Jimquisition: Batman Is Everything Wrong With Square Enix

[Demonchaser27]

I'm guessing that if you went on a friends picnic with Square Enix, the sandwiches would be overdesigned...

"We've designed this sandwich using 27 different kinds of bread. It was worked on by 15 teams of bakers overseen by a corporate hierarchy (because what would bakers know about bread?). To recoup our costs, each sandwich will cost 75 dollars. Sandwiches wll be discontinued if we fail to sell at least 30,000, because people clearly don't want sandwiches."

Never in my life have I seen three sentences better encapsulate the entire issue with most massive, "AAA" corporate game publishers/developers. Too much extravagance? Check. Too much spending? Check. All leading to far too much cost for everyone involved? Check. Misinterpretation of people's desires? Check. In fact your statement also proves that quality can be far superior to quantity.

 

[gamegod25]

Wow that was my first time seeing that rendition of Batman and...wow that is a fucking mess. It's all just so over the top and beyond ridiculous and just assaults the eyes. Those two skeleton arms poking out his shoulders in particular are laughably stupid to me. Just...wtf were they thinking?

you just compared Square Enix to Rob Liefeld 0__0

holy shit you're right!

Yeah and that's not someone you want to be compare to imo. There really is something to be said for the purity of simplicity and just plain memorable design. All that overzealous detail and extraneous bits just blend together in a blob of forgettable noise. To go back to that Batman costume, if I hadn't been told specifically thats what it was supposed to be I may never have guessed it was actually supposed to be Batman and not some generic fantasy evil knight monster.

That really is the heart of the problem with FF and Sqaure Enix, all flash and no substance. The visuals look pretty no doubt but why should we care or remember them? The characters are either dull or obnoxious. The stories requires a small novella of footnotes do understand whats going on and pulls shit right out of their asses that we are just supposed to accept. If there was ever a perfect example that visuals alone do not make a good game then FF has that in spades.

 

[Fox12]

Hahaha, this is the funniest shit I've seen in ages. It pretty much sums up my opinion. Jims not even angry, he's just confused by the whole ordeal, by the stupid flashy style, by the horrible business decisions, by everything. Square used to be the greatest gaming company in the world. Mostly people just want to see them pull themselves back together. It's just sort of sad I haven't even touched a Square game in a decade...

This is why I like the designs in Persona significantly more. The characters have an appealing artistic design, and look like they were almost designed for a fashion magazine. Yet the designs are incredibly simple, giving us something to latch onto. Their simple charm makes the characters more endearing. More than that, they tell you everything you need to know about a character at first glance. Yukiko, though not my favorite character, had one of the best designs in P4. You understood pretty quickly that she was the mature lady like character. The same goes for Chie, who had a radically different design, but who was still visually appealing (from an art stand point) and who still communicated information about herself through the way she dressed. Final Fantasy needs to learn how to make appealing, simplistic designs. Less is more. Simple is not the same as shallow, or as bad.

I remember the designs from FF7, a game where Nomura was character designer. Cloud had lose fitting pants and a simple shirt suited for combat. Aerith wore a pink dress. Barret wore military pants and a t-shirt. The designs were simple, told us about the characters, and were easily remembered. Nomura really needs to go back to basics, as does the entirety of Square Enix.

 

[Demonchaser27]

I disagree Jim

Graphics OBVIOUSLY ARE NOT that expensive.

Metro Last Light? One of the best looking games EVER made, makes EVERYTHING Square Enix did look like shit. It makes em look like morons.
And it was done on a small budget.

F*cking STALKER Clear Sky from 2008 looks better then any PS3/360 exclusive ever made, with advanced physics and effects and UNMATCHED AI...
On a small budget. It STILL LOOKS impressive in 2014. Damn.


It is not the engines and the graphis nor even the art that is expensive. QA, Optimization for bad hardware (consoles...), Voice acting by hollywoond actors and INSANE marketing. That is expensive.

Tech? Not so much

Yes. It's been pretty evident that this is the case for several years now. Indie devs have been making "pretty" games, not always good ones but still, for a relatively cheap cost in recent years as well. It's quite hilarious every time they blame it on the tech. Especially in a world that's only been trying to make game engines cost LESS over time. Hell, even man hours for graphics aren't entirely ridiculous these days. You know, with graphical engines which can smooth out edges and light objects as well as optimize the models and textures all with a few clicks of the mouse. If anything takes a lot of man hours its programming. And ironically games lack a ton load of the depth that older RPGs and even other genres had several years ago. Most things are entirely scripted sequences these days which takes much less time to program than programming possibilities into your game, REAL options and choices. And to top it all off, it takes far less time to bug fix since the player has little to no input. And still games have far more bugs today than ever before.

