New Games Suck... Or Is It Just Me?

Idk how to feel about it. It looks good, but it feels too jumpy-flashy...

Ongball Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 video just dropped.

Idk how to feel about it. It looks good, but it feels too jumpy-flashy...

It's turn based, you give the command and the character jumps out does the action then jumps back to their position in the lineup.

I haven't played Elden Ring but this looks like a clone.

It's the intellectual equivalent of categorizing bike cycle riders and motor cycle riders together because both groups use two wheeled transportation to go from one place to another. Then using that categorization to infer statements of fact or truth.

I haven't played Elden Ring but this looks like a clone.

Honestly...just no. They aren't even close man.

The expert difficulty is a mix of turn based jrpg with soulslike parry/dodge system.

the whole blurry delay movement ***.

For whatever reason, Square Enix began ignoring its own successes when it comes to the mainline Final Fantasy games, which, in recent years, have been on a steady decline in popularity and relevance.

Square Enix's most recent Final Fantasy projects, namely 15, 16, 7 Remake and 7 Rebirth have found decent success, but I would argue none of them received the fanfare some of their predecessors enjoyed. The Final Fantasy 7 remakes has proven that there's still magic to be found in the franchise — even if they flooded Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with dull Ubisoft-inspired open world drudgery.

Where there's been less success is in the truly new Final Fantasy games. 15 and 16 are both neither what I would describe as classic entries in the series, and represent something of a low point. Square Enix fully abandoned what made the series great, opting away from what fans want in favor of chasing other popular games in a desperate, mis-guided attempt to get more money.

It's utterly insane to me that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth features Ubisoft-style towers to unlock additional content in the open world. It speaks of a complete dereliction of gauging what is actually fun, and smacks of the type of design decision led by Microsoft Excel rather than good sense.

A little game from France called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has shone a spotlight on Square Enix's design decisions around Final Fantasy — which was famously a variety of turn-based, command-based, and active-turn-based over the years, with tactical gameplay at its core. Expedition 33 borrows from classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy 8 and even the Super Mario RPG, atop some AAA production values, photorealism, wrapped in a dark fairy tale plot.

Square Enix has previously claimed that people don't want turn-based games anymore. Clearly, with Expedition 33 selling a million copies already — not including Xbox Game Pass — that simply isn't true. This isn't an established franchise like Dragon Quest or Persona, either.

Is Square Enix simply out of touch now? There's nowhere that drives that possibility home more strongly, for me, than Square Enix producer Naoki Yoshida's own words.

Naoki Yoshida is credited with the revival of the MMORPG, Final Fantasy 14, which found success by chasing World of Warcraft's model more closely, albeit with that classic and cozy Final Fantasy veneer. While I would say drawing upon inspiration from World of Warcraft did work incredibly well for Final Fantasy 14, this new approach clearly harmed the production of Final Fantasy 15, 7 Rebirth, and 16.

Final Fantasy 16 in particular dropped all pretence that Square Enix wanted to honor the legacy and passion of decades of Final Fantasy precedent, ditching all command-based, tactical gameplay in favor of a derivative and half-baked "Devil May Cry" hack n' slashery. But why? Yoshida gave his "reasons" in a previous interview.

"One thing that we found recently is that as graphics get better and better, and as characters become more realistic and more photo-real, is that the combination of that realism with the very unreal sense of turn-based commands doesn't really fit together."

Stylized turn-based games like Persona, Octopath Traveller, and Dragon Quest are okay, but not photorealistic ones? Huh? What?

In my view, this is the damning quote that proves to me that Naoki Yoshida and the team leading Final Fantasy have utterly fallen out of touch, not only with Final Fantasy fans, but the wider audience in general.

"Some people are fine with it. They're fine with having these realistic characters in this unreal type of system. But then on the other hand, there are people that just can't get over it. I mean, if you have a character holding a gun, why can't you just press the button to have the gunfire – why do you need a command in there?"

A little game from France, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, solved this made up "problem" by letting you free-aim with the character's guns. It's almost as if Square Enix is trying to explain away the lack of creativity.

Seriously though; the whole argument falls apart entirely when you consider that video games aren't meant to be realistic from the ground up. Final Fantasy 16 has some of the most vacuous, boring, and patronizing combat I've ever experienced in an action game — the game effectively plays itself, with boss battles playing out in cutscenes rather than active combat. And Yoshida has the audacity to claim players won't want to input commands?

It's not the first, or last time, we've seen the industry try to downplay turn based games, and it's not the first, or last time, games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or Baldur's Gate 3 will show up to prove everyone wrong.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a core team of just 33 people, built in part by Ubisoft veterans who were finally free of "telemetry"-based corpo-style game development — which has led the industry down this cul-de-sac of anti-creativity. It's potentially the highest user-rated game on Metacritic in history, as fans pour in not only to praise the game, but also to send Square Enix a strong message: stop gaslighting us.

