have disparate game engines. Kojima recently talked about how the Fox Engine has not only reduced development costs but also gave designers and artists autonomy they didn't have before. Likewise, EA making Frostbite into the company standard has helped them manage large projects they would be cumbersome otherwise. Dragon Age Inquisition has over 400 people contributing to it thanks to better asset management. It shouldn't be this difficult for SE to get a good multiplatform game engine up and running. They have the money, talent, and expertise from Eidos to do it. However, it's just not coming together as well as it should.
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Sep 25, 2014 02:56
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ApplesandOranges posted:Quest Medley is primarily for farming shards so you can get more characters, and is also a good way to level because of the stacking experience boost. I think around the mid-50s rotating slide triggers also start showing up, though infrequently. Versus mode is good if you want to play One Winged Angel with notes going everywhere.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:12
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tonberrykng posted:To be completely honest, I'm pretty new to FF8 mods as well, but I did pick a few things up when modding FF7. The black border and clipping issues are most likely bugs in Project Eden. Omzy's filters have a lot of trouble with bgs that have animations or can shift, and these bgs need to corrected manually. The community has been great about reporting these bugs, but there's not a whole lot you can do until Omzy pops up again and updates the mod. Heh. Well, first off, thanks for the xpadder suggestion. Secondly, get Roses and Wine. It uses the original ost oggs off the ost. You have options to use black mages and the orchestrated soundtrack as well, as you can see from my video, but it's optional. If you want, you can just use the original ost. I highly suggest this because personally, I find the default FFVIII steam version music unlistenable. The music is s huge part of the game experience for me, being my favorite FF, and I can't listen to that poo poo. So get the Roses and Wine mod. The music played in the fire cavern and the boss music? Those are straight rips from the ost. It's like the psx version but high quality. Finally, is there any way I can mod in japanese language support? Weird question to ask, but I wanted my next run of FF8 to be in Japanese, to not only test my mettle and see what I've learned while learning new vocab, but to also experience the game a new way. Many reports suggest Squall's dialogue in the original script is much different than in the translated English one and I'm curious as to how things like that affect the experience. I have the original JP version sitting here, but going back to that after experiencing modded FF8 just sounds insane. There's gotta be a way to play this game in Japanese on PC....right? 
Jupiter Jazz fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 03:58
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How the hell do I hit the slides at the end of hold notes in FMS with buttons? I get that I can stop moving the stick slightly before the end of the hold itself and then slide, but I can't figure out the timing or how it works with the cursor not being "on" the note path. (also, just found out that you can double up on title character bonuses, in case anyone just wants to farm Rhythmia for some dumb reason.) DACK FAYDEN fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 04:56
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Sunning posted:When you're dealing hundreds of people and big budget projects, it's a huge handicap to have developers located in the same geographic location to have disparate game engines. Kojima recently talked about how the Fox Engine has not only reduced development costs but also gave designers and artists autonomy they didn't have before. Likewise, EA making Frostbite into the company standard has helped them manage large projects they would be cumbersome otherwise. Dragon Age Inquisition has over 400 people contributing to it thanks to better asset management. It shouldn't be this difficult for SE to get a good multiplatform game engine up and running. They have the money, talent, and expertise from Eidos to do it. However, it's just not coming together as well as it should. I agree that having Frostbite has helped EA a lot, and if S-E had something akin to it, it would definitely make development a much easier process then it was before, but what I'm basically saying is that they cannot afford to do that while neglecting development of the two big projects they have going on right now. I cannot fathom how much money Versus sucked out of that company, but what I do know is that there is no way they can afford KH3 to be a similar situation. I don't think having Luminous up and running in time to be a big help in KH3 development is going to happen so they need to get going right now.
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Sep 25, 2014 05:06
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Himuro posted:Heh. Well, first off, thanks for the xpadder suggestion.  In all seriousness, buying the Japanese version might work for some mods, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't use Steam, and Tonberry requires Steam. Furthermore, the Japanese version could be region protected. I haven't found any mod that does what you're looking for: some re-translations into other languages but nothing in the native Japanese. Like I said before, FF8 modding is still pretty young, so more specific mods are still a long way off. You're better off waiting for a a new English localization like FF7 got with Beacause. I'm right there with you on the importance of music in Final Fantasy. The default midi music really is just terrible, and I guess I was just looking for advice on whether to use high quality version of the OST or a mix of arranged tracks. I tend to be a purist, so I might just go with the original score, but that Balamb Garden arrangement is really good.