No, the thing is... They don't want to tell the truth. They don't want people to find out that the most wasteful things they do are what makes the games expensive. They want to blame it on things that are necessary to games so that we believe that "it's just the way it has to be". If they found that out then people would blame the companies rather than the customer for "demanding too much" out of them.

 

[LostPause]

Agreed, good character usually result from at least proficient games... now, I question the fact that "innovativeness" has anything to do with quality. And I don't think the first halo was anything special (I don't think anything about halo is particularly special tbh), but in general that's exactly the point.

Halo was the flagship FPS for the XBox and was therefore adopted by Xboxers [and Microsoft] as their esxclusive mascot. Let's be honest, everyone else doesn't really care all that much about Master Chief [the most they'll tell you is that he's that Guy from Halo] but he's special to Xboxers. The market has since widened but there was a time where if someone said they were going to play an FPS on their Xbox, Halo was that game.

Plus it did have some fun vehicles and weapons if I remember correctly.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

Jim why not bring up the issue that square-enix of japan is blocking 10 dragon quest games not coming to the west!! I mean Nintendo of america and Square-Enix of America are willing to localize most the said games below but no-one even seems to care. I know this franchise has never been widely popular here like final fantasy, however it still deserves a chance. Aye.. Maybe I should just keep my thoughts/opinions to myself on this issues, my apologies to everyone for the off-topic rant.

I realize there are only 6 games in the image but I did not include the 25 anniversary addition for the wii with dragon quest 1-3 "super famicom and famicom versions" in really collectors set. Also there is the original release of dragon quest x for the wii but that system is offically dead in here and japan now. Then we have the ios port of dragon quest 1 which has gotten mixed reviews but come-on sqauare-enix can't even release a mobile game that has already been translated twice?? Lastly is the port of dragon quest x for the 3ds which is most likely not coming here as well given the recent pattern of dq games released in the west.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

If you were to switch out the focus of this episode from a game, to the Japanese fashion market ... you would have the EXACT same argument.

"All design, no style...." couldn't have said it better, Jim.

And you need only to look at Japanese fashion, and the self consuming parasite that it is to see why it is so. The accessorization of accessoRIES. The empty, arduous pursuits of Western-style fashionble fixtures, without Western minimalist grace. Final fantasy games WILL CONTINUE to look like half-a-billion colour and fabric choices at any one time, because the Japanese fashion market is like that.

The end result of 20 years of fashion-dominated 'personas' ...

Japanese game developers think it looks cool, so they will keep pandering to the ever consuming death spiral of over-accesorization, because there is NO ELEGANCE in the Japanese teenage fashion market. You go to Shibuya, Shinjuku or Harajuku ... it's enough to give you a migraine. Just looking at people, it's enough to give you a migraine.


It gets to the point of trashy, it passed gaudy 280 miles back.... A fucking sundress does not need 14 other articulations! It's pretty much a fucking world standard that a sundress is meant to be an elegant, simple piece of apparel. Not so in Japan ... and thus, a game character in a simple cami and skirt in the next Final Fantasy game isn't likely to happen.

They'll require stupidly impractical hair that would look ugly on any day they didn't dedicate 12 hours to it ... a mountain of colour-coded bracelets, bangles, earrings, bracers, ... ehhh ...

 

[Mikeyfell]

Of all the things that could break Jim I didn't think it would be Final Fantasy...

The best point about character design I've ever heard is that you should never design a character you should design a Silhouette.

All those iconic characters are completely identifiable from just their shadows

 

[Deadagent]

snip

Glad you brought upt those links because among these there was that big high-res picture of Sora thatmerits some analysis.

There is admittetly alot going on there, but even so pretty much all of it makes sense.
Lets start from the top. Ignoring the obvious spikey hair (seriously people is it that distracting on what is basically a cartoon character?), we have a hoodie underneath a coat that has a zipper on it and shoulderpad that are held on by belts? Or maybe the belts are holding something else. In either case it really isn't anything that is just plain stupid of too much. There's also a necklace because those exsist and why not. Fingerless gloves for grip I'm guessing.

