Yasumi Matsuno General

[Anonymous No.6348965]

>When you’re just trying to replay your favorite game.

[Anonymous No.6348979]

Really terrible designer. Accidentally made a good game with FFT and that’s only because he had Sakguchi and other more talented staff at Squre to keep his bad ideas from getting out of hand. Surprised they managed to salvage FFXII into something playable unlike the disaster that is Vagrant Story!

[Anonymous No.6349035]

>>6348979

I’m inclined to agree with you at face value. His games have a lot of “black box” systems that are in a traditionalist sense objectively bad game design. A lot of the systems are irritatingly obtuse and not intuitive. And yet, I love his games.

Over time my opinion on the above has changed. Who is to say you should have direct and absolute control over the finite systems of a game? When you allow that, you put players at odds with the world you’ve created as they’re more so gaming the systems and focusing on the mechanics. Matsuno’s games operate at level that bars the players entry from such clarity and insight. This frames the players experience accordingly.

It’s rather similar to how the Pokémon games handle their hidden systems (albeit to a lesser efficacy). You don’t ~really~ need to know how they work, in detail, in order to play the game. It’s rather frustrating at times to attempt interacting them when such systems aren’t even acknowledged let alone documented. But it’s certainly more interesting than initially presumed.

[Anonymous No.6349091]

>>6349035
I recall playing Vagrant Story a few years back and enjoying it for a few hours. I think I eventually hit a limit of patience at the time when I got to a boss and had to run around in circles doing six damage at a time.
The way you've described it as having "black boxes" seems apt. I attempted some of the weapon crafting when it became available but it did little to affect combat. I've also heard that there is a lot of missable stuff or that if you're careful you can create a "perfect" save file. Can you provide a high level explanation of the sort of obtuse steps you need to take to really succeed at the game? How much of it is from the game providing tiny details and how much of it is community trial and error?

[Anonymous No.6349094]

>>6348979
Yasumi Matsuno had a lot of freedom working on FFT and lot of the reason that game was good was because of Matsuno, he didn't accidentally make a good game, he already proved he could make Tactics games when he made Tactics Ogre. FFXII is great, but I actually do desire to know what the original vision for the game was, at least the story probably would've been better.

[Anonymous No.6349106]

>>6349091
>Can you provide a high level explanation of the sort of obtuse steps you need to take to really succeed at the game?
not that guy but when you get a new weapon you have to raise it's PP to max, otherwise it will be useless. Only a weapon with full DP and PP is good which is why you should always have Temper and Instill as your chain abilities
It also has to be the right type (blunt/edged/piercing) for the body part you're hitting, which means grips are the most valuable piece of equipment in the game
elemental gems + corresponding fusion spell will kill anything. Fusion spells > Prostasia

or you could just spam raging ache at low hp if you're lazy

[Anonymous No.6349208]

>>6348965
I've always wanted to try out Vagrant Story but it seems and sounds too short. The entire game is only 100 MB, and it all takes place within 24 hours underneath a single city? Can't possibly be that long.

[Anonymous No.6349220]

>>6348965
It's a shame he didn't finish FFXII. It would have been a really good game if he didn't leave after a year.

[Anonymous No.6349224]

>>6349208
This is one of the dumbest posts i've read on here in a while.

[Anonymous No.6349252]

>>6349224
So I'm guessing that means it's long enough? I don't want something I can blaze through in under 3 hours like a Metroid.

[Anonymous No.6349272]

I've tried Vagrant Story three times and always left it unfinished. Great visuals and worldbuilding but boring as hell

[Anonymous No.6349298]

>>6348965
The man has good ideas, but always ships them with poor gameplay mechanics.
Vagrant Story struck me as an ambitious game for its time, that would be mind-blowing if it were revisited or at least using some of its features like 3D platforming, weapon attributes, forging, etc.

[Anonymous No.6349375]

>>6349094

This guy did a pretty okay job with explaining some of the tl-dr bulletpoint concepts for “winning” at Vagrant Story.

