Developers you both love and hate

[Retronana]

Yep, basically name a games developer for whatever reason you love what they make and in some cases despise it.

For me it is most definitely square enix, I loved FF 3 and 4 to pieces and have probably racked 150 hours between them both but to me FF 13 was an absolute travesty, maybe I hated the repetitive gameplay or the characters but either way it just didn't live up to my expectations. Needless to say I have stayed away from the muddled piece o' shit that is FF14.

Square enix also made dragon quest 4,5, and 8 which I regard as some of my favorite games of all time and for what it's worth they published just cause 2.

Anyway which developers do you both love and hate?

 

[Archangel768]

LOL

The first company that came to mind was Square Enix as well.

In the past, they made amazing games. Today, they CAN make amazing games but it's as if they refuse to. All that comes out from them is rubbish. Mainly due to the fact, they have no idea what they're doing or what they want to do (e.g. early in the development for Final Fantasy XIII) and Wada spitting out nonsense about how Final Fantasy needs to change and all the things they're doing to their latest games to westernise it. For example:

(potential spoilers final fantasy XIII)

1. They changed Lightnings real name in the english version to Claire. In the Japanese version, it was Eclair. Guess What. Eclair means LIGHTNING so it makes perfect sense but for some reason Eclair isn't good enough for westerners (so they think) and change it to Claire which to me is stupid.

2. The role names have changed. Attacker was changed to Commando and Healer was changed to medic. FPS's are huge in the western world right now. What kind of image to you get when you think of commando? You think of some muscly soldier. And what about a medic? You think of a medic in the modern day army. This is not in the modern day. This Medic is using magic to heal a person. A healer just suits the role so much better and so does attacker. You usually don't have 'commandos' in fantasy. It just sends off the wrong feeling.

3. Choices in songs.
No prelude and no battle fanfare. Why is this? They are critical components of a final fantasy game. Why change the original theme song to My Hands? The original theme song worked just as well with the game. Why change the song in the love scene between Snow and Serah to 'Serah's theme'? Why not keep the original 'Eternal Love'? The scene with Serah's them was average at best but when played with Eternal Love it becomes so much more amazing.

Another example is Nier. There was nothing wrong with the original character design and there was nothing wrong with him being an older brother. Why change him to this ugly old man that is now a father? I first saw the trailer for the english version and was completely turned off by it and had no interest in it. Later, I saw on the net pictures of the japanese version and looked so much more interesting. Too bad i'll never play it because of the changes they made.

I wish they would stop focusing on so many games and other platforms like handhelds, social websites and digital distribution. Wada once said he would like final fantasy to be distributed digitally in chapters. Why would I want that? Why would I want a Final Fantasy I couldn't proudly put on display with the rest of them? Why would I want to wait for the next chapter to come out? I want the whole thing right then and there in physical form.

I know he said more stupid things but I can't remember them. I also feel sorry for the development teams that have to cater to the likes of Wada and produce garbage when they could make what they want to (Which I hope is very different to what Wada wants.) and it would most likely turn out being pretty decent.

When I play a Japanese game, I want a Japanese game not a Western game that they think I like (which i most definitely do not like their 'western' games) because I'm from the west. Of course, I do enjoy a number of western games but when a Japanese game or franchise is made to become more western I hate it. I prefer the style of Japanese games and I hate they fact that i'm not getting something I'm interested in because they think that we all want Shooters.

I can only hope they decide one day to go back to making what they're good at making and not what they think the rest of the world wants.

Sorry for being so aggressive in my rant. Considering how easy it is to get put on probation here and so on, do you think such a nasty post would get me in trouble? Or is it only EA that doesn't like it when people don't enjoy something and want to tell other people that they don't enjoy it?

 

[Mushroom 118i]

1. They changed Lightnings real name in the english version to Claire. In the Japanese version, it was Eclair. Guess What. Eclair means LIGHTNING so it makes perfect sense but for some reason Eclair isn't good enough for westerners (so they think) and change it to Claire which to me is stupid.

Eclair means lightning?

I always thought it meant this:

 

[Archangel768]

1. They changed Lightnings real name in the english version to Claire. In the Japanese version, it was Eclair. Guess What. Eclair means LIGHTNING so it makes perfect sense but for some reason Eclair isn't good enough for westerners (so they think) and change it to Claire which to me is stupid.

Eclair means lightning?

I always thought it meant this:

lol good one.

If u're being serious. Here's some sites linking Eclair to lightning.
http://www.fergusonplarre.com.au/History/Eclairs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éclair_(pastry)
http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/eclair.htm

Control F 'lightning' to find it faster and it says Eclair means lightning in french.

 

[Mushroom 118i]

SNIP

lol good one.

If u're being serious. Here's some sites linking Eclair to lightning.
http://www.fergusonplarre.com.au/History/Eclairs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éclair_(pastry)
http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/eclair.htm

Control F 'lightning' to find it faster and it says Eclair means lightning in french.

Hmm, learn something new every day!

The pastry is the first assumption though, so it makes sense why it was changed.

 

[Sebster 105]

Bethesda

Oblivion was a game so stuffed with bad design flaws and horrible voice acting, so many flaws

But it still robbed 250 hours of my life

 

[ChupathingyX]

1. Naughty Dog.

They introduced me to gaming and made my childhood years very joyful. When they stopped making Crash I was sad, but Jak and Daxter was still a great series, but for some reason unlike Insomniac they seemed to just get rid of Jak and Daxter and focused on Uncharted.

