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31
General Discussion / Re: I posted this in Reddit but I thought why not see what my favorite people think?
« on: July 12, 2012, 12:19:46 am »Matsuno did accomplish it in Tactics Ogre, which had three paths. Three awesome paths! It's the only example of its kind I can think of too, unless we bring in visual novels like Radical Dreamers.
You've just made a point you didn't intend when you said that... A good one, though.
If the developers were to take their most genius writer and create some sort of visual novel and call it Final Fantasy... keeping in mind a visual novel practically requires multiple branching plots and endings to succeed... （Ｆａｔｅ／Ｓｔａｙ Ｎｉｇｈｔ is the most famous example I can think of, and all of its plot arcs were coherent to the main plot concept... Tsukihime is less famous but had even more arcs and each was treated seriously as well.）
Would it not work as a successful Final Fantasy? Sure, it's not what you expect, but it does have the main points we ALL want in our FF... Good storytelling, interactivity with the plot, music... We must consider too that characters make a visual novel...
I would honestly be more intrigued by FF the visual novel than I would be by the announcement that they're finally remaking FFVII, faithfully. Who agrees? Anyone? I know I'm an oddball, but how much of one am I?
32
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: Wanted to share how I feel about Chrono Cross, and why.
« on: July 11, 2012, 11:57:03 pm »
Kefka succeeded in becoming important though... He had screentime... He had a final showdown...
Dalton? Dalton has a 15 second video clip and we only know it's him because of an interview after the fact.
Dalton isn't even the assklown kefka was... he's the asshat being worn by the assklown.
Dalton? Dalton has a 15 second video clip and we only know it's him because of an interview after the fact.
Dalton isn't even the assklown kefka was... he's the asshat being worn by the assklown.
33
General Discussion / Re: Stuff you hate
« on: July 11, 2012, 11:53:35 pm »
I'm just gonna say it: video games...
No, really. I want to like them, but 99% of everything game related I see anymore is a stream of bloody stool in the drinking water...
Every game since about 2004 has been a disappointment... even the few I liked. The disappointments are getting bigger and the likability is becoming fewer and farther between...
Companies that at one time changed the way I lived and though, are now things I look down in disgust at... Series that once were at the core of my being they were so beloved to me, are now points of contempt for me.
As a child I knew the world was a terrible place... so my closest point to innocent joy was gaming, something that one wouldn't think would just go away with age, like normal childhood... but as I grow older the industry is tearing that one simple pleasure away from me...
I guess it's true that no one escapes the destruction of their innocence...not even those who had none. I try to live day by day, making the best of things... but so many things I once loved have betrayed me that I'm always filled with a near boiling rage...
I'm not sure whether I'm a pessimist for seeing these horrible things... or an optimist for trying to believe it's still ok... I am forced to question myself now, as to whether it all meant anything... all the things I've done... was there a point? I'm still here, still working on my art that I'll never be good enough, nor patient enough, to sell; still jobless; still alone... and now I realize all of my life is wasted on some crappy obsession that turned into a curse... all because of video games... because they were once so grand and are now so...not.
It stabs at my being to admit it, even to myself, but I can't avoid it... I hate video games...
No, really. I want to like them, but 99% of everything game related I see anymore is a stream of bloody stool in the drinking water...
Every game since about 2004 has been a disappointment... even the few I liked. The disappointments are getting bigger and the likability is becoming fewer and farther between...
Companies that at one time changed the way I lived and though, are now things I look down in disgust at... Series that once were at the core of my being they were so beloved to me, are now points of contempt for me.
As a child I knew the world was a terrible place... so my closest point to innocent joy was gaming, something that one wouldn't think would just go away with age, like normal childhood... but as I grow older the industry is tearing that one simple pleasure away from me...
I guess it's true that no one escapes the destruction of their innocence...not even those who had none. I try to live day by day, making the best of things... but so many things I once loved have betrayed me that I'm always filled with a near boiling rage...
I'm not sure whether I'm a pessimist for seeing these horrible things... or an optimist for trying to believe it's still ok... I am forced to question myself now, as to whether it all meant anything... all the things I've done... was there a point? I'm still here, still working on my art that I'll never be good enough, nor patient enough, to sell; still jobless; still alone... and now I realize all of my life is wasted on some crappy obsession that turned into a curse... all because of video games... because they were once so grand and are now so...not.
It stabs at my being to admit it, even to myself, but I can't avoid it... I hate video games...
34
General Discussion / Re: Video Game Discussion Thread
« on: July 11, 2012, 11:35:51 pm »I can't imagine the name would survive the crossing.
If it doesn't, they'll lose my interest. From my experience the best RPGs lately are the ones that have nothing to do with their release title at all. I miss the days when JRPGs were allowed to have random words as titles.
I've been pretty open minded most of my life, but I've recently had it beaten into me that you CAN judge a game by its title...
35
General Discussion / Re: Park Your Amusements Here
« on: July 11, 2012, 05:06:48 pm »
I've seen both clowns and oversized livestock.
I saw a woman with a mustache!
I saw a woman with a mustache!
36
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: Wanted to share how I feel about Chrono Cross, and why.
« on: July 11, 2012, 01:42:06 am »Quote
CT was packed with the things I loved, and CC wasn't. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes.
Yes, the more I think about what I've been trying to get across, the more hamfisted I seem to be getting. That's essentially what my point has been, and by this moment, I realize my entire post was a wasted effort on an already accepted point.