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Sep 25, 2014 07:33
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W.T. Fits posted:I finally managed to get matched up against someone who had a Quest Medley with 3 Black Shards as a reward for one of the bosses! I have a 3 black shard level 50 medium quest up won't be on for some time though, if you're willing to wait like 10 hours. Also the mid boss has 1 golden shard. It's mostly expert songs and you can get to the end very quickly.
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Sep 25, 2014 08:01
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tonberrykng posted:Sure there is a way. Buy a copy from Square-Enix Japan! With RaW you can pick what SONGS from the arranged osts you want so if you just want Balamb and nothing else you can do that. IT ROCKS. And I need to see about making a mod for Japanese text with that version...
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Sep 25, 2014 08:06
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Himuro posted:Finally, is there any way I can mod in japanese language support? Weird question to ask, but I wanted my next run of FF8 to be in Japanese, to not only test my mettle and see what I've learned while learning new vocab, but to also experience the game a new way. Many reports suggest Squall's dialogue in the original script is much different than in the translated English one and I'm curious as to how things like that affect the experience. I have the original JP version sitting here, but going back to that after experiencing modded FF8 just sounds insane. There's gotta be a way to play this game in Japanese on PC....right? No advice sadly, but if you do this please post your impressions in the thread since I at least am interested in seeing what major differences there are between the original and the translation.
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Sep 25, 2014 09:33
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Himuro posted:Finally, is there any way I can mod in japanese language support? Unfortunately, not really at this time. For some reason, Square Enix is super-protective of its Japanese versions of the PC releases; they have DRM requiring persistent internet connectivity from a Japanese IP address and even the upcoming Steam release of FFXIII has similar restrictions; there will be two versions of the game, the one sold in Southeast Asia is basically the HK version of the game (Japanese audio, playable with text in Japanese, Chinese, and English) and is region-locked to that zone; it won't launch from IP addresses outside of there and can't be gifted to account holders from outside that region. Outside of that zone, the game is available but a different version, only with English audio and EFIGS text. They're taking the system that was used for various German-restricted games (e.g. Dead Rising, Wolfenstein NWO) and using it to enforce region-locked versions of the game. People have tried to take the Japanese asset files for Final Fantasy VII's PC version and apply them to the western Steam release but have had no luck so far, I don't think.
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Sep 25, 2014 12:31
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It's not that you are wrong. It's that the entire post basically amounts to "This is why we should all be really pessimistic about SE guys." Again, given SE's history over the last several years, I cannot blame you or anyone for feeling that way, but the bottom line is that if SE is going to turn a corner then we are not going to know it until after a game is released and we get to determine the quality. This is why I wait and see without taking such a negative attitude. Maybe that will happen with KHIII. Heck, maybe it will even happen with XV since the reboot. Maybe not. I don't ignore the facts, but I do try to give every game a fair chance first before raining on the parade.
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Sep 25, 2014 13:40
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Xavier434 posted:It's not that you are wrong. It's that the entire post basically amounts to "This is why we should all be really pessimistic about SE guys." Again, given SE's history over the last several years, I cannot blame you or anyone for feeling that way, but the bottom line is that if SE is going to turn a corner then we are not going to know it until after a game is released and we get to determine the quality. This is why I wait and see without taking such a negative attitude. Maybe that will happen with KHIII. Heck, maybe it will even happen with XV since the reboot. Maybe not. I don't ignore the facts, but I do try to give every game a fair chance first before raining on the parade. Again, he's giving actual facts and analysis based off observed trends and business practices from SE, which make his posts interesting to read. You then come along and drool all over the floor while complaining about how facts make you feel bad, which is only funny the first time. You don't like feeling bad. That's cool. That's the coolest. It's been said.