>>6349106

Truth is that the game is a struggle. That’s one of its motifs. Imbuing your weapons with elemental affinities and the right gems can go a long way in helping avoid the trap of doing no damage and chaining your way to victory with raging ache and impact blow ad naseum inbetween opening to menu to lower your risk. You don’t really want to chain higher than 8 as the increases to your risk become too steep. Hell, I just got done fighting a dragon where none of my weapons did any damage and was able to brute force it. It wasn’t pretty. But when push comes to shove it’ll get you through.

I’m gonna have to hit up a speedrun to see what kind of strats they utilize. I adore Vagrant Story, but its still a bit of a horses ass.

It’s plainly a flawed game that needs a revision or mod to draw out its actual potential. There’s a dude who did an extremely comprehensive rebalance for the Tactics Ogre remake called “One Vision” that puts things in line for how you “think” it should all work. It’s the kind of thing you’d likely get if it were released today in the modern gaming landscape and feedback gave way to patches.

[Anonymous No.6349378]

>>6349252
Go play fortnite or wow retard

[Anonymous No.6349394]

>>6349252

Oi oi. Don’t get discouraged by the elitism from others. It’s a very compact game and it’s black magick that it takes up so little space. Its smaller-scale gives way to an intimacy not found in other games. It doesn’t feel cheap. It’s very well crafted with masterful art direction and cinematography that’s unrivaled even today.

An average playthru will take you about 20 hours. Replays will take significantly less, as it’s map structure is fundamentally similar to Metroid and you will carry most of your items from your previous playthru.

[Anonymous No.6349429]

>>6349394
>Those cheeks
What did Akihiko Yoshida mean by this?

[Anonymous No.6349438]

>>6349429
>>6349394
I'm only just now aware that he clearly likes drawing man ass

[Anonymous No.6349793]

Fuck.

Another boss fight where I’m doing zero initial damage, even after spending some time at the workshop to make three different types of Hoplite-grade weapons?

TFW you should’ve spent time killing more lizards.

I’m one of Vagrant Story’s biggest fans and I’m feeling rather over this shit.

[Anonymous No.6349810]

>>6349793
That's what chaining is for.

[Anonymous No.6349856]

>>6349810

I know, but I’d rather not chain every single boss to death from 0.

Seems that the water imbue spell was in the room over that is skipped before fighting the fire djinn. So that kind of sucks.

[Anonymous No.6349968]

>>6349438
What's with the butt leather? Did he have a bad prison experiance?

[Anonymous No.6349995]

>>6349106
>or you could just spam raging ache at low hp if you're lazy
This is the most based playstyle, instead of switching between menus feeling like a fucking retard who's wasting his time, you just play a high risk rhythm game

[Anonymous No.6350021]

>>6348965
Matsuno is one of my favourite designers, but his designs always have one terrible flaw. And he doesn't seem to know about it or try fixing it.

Matsuno games are very complicated and cryptic. That's not a problem in itself. But he always does this thing where you can never know about these mechanics and still win, BUT in the process the game becomes tedious as FUCK. The worst part is that many players think that's just how it is. Tedious.

Vagrant Story is one of the worst examples of this. Ashley is harder to manage than your whole army in FFT/TO, which is fucking amazing. The hilt of your sword has more meaningful stats than Holy Knight Agrias, and I'm not exaggerating. It's allf reaking great. But there's the chain system that led many players to believe it's some kind of god-awful rhythm game. The worst part is you can beat it as a rhythm game. It's a miserable experience, but you can beat it this way. Many never learn better and don't even understand what people mean when they're told that they're playing it wrong (which admittedly sounds elitist rather than helpful). Guys, you are not supposed to chain unless you expect the boss to die at the end of the chain. You are not supposed to chain a million times to deal this string of 0-0-1-0-2-0-3-1-4-2-5-3-etc. damage. The problem is, you can. And it's horribly dull..

And the worst part about Matsuno's designs is that his games actually seem to lead the player to the wrong ways of playing them. The actual mechanics are obscured and the irrelevant ones are seemingly emphasized.

[Anonymous No.6350025]

>>6350021
Case in fucking point: >>6349995

[Anonymous No.6350173]

>>6349793
what boss?