Though I have to disagree with you saying the Zelda games have a similar feel. To me they're far too different for me to enjoy them each as sequels... Odd as that may sound. I can't put it into words, but the difference between any two Zelda games is much greater to me than the difference between the Chrono games.
But basically I've just written a 3 page dissertation on how poorly I articulate.
37
General Discussion / Re: I posted this in Reddit but I thought why not see what my favorite people think?
« on: July 11, 2012, 01:21:16 am »
I was honestly giving some serious thought about this until you made a dire mistake in claiming that an FF other than the most obvious FF in my mind to be the best in the series was the best.
I don't deny that you make a number of very good points about actually -fixing- the series being more important than just making fun of it... Though, anytime since XI, I sort of have trouble defending the series anymore... that aside... The one thing I just can't agree with you on... is that VI was the best. It just wasn't in my opinion... it was ok... I'd put it above X in plot, but far below it in terms of replay value... and X isn't even in my top 3.
I'd love to see the Classic ATB system turned into something maybe slightly new, just new enough to not be a carbon copy of of the rest... and nothing else done to it... Hell I'd love to see another turn based system...
I have a problem with deciding which mindset is more important though... Is a phenomenal plot more important than an interactive one... well there's no way to answer that really... both things are important, and ideally I'd want to have a plot that is both interactive and branching ad nauseum, and phenomenal at the same time... but it can't be done in the space of time that games are made in... it would take a lifetime to accomplish that, and that's if you have a large group of planners that are all perfectly synchronized in function and execution...
However, I can say that as things stand now, I'd prefer a mildly engaging plot with lots of options over another RPG-on-rails...
I heavily disagree on the XII battle system thing though... I hated it.
To be honest, I think the best thing that could happen to the series right now is if a small group of indie developers that haven't even become a "company" yet, were to make a game and bootleg it as "the next final fantasy." I'm disgusted with pretty much everything I see in modern FF's. Too much focus on graphical realism details... I've seen realistic style graphics... and that's all they are... a style... they don't look real enough to be worth it anymore... it isn't something new and cool... so stop acting like its the only style there is... (that goes for all modern RPGs these days really... if I wanted realism I'd go get stabbed by a hobo... THAT's a realistic scenario.)
Can the fancy menus. There's no point. No one looks at the menu and says "Wow this game must be great because of how beautiful these menus are."
Music. More of it. The last modern RPG I played, while I loved it and all and had probably 200 songs... felt very stingy with the music, and FF is certainly not getting better about its musical variety... And the music they do have, seems to be pretty unengaging lately.
One thing to avoid... Metal. A lot of the FF's are using less orchestral music and more modern style music... While this in itself isn't bad, the actual scores for the music are a lot less interesting... again this applies to most RPGs today...
Switch back to the time tested "I stand an inch away from you and press a button to initiate conversation" tactic. That worked. It worked really well. Also, don't use any fancy gimmicks like having high quality character render portraits in every conversation... It just feels cheap anymore... I want what you abandoned: Interactive speech, with a few minor character animations applied to it.... and I stress the character animations. It seems like the only thing any RPG character knows how to do anymore is stand up straight; I know there wasn't much other than that in XIII... I'm not saying you need to have a cutscene at every conversation... (in fact I'm getting tired of those too)... Nah, I just want the characters to fold their arms and think once in a while... maybe look surprised for a moment...
Well, for example, I know Crisis Core lacked a lot of realtime character animation (and reused most of what they had, far too often... and yet still not used often enough to begin with) because it was a limited medium. UMD's are pretty small. FFXIII had seemingly less realtime animation, and it had something like 40-80gb of space on its Blu-ray disc... Quit wasting space and in fact processing power, on making the graphics look "shiny" and make them feel "complete," by having some variety in what they can do.
Mini games... some people are probably scoffing at the mention right now... but think about it, a few FF's had some minigames that were genuinely fun... Chocobo Hot and Cold, while it could get annoying sometimes, was actually quite fun to me... it isn't even the kind of game I normally like, but it was done so well, that I could actually get into it. It was something that I could do when I was tired of playing through a particularly unenjoyable (or far too familiar) part of FFIX... Tetra Master and Triple Triad... they get a lot of flak, but hell, they were fun diversions too.
Locations. I like having locations, particularly ones that are connected somehow, but also ones that I don't have to traverse 500 times to get anywhere... Basically... a world map.... Not a list of destinations I can choose from in a menu... not a series of tunnels I HAVE to walk through to get from A to B... an actual overworld, with things to see and possibly fight, maybe even interact with. Sure they can get tedious... but they're much less tedious than spelunking the same four caves over and over... and they're a lot more fun than looking at a shopping list of locations...
Random encounters... I could go either way with this.. it's a touchy subject... but sometimes random encounters are less annoying than pre-programmed mandatory ones, or having to learn the patterns of every map enemy so I can avoid every battle... When I'm being chased by map enemies I often find myself paying more attention to NOT BEING TOUCHED BY THEM, than anything else in the game at all. So with that consideration, I spend the majority of the game stuck in a constant state of irritation. Random encounters aren't so bad if they're moderate. If I can move a decent distance without triggering an encounter, I'm pretty ok. What makes random encounters annoying is when they happen too frequently.
On the subject of battle, don't make every situation just another excuse for a battle. Sometimes battle is important, other times they seem to get in the way.
Make some battles unique... Involve the player in a select few battles that are a bit more interesting than just killing the baddie... maybe the enemy isn't even an enemy and you can win just by defending... maybe the enemy goads you and has small interrupt scenes... But there is a stipulation to this as well... it can't be EVERY battle... If every battle is like this, it just becomes part of the mundane, and is no longer engaging.
