I agree, with every single bloody detail.
But.... they always DID have the hair, though. So hard to hold that against them
But.... they always DID have the hair, though. So hard to hold that against them
Jimquisition: Batman Is Everything Wrong With Square Enix
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
It's a bad design thing. Usually this is the mistake of new artists, but is still common in various superficial experienced artists. Because we have the ability to draw anything from the mundane to the extraordinary, we tend to go all out and overdo things. After we see the bullshit of this extreme, we calm down and do something more mundane until we get bored of it and do something extraordinary but not as extraordinary. We flip back and forth getting less and less extreme until find comfort in our happy middle. This is the cycle of art.
The cycle is only achieved through consistent critique, discovery, and experimentation. Younger college students tend to reach this with the right guidance, but there are many egotistical and stubborn people who refuse this path. This can cause a creative plateau in which there is only one style and one method of doing things. This happens most often when artists draw really pretty things with lots of detail and polish despite the lack of depth and content. They often brush off criticism because their work is very popular among a layman audience. Scott McCloud can explain it better:
The cycle is only achieved through consistent critique, discovery, and experimentation. Younger college students tend to reach this with the right guidance, but there are many egotistical and stubborn people who refuse this path. This can cause a creative plateau in which there is only one style and one method of doing things. This happens most often when artists draw really pretty things with lots of detail and polish despite the lack of depth and content. They often brush off criticism because their work is very popular among a layman audience. Scott McCloud can explain it better:
*chuckle* Ok, great points all around. The analogy holds and while it's not directly related it'd be a pip to see Jim hold forth on Warhammer: 40k design, with it's bizarre baroque style.
But one of the three trailers I ever saved to my 360 was the one for FF13 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJPbozRomX4 ). Because it was perfect.
Not perfect in the sense that it made me want to play the game. Quite the contrary, I knew I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. My enthusiasm for the series kicked in for eight, and saw me through ten and ten:2 but I'm pretty sure that's going to be it for me. I'm pretty sure you can track the evolution of style over substance through those games, too - there was a lot which I liked but absolutely admitted that it worked only in that setting. For me that made a lovely kind of sense because that was the fantasy of it all. You ought to look back on it and think that it makes no sense for a school to turn into a flying ship full of weaponized students. Or that the protagonist is a blah blah blah spoiler spoiler.
But back to the FF13 trailer. I love that trailer.
It is the most perfectly styled ?thing? I've ever seen. It is nothing _but_ style. There is no substance you can discern. And that's hard. There's an almost zen-like vacuity going on. The words - all understandable. Characters which appear unique and intriguing. The phrasing of the trailer, the visual language of the thing, is perfectly timed and recognizable. You know there is an intro, a build, a climax and catharsis. There's music going on.
And there is No. Meaning. o.0 I've got no sarcasm regarding this. It's one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. I watch it from time to time just to marvel at the damn thing.
The astounding thing is that even though it's entirely style and no substance, by about the four minute mark something in me starts working desperately to suspend my disbelief because I want to know this style. Based on the stuff I liked about eight and ten, the trailer leaves me thinking they've actually perfected the idea of fantasy in a game and left meaning in the dust because it has no bearing on fantasy.
But one of the three trailers I ever saved to my 360 was the one for FF13 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJPbozRomX4 ). Because it was perfect.
Not perfect in the sense that it made me want to play the game. Quite the contrary, I knew I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. My enthusiasm for the series kicked in for eight, and saw me through ten and ten:2 but I'm pretty sure that's going to be it for me. I'm pretty sure you can track the evolution of style over substance through those games, too - there was a lot which I liked but absolutely admitted that it worked only in that setting. For me that made a lovely kind of sense because that was the fantasy of it all. You ought to look back on it and think that it makes no sense for a school to turn into a flying ship full of weaponized students. Or that the protagonist is a blah blah blah spoiler spoiler.
But back to the FF13 trailer. I love that trailer.
It is the most perfectly styled ?thing? I've ever seen. It is nothing _but_ style. There is no substance you can discern. And that's hard. There's an almost zen-like vacuity going on. The words - all understandable. Characters which appear unique and intriguing. The phrasing of the trailer, the visual language of the thing, is perfectly timed and recognizable. You know there is an intro, a build, a climax and catharsis. There's music going on.
And there is No. Meaning. o.0 I've got no sarcasm regarding this. It's one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. I watch it from time to time just to marvel at the damn thing.
The astounding thing is that even though it's entirely style and no substance, by about the four minute mark something in me starts working desperately to suspend my disbelief because I want to know this style. Based on the stuff I liked about eight and ten, the trailer leaves me thinking they've actually perfected the idea of fantasy in a game and left meaning in the dust because it has no bearing on fantasy.
This episode wasn't my cup of tea. Dude, I'm sorry but you lost me with this episode. I don't play any FF games, I'm not a huge fan. I have played other Square games, like KH which is one of my favorite game series, and that's the most FF I get these days, and it's just the theme park version.
