Jimquisition: Batman Is Everything Wrong With Square Enix

[RealRT]

That Batman design looks pretty good. The only reason why the older FF games (or other Japanese games) don't have more elaborate designs is due to the hardware not being able to handle it. Mario and Sonic looks that way probably due to the hardware limitations when they were initially designed. If you don't like your favorite comic book hero getting redesigned I can understand, I even agree that Square Enix's games have major issues. But the issue is not design. Lightning looks cool in the third game, but she's just in a crap game.

Oh please. Batman gets redesigns and redrawings all the time. Only they, you know, still look like fuckign Batman, not like something I see in my nightmares.

 

[leviadragon99]

Yeah... honestly I don't think you're offending anyone when you take shots at such an easy target as Square Enix these days, they're rather like the Frank Miller of videogames now, they made some pretty cool stuff a looooooooooooong time ago, but now they've completely lost their goddamn minds.

 

[Bat Vader]

I agree that the combat in Final Fantasy XIII was pretty bad. Don't try and do hybrid of turn-based and real-time combat. Personally I feel the FF XIII games should have had the Kingdom Hearts 2 combat system. One of the best combat systems in a JRPG next to Tales of Xillia.

 

[ExtraDebit]

The problem with square enix is they don't know how the contrast and cut out the dull unnecessary stuff.

If you put a character in a white room with one sword and you put another in a room filled with swords and wallpapered in swords, people is going to remember that one sword in the white room, it's just science.

I could overlook square's poor aesthetic designs, but the fucking nonsensical stories is what I can't forgive. In a world where even superheroes movies are trying to be more realistic by giving a scientific explanation to their plot, square is going far into the other direction by putting people in a world they just can't relate with. Hell! even naruto got a scientific explaination (within its universe) for the sharingan and how they works.

People can only enjoy so much alien concept at a time. If you tell us we're in a alternate world that ninja still exist but everything else is almost the same as our world, we can easily consume that. But the FF of these days just makes me choke.

 

[Rozalia1]

Cloud is considered straight forward and simple. At the time, Cloud was a mess of angst, hair and zippers.

I'll give you hair (though he was hardly the first character with insane hair), but angst and zippers? His original design has no zipper overload, and the angst he has in FF7 is overplayed massively. He doesn't suffer from angst at the start nor the end, he has one particular "arc" if you will where he suffers from it, but it has a purpose and he gets over it.

Of course the "expanded universe" of FF7 where they decide to have him act completely unlike who he was at the end of FF7 really doesn't help in that perception I suppose.

 

[DrOswald]

>This was largely my problem with the Final Fantasy XIII art direction. Strictly speaking there wasn't anything in there I didn't like. But there were so many things in there it just becomes an indecipherable mess.

Um, what? That doesn't make any sense. The majority of FF13's art direction was pretty good. How can it be a "mess" and yet seem good? That is a basic contradiction.

No, it isn't. No one thing was bad. But all of them together were.

I like eggs, sausage, french toast and orange juice. But stick them all in a blender and make a breakfast smoothie and I wouldn't touch the thing. This is the essense of over design, Squares main problem. No one element is bad on it's own, but all the elements together clash and compete for attention dragging the whole work down. This is called over designing.

>I like Vanille or Lightning. I don't like Vanille and Lightning

Um, Vanille's design wasn't very good, but Lightning's was. It's easy to point out one bad thing in an art design. You have to point out many bad things in order to actually say "This is bad art design"

Again you miss the point. I like Vanille's design. I like Lightning's design. But in the actual game, with all the other things going on in the game, everything competes for attention and it all ends up a mess. No single element is bad, but together they do not work. Over design.

And it just got worse as XIII-2 and XIII-3 were released. I like Lightning's costumes in both those games. But in context they look terrible.

First of all: Direct sequels in general from Final Fantasy having some bad designs yes. Second of all: Lightning's costumes could easily be changed up so that you chose what you wanted to see. It's actually a good design choice to be able to choose what a character wears and it reflects your idea about what the character looks like.

Again, I said I liked the costumes. But it isn't just Lightning's costume. If it were just her costume in a vacuum it would have been fine. It is everything together. Over design.

>This is also the major problem with the story of Final Fantasy XIII. The story was just so cluttered with junk, very little of which was independently bad, that it became a mess (also, it seems like Square did everything they could to make me absolutely despise Lightning on a personal level.)

No it wasn't. Also, just because you don't like a character does not mean everybody does. I despise Ryuko from Kill La Kill but that doesn't mean everybody does.

