E3 predictions

[Roger]

KH1 and 2 were good big console games too.

 

[hian]

KH1 and 2 were good big console games too.

KH(1) was very much a game in spirit of what Sakaguchi was going for I'd say - in moving in a new direction. And, it was worked on by many people who had close relationships with the man, and share his creative passion (like Nomura, whether you like the guy or not).
That being said I'm also very divided on whether I think those games are actually good, or if they're more likel just surfing the FF and Disney fandoms (consider that the story-telling of KH is just as bad, if not worse than Lost, and the game-play is generally uninspiring hack'n'slash unless you start going for optional content)
On the other hand, KH is also emblematic of the SE's tendency towards agressively pushing spin-offs, trinkets and bullshit down the consumer's throats, and has been swallowed up by the exact same problems that FF has.

The issue here isn't that SE can't turn out an okay game - the issue here is that their process of doing so is extremely inconsistent and tarred with malpractice, and whenever they do find something that works, they milk the bejeezus out of it to the point that it leaves a sour aftertaste even in the most austere of fans, then grind the thing into dust through a combination of spending too much cash of it, and not realizing they've oversaturized the market and killed the buzz for the thing, which leaves them in the red, and ultimately results in whatever they were doing being dropped by the wayside like roadkill.

Squaresoft and Sakaguchi's leadership style was to go all in on a project, complete it, and move on. That lead to a brisk dev process and, generally speaking, good products.
Of course, that kind of an approach can lead to failed projects (Mistwalker is filled with the same hit-and-miss approach, and the company's projects reflect a toll from that style - but at least non of the feel like exploitative cash-grabs)

Think of it this way - as good as you may find KH - if I told you we could live in an alternative time-line where non of the KH spin-offs existed, but where KHIII came out 2/3 years after KKII, which time-line would you rather live in?

I'm not going to say that the Square side of SE can't make good games without Sakaguchi - they obviously can, because after all, you don't make a game with one person.
The issue here has, and always will be the pipe-line between upper management, and the people on the floor, and inconsistencies in values and priorities between them.

I.E Sakaguchi leaving didn't steal Square's ability to make a good game - it merely stole the ability of the people on the floor to deliver their good games in a timely and consistent manner, without having management demand the projects be turned into cheap cash-grab facilitators to facilitate company growth just for growth's sake.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

@hian

Very informative -- and you're right: Sakaguchi did file the trademarks for Mistwalker's name and logo months before TSW saw release. I think, though, that it wasn't FFX's development that saw Square posting its first red fiscal reports, but TSW's. I've read elsewhere that founding Square Pictures and paying for TSW's production were a calculated loss planned by the company for the short term as an investment, with the expectation that they would reap massive dividends down the road.

And, correct me if I'm wrong here, was it not Sakaguchi himself who led that charge? Weren't both the calculated losses and the subsequent unexpected losses a direct result of him having been given too much free reign within the company? I would swear it was he who had the idea that Square should make movies, and he who pointed to "Toy Story" as proof that full CG movies could be a gain for the company in order to convince investors to basically give him power attorney and a book of blank cheques.

Even if it wasn't him (and I'm confident it was), even before TSW would have come out, and even with a calculated loss in mind, the film's production was a mess, with wasted development time/money spent on development tools and rendered assets that went unused, and TSW's production costs turning into one of those cases where the contractor working on your house keeps calling to say they're going to have to carve out this or that part of the ceiling, redo those pipes, move those windows, reconstruct that flooring, etc.

 

[Roger]

KH1 and 2 were good big console games too.

KH(1) was very much a game in spirit of what Sakaguchi was going for I'd say - in moving in a new direction. And, it was worked on by many people who had close relationships with the man, and share his creative passion (like Nomura, whether you like the guy or not).
That being said I'm also very divided on whether I think those games are actually good, or if they're more likel just surfing the FF and Disney fandoms (consider that the story-telling of KH is just as bad, if not worse than Lost, and the game-play is generally uninspiring hack'n'slash unless you start going for optional content)
On the other hand, KH is also emblematic of the SE's tendency towards agressively pushing spin-offs, trinkets and bullshit down the consumer's throats, and has been swallowed up by the exact same problems that FF has.

The issue here isn't that SE can't turn out an okay game - the issue here is that their process of doing so is extremely inconsistent and tarred with malpractice, and whenever they do find something that works, they milk the bejeezus out of it to the point that it leaves a sour aftertaste even in the most austere of fans, then grind the thing into dust through a combination of spending too much cash of it, and not realizing they've oversaturized the market and killed the buzz for the thing, which leaves them in the red, and ultimately results in whatever they were doing being dropped by the wayside like roadkill.