It basically just sounds to me like you're crapping on a fanbase, a terrifyingly awesome figure, and a company. I mean sure, you do it all the time, but it's actually justified when people are acting like idiots. I didn't get the overarching point to this episode, just a bunch of rambling and subjective personal views.
It basically just sounds to me like you're crapping on a fanbase, a terrifyingly awesome figure, and a company. I mean sure, you do it all the time, but it's actually justified when people are acting like idiots. I didn't get the overarching point to this episode, just a bunch of rambling and subjective personal views.
As somewhat of a designer/artist, I agree tenfold. There is a place for those over-designed, overcomplicated costumes, and it's on a runway fashion show, not in a story-driven videogame. A lot of recent Final Fantasy costume designs betray the characters that are wearing them or the universe they exist in (why on earth would someone with Vanille's personality be walking around in that).
It's very frustrating to see, because Nomura's FF7 character designs are a million times more memorable than his newer ones, all because he showed a modicum of restraint (or another case of limitations of the hardware being beneficial).
It's very frustrating to see, because Nomura's FF7 character designs are a million times more memorable than his newer ones, all because he showed a modicum of restraint (or another case of limitations of the hardware being beneficial).
While I agree that Squeenix is pretty lost stylistically now. I'd say that the ornate barroqueness has always been a style for them. Which isn't necessarily bad, it IS their identity. And although I'm not a big fan of some of the characterization, I think that even today, Squeenix characters tend to be quite interesting. In many ways, when you see an overly elaborate character, it does feel Squeenix.
Lets be honest, Master Chief is not a well defined interesting character. HE had no personality for a number of games other than being an interstellar marine power ranger bad-ass. Most of the ICONIC characters JIM lists are actually just flat, they don't really have a personality either, they are abstact concepts. And that is great but it only allows for so much depth without breaking the icon.
SO yeah, Square Enix is absolutely raving mad, but their character memorability is not the issue. While Lightning falls a bit flat, Yuna, Sora, Rikku, Squall, Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth and Aeris are all very characteristic. FF13 is not a good game, it's not terrible, but not great.
FF12, was pretty strong, and FF10 was rather excellent.
Now lets be clear. I hate Square Enix, they have terrible customer service, they are completely tone deaf and they are straight up greedy. But that is something different, your rant had nothing to do with it.. Too many fallacies Jim.. too many to count.
Lets be honest, Master Chief is not a well defined interesting character. HE had no personality for a number of games other than being an interstellar marine power ranger bad-ass. Most of the ICONIC characters JIM lists are actually just flat, they don't really have a personality either, they are abstact concepts. And that is great but it only allows for so much depth without breaking the icon.
SO yeah, Square Enix is absolutely raving mad, but their character memorability is not the issue. While Lightning falls a bit flat, Yuna, Sora, Rikku, Squall, Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth and Aeris are all very characteristic. FF13 is not a good game, it's not terrible, but not great.
FF12, was pretty strong, and FF10 was rather excellent.
Now lets be clear. I hate Square Enix, they have terrible customer service, they are completely tone deaf and they are straight up greedy. But that is something different, your rant had nothing to do with it.. Too many fallacies Jim.. too many to count.
As someone who likes to add ever-increasing amounts of detail to pictures of stuff, I can say I sympathize with squeenix's art direction. I mean, no one looks at my art (thank god), so I can't say I understand why they keep doing it, but I can confirm it's pretty fun to do.
That said, if your story requires I learn a complete made-up language to gain even the slightest understanding of it, you have written a bad story. Seriously. I could not get into FFXIII from multiple angles--if the gameplay was fun, it could have made up for the story, and if the gameplay was bad, the story could have made up for it. I enjoyed neither the gameplay (speed reading comprehension tests are not fun gameplay for me, same goes for memorizing the locations of items in lists) nor the story (an aside: I had a friend who wanted to play the game, but who had a 360 attached to an old CRT TV at the time. Since it was SD, they couldn't make out the definitions of the made-up words in the little glossary section, so they had no ability to comprehend the story at all. If your game requires more equipment than the device it was designed for, at least put it on the box or something. "Story only available on HD devices." Or just stop making people research the plot for your game). Sure, it supposedly got "better" 20 hours in, but it seems pretty reasonable to just play 20 hours of something that starts off entertaining instead...
That said, if your story requires I learn a complete made-up language to gain even the slightest understanding of it, you have written a bad story. Seriously. I could not get into FFXIII from multiple angles--if the gameplay was fun, it could have made up for the story, and if the gameplay was bad, the story could have made up for it. I enjoyed neither the gameplay (speed reading comprehension tests are not fun gameplay for me, same goes for memorizing the locations of items in lists) nor the story (an aside: I had a friend who wanted to play the game, but who had a 360 attached to an old CRT TV at the time. Since it was SD, they couldn't make out the definitions of the made-up words in the little glossary section, so they had no ability to comprehend the story at all. If your game requires more equipment than the device it was designed for, at least put it on the box or something. "Story only available on HD devices." Or just stop making people research the plot for your game). Sure, it supposedly got "better" 20 hours in, but it seems pretty reasonable to just play 20 hours of something that starts off entertaining instead...