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Sep 25, 2014 13:44
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Xavier434 posted:It's not that you are wrong. It's that the entire post basically amounts to "This is why we should all be really pessimistic about SE guys." Again, given SE's history over the last several years, I cannot blame you or anyone for feeling that way, but the bottom line is that if SE is going to turn a corner then we are not going to know it until after a game is released and we get to determine the quality. This is why I wait and see without taking such a negative attitude. Maybe that will happen with KHIII. Heck, maybe it will even happen with XV since the reboot. Maybe not. I don't ignore the facts, but I do try to give every game a fair chance first before raining on the parade. If you see anything positive about the current console gaming climate and its third party developers, I don't know what to tell you. There's pessimism, and then there's reality. Square Enix, almost since its inception, has given no confidence in their products beyond a few franchises (namely Dragon Quest), are a poorly mismanaged studio who has lost a poo poo ton of its most crucial and important staff, and lacks any sense of creative vision going forward. It has taken 8 years just to get a decent way into making one title. They made spent about six years on one title, and there was enough left over material afterwards to make an entire full fledged full lengthed sequel. Everything Sunning says is on point, and if you disagree, you clearly haven't been paying attention. univbee posted:Unfortunately, not really at this time. For some reason, Square Enix is super-protective of its Japanese versions of the PC releases; they have DRM requiring persistent internet connectivity from a Japanese IP address and even the upcoming Steam release of FFXIII has similar restrictions; there will be two versions of the game, the one sold in Southeast Asia is basically the HK version of the game (Japanese audio, playable with text in Japanese, Chinese, and English) and is region-locked to that zone; it won't launch from IP addresses outside of there and can't be gifted to account holders from outside that region. Outside of that zone, the game is available but a different version, only with English audio and EFIGS text. They're taking the system that was used for various German-restricted games (e.g. Dead Rising, Wolfenstein NWO) and using it to enforce region-locked versions of the game. God loving dammit. Time to see if someone I know in Japan can see if there's a Japanese version of FFVIII pc 2000 in shops. Did that come out? Would it be possible to interest the dialogue into the steam version? Why are they so protective of the Japanese language version? They're acting like its secret sauce or some poo poo. Jupiter Jazz fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 14:01
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Himuro posted:Why are they so protective of the Japanese language version? They are worried not about Americans playing the Japanese version but about Japanese players importing the American version (which is almost always cheaper) and using it instead.
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Sep 25, 2014 14:20
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Oxxidation posted:Again, he's giving actual facts and analysis based off observed trends and business practices from SE, which make his posts interesting to read. You then come along and drool all over the floor while complaining about how facts make you feel bad, which is only funny the first time. You don't like feeling bad. That's cool. That's the coolest. It's been said. He is not just giving facts though. Like me, he is having a discussion about the facts and tying that in with his own personal and subjective interpretation which is perfectly fine. We are both doing the same thing based on the same factual information. The only difference is our attitudes towards the future which I have tried to express respect towards several times already. Sunning and I agree nearly 100% on SE's past as well as many of their current practices. They are a company with years of bad management problems and imo that is more than enough to cause a lot of people to lack confidence in their ability to succeed. The only difference is our attitudes about the future. Those differences are purely subjective. What I don't get it is why you are attacking me for pointing out those differences and justifying why I feel the way I do when he did the exact same thing when he replied to my post. I don't personally think that either one of us did anything wrong or impolite. Xavier434 fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 14:28
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Mischitary posted:I agree that having Frostbite has helped EA a lot, and if S-E had something akin to it, it would definitely make development a much easier process then it was before, but what I'm basically saying is that they cannot afford to do that while neglecting development of the two big projects they have going on right now. I cannot fathom how much money Versus sucked out of that company, but what I do know is that there is no way they can afford KH3 to be a similar situation. I don't think having Luminous up and running in time to be a big help in KH3 development is going to happen so they need to get going right now. Just about every internally developed SE Japanese HD game last gen had major technical issues. FFXIII had to be designed around its technical limitations. The sequels suffered in performance when they tried to push into a new direction. Tri-Ace was hired to help with programming, art, and design. FFXIV 1.0 was a spectacular technical failure that had to get a new engine for its reboot. FFvsXIII had to move to a custom engine because of its action gameplay but ended up being effectively cancelled. Even The Last Remnant, which shipped on Unreal Engine 3, had technical problems due to poor Japanese documentation. I just don't think, 'hey, we'll wing this thing and make it from the ground up' is a good response when trends point to a huge structural problem with their technology. It wasn't until FFXIV: ARR they had an engine with solid performance. It took an ex-SEGA technical director for them to make a solid multiplatform engine with scalability on lower-end PCs rather than the technical showcase that's been killing them for the last generation. I thought they were turning things around in 2010 when Luminous was first announced and the technical director for ARR was leading it. By now, they should have a perfectly good internal engine for console development instead of looking for people skilled in Unity. Xavier434 posted:It's not that you are wrong. It's that the entire post basically amounts to "This is why we should all be really pessimistic about SE guys." Again, given SE's history over the last several years, I cannot blame you or anyone for feeling that way, but the bottom line is that if SE is going to turn a corner then we are not going to know it until after a game is released and we get to determine the quality. This is why I wait and see without taking such a negative attitude. Maybe that will happen with KHIII. Heck, maybe it will even happen with XV since the reboot. Maybe not. I don't ignore the facts, but I do try to give every game a fair chance first before raining on the parade. Do you think they've turned a corner? I feel history is repeating itself. I don't know if it's 2007 or 2014 because SE is acting the same and facing the same problems. We have a FF game that's moved into next-gen because they had too many problems with the last game. We have pre-rendered footage for games at e3 that have just started development. We have long silences and absences at press events. We have developers falling off troubled projects. We have developers openly talking about engine problems and looking into middleware solutions. I gave them the benefit of the doubt back then but they've continued to disappoint me and other fans. This is not how a normal, healthy publisher acts. Himuro posted:Time to see if someone I know in Japan can see if there's a Japanese version of FFVIII pc 2000 in shops. Did that come out? Would it be possible to interest the dialogue into the steam version? Why are they so protective of the Japanese language version? They're acting like its secret sauce or some poo poo. The Japanese PC market basically involves charging ludicrous prices for games and preventing people from importing cheaper solutions with Japanese language options. There was big controversy about this for the Japanese release of Tomb Raider.
