Yahtzee vs. the JRPG

[PhunkyPhazon]

Oh yeah, just wanted to say something I didn't mention in my last post. Thanks for spoiling FF6 like that. I was really looking forward to playing the game and especially enjoying the story after hearing so many positive things (That and my friends keep nagging me to play it), but now I'm honestly put off of it. I know it's an old game and all, but that doesn't mean everyone has played it <_< Oh well, maybe if I wait a couple years I won't remember this. The game is already fifteen years old or something, a couple more won't hurt.

Lesson learned though, next time someone labels a paragraph with the title of a game I plan on playing, I'm staying clear.

 

[Vicioussama]

Oh yeah, just wanted to say something I didn't mention in my last post. Thanks for spoiling FF6 like that. I was really looking forward to playing the game and especially enjoying the story after hearing so many positive things (That and my friends keep nagging me to play it)), but now I'm honestly put off of it. I know it's an old game and all, but that doesn't mean everyone has played it <_< Oh well, maybe if I wait a couple years I won't remember this. The game is already fifteen years old or something, a couple more won't hurt.

You didn't have to read his extra punctuation lol. Also, he's had many spoilers in the past, shoulda figured there'd be spoilers about past games he's talking about.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Oh yeah, just wanted to say something I didn't mention in my last post. Thanks for spoiling FF6 like that. I was really looking forward to playing the game and especially enjoying the story after hearing so many positive things (That and my friends keep nagging me to play it)), but now I'm honestly put off of it. I know it's an old game and all, but that doesn't mean everyone has played it <_< Oh well, maybe if I wait a couple years I won't remember this. The game is already fifteen years old or something, a couple more won't hurt.

You didn't have to read his extra punctuation lol. Also, he's had many spoilers in the past, shoulda figured there'd be spoilers about past games he's talking about.

lol, I obviously edited too late. Still, I don't expect spoilers when watching his videos, why should I typically expect them in the article? I'm pretty sure I've seen him use spoiler tags before. (But don't take my word for it, I'm not entirely sure)

 

[ZaronX]

Oh yeah, just wanted to say something I didn't mention in my last post. Thanks for spoiling FF6 like that. I was really looking forward to playing the game and especially enjoying the story after hearing so many positive things (That and my friends keep nagging me to play it), but now I'm honestly put off of it. I know it's an old game and all, but that doesn't mean everyone has played it <_< Oh well, maybe if I wait a couple years I won't remember this. The game is already fifteen years old or something, a couple more won't hurt.

Lesson learned though, next time someone labels a paragraph with the title of a game I plan on playing, I'm staying clear.

The apocalypse thing isn't so much of a spoiler when it and the word "opera" are the two things people tend to think stand out most from the game within the series. Yahtzee didn't mention how it comes about, exactly when it happens, or what the results of it are, so while it is certainly a light spoiler it's no reason to feel put off of the entire thing.

The fact that a random guy on the internet with awful gaming tastes, whose job is bashing games while blabbering without pauses hates a game, doesn't automatically make that game bad (actually, it raises the chances for that game to be actually good).

I've actually found Yahtzee's tastes to be fairly dependable. He's stated many times that he focuses on the negative points because that's what people want from him, but the general rule is that while he may point out the faults that doesn't automatically make the entire game bad. The only time I've really disagreed with him is when he paired the control setup of Smash Bros. to every other fighter ever, but I have to take it with a grain of salt because as Smash Bros. is concerned I'm very much a fan.

Perhaps the grain of salt bit is what you're missing. Jus' chill a tad. People getting all up in arms defending the quality of every FF entry is what put me off of the series for the better part of two console generations.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Oh yeah, just wanted to say something I didn't mention in my last post. Thanks for spoiling FF6 like that. I was really looking forward to playing the game and especially enjoying the story after hearing so many positive things (That and my friends keep nagging me to play it), but now I'm honestly put off of it. I know it's an old game and all, but that doesn't mean everyone has played it <_< Oh well, maybe if I wait a couple years I won't remember this. The game is already fifteen years old or something, a couple more won't hurt.