Hey, I'm enjoying FFXIV and as far as I know, it's the one of extremely few (or only thing) that SE isn't sticking their fingers in.
Also, I'm mildly interested in FFXV so... I mean, I agree that it does feel like they unnecessarily overcomplicate things but I guess I don't really give a shit.
And Nomura's designs aren't for you Jim. I'm not saying they're all good, I definitely agree that most of the FFXIII is unmemorable but for the reason being not directly tied to character design and more them just being uninteresting in general.
I think you had a good idea with the video, but didn't hit all the best points. Definitely were spot on with the commentary about them saying Hitman, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs undersold was kind of... Baffling, but there are much better criticisms to go after. Mostly though, I do think that maybe the video could have closed more strongly had there been a small focus or mention of how it doesn't need to go big like it does and say, you know, try more shit like Bravely Default and Curtain Call and making sure the FFXIV dev team gets all the resources it needs. You kinda dabbled in that with the mentioning of how you remember FFIV more accurately than anything recent, but it was rather brief compared to the rest of the video.
Also, I'm mildly interested in FFXV so... I mean, I agree that it does feel like they unnecessarily overcomplicate things but I guess I don't really give a shit.
And Nomura's designs aren't for you Jim. I'm not saying they're all good, I definitely agree that most of the FFXIII is unmemorable but for the reason being not directly tied to character design and more them just being uninteresting in general.
I think you had a good idea with the video, but didn't hit all the best points. Definitely were spot on with the commentary about them saying Hitman, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs undersold was kind of... Baffling, but there are much better criticisms to go after. Mostly though, I do think that maybe the video could have closed more strongly had there been a small focus or mention of how it doesn't need to go big like it does and say, you know, try more shit like Bravely Default and Curtain Call and making sure the FFXIV dev team gets all the resources it needs. You kinda dabbled in that with the mentioning of how you remember FFIV more accurately than anything recent, but it was rather brief compared to the rest of the video.
actually i think they may have the same problem Miyazaki pointed out about the anime industry; it's full of otaku shut-in's that don't know how to communicate with actual peoplevonSanneck said:
I like XIII series as well. Hell XIII-2 was one of my favorite games last generation. Still Jim does have a point. If they took it down just a notch and focused on the writing and stuff we'd probably get another Sephiroth or Kefka in terms of actual iconic villains.Dead Raen said:
Still........it doesn't stop me from wanting that Batman figure......
Final Fantasy Type 0 is probably the best Final Fantasy out since 12, it's a good representation of what Final Fantasy 15 will be like game play wise. The story is also pretty good and simple. It consists of: There is a war, the city has a crystal that gives people magic, fight the bad guys who are using the bad machine weapons.
Jim's right about Square Enix and needing to calm the hell down, of the most part. Though I do enjoy the weirdness and overcomplication of Final Fantasy. And I know I may be the only one to say it, but...I might actually give two shits about Batman if Square Enix had a total go at him, because that toy looks awesome.
Style over substance - this has been the reigning idea for SE games for the last ten years. Arguably, FFXII tried to have a plot that was rife with political strife and looks at what was going on behind the scenes, yet none of it made any sense and the characters were all extremely boring. FFXIII's characters started out somewhat interesting, but quickly became boring as the plot started throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, as Jim pointed out. I feel like a lot of this nonsense started around the time of FFVII: Advent Children, which no one could tell what the hell was going on, but fans let it go because it was pretty and it had Sephiroth.
Hilariously enough, the plot for FFXIV is actually a lot more enjoyable. It's pretty simple - you're a warrior of light, there are bad guys with clear motivations, go get 'em. I still think that Bravely Default was far better than FFXIII, but Square Enix kept ramming it down our throats. Hell, even FFXV is a failed FFXIII spin-off. These days the Final Fantasy franchise in particular just feels like sensory overload. I can only imagine how insane Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to look.
Hilariously enough, the plot for FFXIV is actually a lot more enjoyable. It's pretty simple - you're a warrior of light, there are bad guys with clear motivations, go get 'em. I still think that Bravely Default was far better than FFXIII, but Square Enix kept ramming it down our throats. Hell, even FFXV is a failed FFXIII spin-off. These days the Final Fantasy franchise in particular just feels like sensory overload. I can only imagine how insane Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to look.
Most 'iconic' game characters become so on the back of the quality or innovativeness of their games. Pac Man, Mario, Link, Master Chief, Samus, Solid Snake, Gordon Freeman, Cloud etc. are icons largely because their respective games are so popular and more often than not rather ground-breaking for their time. I'm not saying that characterisation doesn't play a part but can anyone suggest an icon of gaming that didn't come from a definitively great game?Delcast said:
Ranty Jim is the best Jim.
Yoshi-P is a miracle worker. It wasn't enough to turn the horrid turd FFXIV 1.0 was into the best MMO on the market, he actually managed to convince Square Enix to lower the graphical fidelity of a game. That's probably even more impressive.spoonybard.hahs said: