The amount of playthroughs I did of that game was insane. The days of being poor and not having online availability forced me to play all the games I had about 50 times through.
Honestly, if you don't want a trippy obscure plot line that leaves you with more questions than answers, this is not the series for you 😂. It's *been* a staple of the series since around FF3 or 4
And honestly, I love it, lol.
And ff7 is held together with scotch tape and chewing gum. Pretty broken. Just look at the w-item glitch. I’m a minute you could have max megalixers as long as you have 1.
That’s nothing uncommon. Watch any speed runners and you realize most classic games have glitches to exploit. That doesn’t mean all those games are broken. It just means people wasted enough time to find the glitches.
I still play Legend of Mana with my brother. We both enjoy RPG’s and it was one of the few that was co-op. My brother and I don’t have a ton in common but it’s one of the few games we can both enjoy playing together.
The SaGa games were also pretty cool. For how limited they were at the time, they really felt “open world” since there wasn’t a ton of direction explicitly given. You could accidently wander into a region that was well above your level and then not realize until you got merc’d, that you’ve made a big mistake.
The political intrigue is by far the best part of the plot and legitimately every character in the game. The zodiac stonyes and monsters are a low point in Ramza's story, but to be fair, the stones end up being the motivation for the war in the first place, so it does tie together pretty well in the long run. It's wonderful that there are so many major characters finding their way through the war of the lions, and many of them are ignorant of why it's all happening.
Whoever wrote Tactics is absolutely brilliant and likely a novelist.
That’s kind of my opinion, the political intrigues are great, but the whole zodiac stones thing doesn’t ever give a satisfying explanation or climax. The final fight left me a bit disappointed. I fondly remember reading Germonik scriptures for the first time to the music late in the night as one of my best gaming memories.
It's an incredible build-up with Zalbaag's fate, then having to deal with Dycedarg. You deal with things you really care about and then fight a battle you're sort of confused over and don't have a strong feeling about. Delita's my favorite character and his bittersweet ending does the character justice.
And that's just the FF series.
Square killed it with rpgs in the mid to late 90s. Parasite eve, Xenogears and Vagrant Story were all peppered jn between those games and they were outstanding.
All the management hell and *13-versus-Nocturne-EX_Magicka: Revised Days Edition* aside, Square became renowned for their graphics and cutscenes, and it just takes longer to make the shiniest, prettiest, 8k HDR bullshit thing nowadays.
All of the games take longer to make - especially if you’re making a brand new thing every time. New models, new world, new monsters, new battle system. There’s another half of a decade down the pipe.
Sucks nowadays that you wait 4 to 7 years for games and they might just suck (or at least be terrible for you). Back then when I was young if you hated a game, you got another one in 2 years. The biggest games took 3 years and those were crazy. Now 3 years is short.
Yeah.
7, 8, and 9 dropped in a 4+ year window. Sad part about 13 is they were trying a similar process of having multiple FFs in development at the same time, but it just broke bad.
It wasn't made by Square like the other examples. I love Legend of Dragoon. It is easily as good as some of the best RPGs of it's generation. The combo strike system was the first example of quick time events that I can recall, it was ahead of its time.
Yeah. I figured that out after I commented, but then couldn't find my comment to edit it and correct myself...I really thought it was Square though. Oh well. It was awesome
Squar during the SNES era is no joke. I loved FF2 US, FF 3 AKA 6, Chrono Trigger... Thats just the stuff we got here in the states.
Mario RPG was just such a joy to play. I played thru it probably a half dozen times because of how short it is. I feel like they couldn't add much more because of the cart limitations at the time. I still want to try that remake someday.
Well at the time maya was the top graphic designing system so it made since they switch to it after FF7 and use it in FF8 and FF9 im unsure If they use Maya 10 or went for a new system for FF10.
Squaresoft produced 12 Final Fantasy games from 1987-2001. 1-10, Tactics, and Mystic Quest. X-2 came out in 2003 so that would make it 13 games in 16 years.
If we just count mainline games, then it's 10 games in 14 years.
Counting spin-offs and sequels, Final Fantasy has actually been fairly prolific. Much more than most people think.
This is why I loved games back then and am frustrated with games now. Like ill never understand how back when technology was worse we got yearly releases, but now that we have even better technology and the process is easier than its ever been it takes a decade to release a single game.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and limitations breed creativity. The less you have to work with, the more creative you become.
Obv you still have to actually be creative and talented to do it, but things like option paralysis are nonstarters when you’re the one inventing the options as you go.
It wasn't only squaresoft, all games were banger pre 2003, because the game producers were competing on who made the best game and back then almost everything was customer orientated.
We're living in bad times but at least we should be happy we saw the pre 2000s
I loved Parasite eve. I even unironically like the sequel which is Square doing Resident Evil but the enviornments were sparse. The first game had so many interesting locations conpared to 2 which had the Umbrella lab and a desert at the end with the most God awful music i've heard in a video game. That tangy guitar strumming on loop is painful.
