Why Square should reintroduce the world map

[Kudistos Megistos]

Man, apparently I'm a hipster and an oldschoolfag today   But seriously, trends and fads are one thing, but what I'm talking about is almost a formula, a pseudo-rule of sorts economics.
If I open a shop that sells Grilled Cheese sandwiches for $1 and I earna good living and everyone says the sandwiches are the best they ever had, and then someone comes along and tells me to make Gourmet Shishkebabs and to sell them for $50 each, and I do and its successful.  I sell MORE shishkebabs that the number of sandwiches I used to sell.  Well I am happy, I am a millionaire, and those sandwich lovers be damned.  I no longer have a reason to make sandwiches.  FFVII is a sandwich.  Newschool FFs are Shishkebabs.

That seems to be how the companies think.

They ignore the fact that FF7 costs the same amount as FF13 (and was probably less expensive to make), and that it sold better, too.

EDIT: 

I'm a middleschoolbisexual

  Oh yeah!! Well your a...a....you smell bad!

That unusual smell that has made you so upset is the smell of soap.

 

[yarLson]

You see, no-one buys traditional RPGs nowadays, so no-one makes them. Which means there aren't any to buy.

Haha I agree that this is very strange. I am not sure how it was decided that traditional RPGs are out but I don't understand how they would be able to make this decision in an informed fashion since virtually none have been made since the next gen consoles have arisen. The only one I can really think of is Lost Odyssey and that's, of course, because it was made by the director of the original Final Fantasy games. Anyhow I think its retarded that tradition rpgs have taken a dive, especially since, if nobody has noticed yet, virtually all genres of gaming have stolen the basic concepts of the first traditional rpgs (leveling, character development, free roaming environments or world maps, shops, weapon development etc.). I just fail to understand why they ever gave up on this genre, but the only company I really have faith in making a good one any time soon is Mist Walker, but then I don't even know what they are up to now. I also like Star Ocean a lot but that's not really tradition because of the way the battle system works.

Funny thing about the economics of the situation is, Square was doing much better, monetarily, around the time of FF7 & 8 then they are doing now with FXIII & IV. Maybe not as far as net worth, (although i wouldn't doubt it) but as far as consistent cash flow. It has happened a million times in our lifetime, when people, companies, or even bands begin to sell out their original beliefs/values/formulas etc., they may (at first) make a ton of money for a while. But eventually, since they have stripped out their own foundations from under them, they are left with nothing to stand on and ultimately fail. AKA Greed. I could name a thousand pop idols from the last two decades to prove that point. Or I could just ask you how long a house without a foundation will stay standing? But I'm sure you all get the point hahaha

 

[Lion]

It almost certainly has something to do with FF's transformation into a Pop-RPG...I mean, how many bands have you loved until they make it big and then their music goes down the toilet.  Evidently Square wasn't satisfied with only making 10s of millions of dollars, only 100s of millions will do now.  I also think that the time for a FFVII Remake has passed.  If they were going to do it, they should have done so like 6 months or a year after Dirge/CC/AC.  If they were to do so now or in the future, its pretty much guaranteed that it will blow ass.  Not to mention I don't want to see Enix's dirty fingerprints all over my beloved anymore than we've already seen.  Another important factor is, how many of the original VII team still work at SquareEnix?  Without the original team making the remake, I dare to say I wouldn't even want to play it.

Didn't mean to make this a VII Remake discussion, but the point is generalizable to all of the new FFs.  They will make Pop-Rpgs for the mainstream video gamers who may or may not have any place in their soul for the first IX FFs (many of you would include X, I don't).  These games will make many millions of moneys for them, so they lather, rinse, and repeat. 

The japanese have a different theory to work. In japan you can very well expect to have one job for your entire life if you are competent. Even in economic crisis japanese are hesitant to lay off workers. You could say Japanese keep jobs longer than most americans keep marriage.

 

[yarLson]

no dude, I am sorry to say that the majority of the original Final Fantasy team has retired or moved on. This is fact my friend.

 

[Lion]

no dude, I am sorry to say that the majority of the original Final Fantasy team has retired or moved on. This is fact my friend.

well it shouldn't matter too much. though the departures of sakaguchi, and everyone else does hurt. the essential storyline is the same and i'd imagine they can't mess it up too much. Essentially they've contributed everything that's needed anyways. Right now all Square can really add are graphical updates, script updates, sidequests, and maybe some minor combat tweaks.

most of the work is devoted to modeling and texturing. The time it takes to even make one model takes obscene amounts of time. Coding is a breeze compared to the amount of modeling is needed to be done and the quality. Which is why they say an FF7 remake probably won't happen, due to the sheer amount of work required and the quality it has to be done as. graphics, is squares specialty. they are amazing at it no question.

script updates should be minor and square is still pretty good at spinning a good story... sometimes. Crisis Core was not terrible.

sidequests are always optional so it doesn't harm the game much.

I personally don't know what's wrong with the remakes. 4 got remade, though I never play the remake I did play the GBA version, and from what I understand there were only improvements to 4.

 

[yarLson]

yeah 4 was good because they kept to the story and most of the dialogue was unchanged, 3 was also well done on the ds. The environments were true to the originals. This however was much easier because they are on a graphical level of about the n64 if not a bit better. If they were to make a 7 remake for the ps3 they would have to include voice over, reanimation, remodeling, re-script, redone battle format, redone field and world map environments and everything from scratch. This leaves a lot of room open to cut corners or leave out certain details. Some areas of the game might be entirely changed and the world might could just be omitted entirely.

It would be great if they did it but I don't think it would ever happen, and I think the real reason is because they know how many people would be pissed if they didn't make it perfect and they don't really want to put the time and effort into making it perfect when they could just as easily charge the same $60 for a new game that keeps pushing the copy and paste dialogue and lack luster game play as we find in XIII. I like the idea of a remake just as much as the next guy but its the quality of the project that concerns me. Now if they remade seven with the same graphical quality as the 4 remake then it would probably come out very well but it would also probably be for a portable device and that kinda annoys me. Yeah its cool any everything to take your games with you, but IMO its more of a gimmick than anything really.

I think it will be done eventually, whether by the fans (I mean just look at the amazing things Team Avalanche are accomplishing), a future company, or Square Enix themselves. However, unless they are making it the most secretive gaming project ever and are already 90% complete with the game and plan on surprising everyone with the finished product. Then I think it won't happen for a very very long time. Probably not until the current tech is long obsolete. Which in truth is completely fine by me. I think the best way to play a FF7 remake would be in a virtual reality simulator anyhow

 

[Jenova's Witness]

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[xLostWingx]

@yarlson
Yes a virtual reality FFVII would be both the greatest thing ever created and the worst thing ever created.  It would be so fantastic that we would all live in FFVII for the remainder of our lives.  If it was moddable, then we would purchase any life-extension drugs available in the future and live in VII forever...you wouldn't even have to be Cloud and friends - if you started the game as a random NPC at level 1, you could still go out into Gaia and level up and earn gil and beat Cloud to the chase.  A completely free-roaming virtual reality where the events of FFVII are taking place in real time would be unbeatable.  Unless they made it an MMORPG...which you know Squareenix would discuss.