What Went Wrong?

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DL, I agree with you about Resident Evil to a degree. It was presented as a Survival Horror game and wasn't really one. BUT, the game was A LOT of fun to play as Giullio said. It's one of my favorites next to the first two games. Also what Giullio said about Nintendo is true as well. I started playing the Zelda series with A Link To The Past on SNES. And I have enjoyed every Zelda game since then, and the ones before it (except The Adventures of Link. A side scrolling Zelda? lol) I wish that Square could take a page from Nintendo's book but I don't think that they would. Side note, I just found my copy of Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2. I think i'm going to pop that bad boy in and give it a whirl again.
 
I'll agree with RE4 on some points, but for me it was an excellent game in its own right and it was a gamble for Capcom that paid off in the end, and a breath of fresh air in a series that desperately needed it. Change is not necessarily a bad thing, look at the latest Batman trilogy for example, I think very few people would say that it isn't Batman because there are no "SOCK!" & "BIFF!" screens during the fighting. Similarly, if you're a fan of camp 60s Batman, The Dark Knight doesn't retroactively ruin the older series for you.

Having said that, as you say it really doesn't feel like classic Resident Evil: the story is god awful, even by RE standards, it's far too linear, and I really don't remember feeling particularly scared. What it was though was entertaining, and while I'm not going to say that the absolute essence of gaming is to have "fun", I think it plays a pretty important role.
 
If you think about it since square-soft turned into square-enix the final fantasy quality dropped a lot. The thing is that they managed to buy -off other smaller or going-bankrupt companies and made much more money that they were used too. Now they just sit back and relax while final fantasy is turning into a 80 year old lady with cancer and syphilis.I can still remember the first trailers of final fantasy XIII and i can tell you that for some reason i didn't like it one bit and that's why i never bought it. A friend of mine lend it to me and told me that in the beggining is bad but later it gets good. When i was at the final boss i called him and told him were i was and asked him if i was now in the middle of the game and it would get good....He told me i was in the end...Imagine the shock!!lol. Call me stubborn but still for some reason i still have a little tiny bit of hope for ffversus xiii. I think they're going to put more effort into it 1) because final fantasy xiii was such a disaster and final fantasy xiii-2 a much bigger one and because the fans have been waiting for the game for so long that if it turns out bad i think it will be the worst selling rpg game of the last 10 years..As fore resident evil 4 i think it was really good and a little bit scary and kinda difficult in contrast with rs5(which was boring as far as i am concerned) although you can't compare it with resident evil 1 and 2. I mean come on!A freakin door opening slowly doing all that noise. Sudden zombies and crows around. OUT OF BULLETS AND HERBS!! That was epic. These games actually had you scratching your head thinking how to solve riddles puzzles etc. Games now are pretty obvious. You know where to go cause there is only one path lying ahead of you. They lack the 'What if i go from that route first. Maybe a secret character lying inside a coffin or a thieving little tomboy". They used to say that playing computer games etc enchanced your reflexes,senses etc. Right now i only see a lot of kids getting damper every year. I do agree with you in everything you said DLPB and i like the fact you are passionate enough about this to speak your mind about it evey so often.
 
Aside from missing a paragraph or 2, that was a great post, Kicker!  8-)
 
RE4 was a great game, albeit not being as much like previous resident evils, but something took a step backwards in the series from that game that went unnoticed by most, and that is the unnecessary intro cutscenes for every new enemy type. The old resident evils would just have an enemy there or randomly pop out at you and it gave you a sense of uneasiness through the entirety of the game. Eliminate the cutscenes and those feelings could return.

RE5's problems come from the fact that it is basically RE4 with HD graphics. I mean all the levels from RE5 are in RE4 except in Spain instead of Africa. Village > Swamp > Ruins > Facility. Salazar and Irving look and sound almost the same. RE4 was better in every way except graphics and Co-op.

If they would have made the ideas for the plot and environments a little more original, and took out those stupid intro videos, the game would have been much better and much more horror-filled. Playing the dlc inside the mansion is a perfect example like a demo of the what the game could have been. Play it on the hardest difficulty and the enemy's will spawn in randomized places, breaking into a room you thought they wouldn't be able to enter, and your ammo feels increasingly sparse like the old games. If they would have put more enemy types and actually made a game that way, it would have been awesome.

FFX-2 was horrible. Pretending it never happened is the only way I can live with myself after playing it.