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Sep 25, 2014 15:24
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Sunning posted:Do you think they've turned a corner? I don't know yet. I am waiting to see how the reboot of XV and KHIII turns out. Mostly KHIII though.
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Sep 25, 2014 15:27
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Himuro posted:God loving dammit. Actually the SE.jp release last year was the first time it was ever released in Japanese on PC. The 1997 Eidos release had separate EFIGS versions and that's it. People got their hands on the Japanese asset files but afaik no one has gotten them to actually work. It's too bad, since screenshots seem to indicate the Japanese text looks really nice. Sunning posted:The Japanese PC market basically involves charging ludicrous prices for games and preventing people from importing cheaper solutions with Japanese language options. There was big controversy about this for the Japanese release of Tomb Raider. Also true for applications, I remember the Adobe suites back in 2007-2008 being like $1000 more in Japan. That being said, there's effectively no price difference between the Japanese and US releases of the Steam Final Fantasies (a few bucks depending on the exchange rate), although it's entirely likely they don't want the wrath of a Steam sale or something like that.
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Sep 25, 2014 15:36
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:I have a 3 black shard level 50 medium quest up That'd be great. Just send me a PM whenever you're ready.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:37
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Sunning posted:Just about every internally developed SE Japanese HD game last gen had major technical issues. FFXIII had to be designed around its technical limitations. The sequels suffered in performance when they tried to push into a new direction. Tri-Ace was hired to help with programming, art, and design. FFXIV 1.0 was a spectacular technical failure that had to get a new engine for its reboot. FFvsXIII had to move to a custom engine because of its action gameplay but ended up being effectively cancelled. Even The Last Remnant, which shipped on Unreal Engine 3, had technical problems due to poor Japanese documentation. I just don't think, 'hey, we'll wing this thing and make it from the ground up' is a good response when trends point to a huge structural problem with their technology. I could've forgiven all of Last Remnant's engine issues and load times if the game wasn't so.loving.badly.designed. Rank system that made enemies stronger while you leveled, thus defeating the main purpose of getting stronger in the first place (and resulting in poo poo like random enemies that would hit harder than some bosses). The brain-damaged AI combat system that didn't ever get explained nearly well enough, while having lots of quick time events since if it didn't you'd get bored even faster. NPC leaders asking about if they should or shouldn't learn different skills/spells or swap weapons. Saying yes or no at the wrong time could permanently gently caress up a character (4 armed cat guy learning magic, sister (not) learning a magic type to get some arcane nuke skill). The insanely strong spells you could learn if you have the right units with the right skills setup the right way while doing the moonwalk on the 5th Wednesday where a black cat meows twice...etc. Their misuse of UE3 and load issues were the lesser evil of that game.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:39
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Last Remnant isn't badly designed. It's just a SaGa game so the methods by which everything is done is not meant for mortals to know.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:47
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Dr Pepper posted:Last Remnant isn't badly designed. It's just a SaGa game Make up your mind.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:54
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Terper posted:Make up your mind. Yeah, even as a huge fan of Frontier and Romancing SaGa, it's hard not to agree that the series is pretty poorly designed. They're full of interesting ideas, but the execution is generally lacking in a really glaring way. Or in the case of Unlimited, basically every glaring way.