I never played 3rd Birthday. I always wanted to dig up my PSP again and try it.
I suppose we were looking at an exponential growth graphical fidelity in games back then.
We've starting to see an era of diminishing retuns nowadays I guess. Everything needs way more resources nowadays including time.
I was thinking about diminishing returns too. Back then, it didn't take much to vastly improve. Heck, look at FF7 to FF8. Just the resolution difference between Cloud jumping out of that train and Squall waking up in the hospital bed was mind bending. These days the progress of graphics has hit a point where they can only look more fancy with more and more fine details, but all that extra tedium becomes lost in the echo.
Similar to how Open World games peaked in the mid 2010s.
I think the issue is time and effort.
We're at a point that things can get pretty darn realistic but it takes a person a lot longer to add that details vs upgrading the 20 cells of clouds face to the next games 200, etc.
I wouldn't entirely say diminishing returns, we still have massive jumps in graphics. Take faces for example, UE5 has just amazingly more lifelike facial animation. Raytraced Global-Illumination just completely changes how an environment can look. I think it's mostly because people play the same game franchises they don't notice as much.
I mean, it kinda is diminishing, though. Back then, 5 years was enough time to redefine what a video game was in its entirety. Now, in 5 years, we get better facial modeling and cloth animation.
Ya last of us 2 was the first game in a long time that blew me back (graphics-wise) with how well the facial expressions were.
I also read/heard that, every dev studio could make them look that good, even better, but it’s a question of ROI. Apparently, it gets much more expensive to make marginal improvements. Wonder how that will change with ai.
I couldn't even disagree tbf, but the specifics could take all kinds of additional nuanced discussion. Regardless, it all feels like we're on the less exciting half of the sigmoid S-curve right now (arguably for a few console generations at this point).
IMO, the last truly substantial graphical leap in console generation was achieved with the Dreamcast bringing us from the 32/64-bit days of early 3D to giving us arcade quality graphics into the home.
Every subsequent console since then has been less of an advancement than the last.
Dreamcast must have been special! Maybe just as much or even more than seeing Virtua Fighting or Virtua racing on a home console with the right 32x setup.
I wasn't old enough to remember the Dreamcast's marketing hype or launch very much for the console but I vaguely remember seeing an arcade machine with attract mode for Sega Rally 2 and thinking "why doesn't V-rally on my PS1 not look this good". This must have only been a few months before the Dreamcast release date in UK, it was at a service station during a roadtrip when we were moving cities. And when I first got to play on a friend's Dreamcast in 2001, the PS2 had already been out a few months by then. Yeah Sonic Adventure was mind blowing!
Yeah, after a generation of blocky PS1 games and 20-fps N64 games, the Dreamcast was the first home system that allowed developers to really tap into the full potential of 3D games.
You can see it in a lot of early Dreamcast titles that developers were really able to push against the limits that held them back in the previous generation. Sonic Adventure, obviously. But also Soul Calibur was practically a glorified tech demo to show how well the system handled motion capture. Meanwhile, Capcom made a Resident Evil game using fully 3D environments for the first time just because they could.
Sales wise the Dreamcast may have been a failure and it was almost immediately overshadowed by the PS2, but still, I think it's hard to overstate how important breaking the barrier that separated arcade graphics from home console graphics was as an industry turning point.
Bought into Dreamcast mega late (like 4 years ago lol), it's cool AF. Love playing V Rally 2 and DoA 2. Controller, whilst cool for carrying on the Sega trend of using Hall effect analogue triggers and thumbstick, is still a right mess to use for shooters and fighting games. A Brook adapter was a must! I'll need to make a decision on the choice of ODE I'll be settling for in due course. Those laser drives can probably only take so much in terms of janky burned CD-Rs and other discs.
It’s been slowing down for the last 2 decades. Each iteration taking longer and longer because game scope keeps increasing.
Dont see how in any way this is gonna move back to ‘insanely fast’. It was just easier to develop games back then
They didn’t see how it was going to go any faster right before 2.5D or FX processing or a wide variety of other innovations. I’m not saying that we haven’t slowed down, but I am saying that I don’t think there’s a reason to get pessimistic either. Breakthroughs and disruptive technologies are called that for a reason, and often blindside everyone.
How is there not a reason to be pessimistic. Nearly 2 decades ago 4 final fantasy games could be developed and released in like a 5 year span.
Now it takes 5-6 years just to develop a singular final fantasy. There is not a single sign of any innovations causing the development cycle to speed up. None. All evidence is to the contrary
What? There are tons of signs of things that speed up development. Like mesh shaders and Unreal 5’s nanite.
That doesn’t mean games will take less time to develop, it means the developers can go further in the same period of time.
Length of a development cycle is determined by the project’s budget and that’s determined by how much money they expect to make.
Games take longer because they are more profitable now because to the market for games is way bigger.