FFXII had a terrible battle system, and the main character was a homo. Penelo and Vaan had so little to do with the main storyline they both could have been omitted without any consequence on the story. That actually would save the game in my opinion if it wasn't for the awful battle system. The battle system had no strategy, and no, gambits do not count. Setting some basic commands for your characters and then watching fights is boring and not innovative by any means. The game expected you to grind your characters until they were strong enough to auto battle the next series of enemies, and to make it worse, the leveling in the game was incredibly slow, possibly the slowest in the series. It could take hours to level only a couple times.

That being said the background story for the game was actually quite good, and most of the other characters are quite likable. The environments are large and there are quite a bit of extra items, dungeons, enemies, and espers to collect.

FF13 usually has polarized opinions either hating or loving the battle system, which I think most revolves around the auto battle function, which is horrible or great depending on how you use it. The paradigms are the most strategic part of the battle, setting them up before battle and knowing when to switch them. For common enemies, you should, although you can spam auto battle, try all different types of attacks, paying attention to what enemy it is, and find there weakness. Once you know an enemy's weakness, either by fighting or by librascope, the auto battle is helpful in quickly selecting attacks you would do and saving you time of actually hitting them one by one while your atb gauge remains dormant. Basically people bash the battle system probably because the rest of the game was so awful that they could not push on to pulse, where the battles become interesting and complex. The battle system for 13 may not be the best but it is good and way above 12's.

That being said, the story is also hit and miss. The background story for the game is great, with interesting relationships between the falcie and the lcie, but the plot for the characters is quite the opposite. All the dialogue in the game is boring and amateurish, and all the emotions the characters feel seem unnatural to the situations and forced on them. This is especially true when they encounter their eidolons, which basically happen around the most ridiculous soap-opera drama moments in the game. Every character's motives seem unrealistic or ambiguous which only furthers breaking the immersion. It gets to the point where reading the data logs is way more interesting than watching the cutscenes.

The linearity of the game is a huge problems, and there is little to no exploration until you get to pulse, which some claim is booming with it, but really it is just how the entire game should have been from the beginning. Too little too late is the best phrase to sum up how the game's exploration is.

FF12 was an okay game with a lot of good things going for it, but was held back by two characters and a shitty battle system. If you have beaten the game, imagine it without vaan and penelo and with a battle system like ff10's and the game would have been a lot better.

FF13 was also an okay game with a good battle system, but the game just seemed like a miss. It's like there were a lot of great ideas that were ruined by linearity and poor story telling in an actually pretty interesting setting.

In conclusion, 12 and 13 may not be as good as 7-10 but there is enough there to give hope that they still could potentially make another great, and as long as they have that potential I wouldn't count out the brand just yet. FFVS13 looks like the game that will tell whether brand has truly died or not.

P.S. When I think about it, there are a lot of characters that break the experience somewhat in Final Fantasy in general. It's like, nearly every game has some glaring flaw with some character that is extremely annoying. FF7 has cait sith, FF8 has too many to count but Irvine, Selphie, and Laguna are prime examples, ff9 has the big toad chef thing and zidane's character design (personality not included, Zidane is an awesome character in the story he just looks retarded), ff10 has wakka's stupid blitz ball as a weapon, ff12 has vaan and penelo, ff13 has hope and vanille. Change those things about those games and the people who didn't like them would probably like them a lot more.
 
FFXI died too--played for 7 years
they still making money off it but the game's watered down and uninteresting after they broke the limits

i could sell my account for a thousand dollars but id rather them never make another penny off it. If i did that theyd keep getting 13$ a month from someone to play my char
 
Although I don't see what difference it would have made, I'd have much preferred it if XI was named "Final Fantasy Online" and XIV "Final Fantasy Online 2". I'm not at all into MMO, and I'm a bit pissed off that there are "numbered entries" in the series that I'll never touch.
 
That I also agree with... it was simply a tactic to sell... and I didn't like it :)
 
FFX-2 was horrible. Pretending it never happened is the only way I can live with myself after playing it.
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This right here...
X-2 I'm pretty sure that it was made for girls c'mon clothes changing? only 3 female main characters? this game is a nightmare...
I believe neither the girls liked it, they were probably expecting final fantasy not barbie summer camp or some other shit like that...