Enemies that have quirks... Can be killed by healing... Weakness to Soft... hell maybe one enemy is gay and runs away from female characters using charm or something (no offense to anyone if it is somehow possibly offensive...)... I don't know... be creative... for once...
Here's an idea... make Token Black Guy not be Token... Make him just be a guy that happens to be black. Hell, have a whole cast of different skin tones... I mean not everyone is Black, White or Asian...
Love stories... they're cliche and they're getting more and more annoying... honestly these would be a really simple way to add some plot variance to the game... Instead of setting up your canon couples... maybe give the player some influence over the inevitable relationship that is going to be unavoidably added to the story. Not only that, but if you're going to make such a romance be important, why would you NOT have it be influencible? Because it means you have to work a little? Because your plot is only solid enough to support one couple?
Plot. The plots, while seeming to be of the utmost importance to the new FF's above all else, including being above FUN, are crap. People rag on X all the time, and I can see a few good reason to do so, but honestly, in comparison between X and XIII... I'd go with X in the plot category any day. I'd go with nearly any of the FF's previous for that matter. VII isn't as spectacular as people claim it is, but it was engaging... More than that, it felt like something you were a part of, rather than something that was happening near you. The same goes for VI, VIII, IX, and X... Considering how much Kitase thinks plot should be the most important thing... the plots really haven't been that great of late.
The short of it is... To fix Final Fantasy as a series... stop Nintendoing everything. You don't have to make EVERY FEATURE different and completely new while at the same time being an idea we've all had for a long time anyway... Stop using fancy gimmicks and just WORK HARD on making a game. Pick an engine from a mid-early FF and start with that, and add a new plot and characters to it.. If you spend all your time on the actual plot, keeping interactivity, branches, side quests, and minigames in mind, you pretty much can't go wrong. Where you fail, Squenix, is in trying to make every little thing innovative, at the expense of being fun... and also making the graphics too obtrusively "LOOK HOW COOL I AM" pretentious. Make FFVI/VII/VIII/IX with a different plot, world, and cast. You'll succeed then.
I don't deny that you make a number of very good points about actually -fixing- the series being more important than just making fun of it... Though, anytime since XI, I sort of have trouble defending the series anymore... that aside... The one thing I just can't agree with you on... is that VI was the best. It just wasn't in my opinion... it was ok... I'd put it above X in plot, but far below it in terms of replay value... and X isn't even in my top 3.
I'd love to see the Classic ATB system turned into something maybe slightly new, just new enough to not be a carbon copy of of the rest... and nothing else done to it... Hell I'd love to see another turn based system...
I have a problem with deciding which mindset is more important though... Is a phenomenal plot more important than an interactive one... well there's no way to answer that really... both things are important, and ideally I'd want to have a plot that is both interactive and branching ad nauseum, and phenomenal at the same time... but it can't be done in the space of time that games are made in... it would take a lifetime to accomplish that, and that's if you have a large group of planners that are all perfectly synchronized in function and execution...
However, I can say that as things stand now, I'd prefer a mildly engaging plot with lots of options over another RPG-on-rails...
I heavily disagree on the XII battle system thing though... I hated it.
To be honest, I think the best thing that could happen to the series right now is if a small group of indie developers that haven't even become a "company" yet, were to make a game and bootleg it as "the next final fantasy." I'm disgusted with pretty much everything I see in modern FF's. Too much focus on graphical realism details... I've seen realistic style graphics... and that's all they are... a style... they don't look real enough to be worth it anymore... it isn't something new and cool... so stop acting like its the only style there is... (that goes for all modern RPGs these days really... if I wanted realism I'd go get stabbed by a hobo... THAT's a realistic scenario.)
Can the fancy menus. There's no point. No one looks at the menu and says "Wow this game must be great because of how beautiful these menus are."
Music. More of it. The last modern RPG I played, while I loved it and all and had probably 200 songs... felt very stingy with the music, and FF is certainly not getting better about its musical variety... And the music they do have, seems to be pretty unengaging lately.
One thing to avoid... Metal. A lot of the FF's are using less orchestral music and more modern style music... While this in itself isn't bad, the actual scores for the music are a lot less interesting... again this applies to most RPGs today...
Switch back to the time tested "I stand an inch away from you and press a button to initiate conversation" tactic. That worked. It worked really well. Also, don't use any fancy gimmicks like having high quality character render portraits in every conversation... It just feels cheap anymore... I want what you abandoned: Interactive speech, with a few minor character animations applied to it.... and I stress the character animations. It seems like the only thing any RPG character knows how to do anymore is stand up straight; I know there wasn't much other than that in XIII... I'm not saying you need to have a cutscene at every conversation... (in fact I'm getting tired of those too)... Nah, I just want the characters to fold their arms and think once in a while... maybe look surprised for a moment...
Well, for example, I know Crisis Core lacked a lot of realtime character animation (and reused most of what they had, far too often... and yet still not used often enough to begin with) because it was a limited medium. UMD's are pretty small. FFXIII had seemingly less realtime animation, and it had something like 40-80gb of space on its Blu-ray disc... Quit wasting space and in fact processing power, on making the graphics look "shiny" and make them feel "complete," by having some variety in what they can do.
