https://nitter.ca/Marc_Normandin/status/1558080676120895488#m

I wonder if he was thinking specifically of Metal Gear Solid or something similar.

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Why not Final Fantasy and other RPG titles?

      FF8 came out in 1999 on the back of FF7's success. It produced spectacular cutscenes as reward for the same formula of menu driven turnbased jRPG combat that had existed for over a decade.

      It was also the second most successful game in Japan that year. Beaten only by Pokemon Gold.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_video_games#Japan

      Time Crisis also dominated arcades at the time which is basically all the same thing and entirely "reward cutscene for successful progress". It is arguably even worse than an fps title for its complete lack of player control.

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Hadn't Nintendo made Super Mario RPG with Square just a few years prior though? It didn't have FMV but a lot of scenes with characters talking to each other

        It does sound very much like what FF13 ended up being though

        Wasn't Time Crisis an arcade style rail shooter though? Those had been around a while

        • Awoo [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah but what I'm getting at is that the trend of games towards this was just beginning. It was the point at which people were realising "these sequels have the same gameplay as all the other games, they are changing nothing except the cutscenes". It was the point at which they were recognising that games were becoming a factory line for profit instead of art.

          Nintendo is guilty of the opposite thing. Instead of selling their games on cutscenes/story they sold their games on gameplay while reusing the same characters and story over and over again. Reusing the same characters over and over is interesting though I suppose because it forces your entire focus to be on "So what gameplay are we making?" as your characters and their background already exist.

          Obviously this didn't stop things like Pokemon doing the same gameplay over and over again though. But Pokemon made 150+ new characters each game generation so I suppose they felt like that was different enough to what anyone else was doing.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Some of the fiercest treat defending that I have ever received offline and in person was about Shenmue.

        The fact that the games have such a long "hard work and patience" period and build up very slowly to nothing made me feel vindicated with each sequel.

        • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Is it really bad?

          I've only ever heard praise for how groundbreaking it was from games journalist types, which is convenient when hardly anyone in NA had a dreamcast.

          The game's budget exceeded the sale price multiplied by the number of consoles.

          Surely with a budget like that, the game did things no other game of the time could do?

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I've seen some very extensive reviews of it that are almost beat by beat, hours and hours of grinding forklift driving and other minigames to maybe learn a shrug or block move, and the payoff at the end is... a cliffhanger, to the next game, and repeat in the next, and ultimately, no real story payoff. It just fizzles into nothing.