[3nTr0pY]

(Original post by Hylean)
Details on Duodecim from Nomura:

"Although the developers categorize Dissidia Duodecim as a sequel to the original Dissidia, the game is set before the events of its predecessor. Dissidia depicts the thirteenth battle between Cosmos and Chaos, while Duodecim depicts the twelth. Nomura also made it clear that Duodecim will be more than just Dissidia with more characters. They aim to make battles more lively and dynamic by introducing new battle elements and gameplay features. One such feature is an "assist" system in which a support character can be called in to help in a battle.

As for the new characters, there will be more than the currently-known Lightning, Kain, and Tifa. Nomura stated that rather than selecting Cosmos and Chaos pairings from each Final Fantasy game, the developers looked at the series as a whole. Thus, while Cecil and Kain from Final Fantasy IV are both Cosmos characters, that doesn't mean there will be two Chaos characters from that game. Each character will have three costumes in Duodecim. The new, third type of costume is being referred to as "3P," which is meant to have "impact" in its look. Some characters may look wildly different from normal in their 3P costume."

Source.

Interesting. I enjoyed Dissidia despite its awful dialogue and I found it great fun to play. So I'll definitely be getting this when it comes out.

[Psyk]

(Original post by 3nTr0pY)
Interesting. I enjoyed Dissidia despite its awful dialogue and I found it great fun to play. So I'll definitely be getting this when it comes out.

Yeah the dialogue was pretty awful. Maybe it will be better this time around. And if not, I don't really care. The first one was good anyway.

[Hylean]

(Original post by Psyk)
Yeah the dialogue was pretty awful. Maybe it will be better this time around. And if not, I don't really care. The first one was good anyway.

Nyah, I didn't really mind it. My main complaints were the pronunciations of Tidus and Zidane and Squall's voice actor. Really, did they have to get the guy to sound so much like an emo. So not what Squall's about.

[3nTr0pY]

(Original post by Hylean)
Nyah, I didn't really mind it. My main complaints were the pronunciations of Tidus and Zidane and Squall's voice actor. Really, did they have to get the guy to sound so much like an emo. So not what Squall's about.

...Whatever. Go talk to a wall.







On my part they made Kuja out to be a complete loser instead of the graceful, powerful figure he was in FFIX for the majority of the game. His VA was awful and Zidane's could have been better too. Still there were a few entertaining lines here and there.

[Hylean]

FFVII gets 3.0/5 in a retroreview.

[FyreFight]

4.0

[Psyk]

Are people enjoying FFXIV? I've heard it's been getting some abysmal reviews. Is there any truth to that or is it just butthurt fanboys?

[FyreFight]

(Original post by Psyk)
Are people enjoying FFXIV? I've heard it's been getting some abysmal reviews. Is there any truth to that or is it just butthurt fanboys?

Out of 10:

4.0 = gamespot
4.2 = gametrailers
4.3 = metacritic


It's hilariously bad, even for a Final Fantasy game.

[Hylean]

What's so wrong with it?

[majikthise]

It'll be brilliant in ~6 months once they've added some new content, inventory sorting, chocobos/airships, usable market wards and hopefully killed some of the lag.

[Stef90]

It's quite disheartening to see how Squenix's games keep on getting worse. You can't deny that they've gone for quantity over quality, and even the games that have gone through a lengthy development time (FF13) have been less than stellar.

[Sephiroth]

(Original post by Stef90)
It's quite disheartening to see how Squenix's games keep on getting worse. You can't deny that they've gone for quantity over quality, and even the games that have gone through a lengthy development time (FF13) have been less than stellar.

Where have they been getting worse? FFXII and XIII were both way better than X and IX.

As for XIV, it's not a bad game, problem is they released it too early and as a result it's getting reviewed on what is essentially a paid beta. Thus those problems you'd expect to be fixed by a game's release are dragging down its score.

The game has a lot of potential but unless you want to get ahead and make a lot of money crafting (crafting being the one thing they have in place that is finished and done well) you're best off skipping the game until at least PS3 release.

My problems with the game are all things that should have been fixed in a beta, nothing game breaking. **** like inventory sort, proper economic system, EXP bugs, UI lag etc. I can live with a "lack" of content because it's an MMO launch and they don't tend to have a lot from the start, however there's more than enough. Guildleves, story missions, class quests, behests, exploring, 18 jobs to play etc.

[3nTr0pY]

(Original post by Sephiroth)
Where have they been getting worse? FFXII and XIII were both way better than X and IX.

As for XIV, it's not a bad game, problem is they released it too early and as a result it's getting reviewed on what is essentially a paid beta. Thus those problems you'd expect to be fixed by a game's release are dragging down its score.

The game has a lot of potential but unless you want to get ahead and make a lot of money crafting (crafting being the one thing they have in place that is finished and done well) you're best off skipping the game until at least PS3 release.

My problems with the game are all things that should have been fixed in a beta, nothing game breaking. **** like inventory sort, proper economic system, EXP bugs, UI lag etc. I can live with a "lack" of content because it's an MMO launch and they don't tend to have a lot from the start, however there's more than enough. Guildleves, story missions, class quests, behests, exploring, 18 jobs to play etc.

In my eyes FFIX, FFX and FFXII were all vastly superior to FFXIII.

