/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4736190

I miss that output they had in the PS1 era. I know production costs have gone up but fuck me 10 years for one final fantasy is a bit much, innit?

>>4736207
They don’t even make their games anymore they are outsourcing everything.

>>4736190
Square was the name of the company, while Squaresoft was the name of their North American subsidary.

Being nostalgic over "Squaresoft" is the equivalent of being nostalgic over "Capcom of America".

>>4736190
>Miss me yet?
yeah, i do, i do.

>>4736215
do you want me to tell you how i know you don't have any friends?

>>4736215
Funny enough they didn't adopt the squaresoft label until the mid snes era. Something to do with regional copywrite.

Like no words can humanly describe

I want the old Square back!

I was never a big fan of the main Final Fantasy titles as a whole, they always had more interesting games than FF in every single generation.
In that sense, I don't see much difference between Squaresoft and Square-Enix, shame they are burning resources in games no one asked for though.

>>4736207
The PS1 era is when the first cracks began to show. Vagrant Story taught me they weren't infallible and in fact COULD do wrong.

>>4736190
Yes but I'm good rn playing the titles I never got to earlier like Front Mission II

>>4736265
Yet most of their legendary games are from the PS1 era while everything they do now focuses on graphics while largely being forgettable.

And all they can do is remaster classics while remaking FF7 because the fucking millenials just won't get off of it being an old game and want it to be new and altered to their standards.

>>4736265

The fuck are you talking about. Vagrant Story had it's flaws but was great. Mid to late 90s Square was Square at it's most experimental and most creative and most willing to take chances. There was never a better time for them.

>>4736273
Millenials are 37 years old right now

>>4736274
Mid-to-late 90s actross the board was known as the golden age for a reason, where almost every genre outside of arcade was still new, there were countless devs willing to try anything ten times, and we had a much larger selection of choices than we do now.

Then companies started merging or getting bought out by bigger ones, and both creativity and selection took a hard nose-dive.

>>4736274
>the Virgin Eve
>the Chad Bronzo

squaresoft era was great because that's when nomura was a top tier character designer and not a shit tier producer/director

asshole

>>4736273
The FF7 Remake is never coming out

>>4736278
The oldest a millennial can be at this point is actually 36, but I get your point.

>>4736305
It will.

The second-to-last time we saw this was the PS3 "exclusive" FF13 which quickly became Xbox 360 too (while adding over a year to its development).

Then the last time we saw it was with the PS3 "exclusive" FF13Versus, which got re-named FF15 and made for Xbone (while adding well over a year to development).

What the slow time means is MS just threw around the cash to rape away another Sony exclusive. And Squeenix will compensate for it by giving a placeholder-exclusive in the form of another re-re-release of a classic game; who knows maybe this time we'll get that HD remake of Chocobo Racing now.

>>4736345
Final Fantasy VII was marketed as "play first on PS4" from the start, it was never an exclusive.

>>4736294
He apparently threw this together in a single afternoon.

>>4736265
Your mother warned me about you...

>>4736245
This, I will never understand why people wank the "old" FF so much when they're just as mediocre as the new ones, and suffer from the same kind of flaws, Square's true gems always were in the other games and in that sense not much has changed now outside of lower output.

>>4736367
Sorry, champ, but your childhood wasn't perfect. Someone has to break the cold truth to ya.

>>4736229
That's just FF14, it has the faggiest playerbase, worse than WoW. It's literally a tranny safespace too. FF11 was never like this.

>>4736372
I dunno, I liked FF6 more than CT

>>4736190
Einhänder was alright. Their JRPGs belong in the trash, though.

>>4736389
XI arguably had subligars, but no one in their right mind jerked off to those.

Vagrant Story
Parasite Eve
FF 2/3/7
>do I?
yes mam

>>4736283
>where almost every genre outside of arcade was still new

Even the Arcade was firing on all cylinders in terms of quality games

>>4736357

Nomura's issues where never one of talent, man can draw. His problem is he needs that someone over his shoulder keeping his feet on the ground so we don't get belts and jock strap hats

>>4736190
no lol. I'm not a faggot that ever liked faggot RPGs because I'm not a faggot. RPGs are for fucking faggots and you should kys faggot OP.

>>4736372
>suffer from the same kind of flaws
But they don't.

The new games suffer from overwrought grandiosity. They try way too hard to be cool, sexy, and mindblowing while lacking the transcendent human touch that the Sakaguchi/Amano games had. Earlier FFs were adolescent in their cartoony dialog and pacing. Later FFs were adolescent in their fashion and pop culture consciousness.

