The Chrono Trigger enduro run by itself got me thinking about what was different when Square was on top, making the strongest RPGs around.
The difference is that they used to be pushing boundaries with their writing. Time Travel, causality, and paradoxes in an SNES game. Fast forward to PSX and we're into central character death, delusional self-serving memories, swearing, I could Oxford comma for days about the freshness of Final Fantasy 7. A proper Near-Future setting with only minimal advancements in technology, who was doing that or has done it since, other than Kojima? Everything else seems to just translate that setting into Steampunk. I even remember Cloud busting out something like a cell phone at Wutai in mid-chase. Compare Wild ARMs or Beyond the Beyond to get some idea just how much they were innovating.
A lot of people don't respect Square as an innovator - the rush to emulate them during the PS2 era has obscured their legacy. I think they're still masterful on the graphics and engine end. But back then, they were pushing poetic and literary (and anime) goals into the gaming world, while nearly everyone else was focused on getting games closer to hollywood cinema.
Square would do well to look less at Skyrim's graphics, and more at its genius handling of the grey area storyline between Stormcloaks and Imperials. At the way some of its quests have NO way at all to tell if you believed the right person, other than thinking it over yourself. At the fact you might come to regret your choices, but still be invested in them. At its rich history told not from a menu subscreen, but from books written by characters in the world who do have cultural biases. At the fun of an overheard conversation or the tales of your last dragon kill spreading around. At the random encounters on the road where over time you might by yourself choose to jump into a fight based on how the factions have appealed to you. I think they still imagined a very rich world for FF13 - for a time I was captivated - but show, don't tell. Leave it entirely to my imagination, and I'll prefer to just turn off the game and be happy with my own version of Cocoon.
If they chill out a little on the technical difficulty of making a AAA HD JRPG, they'll realize that that particular goal still hasn't been realized by anyone. They can pretty much do whatever and it will still be more AAA and modern than say, Lost Odyssey was. But will it be as moving? What they need to do is focus on ground breaking story again, because there are other companies schooling them on that, East and West. Is it a lot of work? Hire more dudes then. A continent in a box is possible.
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