Why I Hate Squaresoft

[Wiper]

It was a shit sci-fi movie that used every cliche in the book and blatantly stole the ending from titanic.

At least it wasn't as bad as the games' plots though, eh?

[Kamatari]

One of the most returned games of all time, apparently.

It was alright, I suppose. the music was great, but the random battles were still as shit as they've ever been. and anyone who cried at the aeris getting moidered scene is a bit...unbalanced, IMO.

Well i'm proud to be unbalanced

I spent ages with her, leveling up and everything, then that big meanie sephroith(sp i cba to spell:P) had to come and take her away from me

[Ed-E]

Wasnt that the reason FF The Spirits Within turned out be an "average sci-fi movie"?

No. My point is, Hollywood screenwriters are excellent at writing for film but find it hard to transfer their skills to game writing. Similarly, in Final Fantasy's case, game scriptwriters can't write films properly. They either need to learn and be aware of the differences in the media, or just stick to what they're good at.

[biglime]

stick to what they're good at.

But Square aren't good at it.

R.

[shynra]

one reason way ive not been too happy with them of late...

yes squaresoft... a world map.... you know...traveling the world and stuff... not just being taken by the hand through a game....

then theres FFX - 2 which one big freature was its hot pants ....

They need to remember that games are games and films are films...

what FF franchise is turining into... before it was great, everything goldern.. but now... its still quite good but not the brilliance it used to be...

and at the moment FF is Square!!!! they doint really have any other bread and butter titles really... (and if they do they havent really replicated them this generation)

[Ed-E]

But Square aren't good at it.

R.

Not by your standards, or even mine. However, when compared to the rest of the gaming, they're pretty high up (although, as both you and I think, not nearly good enough on the grand scale of things). Otherwise, how do they inspire such rabid support from the fanboys?

[Sephiroth]

No. My point is, Hollywood screenwriters are excellent at writing for film but find it hard to transfer their skills to game writing. Similarly, in Final Fantasy's case, game scriptwriters can't write films properly. They either need to learn and be aware of the differences in the media, or just stick to what they're good at.

"So the next time you hear a developer shrieking "we've hired Hollywood scriptwriters!", don't be so quick to dig out the champagne - it can often be worse than in-house efforts."

Hm.. but my point was that i think the main reason why the FF movie turned out as it did... was beacuse of the "help" it recived from hollywood/america

..The movie just dont feels like Final Fantasy

..its just a awerage sci-fi movie with a few elements from FFVII

..and the whole "collect 7 spirits" sounds more like a game than the FF games themselves

[Ed-E]

"So the next time you hear a developer shrieking "we've hired Hollywood scriptwriters!", don't be so quick to dig out the champagne - it can often be worse than in-house efforts."

Hm.. but my point was that i think the main reason why the FF movie turned out as it did... was beacuse of the "help" it recived from hollywood/america

..The movie just dont feels like Final Fantasy

..its just a awerage sci-fi movie with a few elements from FFVII

..and the whole "collect 7 spirits" sounds more like a game than the FF games themselves

Yes, but if you honestly think the film would have been better received if it was more 'Final Fantasy' then you're totally deluded.

The things you do in games, and the themes they explore, are the sort of thing that would be either a) totally boring or b ) laughably cringe-worthy on the big screen. Hence one of the reasons why Advent Children isn't getting a cinema release.

[Pandy]

Biglime was clearly raped by people doing a cosplay of various Squaresoft games.

(if they looked like that, I can't say I blame him for the hatred....)

However, I DO think that Biglime is being a tad too harsh with his "scorning" as Ed described it.

Sure, some games were SHAMBOLIC, like FFIX. Lets face it, the developers there were having a fucking awful day. But, FFVII was brilliance. FFVIII not as good, but miles ahead of FFIX. And what about their non FF games? Am I the only person who liked Kingdom Hearts? I thought it was fucking ace. Fun to play, no sodding random battles every time you take two steps forward, original story. And then, Xenogears. Well, I haven't finished it, but so far its fun to play. How about Chrono Cross? 'twas ace. You cannot say this game was bad. Again, no random battles, a dark plot, many many characters. What more do you want in a game?

However, I agree with biglime when he says those football/sports games are shit. They look utter wank.

[Sabreman]

But Xenogears... it did something different, it did it a bit shambolically.  Not nearly worthy of the scorn that biglime has poured on it in this thread.