Lesson learned though, next time someone labels a paragraph with the title of a game I plan on playing, I'm staying clear.

The apocalypse thing isn't so much of a spoiler when it and the word "opera" are the two things people tend to think stand out most from the game within the series. Yahtzee didn't mention how it comes about, exactly when it happens, or what the results of it are, so while it is certainly a light spoiler it's no reason to feel put off of the entire thing.

Didn't he say the villain wants to blow up the world and that it happens halfway through the game? To me that kind of makes it sound like I just found out the 'who' and 'when' at the very least. Otherwise, I guess you're right. There's always the chance I'm totally wrong, so there's not much point in getting too worked up about it...yet.

 

[Terramax]

It's a pity he's probably never played Panzer Dragoon Saga. I wonder what he'd think of that game?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

[
The problem is unlike the open world FFs and even modern RPGs with less explorable content this thing is a corridor then a large area to tool around in before moving on to the next corridor. The large area with tons of stuff to do is a illusion that fails to pass the test of a good illusion. At least FF12 was awesome in this respect a shame the rest of that game did reach that level of design.

There's no illusion. You can go where you want, do the missions in any order. There's no corridor in that part of the game, and honestly it seems that you're grasping at straws a-la "it's a corridor because I say so! It's no no matter that it doesn't look, feel and play like a corridor! It's an illusion!".

Doesn't fly.

....... *sigh* can't you see what you are saying?
There is no illusion because the game is small and poorly laid out, ya the open areas are nice till you hit the CORRIDORS....... *sigh*

 

[boholikeu]

Fair enough, but like I mentioned before it still looks like gameplay and plot are pretty divorced in FFXIII. It may not be contradictory, but if gameplay isn't related to story in some way then I'd rather just watch the cinematics on youtube than pay $60 for a battle system with a marginally related story.

The gameplay isn't related to the story how? The characters are fugitives. They're hunted. They fight the ones that are hunting them. What's exactly divorced in that?

Hm, let me rephrase this a bit.

When I play a game, I want to actually, you know, play the game, not watch a bunch of cinematics etc about what's happening. You know how they say that a good book "shows" you the story instead of "telling" it to you? Well I believe a good game does the same thing. "showing" in a game is putting me in control and having me act out what's happening. "Telling" would be conveying the plot primarily through cut-scenes or dialogue.

In my experience, FF games and the like typically do the latter. The only interaction you have is typically character customization and combat, and it's related to the story only in that the main characters fight. To me, this feels like if a filmmaker told his entire story by scrolling text across the screen, and then only switched to actual video for the action scenes.

Again, I haven't played FF so I could be wrong. Maybe instead of starting with 20-30 minutes of cut-scenes it starts with a fugitive chase sequence a la HL2 where the player learns the setting through actual gameplay rather than non-interactive exposition.

So, yeah, that's what I mean when I say the gameplay is often divorced from plot in this type of game.

I wouldnt spend too much time trying to convince this guy that the game itself sucks. Ever since Yathzee's FF review was released he's been defending the game with Shield and Claymore in hand against the waves of hate.
I gave up trying to convince him when he told me he has played and enjoyed each and every Final Fantasy game since #1 and still thinks FF13 is a Masterpiece. Not that I believe him but if he is capable of saying such things with a straight face then there is no hope for him...except, you know...Hope.

Actually I'm not trying to convince him it "sucks" so much as explain to him what I think Yahtzee meant when he said the game "didn't let you play it". I haven't played FFXIII yet so I can say for sure, but if it's anything like previous games I can understand where he's coming from.

 

[ZaronX]

Didn't he say the villain wants to blow up the world and that it happens halfway through the game? To me that kind of makes it sound like I just found out the 'who' and 'when' at the very least. Otherwise, I guess you're right. There's always the chance I'm totally wrong, so there's not much point in getting too worked up about it...yet.

He doesn't say who exactly the villain is, and in fact that won't be specifically spoiled until the scene in question. Granted, I always felt it was a tad obvious, but some people think even the likes of FFX weave an amazing tale and are shocked to find that I feel it's predictable and shallow. :/ And I can't speak for it being the exact half-way point or anything, but that's definitely the point where by more modern standards one would expect a game to swap over to disc two, and in this case it kinda turns into a bunch of semi-mandatory sidequests and the game really loses momentum for me. Still my favorite FF despite this, so the series in whole has never totally sucked me in.

Worst case? You end up joining the discussion over yonder, with sympathy:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.186894-Why-oh-why-cant-I-like-Final-Fantasy-6

Not everyone will like 6, not everyone will like 7, and, likewise, not everyone will like 13, and we'll all have our reasons, even if that reason is a simple "I stopped caring" or "It got boring." It happens.

 

[Iskenator67]

I pre-orded Mogworld. 8 bucks seems pretty cheap though for a book. It must not be that long.

 

[Abriael]

....... *sigh* can't you see what you are saying?
There is no illusion because the game is small and poorly laid out, ya the open areas are nice till you hit the CORRIDORS....... *sigh*

Yes, I see what I'm saying, and that the more you talk, the deeper you dig yourself in, demonstrating that you didn't even touch the game and everything you say is hearsay. The game is nowhere near "small". Sorry to burst your bubble. Play the game, then talk, and if you don't wanna bother playing it, more power to you, but at least stop spewing misinformed posts. It's amusing only for a while.

When I play a game, I want to actually, you know, play the game, not watch a bunch of cinematics etc about what's happening. You know how they say that a good book "shows" you the story instead of "telling" it to you? Well I believe a good game does the same thing. "showing" in a game is putting me in control and having me act out what's happening. "Telling" would be conveying the plot primarily through cut-scenes or dialogue

That's a difference in storytelling style, it has really nothing to do with quality. You may like one option more than the other (me, I like both, as long as they're well done), but if a developer didn't pick your favourite option, it doesn't suddenly turn the game into a bad one.

Actually I'm not trying to convince him it "sucks" so much as explain to him what I think Yahtzee meant when he said the game "didn't let you play it". I haven't played FFXIII yet so I can say for sure, but if it's anything like previous games I can understand where he's coming from.

What he meant was basically "I didn't care for the game from the beginning, I really didn't want to play it, but I had to, so i sat on my couch ranting, with a completely closed and narrow mind, slaved through the first few chapters without even paying attention, and then filled my half of my five minutes with hearsay and stuff i read on forums".

Mind you, I'm actually happy for him, since he can afford playing a game for only 5 hours before doing his piece. Any gaming journalist working for any semi-serious publication that not only did that, but actually proudly declared that, would normally be shown the door or at least heavily reprimanded 5 minutes after delivering his piece.
When I worked as a print gaming journalist, I slaved my way through 15-20 hours of plenty crappy games, unsightly stuff like Energy Airforce or Mission Impossible: Operation over Surma, with a mouth as wide as my leg for the excessive yawning. Why? because that's the professional way to do it and that's the only way to deliver an actually informed review.
Could I have gotten more or less the same results just by skimming forums and slapping a ton of hearsay in my articles? You betcha. But that's no way to earn your salary.

If gaming journalism is a job, he just suddenly decided that he had enough halfway through his shift and walked out of the office. Very professional indeed.

But hey, good for him if he can get away with it, seriously.

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PLAY A GAME FOR FIVE HOURS BEFORE IT GETS "GOOD"

And in fact you don't. The introductory part that's very basic lasts one hour or so. It's the first two very quick chapters. After that you unlock the crystarium and the paradygm shift and it's all downhill.
Mind you, before that it's not a bad game, it's just an introduction. No better or worse than the first level of Mass Effect 2 in the Cerberus station. Just slightly longer. Biiig deal.

after Yahtzees review I rented FF13 and had pretty much the same experience, simply put IT'S A BAD GAME and people need to stop being so fanboyish over jrpg and realise the whole genre needs an ovehaul, perhaps they should take a look at some more open world wrpgs take some ideas from them, imagine an elder scrolls game with the design and story telling capabilities of the japanese games, perhaps then i'd go back and try a jrpg again.

