Ben-DutkaNo, you're not a developer. But you're convinced you could fix a franchise that has taken a southward turn.
Maybe it's your favorite series of all time, and you're just appalled at the direction it has taken over the past generation. Maybe you can't stand to see what's happening to Resident Evil , or maybe you're beating your head against a wall for what BioWare has done with Mass Effect .
Me, I figure everyone knows I'm bitter about what Square Enix did to my beloved Final Fantasy franchise. And "bitter" is putting it lightly. Not only am I convinced I could resurrect this once-great franchise from the proverbial ashes, I'm also relatively certain it wouldn't take that much effort. It would simply highlight what the fans have been screaming about for years, which would be fused with the unfortunate necessities brought on by the march of time. Square Enix hasn't yet figured out how to adapt, and they certainly haven't listened to the fans.
It would have to encompass more than just returning to the franchise's roots. I would understand that going in. But I can absolutely guarantee that at the very least, I'd have the pulse of Final Fantasy nation, which Square Enix hasn't bothered to check in years. So what's the one company you believe you could help? What's the one instance where you'd be a kick-ass consultant for a development team?
I would like to say Resident Evil but it had it's time, Code Veronica being the last great RE, IMO. My current choice to fix would be Dead Space, I was a huge supporter of the first one, I could only get myself to play through 2 once, and I couldn't even finish the demo for the third one. Not even finishing a demo to me tells me something is wrong with the final product.
We need more real horror in gaming, not action horror like we're being force fed. I want dark rooms, flashing strobe lights, loud sharp noises, things bursting, things coming out of things bursting, lack of resources to get me to the end game, etc. That's how I would fix Dead Space.
Last edited by touchyourtoes on 4/16/2013 11:54:42 PM
Ben I will leave Final Fantasy to you, but I think I could help there too 🙂
So I'll go with another series that is in desperate need of my help: Silent Hill. Downpour had a lot of potential and was a good game but it just didn't bring to bear the full force of the hardware it was on to deliver a truly next gen survival/horror game.
I'm confident that if I were the writer, director, and creative director I could guide a dev team toward the most terrifying stroll through the horrible town of Silent Hill ever.
The Final Fantasy that I used to know always blew me out of the water with wonder and awe. So by that logic I don't think I could bring the series back to it's former reputation.
However off of the top of my head I am convinced that I could sculpt a better story and dialog on a lot of games this gen, especially Platinum Games and Resident Evil. In terms of gameplay the ending of KZ2 was very well done and yet the ending of KZ3 was terrible! Even with the move I don't think I would have enjoyed it. Some sort if glorified battle field boss fight that kept you on your toes would have been more like it! Challenging, but with enough checkpoints to keep the frustration levels down.
your beautiful save avatar. how did you even get it so large
For a brief time it was too big to fit on the page. You just have to downsize or increase the dimensions on it before you upload it to PSX.
Those save points were always a relief on some of those shenanigans in Midgar before you made it to the world map. They just weren't close enough to each other sometimes.
Resistance hands down. I would give them the push in the right way.
I certainly agree with that about Resistance 3, which I have to be below average and really brought the series down from being a triple A franchise.
Parasite Eve. The first two are among my favorite games and still play them on my PSP.
Final Fantasy.
There's not really any other franchise that I am so outraged at the direction they have taken. All the reboots, all the changes made to franchises, nothing compares to Final Fantasy.
Second place is Resident Evil.
Obviously, Final Fantasy.
Other than that, I'd say a proper Need For Speed Underground type game. We've had none this generation in which we've had a Need for Speed game with the customizations that made the franchise grew bigger. I can't believe there is yet to be an open world NFS with day/night transition, customizations, and without borders. I'm sorry, but Most Wanted is bascially
Burnout to me.
I also would like a better approach to the Dynasty Warriors franchise. It's ridiculous how they split them with Xtreme Legends/Empire type. I expected a more open world feel this generation.
Anyway, I know this editorial asks for one, so I'd just say Final Fantasy. After playing FFXII, I had such high hopes for FFXIII in the sense that it'll bring a better experience in a massive open world, which FFXII had. Instead, well you know.
I am going to get flak for this but… Assassins Creed. The world is full of rich culture, history and mythos, but Ubi, to my thinking, decided to slowly and then speedily move in to the mundane and less interesting. As some have said this is a business so they are doing more what is immediately popular … pirates. Its easy to come up with ideas for this franchise, I know where it could have gone to make at least Desmonds ending and the AC3 more interesting and more of a wow factor… and not just focussed on visuals.
BUT the series that I would love to take in hand would be the best suspense horror series that freaked me out way back on the PSOne. That would be the SIlent Hill series. I know there are a lot of Resident Evil fans but I found that series tedious and R5 I stopped playing when I got lost as to what the story was about and I was doing was killing zombies somewhere I could have cared less. Silent hill games (1-3) send chills up my spine and who can forget Pyramid Head. Need to see more of that dude and his brothers/sisters. Great series but a let down when things shifted to the States. Dead Space got close to being the Silent Hill in Space.
I would love to work on those franchises… but its not going to happen. So all I can say is, its hisory, time to move on to something newer. Creating a series that goes on… and on… and on for the sake of money is fine, but a tad boring and for a gamer insulting from an entertainment stand point.
Keep Playing! (regardless)
RE a obvious one, but any survival horror in general.
dead space another candidate, god that series had SO much potential…… thanks EA!
o, and cant forget my favorite new franchise of the generation, assassins creed/
that had SO much potential……. thanks ubisoft!
so in short pretty much any new IP, and any long standing franchise.
Need For Speed. They keep moving around different themes and styles.
I would do a DRIVECLUB style game where it is about you, your car and your friends and their cars of course.
It seems so simple, just pure racing with different disciplines. A large open world that is full of great driving roads, rather than a poorly designed city.
I would love to add cops, challenging cops mind you. Then they would actually fine you and impound your car. Fun.
But there is less of the racer culture. Mods to the cars would be slight cosmetic but mostly mechanical and under the hood mods.
Red Faction
No other series has seen such a precipitous drop this gen as Final Fantasy, and it's one of my all time favourite series, so I'd go with that.
The thing is, FFXIII isn't -that- bad, but it was such a huge letdown after the awesome direction set by XII. Sure, XII was quite flawed (though most of the flaws were corrected in XII: INternational Zodiac Job System, much to my eternal annoyance) and XIII corrected many of those flaws, but introduced too many unnecessary new ones and removed/heavily dumbed down XII's good parts.
Y'know, while I understand it to be "tradition", I never understood why Square had to completely reinvent the wheel with every FF. I never understood why they didn't keep the good ideas and throw out the bad ones, instead of throwing away -everything-. Sometimes they learn, like when they brought back the job system from III and improved it for V, or they remodeled the Quickening system in XII:IZJS to be more like Overdrives from FFX instead of the really stupid system used in XII, but them reusing old good ideas are few ad far between. That would be the first thing I would fix: The throwing out/non-cycling of good ideas.
Umm, I for one would like to fix Final Fantasy, but another series I think could use some fixing… Onimusha maybe? Spyro? Monster Hunter doesn't need to be fixed, it just needs to be more accessible… Ooh oooh! TENCHU! Yeah Tenchu! That series needs a revamp! I love me some stealth kills, ninjas, tragic Tatsumaru stories etcetera etcetera!
But that is actually why I'm working towards a BA in Game Art & Design. I see a lot of things that need to be better executed…
Last edited by Sol on 4/17/2013 4:09:18 PM
DMC with no explanation needed
Madden and Star Ocean
in this order:
1 onimusha
2 resident evil
3 parasite eve
and the there's DMC of course…