The simple elegance of the classic turn-based battle systems has been lost, giving way to arbitrary complexity, MMO-style, or action-style combat. Maybe that's because those battle systems had nowhere interesting to go after the 16-bit era, but either way that means the flaws aren't the same.

>>4736190
Every day, old friend.
F.
>>4736265
VS is a flawed masterpiece. It's player hostile but once you get your head around it, it becomes utterly brilliant. It was the last good game they developed.

>>4736776
>flawed masterpiece
If it's flawed then it cannot be a masterpiece.

>>4736710
You tried so hard

>>4736779
Its an excellent game with the exception of the painful learning curve. Which is something you can get beyond and enjoy the game fully after you do.

>>4736779
bullshit. A flawed masterpiece means exactly that: a piece of work that undeniably stands apart from the rest, something incredible and one-of-a-kind. Yet, this piece still has objective flaws that smart people can identify and agree on.

>>4736265

>The PS1 era is when the first cracks began to show. Xenogears taught me they weren't infallible and in fact COULD do wrong.

ftfy

>>4736698
Hard to argue with slapping belts on everything when that's what brought him attention and recognition.
He draws the Statue of Gods and no-one says anything but then he designs Lulu and everyone can't wait to tell him how many times they jerked off thinking about her.

>>4736821
Well yeah that's the difference between classic Final Fantasy and New Final Fantasy. Classic Final Fantasy was for teenage nerds that wanted some serious, mature content but didn't mind a little fanservice here and there. New Final Fantasy is about jerking off to protagonists who dress for sex appeal.

Of course the latter is more popular so fans of the former get butthurt and resentful about it.

>>4736819
But I didn't play Xenogears.

Granted, I started RPGs with FFVII as a young lad. But Squaresoft had so many fucking bombshells you literally never had to buy JRPGs from another company. I mean there were fantastic JRPGs out there, but on my PSX I had:

FF VII, VIII, IX, Anthology
Valkyrie Profile
Legend of Dragoon
Brave Fencer Musashi
Front Mission 3
Final Fantasy Tactics
Chrono Cross
Suikoden
Vagrant Story
Xenogears
Wild Arms 2

And holy shit, I never even touched Legend of Mana, Grandia, Suikoden 2, etc. They were just a stellar fucking company. I miss them more with every passing day.

>>4736882
>Valkyrie Profile
>Legend of Dragoon
>Suikoden
>Wild Arms 2

Those are not from Square

>>4736832
So are we agreeing that Nomura is just reflecting what the fans want?

>>4736868

Congrats anon, you saved yourself pain.

>>4736821

There's a difference between an ostentatious statue that was the subject of worship and a party member who's supposed to traveling the world in a costume made out of belts

I haven't played SD3, Live a Live, or Secret of Evermore. Which should I go for first?

>>4736992
Help

>>4737038
Live A Live

>>4736992
Live a Live. Not only is it a unique experience, SD3 is the slowest ARPG ever and SoE is a Square of America game.

>>4737245

I have never been able to finish SD3.

>>4737249
I've finished it but I could never, ever go back to it. It's so slow that if I didn't know better I'd assume it was bugged, and the worst part is monsters and especially bosses have non-negligible HP on top of it so it's slow and tedious for well over half the game.

>>4737254

I wouldn't even call it SLOW so much as sluggish. It feels like there's a real delay when fighting and actually targeting feels clumsy.

>>4736894
Not really. Just saying "fans" ignores the distinction between fans of the old and fans of the new, which is the whole point.

You could argue that Nomura's fans make up a larger audience than Sakaguchi's fans, although you have to engage in a lot of speculation to make a fair comparison about the broad appeal of their style, given that Nomura owes his fame and popularity to Square in the first place. But yes I think it's safe to say that Nomura has been a commercial success for Square-Enix for both his Final Fantasy designs and Kingdom Hearts.

>>4736832
>Classic Final Fantasy was for teenage nerds that wanted some serious, mature content
Come on now.

>>4736190
More that you will ever know

>>4736190
More than you will ever know

>>4737245
>>4737249
>>4737254
>>4737274
Don't know what you're talking about. It has the same battle system as Secret of Mana but it's sped up a bit to be a lot more bearable.

>>4737523
The attacking is sped up a bit, but you start walking slowly when there's enemies around.

>>4737454
me too man

>>4737245
>SoE is a Square of America game.
Does that mean it's bad? I want to give it a shot, even if it wasn't made by nips

>>4738669
No it's better than 90% of jRPGs

>parasite eve 3 never ever
It still hurts

>>4738934
but...

>>4738940
but what?

>>4738943
your waifu is dead

>>4738958
you take that back!