Yes it was. There might be a decent story buried under there somewhere, you even get glimpses of it every once in a while, but overall it is buried in the mess. We are introduced to 5 our of 6 of the main characters before we know anything about the first character we met. The story splits its focus between multiply story lines and tons of out of order flashbacks. These all compete for attention, none of them ever resolving before jumping back or forward or sideways to another story thread. What does any of it mean? We don't know, we don't get told that until a dozen hours into the game. Incredibly poor narrative execution.

And I know that just because I hate a character doesn't mean everyone does. I never said they did. That doesn't make me think they they are right.

>But in any case, if Tetsuya Nomura is to blame for the art problem then that doesn't let Square as an organization off the hook.

Or it could be one person and you should not blame the many for the actions of a few. You know, because making a generalized statement like that has NEVER caused problems before hand.

No, it never has, because that exact kind of generalized statement is entirely accurate. Tetsuya Nomura is employed by Square Enix. Square Enix is a company run by people. Square Enix has a CEO and a corporate board. The upper management. These people are the organization of Square Enix. They continue to employ Tetsuya Nomura. If his overall art direction is the problem then they share in the blame for hiring him and continuing to employ him. They are supposed to handle problems like this They are not stuck with Tetsuya Nomura and if it is in the interest of the company to remove them then they have a responsibility to do so. They are supposed to manage the company. That is literally their job. That is why they are called "management."

 

[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.

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.

Don't get me wrong; they have serious problems (although, with the exception of mobile gaming, I'd say those are mostly better than they were a few years ago). It just seems weird to base that criticism in something so out of date. It's like wanting to criticize Ubisoft and going about it by enumerating all the flaws in the first Assassin's Creed. Honestly, what the video makes me think more than anything is that Jim didn't play FF XIII-2 or Lightning Returns and didn't have time for a 60-hour RPG before making his video. LR is kind of weird, but is at least something different, whereas XIII-2 does a lot to address most of his complaints with XIII. It cuts out most of the made-up words, explains the few it does have in dialogue instead of weird files in the menu, and tells a story in which one always knows where one is going, what one is trying to do, and why one would want to go there and do that. That's hardly a major accomplishment, but it does show learning from past mistakes. I can't say the video is wrong, but it feels like it fell through a time-warp from 2011 or 12 and doesn't seem especially relevant to anything now.

 

[47_Ronin]

This video is so true. I was a huge FF fan way back when. The last title I played was FF10, which I already thought was the beginning of the end. Some years ago I tried a demo of a more recent installment and I felt like a 90 year old Alzheimer patient. First I was confused, then I got progressively angry because nothing made any sense to me. That was the first time in my life I felt to old for something (all thought: modern anime has a similar effect on me).

 

[butanebob]

Fucking bang on this week Jim. I haven't played FFXIII cos it looks like garbage, but I did recently play "Type-0", the fan translated PSP Final Fantasy game. Everyone is praising it (see /v/ and neogaf and gamefaqs) but it's just utter garbage and I'm mad at myself for even spending a few hours on it. "FML" etc.

 

[karkashan]

Meh.

FFXIII was amazing. Story wasn't overly complicated at all, imo.

praisegrima

 

[Norithics]

If you look at concept art for even the earliest Final Fantasy games, it's all extremely overelaborate. A lot of characters look like they tried to dress themselves in a Persian rug store, and only through the naturally simplifying elements of sprite limitations did their much more simple, elegant designs come about.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

FF XIII was the game where Squeenix finally and irreversibly jumped the shark. I mean it's not literally irreversible, hell, they could theoretically stop doing moronic things and go back to making the greatest JRPGs in the world tomorrow, but we all know they won't. They seem utterly committed to this mindless course of self-destruction and nothing can change their minds.

Hell, they still refuse to remake FF VII (despite remaking the SHIT out of the rest of the FF series), presumably because of a crippling phobia of success, adulation and money. There's no helping a company like that.

If you look at concept art for even the earliest Final Fantasy games, it's all extremely overelaborate. A lot of characters look like they tried to dress themselves in a Persian rug store, and only through the naturally simplifying elements of sprite limitations did their much more simple, elegant designs come about.

Oh that's just Yoshitaka Amano's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshitaka_Amano] personal art style. ALL his characters looks like that.

 

[Iceklimber]

Respect for voicework.

 

[Samael Barghest]

As far as Batman goes, the design is pretty bad. However, I wouldn't mind a boss like this in my next action RPG. That would be pretty sweet and bowel cleansing at the same time.

 

[rosac]

Square-Enix does seem to have it's priorities screwed up. And yes the most iconic characters in video games have very simple designs,

I think FF10 was actually ok for this. I remember what Tidus, Yuna, Tidus, Auron, Kimahri, Jecht and seymour look like (Not so with the Al-Bhed character). FF12 wise I'm not so sure, I remember fran and vaan for all the wrong reasons, and balthier just because he's a knight who kicks major ass.

