Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

[Rozalia]

Kitase I think. He seemed to always be in any news regarding the game (Defending it, saying its great and so forth). Then again he could be a special effects man or something for all I know because I'm terrible at remembering details

[Shale]

Motomu Toriyama, the man responsible for those shining gems of quality, FFX-2 and FFXII: Revenant Wings.

[Ultradude]

Yeah, Kitase was just the producer. Motomu Toriyama was apparently the lead game designer.

[Meeplelard]

Revenant Wings is actually not that bad of a game, at least gameplay wise; plot...I guess its inoffensive?  That does not make it good mind!

RW feels like a game that was made to be its own unique little thing at first, like its own separate game, but Square realized somewhere along the way that this could be a commercial failure, and its not a big enough release to merit advertising it to hell, and its a niche game, etc.  So they do the logical thing, slap "Final Fantasy" on the title, and tie it in with their latest game by shoving all the characters back!  I don't know if this is actually what happened, but I really wouldn't be shocked if they decided to make it an FF12 Sequel/Spin-off was an afterthought in order to boost sales.  Kind of like what happened with Godzilla vs. Megalon; suppose to be Giant Robot fights evil lightning Beetle, but no, that won't sell; time to shove Godzilla and Gigan into this, to make people almost give a shit about it!

Difference is, FF12RW has actual half decent qualities; Godzilla vs. Megalon is pure crap once you pass the age of 6, and aren't watching the MST3k Version.

And yeah, if the game isn't Kingdom Hearts, Nomura doesn't do much more than character designs.  Even Dissidia, where he's called the Creative Producer or whatever, he actually apparently didn't do much besides draw the characters.  From reading interviews, it sounds like he mostly directed by just being the guy who gave stamps of approvals to ideas, and Arakawa really did most of the work (worth noting that Nomura DID come up with the idea behind Dissidia, though he didn't actually work a lot on it, Character Designs aside)
Not to mention Nomura's actually one of the few sane people left at Squenix; if nothing else, I refer to Nibelheim from Crisis Core.  Notice how it was very accurate portrayal based on what we saw of FF7?  From what I understand, if it wasn't for Nomura, it'd be a massive retcon mess.

In short, Nomura tends to get more blamed on him than is actually justified.  Kind of like how people blame bad translations like FF2us on Woolsey even though he had NOTHING to do with it, and a lot of his "Screw ups" weren't that, either hardware limitations, NoA Censorship nonsense, or, wouldn't you know it, bullshit fan claims to make him seem worse than he is.

[Niu]

The list of who to blame:

Kitase- FF7 Compilation in its entirety, he is the very person who comes up with the idea: "let's retcon FF7 for the hell of it"
Nomura- FF7AC specificly and 90% of Cloud related stuff in general. Nomura himself is a Cloud fanboy of impossible degree. Also, he had already promised us for more Cloud related nonsense in future.
Toriyama- FFX-2, FF13

[Shale]

So Kitase and Nomura have each done something to justify their existence (assuming Kitase deserves credit for the overall package of Crisis Core), while Toriyama is a waste of hair and organs. Gotcha.

[Rozalia]

Nomura- FF7AC specificly and 90% of Cloud related stuff in general. Nomura himself is a Cloud fanboy of impossible degree.

Funny considering the more he adds on the worse Cloud gets. What possessed him to take Cloud down the route he has is what I want to know.

[Cotigo]

Waaaaait.  Wait, wait, wait.  I haven't watched AC or played Crisis Core or whatever else but...  Cloud got... Worse?  He was already a pretty shitty character to begin with.  BROODING DOES NOT A GOOD CHARACTER MAKE.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FF3DS - Well, Ninja Luneth isn't nearly as awesome offensively as Warrior Luneth, but he's gotten to the point where he's good enough. Dragoon Refia is fine too. Now, to finally climb Crystal Tower for realsies and mock Xande.

[VySaika]

Waaaaait.  Wait, wait, wait.  I haven't watched AC or played Crisis Core or whatever else but...  Cloud got... Worse?  He was already a pretty shitty character to begin with.  BROODING DOES NOT A GOOD CHARACTER MAKE.

From what I remember of AC beyond "ooh pretty visuals", Cloud basically does just that. A whole lot more brooding.