The professional reviews also agree with me, with FFXIII being the only main FF in recent history to not be critically acclaimed upon release. Whilst on metacritic, FFIX scored 94, FFX scored 92 and FFXII scored 92 - FFXIII scored a piddling 83.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/plays...l-fantasy-xiii


The reason being that it was ridiculously linear, had an awful plot by Final Fantasy standards and no variety to spice things up. The only things strong about it were the paradigm system and the presentation.

On FFXIV...I can't comment since I haven't played it. But it worries me that it has got such bad reviews. I'm really thinking nowadays that SE is seriously struggling.

[Hylean]

Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XII tailer.

Spoiler:

Show

[Psyk]

(Original post by Sephiroth)
Where have they been getting worse? FFXII and XIII were both way better than X and IX.

Ooh controversial opinion

I do think it's a bit stupid when people say they've been getting worse since X. Most people who say that wouldn't play the MMOs anyway, so they shouldn't count them. So if you discount XI and XIV, and any side games (that includes X-2), there has only been 2 games since then. So what they're really saying is, "I didn't like the last two". And the funny thing is people said the same thing before XIII came out so they were taking a single game they didn't like as evidence that there is an ongoing trend that FF games are decreasing in quality. And they always blame the merger with Enix for this drop in quality, but really that was purely business. Don't see how that could have had much of an effect on the creative process other than having more money to play with.

[3nTr0pY]

(Original post by Psyk)
Ooh controversial opinion

I do think it's a bit stupid when people say they've been getting worse since X. Most people who say that wouldn't play the MMOs anyway, so they shouldn't count them. So if you discount XI and XIV, and any side games (that includes X-2), there has only been 2 games since then. So what they're really saying is, "I didn't like the last two". And the funny thing is people said the same thing before XIII came out so they were taking a single game they didn't like as evidence that there is an ongoing trend that FF games are decreasing in quality. And they always blame the merger with Enix for this drop in quality, but really that was purely business. Don't see how that could have had much of an effect on the creative process other than having more money to play with.

Look at the time periods though:

Between 1997 and 2001 FFVII, VIII, IX and X were all released. That was bloody amazing.

From 2002-2010 only FFXII and FFXIII were released and the latter of which wasn't great imo.

Also, around about that transition period a lot of great creative minds left the company - Sakaguchi, Uematsu etc and the new head of the company (Wada) had radically different views on what he wanted Final Fantasy to be.

[Psyk]

(Original post by 3nTr0pY)
Look at the time periods though:

Between 1997 and 2001 FFVII, VIII, IX and X were all released. That was bloody amazing.

From 2002-2010 only FFXII and FFXIII were released and the latter of which wasn't great imo.

Also, around about that transition period a lot of great creative minds left the company - Sakaguchi, Uematsu etc and the new head of the company (Wada) had radically different views on what he wanted Final Fantasy to be.

Yeah, it takes much longer to make a game now than it did in the 90s, so obviously it's going to be longer between games. I realise a few people left, but I still think people put too much blame on the merger with Enix. Who knows if those people leaving had anything to do with that.

[3nTr0pY]

(Original post by Psyk)
Yeah, it takes much longer to make a game now than it did in the 90s, so obviously it's going to be longer between games. I realise a few people left, but I still think people put too much blame on the merger with Enix. Who knows if those people leaving had anything to do with that.

Well the main massive problem was The Spirits Within film they made which sustained heavy losses. As a result Squaresoft were forced to merge with Enix to keep them afloat. Furthermore, they lost confidence in Sakaguchi because of the financial disaster and he felt he had to leave, no doubt with plenty of his loyal friends leaving with him.

And now in charge was Yoichi Wada. Wada didn't see Final Fantasy as a series of games that had to be full of utmost quality, lovingly crafted - instead he saw it as a brand. He wanted to stamp Final Fantasy on as many titles as possible and generate as many sales as possible. He was also a superstitious guy and when a fortune teller told him to move the HQ of SE to a new city - Shinjuku, he obeyed. As a result more great minds left the company, including Nobuo Uematsu.

As a result of all of this there are all sorts of problems going on in SE at the moment. The setup is so disorganised that the development times for games is getting ridiculous. And sure, you're right that you can expect them to take longer - but not that long. 5 years to develop FFXIII from its initial announcement is just too long.

So I do think the real cause of the problems was The Spirits Within movie. It caused the lack of confidence in the core FF team and resulted in the merger and the massive changes to how Final Fantasy was run.

[Psyk]

Yeah The Spirits Within was a total failure. But I heard that delayed the merger rather than being the reason for it.

[3nTr0pY]

(Original post by Psyk)
Yeah The Spirits Within was a total failure. But I heard that delayed the merger rather than being the reason for it.

Actually, you may well be right. Can't find a source...but that definitely does sound familiar.


I think the key point though is that The Spirits Within failure caused Enix to be the dominant force in the partnership. Because Squaresoft now needed Enix to keep them afloat, Enix were able to call all the shots. As a result there were loads of staff changes. I think if Sakaguchi hadn't screwed up with The Spirit's Within and had remained as a key member as part of a true partnership, the FF series would have panned out very differently. As it was, the Square influence dwindled and Wada reigned supreme.