tri-Ace is usually known for its collaborations with Square Enix, so it was quite surprising to see the studio jump into bed with Sega for End of Eternity, its latest stupidly-named RPG full of floppy-haired boy heroes. I've not seen many new RPG ideas come from the studio recently, but if you believe tri-Ace, that may be more the fault of Square Enix.
"Because SEGA has a more open attitude towards accepting new RPG ideas than Square Enix, we'd decided to have SEGA release End of Eternity," explains game director Takayuki Suguro. He doesn't extrapolate on that, or provide examples of Square Enix holding his team back, but it's quite an interesting thing to say.
I'm still highly skeptical of tri-Ace, as nothing I've seen from the studio in the past few years has impressed me. So far, End of Eternity doesn't exactly look fresh, so I'll be interested to see what it is about the game that's such a "new" idea, Square Enix wouldn't back it. It's called End of Eternity, for crying out loud. You'd think Squenix would have welcomed a name like that with open arms.
Whatever the case, if I play this game and find it's yet another emotastic, by-the-numbers RPG with the usual stock characters and dreary plot, I'll remember what Suguro said about new ideas.
Contest:
11:40 AM on 08.11.2009
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By stale I mean they suck cock.
What we NEED up in dis bitch is another Parasite Eve-like game (sans the sequel). Hell, I'll even take that one game where you play that boy with mental powers and can freeze/burn/levitate your enemies.
I'll pass.
@EternalDeathSlayer: I agree.
@Square-Enix: Make me a new Xenogears and ChronoCross.
They're pretty much the next SqaureEnix.
You had to pick up tubes of stuff to maintain your abilities.
Please Square, after VS XIII take some time off and work on two things: Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy 7.
Namely The Last Remnant, which apparently not only is far below the general gaming publics and gaming medias radar but, for reasons uncomprehensible to me, has a pretty low rating on MetaCritic.
I'm attributing that to its' slow start (which will be all the typical reviewer will see) and the fact that it actually cherishes complexity in its' combat system, as opposed to the dumbed down stuff we get nowadays.
It broke several RPG clichees, did many many things right that other JRPGs always do wrong, it had basically anti-grinding mechanics, almost forcing you to NOT grind, it was original and fresh unlike the almost always identical frame of a Final Fantasy. It literally was to JRPGs what Mass Effect was to western RPGs. Yet for some reason, even in this article and discussion, just isn't brought up.
Square published Radiata Stories for tri-Ace. That was an interesting game.
Kaalinn im not sure what you've been eating but im interested to know why you liked The Last Remnant so much as I thought that was the worst one this generation.
I liked TLR for a lot of reasons, most of which could be boiled down to "innovation", "originality" or "being different".
The characters while still in pretty cliché roles (young guy growing up without parents, young noble etc) didn't act that terribly cliché, and most of all they didn't suffer from plot blindness. Rush is a bit dense, but still a whole of a lot smarter than the average RPG character, since he can figure out "Hey if x then that means y!" or "If they do z maybe they're working towards b!". It had a bunch of non-standard characters too, especially Emma, who ,as a woman over 40, probably is the only "adult" badass in RPGs lately. The whole slew of so many unique leader characters with their own personal sidequests and personalities also is a big point.
Then there's the combat system, from the aggro pull system to the combat itself, a tactical layer to it, morale, context and situation sensitive commands, customizeable action pools and the Critical system which actually gives you a way to influence combat instead of just "watching" the execution.
Then there's the fact that it's an original IP with wonderful settings, story and soundtrack. I generally like original IPs a lot more, preferring Mass Effect and Jade Empire over KOTOR by far.
That's a bunch of the reasons, there's more but this is already way too long and derailing I guess.
Look at Final Fantasy X. "OH MY GOD! I LOVE FINAL FANTASY X! IT WAS SAD! IT WAS SO CUTE YADDA YADDA YADD!" It was garbage. And then what about there newer games? All Square side games. Kingdom Hearts 2? Garbage! Tree of Mana? Garbage! And You say they need to focus on Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 7! Final fantasy 7? REALLY? Is that all people care about anymore? As good as that game is (i hated it) let the game die! It's been rimmed and raped to the core! Advent Children, Derge of Cerberus, Crisis Core (all of them sucked) because people can't get over the fact that they think Final Fantasy 7 was the greatest game of all time. I think that title belongs to FF6, but I wish to leave FF6 as is! Leave poor Final Fantasy 7 alone, and appreciate what it is.
FUCKING MOVE ON!
@Square Enix - You guys fucking suck, and you always will untill you get your shit in gear. But I don't see that happening. So I will stay with my NIS, XSeed, and Atlus.
So that department should make more games and they should fire everyone else >_>'
Really. You thought that was Final Fantasy IX? You thought that game that looks nothing like Final Fantasy IX was FFIX? Was it the characters that don't look like the stylized characters from FFIX that made you think that or the graphics that are a thousand times better than an FMV from a PS1 game?
Seriously, how can people ask for originality from Squeenix and then ask for FF7 at the same time? C'mon now.
You know how you make a JRPG original? You stop making the main character a whiny little bitch. It's THAT easy! Imagine the possibilities! How about a tough main character, for once? Or a crippled 10-yr old boy? Or a Moogle! I'll definitely play a game starring MOG!
I understand Weeaboos salivating over yet another Final Fantasy (I was a FF enthusiast until FFX, that game killed the series for me), but what I don't get is how the japanese aren't sick of the same games over and over.
Anyone feel the same way as I do?
This is why I enjoy Dragon Quest. Because the main character isn't a whiny bitch. He is the silent hero. This is also the reason that Final Fantasy 9 was a breath of fresh air. The main character was spunky and humerous. He was also a womanizer. These emo characters are getting annoying (granted, I did like FF8) and they need to be made more scarce.