>>4737419
Nice argument faggot.

Final Fantasy IV opens with the protagonist slaughtering innocent villagers and stealing their crystal. Near the end of the game's first act he has to face those villagers and prove himself. The story is sincere and serious, in spite of its simplicity.

Final Fantasy X opens with some random cosmic being obliterating reality and sending star athlete with daddy issues (played by Ryan Phillipe) back in time to meet jailbait, ingenue, and big-tits, up against a gay whose V-neck outfit extends to the crotch, which itself is covered in a gigantic bow. FFX oozes adolescent sexuality like a teen movie.

>>4739143
Having just re-played FFX, I can confirm this. I forgot how naked everyone was in that game.

>>4739152
Not that anon, but Lulu wasn't nearly naked enough. Yeah yeah, Teen-rated game yadda yadda.

>>4736294
FACT

>>4736896
Missed a masterpiece*

The old Square is part of an era in gaming where the developers haved the balls to make such dense and deep expiences into a game. Sadly, that era would never return.

>>4739143
I forgot how awful the characer designs in FFX was. Fuck Nomura, Seymour's design kills this plot twist as the antagonist

>>4739143
>Final Fantasy IV opens with the protagonist slaughtering innocent villagers and stealing their crystal.
Not really, FFIV opens with Cecil brooding like a faggot on his airship, all the slaughter you talk about is not shown in any way, in fact Mysidia is immaculate when you go back to it.
>The story is sincere and serious, in spite of its simplicity.
Oh yeah, really serious when it doesn't even have the balls to kill off the cast, like FFII did.

By the way, nice job in completely ignoring FFIV's own jaibait, bikini semen demons, half naked shaolin monks, beta ninjas and Star Wars ripoffs in general, I guess it's truly a lot more mature than FFX, is it?
But I guess Tidus' story of overcoming his inferiority complex and dealing with the fact he was going to die together with his father at the end of the journey or all the other problems with Auron, the Al Bhed in general or Kimahri totally do not count because of one midboss and a slightly less generic setting?
No wonder you FF fans are such a joke, you're so stuck in your ivory towers you can't even see how your pathetic series hasn't changed outside of a very superficial aesthetic level, you're so devoured by your own bile and fanboyism you refuse to enjoy the very same things you enjoyed in other games just because they look slightly different.

>>4739276
A handful of scantily clad wank material for enemies is a far cry from all the main characters (male and female) being overtly designed for sex appeal. Just because you fap to loli doesn't mean Rydia was designed for it.

> I guess Tidus' story of overcoming ... totally do not count
Learn to read, maybe then you'll appreciate the older games. I'm not dismissing anything, I had some great faps to FFX when I was a kid. I'm just saying the appeal is different. If you can't see how themes of sexuality pervade FFX more than any NES or SNES title I don't know what to say.

>>4737525
You're fighting the enemy in an ARPG enclosed area you don't have to walk fast

>>4736265
All those games like Legend of Mana, Parasite Eve, Threads of Fate, Vagrant Story and many more were a testament to Square's impressive creative capabilities. None of them were perfect, but that's what made them so good. The real time cinematics in Vagrant Story alone are a sight to behold, unmatched in their generation and dare i say, to this day.

>>4736190
I miss when square actually made video games.

i was wondering about FF16 recently. maybe they'll tease something at E3. just curious to see where they could be taking the franchise next.

i think they'll go steampunk again.

>>4739550
Here's hoping it's better then the abortion that was XV, fuck that car simulator DLC ridden bullshit.

>>4736190
I love when they were so big and the time were right of it with money and development time that they could publish a little of everything and always try to put rpg mechanics in crazy ways on it.
Tobal nº1 quest mode was a freaking roguelike.

>>4739553
i don't know, didn't touch a final fantasy after XII (which was great, thank you based matsuno). i have zero motivation to play any of the later offerings either, maybe except for lightning returns and some FF14. i heard lightning returns was rumored to be a repurposed valkyrie profile 3: hrist, and ff14 had that matsuno episode too.

anyway, i don't feel like playing most of those more recent games but i'm still kinda curious about FF16 just because it's a Big Thing, and Big Things are interesting for being Big Things. i watch most of the e3 conferences for the Big Thing moments and never play any of the games.

>>4739307
>from all the main characters (male and female) being overtly designed for sex appeal.
Just because you fap to furries or KKK members doesn't mean Kimahri or Wakka were designed for it.
>If you can't see how themes of sexuality pervade FFX more than any NES or SNES title I don't know what to say.
I can't, especially when you're so wilfully closing your eyes when it comes to the SNES titles own fanservice.

