[pathwriter]

Couple general things, What.

Making a sequel doesn't necessarily equate to stagnation, it just has a worrying habit of causing stagnation.

The basic idea behind a sequel is, from the point-of-view of the player, "I really liked this and would like to play more," in a game where gameplay is foregrounded, or, "I really liked this and would like to play something similar," where story is foregrounded. Pokemon is a gameplay game, people aren't playing it for the gripping story of the Trainer collecting badges and engaging in gym battles. Final Fantasy whatever (at least 4 onwards, story was kinda weak in 1 and I haven't touched 2 or 3) is a story game. In both cases, what people are looking for in a sequel is more of the same with logical improvements.

Going from Bioshock to Bioshock 2, the important part (story) was raped silly, but the developers actually did fix a few gameplay problems (the hacking in particular). Metroid: Other M is an opposite example of sequel screw-up: it made a thoroughly intolerable story (or character, at any rate) while creating a 3D homage to Super Metroid that I thought was pretty well done. Both are symptomatic of the problems with sequels.

Really, innovation is not strongly demanded with franchise games. There needs to be a reason to play the next game (random example: there's really no reason to touch Peggle Nights over Peggle standard unless you desperately need another 100-odd boards), but it doesn't have to be a hugely compelling one (Pokemon does rather well by virtue of having new types and abilities to mix and match with pre-existing). If we go way back, one of the reasons that Zelda II: Adventure of Link fell on its face was because it was nothing at all like Legend of Zelda. Nintendo learned their lesson and returned to improve the original engine for a stronger machine with Link to the Past, then translated the whole experience to 3D and, frankly, have been just fine where they are. It's a sort of adventure-puzzler, it's never very difficult, you just get to swing a sword and kill stuff, which is all we Zelda fans ultimately want.

Square-Enix, on the other hand, has been completely blind to the fact that most people would be content to just see Final Fantasy VII redone with a new story (not even related to the setting, I just mean they need to stop making obtuse and unpleasant changes to the meta-game). Granted, that'd mean that Final Fantasy XII and XIII would've needed to be released under a different title but... WHY SHOULDN'T THEY BE? If SE really wants to keep experimenting with shapes for its wheels even though it has found several very serviceable roundish shapes, they're only doing themselves harm by attaching the Final Fantasy name. A lot of fans are annoyed that FFXI and FFXIV have been released with roman numerals when they're clearly not the story-driven mess of menus with occasional graphics that are typical of a Final Fantasy game and, really, I see their point. It'd make about as much sense as Apple referring to their portable mp3 player as a Mac, which is, of course, why they didn't.

Also, regarding your thing with Call of Duty, it's the same problem that the Final Fantasy franchise had before Square started systematically destroying it in the PS2 era: fanboys. Of those people who aren't fans of CoD or FPSs in general, the new releases are yawn-worthy at best and we'd love to see them go away. Modern Warfare 1 was great, moving the setting out of WWII and achieving a satisfying balance of story and difficult gameplay. MW2 and beyond have been slush and anyone saying different is just as bad as a Cloud fanboy wanking about how awesome Advent Children was.

Mario Galaxy 2, on the other hand, was fun. It's easier to criticize, though, because it is single-player and cartoonish, so one feels less threatened by knocking it. It could have been called an expansion pack, but Galaxy players wanted an expansion pack, so what the hell? If the worst criticism one can level is, "This is just like the previous game that was really good..." then the game is doing ok. It does pay to remember that nerds automatically complain.

[Keylime]

pathwriter, on 13 February 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

Also, regarding your thing with Call of Duty, it's the same problem that the Final Fantasy franchise had before Square started systematically destroying it in the PS2 era: fanboys. Of those people who aren't fans of CoD or FPSs in general, the new releases are yawn-worthy at best and we'd love to see them go away. Modern Warfare 1 was great, moving the setting out of WWII and achieving a satisfying balance of story and difficult gameplay. MW2 and beyond have been slush and anyone saying different is just as bad as a Cloud fanboy wanking about how awesome Advent Children was.

Thank god I'm not the only one who thinks this. I wouldn't even call MW2 mindless entertainment since that would be a grave insult to the world "entertainment."

[Velhart]

Whenever I see a sequel, I ask myself why some needed sequels to begin with. FFX-2 is a perfect example for this. FFX ended perfectly not needing a sequel at all, and some how they thought it was necessary to ruin such a great ending FFX had, kind of ruins it knowing that Tidus just comes back at the end of the sequel.

[What?]

pathwriter, on 13 February 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

Making a sequel doesn't necessarily equate to stagnation, it just has a worrying habit of causing stagnation.

I agree of course, but in the case of Other: M which bombed horribly I think they would have been a lot better off creating a game that felt stagnant but sold well instead of making what they did in an effort to stave it off. Fan reponse being more like "It's alright, it's a bit more of the same" rather than "It's the worst game I've ever played, avoid like the plaque", not to mention the first case would have sold a hell of a lot better while having a more positive aura surrounding it. I think players and developers are putting too much emphasis on trying to innovate and change things up when it's not really needed, players don't care as much as they'd like you to believe and it's too risky. I think between XII and XIII there's been far more players turned off by the Final Fantasy franchise almost entirely because of what they've been trying to do with it than there would have been if they made two games similar to X and people then lost interest due to stagnation.

