Letter from the Producer LIVE Part IV (11/02/2012)

[Charismatic]

FFVI is my favorite FF by far. Kefka beats all other video game villains hands down. Creepy clown effect? Check. Megalomania? Check. Overthrows his boss and becomes his own boss? Check. Tortures people for laughs? Check. Wiped out an entire race just so he could power his superweapon? Check. Actually succeeds in his goals? BIG CHECK HERE! FF is all about the story, and a story is only as enjoyable as its hero. A hero is only as good as his antagonist, so by having a villain on par with Kefka would greatly improve the story if only because you have to make the hero(es) capable of taking the big bad down at the end. FFXII actually had a decent storyline, they just chose a horrible horrible main character to start you on. Seriously? Vaan, that whiny little bitch? If Balthazar had more screen time at the start I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Balthazar? I think you mean Balthier.
Also, Vaan's not even the main character or hero of FFXII. Ashe is.

[Fievel]

Balthazar? I think you mean Balthier.
Also, Vaan's not even the main character or hero of FFXII. Ashe is.

^ This

I always see people complain about Vaan but in reality he's not even the focus of the story points for most all of the game.

[Rocl]

w/e i don't need him to talk i need to see him in HD with that fucking shirt vest
y'all can oggle Fran or some shit

[miokomioko]

I'm 'fin to oggle some Viera, that's fo' sho'.

[Ratatapa]

FFV

[Lucavi]

They certainly haven't given FFVI enough attention. IV has seen so many rehashes and even a 3D reboot that was pretty cool from what I understood. I am pretty sick of FFIV's storyline and never thought it was as good as VI anyway. Heck, FFIX would be a better reboot by far than any of the modern games. I don't think anyone is thinking 13 will withstand the test of time like past games. It's too contemporary imo.

Its received an advance port and a slightly expanded universe. All it needs is a DS remake and it'd have received the same amount of love as the other early NES/SNES titles.

[Rionel]

I think the wish for direct sequels is something you have to be careful about.

It's definitely something that would please the fans on paper, but I can't help but shake the feeling of a poorly planned sequel giving the feeling of being "tacked on" or weakly linked to it's predecessor storywise.

Or if it's planned well ans executed properly, it could end being being a worthy, maybe even a surpassing piece of work!

Though the nature of sequels is pretty brutal. It really does demand an extreme amount of care since it has to directly compare to it's predecessor. Disney's horrible sequels to a lot of their classics come to mind. Toy Story had phenomenal sequels however... why this is, I'd need to re-watch them in sequence again, haha.

I dunno. Is it too much to ask for people to make games that are well executed and well thought out? Just give me something that you can hand to me and say "Our heart and soul was put into making this game. I'm confident you'll enjoy it."

Or like with FFXIV, if something fails, apologize and be real with your audience, then make it into something better and showing everyone that you've learned from your past mistakes.

Whew, okay I'm rambling. But yeah. Make sequels with great care! And never trust Tanaka.

[Auspice]

Fucked up thing is all of that other shit being made AT THE SAME TIME is more likely than a 3rd Chrono game with the original dream team.

The original CT dev team went from CT to Chrono Cross and guess where they went after that? Final Fantasy XI. After XI, they moved on to XIV. Of course by now, most of that original team is gone but it's an interesting arc to go from CT -> CC -> XI -> XIV

EDIT: Also, I've never understood the unabashed Tanaka hatred. He was one of the last members of the early(original?) Final Fantasy development teams. He's the man who INVENTED the job system(FFIII for Famicom). I think it's a shame that he was pushed out of SE after XIV flopped. :/

[Niiro]

Remaking old school RPGs is like re-releasing a book with fancier typeface and binding.

Remake Vagrant Story.

Truly traverseable 3D environments, platforming, puzzles, etc. Shit that actually can be improved with modern engines that effects more than how pretty some 2D sprites swing their weapon at the mob on the other side of the screen (and holy shit, I bought the FFIV collection a while ago and I couldn't believe how hideous the design was, everything's a bright technicolor dreamland of smooth rounded edges and the character sprites all look like fucking bobble head dolls drawn by a toddler).

I wanna fucking see Lea Monde in all the detail the PS1 couldn't muster and jump around that bitch smacking shit with a physics engine. If you're gonna remake a game remake one that actually has significant potential for improvement in more than just aesthetics.