>>4739586
>and ff14 had that matsuno episode too.

it wasn't very good so you can probably do without it.

Matsuno was approached to write a special scenario for the game and offered to write an original story, but the game's producer specifically told him to instead just shove in FFT cameos and references into a self-contained 'raid'/dungeon then call it a day.

FF14 has a lot of ex-Quest developers/Ivalice guys but they only take the most superficial elements, implementing it all in shallow ways like it was some cheap crossover Ready Player One! shit.

The visuals for the game otherwise are fine, if not unfocused and just a grabbag of random FF aesthetics (it'll go from looking like semi-realistic middle-ages europe/persian FFXI to FFVIII futurism at a drop of a hat) but the storytelling leaves a lot to be desired, especially since so much of it focuses around a dry, mute custom protagonist.

>>4736357
Considering most of that final boss is just rips from classic works of art that already existed, that doesn't mean shit.

>>4736882
>"I started with FFVII"


AKA you were one of *those* faggots.

>>4739663
Kimahri isn't, but Wakka is.
> you're so wilfully closing your eyes
No you're just way too retarded to understand the difference between "primary vs secondary" and "all vs nothing"

>>4738669
SoE isn't a bad game, just don't expect a typical Square game. It's something different.

>>4740064
Also Vaan, Ashe, and Fran. (The fact that Vaan isn't actually sexy doesn't mean it isn't a blatantly obvious attempt). I'd give Penelo a pass on design alone, but the game/camera clearly treats her like a sex object.

FFXIII is a bit better but still Snow dresses like a pickup artist, Hope is bishonen, and Vanille and Fang are both tryhard sexy. The FFXV protagonists are boy band stereotypes.

The other thing the SNES games didn't do was "try really hard to blow your mind" Xenogears-style with a crazy complex setting, backstory, and plot. XIII is the worst in this regard but like the focus on sexuality, the trend started with FFVII and only got worse as time went on.

>>4740064
>but Wakka is.
I hope you are joking, which part of that pajama wearing moron is supposed to be sexualized exactly?
>No you're just way too retarded to understand the difference between "primary vs secondary"
Yeah bro, sure, older FF totally didn't have sexualized characters, no sir.

>>4736207
Snes Era was way better

>>4740212

No it wasn't. Snes had some great RPGs but Square was moving into non RPGs on the PS1. They where far more willing to try new and untested waters on the PS1

>>4740172
I liked Amano's Sarah artwork.

>>4736190
>OG Square is better than Square-Enix
Wow OP, what a fresh and unique idea, and a great topic for discussion to boot. Fucking kill yourself.

>>4739232
>haved the balls to make such dense and deep expiences
And yet you posted Xenogears which made zero sense coz they ran out of time and money to be able to finish it and edit the script. Meaning you have to read at least 2 external supplemental materials just to be able to get an idea of what happened,

>>4740130
VII only seems complicated due to its legendarily awful translation. It's actually not that hard to grasp excluding all the crappy spinoffs.

>>4739232
Yeah it takes real balls to blatantly rip off Evangelion

>>4740303
Xenogears's disc 2 is the half of the intended gameplay content, but that doesn't take the fact that the game is still deep and dense in content (due to disc 1 and the released part of disc 2). The supplement material it's just that, supplement material. It isn't like you have to watch a movie because the amine doesn't ended in a satisfactory way

>>4740342
You normies, Xenogears isn't a rip-off of Evangelion, the case here is that both works take inspiration of the same work (Ideon), but Eva kinda rips Ideon off, instead of taking it just as inspiration

>>4740295
He's still right tho.

>>4739227

Of a complete rip off of >>4740342

Gears sucked...let it go.

>>4740658
Gears has nothing in common with Eva outside of superficial religious imagery and the fact that they feature mechs. Gears was interested in our relationship with God while Eva was for losers who have a hard time connecting with other people

>>4741873

Anon, Saga and Takahashi were part of the team that was going to make FF VII/VIII. The original idea they had was to have a solider with PTSD wake up from cyro sleep after 500 years and come to find out that they were responsible for the planets devastation. They wanted to draw heavily from Gundam AND Eva. Fuck, Zeboim is basically the Geofront.

>>4739585
Fantastic collection!
>Threads of Fate
Literally just dropped $90 on a copy of that.

>>4736190
I prefer their 1980s logo

>>4736357
I call bullshit that looks like amano concept.

>>4739585
Nice collection. I had all of those games at one point but for some reason I didn't think twice about selling them back in the day.

>>4736710
Is there something you want to tell us, Anon?