I don't know if I'm following you correctly, but you're saying people playing Final Fantasy games place more emphasis on it's story before gameplay? If that is the case then yeah I think that's true. But I feel like XIII, unlike XII, got that part right. When XII is brought up I usually hear complaints about the story first with "Plays like an offline MMO" and other gameplay issues second, whereas with XIII story complaints usually came up well after gameplay concerns from what I've read. Battle system being mash X to win, no minigames or towns, linear 20 hour tutorial before the real game starts, no exploration and all that were at the forefront of complaints. Not that that's unusual, even if story was the main draw and it satisfied a lot of people it's easy to see how other parts of the game were so offensive a person would want to complain and try to steer people away. I think XIIIs story was more or less the sort of thing fans were expecting (aside from the fact people thought there was no main villan and you had to read through data logs to understand terms and backstory), seemed to me it was more typical Final Fantasy-esque whereas XII was more of a departure from what people were used to.

pathwriter, on 13 February 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

Square-Enix, on the other hand, has been completely blind to the fact that most people would be content to just see Final Fantasy VII redone with a new story (not even related to the setting, I just mean they need to stop making obtuse and unpleasant changes to the meta-game).

I only came across this yesterday, but since Final Fantasy I the sales of each subsequent entry were increasing over the previous game up until Final Fantasy VIII. Final Fantasy IX was the first game to go into a decline and they've been declining since. It's possible they wanted to stave off the decline by making the changes they've been doing until now (possibly a reason why XIV was fucking with stuff that worked fine previously, maybe), which makes sense but as we all know it just isn't working. When looking at games like Agito/Type-0, Crystal Chronicles and Dissidia we know the capacity for them to branch out into brand new franchises to facilitate new gameplay is there, so I'm thinking XII and XIII were desperate attempts to try and keep Final Fantasty game sales increasing after each entry rather than decreasing which they probably felt was inevitable on the same path as X.

pathwriter, on 13 February 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

Mario Galaxy 2, on the other hand, was fun. It's easier to criticize, though, because it is single-player and cartoonish, so one feels less threatened by knocking it. It could have been called an expansion pack, but Galaxy players wanted an expansion pack, so what the hell? If the worst criticism one can level is, "This is just like the previous game that was really good..." then the game is doing ok. It does pay to remember that nerds automatically complain.

I was mainly trying to point out that I felt setting seems to be the most important differentiator between two games for a lot of people and the first thing people noticed and criticised about Galaxy 2 was it had a similar setting to the first, somehow meaning it was an expansion pack. I can't think of any other sequel that was labeled as an expansion pack more often than Galaxy 2. Even Sonic Colours was called a Galaxy rip off because it was in set space, nevermind the fact Sonic was jumping around in space before Mario was. Did people see similarities between Galaxy and Colours in gameplay? The only similarities were Colours and Galaxy had 3D segments and 2D segments you could switch between in the same stage and power-ups, even though neither of those is new to Colours. I never saw someone mention Colours was a Galaxy rip off based on it's similar gameplay, because for the most part it isn't similar. But it's set in space so that makes it a rip off, I guess.

True point about the cartoonish aspect making it easier for people to knock on, maybe setting isn't that important in differentiation between games for people as I think it might be, seeing as most of the games I like fall under being more cartoonish and colourful than most. I don't pay much attention to FPS games but even if they have similar settings they might avoid being called expansion packs as often due to how much of a gaming site's demographic consists of FPS players

[pathwriter]

I think the big problem for Mario Galaxy 2 is simply that it is... Mario Galaxy TWO. The Mario franchise, which has always been a pretty predictable platformer with various power-ups, a dragon, and a princess, has avoided numbers after its titles for 20 years. I think it's just a psychological thing where adding that number flips a switch in people's brains about how to respond to it, whereas calling it Mario Odyssey or whatever would've forestalled a lot of those flimsy complaints.

Also, it is a Mario game. Mario games (and any other core franchise) tend to get huge coverage from the gaming media and gamers who are online (that is, all gamers, basically) tend to pay more attention when a huge franchise title is due. That's why people get so disappointed with each new Final Fantasy, because the fervor keeps building out of control on the internet and even if the game is good (I thought FFXII was great and FFIX is one of the best in the franchise), it simply can't live up to the hype monster that has grown around it. The sheer amount of press surrounding Mario Galaxy 2 coupled with it being a blatant sequel that was really more of the same created a perfect storm for the sarcastic reviewers to scream, "It's just an expansion pack but they expect us to pay $60 for it!" Disregarding that I've paid that much for many expansion packs in the past, as I come to think of it. Really, if you need a barometer of what the perpetual whiners will think, the ones who don't have an original thought and never have anything good to say except about their one specific pet franchise, just watch Zero Punctuation reviews. I think they're hilarious, but I know that a huge proportion of the internet latches onto Yahtzee's very limited and very biased opinions and repeats them ad nauseum.