Squaresoft and Sakaguchi's leadership style was to go all in on a project, complete it, and move on. That lead to a brisk dev process and, generally speaking, good products.
Of course, that kind of an approach can lead to failed projects (Mistwalker is filled with the same hit-and-miss approach, and the company's projects reflect a toll from that style - but at least non of the feel like exploitative cash-grabs)

Think of it this way - as good as you may find KH - if I told you we could live in an alternative time-line where non of the KH spin-offs existed, but where KHIII came out 2/3 years after KKII, which time-line would you rather live in?

I'm not going to say that the Square side of SE can't make good games without Sakaguchi - they obviously can, because after all, you don't make a game with one person.
The issue here has, and always will be the pipe-line between upper management, and the people on the floor, and inconsistencies in values and priorities between them.

I.E Sakaguchi leaving didn't steal Square's ability to make a good game - it merely stole the ability of the people on the floor to deliver their good games in a timely and consistent manner, without having management demand the projects be turned into cheap cash-grab facilitators to facilitate company growth just for growth's sake.

My meaning is that just looking at FF titles, their game output went to shit at PS2 gen right when Enix came along when they also added a franchise and it stayed reasonable till PS3. Not disputing the cause.

 

[Ryuman]

I always felt like a "third" Kingdom Hearts game never came about on home consoles because of the problems they faced with HD dev. All those titles on their plate and the then KH crew was stuck on a game that was pretty much vaporware at the time. Of course, I am by no means an expert. Merely my perspective as a fan of KH.
Though, there's only 2 KH titles that ever really came across as spinoffs to me, as most of them managed to build a world and narrative. I can't imagine how a '3' would play out without the stories Nomura wanted to tell, so I think the point is a little moot.

Anywho, ain't Sakaguchi making a gacha sequel to his mobile game and building a whole universe from it? Everyone's gotta milk that shit sometimes.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah, Sakaguchi hasn't exactly been taking the video game industry by storm since he left. I have not played any of this 3 RPGs, but Lost Odyssey is the only one I ever really heard any praise for, and still not universal.

And yeah, as you say, he's been making mobile games since Last Story.

 

[hian]

@hian

Very informative -- and you're right: Sakaguchi did file the trademarks for Mistwalker's name and logo months before TSW saw release. I think, though, that it wasn't FFX's development that saw Square posting its first red fiscal reports, but TSW's. I've read elsewhere that founding Square Pictures and paying for TSW's production were a calculated loss planned by the company for the short term as an investment, with the expectation that they would reap massive dividends down the road.

And, correct me if I'm wrong here, was it not Sakaguchi himself who led that charge? Weren't both the calculated losses and the subsequent unexpected losses a direct result of him having been given too much free reign within the company? I would swear it was he who had the idea that Square should make movies, and he who pointed to "Toy Story" as proof that full CG movies could be a gain for the company in order to convince investors to basically give him power attorney and a book of blank cheques.

Even if it wasn't him (and I'm confident it was), even before TSW would have come out, and even with a calculated loss in mind, the film's production was a mess, with wasted development time/money spent on development tools and rendered assets that went unused, and TSW's production costs turning into one of those cases where the contractor working on your house keeps calling to say they're going to have to carve out this or that part of the ceiling, redo those pipes, move those windows, reconstruct that flooring, etc.

It was a combination of both. FFX actually saw a delay (the first FF to see a major delay - this is also sourced in the original article I posted).

I'm not disputing TWS loss, nor Sakaguchi's role in that, though
I'd reject the idea of "Sakaguchi having been given too much free reign" - he was vice president at the time, and as such, it was his reigns to do with as he please, project wise, and they were bestowed upon him because of his previous successes.

My point is merely the short-sightedness of the rest of Squaresoft's leadership, that after the failure of TSW they thought the right thing to do was to push Sakaguchi and Suzuki out of their leadership positions and replace them with Wada.

Regardless of Squaresoft's financial losses following TSW, they can't have been too bad when you consider that for a large portion of the time following Wada and the merger, the company was actually worth less than during the "financial crisis" following TSW (also sourced in the original article), also considering that all it took to recuperate enough for the merger to go through was a combination of FFX and FFX-2 sales combined with the projected released of FF11 and FF12.

Yet, they were quick replace the old management and just throw the baby out with bath-water.
It's a very Japanese thing to do really.
Sakaguchi and Suzuki were standing in the way of perceived growth - and the two of them were concerned about the Square franchises being turned into Disney-esque milk factories by a larger SE management totally removed from the people working on the floor. They had to go.

And well, that's what happened.

I can't imagine how a '3' would play out without the stories Nomura wanted to tell, so I think the point is a little moot.

That's very interesting, since most of the KH spin-off titles were not conceived of back during KH1 and most of the stories are just Nomura making stuff up as he goes along.
Id say I can totally see KH and KH2 being stand alone games.