Oh lovely! Hey Japanese guys! you need to do like the western guys, because their way is good, your way is bad!
It's funny how everyone praises bioware for making an RPG (that I love, mind you) that sticks to the tradition of western RPGs, with quite old, but still very fun concepts, but some very vocal western-centric fanatics can't extend Japanese developers the same luxury of sticking to their OWN traditions in games development.

An Japanese Elder scrolls game? No thanks. The main strenghts of Japanese games lay in the characters and the storytelling. That's the main weakness of bethesda, and that comes exactly from the fact that bethesda spends a lot of resources in making the world sandboxish and the quests relatively open ended, letting storytelling suck horribly.
Why should other developers copy their style? If I want a game like that I'll buy the next TES (or will simply play my heavily modded Oblivion, that's still plenty good even today, technically).
A lot of people need to get a notion through their head. Different developers and different kind of games cater to different tastes. There is a LOT of people out there that enjoy the JRPG style throughly, just as much as there's a lot of people that enjoy western RPGs, and another lot that enjoy both.
The fact that you enjoy only one kind doesn't mean that the other kind "IS A BAD GAME" (with customary troll-like all-caps. We can hear you, you know? We just don't agree). It just means that the other kind just isn't for you.
"The game sucks because the developer didn't bend over twice and make the game the way *I* like it!" Is one of the most silly arguments ever.
You like open-world western RPGs? Great. Me too. Buy those and stop bitching.
Other people like (or also like) heavily story-driven JRPGs. It's their taste and it doesn't mean that they're being "Fanboyish" just because their taste doesn't match yours.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the fact that you don't like them doesn't mean that the genre needs to disappear.

Want a JRPG that took a lot of inspiration from western RPGs and innovated the genre? get White Knight chronicles. You don't like that one for other reasons? Too bad. Others do.

 

[Genixma]

Personally I enjoyed FF I-VII (none of the remakes) and then never cared for any other Final Fantasy afterwards and though I enjoy the storyline of FFVII I got to go with Yahtzee on this one, Chrono Trigger is far more interesting and fun than FFVII was for me.

 

[acosn]

There's a lot of things I could say.

I'll simply say this though, and leave it at that.

Yahtzee gave a valid criticism. Notice his review trends- he stays away from certain genres. He has barely touched RTS's at all, if you really want to call Halo Wars an RTS, and his reviews for FPS's, RPGs, ect are typically heavy of the criticism unless it's really properly a game unto itself (IE: Fallout 3.) So he effectively has what you could probably call really high standards. If there's something wrong in a game at all he's going to point it out.

If after five hours he could not get into the game that's his own call. If his superiors decide that's not proper journalistic grade material that's also their call.

Really, though, all I really want to ask is this:

Does his criticisms on FF13 somehow impact your own enjoyment? If you like the game good for you. Any self respecting gamer in the current market should know that there really isn't so much the "good" and "bad" game anymore so much as ones that merely don't appeal to you. Or at least that's much more the case now than when a 16 bit system was hot shit.

 

[Tetranitrophenol]

You know, people with a brain have opinions and ideas. They often defend them even if you happen to believe they are wrong and "try to convince" them.

Or maybe you think that someone should immediately stand at attention and bend over as soon as you tell them "you're wrong!" with some weak argument made up of hearsay and prejudices?

The fact that a random guy on the internet with awful gaming tastes, whose job is bashing games while blabbering without pauses hates a game, doesn't automatically make that game bad (actually, it raises the chances for that game to be actually good).

To be honest, I played FF and many other JRPGs (and RPGs for that matter) back in the day, to the point that uttering the words Final Fantasy to my parents will result in a "eeeesh..>.>" expression out of them.
Altho, I would love it if people were as submissive with my opinion as you say, I hardly believe that my arguments are made up of "hearsay and prejudices". You see, being in a conscious state while I played the FF series (not blinded by fanaticism) I realized that after FF7 the game storyline began to have strange turns (the main character's backstory more Emoish or the overall story being more Dramatic) but it was ok, that is, until FF10, which showed us that the game developers preferred to make the game pretty and romantic rather than challenging, open and good, presumably because they tough that it was more economically efficient for their target audiecne to be composed mostly of people that currently hang out in your local HotTopic. I barely finished FF10 which left me with somewhat empty inside... FF12's main character killed it, and of course FF13 having such a bad design (read about it).

