[General Discussion] Your Opinion On Yasumi Matsuno

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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.

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.

Ironically though, I did play the first 5 chapters or so of Sakura Wars 2 before the Japanese text started to get on my nerves. I rather enjoyed it.

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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.

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.

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

And a lot of modern ones as well, which is why I play so few of them...What's your point? At least old school RPG's play extremely fast.

My point with Dragonforce is it LOOKS exciting and is for the start, then it dawns on how repetitive and random it is (guys leaving your army for no reason, for example), so the reward of capturing more territory is kind of lost. 20 hours into it, I just couldn't take anymore of the same old, same old...

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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.

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!

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

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!

FFTactics certainly isn't the only game to put you in these fucked up situations... nor does it force you to only use one save file.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I really appreciate Matsuno. FFXII is my least favorite of his offerings. What I really like about Matsuno is his attention towards developing mature dialogue and story-line elements, which is something I always appreciated about FFXII, even if the story didn't seem fully fleshed out.

I have been a fan of Matsuno since the original Ogre Battle and ESPECIALLY after Final Fantasy Tactics.

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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!

I think everyone has been in that situation regarding Riovanes. This kind of pain actually brings people together! That being said, I wouldn't change a THING regarding the design of FFT.
The game provides a simple choice; learn the mechanics of the game and the systems of combat... or fail. Riovanes becomes extremely easy after a few tries. I am glad it was THAT challenging.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

FFTactics certainly isn't the only game to put you in these fucked up situations... nor does it force you to only use one save file.

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

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Originally Posted by Rotorblade

FFTactics certainly isn't the only game to put you in these fucked up situations... nor does it force you to only use one save file.

It's THE most extreme, easily. I mean, if you're careless in a game and you forget to heal or run out of potions or you're underleveled, that's one thing. That's fixable. But no way to save or get away to power-up...no way to win unless you're fully and totally prepared...Never anything that bad, unless it was an optional boss (see: Emerald Weapon). And Tactics is a time-consuming MF to begin with, so that only magnifies the issue.

Uh, yeah...More than one save file...I'll get right on it...Aw shit, back in the days of PS1, I only had 15 blocks of memory and I had to ration them between other games. Tsk, tsk, sorry Tactics. I'm not giving you another FUCKING BLOCK ON MY CARD!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Xenogears.

You had a lack of memory cards and I didn't, sounds like a personal problem, not to sound heartless. Certain old school RPGs are notoriously unforgiving, that's a fact of life. There are things people had to do to get around them, and I feel it's a giant gray area of those who used those methods such as mapping their own dungeons or writing down equipment and growth stats when games wouldn't spell it all out for them.

Yeah, FFTactics threw you into a fucked up situation, I don't deny that. I also can't deny there are things certain players would do to avoid things like that, because it certainly wasn't the first or last time you'd fall into a "no going back" scenario.

FELIPE NO

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

Nah, only when it forces a restart of a game I'm 30+ hours into. ;p

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

Nope.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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?

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.

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Maybe I played too much Fire Emblem, but I always considered FFT to be fairly easy from start to finish. Then again I spent about 98% of the game just levelling up cause that was by far the most fun thing about the game.

Overall I don't particularly like Matsuno's stories or settings. I actually do like his character designs, though, in FFT, FFTA and FF12. So it seems like I'm in the minority in this respect.

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?

But, I really think that if he'd just leave Sakimoto to die in a fire, I'd already have a much better opinion of his games.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

FFT had great music you heathen.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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.

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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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by trackjacket

He's not the only director, but one of. Eiji Aonuma of Nintendo EAD also has two perfect scores to his name (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker).

I noticed that, but apparently he only served as assistant director in OOT. Majora's Mask was the first Zelda that he would head up as lead director.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Isn't Zeteginia a neighboring country to Ivalice in Final Fantasy Tactics? I'm probably mistaken, but it always felt like this world he crafted was connected to that previous Ogre universe.

It's definitely seperate. Zeteginia is a huge continent that includes the countries of Zenobia, Lodis, and Palatinus. Valeria, the main area in Tactics Ogre, is an island off the coast of it. The Ogre games are also connected by recurring characters (some of the Zenobian heroes from the original game) and villains (particularly the Lodis Empire as a belligerent nation intent on subjugating everyone else; the other recurring villain is the evil sorcerer Rashidi, who manipulated the circumstances in the original Ogre Battle and manages to do so in Ogre Battle 64 as well), none of which appear in FFT.

