Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
4:45 AM on 11.30.2009
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"So we have these characters, the vulnerable girl, the strong girl, the mysterious guy, and there will be a lot of focus on emotions"
Formulais, boring, and again embarassing for video games.
and they work... your point?
I agree that the tropes are old, but Square Enix has a talent for making them work.
So does "Twilight".
Let me get back to my porn now.
@Jim:
We'll see about that. though. Not all games have to have MGS1/MGS3 plot, or Bioshock's , or Uncharted 2 or (possibly) Heavy Rain's. But stil...Here it all sounds extremely formulaic and unoriginal.
But arent they all like that?
Some of the most celebrated pieces of literature are very very formulaic.
Surely, on the onset it might be coated with the standard components, but I am eager to see how Square Enix will put these components together.
Great storytellers can turn the simplest story into one epic tale.
Don't you agree?
I'm literally struggling to care about any other game, all i care about right now is playing moar MAG! - I'm scared of the beta ending. I won't be able to wait till January to re-join the Shadow War!!!
Sure FF is going to be wicked, but it's just not MAG.
Different strokes for different folks, eh?
Well, don't most videogames follow the same type of formula? Call of Duty, Killzone, Borderlands, Halo, Gears of War, Resistance, Wolfenstein, Left 4 Dead F.E.A.R., whether in first or third person, are all shooters. When you boil it down, is the gameplay between these games really so much different when you objective is just to shoot down all enemies on the screen? How much variety is there?
You said it yourself; those are shooters. Not adventure/RPGs where you're supposed to care about the characters you're spending 50 hours with.
I think this is the reason we see so many love stories, fantasy novel's and Action stories etc... And also why when most people reach a certain age they start to get bored of watching new movies. They all become transparent and similar because most movie directors bow to the pressures of companies like MGM and Warner bros. These companies want to continue making the same old crap over and over. Using a small number and that small number are only the most noisy elements of the 12 variations.
I say: "Take a risk, we'll be less bored with your movie."
For example a story element which we don't see very often is 2 guy's who aren't gay showing affection for another: (I sound like a super-nerd even mentioning their names, but what the hell.) Sam and Frodo from lord of the ring's.
I mean an overly macho guy who's probably compensating for something small in his nevers will say that how they communicated is gay. I say they're just really close friends who've been through and have to continue through a tonne of shit and need to stick together.
My point is, story are the same no matter what we do. Get USED to it.
I'd wager that most people would say; "EXTREMELY!" Without shouting it though. ;-p
In terms of stereotypical characters, it all depends on how they're portrayed and whatnot. There's a trope for everything, so it literally boils down to how well it's used. Especially if you want to bring in literature/drama/etc.
yea thats about sums it up; cant really say any better, beside that; im looking forward to another installment from Square Enix. They got me into gaming an continue keep me playing so there nothing but love for the company.
Sure, the cinematics look great, but if you're only playing an RPG for the cinematic scenes then you should just go rent a movie.
Another great example is that Dragon Age Origins commercial. There aren't even any cinematics in the game that look like the one shown in the commercial (at least not as far as I've played in the game) and the actual gameplay and graphics are very different from what they show in the commercial.
Also, here's to hoping that XIII is better than XII and X-2. *Crosses-Fingers*
I agree; no more pre-rendered cinematics for commercials. While they might be fine for TV Spots (most people watching those probably don't know the difference anyway), but when you release stuff for the gamers we KNOW this is just pre-rendered crap that has no impact on how the in-game graphics look.
Still, I'm pumped for this game. Always love me some more final fantasy, especially with the last few such horrid disappointments.
Oh and they might as well call release date a national holiday, everyone will be skipping work/school anyways
I love how people say things like that, but never bother to really explain it. It ran against the grain of most FF games - save for the whole evil empire thing, but the evil empire felt more human this time - and and a pretty bold and robust combat system.
But, oh right, setting up that combat system required thinking. Same problem people had with FFVIII, that whole thinking an preparation thing. People write off as "auto-pilot" gaming as if that were much different from buttonmashing X for most encounters. Either way you cut it, tactics would change for larger encounters.
FFX-2's "problem" is it featured women, apparently. Girly story and affronts on masculinity aside, it was the ATB system on speed. No one ever levels criticism toward its gameplay, just the story, the much-vaunted (and mostly bullshit) selling point of RPGs. Story is nice, but I generally play RPGs for loot, challenge and stat building. It happened to have plenty of that.
Played the shit out of FFXI for better part of five years. You can't really play MMOs for story and even then, it had a better story than most Final Fantasy games. Just took some time to see it is all. OK, a lot of time. Chains of Promathia was worth all the trouble, though. And after soloing in FFXI for so long, pardon me if I feel like WoW is just the kiddie pool of MMO soloing.