Anywho, ain't Sakaguchi making a gacha sequel to his mobile game and building a whole universe from it? Everyone's gotta milk that shit sometimes.

Firstly - Terra Battle was designed to facilitate the building of a franchise. The entire point of the Terra Battle campagin was to enable Sakaguchi to build a fan-base and the funds to open his own dev studio and pursue a console game based on the Terra Battle world. This is something he's been open about since day one and has been a focal point of the marketing of the game.

So calling that milking would be grossly inaccurate.

Secondly, given that Terra Battle is probably the only mobile games I've ever played that not only has an actual well-thought out, balanced and interesting game-play gimmick, on top of not behind a gaccha paywall in order for completion to be attainable, and was turned into that through an active back and forth between Sakaguchi and the fan-based, I'd say that his production of that mobile title is more a point of merit than of criticism.

SE takes established franchises and runs them through the mobile mill to milk whale fans through the use of brand loyalty.
What does Sakaguchi do when he goes mobile? Starts from scratch, makes an entirely original IP, with an original game-play concept, and practically tweaks the game based on feed-back to allow players to enjoy the thing fully for free.

There's a huge divide between how that man approached design and production and what SE are doing.

Yeah, Sakaguchi hasn't exactly been taking the video game industry by storm since he left. I have not played any of this 3 RPGs, but Lost Odyssey is the only one I ever really heard any praise for, and still not universal.

I'd say The Last Story is his best game by far. In fact, I prefer that game to any of his FF games. The game-play was really interesting and experimental, as was the way exposition was handled during game-play. That's me though.

I'd say though I think the biggest weakness of Sakaguchi going solo, is that he's not a business first kinda person.
The problem with the three bigger Mistwalker projects weren't their quality, as much as Sakaguchi inability to recognize how to play the market game.
The reason it's hard to find people praising those games, is simply because its hard to find people who played them at all.
I'd argue that among the people who did, the reception has been generally good - with some considering them very good.

Problem is though, for over a decade, he'd been making playstation games. His fan-base were all on the Sony platform. Yet, he decided to make original IPs only on competing platforms, despite the fact that SE would still be making games based on his old franchises for what would ostenibly be his primary fan-base on the Sony platform?
That's really bad business.

Sakaguchi, when he left Square did not have the funds to make his own projects. Every game "Mistwalker" made, was only conceptually made by Mistwalker, and development itself handled by Microsoft and Nintendo teams respectively, the title licenses themselves therefore also tied to the platforms.
For instance, Mistwalker does not have creative control over whether for instance we see a The Last Story remaster on the Switch. That's all Nintendo. Same goes for Lost Oddyssey and Microsoft.


This is why Sakaguchi is now aggressively working on Terra Battle. To free himself from that situation, and put himself in the position to finally go full into a new project where he is the sole owner and producer.

I think that's pretty admirable to be honest.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Sakaguchi's reshufflement happened shortly after talks of the merger, and the first red Squaresoft financial report prior to the release of FFX.

FFX-2 was proposed as a means to recuperate losses incurred by FFX's expensive development cycle, as a means of enticing Enix back into talks of merging, which at one point, they backed out of due to Squaresoft's financial situation.

Simply put - Sakaguchi did not get reshuffled, nor quit due to TWS. He was already on that path prior to this.

If they payed more attention to the story and gameplay of FFX-2, I don't think that would've been much of a problem. As such, back then, they focused on Quality over Quanity, and that hasn't changed over the decade, coming up to two decades.

Long story short though - yes, Sakaguchi is partly to blame for putting himself in the spot where Squaresoft had no choice but to force him out.
Point is though, who could blame him?
Squaresoft's remaining leadership showed undue lack of gratitude for his service up until that point, and essentially aggressively started to pursue a company direction and policy that was contrary to everything he believed in regarding the future of the FF franchies, and the future direction of the company.
TWS was just a convenient and happy coincidence that allowed to company to appear justified in cutting off the "dead weight", when in reality the money grubbing, corporatist SE you know today, was already in the making before TWS launched in theaters.

I actually quite liked Spirits Within, but at the same time, I wouldn't call it one of my favorites. If you ask me, the only Final Fantasy film that was a total bomb was Kingsglaive.

Also, no Lex - Nomura has little to no power in SE. He's not even on SE board of directors. He's constantly being kicked around, loaded with projects he didn't ask for, nor has the power to decline, because he's the face of SE's character designs and has been for ages.
Nomura is not the reason Versus XIII took a long time, nor is he the reason KHIII took a long time. The reason these projects are taking a long time, and the red tape of SE, is, like it always has been, the result of the suits at the top.
Nomura is not one of them.