[Anonymous No.6350201]

>>6350025
But I am well aware that the game expects me to dig through menus looking at weapon component stats, keep risk low and switch between gear for the right encounter to keep damage decent. The problem? It's not fucking fun, it's just a lot of tedious busywork which is made even worse by the slow menus. At least playing it as a rhythm game has some timing challenge to it, otherwise it really does feel like a chore where you match the right stats instead of actually thinking strategically. It's an example of a game that prioritizes complexity over depth and fun, instead of trying to get a lot out of every mechanic, it gets very little out of a lot of mechanics.

[Anonymous No.6350210]

>>6349793
Someone should just patch cutscenes and visuals from Vagrant Story into an Ys game or perhaps Xanadu Next.

[Anonymous No.6350216]

>>6350201
Stats management may not be fun to many people, but chaining in VS is not fun to anyone. Admit that you start the game and quit around the time you meet lizardmen or at most around the golem boss because chaining is an awful experience.

[Anonymous No.6350231]

>>6350216
Close but not quite, I made it quite a bit past the dragon in the woods before asking myself wtf Im doing with my life since the fights started dragging on for what must have been 10 minutes

[Anonymous No.6350257]

>>6350231
That's right, and my point is that it's the game's fault that it fails to communicate how to play in an enjoyable way and even leads you to play in the most boring way possible. Happens with most Matsuno games. Ogre Battle had this problem right from the start too: it made total sense to attack everyone with the strongest team, boring as it is, and even if you realized that your "alignment" hit the bottom you wouldn't think much of it because you're apparently winning anyway, right?

[Anonymous No.6350386]

Did the Japanese version of Tactics Ogre have voice acting, little off topic but I'm wondering if this video was fan made or not.

https://youtu.be/ajdhua6HMCs

[Anonymous No.6350463]

>>6349035
>objectively bad game design
This doesn't exist now fuck off.
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.6350469]

>>6350386
I googled and there's voice acting in the Saturn port.

[Anonymous No.6350470]

>>6349378
Go play with yourself you fucking wanker

[Anonymous No.6350480]

Matsuno makes the same story in every one of his games; set up some intricate political polt with multiple people/factions with differing motivations, then halfway through drop it all in favor of "lol, demons".

[Anonymous No.6350487]

>>6350469
Damn, that makes me wish there was English voice acting, probably would've fucked it up, but I always tried to image what sorta fantasy anglo voices they probably had.

[Anonymous No.6350496]

>>6350487
Imagine "animals have no god" grade stuff but also voiced. Matsuno games aren't cheesy enough for this kind of stuff to be properly enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.6350559]

>>6349438
>>6349429

[Anonymous No.6350583]

>>6349208
>100 MB
unpack your archive perhaps

[Anonymous No.6350643]

>>6350480
>set up some intricate political polt with multiple people/factions with differing motivations, then halfway through drop it all in favor of "lol, demons".
so just like the real world then

[Anonymous No.6350647]

There is a way to play Vagrant Story and not being a constant raging ache (pun not intended). But you have to die at least once to the boss in the early game. The type of blade is where the money is at. A club is effective against the golem for example. And make use of elemental affinities. It's not very menu heavy way to play. Plus when you get analyze, you achieve full understanding on how to deal with the enemy. Given that you realize that you have to go to the menu after casting to access the information you are given.

[Anonymous No.6350648]

>>6350647
What I mean to say is that the game rewards proper preparation. But it requires the player to stop and think and not just experiment in the workshop

[Anonymous No.6350676]

Now regarding matsuno. I really like his storytelling, direction and ambition. The games are always at least interesting in the worst times and secret masterpieces at the best. Ff12 showed that he and hiroyuki ito can make a great potential at putting a great game if squeenix don't interfere with the development. If they could team together again and make a game with a smaller scope I have no doubt that it would be a game worth talking about for years. FF12 was a testament of that, it's a game that the normalfags couldn't appreciate well at the time of release. And a decade later the remastered version was a complete success. FFT and TO are timeless classics and sit at the top of TRPG. And Vagrant Story is an ambition project made with a lot of love and freedom from a time where devs cared about creating a game they like and not just branding.