Mini games... some people are probably scoffing at the mention right now... but think about it, a few FF's had some minigames that were genuinely fun... Chocobo Hot and Cold, while it could get annoying sometimes, was actually quite fun to me... it isn't even the kind of game I normally like, but it was done so well, that I could actually get into it. It was something that I could do when I was tired of playing through a particularly unenjoyable (or far too familiar) part of FFIX... Tetra Master and Triple Triad... they get a lot of flak, but hell, they were fun diversions too.
Locations. I like having locations, particularly ones that are connected somehow, but also ones that I don't have to traverse 500 times to get anywhere... Basically... a world map.... Not a list of destinations I can choose from in a menu... not a series of tunnels I HAVE to walk through to get from A to B... an actual overworld, with things to see and possibly fight, maybe even interact with. Sure they can get tedious... but they're much less tedious than spelunking the same four caves over and over... and they're a lot more fun than looking at a shopping list of locations...
Random encounters... I could go either way with this.. it's a touchy subject... but sometimes random encounters are less annoying than pre-programmed mandatory ones, or having to learn the patterns of every map enemy so I can avoid every battle... When I'm being chased by map enemies I often find myself paying more attention to NOT BEING TOUCHED BY THEM, than anything else in the game at all. So with that consideration, I spend the majority of the game stuck in a constant state of irritation. Random encounters aren't so bad if they're moderate. If I can move a decent distance without triggering an encounter, I'm pretty ok. What makes random encounters annoying is when they happen too frequently.
On the subject of battle, don't make every situation just another excuse for a battle. Sometimes battle is important, other times they seem to get in the way.
Make some battles unique... Involve the player in a select few battles that are a bit more interesting than just killing the baddie... maybe the enemy isn't even an enemy and you can win just by defending... maybe the enemy goads you and has small interrupt scenes... But there is a stipulation to this as well... it can't be EVERY battle... If every battle is like this, it just becomes part of the mundane, and is no longer engaging.
Enemies that have quirks... Can be killed by healing... Weakness to Soft... hell maybe one enemy is gay and runs away from female characters using charm or something (no offense to anyone if it is somehow possibly offensive...)... I don't know... be creative... for once...
Here's an idea... make Token Black Guy not be Token... Make him just be a guy that happens to be black. Hell, have a whole cast of different skin tones... I mean not everyone is Black, White or Asian...
Love stories... they're cliche and they're getting more and more annoying... honestly these would be a really simple way to add some plot variance to the game... Instead of setting up your canon couples... maybe give the player some influence over the inevitable relationship that is going to be unavoidably added to the story. Not only that, but if you're going to make such a romance be important, why would you NOT have it be influencible? Because it means you have to work a little? Because your plot is only solid enough to support one couple?
Plot. The plots, while seeming to be of the utmost importance to the new FF's above all else, including being above FUN, are crap. People rag on X all the time, and I can see a few good reason to do so, but honestly, in comparison between X and XIII... I'd go with X in the plot category any day. I'd go with nearly any of the FF's previous for that matter. VII isn't as spectacular as people claim it is, but it was engaging... More than that, it felt like something you were a part of, rather than something that was happening near you. The same goes for VI, VIII, IX, and X... Considering how much Kitase thinks plot should be the most important thing... the plots really haven't been that great of late.
The short of it is... To fix Final Fantasy as a series... stop Nintendoing everything. You don't have to make EVERY FEATURE different and completely new while at the same time being an idea we've all had for a long time anyway... Stop using fancy gimmicks and just WORK HARD on making a game. Pick an engine from a mid-early FF and start with that, and add a new plot and characters to it.. If you spend all your time on the actual plot, keeping interactivity, branches, side quests, and minigames in mind, you pretty much can't go wrong. Where you fail, Squenix, is in trying to make every little thing innovative, at the expense of being fun... and also making the graphics too obtrusively "LOOK HOW COOL I AM" pretentious. Make FFVI/VII/VIII/IX with a different plot, world, and cast. You'll succeed then.
38
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: Wanted to share how I feel about Chrono Cross, and why.
« on: July 11, 2012, 12:01:32 am »
Most of my post, in regards to CT is merely one point of view, and not necessarily my own at that. I think somewhere along the line I may also have gotten distracted and gone on a few senseless tangents, I admit that, it happens to me often.
The point was attempting to get across was that CT and CC are not directly related, and most people expect them to be. I suppose something similar must have happened when Final Fantasy II was released... but due to the large number of games between then and now, no one expects an FF to be related to another FF... However, this is a good basis to consider for the Chrono series, being that it and FF are both Square products...(However, and unfortunately, any new Chrono game is likely to be a Squenix product instead...)
My point about CT's time travel mechanic is not that it is a bad thing, but rather that it has its flaws.
My point about CT's characters is that we only really ever get to know one or two things about them, despite being superiorly developed in comparison to CC... We know that want to save the future... we know Magus has a sister complex... and well... despite seeing a bit of their pasts, we don't really see any immediate effects of how much of their known history affects them. Glenn is a frog, and was a squire once... We don't know how he gets along with Magus, his stated mortal enemy, once the option to recruit him is chosen. We only see a hint that Lucca cares about her mother's legs, in the scene leading up to attempting to make them not get damaged...
What I'm getting at, is that we don't know enough to really gauge how the characters would react to a situation that wasn't presented in the game already... There's some development, we could toss out a guess at a reaction... but we don't really know much about them beyond that... That's one argument anyway.
In relation to that, one could say we know Fargo pretty well, as both Fargo's seem to resonate the same thoughts even if they act on them completely oppositely.
My purpose isn't to bash CT... but rather to throw into question the things that we take for granted about it.