[Meeplelard]

Lets clarify what happens to Cloud each game after FF7, ignoring blatant cheap cameos like FFT.

KH: Has the whole "Sold my soul to Darkness for Power so I can find someone!" nonsense, angsts, what have you.  The first hint of Emo!Cloud...

This applies to KHCoM too which mostly just retold the exact same story <_<

FF7AC: This is where the Emo thing really took off.  All he does is fight or basically angst and brood about how his life sucks.  He doesn't smile pretty much the entire movie until the end, and it basically ignores all his development, claiming he'd regress to something based on manners that he very much dealt with in FF7 (he even went out of his way to acknowledge that he's done with them, being part of his big End Disc 2 speech and all.)  It really ignored everything that happened with his character.

KH2: Emo!Cloud appears yet again, this time going all "Watch out for Sephiroth" but then Sephiroth comes and...basically mocks him for everything Cloud told Sora to watch out for, pretty much saying "Cloud, you're an idiot, I'm not the loser whose brooding in darkness, you are."  It says something that Sephiroth shows more personality and was friendlier to Sora than Cloud is.  I would say that about Squall too, except that KH1 did go out of its way, in his bio, to state that Squall changed his name to Leon specifically to disassociate himself with his former self, so we can attribute the change to that, if nothing else (Leon is a lot more likable and friendly than Squall.)

Dirge of Cerberus: mostly exists for an action scene, has a generic chat with Vincent, etc.  Yeah, probably doesn't really count.

Crisis Core: Cloud's more just kind of modest and shy here, rather than Emo.  He doesn't really come off as being recognizably Cloud, beyond the design, but then, its actually justifiable here; its Cloud Pre-Nibelheim, after all, someone we never actually saw and only had vague hints what he was like, so yeah; and he's different in a way that's not "UGH HATE" like AC/KH Cloud is.

Dissidia: Oh look, they FINALLY did their homework and FINALLY realized that Cloud isn't an Emo little bitch, just rational and more duty driven.  He actually shows signs of being friendly in this game, and looking out for others, rather than just going "my life sucks."  Not a perfect representation of Cloud, but then its hard to do so with a character like that in a manner of a half hour worth of cut scenes, so frankly, I'll take what I can get, as far as accurately portraying him.

So yeah, in short...
Crisis Core he was different, but for justifiable reasons.  Dissidia, he was about as good as you'll get in that, as to accurately portraying him.  Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts? He will make you hate yourself there.

EDIT:
Oh yeah, from what I understand regarding Advent Children...
The movie was mostly made just on the concept of looking damned cool and visually awesome; basically, emphasizing the ACTION more than the MOVIE.  Which, being an Action Movie, isn't such a bad thing, and the movie is fun to watch if you turn your brain off (which if you haven't done already, there's something wrong with you.)    The plot was mostly just a thin BSed thing to attempt to make some coherent sense other than just explosions and nothing going on, cause you kind of need something in the movie, but uh...Nomura isn't a writer, as we know, so what'd you expect?  It sounds like AC: Complete does fix up some of AC's blunders, but I honestly can't speak for that.

[Rozalia]

I heard the biggest change in AC: Complete was they gave him an actual reason for all that brooding. Doesn't excuse the permentant sadness that Cloud has throughout 99.5% of the movie but its a start.

[Sierra]

DMC3: Beat up a Vergil, then got beat up in a cutscene. Boo, cutscene vulnerability. Anyway, easy fight by this game's standards.

[Magetastic]

I remember, many years ago, at a friend's birthday party, we had AC playing on a constant loop in the background. I can't make heads nor tails of the entire thing, and can't tell what happens before what, but each scene was damn bad-ass. It was like everybody was Dante, without the writing. (Or good looks)

[Shale]

Yep, that's AC in a nutshell. Story? Characterization? Fuck that, it's all about the fight scenes and shiny CGI.

[Scar]

Chrono Trigger: Beat! Final levels were around 52ish. Lavos went down pretty easily after I remembered which ball to target. Had to beat him twice because I did something end game which didn't save me beating Lavos...

Mega Man 10 - Beat! Wily's Castle was fun, level 2 gave us the hardest time and the boss rush mode was awesome. Great game. Now onto MM9 because that game mocks me...