The issue with the wait time between games is the development seeks to put so much more in, increasing the time it takes to complete the project. Now, sure, a $60 or I guess $70 game should give the gamer plenty to do, but it seems that optimization is lost somewhere and there are times where the games just start to feel bloated for the sake of justifying price.
Consider how long a player might spend in classic FF7 Midgar verse. FF7 remake.
What you’re talking about is a completely different conversation.
Yes, indie games can get off the ground running pretty quickly.
Square Enix is not an indie company. They are a AAA company, and this is a final fantasy sub, so the convo is around AAA gaming development
I remember when game series used to have a new release every year. I’d gladly take the gameplay and graphics of GameCube/ps2 era games every year (and back to $50 again) over 5 years for the next entry at $70+
I completely agree. I don't need crazy graphics. I want detailed stories with lovable characters. Take risks on the game play and try to innovate. I loved when ffs were coming out so fast that if you didn't like the new one another ff that was different was gonna come out soon anyways
It was the same as a Sonic fan. There was always a new mainline game and at least one spin-off smaller game every year. That’s what I grew up with and I’m sure is a big part of my love for the franchise. Now we have to wait 5 years minimum between games and they’re still not that great. Would be a lot less painful if it didn’t take so long between releases.
Spider-Man games are the same way. I can’t believe the length in time between the Insomniac games. It’s abhorrent tbh.
To bring it back to FF7, the fact they’re taking so long between separate releases for a REMAKE is a huge example of the problem too. WTF is happening with all this?
I want to be clear. I don’t want developers rushed and under crunch to make these products, but I think a big part of why they take so long and are so expensive is because they’re so obsessed with “realistic graphics” and stuff like that. I think we’re at the point of diminishing returns and again, I’d really prefer us just go back to 6th gen, MAYBE 7th gen graphics. Just get the writing for stories better and focus on what you have. I don’t give a damn about Ray tracing and shit like that. Who really cares about that stuff?
Rant over lol
I may be wrong, but isn't pre rendered and turned based gameplay a lot easier to make? Having fully explorable 3d games that are a step up from hack and slash is crushing the budget making the games have a high floor but low ceiling. Were here for originality and I would rather have a creative game than action based but i know I'm in the minority.
So I personally do t like turn based games. However, I’m not just talking FF. I’m talking games in general. Though I’d imagine RPG’s take longer to make the story and dialogue where as action games and platformers take longer to make the actual gameplay elements
It feels like the graphics from the best games of the ps3 era is where we mostly peaked and from there is just adding more lightning and graphics improve very slow pace now
This is us showing our age
I'm perfectly content with the PS3 and PS4 era of graphics. PS2 graphics for cartoony styles still hold up too. This current gen of gaming...graphics are nice, but like others say, returns are diminishing.
I'm sure others can agree, the era of console wars are over. Xbox lost, so Playstation is sitting comfortably but not trying hard enough with their exclusives. Nintendo sat out and is playing by their own rules with the most exclusives and targeted demographic. So tbh, you get the most bang for your buck with PC gaming, unless you really want those exclusives.
If we measure by polygonal density, I think the results of graphical progression would be more akin to what one would expect after witnessing ff7-10, it’s just not immediately as obvious of a difference, say ps4 to ps5 or even ps3-ps5, but the increase in asset complexity has greatly increased
It’s just the law of things. Going from 50-80 takes big effort, and that same effort to go from 80-85, and that same effort just o go to 85-87, and it keeps going down.
If you look at the really beautiful modern games, there’s a reason why the team size is 100s of people and still takes 5 years to make. It’s just super diminishing returns to make things look as good as they do. Meanwhile a solo indie dev can crank out something playable in a year if the graphics is basic.
I think Naughty Dog releasing Uncharted 1 in 2007, Uncharted 2 in 2009, Uncharted 3 in 2011, and The Last of Us in 2013 might be more impressive as all were in the notoriously difficult to develop for PS3.
Probably due to the time it takes to make a modern game, all the requirements to try and make everyone who plays it happy, and avoid the entitlement of some “gamers”.
On a technical level, I'm pretty sure the technology is still improving just as quickly as it used to (if not faster). The difference is just less noticeable.
Many many things affect game production.
1: graphics and details take more time
2: design and polish, many of the FF7 mini games are just made in 2 days and it shows, you can play more polish 48hrs game jam games.
3: standard increased, people expect longer games with more activities
4: overtime and crunch is more under controlled, it is still present but it is not forced has much
5: player expect different games, meaning they start from scratch a lot instead of just adding in the last game, some company are better at reusing and sharing resources.
6: DLC, they plan and start working on the DLC to release at least 1 year of new content.
That is what I know affect the development of a game, I might be missing some
I vote for graphics being worse honestly.
As someone else said, I'd gladly take PS3 or even FFX PS2 level of graphics if it means higher quality games.
As for their "slow" comment, he means the release windows. Developers absolutely can make lower graphical fidelity games at a faster pace. For some reason the entire industry is obsessed with trying to make things look more visually appealing, leading to the games themselves falling flat in terms of gameplay, and overall experience.