But yes, FF4 and FF7 crisis core are potentially the best when it comes to simple but memorable characters when it comes to design (out of the FF games I have played). Crisis core in particular, the main players are all distinct in their own ways and have personality quirks that are memorable.

So yeah, tone it down, chill out, stick to the rules of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

CAPTCHA: Dollar Signs. This is what Squenix have in their eyes.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

FF XIII was the game where Squeenix finally and irreversibly jumped the shark. I mean it's not literally irreversible, hell, they could theoretically stop doing moronic things and go back to making the greatest JRPGs in the world tomorrow, but we all know they won't. They seem utterly committed to this mindless course of self-destruction and nothing can change their minds.

Hell, they still refuse to remake FF VII (despite remaking the SHIT out of the rest of the FF series), presumably because of a crippling phobia of success, adulation and money. There's no helping a company like that.

If you look at concept art for even the earliest Final Fantasy games, it's all extremely overelaborate. A lot of characters look like they tried to dress themselves in a Persian rug store, and only through the naturally simplifying elements of sprite limitations did their much more simple, elegant designs come about.

Oh that's just Yoshitaka Amano's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshitaka_Amano] personal art style. ALL his characters looks like that.

Only thing is that there was a concept artist between Yoshitaka's work and the sprites you got to see in the early games - Their job was to actually "de-detail" the concept art and pose them into something that could be clearly seen as a character in the game, but would still keep crucial details that made them unique. Otherwise, what you saw of Yoshitaka's original designs ended up in the portraits in the stat and party menus. (I really wish I knew whoever did that part of the concepts, because he/she is quite the unsung hero)

He won't admit to it, but maybe Tetsuya needs that same crutch for his own concept art now?

 

[ssgtnelson]

I can't stand the anime-zation of everything. Everything the Japanese edit or create LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME. Either all the men look like women and anything in armor looks like a Gundam robot.

 

[Mastemat]

>_> I like the facy batman... BECAUSE it's so overdesigned...
But I guess my mentality of it is "well it's certainly a nice display piece" but it's not like I'd buy that for a 10yrold to play with... Billy could lose an eye... or 12.

As for FFXV... it's gonna be shit.
From all the gameplay "footage" I've seen... all the trailers... all everything...
It's trying to be Uncharted... and it's gonna fail at that.
Namely because when I pick up an RPG... I want to play an RPG. I don't want to go running around jumping on shit... I wanted to play a damn RPG with levels and strategy and gear and thinking...
If I wanted Action-Adventure-CSfest... I'd go play Uncharted.
But that's not why it's gonna be shit.
That's just why it will probably sell poorly and have MASSIVE return rates.

It's gonna be shit because it's FFXIII-4.
I don't understand what they are thinking at SE... They basically fired Sakaguchi (in Japan, when you have done a lot for a company but it would look bad if you got fired for doing poorly... they give you a fancy window office and basically entomb you there) after the abysmal failures that were 8 and 9. (Which 9 is not a bad game, it's actually very good. But it sold terribly, and I feel like that was for two reasons: 1) PS2 just came out so stupid people won't buy a new PS1 game and 2) FFVIII was so bad that people decided to skip 9. I feel like it's much more the latter than the former reason since the PS2 was backwards compatible.)
Yet the FFXIII guy... who is a HUGE asshole... (he's the one who "defended" FFXIII's "plot" with "if you don't get it, you're not smart enough to grasp the complexities")
Is somehow not only still legit employed....
But he's now gonna ruin FFXV too??
How much money do you have to loose SE before you realize that that man is dumber than dumb????
(And it was said by the devs that FFXV IS just FFXIII-4 but with all the funny gibberish names replaced... They literally just replaced all the l'cie falcie and all that BS with other names....)
He's given us X-2. XIII. XIII-2. and XIII-3.
***** should have been fired after X-2... cause that... "game".... uhg.
Is it any wonder that XIII was to terribad when he's also responsible for X-2?

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

That's a Batman? Huh, wouldn't have known that if somebody just showed me a picture of it. It looks like some 10 year old's ultimate badass fantasy. And also terrible. It is terrible.

 

[Shirokurou]

I agree 97%.

Except I think Nomura is just about the only thing in Square Enix that DOES work.
They have these...beautiful games with nice designs and then shitty planning and shittier story.

Nomura directed the Kingdom Hearts series and that's pretty straight and pretty fun. So him Directing XV I think (or hope) will save FF.

And yeah...I think that was actually just bahamut from some unreleased game...which was then reverse-engineered into Batman. And characters become iconic, not because of how they look, but what they do.