I don't know if any of you have ever heard of Breath Of Fire series, from Capcom... That RPG is one of my favorites until The 5th sequell for PS2, it sucked so bad I don't even want to talk about it there weren't dragons and the game is about dragons... and Ryu and the graphics, the battlesystem, the characters, the scenarios ... oh god... Still, the 3rd and the 4rth are simply masterpieces. I Highly recomend in case you're missing some true RPGs...
 
Breath of Fire 3 ranks in my top 10 games of all time :)  Didn't like 4 as much but was still very good... then came 5.  No thanks.  'Course IGN, Gamespot and the rest of those clowns couldn't see further than graphics to appreciate the series anyway.
 
Woah, woah, woah. FFXIII wasn't the greatest game ever but it certainly wasn't the worst freaking game in existence like you're making it out to be. I thought it was a fun game to play, the characters were alright aside from Snow and the world was amazing. FFXIII's world is probably my favorite in the whole series, next to Spira, that's one of the reasons why I was so pissed that we couldn't backtrack and explore everything so thank goodness FFXIII-2 fixes that. The battle system was fun and I enjoyed playing the game and that's all that matters to me.
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Again.  When will you realise that I speak in the context of Final Fantasy. I have said practically 100 times that I know the game was "good" when compared to most games.  I do not buy FF for "good".  That is why FF13 is "crap as a FF game" and why I did not buy it.  Final Fantasy used to be great, it used to be worth the dollar.

Whilst you enjoyed it, that does not make up for the numerous flaws, or excuse the sheer dumbing down of the genre.  You mention the beautiful world, but that is just it, that is just graphics again.

FF13-2 will fix none of the underlining issues I have, and a tag line of "wow you can explore different paths" is not exactly wonderful.

I keep hearing this "FFXIII isn't the worst game" and "Well, I liked it"

These are not valid excuses and they do not address the core issues which have turned many long term fans off the series.  Senix is a money grabber. As a Final Fantasy game, XIII was a brain dead, low IQ "game".  And no offense but I thought the story and characters were written by a 5 year old.
 
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I'll agree with RE4 on some points, but for me it was an excellent game in its own right and it was a gamble for Capcom that paid off in the end, and a breath of fresh air in a series that desperately needed it. Change is not necessarily a bad thing, look at the latest Batman trilogy for example, I think very few people would say that it isn't Batman because there are no "SOCK!" & "BIFF!" screens during the fighting. Similarly, if you're a fan of camp 60s Batman, The Dark Knight doesn't retroactively ruin the older series for you.

Having said that, as you say it really doesn't feel like classic Resident Evil: the story is god awful, even by RE standards, it's far too linear, and I really don't remember feeling particularly scared. What it was though was entertaining, and while I'm not going to say that the absolute essence of gaming is to have "fun", I think it plays a pretty important role.
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Don't tell me you don't miss the files with that background story (Itchy.. Tasty..), the camera angles that made it creepy, the music that brings the nostalgia. RE is now an arcade game just like prince of persia or hitman or wtv. All about shooting.

Gamers got dumber, that's why games are so easy today AND so linear. No one seems to want to explore a game, to role play. Now they want easy to get, like they get with food or even relationships. Momentary pleasure rather than a extensive experience.
 
Yeah another thing that has gone, is valid competition.  Enix and Square used to have to fight each other for monopoly of the genre... (I am getting sick of seeing ellipses) now they ARE the genre.  When you remove competition, you get a lazy "Could not care less" philosophy.
 
ironically you can blame your beloved FFX for many of the shortcomings of the later final fantasys.

-Running in straight lines-CHECK
-Nowhere to explore-CHECK
-Nobuo leaving the company-Sort of Check (but you can't blame him for it)
-Interactive Movie-Check (I actually enjoyed it though)
-Girlier main characters until you got an actual girl in FF13-Check. No more badass Cloud, we have effeminate girly boy Tidus.
-Supplement exploration with random encounters so you get more game time-Check
 
ironically you can blame your beloved FFX for many of the shortcomings of the later final fantasys.
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Not really, as that misses the point entirely and is the same lie that was told to apologise for FFXIII.  FFX was a step forward in MANY areas, although the lack of world map was a step back (even though the world map too had secrets).  Let's run through that nonsense:


-Running in straight lines-CHECK
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Yeah sure, but there were many branches and sometimes places off the normal route.  There were also towns and wide open spaces.  It was not too far different from any other FF if you forget the world map.

