[General Discussion] Your Opinion On Yasumi Matsuno

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Matsuno's work were always realistic. Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics both have their own flavor, and Vagrant Story is very stylized. And it still looks good today.

RotorBlade pretty much hit it dead on. Most of the releases he's created have been a great challenge, and are very open games that can be played differently each time. It's kind of a shame that Square kinda whored him out.

I hope those rumors of him working on the Wii are true. I read some where that he wasn't impressed by the Wii, but who knows. Ogre Battle is perfect for the DS and the Wii.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Quote:

Oh, Final Fantasy Tactics is definitely overrated on a gameplay standpoint. The time spent grinding in that game in the beginning to get to some level of efficiency is a gigantic strike against it.

I would disagree, but only to a certain point. The game is difficult at the beginning, when you're all a bunch of squabs barely fitting your armor. Later on when you get mid level skills and classes the game becomes incredibly easy. And then they give you Thunder God Cid and just ruin the difficulty.

But, I think that was intentional. By the time you get him the game is more about wrapping up the story line. Most of the game is out of the way by then, and only side quests and such are left to explore.

On another note, since I've been playing back through it I've found the game to be much easier than play throughs several years ago. I chalk that up to having a rather intimate understanding of the gameplay, knowing what classes work best where and how to be an efficient group of killers. Mainly, though, I've had to do very little grinding.

I've found that Ramza's Squire class is an excellent starting class as well.

Quote:

but I found it extremely limiting

Limiting in terms of...? It's fairly linear, story wise. But then again, so are most SRPGs. That I can understand. But as far as gameplay, well... You can pretty much approach each battle however you want. You can have a squad of Knights and just Rend Speed/Power/MP and beat the hell out of anyone in your way, or you can have a platoon of wizards to pretty much napalm the hell out of everything. It all depends on how much time you want to spend with the game.

For example, a Battle Chemist. Give them Equip Heavy Armor from the Knight Class. Give them black magic from the Black Mage class, and equip them with guns with the Chemist class and you'll have a well fortified Chemist that you can put in the middle of battle instead of keeping him on the outskirts of danger. That gives you more versatility in throwing items since you won't have to worry about your chemist getting picked on.

Quote:

And what other significant SRPG's were around between FFT and Disgaea

Kartia, Hoshigami, Front Mission, Ring of Red, Growlanser, Shining Force III, Advance Wars, Dragon Force... off the top of my head. Games largely from 1996 to 2002.

Quote:

So, uh, what exactly is wrong with Nippon Ichi?

I wouldn't say there's anything inherently wrong with them. What little I've been able to play seemed to focus more on anime stylings than actual gameplay.

Quote:

I actually did own Dragonforce at one point ($35 during a Saturn liquidation!), but like Tactics, I found it gratingly repetitive and unrewarding the more hours I sunk into it (although it WAS a blast for the first...20 hours or so).

Gratingly repetitive and unrewarding would be a good way to describe most old school console RPGs. :-P

Quote:

Chapter 3 where Ramza is caught in that fight by himself and you can't backtrack to gain EXP or abilities...Yeah, THAT pissed me off (then the "rush to the NPC" map afterwards was cute as well) Then, after RESTARTING to make SURE I have auto X potions for Ramza in that sequential mess, I started getting fucking mauled in Chapter 4, officially putting the game on the chop block. So it got much worse...I greatly enjoyed much of Chapters 1-3...The last couple maps of 3 and what I saw of 4 were what killed the game for me. Then there was the sobering fact of how much time went into playing it...

This I can understand. The fight in Riovannes castle is a bitch for the unprepared. There's a pretty easy solution for it that most people missed. Like I mentioned above, Ramza's starting class is pretty solid. It has a Speed Up ability. Just use that in the one on one fights and you'll make toast of Gafgarion and Belias.

The only main issue with the game is when you fight the two assassins. Often times the NPC will take the first turn, put herself right in harms way, and then die next turn. Nothing you can do about it. Dunno if that's fixed in the PSP version of the game, though.

Most amazing jew boots

Quote:

I covered most of those in my other reply. Growlanser was not available in the US (Generations came out in 2004 and is a very sweet package). I didn't mention Kartia or Hoshigami intentionally. I forgot Advance Wars (now that's one I've been putting off forever) and Ring of Red never looked too impressive. Like I said...The EXISTENCE of the games isn't the issue, but my own interest is.

Eh. I'm bored at work, so I just replied. Sorry if it seemed like I was exasperating the argument.

Quote:

Funny...The gameplay clicked for me around the second or third map and didn't really let up in La Pucelle. The boss fight in the second-to-last chapter was downright exhilarating and I love the way you line up the colored blocks on the maps. I personally liked that one more than Disgaea.

I bought both La Pucelle and Disgaea and didn't get very far in either. I'll chalk my opinion on them up to inherited bias via what I know about the series.

Quote:

I like my solution: Design the game right, so I don't have to restart because I can't get out and level the fuck up/change abilities and I don't have to use a strategy guide to warn me the (potentially) hardest battle in the game is coming up!

Well, no one said it would be easy. You could over power your way through the battle easy, you'd just have to spend some time grinding, but that would be a requirement if you want to bash your way through anyway. My point though, is that this particular instant isn't so much a game flaw because it's easily beatable with the skills you have at hand.

Honestly, though. We can't be angry at a game because it forces us to try a different strategy from time to time, can we? :-P

Quote:

Even then, no game should allow that kind of scenario. Unless it tells you something about it. (A recent example would be FFXII)

Eh. Keeping multiple save files was pretty much a necessity back in the day.

Quote:

But no way to save or get away to power-up...no way to win unless you're fully and totally prepared...

Well, again. Weigraf is easily beaten by using the very first class and skills you get in the game. So it's not exactly that drastic.

Most amazing jew boots

Diff'rent strokes I suppose.

Hell, I still do it out of habit. Even did it on Eternal Sonata, though I never needed it.

:-D

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Elegy

I loved the designs in FFT and the artwork. I know it doesn't sit well with some people, but I thought it was different in a good way and the costume designs looked awesome to me. I haven't played Vagrant Story or Ogre Battle, so I can't comment much on that end (I will get around to it eventually... I hope). I still consider FFT to have one of the best plots in an rpg and I really enjoyed playing it.

FFTA is just a nightmare I wish to forget entirely and FF12 was lacking quite a bit. The character designs in that game were downright awful.

The guy that did the character design for the above mentioned games was a fella named Yoshida, who's done the character work for pretty much every Matsuno game.

Quote:

And I think all his games are actually really fun to play, which most of the Square games are absolutely not. He did Vagrant Story right?

Yup. The guy pretty much created the Ivalice universe.

While we're on the subject, I recently bought my brother a PSP for Christmas, along with Tactics and Jeanne D'Arc. I've played the hell out of FFT, but I put in Jeanne last night. I was surprised that... it wasn't an FFT/Tactics Ogre clone. From the screenshots that I saw (everything was in the isometric view) and the fact that it was Level 5, I expected a Tactics inspired game. It definitely reuses alot of Fire Emblem mechanics. Which is not a bad thing. No perma death, though.

I'm about 50/50 on the game right now. Some stuff is great, but then they get bogged down. The opening cinema works pretty well, but then it goes on for several more minutes... Then there's that whole sailor moon moment. But it's all negligible. The combat is great (Hell, it would have to be since it's practically Fire Emblem) so that's what matters the most. Story isn't bad either.

Then there's that Dhoulmagus character. He's interesting.

I was speaking idiomatically.