Next, on the hips theres a belt. You know, like people then to do, especially if their pants are as huge as the ones sora is wearing. 2 pouches on each side for holding items and such, attached with 2 belts in order to keep it flailing all around.

And then the shoes. They have zippers. This might sound weird, but I have had boots with zippers on them, they were not on the middle though but thats besides the point. It's much better than having to tie your laces everytime. The real overkill about the shoes that dosent really make sense is the belts that go over the shoes, I mean thats just odd.

So there, about 99% of the desing in that case makes sense. So Jim, how about instead of just knee jerking to everything you see, instead take moment to examine the details a little bit.

For example those arm coming from the wings. Well it couldn't possibly be inspired from an actual bat?

http://images.wisegeek.com/isolated-bat-with-wings-spread.jpg see those little stubs on the wings? Those are bats thumbs. So Nomura really did here was to put actual arms there. What could the be used for? I dunno, what would you do as a super hero with an extra set of arms in wings you have? Use them for climbing? maybe?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

The main problem with Squeenix seems to be something Coelasquid of "Manly Guys doing Manly Things" called Nomura Syndrome. It's an affliction by which game protagonists are cursed to bear an unshakable resemblance to Gackt and are genetically incapable of dressing in plausible and yet reasonably eye-catching fashion. Diegetic symptoms include Emo Word Salads and the inability to evolve in a plot structure that makes any kind of sense. To compensate, just toss out a garden variety's worth of made-up deities or in-universe rules, or get your Symbolism thesaurus and just crib from the last forty thousand years' worth of human culture.

Function over form, Tetsuya. Write that on your forehead backwards and then go slam your head into a wall a few hundred times, thank you very much.

A friend of mine tried FF13 back when it was hot shit and more or less gave up just short of the first cinematic. He was used to Final Fantasy maps being big, sprawling things rife with random encounters, and instead got stuck with a corridor-crawler with random encounters. He was used to complex plots that did carry some of Squaresoft's former dedication to overblown drama, and not to this Fal'cie/L'cie/Whatever-the-fuck-cie nonsense.

Come to think of it, isn't LaCie a PC hardware manufacturer?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Squeenix has been utterly strangled by its reliance on over-design, and you can trace it all back to...lets call it a "growing trend" I've noticed with Japanese media in the last decade or so; especially games, and anime.

The trend of "Trying too hard."

All of Squeenix's (and Nomura's especially) freaky designs, extensive attention to base design detail and obsession with fidelity are all symptoms of this.

They try so hard to stand out that, ironically, they alienate more and more people trying to enjoy their productions and outside of the insular glad-handing press, have gained a reputation of being needlessly convoluted.

FF13 had ALL of its priorities backwards as a video game. To the point where I still call it an "anti-game".
I think that more than Nomura's Batman rendition, FF13 encapsulates all of Squeenix's worst behaviors.

In fact, I could rail against it for several pages, but I think I'll just summarize: FF13 is the definitive example of "style over substance" of any game of the previous console generation, and that is no small feat.

"Nomura has gone crazy these past few years..."

FEW YEARS?
Mr. Sterling, he's been crazy for over a decade now.

Literally, the first thing I thought of when I saw his Batman rendition, was think of this stupid fucker:

Spoiler: SHOWN: Trying way too hard to be cool

It's supposed to be a gag in his mouth, but it looks like he's wearing a goddamn jock strap on his face.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

say whatever you want jim, i still love that batman

 

[MaddKossack115]

Down the rabbit hole we go, staring into the abyss while the abyss stares back, coming face-to-face with Lovecraftian insanity and fear made manifest. And what seest thou else in the dark backward and abysm of time? Well... A bunch of over-the-top Anime rubbish that would get laughed out of a Studio Gainax series, let alone any fictional medium trying to maintain any sort of credibility or consistency.

God, Jim, this one was truly a look at the pure, unadulterated madness that is Square Enix, and Final Fantasy's "art without any context whatsoever" lunacy. Not even all of The Spoony Experiment's Let's Plays of the Final Fantasy games could even begin to match the sheer bafflement and outrage you've given in this one video.

Now, as for the whole "Bahamut-man" figure... I actually don't think it's that bad for a villain or anti-hero that is set as an antagonist or rival to Batman, but even then I'd tell them to sheer off the outer wings and excess claws (unless they actually DO SOMETHING, somehow!). And as a design for THE GODDAMN BATMAN?!?!