Devil's advocate essentially. The root of it is, both games are excellent, and both are horribly flawed...but-- depending on which school we come from, we each ignore the flaws in the game we prefer, because we prefer it... or probably more accurately, we see the flaws in the game we like less, as being much more prominent flaws.
A corollary of this concept is the fact that you cannot compare the flaws in the games accurately, for the same reason you cannot compare the games themselves accurately: the flaws, like the games they are from, are different, and as there is no system of empirical data measurement for "flaws" one cannot define the amount of influence one flaw has over its game to another.
As for continuation of time travel... It's hardly a minor quibble in my opinion... it changes the entire ending of the game if you change whether they did or did not continue traveling through time.
For instance, you say the stopped messing with time, thus making it much safer since they have less chance of breaking everything... It makes the ending bittersweet as they made these companions they will never see again... assuming we believe they got along...(they never truly state their feelings about each other aside from a few instances like resurrecting Crono, and Ayla stating she likes them when they first meet... we merely assume they all like each other because we are never given a hint that they don't)
Now, on the other side of things, they continue traveling through time, putting the world in untold amounts of possible jeopardy, but they get to hang out with their battle comrades... Imagine the timeline contamination that is possible... for instance, the McFly paradigm... If someone accidentally says the wrong thing to the wrong person, anywhere from 1 to billions of people could cease to exist. For instance, by simply meeting with Ayla in the past, and accidentally dissuading two people from getting married, or simply from noticing each other for the first time in the right way, an entire chunk of the human population could cease to exist and be replaced by someone else entirely, and they'd have no idea how to fix it, if it was even possible.
One accidental left turn could literally decimate the population... We see similar effects in the Reptite ending...
I will grant that I got massively distracted and a bit overzealous in my previous comments... and maybe even here too, it happens, but my root point is that both games have flaws, and yet I like them both equally, for different reasons... and I feel that the reason people like one more than the other stems from the misunderstanding that a sequel should be directly related.
In fact, in the cases I can think of, I've seen many more successful sequels that were only partially related, than I have see direct sequels, with one rule of exception:
If the sequel was originally part of a single story and the piece was broken up into 'chapters.'
I suppose I could say that some of the flaws in the Chrono series are actually the things that make it so great.
No really. If not for the Marle paradox, the Lavos' shell paradox, the Black Omen... and so on... Would we even have a compendium dedicated to exploring these things, trying to make sense of them, and in fact, enriching the games beyond their official stature through the use of fanon?
Just because I say they are flawed, does not mean I dislike them in any capacity. Perfection, at least as far as human beings can comprehend it, is pretty boring. Once you iron out all the flaws, there is no room for improvement, so why concentrate on it anymore?
Some of the flaws between these two games -define- the games. For instance I could say that Chrono Cross's multitude of characters, while slightly less defined individually, were better than Chrono Trigger's cast, because there were characters I was stuck with in Trigger and didn't have much choice of alternatives. In Cross I certainly have plenty of alternatives, and a fair few of them do in fact get some development.
I wouldn't claim that, as I generally made do pretty well with Ayla Magus and Crono... Magus being a filler... What I say here doesn't reflect me, but merely a manufactured point of view. My actual point of view is pretty boring in that both games fine to me and neither has any edge over the other.
And again, yes, I do go off on tangents.
The point was attempting to get across was that CT and CC are not directly related, and most people expect them to be. I suppose something similar must have happened when Final Fantasy II was released... but due to the large number of games between then and now, no one expects an FF to be related to another FF... However, this is a good basis to consider for the Chrono series, being that it and FF are both Square products...(However, and unfortunately, any new Chrono game is likely to be a Squenix product instead...)
My point about CT's time travel mechanic is not that it is a bad thing, but rather that it has its flaws.
My point about CT's characters is that we only really ever get to know one or two things about them, despite being superiorly developed in comparison to CC... We know that want to save the future... we know Magus has a sister complex... and well... despite seeing a bit of their pasts, we don't really see any immediate effects of how much of their known history affects them. Glenn is a frog, and was a squire once... We don't know how he gets along with Magus, his stated mortal enemy, once the option to recruit him is chosen. We only see a hint that Lucca cares about her mother's legs, in the scene leading up to attempting to make them not get damaged...
What I'm getting at, is that we don't know enough to really gauge how the characters would react to a situation that wasn't presented in the game already... There's some development, we could toss out a guess at a reaction... but we don't really know much about them beyond that... That's one argument anyway.
In relation to that, one could say we know Fargo pretty well, as both Fargo's seem to resonate the same thoughts even if they act on them completely oppositely.
My purpose isn't to bash CT... but rather to throw into question the things that we take for granted about it.
Devil's advocate essentially. The root of it is, both games are excellent, and both are horribly flawed...but-- depending on which school we come from, we each ignore the flaws in the game we prefer, because we prefer it... or probably more accurately, we see the flaws in the game we like less, as being much more prominent flaws.
A corollary of this concept is the fact that you cannot compare the flaws in the games accurately, for the same reason you cannot compare the games themselves accurately: the flaws, like the games they are from, are different, and as there is no system of empirical data measurement for "flaws" one cannot define the amount of influence one flaw has over its game to another.
As for continuation of time travel... It's hardly a minor quibble in my opinion... it changes the entire ending of the game if you change whether they did or did not continue traveling through time.
