Forum - View topicThe X Button - Stretching Ahead
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I'm not familiar with Square's movers and shakers--this isn't Akira Toriyama we're talking about, is it?
From what I can see, the expanded Wii audience largely moved on to mobile gaming. Companies like Zynga, Gameloft, and King have them now, for better or for worse. I remember people of Nintendo repeatedly talking at E3 about mobile gaming and/or Apple being their true enemies and not Sony or Microsoft.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that I have no idea what the primary market for the PS4 is at the moment. I always guessed it was people who enjoy their PS3 gaming and wanted something even more state-of-the-art, but then you could say that for any company's systems. It's far from the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market too. But yeah, my best guess is that you have the system loyalists who get their PS4s early in hopes that something good will come on down the line, which personally is a backwards way of thinking, but I have met plenty of people who function that way. Heck, admittedly I did this with the 3DS, though I was unaware that even 1st-party titles during the 3DS's launch were mostly little more than tech demos or neverending arcade-style games not worth the $30 or $40 they were going for. Maybe a lot of the people who picked up a PS4 didn't realize there wasn't backwards-compatibility or that their favorite games were, in fact, not out yet.
This is exactly what happened with Halo 2's ending, and Halo 3 was a success. Maybe Square was taking a page from Bungie. That being said, the Halo 2 ending was very much hated for that same reason: It was a last-minute transparent bait-and-switch to get people to buy the next game. It, too, had the story about to wrap up nicely, then an even bigger threat suddenly appeared and you had a "To be continued..." screen with the end result being that the player character's efforts were all for nothing, and if anything, made things worse. However, I think Halo 3 sold because of the established name brand, not because people were inclined to buy it based on Halo 2's ending. So many Halo fans were incensed by the ending that I think Halo 3 sold in spite of Halo 2's ending. |
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Fedora-san
 Posts: 464 |
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Not a trilogy specifically, but when FFXIII was announced they talked about Fabula Nova Crystallis which was the universe FFXIII took in and their plans to make more games and works in that setting. Currently there are 5 games and 10 light novels and manga series set the FNC. There was still plenty to talk about and explore though even if you write out the last 3 minutes, though Lightning and Etro, Chaos and Bhunivelze. If they ended it at XIII-2 without spoiler[Serah dying] there'd still be a ton of unexplained things and not much closure. FFXIII's lore is pretty complex and intricate. Toriyama's writing style isn't for everyone, and I know a some people were confused at the start of FFXIII when they started throwing out terms like Fal'cie and L'cie and not explaining them until hours into that game, but once they do and you see how the chain of command in the fal'cie, l'cie, and gods and mortal realm all tie together it makes sense. I enjoyed it overall, but it's definitely something you have to pay attention to all the way through which might annoy some people. |
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Ultimatum
 Posts: 165 |
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Well, if they're expanding it in a series of games, that's even less reason to reuse the same characters in a trilogy (spinoff?) series. This world can be explored through different eyes, those unanswered questions (I didn't really notice that many questions I was dying to have answered, but I'm sure there were some) can be discovered by new parties--like the FF15 car dudes. And if the continuation had been more gradual, I wouldn't have had a problem--as I've been saying, it's the execution. FF13 ends with a conclusive ending, they retcon it and move to FF13-2, which they slap a cliffhanger ending on before throwing out Lightning Returns. The games also have such different storylines: FF13: Fighting against fate of becoming l'cie FF13-2: Time travel! FF13-3: Everyone's immortal save their souls. Now, I wouldn't even have a problem with this, or them using the same cast, if they let each game be self contained. You could check out all of them, or some of them, and leave feeling satisfied. Ending with something like that and a "to be continued" is simply manipulative. It made me lose motivation to play the game, or get the alternate endings. It feels hollow. I'm not knocking you for liking the series or anything. In fact, I'm only complaining about this because I LIKED FF13-2 so much. I was incredibly interested in Serah and Noel's journey, and they were really charming characters. But the fact that a huge series like Final Fantasy (whose fans will buy their games anyway, so what's the point?) would give their game a cliffhanger like that is incredibly disappointing.