....Sounds like my Uncle-Once-Removed having tons of assignments piled onto his desk at his workplace. SE should give the guy a pay-rise and a vacation and only give him at least one or two projects(more attention to KH3 first since it's been in development longer and then focus on FFVII Remake) to focus on, not a zillion.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

This is why Sakaguchi is now aggressively working on Terra Battle. To free himself from that situation, and put himself in the position to finally go full into a new project where he is the sole owner and producer.

I think that's pretty admirable to be honest.

I agree. The way "Terra Battle" has been handled is admirable, impressive, and just plain phenomenal -- it's a great product, and the only game with a degree of gashapon to it that I've spent real money ($30) on. And I've done so with no regret.

I do think the impeccable balance the game had gets lost toward the end, especially in terms of some of the final optional bosses that were added -- but now that I know those final few chapters we got over the past year actually are the end, it's more forgivable that Sakaguchi let things get a little crazy.

But I want to reiterate what hian said that almost all the content of "Terra Battle" can be acquired and enjoyed without spending real money. I spent real money just because I was that eager to keep playing a few times when I was at a recharge point. Supposedly there are people who have gotten and done everything while spending no money whatsoever. They had more patience than I.

Honestly, I never finished more than the main story mode and a few of the optional bosses I was especially eager to take on because of their relation to Final Fantasy (Bahamut, Leviathan and Odin). It wasn't worth it to me to grind and gasha my way to being able to defeat the ultimate optional bosses, neither on a free nor paid basis -- but that wasn't at all because I didn't enjoy the game. I just got busy with other things.

One more thing I should highlight about the gashapon element is that it isn't nearly as obnoxious in its implementation as it is in most games. This is not only because you don't have to spend money, but also because the way it's designed allows you to select tiers that guarantee certain power levels of characters and equipment, and also because the design of it guarantees that if you keep playing, you'll get all the characters.

I would definitely like to see what "Terra Battle" could become if taken to console.

Have I mentioned that Nobuo Uematsu did the music, and the art design is gorgeous? And also that it's just fun as heck to play?

 

[hian]

If they payed more attention to the story and gameplay of FFX-2, I don't think that would've been much of a problem. As such, back then, they focused on Quality over Quanity, and that hasn't changed over the decade, coming up to two decades.

Actually, I think FFX-2, given what it was, was actually a pretty decent game. Though it was needless fluff in terms of story-telling, and was essentially an exercise in recycling assets to make money, FFX-2's gameplay was really solid IMO.

I'd very much despute that SE has carried on the tradition of quality over quantity. In fact, it's the polar opposite. The leaked shareholder marketing PDF explicitly state that they'll aggressively pursue mass production of spin-off titles to make money.

Also, everything Twilight just said.

Also, Terra Battle 2 looks fricking great.

Look at the game-play from 35 minutes or so in.
Now you have a huge dungeon map where you then instigate combat on the regular size grid, which means that you can set-up formations, how many enemies you'll have to take on etc.
Adds an element of exploration, and another huge layer of strategy.
There are more character equips etc. too. Just looks really stellar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a2ZRRPJT-4

 

[Ryuman]

Ah, it's very nice to hear the quality of those games. I also want to clarify that I meant no real criticism to Sakaguchi, the motivation behind those kinds of campaigns are always very clear; Build yourself up. I have no real means of playing mobile games, but I'll keep it in mind if I ever do.

That's very interesting, since most of the KH spin-off titles were not conceived of back during KH1 and most of the stories are just Nomura making stuff up as he goes along.
Id say I can totally see KH and KH2 being stand alone games.

Obviously KH1 was very stand-alone with its ideas, but with the next couple titles you can see Nomura knew roughly where he wanted to go. Chain of Memories introduces characters and concepts that reach their conclusion in 2 (Players skipping this game was probably the first problem that caused KH's reputation). By KH2 you can see future concepts poke though (And that's very true by Final Mix), the mentions of former wielders by Xigbar, Nomura basically setting up Xehanort's gambit in supplementary material. It's definitely a little fast and loose, but the seeds are usually there.

1, CoM and 2 existed as the core, linear story and everything gets a bit jumbled after, yet Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance definitely hold the strength of main numbered titles on handheld systems in the same way CoM does. KH3 is directly built around them.
You're right though, this series does in a way represent Square Enix's current attitude towards Brand and it's products.
It's very splintered now, but everything you need to enjoy 3 can be found on PS4 in two products.

And... and... I suck at organizing thoughts. You're right but it is what it is now. I don't really mind because in the end I've played many enjoyable titles under the Kingdom Hearts Brand. Not slapping a 3 on one of them always seemed like a superficial complaint to me. If they gave that number to BBS instead I would be genuinely curious to see the difference in sentiment. Anyway, this isn't the KH forum
This thread is off the rails, man. Sorry for cluttering the topic...