Incidentally, you'd have a point if you mentioned the stunning Chrono Cross - excellent graphics, sparse use of FMV, a novel and fantastic battle system, a simple yet really effective spell system (none of this Sphere Grid bollocks), one of the best examples of plot-branching seen in Japanese RPGs (still way behind western freeform standards then, shame about Bioware needing to learn to better everything else) and possibly the most stunning soundtrack in gaming history ruined by poor story pacing.  Starts off with a brilliant hook (a flashforward of the main character stabbing the female lead in cold blood) but then dribbles story slowly until the last fifth of the game when it dumps all of it on you in a huge non-interactive portion.  When you consider that this last bit is so convoluted it makes your brain hurt, it's not particularly an enjoyable final fifth, and definitely betrays the sheer brilliance of the rest of the game.  Oddly, it was possibly the best in terms of translation, despite having a shaky original story.  They've got some kind of inverse-proportionality thing going on there, the cunts.

How you can praise Xenogears while criticising any other game for having long non-interactive portions is truly ironic. Even on the first disc of Xenogears I often spent 20-30 minutes doing nothing more than pressing X, with no chance of a break or save point. And if what I've heard is correct, a huge chunk of the second disk is nothing other than a cutscene.

[Sephiroth]

Yes, but if you honestly think the film would have been better received if it was more 'Final Fantasy' then you're totally deluded.

I think the movie would have been better if it was set in a "Final Fantasy world" and not just "earth in the future", yes.

"The things you do in games, and the themes they explore, are the sort of thing that would be either a) totally boring or b ) laughably cringe-worthy on the big screen. Hence one of the reasons why Advent Children isn't getting a cinema release."

As far as I know Advent Children wont get a cinema release beacuse of the low bugdet. They just cant afford to take the risk. AND beacuse its a _sequel_ to a game. Ofcourse I havent seen the movie, but I can imagine it will be very confusing for people who havent played through the game.

[Ed-E]

How you can praise Xenogears while criticising any other game for having long non-interactive portions is truly ironic. Even on the first disc of Xenogears I often spent 20-30 minutes doing nothing more than pressing X, with no chance of a break or save point. And if what I've heard is correct, a huge chunk of the second disk is nothing other than a cutscene.

The fact that the last part of Chrono Cross was non-interactive is not the reason I was criticising it, more the fact that it dribbled story so that most of the time you didn't really know what was going on, and then it was all explained near the end in one go. Xenogears is at least consistent in it's story pacing, dumping loads on you all the way through the game.

The fact that the second disc is mostly story is actually nothing to do with the story pacing and everything to do with the game being rushed by Square, meaning the sections that were intended to be playable were cut out. Hence why most of the team left Square and set up Monolithsoft.

So, I was right, you were wrong. It's okay.

[Popo]

But Square aren't good at it.

R.

I enjoy the games, therefor they are. See, I can make sweeping generalised statements too!

[hub2]

Sure, some games were SHAMBOLIC, like FFIX.

FFIX was brilliant.

[AndyB]

FFIX was brilliant.

My first time using this but it deserves a

o/\o

[Pandy]

FFIX was brilliant.

It wasn't imo. At first I liked it, but then you realise that the story doesn't really kick in untill late disc 3, the last boss is completely unrelated to the rest of the game,(randomly coming in and saying "haha, I will kill you!") It also had pssibly the worst villian, Kuja. (I mean, come on, he had a thong on for starters. Trance Kuja looked nice, but again, late late disc 3.) Steiner was the most irritating character to ever appear in a FF game. There were also other bad things about FFIX.

Don't get me wrong though, it wasn't a crime of a game or anything. Music wasn't too bad, for example. (But thats down to taste and personal opinion I suppose.) Maybe "shambolic" was too harsh a term. But, it did certainly severly lack in areas other FF's excelled in. (Mainly, story and characters.)

[Jim Miles]

FFIX was brilliant.

I think that a lot of people don't like it because they started the series at Final Fantasy VII. That's where I started and because of that Final Fantasy IX seemed a bit too weird what with hippo people and all. Obviously there's a lot more to it than just the strange characters, but when I think of FFIX there's this big image of Zidane with his stupid tail. I would play the game again, but finishing it the first time felt like a chore.