[Anonymous No.6350832]

>>6350463

You’re the type of wanker that would enjoy playing Desert Bus because AlL gAmE dEsIgN iS sUbJeCtIvE

[Anonymous No.6350865]

>>6350832
>>>/v/
>>>twitter.com

[Anonymous No.6351471]

>>6350865

>derailing conversation and overcompensating for your insecurities

[Anonymous No.6351487]

>>6350559
It all makes sense now...

[Anonymous No.6351512]

>>6348965
Playing Vagrant Story for the first time right now. Currently in the Limestone Quarry. Took me about 10 hours to 'get' the game and its obtuse crafting system but now I'm having an absolute blast.

[Anonymous No.6351516]

>>6349793
If you keep your weapons up to date with both materials and types, have blunt/edge/piercing alternatives ready and gems on the ready for the right enemy type you can always do damage if you buff yourself properly.

[Anonymous No.6351526]

>>6350021
>Guys, you are not supposed to chain unless you expect the boss to die at the end of the chain.

Not really, chaining is good way to evade enemy attacks that might really hurt you. Like being up against an enemy with an big damage elemental attack without proper equipment to survive an attack. There are enough items to lower risk if necessary.

[Anonymous No.6351560]

>>6349252
You don't want to waste your time with a game that won't waste a lot of your time?

[Anonymous No.6351565]

>>6349094
>at least the story probably would've been better.

Based on his other games, that is entirely unlikely. I've played FFT, Tactics Ogre, both Ogre Battles, and FF12, and I honestly couldn't tell you what makes the story any different in any of them.

[Anonymous No.6351571]

>>6350463
Play more video games faggot

[Anonymous No.6351574]

>>6350583
the full iso is really just 66 megs or something

[Anonymous No.6351636]

>>6350643

Based post.

[Anonymous No.6351663]

>>6350463
>>6350865
>all gamedesign is good

[Anonymous No.6351708]

>>6351574
the image is like 730mb or so, it's just compressible like a motherfucker.

[Anonymous No.6351717]

>>6350643
What movie is this?

[Anonymous No.6351727]

>>6351717
reverse image-search is a thing

[Anonymous No.6351728]

>>6351717
>movie
oh anon

[Anonymous No.6351731]

>To go back a bit, after we finished Ogre Battle, Quest was experiencing a staff shortage, and I had to do the user support by myself. People would call in and say stuff like, “This game doesn’t make any sense! Who’s responsible for this mess?! Put him on the line!” and I’d respond, “Ah, I’m sorry, that would be me.” (laughs) In this way, for 4 long months
http://shmuplations.com/vagrantstory/

[Anonymous No.6351791]

>>6351731

I love this kind of stuff. And I love his humility. Thanks for sharing, anon.

It’s a miracle that FF12 turned out the way it did what with Matsuno AND Kawazu onboard.

[Anonymous No.6352253]

Snowfly Forest is still ass. But bosses are going down a lot faster. I’d never taken down the GIANT ENEMY CRAB as fast as I have in this playthru. #420 #blunt

[Anonymous No.6352273]

>>6351717
bohemian grove ritual

[Anonymous No.6353307]

>>6351471
>WAAAHHHHH LET ME SHITPOST WAAAAAHHHH
Fuck off.
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.6353418]

How much do you like stacking boxes?

[Anonymous No.6353430]

I suffered in this game until I got access to buff spells, those really helped me get through shit without extreme optimization of my weapons.

[Anonymous No.6353440]

>>6351708
Untrimmed CD images are always 700 mb because there's garbage data put there to push useful data to the physical edges of the disc. Because read speeds are faster towards the edges of the disc as opposed to the middle of the disc.

[Anonymous No.6353445]

>>6349208
The game is about 20 hours long on average.
What the fuck does the disc image size have to do with the game's fucking length, though?

[Anonymous No.6353539]

I was really digging Vagrant Story, but it's just way too much. If I was a kid I would be all over this shit, but between a 9-5 and life shit it's hard to make time for it consistently without having a massive break. Breaks were I end up forgetting where I was at, all the things I need to backtrack to, and how my shit is setup. Then I spend the majority of the time I picked it up just trying to get back into it. Maybe if you could write notes on the map (I haven't figured out how to do this) like in other massive games it wouldn't be such an issue.