Agree with everything except the X-2 comment. I did not hate the game because of the females. I hated it because it felt like a rushed afterthought.
1) Only three characters. ONLY THREE CHA
2) The storyline WAS awful, the main villain was a complete joke, the character motivations were no good either.
3) Dress-sphere system and combat were terrible
4) Mission system was bad
5) I'm sorry but I can't stand Rikku. Yuna and Paine were fine - but Rikku wanted to make me jam forks into my ears.
Other than that, I agree with you. FFXII was not a disappointment. It was just very different from all other FF games, in that it did not focus exclusively on one main protagonist, and there was no love element in the plot (which was refreshing).
I agree to an extent with FFVIII. Sadly, the story was horrid and the combat system was entirely broken though it could have had a lot of worthwhile depth.
That said, FFXII was a fantastic game. One of my favorites. FFXIII, we'll see. I'm quite tired of the same old thing. Shadow Hearts 1 & 2 were probably the last RPG where I would say I felt like I was playing something new in the RPG genre.
I played FFXII not two years ago and I can't even remember the main antagonist's name, let alone his goals or storyline.
I can, however, tell you the goals, names and stories of the antagonists in FFVI-FFX including FFT, and I haven't played any of those games since before I played FFXII.
What I'm trying to say is that the main reason I play RPGs is for the story and the characters, especially the antagonists, and FFXII didn't have either. Ditto for X-2.
Now, the battle system of X-2, minus the ability to change costumes in the middle of a battle, was great. It was the only reason that I even finished X-2. Heck, X-2 had the second best combat system in the FF games, behind FFT which is still the best SRPG ever made. It did, however, make me feel like I was playing some sort of naughty Japanese dress up game, which really felt out of place in a FF game.
There are story involving 2 men who aren't gay. It's called, "the buddy picture", and you can find it every where. From Toy Story, to Lethal Weapon. I don't really know WHY you have such a problem with "Romantic Fantasy", it really no different then the Action/FPS. Geared towards a different audience (mostly Women), some of who have been waiting years to play this game and don't play anything else in between (I am deadly serious, I know at lease 2 girls doing this).
When everything is said and done, it is a Final Fantasy game, and Square is given their audience what it wants. If you remember, Square change they formual for FF12, and look how much of a fuse people made over that game. It was good, but it didn't fit into the Final Fantasy Universe quite the same way.
If story and characters are important to you, then FFXII was pretty bad. I'm a fan of the series and really enjoyed the new combat system in FFXII. I also think that the story and characters had a lot of potential, but it never went anywhere. There was a great set-up and then nothing really happened. No surprises, no betrayals, no great love story, nothing. They just made their way to the guy who seemed bad all along and killed him. FFX had my favorite story because I enjoyed seeing how the characters significantly changed their philosophies/opinions/behaviors as a result of the events of the story and their interactions with one another. The story itself also kept me surprised, intrigued, and concerned about characters I'd grown to care about. Hopefully, FFXIII will be a merging of the franchises most successful elements.
Of course, X-2 took this shallowness and ran with it full-tilt, to the point where you couldn't force yourselves to care about the fate of Spira and it's insipid inhabitants. The gameplay was fantastic, but I couldn't stomach anything else about the game. Before X-2, I had never felt embarrassed to play the game when my fiance was around. I was perfectly fine with the notion of a game featuring an all-female cast. However, this game made them look and act like complete ditzes and sucked away any strong features that had developed in X.
XII boasted the least exciting outer sheen of any Final Fantasy game up to that point, to the point that it took me over a year to actually buy the fucking thing. The cover art just looked like an airbrushed Tidus surrounded by emotionless pretty faces and unexciting airships. Don't make me trip and fall running to the store, Square... Gameplay-wise, the game was downright excellent. I thought that the new overworld style was really well-done and the combat was exciting and fresh. The artwork toned down the gaudiness of X and X-2 and the music was very nice. What sank the game for me was the story and the overall vibe the game's world gave off. The story was just plain bland and the characters were unexciting shells. All I found myself caring about were things that were baldly gameplay-based, like hunting down rare monsters and Espers or exploring the far reaches of the game's giant maps. I spent so much time doing that shit that the story became a distant concern and I'd forget what the hell the point of the quest was.
XIII looks to be really nice on the eyes, but I feel like the game's story is going to be even worse than XII's.
The series is creatively dead, at least on Kitase's side. Ito's FF games do have some creative life to them, but style over substance killed the series. As soon as I heard Lightning was to be a "female Cloud", it turned me off the game.
FFVI was the high point of the series and Square Enix is making sure it stays that way.