For instance, you say the stopped messing with time, thus making it much safer since they have less chance of breaking everything... It makes the ending bittersweet as they made these companions they will never see again... assuming we believe they got along...(they never truly state their feelings about each other aside from a few instances like resurrecting Crono, and Ayla stating she likes them when they first meet... we merely assume they all like each other because we are never given a hint that they don't)
Now, on the other side of things, they continue traveling through time, putting the world in untold amounts of possible jeopardy, but they get to hang out with their battle comrades... Imagine the timeline contamination that is possible... for instance, the McFly paradigm... If someone accidentally says the wrong thing to the wrong person, anywhere from 1 to billions of people could cease to exist. For instance, by simply meeting with Ayla in the past, and accidentally dissuading two people from getting married, or simply from noticing each other for the first time in the right way, an entire chunk of the human population could cease to exist and be replaced by someone else entirely, and they'd have no idea how to fix it, if it was even possible.
One accidental left turn could literally decimate the population... We see similar effects in the Reptite ending...
I will grant that I got massively distracted and a bit overzealous in my previous comments... and maybe even here too, it happens, but my root point is that both games have flaws, and yet I like them both equally, for different reasons... and I feel that the reason people like one more than the other stems from the misunderstanding that a sequel should be directly related.
In fact, in the cases I can think of, I've seen many more successful sequels that were only partially related, than I have see direct sequels, with one rule of exception:
If the sequel was originally part of a single story and the piece was broken up into 'chapters.'
I suppose I could say that some of the flaws in the Chrono series are actually the things that make it so great.
No really. If not for the Marle paradox, the Lavos' shell paradox, the Black Omen... and so on... Would we even have a compendium dedicated to exploring these things, trying to make sense of them, and in fact, enriching the games beyond their official stature through the use of fanon?
Just because I say they are flawed, does not mean I dislike them in any capacity. Perfection, at least as far as human beings can comprehend it, is pretty boring. Once you iron out all the flaws, there is no room for improvement, so why concentrate on it anymore?
Some of the flaws between these two games -define- the games. For instance I could say that Chrono Cross's multitude of characters, while slightly less defined individually, were better than Chrono Trigger's cast, because there were characters I was stuck with in Trigger and didn't have much choice of alternatives. In Cross I certainly have plenty of alternatives, and a fair few of them do in fact get some development.
I wouldn't claim that, as I generally made do pretty well with Ayla Magus and Crono... Magus being a filler... What I say here doesn't reflect me, but merely a manufactured point of view. My actual point of view is pretty boring in that both games fine to me and neither has any edge over the other.
And again, yes, I do go off on tangents.
39
Chrono Cross Modification / Re: Chrono Cross 70-80% NTSC Beta (Disc 1 Only)
« on: July 10, 2012, 11:05:51 pm »
This is a mighty conundrum...
It looks like the only difference between the models is the red stripe... but where did the model I have come from...
It looks like the only difference between the models is the red stripe... but where did the model I have come from...
40
Chrono Cross Modification / Re: Chrono Cross 70-80% NTSC Beta (Disc 1 Only)
« on: July 10, 2012, 12:23:55 am »
Strange that that would be the case, as I'm looking at a model once salvaged by someone we both know, it appears to be that very model, and there are no stripes.
It would appear that there are multiple models of Kid in that outfit... that or there are some issues with the UV's on the one I'm looking at.
So... If that's not this model... where did this one come from?
EDIT: Sorry if I sound a bit brusque. I'm just... confused by the conflicting realities I'm seeing...
It would appear that there are multiple models of Kid in that outfit... that or there are some issues with the UV's on the one I'm looking at.
So... If that's not this model... where did this one come from?
EDIT: Sorry if I sound a bit brusque. I'm just... confused by the conflicting realities I'm seeing...
41
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: Wanted to share how I feel about Chrono Cross, and why.
« on: July 10, 2012, 12:21:04 am »
The interesting thing about Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger is that neither is really as solid as the fanbase seems to portray them.
Cross was obviously inscrutable and in some places downright incomprehensible to the core... but one of the things people tend to overlook is how much in Trigger makes no sense or outright defies logic... We have an entire forum dedicated to unraveling the mysteries and fallacies put forth by it.
Time Traveler's Immunity... Time Bastard... generally the entire plot mechanic of Trigger was, while fantastic and entertaining, very very flawed.
I'd say that if you don't count the fact that Cross is a sequel, both games have an equal quantity or flaws.
I remember I bought Cross because it was related to Trigger... I had a bad copy in which the discs were (visibly) not created properly and the videos all skipped to nigh incompletable levels.
I recall trying my hardest to ignore the fact that I couldn't understand the plot due to none of the videos being watchable, or in most cases, crashing the game outright. Much as I tried to enjoy it.. I sold it a few days later and bought something else I also didn't really enjoy...
But then... years later... even with a longstanding grudge against the game for it's impossible-to-play-ness... I recalled all the events I managed to complete... and I had to track down a copy... I realized, after at least 6 years, that I genuinely loved that game.
Anyway, back to my point... or rather on to a new one: Chrono Cross gets a few points taken off simply by being related to Chrono Trigger.
Because it is the sequel of a truly great game, loved by many, people expect certain things from it... Things that it never set out to deliver in the first place, because it is, in fact, not Chrono Trigger 2... It is Chrono Cross. In essence, it is only marginally more related to its predecessor than Xenosaga is related to Xenogears.
They are two different games that are meant to take place in a similar setting. Cross is the Star Ocean 2/3 to Trigger's Star Ocean: Fantastic Space Odyssey... It's Lufia III vs Lufia I/II...
It's the chess playing son of the basketball legend... They both have their thing... They are both equally good and equally bad... but they are different things in the end.