...No, just... No. I would rather take one of Rob Liefeld's designs over THIS, since they at least keeps to a consistent "90s antihero" build and design instead of... whatever art form term can best describe Square Enix's mad artistry.

 

[90sgamer]

Christ, Jim, you haven't been so ON POINT in months. This was fantastic. It should be memorialized in digital form on a CD, then shot into space so that some day, in the future, other life elsewhere in the universe can see what fuckwits Square-Enix is and witness just how right you are (this time). Fantastic.

Also, why are you, as Escapist's editor, allowed to insult corporations, specific individuals involved in the making and critiquing of games, and even your own viewership, but registered users of The Escapist can't even say of other users that they are "blind and deaf [to reason]", or other innocuous "insults," without getting a warning and, eventually, ban? The juxtaposition of philosophies within the Escapist as an entity bothers me endlessly. It should really make up its mind whether it wants to be family friendly or not.

 

[Kameburger]

There was a cathartic feel to this, but I will say that to be honest, I really quite like Nomura's art for what ever reason. Granted I think his complete dominance over the direction of the series is probably a mistake on Square's part because they've essentially given him the keys to the brand and just told him to go nuts.

 

[Lilani]

I started replaying Kingdom Hearts II a couple of weeks ago while my computer was down, and unlike a few years ago I did notice the belt overload. Like KH1 had some of this going on, but KH2 just went completely over the top. I was looking at Squall, and he had THREE belts just arbitrarily strapped up one of his arms, like he's bleeding out and had to tourniquet his arm a few times. I just kept looking at them like, why is he wearing those? How did he get them on?

I'll admit I do kind of like it, I'm not really offended by the "throwing random stuff together" style, and I can also dig lavish over-the-top detail. In fact, it's one of the things that I loved about Final Fantasy X. Some of the backgrounds and matte paintings are just gorgeous, and filled with so much detail it makes the whole world feel richer. Religion and faith are huge elements of that game, and all the lavish detail and what appear to be symbols scattered about reminded me of cathedrals, which combined with the music and fantastical elements just felt really awesome.

But sometimes those little elements of practicality do get to me. I love how they have the three good fairies from Sleeping Beauty "design" Sora's new outfit when it's got a hundred more belts than their entire movie did. And that huge zipper that ran through Pete's outfit was just...awkward.

Spoiler

And that thing goes ALL THE WAY around, ending at the same height in the back.

 

[KingdomFantasyXIII]

snip

Glad you brought upt those links because among these there was that big high-res picture of Sora thatmerits some analysis.

There is admittetly alot going on there, but even so pretty much all of it makes sense.
Lets start from the top. Ignoring the obvious spikey hair (seriously people is it that distracting on what is basically a cartoon character?), we have a hoodie underneath a coat that has a zipper on it and shoulderpad that are held on by belts? Or maybe the belts are holding something else. In either case it really isn't anything that is just plain stupid of too much. There's also a necklace because those exsist and why not. Fingerless gloves for grip I'm guessing.

Next, on the hips theres a belt. You know, like people then to do, especially if their pants are as huge as the ones sora is wearing. 2 pouches on each side for holding items and such, attached with 2 belts in order to keep it flailing all around.

And then the shoes. They have zippers. This might sound weird, but I have had boots with zippers on them, they were not on the middle though but thats besides the point. It's much better than having to tie your laces everytime. The real overkill about the shoes that dosent really make sense is the belts that go over the shoes, I mean thats just odd.

So there, about 99% of the desing in that case makes sense. So Jim, how about instead of just knee jerking to everything you see, instead take moment to examine the details a little bit.

For example those arm coming from the wings. Well it couldn't possibly be inspired from an actual bat?

http://images.wisegeek.com/isolated-bat-with-wings-spread.jpg see those little stubs on the wings? Those are bats thumbs. So Nomura really did here was to put actual arms there. What could the be used for? I dunno, what would you do as a super hero with an extra set of arms in wings you have? Use them for climbing? maybe?