Originally Posted by Kikoha Hater

Megavolt, are there any other designers either eastern/western that you’re not particularly fond of.

Not specifically. The only other game-related person I'm not fond of is Yasunori Mitsuda. He's easily the most overrated VGM composer in my mind.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Megavolt

It's definitely seperate. Zeteginia is a huge continent that includes the countries of Zenobia, Lodis, and Palatinus. Valeria, the main area in Tactics Ogre, is an island off the coast of it. The Ogre games are also connected by recurring characters (some of the Zenobian heroes from the original game) and villains (particularly the Lodis Empire as a belligerent nation intent on subjugating everyone else; the other recurring villain is the evil sorcerer Rashidi, who manipulated the circumstances in the original Ogre Battle and manages to do so in Ogre Battle 64 as well), none of which appear in FFT.

You're a day late and a dollar short, I'm afraid. I had already corrected myself, but further specifics never hurt, I suppose.

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Yeah, but you followed it with this:

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Again, I'm not certain, I'm going by a gut feeling here.

I thought it was meant to imply that even though Zeltenia was not it, there still might be a connection somewhere. That's actually why I went into further specifics, though as you say, there's no harm done either way. Consider it an effort to alleviate any remaining doubts rather than an effort to correct anything that was in error.

It's too bad that the Ogre Battle Encyclopedia site doesn't seem to work anymore. That place had a wealth of information on each game from the series.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

I looked it up, and they were two separate kingdoms in two separate worlds: Zetegenia and Zeltennia. Just wanted to squash anything that could snowball from what I said.

That's what I was referring to when I said I corrected myself, though again I agree with what you said in principle regardless of me nitpicking. I HAVE CREDIBILITY, SERIOUSLY! I used to visit that site way back when, I would really enjoy another Ogre game on a platform more capable of capturing its robust world.

Too bad Mitsuda possibly went nutso on FFXII. Again, we live in hope.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

That's what I was referring to when I said I corrected myself, though again I agree with what you said in principle regardless of me nitpicking.

Ah, I didn't see that part. Thank you for the clarification. ^_~

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

I HAVE CREDIBILITY, SERIOUSLY! I used to visit that site way back when, I would really enjoy another Ogre game on a platform more capable of capturing its robust world.

Hey, I believe you. Anybody who likes Ogre Battle automatically has credibility in my mind. Not even many people who like the Final Fantasy Tactics approach seem to 'get' the mass army style of Ogre Battle games like MotBQ and POLC. You have to appreciate RPGs for what they are as games and not just what they provide in terms of a linear storyline in order to be an Ogre Battle fan. Ogre Battle's story is told as much (if not moreso, especially in the original game) from the details of its world as it is from standard cutscenes.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Too bad Mitsuda possibly went nutso on FFXII. Again, we live in hope.

Now I've got you!

Yeah, I don't know what happened to Matsuno after that one. We can definitely stay hopeful based on what Sakimoto was saying about working on another project with Matsuno.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, that's definitely a slip-up. But I've got you elsewhere, don't worry. Well, I do enjoy when you opine on the series. Because I am rarely reading thoughts that are just going off pure infatuation, in that respect.

Elsewhere: http://www.gamingforce.org/forums/rp...tml#post564484

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Because I am rarely reading thoughts that are just going off pure infatuation, in that respect.

Ouch. Was that an insult, or am I reading it wrong? I was only kidding around since we had just gone back and forth before on the nature of my corrective statements. I didn't intend to antagonize you.

I was speaking idiomatically.

You're reading it wrong, I suppose. It was meant to be a compliment.

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I'm glad I asked. I thought that 'based on pure infatuation' was saying that I write fanboy drivel. Just some curious wording there, I suppose. I almost mistook a compliment for a stinging retort. That's communication on a message board for you.

FELIPE NO

I try too hard at times, but I'm glad that's all sorted out. Again, it's nice to, in simple terms, find someone who can see a game for what it is rather than what they would like it to be.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

I try too hard at times, but I'm glad that's all sorted out. Again, it's nice to, in simple terms, find someone who can see a game for what it is rather than what they would like it to be.

Saved for future generations.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

See, you have misunderstandings... and you have people being obtuse.

There's nowhere I can't reach.