[Anonymous No.6353558]

>>6353539
Yeah, VS gets really tiresome after a while.

[Anonymous No.6353569]

>>6353558
If I could sit down for a week straight and knock it out it'd be fine.

[Anonymous No.6353585]

>>6353569
My schedule allows me to do that and I still always quit 5-6 hours in at most.

[Anonymous No.6353626]

I sat down and played Vagrant Story from start to finish about a year ago, I used no guides and no outside reference materials outside of the manual.

I loved it from start to finish. It doesn't have convenience features and the entire combat system expects you to read optional tutorials, and I understand how that makes it frustrating for players like >>6353539 who are playing it over a long period of time.

but it's so refreshing when a game gives you everything you need to succeed, it just assumes you read the tutorials, it just assumes you understand and comprehend the story without dumbing it down. this is the kind of game that doesn't get made any more, precisely because it doesn't fuck around and assumes that you are a very seasoned gamer. it's like savoring very fine dining, matsuno is a god

[Anonymous No.6353696]

>>6350480
vagrant story doesn't really do that, the antagonists are other shitty humans

[Anonymous No.6353698]

>>6349035
>You don’t ~really~ need to know how they work, in detail, in order to play the game.

every time somebody says they do single digit damage numbers in vagrant story it means they didn't read the optional tutorial, so yeah, you kind of do

[Anonymous No.6354593]

Funny how people on this board will complain about the obscure and obfuscated mechanics in Matsuno's games and then cream themselves over SaGa.

[Anonymous No.6354602]

>>6354593
They are different people

[Anonymous No.6354609]

What happened? I remember a couple of years ago when if anybody insinuated that VS was less than a perfect game, he would get bombarded by tens of autists insulting his taste. Now most posters seems to agree it's a flawed game.

[Anonymous No.6354740]

>>6354609
No forum or board tolerates high praise for this game. Say anything and some low iq retard would come out of the woodwork and say
>Le 0 DaMaGe MeNu Hurrrr, HoW Kill EnEmIeS Game BaD

[Anonymous No.6354749]

>>6350021
>filtering plebs is a flaw

[Anonymous No.6354949]

>>6353698

I just realized that i misremembered how affinities for monster types work. I was killing foot soldiers for a good half hour wondering why the weapon wasn’t getting any better, when I decided to actually look it up.

Evil > Human > Beast > Undead > Phantom > Dragon > Evil

Oops!

Granted all this information exists within the in-game compendium. I can’t fault people for overlooking it! It’s a core part of the game.

I also can’t blame people because the descriptions of gems are misleading! If you use a gem that gives you a bunch of affinity for Evil, it says it’s effective against Evil which isn’t the case. The idea works in concert with PP (storing dark energies) and the elemental affinities which make more sense at face value. Through killing a lot of humans, you weapon will absorb that “energy” which, counterintuitively, doesn’t make it effective against humans.

Blunt, Piercing, Slashing is a little more hazy as it varies from enemy to enemy. You have a general rule of thumb that you can apply. Analyze can unfortunately fail. And the beastiary is several menu actions away from the flow of battle.

Elementals are pretty easy to grok. Light opposes Dark. Air opposes Earth. Water opposes Fire. Physical is above them all. But your weapon such gain affinities rather haphazardly depending on who you fight and the game will only apply the strongest affinity. Meaning if you kill to many enemies of a certain type you just might end up making the weapon you were using suddenly useless.

[Anonymous No.6354959]

>>6354949

Sorry for the broken English, I was phone posting.

[Anonymous No.6355026]

>>6354949
>I also can’t blame people because the descriptions of gems are misleading! If you use a gem that gives you a bunch of affinity for Evil, it says it’s effective against Evil which isn’t the case
Could this be translation issue?

[Anonymous No.6355239]

>>6355026

It is. Contextually, it’s the only time the game really addresses how these values work and it’s regretfully not true. It should’ve been addressed a ~little~ more formally within the context of the game. I’m not asking for heavyhanded tutorials. But I don’t think it should be sequestered into a menu within a menu.