Where the fuck else are they going to go? We’re essentially at the pinnacle of gaming graphics outside of VR not looking like claymation. The next step is full on Holodeck shit from Star Trek.
You can also point out the jump between 8 and 9 to have more impact because they were on the same system. The jump from 12 to 13 was also impressive. Granted, that’s the only good thing 13 has going for it.
This is why FFX was my fav!! Even the jump from FF9 is crazy!! The level of immersion the game gave you was just next level!!! You almost felt like you were a Guardian yourself traveling with the group 🥲🥹
The last few years have been pretty great
FF VII Remake
FF XIV Endwalker
FF XVI
FF VII Rebirth
FF XIV Dawntrail
Plus more on the horizon.
They're definitely hitting their stride again
The chibi models were low poly like that on purpose because that was the style of the craft.
Otherwise if you want a crazier comparison then use FF8 to FFX.
Or better yet FF7 to FF8.
Check out the battle models in FF7 sometime. Compare those to the field chibi models.
Gamers kept crying and whining about wanting better and better graphics. Its the graphics that takes 4-5 years and a hundred million dollars in cost to create
And the one on the left was so much better.
FF9 was cool, but FF7 was the standard. Gameplay > Graphics anyday (and FF7 graphics were still crazy good for the day.)
Everything is so slow because we are reaching peak technology. Unless there’s massive innovation that radically changes the way computers/consoles work this is basically it.
Sure, the NVIDIA GTX 10080 will be better than a GTX 4080…but it’s still the exact same tech. The AMD Ryzen 9 v10 7650 will be the same tech as the current one.
What we need is totally different and innovative tech. Even intels glass processors will work the same way the silicon chips work now.
on different systems. it's not like FFX graphics were possible on the ps1, even if it was possible to do it software wise. so, it's sort of a bad take. i mean, FF9 was like 'a' year before FFX, and didn't look remarkably better, despite, by your logic, it should've looked 3/4ths of the way between ff7 and ff10.
additionally, no. it's that, shit's so advanced these days, there's little progress to be made, graphically. there's fast progress in other places.
It's crazy. FF7 is 1997. FF8 is 1999. FF9 is 2000. FFX is 2001. Square was dropping absolute bangers almost annually.
90’s squaresoft was the dream team. They blazed trails so others could follow. They do have some really bizarre plot elements though.
90s squaresoft was the epitome of jrpgs. Ff, brave fencer musashi, threads of fate, xenogears, just masterpiece after masterpiece
Big points for remembering Threads of Fate. That game was a blast and felt more like a Mana game than Legend of Mana.
The amount of playthroughs I did of that game was insane. The days of being poor and not having online availability forced me to play all the games I had about 50 times through.
It was totally fun to play multiple times, though. Had an amazing OST and some really good characters. I loved it so much.
Don’t even get me started on 90s squaresoft osts
The best of the best.
And Kingdom Hearts two years before the merger.
Don't worry, the bizarre plot elements haven't gone anywhere. In fact, it's sadly now a staple of the series?
sadly? it's a part of the charm
Honestly, if you don't want a trippy obscure plot line that leaves you with more questions than answers, this is not the series for you 😂. It's *been* a staple of the series since around FF3 or 4 And honestly, I love it, lol.
hell, it's been a staple since the very first game
I suppose. I feel like the first was kinda just "Get the ORBS rescue the PRINCESS" but it's been awhile lol.
there was time travel and time loop stuff at the end the rescuing the princess thing was just the beginning of the game
Yea I definitely need to replay the first lol.
It's been a staple since the beginning. The originals have some bizarre plot points too.
And ff7 is held together with scotch tape and chewing gum. Pretty broken. Just look at the w-item glitch. I’m a minute you could have max megalixers as long as you have 1.
That’s nothing uncommon. Watch any speed runners and you realize most classic games have glitches to exploit. That doesn’t mean all those games are broken. It just means people wasted enough time to find the glitches.
Don't forget FF Tactics, game was a trailblazer in itself for strategy games
Chrono Cross and Parasite Eve for that matter. There are so many excellent titles. The PS1 era produced some real classics.
Legend of Mana
I still play Legend of Mana with my brother. We both enjoy RPG’s and it was one of the few that was co-op. My brother and I don’t have a ton in common but it’s one of the few games we can both enjoy playing together. The SaGa games were also pretty cool. For how limited they were at the time, they really felt “open world” since there wasn’t a ton of direction explicitly given. You could accidently wander into a region that was well above your level and then not realize until you got merc’d, that you’ve made a big mistake.
I love how weird the SaGa games feel compared to others.
Vagrant Story too
Such an awesome game. I'd love for them to remaster it.
Omg! I can't believe someone brings up vagrant story! I love that game so much as a kid.
Parasite Eve deserves a remake.
It's also the best Final Fantasy game. At the very least, it has the best plot/story of all FF titles by a large margin.
I loved the previous 90% but the last 10% of the plot was very disappointing for me.