That doesn't really make me hate them, but I would've really liked it if they continued with the Jak and Daxter series.

2. Koei

They made the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series, my all time favourite hack-n-slash series. They also made Dynasty Tactics 2, my favourite turn based strategy game.

However, for some reason they never made a sequel to DT2 which could've been really great. Also there has been their recent experiments such as DW6 and although I have yet to play it, DW7. For one thing, they really need to get a good voice director for the english titles and it would be nice if they made the characters more varied in terms of fighting and give everyone a fair amount of importance in story mode. Also from who I've seen in Jin for DW7 it looks like they need to do more history on who really served Jin.

3. Bethesda

They have made some good choices in the TES series and the lore and everything is there. But for some reason they just keep making so many stupid mistakes like voice acting, crappy storylines and a lot of other problems.

Also they need to stay away from the Fallout franchise.

 

[baddude1337]

Bethesda

Oblivion was a game so stuffed with bad design flaws and horrible voice acting, so many flaws

But it still robbed 250 hours of my life

This for pretty much every bethesda game.


And since nobody has said it yet: Valve for making great games, but spend their sweet ass time doing a lock of fuck all.

 

[Corpse XxX]

Yeah, Bethesda and Oblivion.. Making such addicting games that are full of bugs..

I love and hate them at the same time..

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I loved Bioware until recently. They have turned into prima donnas who cherry pick the parts of the community that they listen to. And that whole JRPG comment.

 

[crunchieman]

Well in ways Mojang. I mean it has been explained before how lazy they can be with Minecraft as regards coding and I really think they should just focus on Minecraft. Finish what you started.

 

[Pearwood]

Blizzard: Good gameplay most of the time, but ever since WoW launched, the story quality took a nosedive straight into the abyss.

I was thinking Blizzard too but really? The story of Starcraft 2 isn't as good as their early games? Not sure that's exactly true... I mean the story of Warcraft 3 is exactly the same as Starcraft 1 and while it kept my attention it was hardly a masterpiece of writing the first time I heard it. And the storyline of Diablo is again decent but hardly original.

But yeah I'd say Blizzard too because they make incredibly polished games but they can be quite exhausting to play. If you play more than about 10 games of Starcraft 2 without resting you'd get anxiety tremors and the less said about raiding on World of Warcraft the better.

 

[ImprovizoR]

This is an easy one. Rockstar games. They make awesome games but their lack of respect for PC gaming makes me wanna punch them in the eye.

 

[Trolldor]

Bioware

DA:O was a brilliant return to fo-- Oh wait, Mass Effect 2. Nevermind.

 

[Nightcraft66]

Square Enix: They had a big part in Just Cause 2's development, and that game was fun as hell. But on the flip side, the new Final Fantasies are just.. cutscenes and grinding.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I love Obsidian games. Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, KOTOR 2 and New Vegas are some of my favorite games. Obsidian really needs to get a better bug fixing team, because the amount of bugs present in their games are ridiculous. They are really good games, but it's sometimes hard to get past the bugginess of them.

 

[No_Remainders]

Bethesda for fucking up Fallout 3/Oblivion so much, but making Morrowind such a good game.

Valve for making amazing games but taking too long.

 

[Zhukov]

Ubisoft.

Some days they put out good games.
Some days they put out shit games.
Some days they put out great games.
And some days they ram hideous DRM down your throat.

Oh, and they still haven't made BG&E 2.

 

[The Madman]

Obsidian Entertainment

As much as I often defend these guys, if they were doing things more properly and professionally, I wouldn't have to. Let's face it, while they certainly know how to tell a story and probably write some of the most fluid dialogue and scripts in the gaming business, they can't Q&A worth shit it seems. Seriously, Obsidian, whoever you trust to do your testing and polishing? Fire em. Like right now, fire em. Or if you don't have the heart for it, move em elsewhere because frankly this ain't working for ya.

Bethesda meanwhile has a sorta similar problem but in reverse. Great at creating massive open worlds, often buggy on release, but not so bad as to be unplayable. But seriously the story and dialogue are laughable, hire some decent writers and please, please, PLEASE stop hiring three guys to do all the voice work in a game consisting of dozens if not hundreds of characters. Doesn't matter how good a voice actor they are, there's only so many voices they can do before they all start to sound the same and you're left with eery Oblivion-esq scenario where you have two guys talking to one another in the same damned voice.

 

[MrDeano89]

Insomniac: they made my favourite childhood game, Spyro (next to crash) and they then created my favourite series of games, Ratchet and Clank, however their latest release all 4 one too me seems just too far from the actual idea of R&C, sure theres big guns but it just doesnt feel right and to me they have failed now.

Capcom: always hit or miss with their games IMO

Ubisoft: made some of my favourite ever games such as the AC series (no matter what anyone else says i still think that that series is amazing) but then they go and fuck up the HAWX franchise with that piece of crap sequel!

EA: made some fantastic games too but i HATE their ethics as a corporation and their lack of effort every year by just remaking games, and most of the time not even properly! they just seem to change a few features, harp on about that like its completely game changing and proclaim that its the best one yet, bull£$%t!