Moreover, Cross loses points for being a sequel in general. In the majority of cases, a sequel is seen as inferior to the original. Aliens can never Replace Alien, nor can Alien3 replace Aliens...
And lets face it, AVP2 was miserable.
We also must consider that as time passes, the developers, much like us, form new or different opinions about where the story should be going, has gone, how it should be interpreted, and what it was really about... This is the reason that presidents and head developers leave their companies to start new ones, with related goals... Their opinions start to differ from the rest of the fold.
Basically what I'm saying is this:
The reason Cross so often doesn't compare to Trigger, is because they can't be compared properly... My apple is red, sweet, and shiny while yours is tart, dimpled, and orange... the reason being your apple is an orange of course. They're both fruit, they both come from the same setting, orchards, but their purpose is different.
Apes and humans share 99% of our DNA... we're nothing alike... mice share about 75% of our DNA... and bananas around 50%... None of us are direct sequels to any of them. We are each our own organism, regardless of how closely related we may be, even if we are sequels of a kind...
Square and Nintendo are both game companies founded by people with common ancestry... neither of them is like the haberdashery founded by one of those common ancestors... It isn't a fair comparison.
And also I like oblique analogies.
I can say though, that I've not seen any direct comments about the character development, the plot, etc., that are completely unfounded. I could say though, that even with the amount of characterization they got, Trigger's characters were still pretty undeveloped. Crono has no thoughts of his own, Lucca is pretty one dimensional, Marle... well Marle is Lucca but softer and in some sort of puffy underwear, Glenn has no apparent life whatsoever, Robo is literally lifeless, Ayla was there to look good and name things... badly... and even Magus who was the centermost character in the game, is a complete mystery really.
The Chrono cast aside from those in Radical Dreamers, are nothing more than the sum of their tropes. I could argue that anyway.
The problem with character development is that you can only trust what the developers tell you directly... anything left to interpretation is inherently questionable in the veracity column.
For instance, the greedy mayor... As a child I thought he was pretty generous, giving out cash for something as simple as acting a little silly and clucking like a chicken. Now, older, I see him as a condescending bastard. Case in point that not only do people's opinions and perceptions change over time, but also that people can both infer things that may or may not have ever been implied... and thus, relying on any supposed implications as true development, can lead to faulty conclusions.
For instance, I ask you: Does Serge actually have a relationship with Leena? Does he have one with Kid? One of these is stated as true, the other is heavily implied... and neither can really be definitely answered.
Was the end of Chrono Trigger the end of time travel for the main cast? All evidence implies it wasn't... but if you think about it, logically, continuing to screw around with time, even once there's no imminent threat of catastrophe...seems like a really bad idea. Ok, so they rescue Crono's cats and Mom... but after that, why risk all of the future and past just to hang out a little? What would they even do? We don't know this because we don't know what is a -normal- day for anyone in CT... We at least get a glimpse of it in CC in the form of Serge.
So on that level, we actually know more about Serge than Crono.
Cross was obviously inscrutable and in some places downright incomprehensible to the core... but one of the things people tend to overlook is how much in Trigger makes no sense or outright defies logic... We have an entire forum dedicated to unraveling the mysteries and fallacies put forth by it.
Time Traveler's Immunity... Time Bastard... generally the entire plot mechanic of Trigger was, while fantastic and entertaining, very very flawed.
I'd say that if you don't count the fact that Cross is a sequel, both games have an equal quantity or flaws.
I remember I bought Cross because it was related to Trigger... I had a bad copy in which the discs were (visibly) not created properly and the videos all skipped to nigh incompletable levels.
I recall trying my hardest to ignore the fact that I couldn't understand the plot due to none of the videos being watchable, or in most cases, crashing the game outright. Much as I tried to enjoy it.. I sold it a few days later and bought something else I also didn't really enjoy...
But then... years later... even with a longstanding grudge against the game for it's impossible-to-play-ness... I recalled all the events I managed to complete... and I had to track down a copy... I realized, after at least 6 years, that I genuinely loved that game.
Anyway, back to my point... or rather on to a new one: Chrono Cross gets a few points taken off simply by being related to Chrono Trigger.
Because it is the sequel of a truly great game, loved by many, people expect certain things from it... Things that it never set out to deliver in the first place, because it is, in fact, not Chrono Trigger 2... It is Chrono Cross. In essence, it is only marginally more related to its predecessor than Xenosaga is related to Xenogears.
They are two different games that are meant to take place in a similar setting. Cross is the Star Ocean 2/3 to Trigger's Star Ocean: Fantastic Space Odyssey... It's Lufia III vs Lufia I/II...
It's the chess playing son of the basketball legend... They both have their thing... They are both equally good and equally bad... but they are different things in the end.
Moreover, Cross loses points for being a sequel in general. In the majority of cases, a sequel is seen as inferior to the original. Aliens can never Replace Alien, nor can Alien3 replace Aliens...
And lets face it, AVP2 was miserable.
We also must consider that as time passes, the developers, much like us, form new or different opinions about where the story should be going, has gone, how it should be interpreted, and what it was really about... This is the reason that presidents and head developers leave their companies to start new ones, with related goals... Their opinions start to differ from the rest of the fold.
Basically what I'm saying is this:
The reason Cross so often doesn't compare to Trigger, is because they can't be compared properly... My apple is red, sweet, and shiny while yours is tart, dimpled, and orange... the reason being your apple is an orange of course. They're both fruit, they both come from the same setting, orchards, but their purpose is different.