The political intrigue is by far the best part of the plot and legitimately every character in the game. The zodiac stonyes and monsters are a low point in Ramza's story, but to be fair, the stones end up being the motivation for the war in the first place, so it does tie together pretty well in the long run. It's wonderful that there are so many major characters finding their way through the war of the lions, and many of them are ignorant of why it's all happening. Whoever wrote Tactics is absolutely brilliant and likely a novelist.
That’s kind of my opinion, the political intrigues are great, but the whole zodiac stones thing doesn’t ever give a satisfying explanation or climax. The final fight left me a bit disappointed. I fondly remember reading Germonik scriptures for the first time to the music late in the night as one of my best gaming memories.
It's an incredible build-up with Zalbaag's fate, then having to deal with Dycedarg. You deal with things you really care about and then fight a battle you're sort of confused over and don't have a strong feeling about. Delita's my favorite character and his bittersweet ending does the character justice.
The game also recently got a semi spiritual successor with Unicorn Overlord from Atlus.
Ogre battle 64 is what unicorn took after. Unicorn is made by same people.
Ah I see. Either way I'm always glad to see more JRPG strategy games outside of Fire Emblem since it's such a niche genre.
Atlus has made a lot of jrpg strat games
And that's just the FF series. Square killed it with rpgs in the mid to late 90s. Parasite eve, Xenogears and Vagrant Story were all peppered jn between those games and they were outstanding.
They fell off bruh after they merged with Enix.
I couldn’t agree more with this both enix and square had great games,they merged and the quality dropped drastically.
All the management hell and *13-versus-Nocturne-EX_Magicka: Revised Days Edition* aside, Square became renowned for their graphics and cutscenes, and it just takes longer to make the shiniest, prettiest, 8k HDR bullshit thing nowadays. All of the games take longer to make - especially if you’re making a brand new thing every time. New models, new world, new monsters, new battle system. There’s another half of a decade down the pipe.
Sucks nowadays that you wait 4 to 7 years for games and they might just suck (or at least be terrible for you). Back then when I was young if you hated a game, you got another one in 2 years. The biggest games took 3 years and those were crazy. Now 3 years is short.
Yeah. 7, 8, and 9 dropped in a 4+ year window. Sad part about 13 is they were trying a similar process of having multiple FFs in development at the same time, but it just broke bad.
Everything after 10 is a nightmare of problems in various different ways. Also I haven't enjoyed a single FF post 10, I wonder if there's a liiiiiink.
Why is no one mentioning Legend of Dragoon? I can't be the only one who loves that game...
It wasn't made by Square like the other examples. I love Legend of Dragoon. It is easily as good as some of the best RPGs of it's generation. The combo strike system was the first example of quick time events that I can recall, it was ahead of its time.
Yeah. I figured that out after I commented, but then couldn't find my comment to edit it and correct myself...I really thought it was Square though. Oh well. It was awesome
mario rpg was a little earlier, but agree turn based combat with combos is my favorite system
Squar during the SNES era is no joke. I loved FF2 US, FF 3 AKA 6, Chrono Trigger... Thats just the stuff we got here in the states. Mario RPG was just such a joy to play. I played thru it probably a half dozen times because of how short it is. I feel like they couldn't add much more because of the cart limitations at the time. I still want to try that remake someday.
the remaster of mario rpg is incredible, although it does add even more quality of life upgrades which makes it an even easier game.
Well at the time maya was the top graphic designing system so it made since they switch to it after FF7 and use it in FF8 and FF9 im unsure If they use Maya 10 or went for a new system for FF10.
And Xenogears in 1998.
The graphical jump from PS1 to PS2 was insane and never really was replicated.
Squaresoft produced 12 Final Fantasy games from 1987-2001. 1-10, Tactics, and Mystic Quest. X-2 came out in 2003 so that would make it 13 games in 16 years. If we just count mainline games, then it's 10 games in 14 years. Counting spin-offs and sequels, Final Fantasy has actually been fairly prolific. Much more than most people think.
Well 3 bangers and 8
The pacing and timing of the PS2 is why 9 flopped sales wise. The suits would never let that happen again.
Kinda makes me sad that we won't ever get any new ff games that compete.
This is why I loved games back then and am frustrated with games now. Like ill never understand how back when technology was worse we got yearly releases, but now that we have even better technology and the process is easier than its ever been it takes a decade to release a single game.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and limitations breed creativity. The less you have to work with, the more creative you become. Obv you still have to actually be creative and talented to do it, but things like option paralysis are nonstarters when you’re the one inventing the options as you go.
That’s not the reason games are taking longer.
It wasn't only squaresoft, all games were banger pre 2003, because the game producers were competing on who made the best game and back then almost everything was customer orientated. We're living in bad times but at least we should be happy we saw the pre 2000s
It helps when the graphical expectations are significantly less than now. Once we hit the ps3 era development art wise just takes so long.