Maybe that's what I'm getting with this, then, since I'm not brand-loyal to Final Fantasy. I've got no motivation whatsoever to check out Lightning's Return. I was even thinking of looking into it when I was in chapter 5 of FF13-2, but that ending, man. I don't mean to get into a FF13 series argument--I'm not involved in the FF fandom in any way, so sorry for taking up the vidya game column this week with something barely related. I just beat FF13-2 on Tuesday so I suppose I just wanted to get a little anger out of my system while it still smarts. |
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2341 |
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Even with Nintendo systems you're guaranteed to get something in the first year. The 3DS eventually had Mario 3D Land, Ocarina of Time 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, Mario Kart 7, Resident Evil Revelations, and Kid Icarus. And most of all they were titles that legitimately used the hardware well. The PS4 is just kinda there, with people obviously not doing anything with it. Even Sony, who MADE the damn thing, don't seem to know what to do with it games-wise. I'm pretty much guaranteed a decent library within the first year or two with Nintendo (and at least I have BC and VC to fall back on in case of dry periods) but with Sony or MS, that's just too much of a gamble. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Super Monkey Ball 3D was a spectacular disappointment, however, which was the game I started my 3DS collection with.
Come to think of it, it was worse with the DS. You had stuff like Pac-Pix and Yoshi Touch & Go that seemed in love with the novelty of having a touch screen but had almost no substance beyond that. It wasn't until later that people found use for having two screens, one on top of the other, which resulted in stuff like Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Sonic Rush, that severely downplayed the touch screen. I knew what my first game with the DS would be though, and I knew I'd like it. (WarioWare: Touched!) In any case, Sony has its own groups making video games. I'm confused as to why Sony would let its own development teams languish like this. Nintendo uses its internal staff to create games people would want to play during dry periods and when a system needs support, and while it can sometimes take a while, Nintendo always pulls through with 1st-party games. Why doesn't Sony try it? Or has it already attempted this to inadequate success? Even PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was made by an outside company though, so perhaps it doesn't really have any internal developers of its own. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6275 |
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Oh trust me Sony has them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE_Worldwide_Studios As for why they haven't utilized them as much.....who knows. |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2420 |
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Having played and actually recently finished (finally, after leaving it alone for almost a whole year) Type-0, I'm happy to say that it's one of the most interesting FF's I've played, especially story-wise. And I have plenty of motivation to play it at least once more time, despite how long it was, because of how many ways there were to explore it. I'll probably wait until I get a PS4 for the remake in that case, since it'll give me another PS4 title to own and make use of a console I'm only really buying for... Square titles and MGS5? That seems kinda sad to me, but it'll eventually give me more games I'm interested in (narrative-focused JRPGs).
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Fred the Barber
Posts: 12 |
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Only two small things to say, both of which have been at least mentioned before, but which deserve elaboration and reinforcement:
- Persona 5 is scheduled for a 2015 release. While a niche game, I expect that niche has a pretty big intersection with the crowd here. Given that, I'm rather surprised to see it's not mentioned at all in the article, and it's certainly the game I'm most excited about for the next year. - Lightning Returns was a blast to play. The FFXIII series has a weird story overall (I'm not even sure that I enjoyed the story for any of the games) but the gameplay in Lightning Returns is amazing - fast, natural, and requires both quick reactions and solid strategy. It's completely unlike the previous two games, in only good ways. I was very, very glad I stuck with the series long enough to play that incredibly fun game. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2341 |
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I dunno, maybe they're afraid if they become diverse and productive that they'll offend 3rd parties. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6275 |
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Well two things They already chased away third parties with the Playstation 3. And they don't seem to value them as much as Microsoft but aren't hurting for support from them like Nintendo has on and off over the years. Last edited by BadNewsBlues on Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gloverrandal
Posts: 406 Location: Oita |
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Sony actually has a lot of exclusives, albeit third party games, but it's generally the kind of games the American public have no interest in like the Yakuza series. In Japan, there are a lot of sony exclusively games, but American developers generally try to put their game on every platform which makes them very interchangeable.
Things like Yakuza and Tales probably weren't in All Stars Battle Royal because that game was made by western studios and focused on western games being represented. With Nintendo it's the opposite. Games like EarthBound and Fire Emblem were never huge in America, but still got ample representation in Smash Bros. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Yeah, though those are still third-party games, and the third-party companies can choose to take their IPs to another company or go multiplatform if the Sony exclusivity isn't a good enough incentive.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6275 |
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Parappa The Rapper, Raiden, Heihachi, Kakeru, & Kat all come from games made by japanese studios. But each was a playable character PSABR. |
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belvadeer
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No, it's Motomu Toriyama. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2341 |
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Clearly not detecting the facetiousness in that post. Though it still doesn't change how Sony fails to utilize their first party studios properly and is content to just let their IP pool remain static at best if not outright regressing. |
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