[JoeK]

Half of the time, I'm convinced that the problems in most RPGs stem from shoddy translations from the source material.

I honestly cannot believe that people admit to going all weepy over Aerith's death in FFVII...

Cloud's speech after she died was just dire.

In Square's favour, I can usually bypass this, because the lovely cut-scenes are usually devoid of text and speech altogether.

It's just that things get messy. I really wish I could understand these things in their native surroundings - I still reckon I'd lose much of the nuances of the Japanese form, but I think it'd probably be better than suffering yet another shitty translation.

Ahhhhh....I'm a fuddy-duddy. I still think the best story-telling has been in PC adventure games.

Monkey Island had the most bonkers story ever - but carried it off wonderfully.

Until the end.

Best story ever? Grim Fantango.

Kept it simple - copied shamelessly off every black and white film noir movie ever, but laced with wonderful voice acting, superb characters, and a darn good ending as well.

Brilliant.

[Jack]

Half of the time, I'm convinced that the problems in most RPGs stem from shoddy translations from the source material.

I honestly cannot believe that people admit to going all weepy over Aerith's death in FFVII...

Cloud's speech after she died was just dire.

In Square's favour, I can usually bypass this, because the lovely cut-scenes are usually devoid of text and speech altogether.

It's just that things get messy. I really wish I could understand these things in their native surroundings - I still reckon I'd lose much of the nuances of the Japanese form, but I think it'd probably be better than suffering yet another shitty translation.

Ahhhhh....I'm a fuddy-duddy. I still think the best story-telling has been in PC adventure games.

Monkey Island had the most bonkers story ever - but carried it off wonderfully.

Until the end.

Best story ever? Grim Fantango.

Kept it simple - copied shamelessly off every black and white film noir movie ever, but laced with wonderful voice acting, superb characters, and a darn good ending as well.

Brilliant.

O/\O ^ 10

[Sprite Machine]

Like John I used to love their stuff on the NES and SNES.  I played FFVII through to the end on PlayStation, and that's when I gave up on them as an RPG developer.

To me that was the point where it became clear they'd gone in the wrong direction - too much of everything - too many enemy types, too many locations, too big a story, too many cut scenes -- too many graphics full stop.  All the money they had made churning out relatively cheap to produce & low tech 2D RPGs (which had to work on game content rather than cosmetics or production value), selling 5million plus of every one, had gone to their heads.

It felt like they were cheating - they wanted to beat their competitors by spending more money than anyone else rather than making better games, and as they had more money in the bank than anyone else it was a battle they were always going to win.  I quite dislike square now because they are one of the main companies responsible for convincing gamers and the media that the quality of a game is judged only by the produciton value / money spent.  Seeing the amount that they must spend on unneccessary cosmetic crap depresses me whenever I see their recent games.

That makes very little sense.

In terms of the mechanics of the gameplay, very little has changed (I'd even say the newer ones are often better than what they did with the SNES and certainly NES games - with one or two exceptions [FFVI for example]). So basically your disliking of the newer games is purely a result of the cosmetic differences (namely, they put too much effort into making it look good... and you have a problem with that.)

Fine, dislike the direction the company is going in, but as for the actual games themselves - it's almost like saying you'd rather see a film with no special effects over an indentical film with lots of special effects... or something.

And anyone who says the older games didn't have so many random battles/dialogue/text/story bits, etc, etc, as the newer games is LYING. Yes.

Hmm, I wonder if there's any correlation between people who hate Squaresoft games and people who hate Bioware games (in particular KOTOR)? I only ask because I can't stand Square's output in general, yet really liked KOTOR (my most played game of the year by far). perhaps it's just the different ways in which the games attract their followings.

Generally, Square RPG's feature:

an adolescant little shit as their main character, who will be a complete cunt for virually all of the game, who rarely talks and who you have little control over. He will, of course, be adored by at least one female character.

They like to keep the main objectives tightly controlled, and to spend as much of their budget as possible on snazzy cut-scenes. The combat they like to make as mind-numbingly shit as possible, and to keep the player on their toes with the threat of a soul-sapping random battle once every few seconds or so. They make up for the tightly restrictive 'main' game by letting the player explore and find secrets everywhere, which is nice.

They also include shite mini-games, including card games.