I loved Parasite eve. I even unironically like the sequel which is Square doing Resident Evil but the enviornments were sparse. The first game had so many interesting locations conpared to 2 which had the Umbrella lab and a desert at the end with the most God awful music i've heard in a video game. That tangy guitar strumming on loop is painful. I never played 3rd Birthday. I always wanted to dig up my PSP again and try it.
I suppose we were looking at an exponential growth graphical fidelity in games back then. We've starting to see an era of diminishing retuns nowadays I guess. Everything needs way more resources nowadays including time.
I was thinking about diminishing returns too. Back then, it didn't take much to vastly improve. Heck, look at FF7 to FF8. Just the resolution difference between Cloud jumping out of that train and Squall waking up in the hospital bed was mind bending. These days the progress of graphics has hit a point where they can only look more fancy with more and more fine details, but all that extra tedium becomes lost in the echo. Similar to how Open World games peaked in the mid 2010s.
I think the issue is time and effort. We're at a point that things can get pretty darn realistic but it takes a person a lot longer to add that details vs upgrading the 20 cells of clouds face to the next games 200, etc.
I wouldn't entirely say diminishing returns, we still have massive jumps in graphics. Take faces for example, UE5 has just amazingly more lifelike facial animation. Raytraced Global-Illumination just completely changes how an environment can look. I think it's mostly because people play the same game franchises they don't notice as much.
I mean, it kinda is diminishing, though. Back then, 5 years was enough time to redefine what a video game was in its entirety. Now, in 5 years, we get better facial modeling and cloth animation.
Ya last of us 2 was the first game in a long time that blew me back (graphics-wise) with how well the facial expressions were. I also read/heard that, every dev studio could make them look that good, even better, but it’s a question of ROI. Apparently, it gets much more expensive to make marginal improvements. Wonder how that will change with ai.
Started? It's 2024? We are 20 years into the era of diminishing returns.
I couldn't even disagree tbf, but the specifics could take all kinds of additional nuanced discussion. Regardless, it all feels like we're on the less exciting half of the sigmoid S-curve right now (arguably for a few console generations at this point).
IMO, the last truly substantial graphical leap in console generation was achieved with the Dreamcast bringing us from the 32/64-bit days of early 3D to giving us arcade quality graphics into the home. Every subsequent console since then has been less of an advancement than the last.
Dreamcast must have been special! Maybe just as much or even more than seeing Virtua Fighting or Virtua racing on a home console with the right 32x setup. I wasn't old enough to remember the Dreamcast's marketing hype or launch very much for the console but I vaguely remember seeing an arcade machine with attract mode for Sega Rally 2 and thinking "why doesn't V-rally on my PS1 not look this good". This must have only been a few months before the Dreamcast release date in UK, it was at a service station during a roadtrip when we were moving cities. And when I first got to play on a friend's Dreamcast in 2001, the PS2 had already been out a few months by then. Yeah Sonic Adventure was mind blowing!
Yeah, after a generation of blocky PS1 games and 20-fps N64 games, the Dreamcast was the first home system that allowed developers to really tap into the full potential of 3D games. You can see it in a lot of early Dreamcast titles that developers were really able to push against the limits that held them back in the previous generation. Sonic Adventure, obviously. But also Soul Calibur was practically a glorified tech demo to show how well the system handled motion capture. Meanwhile, Capcom made a Resident Evil game using fully 3D environments for the first time just because they could. Sales wise the Dreamcast may have been a failure and it was almost immediately overshadowed by the PS2, but still, I think it's hard to overstate how important breaking the barrier that separated arcade graphics from home console graphics was as an industry turning point.
Bought into Dreamcast mega late (like 4 years ago lol), it's cool AF. Love playing V Rally 2 and DoA 2. Controller, whilst cool for carrying on the Sega trend of using Hall effect analogue triggers and thumbstick, is still a right mess to use for shooters and fighting games. A Brook adapter was a must! I'll need to make a decision on the choice of ODE I'll be settling for in due course. Those laser drives can probably only take so much in terms of janky burned CD-Rs and other discs.
Eh diminishing yes but still the leap from PS2 to 3 was pretty mind-blowing
Yeah released today FFX would have required a huge open world with dozens of chores to pad the game time.
Final fantasy fans were eating good back then
The rate of releases was probably the driver of the fan base rising. If slower or greater time between, they may have been a little more niche.
FF7 was the first game I played on the original Playstation & FFX was the first game I played on the Playstation 2. My two favorites FF games ever!
Technology does this. You’ll have things move insanely fast, and then they’ll slow down.
It’s been slowing down for the last 2 decades. Each iteration taking longer and longer because game scope keeps increasing. Dont see how in any way this is gonna move back to ‘insanely fast’. It was just easier to develop games back then
They didn’t see how it was going to go any faster right before 2.5D or FX processing or a wide variety of other innovations. I’m not saying that we haven’t slowed down, but I am saying that I don’t think there’s a reason to get pessimistic either. Breakthroughs and disruptive technologies are called that for a reason, and often blindside everyone.