Pretty much. Jim even knee-jerked everybody with the Lightning Returns character design of Lightning instead of using the original design that everybody remembers.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/039/3/5/final_fantasy_xiii_characters_by_lestat117x-d392ljy.png
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/142/e/e/final_fantasy_13_characters_by_xneonbutterflyx-d3gxim9.jpg
http://jtmgames.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ffxiii_characters.jpg

Look at the majority of these characters. Most of them are fashionable and functional. Yet he criticizes Nomura from being overly detailed. I could sort of see Vanille as a criticism, but everybody else? Fuck no! These are much more closer to the FInal Fantasy 8 designs.

Look at the other KH characters:

http://th08.deviantart.net/fs47/PRE/f/2009/253/2/c/KH_Birth_By_Sleep_Wallpaper_by_miiworld.jpg
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101204020418/kingdomhearts/images/archive/f/f3/20101205061532!Organization_XIII_KHD.png
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130227182614/disney/images/4/4b/True_Organization_XIII.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kXIhOR0H8Ho/ToIsKVbFT7I/AAAAAAAAAJ4/-O2dZpQSYYQ/s1600/Sora+Riku+TGS+clothes+render.png

The majority of Nomura's designs are pretty good. It's only when you dive into the direct sequels do they get ridiculous. The only main numbered FF title that I can think of which had overly ridiculous designs was FF10.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

It seems like Jim has maybe forgotten that Square Enix made Bravely Default much more recently than FFXIII (and declared it a major success, at that). Also that XIII-2 fixed at least the part of XIII's writing that he was complaining about. I mean, this is just about 100% accurate up to around a year ago, but I think this topic might be slightly less "evergreen" than Jim believes. The video really feels like it was displaced in time. Also, it felt like he was really playing for time on both this week's and last week's episode. Hyperbole is one thing, but padding just isn't entertaining.

Wasn't Bravely Default developed by a different company? I know SE was the publisher but I'm pretty sure someone else made it.

Technically yes, but with the announcements they made afterwards (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133397-Square-Enix-Recommitting-to-JRPGs-After-Bravely-Defaults-Success), it seems to be something they want to commit to going forward. At the very least, I think a discussion of Squenix's overall business strategy should address a statement like that.

Plus, spending the majority of a video reiterating common complaints about a five-year-old game that has since had two substantially different sequels just smacks of laziness.

 

[-Dragmire-]

It seems like Jim has maybe forgotten that Square Enix made Bravely Default much more recently than FFXIII (and declared it a major success, at that). Also that XIII-2 fixed at least the part of XIII's writing that he was complaining about. I mean, this is just about 100% accurate up to around a year ago, but I think this topic might be slightly less "evergreen" than Jim believes. The video really feels like it was displaced in time. Also, it felt like he was really playing for time on both this week's and last week's episode. Hyperbole is one thing, but padding just isn't entertaining.

Wasn't Bravely Default developed by a different company? I know SE was the publisher but I'm pretty sure someone else made it.

Technically yes, but with the announcements they made afterwards (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133397-Square-Enix-Recommitting-to-JRPGs-After-Bravely-Defaults-Success), it seems to be something they want to commit to going forward. At the very least, I think a discussion of Squenix's overall business strategy should address a statement like that.

Plus, spending the majority of a video reiterating common complaints about a five-year-old game that has since had two substantially different sequels just smacks of laziness.

Ah, I see what you're getting at. I don't quite agree that the video reflects laziness on Jim's part but I do like the more optimistic view of SE[small](I really want them to make games that I enjoy again)[/small]. We'll see how things pan out in their next few releases.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Square Enix gets a lot of shit, most of it well deserved.

FFXIII was a train wreck in a lot of ways.

The combat system was lazy, the map design was a mess, the leveling system was lame and artificially hindered progress for no good reason, it presented you with plot dependent fights that had completely arbitrary and unexplained completion requirements and the characters were lame and/or annoying (Snow and Hope can go climb a wall of dicks.)

It was a mess.

But I'll never understand the argument that the plot was overly complicated or used too many new gobbldegook proper nouns.

Do you know what a Klingon is? How about a Wookie or A Vulcan?

What about Xenomorph, Yautja, Trandoshan, Jedi, Sith, Midichlorians, Kree, Skrull, Sakaaran, Ainur, Valar, Maiar, Eldar, Necron, Tau, Tyranid, Autobot, Decepticon, Cybertron, Thundera, and/or Azeroth?


I refuse to believe that a handful of new made up names and places befuddled folks so much that they just couldn't wrap their minds around the story FFXIII was trying to tell.

Those names might have been stupid, and the story might have been dumb but it wasn't complicated.