>>4739852
>Matsuno was approached to write a special scenario for the game and offered to write an original story, but the game's producer specifically told him to instead just shove in FFT cameos and references into a self-contained 'raid'/dungeon then call it a day.
Fuck Yoshi-P, worthless hack

>>4736190
In the SNES days, my policy was you can't go wrong with their games. Everyone loved their games. However, I first felt the first crack in the armor with Final Fantasy 6 (3 US). I can't find the old Ogopogo Examiner newsletters they used to send out to me. I have them somewhere.

>>4739585
Honest thoughts on Brave Fencer Musashi

The last truly great Square game is Unlimited Saga.

It's experimental, beautiful to look at, amazing music. It's a late SNES game, but done on the PS2.

>>4748390
>best Square snes game is their first sign of faulter

What the fuck dude? It surpassed FF2(4) in every way.

Fuck Squeenix, I want my Einhänder back.

>>4736190
No! Your stories are shit! They seriously are abysmal!

>>4736357
so he drew the censored version first????

>>4736357
oh wait, that IS the uncensored version xD They even censored her more :D

>>4736190
Not particularly. Square was always a mid-tier developer and Final Fantasy was a fluke piggybacking off of the success of the superior Dragon Quest games

>>4748518
>It surpassed FF2(4) in every way.
Except for consistent game balance and focus on core gameplay. And while FF6 didn't have an item dupe bug like FF4, the evade bug is a really terrible glitch to have made it into a production game. Evade is an important, fundamental stat and works in a completely broken way.

FF6 is where they started adding "roleplay minigames" like memorizing opera lines, multiple choice dialogs at a banquet, and fishing on a deserted island. This stuff wasn't too bad as implemented in FF6. But because massive RP faggots jizzed all over these minor and reasonably tasteful additions, Square apparently decided more is better and every subsequent Final Fantasy game was crudded up with bullshit minigames and elaborate "interactive" cutscenes.

>>4749101
You're not even making any sense. Yes, 6 is easy, but 4 is fucking braindead, it's a game with no interesting abilities, literal cookie-cutter. It's surpassed handily by 2, 3, 4 and 5 in terms of actually giving your characters some abilities and unique traits. 4 also has a shitton of cutscenes and boring dialogue, a tiny overworld, no side-activities and shit gimmick bosses. And if you think the core battle system carries FF, you really need to wake up and smell the coffee — they're all pretty fucking mediocre. Your ridiculous strawman of some nebulous "RP faggots jizzing over" 6's set-pieces also sounds like projection.

>>4749130
Makes perfect sense to me. IV does more with its pool of spells, limited abilities, and characters that do nothing but attack than VI does with 13 separate character abilities, magic for everyone, and equipment setups that work differently. If you wanted to make the argument that V did gameplay better than IV, sure, I can get behind that pretty easily. But VI? Fuck that. VI is a lazy shitshow of bad design and I will never, ever accept it as better than IV from a gameplay standpoint.

>>4749156
Okay, who the fuck cares. IV's pool of abilities is tiny and most spells are completely useless, but do go on and believe into your own meme.

>>4749157
There are uses for every spell in the game. It's not the game's fault if you're a retard that doesn't recognize how and when to use them. Granted White magic tended to be quite situational which is why your main white mage also has the bow+arrow specialty.

Which abilities specifically make FF6 so much better?

FF6 has a bunch of abilities that are "single target, randomly selected." There's Dance and Rage. There's the "everyone jump" esper. Some abilities, like Quake and Merton, can hit everyone on the screen.

FF6 actually removes cast times from spells and dumbs down a lot of the standard content already there. In FF4, cast time on spells matters. Some spells fire quickly, others take longer. In FF6, spells are always instant unless you're double-casting with X-Magic.

FF6 relics are a great idea but the status-immunity game becomes very rock-paper-scissorsy. FF4 doesn't give an enemy a scary status ability unless the enemy is supposed to be scary. In FF6, a scary status ability (like that skeletal dragon that can zombie your characters) just means you need to buy and equip the right relic. Morbols are dangerous and memorable in FF4. By the time you meet one in FF6, you should have a bunch of Ribbons.

>>4749234
>By the time you meet one in FF6, you should have a bunch of Ribbons.
Or more likely you've killed or disabled it before it can move, just like nearly everything else you will ever face in a random encounter in VI.

>>4749130
>4 is surpassed by 4

>>4748482
The SaGa "team" is pretty much the only good, capable Square team left at Squenix nowadays, and even so a lot of old members like Koizumi or Kimura left Square since some time now.
Looking back, it's sad how most of the historic Square staff is gone now, the only true veterans remaining are Kitase and Kawazu by now, and Kitase is not interested in making games anymore.