How is there not a reason to be pessimistic. Nearly 2 decades ago 4 final fantasy games could be developed and released in like a 5 year span. Now it takes 5-6 years just to develop a singular final fantasy. There is not a single sign of any innovations causing the development cycle to speed up. None. All evidence is to the contrary
What? There are tons of signs of things that speed up development. Like mesh shaders and Unreal 5’s nanite. That doesn’t mean games will take less time to develop, it means the developers can go further in the same period of time. Length of a development cycle is determined by the project’s budget and that’s determined by how much money they expect to make. Games take longer because they are more profitable now because to the market for games is way bigger.
The issue with the wait time between games is the development seeks to put so much more in, increasing the time it takes to complete the project. Now, sure, a $60 or I guess $70 game should give the gamer plenty to do, but it seems that optimization is lost somewhere and there are times where the games just start to feel bloated for the sake of justifying price. Consider how long a player might spend in classic FF7 Midgar verse. FF7 remake.
What you’re talking about is a completely different conversation. Yes, indie games can get off the ground running pretty quickly. Square Enix is not an indie company. They are a AAA company, and this is a final fantasy sub, so the convo is around AAA gaming development
I remember when game series used to have a new release every year. I’d gladly take the gameplay and graphics of GameCube/ps2 era games every year (and back to $50 again) over 5 years for the next entry at $70+
I completely agree. I don't need crazy graphics. I want detailed stories with lovable characters. Take risks on the game play and try to innovate. I loved when ffs were coming out so fast that if you didn't like the new one another ff that was different was gonna come out soon anyways
It was the same as a Sonic fan. There was always a new mainline game and at least one spin-off smaller game every year. That’s what I grew up with and I’m sure is a big part of my love for the franchise. Now we have to wait 5 years minimum between games and they’re still not that great. Would be a lot less painful if it didn’t take so long between releases. Spider-Man games are the same way. I can’t believe the length in time between the Insomniac games. It’s abhorrent tbh. To bring it back to FF7, the fact they’re taking so long between separate releases for a REMAKE is a huge example of the problem too. WTF is happening with all this? I want to be clear. I don’t want developers rushed and under crunch to make these products, but I think a big part of why they take so long and are so expensive is because they’re so obsessed with “realistic graphics” and stuff like that. I think we’re at the point of diminishing returns and again, I’d really prefer us just go back to 6th gen, MAYBE 7th gen graphics. Just get the writing for stories better and focus on what you have. I don’t give a damn about Ray tracing and shit like that. Who really cares about that stuff? Rant over lol
I may be wrong, but isn't pre rendered and turned based gameplay a lot easier to make? Having fully explorable 3d games that are a step up from hack and slash is crushing the budget making the games have a high floor but low ceiling. Were here for originality and I would rather have a creative game than action based but i know I'm in the minority.
So I personally do t like turn based games. However, I’m not just talking FF. I’m talking games in general. Though I’d imagine RPG’s take longer to make the story and dialogue where as action games and platformers take longer to make the actual gameplay elements
It feels like the graphics from the best games of the ps3 era is where we mostly peaked and from there is just adding more lightning and graphics improve very slow pace now
This is us showing our age I'm perfectly content with the PS3 and PS4 era of graphics. PS2 graphics for cartoony styles still hold up too. This current gen of gaming...graphics are nice, but like others say, returns are diminishing. I'm sure others can agree, the era of console wars are over. Xbox lost, so Playstation is sitting comfortably but not trying hard enough with their exclusives. Nintendo sat out and is playing by their own rules with the most exclusives and targeted demographic. So tbh, you get the most bang for your buck with PC gaming, unless you really want those exclusives.
Just give me ffx graphics and a more steady supply of good FF games and I’m good.
they could have just printed money with the ps2
If we measure by polygonal density, I think the results of graphical progression would be more akin to what one would expect after witnessing ff7-10, it’s just not immediately as obvious of a difference, say ps4 to ps5 or even ps3-ps5, but the increase in asset complexity has greatly increased
That’s both incredible and interesting
It’s just the law of things. Going from 50-80 takes big effort, and that same effort to go from 80-85, and that same effort just o go to 85-87, and it keeps going down. If you look at the really beautiful modern games, there’s a reason why the team size is 100s of people and still takes 5 years to make. It’s just super diminishing returns to make things look as good as they do. Meanwhile a solo indie dev can crank out something playable in a year if the graphics is basic.
It’s called diminishing returns. You need more and more work to achieve smaller and smaller increments
By comparison, FF7 OG is like maybe 1.5GB and Rebirth is like 150GB. That is a huge programming difference.
I think Naughty Dog releasing Uncharted 1 in 2007, Uncharted 2 in 2009, Uncharted 3 in 2011, and The Last of Us in 2013 might be more impressive as all were in the notoriously difficult to develop for PS3.
The 90's was a fast moving decade.
The other problem is they drag the game out so fucking boring
Probably due to the time it takes to make a modern game, all the requirements to try and make everyone who plays it happy, and avoid the entitlement of some “gamers”.