[Velhart]

Hah Yahtzee.

He did bring up a pretty good point about the Mario series. It has been to the Mushroom Kingdom, around the world, and then into space. Where is there to go next?

I am going to tell you the truth, I am glad that SE is trying out something new with the Final Fantasy's now-a-days. I really hate the term "Have to listen to the people.". While yes, some personal feedback should be considered, I wouldn't let it tamper your vision at all, unless it's an MMO, which is a long term game. I always looked at video games as art despite what Roger Ebert thinks. It's one's way of expressing their ideas and their creativity to the public, and as art, you either enjoy it, or you don't. If we do nothing but give people what they want, how do we break the mold and create new standards? If we did nothing but listen to the people, we wouldn't of had games like Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock which have helped change how games have become today.

So I would not be quick to jump into the idea necessarily that developers need to listen to the people to make a good game. This type of thinking is what holds creativity back and gaming will never progress like this. I love my retro games, but I also believe in wanting something new. Sure some ideas from developers are a major miss, but at least they are trying to move forward instead of hitting a brick wall, which sometimes they hit anyways.

If my thoughts sound confusing and poorly written out, I am kind of drunk typing this.

[What?]

Velhart, on 15 February 2011 - 10:57 PM, said:

So I would not be quick to jump into the idea necessarily that developers need to listen to the people to make a good game.

I agree with everything you've said, but when it comes to bad developers they really do need to listen to other people when making games so they don't put out a piece of shit. Good developers can listen to no one and put out the best games ever made because they're simply good at what they do, they get what makes a good game. The developers who are good should be given all the freedom in the world, I only suggest the bad ones need to listen to others to pick up where they fail. I wouldn't suggest Miyamoto needs to listen to fan feedback or other developers because the man knows how to make games, and he's as free as a bird because of it, which is how it should be. But some of the shitty developers have too much freedom and ruin projects because of it, all of the ideas Sakamoto pushed hard for in Other: M are the ones that are ridiculed and derided the most.
Hate to bring up XIV again but Tanaka needed to listen to people because he was useless, everything he thought was good was in reality a pile of shit. Yoshida on the other hand has shown he at least has some idea of what it takes to make a decent game (from interviews, not so much the updates up until now) so I'd be willing to give him a lot more freedom to create what he wants, knowing he won't fuck up basic things.
It's really all about reigning in the awful developers from shitting all over the project. The worse you are the more help you're going to need from other people, either from other developers or from player feedback. Really bad ones need a lot of feedback because they haven't a clue how to make a good game, really good ones won't need feedback because they'll already know exactly what will satisfy fans and make an innovative game at the same time, because if you're going to try and truly innovate fan feedback won't even help you that much.

XII really was great but for the people waiting so long for it to come out to get something radically different to what they were used to, it's understandable why so many hate it. I never fall into the hype, especially with games that take far too long to eventually come out (certain people thinking that somehow waiting 5+ years will make it the best game they've ever played, or even just above average simply because it's been in development for so long, poor saps) so I've never really been majorly disappointed by any game, which is why I can say I enjoyed many games a lot of people label as the "worst game ever". It seems SE now knows games taking so long to make is hurting them but we'll probably never see a game like XII in terms of gameplay or story again, lame.

[pathwriter]

Velhart, on 15 February 2011 - 10:57 PM, said:

I always looked at video games as art despite what Roger Ebert thinks.

Much as I hate to defend the useless little toad, I think you may need to re-read and get a deeper handle on exactly what Captain Cancer-Jaw was trying to say. It's worth noting that when he got started on his little pet career, it was the opinion of the art world at large that film, especially commercial cinema, was not art. He has spent decades fighting to dissuade that notion but I have found that I am more and more leaning towards the, "No, it's not art," side even as our culture in general has long since accepted that cinema is art. The big objection to be made is that, like video games (and this is a crux of his arguments), it is created by and, more importantly, ruined by many hands. What the screenwriter or director envisioned is rarely what arrives on the silver screen. Compare the theatrical release of Watchmen to either the director's cut or the graphic novel to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Frankly, everything we're complaining about in terms of games, especially games like Other M, is a direct result of the whole "design by committee" problem. If we let the idiot in charge of turning Samus Aran into a whimpering, ineffectual slug who inexplicably strips naked for her death animation be the sole producer of Other M, we might get a unified product that could actually be called "art." Specifically, it'd be called "bad art" and would likely earn a few choice descriptors like "derivative pap," "juvenile misappropriation," and "inexcusable garbage," but it'd still get to be filed in the same bin that we put other trash forms of art. As it is, instead, a bad mash-up of the talents of several good developers with the puked-up direction of several terrible developers, it has great difficulty being legitimately called "art." Contrast with something like Braid, which still has a lot of weak points (the entire plot, for instance), but manages to come a lot closer to art. Of course, by these kinds of definitions, Schindler's List isn't art. That statement doesn't bother me in the slightest.