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Sep 25, 2014 17:32
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univbee posted:Actually the SE.jp release last year was the first time it was ever released in Japanese on PC. The 1997 Eidos release had separate EFIGS versions and that's it. People got their hands on the Japanese asset files but afaik no one has gotten them to actually work. It's too bad, since screenshots seem to indicate the Japanese text looks really nice. Jesus loving Christ. Well, I watched a video of the intro in Japanese, and I'm liking what I'm seeing. I mean, by watch, I mean rapidly pausing because the player just skips the text because he doesn't know Japanese.  Here it is: http://youtu.be/dMpkktYosgU?t=7m58s Fun note. Quistis' name is pronounced Kees-tay-ee-ss. Finally, my life long question has been answered. For reference, this is virtually the only Japanese version footage of FF8 on youtube. Even searching for Final Fantasy VIII Japanese gameplay renders me with a search suggestion of Final Fantasy XIII Japanese version instead. Whyyyyyyyy?!  I'll have to try niconico instead. The dialogue also isn't noticeably hard to read or understand, but wow, it's such a step up from FF4 - the only FF I've played in Japanese - in terms of kanji use, it's as if FF targeted a totally different age bracket by the time of FF8's release. If you guys interested in the Japanese text are interested, I'll record a video of the Japanese version and just tour Balamb, and try to play spot the differences. CeallaSo posted:Yeah, even as a huge fan of Frontier and Romancing SaGa, it's hard not to agree that the series is pretty poorly designed. They're full of interesting ideas, but the execution is generally lacking in a really glaring way. Or in the case of Unlimited, basically every glaring way. I bought Romancing SaGa for ps2 once. I picked a character and went into a cave, and got murdered by green lizards in the cave which was an intro dungeon. I was confused because they were really tough to kill for an intro rpg dungeon. I sold the game a few days later. Jupiter Jazz fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 17:37
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Himuro posted:I bought Romancing SaGa for ps2 once. I picked a character and went into a cave, and got murdered by green lizards in the cave which was an intro dungeon. I was confused because they were really tough to kill for an intro rpg dungeon. I sold the game a few days later. I never understood how they hosed around with later SaGa games like this when they seemed to have a fairly ok grasp on it for FFL2. Game starts out and you get Mr.S for the first cave/tutorial to ensure you have to be truly hopeless to fail out the gate, and stuff around the town past the cave isn't a problem to kill with pretty much any team. Plus the teams that are really bad ideas (4 monsters) are even in the instruction booklet as a "you really shouldn't run a team like this because it's holy fuckballs hard" team. The hardest fight you'd run in to early on would probably be the Asura base if you didn't equip MAGI and were just bad at videogames. SaGa Frontier had a few points that could gently caress you royally but that game was also released incomplete, resulting in things like Lute being able to go to his final dungeon almost from the get-go, and Fuse being cut as a perspective character. They knew how to balance SaGa games but some of them are just all over the drat place.
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Sep 25, 2014 17:52
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I miss the weird Square games of old, back during the SNES/PS1 golden era. Saga Frontier was just so fun even with all its weird design. Maybe because of it.
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Sep 25, 2014 17:56
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Himuro posted:The dialogue also isn't noticeably hard to read or understand, but wow, it's such a step up from FF4 - the only FF I've played in Japanese - in terms of kanji use, it's as if FF targeted a totally different age bracket by the time of FF8's release. That may be. It might also be a technical issue. The resolution on the 8bit and 16bit systems makes it hard to display the more complicated kanji without making it look like a giant mess.
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Sep 25, 2014 17:57
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PhilippAchtel posted:That may be. It might also be a technical issue. The resolution on the 8bit and 16bit systems makes it hard to display the more complicated kanji without making it look like a giant mess. Well, that didn't stop Dragon Quest!   
Jupiter Jazz fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 18:06
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PhilippAchtel posted:That may be. It might also be a technical issue. The resolution on the 8bit and 16bit systems makes it hard to display the more complicated kanji without making it look like a giant mess. Final Fantasy 4 had no Kanji at all when it was released in Japan originally, it was a Hiragana-fest. Interestingly, the Easytype release of the game not only simplified the game, but also some of the vocabulary used.
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Sep 25, 2014 18:07
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Evil Fluffy posted:I never understood how they hosed around with later SaGa games like this when they seemed to have a fairly ok grasp on it for FFL2. Game starts out and you get Mr.S for the first cave/tutorial to ensure you have to be truly hopeless to fail out the gate, and stuff around the town past the cave isn't a problem to kill with pretty much any team. Plus the teams that are really bad ideas (4 monsters) are even in the instruction booklet as a "you really shouldn't run a team like this because it's holy fuckballs hard" team. The hardest fight you'd run in to early on would probably be the Asura base if you didn't equip MAGI and were just bad at videogames. It's funny because I have a friend who loves SaGa but hates non-linear games. I love non-linear games, but hate what I've played of SaGa. So if you'd suggest a SaGa, you'd suggest Frontier and FFL2?
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Sep 25, 2014 18:16
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