As for Yathzee being a bad critic, well he's an odd one, I give you that, but one that prefers to tell me why I shouldn't buy a game rather than why I should. I don't always agree with him. A game is supposed to be good and have good parts, I don't need anybody to tell me that.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

For the lion's share of the game the only real input the player has is during battles (and even that's a loose and uninvolving input)

And how exactly would you know what the "lion's share" of a 40-hour game consists of when you've only seen the first five? I wasn't a big fan of the game either, but I at least finished it before I started making claims like that. At last contextualize it like you did in the video.

Thats the point he made. If you have to "Play" more then 5 hours jsut to get some fucking gameplay, then the developers need to be stabbed and raped by an angry sea urchin with rabies.

Look at the abomination that CLAIMS to be the new Freelancer "X3: Terran Conflict". The game takes around 3 FRIGGIN HOURS before you can even get ready to survive your first fight!

Then, if by 5 hours I am still asking "Why!? WTF? Why am I supposed to care about this? WTH does the villian want!? Why why why!?" then the game isn't pacing itself right. Let us look at bioshock for example. You jump in, and your told a why (Not the REAL why, but given a good answer to tide you over) the answer they give is good enough to hide the games big twists, while still satisfying your urge to actually be included in the "Knowing" group of people.
Jump back to FF7, while overhyped (And I think the story is rubbish) AT LEAST it gave you some tide over answers to keep you going. Imagine if FF7 told you NOTHING instead, and just waited until cloud began to remember things to actually feed you key story elements like villian motivation, your background, etc.

The fact is, FFXIII forgot it is a story driven game, so dropped the basics of good writing. Square has been having this BAD habit of the "No Data Available" trend of story telling. Where it leaves out big answers which just frustrates the player, instead of tossing us AT LEAST some fake answers to tide us over until the actual plot twist comes around.


Remember Square-Enix... Plot twists do not matter if we have no prior expectations beforehand.

 

[boholikeu]

When I play a game, I want to actually, you know, play the game, not watch a bunch of cinematics etc about what's happening. You know how they say that a good book "shows" you the story instead of "telling" it to you? Well I believe a good game does the same thing. "showing" in a game is putting me in control and having me act out what's happening. "Telling" would be conveying the plot primarily through cut-scenes or dialogue

That's a difference in storytelling style, it has really nothing to do with quality. You may like one option more than the other (me, I like both, as long as they're well done), but if a developer didn't pick your favourite option, it doesn't suddenly turn the game into a bad one.

But it does have to do with quality. What's the point of actually playing the game if I can get pretty much the same experience from watching the cinematics on youtube? Not using the strengths of the medium you choose to work in is pretty pointless IMO.

Like I said before, it's like a film director choosing to convey the bulk of their story through text rather than actual video. Why even make a movie in the first place if you aren't going to use the medium for most of the story? Why make a story-heavy game if none of your story is in the actual game?

Actually I'm not trying to convince him it "sucks" so much as explain to him what I think Yahtzee meant when he said the game "didn't let you play it". I haven't played FFXIII yet so I can say for sure, but if it's anything like previous games I can understand where he's coming from.

What he meant was basically "I didn't care for the game from the beginning, I really didn't want to play it, but I had to, so i sat on my couch ranting, with a completely closed and narrow mind, slaved through the first few chapters without even paying attention, and then filled my half of my five minutes with hearsay and stuff i read on forums".

Mind you, I'm actually happy for him, since he can afford playing a game for only 5 hours before doing his piece. Any gaming journalist working for any semi-serious publication that not only did that, but actually proudly declared that, would normally be shown the door or at least heavily reprimanded 5 minutes after delivering his piece.
When I worked as a print gaming journalist, I slaved my way through 15-20 hours of plenty crappy games, unsightly stuff like Energy Airforce or Mission Impossible: Operation over Surma, with a mouth as wide as my leg for the excessive yawning. Why? because that's the professional way to do it and that's the only way to deliver an actually informed review.
Could I have gotten more or less the same results just by skimming forums and slapping a ton of hearsay in my articles? You betcha. But that's no way to earn your salary.