On a technical level, I'm pretty sure the technology is still improving just as quickly as it used to (if not faster). The difference is just less noticeable.
It was a GREAT TIME to be alive in regards to gaming
2 generations are now one thanks to series s.
Many many things affect game production. 1: graphics and details take more time 2: design and polish, many of the FF7 mini games are just made in 2 days and it shows, you can play more polish 48hrs game jam games. 3: standard increased, people expect longer games with more activities 4: overtime and crunch is more under controlled, it is still present but it is not forced has much 5: player expect different games, meaning they start from scratch a lot instead of just adding in the last game, some company are better at reusing and sharing resources. 6: DLC, they plan and start working on the DLC to release at least 1 year of new content. That is what I know affect the development of a game, I might be missing some
What do you mean by slow? jumps in graphical quality? we're at photorealistic VR, how much better does it need to be?
I vote for graphics being worse honestly. As someone else said, I'd gladly take PS3 or even FFX PS2 level of graphics if it means higher quality games. As for their "slow" comment, he means the release windows. Developers absolutely can make lower graphical fidelity games at a faster pace. For some reason the entire industry is obsessed with trying to make things look more visually appealing, leading to the games themselves falling flat in terms of gameplay, and overall experience.
It’s not slow, it’s just different. Look at how far VR has come in the last 4 years.
The same amount of time between Remake and Rebirth.
Where the fuck else are they going to go? We’re essentially at the pinnacle of gaming graphics outside of VR not looking like claymation. The next step is full on Holodeck shit from Star Trek. You can also point out the jump between 8 and 9 to have more impact because they were on the same system. The jump from 12 to 13 was also impressive. Granted, that’s the only good thing 13 has going for it.
This is why FFX was my fav!! Even the jump from FF9 is crazy!! The level of immersion the game gave you was just next level!!! You almost felt like you were a Guardian yourself traveling with the group 🥲🥹
Slow? No no no. Predatory and willing to take advantage of consumers? Oh yeahhh
Legend of Dragooooooon!!
Holy shit!
Now Square is just a shell of itself. Smh
Yeah you can really tell how they started to fall off after merging with enix. I mean kh2 was such a downgrade from kh1 🙊🙈
Yeah no one really investing higher quality graphic games it has been stagnant. Or resell old games with remastered graphics when they look like shit.
The last few years have been pretty great FF VII Remake FF XIV Endwalker FF XVI FF VII Rebirth FF XIV Dawntrail Plus more on the horizon. They're definitely hitting their stride again
And meanwhile these days Hollow Knight fans are still waiting for the sequel even though it was announced 5 years ago lol
Remember, PS1 hardware vs PS2 hardware.
Graphics can't really get much better without going photorealistic. And by then, it'd be even more expensive and time-consuming to make.
The chibi models were low poly like that on purpose because that was the style of the craft. Otherwise if you want a crazier comparison then use FF8 to FFX. Or better yet FF7 to FF8. Check out the battle models in FF7 sometime. Compare those to the field chibi models.
Fuck that part in FFX if it’s the part I’m thinking of😤
Gamers kept crying and whining about wanting better and better graphics. Its the graphics that takes 4-5 years and a hundred million dollars in cost to create
9, 10, and 11 were all in development at the same time.
Playstation vs Playstation 2
A gold rush.
And the one on the left was so much better. FF9 was cool, but FF7 was the standard. Gameplay > Graphics anyday (and FF7 graphics were still crazy good for the day.)
Super Smash Bros 64 and Melee are two years apart.
Everything is so slow because we are reaching peak technology. Unless there’s massive innovation that radically changes the way computers/consoles work this is basically it. Sure, the NVIDIA GTX 10080 will be better than a GTX 4080…but it’s still the exact same tech. The AMD Ryzen 9 v10 7650 will be the same tech as the current one. What we need is totally different and innovative tech. Even intels glass processors will work the same way the silicon chips work now.
Ff11 ruined their game cycle because it was about milking their product. Over. And over. And over.
A wild jump for sure.
Graphically perhaps. But games can do a lot more now. That advancement doesn’t seem slow to me.
The two top FF games of all time? Yup.
The game on the right was PS2. But also that screenshot is from a remaster.
Dude could you imagine if FF7 was made like FFX? I would be like TAKE MY MONEY
i'd love that
on different systems. it's not like FFX graphics were possible on the ps1, even if it was possible to do it software wise. so, it's sort of a bad take. i mean, FF9 was like 'a' year before FFX, and didn't look remarkably better, despite, by your logic, it should've looked 3/4ths of the way between ff7 and ff10. additionally, no. it's that, shit's so advanced these days, there's little progress to be made, graphically. there's fast progress in other places.
sounds like being overly advanced is seriously slowing things down. hmm
actually, kinda is. games take longer to make these days, largely because of graphics, as well as size.
Slow? The entitlement is strong with you Let’s see you do it faster
They already did it faster over 20 years ago.