Final Fantasy general

Someone here said that a lot in FFVII was dated, and that bothered me in ways I couldn't quite put into words, so here's a quote from Zero Punctuation, the guy I let do all my thinking for me:

I'd much rather someone at SE grew a pair of balls and actually made the FFXV we were promised a decade ago before Nomura started chasing every little new idea that came to his demented mind.

One day this Remake will once again be dated and then what, gonna remake it again, SE?

Edited by HailMuffins on Mar 19th 2020 at 10:29:55 AM

When I said much of VII was dated, I wasn't referring to its cultural references. The past few years have seen much nostalgia for the '80s. If anything, the temporal distance in culture can enhance the experience for some as they learn of a time outside of their life.

The bad kind of "dated" is rooted in Values Dissonance and Society Marches On. There are also gameplay aspects which today are too primitive for many to appreciate.

VII is also ugly as balls and I've played Deus Ex.

So what? Make something new, the world doesn't move forward by just whitewashing the past.

Nomura wasn't the only reason Versus XIII took so long to come out. It was a combination of a terrible engine that wasn't well-suited to making the game they needed to make, said engine being prioritized for XIII's development which just made that even worse, a platform change, and then switching to another engine which wasn't easy to work with either.

It was just a fucked situation really.

Also, while Yahtzee's insight is interesting it's not as if remakes are unilaterally a bad thing. There's multiple remakes like Resident Evil 1 and 2, Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia, Zero Mission, etc among others that have been well-received and in some cases, effectively replaced the original in people's minds.

Really, the main objection to Square remaking VII is less them chasing trends and more that it's arguable whether they can really do it right, especially in terms of story and characters given the questionable writing in a lot of the VII Compilation.

Didn't Nomura once try to make XV a musical? Wonder how that would have turned out?

Also having a bad engine for your developing game and the higher ups forcing you to use it, is never a good thing.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 19th 2020 at 7:40:20 AM

See, all the resources spent on those remakes you mentioned could've been used to makes new games.

There's no guarantee that they would be good one, yes, but neither there was that the remakes woulde be, either.

A lot of people talk about updating old games ignore the inherent problem in that concept: most of those games were the cutting edge when they were released.

But products don't change, they stay the same while society evolves. While technology evolves.

The graphics of RE:FFVII that made everyone cum their pants will one day be seen as blasé.

The new gameplay will be built upon and one day be seen as outdated.

And the Values Dissonance? Tell me, don't we have a trope about stuff that was once daring and controversial but now comes across as quaint at best??

Every generation like to believe they are the end of history, that the world reached its peak with them, but no one remains the vanguard forever.

And just like how the boomers we complain about now were once the hottest stuff, 50 years from, God willing we all live that long, we will be the old hags the youth complains about on their equivalent of Twitter.

Products of art don't change, they remain static while the environment they were created in disapears.

Trying to constantly bring them up to date will always be a waste of time regardless of the results because you're not creating anything new, and the fate that befell the original will once again happen, because time is a rude asshole that never stops for anyone.

I mean, in general, I agree with this, especially in Square Enix's case where I feel that nowadays they rely too much on nostalgia for the FF brand, but otherwise, I find it hard to complain too much if the game we get as a result is good or even superior to the original product.

And while games always become outdated in some ways, there's certain games and styles that age better than others. A lot of SNES games still play and look just fine. I don't think most people would find the Resident Evil remake from the early 2000's to play or look too terribly by modern standards, especially since people keep buying it in droves whenever it's re-released.

Broadly I agree with the argument but I think the situation is more nuanced than "we should never remake things just because someday the remake will be outdated too".

Edited by Draghinazzo on Mar 19th 2020 at 10:54:03 AM

Perharps, but I'm concerned if this is ever actually going to end.

After R Emake 2 Capcom immediatelly went on to announce R Emake 3, and I am willing to bet my left testicle they'll remake Code Veronica if that sells well, which it will. That's a Foregone Conclusion if there ever was one.

I mean there's already people talking about remaking FFV, and while I expressed my desire to see FFVI in modern graphics, I would like to remind everyone that I am but human and therefore as likely to have my judgement blinded by nostalgia as much as everyone else.

I know expecting big companies to take risks is like expecting a hypocondriac to show up at an orgy, but there's a lot more value taking the basic concepts of old games and recontextualizing them than just remaking them flat-out.

See Bloodstained, for instance.

Well, Yoshi-P and his team are working on some new project that's yet to be identified right? No reason to assume that it won't be XVI. Also has this nice bit of concept art revealed.◊

Also one of the cycling images in the banner on their page is for the new project, shows an oldschool style airship.

Edited by TheAirman on Mar 19th 2020 at 10:36:15 AM

> shows an oldschool style airship.

sequel to final fantasy IX confirmed!

Even their new stuff constantly leans on nostalgia pandering. The only reason I can imagine Bravely Default has the name it does rather than some Final Fantasy variant is because it didn't nostalgia pander enough for Square Enix's liking.

I mean, that's how this franchise works. The games constantly take elements from previous titles to make it feel like a connected series despite the wildly different stories and settings.

Edited by Moth13 on Mar 19th 2020 at 11:32:51 AM

Eh, I'm not so sure about this. Graphics will continue to improve, for sure, but we kinda hit the peak of "Oh my god, these graphics are so much better than last gen's" with the PS3 / 360.