Spoiler: show

Also I never cared for VI and what the hell was this thread about.

[Lucavi]

EDIT: Also, I've never understood the unabashed Tanaka hatred. He was one of the last members of the early(original?) Final Fantasy development teams. He's the man who INVENTED the job system(FFIII for Famicom). I think it's a shame that he was pushed out of SE after XIV flopped. :/

Don't get the hatred? He made a shitty game, refused to change and adapt, and blamed his failure on others.

[Rocl]

Don't get the hatred? He made a shitty game, refused to change and adapt, and blamed his failure on others.

Doesn't matter, he's got cancer

[Lucavi]

Doesn't matter, he's got cancer

/snort

You're defined by your actions, not your late-life health conditions. I love the guy for what he did back in the day; I can't stand him for what he's done within the last 10 years. He works in an industry where you're in the public eye, and where you're either praised or disccected by the products you produce. If he wants a bunch of sympathy, he should retire from the business and relax in a retirement home. Then I'd think about him and feel bad for him "because he has cancer".

[Niiro]

Didn't he go to work with another gaming company anyway?

[Spider-Dan]

Remaking old school RPGs is like re-releasing a book with fancier typeface and binding.

...which is, in itself, a perfectly fine and reasonable market. (Personally, I'd say a better analogy would be e-book release, from a convenience standpoint at the very least.)

Furthermore, a remake can also be a way to add more story, like FFIV Advance did with the character-specific extra dungeons.

[Spider-Dan]

You're defined by your actions, not your late-life health conditions. I love the guy for what he did back in the day; I can't stand him for what he's done within the last 10 years. He works in an industry where you're in the public eye, and where you're either praised or disccected by the products you produce. If he wants a bunch of sympathy, he should retire from the business and relax in a retirement home. Then I'd think about him and feel bad for him "because he has cancer".

I feel the same way about Peter Molyneux, Yuji Naka, and Jeff Minter.

[Niiro]

...which is, in itself, a perfectly fine and reasonable market. (Personally, I'd say a better analogy would be e-book release, from a convenience standpoint at the very least.)

Furthermore, a remake can also be a way to add more story, like FFIV Advance did with the character-specific extra dungeons.

Releasing a book as an e-book has the development cost of ctrl-c + ctrl-v.

Remaking a game requires a bit more. And of course rereleasing (not the same as remaking) 2D RPGs is a great market, it costs a lot less to update some sprites and fix a few glitches than it does to remake a game with original 3D environments and mechanics.

[LD]

The original CT dev team went from CT to Chrono Cross and guess where they went after that? Final Fantasy XI. After XI, they moved on to XIV. Of course by now, most of that original team is gone but it's an interesting arc to go from CT -> CC -> XI -> XIV

EDIT: Also, I've never understood the unabashed Tanaka hatred. He was one of the last members of the early(original?) Final Fantasy development teams. He's the man who INVENTED the job system(FFIII for Famicom). I think it's a shame that he was pushed out of SE after XIV flopped. :/

Sakaguchi, Toriyama, Horii, and Uematsu did not work on Chrono Cross. That's at least half of what was considered the dream team.
Don't get me wrong, there were many talented people that worked together since then, but my point is the special diet that was fed to the goose that allowed it to lay the golden egg that was Chrono Trigger will never be created again. CC, FFXI, and FFXIV 1.0 are simply proof that they needed better guidance than Tanaka.

[Spider-Dan]

Releasing a book as an e-book has the development cost of ctrl-c + ctrl-v.

Remaking a game requires a bit more.

Didn't you just say "Remaking old school RPGs is like re-releasing a book with fancier typeface and binding"?

I was presuming your analogy was from the consumer perspective, not the manufacturer perspective.

[Lucavi]

I feel the same way about Peter Molyneux, Yuji Naka, and Jeff Minter.

I can't really disagree with those, especially Peter Molyneux.

[Niiro]

Didn't you just say "Remaking old school RPGs is like re-releasing a book with fancier typeface and binding"?

I was presuming your analogy was from the consumer perspective, not the manufacturer perspective.

It was from a consumer perspective, it also wasn't literal.

The book -> e-book comparison is literal (no pun) from the perspective of both the manufacturer and consumer.