New Developers Are the Answer

by Ben Dinehart

I agree with Paradis' assement of new squaresoft games. They no longer give you the fun and challenge you had when the charcters were specialized. Now I won't sit here and add support to her argument, she has done that well enough on her own, instead I'm here to tell of a soultion. Just buy a game from a different developer.

There are a lot of developers out there who can make good quality games. SquareSoft it just getting the hype that received from FF7, which sucked anyways, and using it to turn out a lot of games. Though some are pretty good, i.e Xenogears. Now I have a perfect example of a good game froma different developer. SO2. Star Ocean 2 has got specialized characters that can make or break your team when you play. All the characters have the strengths and weaknesses. Crawd is a good all around character perfect to lead in battle, Rena is your healer, Celine is your strong magic user, etc, etc. Not to mention the battles kick ass and are mad addicting. SO2 is by Tri-Ace.

If you want another example take Contrail's Lenged of Legia. The charcters again were specialized. Vahn was your strong, semi-fast guy, Noa was the fast but weak hitter, and Gala was your slow but powerful hitter. Again the battles were a lot of fun and at made parts challenging. Noticing a trend. The battles are a lot more fun when the characters are specialized. Sure there are some other factors like graphics and the battle mode of the game, but still these specialized characters make you thirst for a specific charcter.

Thirsting for a specific character was real fun too. I remember in SO2, how I was pissed like all hell when I couldn't get Dias on my team. This will lead you to spend a lot of time on a game going on quests and doing to get a character. You then get attached to a character and start to get pissed when they die in battle.

If you find you don't agree with me on new games from different developers for some reason, just go back to old ones. I'm sure there are plenty you haven't played that you can find from Square. Or play ones that you already ahve that were good. A good game from Square's youth usually are fun the second and third time around.

Another point she had that was good was the time it took for battles. I hate it when I play a dugeon and it takes a long time just because each battle takes so long. This is just crazy. I like good graphics, but I find gameplay is a lot better than having eye-candy. Good developers know how to give you graphics without having the battles take mad long. Again a soultion to this is to go to a new developer like Tri-Ace. Paradis also pointed out the problem of limit breaks. They are just dumb. I liked FF6 (FF3) desperation move. It happened only when you were really really weak, and only had a probability of like 1/20. This gave a reason to fight till the bloody end. But the FF7 ones were boring after you saw them and dumb.

So if you hate the trend new games from Square are in just go to new developers.