Uncharted 4 doesn't look spectacularly better than Uncharted 3, for instance. Neither does the remaster of Tomb Raider (2013) over its original PS3 counterpart.

Hell, MGS2 pushed the boundaries of the PS2, and it still holds up remarkably well.

It'll just be subtle improvements from here on out.

Edited by Primis on Mar 19th 2020 at 8:42:38 AM

Nostalgia and revisiting previous ideas are literally the things that makes each game Final Fantasy instead of a new IP altogether.

Final Fantasy XV is not going to be the last new game. It'll take time before XVI is out, yes, but long dev times have been a thing since they began working on XII; and I think we're all aware of the growing pains SE had with adapting to HD, and grateful they've switched to using Unreal.

At this point I think its safe to assume XVI will be a PS5/X Box [insert new term for "one" here] release - assuming it is Yoshi-P's project, then depending on how far in they are, they could well be targeting somewhere in the next three years.

Edited by TheAirman on Mar 19th 2020 at 10:45:16 AM

Having constant cameos and crossovers and entire plot references the way XV and especially XIV do is going overboard on that in my opinion. Take the feeling fans had when they tried to tenuously connect X and VII's settings but make it ten times worse.

To say nothing of the fact that we don't get much new in spinoffs any more, they're all just vehicles to remind their player base how much they love older, better games. World of Final Fantasy starts to feel like a commerical when its Pokedex equivalent flat out asks, several times, if you've played the game they lifted the appropriate monster design from.

People won't shut up about Shadowbringers and how Emet-Selch might be the best villain Final Fantasy has had, so I don't believe that 14 isn't able to stand on its own.

It has an original core, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that at least 60% of its bosses come from other games, Final Fantasy or otherwise. In the latest patch alone we have Unknown from the sunken plane in VII, Cyclops from Tactics, and Ruby Weapon from VII, and a wing of bosses that are just remixed classic Final Fantasy summons. I think that leaves a single boss introduced this patch that's not nostalgia pandering.

And that's not getting into the content that remixed or flat out recycles music, plot lines, and characters from other FF's.

Edited by Hashil on Mar 19th 2020 at 9:58:41 AM

I'm not so interested in the more widespread critique of remakes or nostalgia so Imma just focus on how relevant FFVII is and if it's "aged" poorly.

The game is from the mid-90s. It is the one FF game with a clear cyberpunk feel to it. Cyberpunk is defined by megacorps whose greed and power is out of control. This results in horrid oppression and environmental destruction.

Now, fast forward to 2020. Has this really changed? Corporations with insane amounts of power? The planet on the verge of collapse? I would almost think FFVII is more timely now than it was back in the 90s.

Now some things have changed. You can't have real terrorists as heroes. Depictions of sexuality at least try to be more respectful. But these are all sort of incidental details to the main themes and ideas of FFVII which are very relevant.

All this being said, where is my goddam Xenogears remake.

I always found FFIX's ad campaign to be amusing.

'We are finally returning back to our roots!'

Oh, you mean those roots from 2 games ago?

I think they did the throwback style a little too soon.

It's all rather anecdotal I know but FFIX was always treated like shit by most of th eFF fans I talked to online back in the early to mid 2000s. It was the completely forgotten one, sandwiched between giant hits like FFVII and FFX. Even FFVIII got more love.

FFIX went back to its roots I think because FFVII and FFVIII were both relentlessly modern and also huge, huge successes that cast shadows over all that came before. Why are FFVI fans so fanatical if not because they resent FFVII's popularity and how it overshadowed what they feel to be the superior game?

It should be noted that FFVIII is the most modern FF game even to this day. FFXV had plenty of weird future science mingled in with its modern aesthetic but FFVIII, if you look at places like Deling City in particular, is just super mundane modern. It looks exactly like some place out of the 90s. Balamb Garden looks just like a normal school. And none of the party members are non-human.

That was something I remember hearing a lot about back on my many old FF forums. FFIX was mocked for its cartoonish characters and designs. But I think, after the super mundane modern FFVIII - which also didn't do as well as they hoped - they decided to reverse course and go back to the old school.That old school might only be a few years older now but given how FFVII exploded the fanbase and brought in so many new fans, FFVI might a well have been ancient history to them. And for older fans who were lamenting how popular FFVII and VIII were and how this might signal the end of the older style, FFIX was a refreshing surprise.

Edited by Nikkolas on Mar 19th 2020 at 11:10:49 AM

FFIX was a nice throwback to the previous 8, kind of a curtain call on the series before moving on into the big one zero. The styles of it and 8 did clash the most but I enjoyed both.

Funny thing is that IX's plot is essentially IV's plot just with more antagonistic Lunarians.

And then there is the mistranslation/localization of the games where many of the finer details as well as the various ideas that they explore may fly over the heads of people in the West. I might be pessimistic in that regard but the games do have themes that can resonate with many players all over the world.

On the use of the WEAPON monsters: an appearance or two more and we'll have to start questioning whether it's a FFVII thing or just a new FF thing in general like Ultima Weapon or Gilgamesh. Obviously they originated in VII, minus Ultima, but all recurring elements start somewhere.

Edited by Zeromaeus on Mar 19th 2020 at 10:33:31 AM

Part 2 of VIIR’s making of video series is up

So remember when we talked about Tifa calling Barrett a bad word? Well, a certain professional translator took a look at it too.