If gaming journalism is a job, he just suddenly decided that he had enough halfway through his shift and walked out of the office. Very professional indeed.

But hey, good for him if he can get away with it, seriously.

Bah, most "professional" reviews are bunk anyway cause they review games as a product rather than entertainment (let alone art).

 

[Zukonub]

In regards to the "book" thing:

These characters live in this world. They already know what fal'Cie and l'Cie are. There's no need to explain it to each other because it's common knowledge. The reason FFX could explain Fayth and Sin to the player was because Tidus was a stranger in a strange land, and thus had to have concepts explained to him. If we had Hope saying "O YA THE PULSE FALCIE ANIMA THAT LIVED IN BODHUM A SEASIDE TOWN TURNED US ALL INTO L'CIE" a lot, it would just be silly.

 

[Abriael]

Then, if by 5 hours I am still asking "Why!? WTF? Why am I supposed to care about this? WTH does the villian want!? Why why why!?" then the game isn't pacing itself right.

If after 5 hours of Final Fantasy XIII you're still asking yourself that, then you didn't pay attention, and it's pretty obvious that Yatzhee didn't.

But it does have to do with quality. What's the point of actually playing the game if I can get pretty much the same experience from watching the cinematics on youtube? Not using the strengths of the medium you choose to work in is pretty pointless IMO.

Yeah, but you cannot. It'd be like seeing an action movie without the action.

Like I said before, it's like a film director choosing to convey the bulk of their story through text rather than actual video. Why even make a movie in the first place if you aren't going to use the medium for most of the story? Why make a story-heavy game if none of your story is in the actual game?

Because a lot of gamers prefer to concentrate on the story when the story is being told, and concentrate on the fighting when they have to fight so they don't miss pieces of the puzzle here and there? Placing most (not even all) of the story details in cutscenes means simply that they will have more impact on the player, other than, of course, providing with more cinematic power.
You're entitled to your own preference, mind you, but that doesn't make such preference objectively better or worse. As long as the story's good and the gameplay is good, with all due respect, I see a lot of mental masturbation in trying to justify how one solution would objectively be better than the other.

Bah, most "professional" reviews are bunk anyway cause they review games as a product rather than entertainment (let alone art).

Games ARE a product, entertainment and some say art. Good reviewers give due attention to all three aspects. If you review a game only as entertainment, it being an entirely subjective value, you make your interview useful only to the ones whose subjective tastes match yours completely, which is a fraction of the readership. On the other hand, the review is misleading for everyone else.
Simply enough, this turns a review into a baseless power-tripping rant, and that's (or should be) the difference between a professional gaming journalist and a random guy with a blog.
It's the perfect way to mark a bad journalist: "I didn't like it! The stupid developer didn't design the game according to my taste! Therefore the game is bad. FOUR!"

So he effectively has what you could probably call really high standards. If there's something wrong in a game at all he's going to point it out.

Not really, he heffectively has what you call a bias against certain genres of games and certain ways such games are made. He points out as wrong what's simply different fom his personal taste, and his personal taste is very, very restrictive, and has more often than not nothing to do with the actual quality (or even general value as entertainment) of a game.

If after five hours he could not get into the game that's his own call. If his superiors decide that's not proper journalistic grade material that's also their call.

Oh sure, good for him. That's not journalism though. That's ranting into a mic for the lulz. Let's keep it at that and avoid writing further long winded rants to try (and fail) to justify his shorter pauseless rants.

Does his criticisms on FF13 somehow impact your own enjoyment?

Not really. But this is a discussion forum, where articles are posted to be commented and, you know, discussed upon. Therefore, I use the medium for what it was created for.
If this thread has been opened only for those that love yathzee and think he's a great journalist, so that they can express their agreement with his ways and opinions(making his head bigger than it already is) great, just lemme know, uh?

 

[brodie21]

the last game that i enjoyed that had a combat system that was close to turn based was KOTOR