Apes and humans share 99% of our DNA... we're nothing alike... mice share about 75% of our DNA... and bananas around 50%... None of us are direct sequels to any of them. We are each our own organism, regardless of how closely related we may be, even if we are sequels of a kind...
Square and Nintendo are both game companies founded by people with common ancestry... neither of them is like the haberdashery founded by one of those common ancestors... It isn't a fair comparison.
And also I like oblique analogies.
I can say though, that I've not seen any direct comments about the character development, the plot, etc., that are completely unfounded. I could say though, that even with the amount of characterization they got, Trigger's characters were still pretty undeveloped. Crono has no thoughts of his own, Lucca is pretty one dimensional, Marle... well Marle is Lucca but softer and in some sort of puffy underwear, Glenn has no apparent life whatsoever, Robo is literally lifeless, Ayla was there to look good and name things... badly... and even Magus who was the centermost character in the game, is a complete mystery really.
The Chrono cast aside from those in Radical Dreamers, are nothing more than the sum of their tropes. I could argue that anyway.
The problem with character development is that you can only trust what the developers tell you directly... anything left to interpretation is inherently questionable in the veracity column.
For instance, the greedy mayor... As a child I thought he was pretty generous, giving out cash for something as simple as acting a little silly and clucking like a chicken. Now, older, I see him as a condescending bastard. Case in point that not only do people's opinions and perceptions change over time, but also that people can both infer things that may or may not have ever been implied... and thus, relying on any supposed implications as true development, can lead to faulty conclusions.
For instance, I ask you: Does Serge actually have a relationship with Leena? Does he have one with Kid? One of these is stated as true, the other is heavily implied... and neither can really be definitely answered.
Was the end of Chrono Trigger the end of time travel for the main cast? All evidence implies it wasn't... but if you think about it, logically, continuing to screw around with time, even once there's no imminent threat of catastrophe...seems like a really bad idea. Ok, so they rescue Crono's cats and Mom... but after that, why risk all of the future and past just to hang out a little? What would they even do? We don't know this because we don't know what is a -normal- day for anyone in CT... We at least get a glimpse of it in CC in the form of Serge.
So on that level, we actually know more about Serge than Crono.
42
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: Is Magus really all that cool?
« on: July 07, 2012, 11:36:23 pm »Originally Magus wasn't completely obsessed with Schala though. His main goal was beating Lavos, and he "sacrificed" Schala to get the chance and he failed at it. That's why in RD he tells Serge not to make the same mistake he did, to protect Kid instead of fighting Lynx.
But after CT:DS he just became another sister-obsessed anime guy wah wah wah I complain about this all the time
Gotta love flandarization.
.........I blame the fanbase.
*runs*
Really? I blame Squenix phoning it in doing another crapping port instead of actually spending some time and figuring out what the FUTURE of the series is rather than the obvious PAST.
Or more likely someone said "Hey what's the most pirated game in our arsenal? Lets port it so we can justify it not being considered abandonware, regardless of the obvious tenuousness of the term 'abandonware.'"
Squenix is the epitome of "Yes I consider it rotting garbage, but it's still MY rotting garbage. The fact that you want it for something just gives me more reason not to let you have it."
43
General Discussion / Re: Video Game Discussion Thread
« on: July 07, 2012, 11:28:30 pm »
The nonsensical name makes me think of past Indie games I've played, and thus does intrigue me slightly, however the choice of platform immediately revokes my interest.
If there's one company that has wronged me in more ways than Squenix, it would be Nintendo. It is a constant feeling of contempt that some of my favorite series are Nintendo exclusive... or nearly so. There was a time when I was ok with it, being that they'd largely fallen as far as Nintendo itself had in terms of satisfaction... but then, every once in a while, a good game comes along... it all fills me with so much rage.
I mean... I used to like video games... I used to want to work for Square... now I can think of nothing more torturous than having to acknowledge my former business-heroes...
But I suppose that's what drives me forward even still... I have to prove my point that modern video games can still be GOOD, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I think the number one thing that causes games to fail... is money. The moment gaming became more about sales than satisfaction... was the moment gaming died... some people just haven't realized it yet.
If there's one company that has wronged me in more ways than Squenix, it would be Nintendo. It is a constant feeling of contempt that some of my favorite series are Nintendo exclusive... or nearly so. There was a time when I was ok with it, being that they'd largely fallen as far as Nintendo itself had in terms of satisfaction... but then, every once in a while, a good game comes along... it all fills me with so much rage.
I mean... I used to like video games... I used to want to work for Square... now I can think of nothing more torturous than having to acknowledge my former business-heroes...
But I suppose that's what drives me forward even still... I have to prove my point that modern video games can still be GOOD, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I think the number one thing that causes games to fail... is money. The moment gaming became more about sales than satisfaction... was the moment gaming died... some people just haven't realized it yet.
44
Chrono Cross Modification / Re: Chrono Cross 70-80% NTSC Beta (Disc 1 Only)
« on: July 07, 2012, 10:09:12 pm »
I'm not so sure it is. It looks different from the one I recall.
EDIT
It is in fact. Rather, the texture is different. The red stripes at the bottom are not in the final...she also seems taller in that picture.
I did find the model however, it was just not where I expected.
EDIT
It is in fact. Rather, the texture is different. The red stripes at the bottom are not in the final...she also seems taller in that picture.
I did find the model however, it was just not where I expected.
45
Chrono Cross Modification / Re: Chrono Cross 70-80% NTSC Beta (Disc 1 Only)
« on: July 07, 2012, 07:47:30 pm »
O_O I... must... have that Kid model...