-Nowhere to explore-CHECK
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Calm lands, Remiem temple, cave of stolen fayth, the main towns like Besaid (yeah towns, real towns), not to mention ships and other areas.  The game starts in an open area.  FFX was not perfect but it had a damn site more going for it and that is a FACT.

-Nobuo leaving the company-Sort of Check (but you can't blame him for it)
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He wrote 1/3 of the FFX soundtrack, and the other composers (including the one who composed XIII) are competent.  He wrote the main theme, and quite a number of the most memorable tunes.  Why you have placed this here as a negative point is frankly beyond me.  FFX was VERY well composed.

(and do notice that people in the comments are referencing a difficult minigame).

and on and on and on.


-Interactive Movie-Check (I actually enjoyed it though)
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There were far less lengthy sequences than XIII and you know it.  The DVD wouldn't let them do it even if they had wanted to.  They also weren't in gauntlet checkpoints. Again you use a vague similarity to claim it is exactly the same, a pathetic tactic that many used in order to lie to people about XIII in their reviews.

-Girlier main characters until you got an actual girl in FF13-Check. No more badass Cloud, we have effeminate girly boy Tidus.
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Unlike "lightning" and the others, he was on a journey of self enlightenment in a world he did not know.  He had a personality and he was not "look I am emo caricature".  If people disliked Tidus that is their choice, but he was a well written character. So were the other characters who had depth.  Auron fulfilled the role of "cool", though why you believe characters have to be "bad ass" to be good, is again beyond me.

-Supplement exploration with random encounters so you get more game time-Check
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How much of FFX did you actually play?  There is tons to do, including finding and upgrading weapons by way of miniquests, a number of minigames, spin off areas, super bosses, cloister of trial puzzle game, the ability to control all characters in battle and summons, and customise them, blitzball, a full open desert and towns, the ability to GO BACK to these areas and do more quests... and a story not made for 5 year olds. Off the top of my head.

FFXIII is out of X's league, and again, that is an observable matter of fact.  Instead of scraping the barrel, admit to yourself that FFXIII is a shallow imitation.  It has had its guts ripped out, and only a carcass remains.  The fact the carcass is still slightly recognisable, does not make it alive, it makes it a carcass.

It was not X that doomed the series, it was the fans reactions to the cash in X-2, the spin offs of FFVII and the popularity of XII.  Those were the reasons.  The fact that they could get away with ripping out control of all characters, get away with not having towns and proper NPC, the fact they could get away with not having true minigames, or numerous sidequests away from battle.

They could get away with it.
 
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I liked X.


X streamlined the element and status systems, and made individual characters feel genuinely different (unlike the interchangeable fighters of VII and VIII). It had a well developed battle system (with the ability to coordinate attacks a genuine boon in more difficult fights) and some massive sidequests. Its plot was coherent and its lore well-developed. Yes, many sections were quite linear, but that's always been the case in FF games, and at least dungeons never felt artificially padded (paging Mr. FFXII...). X was far better balanced than most of its peers - yes, FFX becomes rather broken in the endgame, but at least it demanded more than the 'spam attack and cast Cure-All' that characterized other episodes in the series.


I never really played X-II, though I didn't like what I saw. What really disappointed me was FFXII. Repetitive levels, arbitrary grinding, a poor abilities mechanic (though I'm told the Zodiac edition fixes this) and a mostly mediocre score (only the boss theme and Battle on the Big Bridge stand out, and the latter doesn't count as it's taken from FFV anyway). Oh, and that fiasco with the Zodiac Spear - a cynical, calculated gambit to force players into shelling out for official guides.


Fuck Final Fantasy XII.
 
Ah, glad to see you are another who sussed that the special weapons in XII were just a cynical money spinner.  That is precisely what they did...  actually a lot of XII's extra stuff is nigh impossible without a guide.  I boxed it and sold it long before.
 
I never really played X-II, though I didn't like what I saw.
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If you're the sort that doesn't really care about the story at all, and just wants a game with good mechanics, I couldn't recommend X-2 any higher. It's got (IMO) the best combat in the series, lots of open world to explore... Pretty much everything that X did even almost wrong, X-2 did very right.

It's too bad it's got such an abysmal disaster of a story. Really, that was the only place the game went wrong (and the music, but that was a side effect of the story). Unfortunately, it went SO wrong there, that it manages to bring down the rest of the game.
 
Yeah I've been told this a few times...  sadly I never got far enough to appreciate the game. The story/characters/dialogue were that bad.  A waste of potential.
 
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