Generally, Bioware RPG's feature:

A customisable main character, who either has a fake or wiped memory. The way they iinteract with other characters is up to the player entirely, and can go around being little shits if they so wish. They usually have the option of a love interest, if the player feels that way inclined.

They like to keep the main objectives fairly open in the way they're completed, with the only real way to fail being if the player manages to die. They do, however, stop the player from killing key NPC's. They include no random battles, but plenty of enemies strewn around the landscape. It is usually possible to avoid said enemies. They like to spend their budget either on adding a huge script that reacts to the player's behaviour. With KOTOR they had money spare, which they spent on making sure every character was well voice-acted. Cut-scenes are pretty enough, but not spectacular, and in-game-engine cut-scenes are the norm.

The combat is varied, and enables for a variety of tactics depending on how the player has developed their character. It makes placement vaguely important with area-of-effect attacks. They make up for the varied approach to the main game by including few secrets, though side-quests are numerous.

KOTOR also includes shite mini-games, including a card game.

Obviously these are sweeping, innacurate generalisations. Obviously I far prefer Bioware's approach to Square's. Live with it

KotOR was (as is the case with most 'Western' RPGs) an aimless, directionless mess... with really bad combat.

If Squaresoft (and 'Japanese' RPGs in general) do one thing right, it's getting everything 'focused' tightly. You cite these 'linear' stories and lack of 'freedom' as a bad thing... but I find that western RPGs have no aim, no focus... just lots of boring wandering around generic locations with half-hearted combat lazily intergrated into the game and very little point to any of it.

I hope to GOD that Square don't try to follow the path of these awkward semi real-time boring 'free' RPGs like KotOR et al; I'd really weep if they stooped to such a level.

*looks at the FFXII footage and sheds a tear or two*

[Laine]

It's okay Sprite, FFXII will be fine. Fine.

FINE.

I hope.

[Lazychu]

It's okay Sprite, FFXII will be fine. Fine.

FINE.

I hope.

Well it'll be better than the rest and you know damn well why.

[Sprite Machine]

It's okay Sprite, FFXII will be fine. Fine.

FINE.

I hope.

Hold me.

[Laine]

Hold me.

*hug*

The more I think about it the more I worry though.

My boyfriend is playing Tales of Symphonia at the moment, and it just looks like a big mess, where you have no idea whats going on.

And all I can hear is the frantic hammering of the a button.

How hammering x instead of pressing it less often is better i'll never understand.

[Lazychu]

*hug*

The more I think about it the more I worry though.

My boyfriend is playing Tales of Symphonia at the moment, and it just looks like a big mess, where you have no idea whats going on.

And all I can hear is the frantic hammering of the a button.

How hammering x instead of pressing it less often is better i'll never understand.

I think Sudeki does it best.

You get to hammer X and Y!!

Genius.

[Sephiroth]

Well it'll be better than the rest and you know damn well why.

I think the camera looked odd. ..its to close or moves werid or somthing..

And some people actually liked random turnbased battles..

..I feel their a part of Final Fantasy and taking them away is just wrong

..oh.. and the best games ever are the Zelda series ..but all games can't be Zelda

..i wish they kept FF the way it was with "still camera" and random turnbased battles

[Laine]

I think Sudeki does it best.

You get to hammer X and Y!!

Genius.

[Yewone]

The more I think about it the more I worry though.

My boyfriend is playing Tales of Symphonia at the moment, and it just looks like a big mess, where you have no idea whats going on.

Your about as wrong as wrong can be!

Its one of the freshest RPG combat systems ive experienced in ages. So much so, im actually hoping FFXII`s is along similar lines.

[Laine]

Your about as wrong as wrong can be!

Its one of the freshest RPG combat systems ive experienced in ages. So much so, im actually hoping FFXII`s is along similar lines.

No, you're wrong!

Well it seems to be doing something right, the GC hasn't been used this much in about a year!

Haven't tried it yet, maybe this'll be the game that changes my mind about AI controlled characters. Still don't see the point in even having them though.

[squirtle]

I liked FFVII. I played FFVIII until somewhere in the fourth disk where it was taking me 2 hours for 1 fight. I got bored and stopped. I loved Vagrant Story, even though I got stuck about 40% of the way through.

Square are ok. No worse or better than a load of other companies who rely heavily on franchises *cough* Capcom, Konami, EA, Codemasters, Ubi Soft etc etc*cough*