Soffish

I don't think a game needs to be "fun" in order for it to be a worthwhile interactive experience. I loved Journey and I'm currently loving The Walking Dead, yet those games couldn't be simpler from a gameplay perspective.

I haven't had much experience with this, but I think a lot of the time when a pay-to-play mmo goes free-to-play the people who purchased the game get in-game benefits of some sort. So if you enjoyed Swtor, buying a copy of Swtor might not be such a bad idea.

Personally I think the fact that people are still arguing about FFVII 15 years after it's release is a testament to why FFVII was the right direction for the series to go in. The fact is that people are still incredibly passionate about Final Fantasy, I doubt that would be the case if Square just played it safe and just released the same game over and over again. I think that taking risks with a franchise, even if it means alienating a significant portion of your fanbase, is preferable to just playing to your base and stagnating.

@Turambar: When it comes to the visuals and the music that is very much the case, and I would imagine that's why the snes Final Fantasy games are remembered more fondly than the PlayStation games. But when it comes to game design and storytelling I don't think the snes games are really all that superior to their polygonal successors.

Personally, I think all the Final Fantasy games were all products of their time. I don't think any of the FF games have aged particularly well, and I don't feel like it's really all that fair to judge them from a modern point-of-view.

Doesn't the beta start on Thursday?

Wait, didn't he give a whole speech criticizing publishers for not treating their developers with respect? Yet, now he seems to be throwing the most talented people at THQ under the bus. Huh.

Seems like a reasonable deal, although it seems kinda late in the cycle to do something like this.

The story of Kingdom hearts would probably be fine if it wasn't for all the portable games. Continuing to add prequels and side-stories without really advancing the main plot tends to make a series' canon become excessively convoluted.

Personally, this intense focus on Nomura and character design is completely baffling to me. The main problem people seem to have with ff13/ff13-2 is the story, so shouldn't the backlash against 13 be focused on the story? It's entirely possible to love a game that has bad character design if it excels in storytelling. Even Patrick likes Chrono Trigger even though he hates the character design.