You mean the boss attack animation?

This game has a reaction based parry/dodge mechanic. You need some kind of signal via boss animation to tell the player so they can time the parry/dodge correctly.

Or vice versa...designers could also use the delay to distort player's sense of timing so they may fail, which creates a challenge. The use of delay is all part of parry/dodge mechanic.

Sekiro and soulsborn is also has parry or dodge focused combat system. It's very possible that the game dev studied and learned from those soulslike games when they design boss moves.

Fully agree with how description of the delay (annoying af).

With Clair Obscur it's that the attack animation doesn't exactly align with the dodge / parry timing. The animation is leading the hitbox and if you press the button based on the animation then you'll likely be hitting it too early and take the hit. It's already been submitted as a defect. It's a pretty minor thing, just means every new monster type requires you to adjust a few rounds to figure out the timing.

Whats your verdict Saevel? Recommend it or not?

Square Enix targeted by activist investment fund known for “aggressive” involvement in management

An activist fund known for making strong demands from its investees has acquired a 5.47% stake in Square Enix Holdings.

Singapore-based investment fund 3D Investment Partners has acquired a 5.47% stake in Square Enix Holdings, Reuters reported on April 28. The stated purpose for acquiring the assets is “pure investment, and depending on circumstances, to offer advice or make significant proposals to management.”

3D Investment Partners is known for being an activist investor, meaning that it seeks to buy significant stakes in companies in order to influence how they are managed (please note that this term has nothing to do with political activism). Activist investors often target companies that are undervalued or suffering from poor management. Their strategy is generally to invest in these companies and then push management to take actions that will increase corporate value – such as enhancing shareholder returns, improving the business portfolio, or replacing executives – in order to secure a solid return on investment (source: Mutual Inc).

This particular Singaporean activist happens to be somewhat infamous among businesses in Japan, having gained recognition through its investments in big corporations like Toshiba, Fuji Soft and Sapporo Holdings. As reported by Bloomberg, the investor has consistently shown an “aggressive” attitude towards its Japanese investees, making demands for large-scale business reforms, requesting executive resignations and placement of external directors, and publicly criticizing poor management decisions.

Sentaku magazine quotes a company head as calling 3D’s demands “heart-wrenchingly extreme” and a securities firm executive as calling the fund “the most dynamic and feared activist in Japan.” It might be worth mentioning that this reputation is from the businesses leaders’ perspective, not the consumers’ perspective.

How relevant is this for Square Enix, though? Reuters mentions that 3D will be offering advice and “significant” proposals to its management depending on the circumstances, but the extent of their influence is still unclear. 3D acquired a major stake in Square Enix as of April 21, but even way before that, the latter has been putting into motion big changes in face of declining performance, including its new mid-term management plan and reformed management structure.

It's utterly insane to me that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth features Ubisoft-style towers to unlock additional content in the open world. It speaks of a complete dereliction of gauging what is actually fun, and smacks of the type of design decision led by Microsoft Excel rather than good sense.

Final Fantasy 16 in particular dropped all pretence that Square Enix wanted to honor the legacy and passion of decades of Final Fantasy precedent, ditching all command-based, tactical gameplay in favor of a derivative and half-baked "Devil May Cry" hack n' slashery. But why? Yoshida gave his "reasons" in a previous interview.

"One thing that we found recently is that as graphics get better and better, and as characters become more realistic and more photo-real, is that the combination of that realism with the very unreal sense of turn-based commands doesn't really fit together."

An activist investment company have acquired a 5.5% stake in Square Enix, and they are widely known to directly push for changes in management.



https://automaton-media.com/en/news/square-enix-targeted-by-activist-investment-fund-known-for-aggressive-involvement-in-management/

At least it's not a western activist group I guess.

Activist progressive investors are how ESG gets involved. Activist conservative investors is how DEI gets thrown out.

The term "activist" means a different thing in finance then it does in common parlance.

demand for greater outsourced sweatshop labor from india and china like Bethesda do,

Japan has strong labor laws, which means they are not allowed to lay people off. Which means they refuse to hire people unless they can justify it long term.

Almost every game company in Japan is understaffed.

So if they want extra manpower, they outsource it to China or India. A lot of the additional model and texture work for FF7remake was done in India for instance (which is why they look like crap)

A lot of the additional model and texture work for FF7remake was done in India for instance (which is why they look like crap)

It can be still bad, even if it's pure finance. It could push for greater monetization in games (GL xiv players), demand for greater outsourced sweatshop labor from india and china like Bethesda do, lowering of game budgets as was seen with ff16 where they kept saying they can't add a bigger world etc cause it costs too much etc.

Square Enix are in effect the luxury car creator in the automotive industry, and a group like this is going to try turn them into an assembly line slop creator (like ubisoft). They are already headed that way of late, but something like this is just going to speed up their demise.