Pokemon SS - Purchased...but have yet to start because I forgot I STILL haven't picked up all the Legendaries in Diamond and Ruby... Cresselia and Mesprit are mocking me as I write this...

=( (Just gonna say fuck it and Master Ball one of them.)

[Cmdr_King]

The damning part of that is Mespirit just so isn't worth the effort of catching a Runner.  Cresselia... well, Gen 4 hates tanks, but it could be worse.

The nice part about Crisis Core's treatment of Cloud is that they remembered to keep him in proper continuity (that is, in his younger days Cloud was introverted and had a marked self image problem, which is why he was so fucked up by the Hojo Mindrape Jenova Fun Ride in the first place) WITHOUT making him broody and emo and unlikable, which was the whole problem with what, uh, things that weren't FFVII were doing. 

But enough fanboy rambling, it's time for fanboy rambling.

Sam and Max: Beyond Time and Space- finished up Episode 2.  While Episode 1 I worked through at a good pace, in the second episode I just completely missed the logic of the teapot puzzle (or, rather, completely neglected the teapot and didn't even think to use it as a solution to that puzzle), and after that I was just completely flatfooted and did a shameful amount of FAQing.  Otherwise, um, it's Sam and Max.  There's nothing not awesome about Sam and Max.  Why don't more of you play Sam and Max?

[Shale]

Because they're pathetic sacks of meat who hate joy. Obviously.

[Scar]

Oh wow....

So I just caught both of those assholes...

Figured out what I was doing wrong. Max Repel won't let you fight them if the first pokemon in yer team is a higher level then them...

Gawd Dammit!

[Niu]

So Kitase and Nomura have each done something to justify their existence (assuming Kitase deserves credit for the overall package of Crisis Core), while Toriyama is a waste of hair and organs. Gotcha.

The biggest irony is that FF7CC could have sucked big time if Kitase did it himself. As a lot of good ideas in CC came from Nomura, who originally wasn't a part of CC until Kitase pulls him in.

[kokushishin]

FFXIII:  
Partner AI that doesn't suck.  Auto-X is pretty limited compared to Manual though, particularly with the non-"hit it till it dies, k?" roles. Roles themselves are a bit overspecialized for my tastes.

Scenes are shorter than an FF8 summon, and most can be skipped.  

I do wish some of the out of the way spots weren't just "ooh,  treasure' or "lolambush."  Rinear schminear,  Reona Rewis blows up townz, and I don't care what animes the VAs were in.  

[Dhyerwolf]

Revenant Wings is actually not that bad of a game, at least gameplay wise; plot...I guess its inoffensive?  That does not make it good mind!

RW feels like a game that was made to be its own unique little thing at first, like its own separate game, but Square realized somewhere along the way that this could be a commercial failure, and its not a big enough release to merit advertising it to hell, and its a niche game, etc.  So they do the logical thing, slap "Final Fantasy" on the title, and tie it in with their latest game by shoving all the characters back!

There was a time when these fools were smart enough to realize that putting out a good number of unique, on their own side games enriched the company!

[Grefter]

When was that?  When they put out stuff in the SNES era and rebranded it to be Final Fantasy or Secrets of (ANUS) games?  Or in the Playstation Era when they made sequels for those games?

[DomaDragoon]

There's nothing not awesome about Sam and Max.  Why don't more of you play Sam and Max?

Obviously they're all lame with their stat topics and their level grinding and their Jell-o pudding.

Speaking of which...

Disgaea 2: Level grinding, and eating away at the stocked Felonies. Storywise, I'm at the end of the Etna's Nail chapter, but I'm trying to unlock CoO4 and just don't have enough good fighters to outlast those darn chickens.

[Idun]

K. So I can finally seem to try to empathize with those who say that The Last Remnant is a difficult game. I only noticed it during the spike on the second-to-last boss Gates of Hell on Disc 1. The whole issue of me dying about five times is that I wanted to support multiple unions of 4 rather than 3. After seeing if anyone else was having difficulty, I did see that someone suggested using only three unions. They were also talking about battle rank, but that differs per enemy and aggregates in dungeons, so I didn't pay that much attention. Anyway, my whole weakness was that my fourth union that was a mage troop kept dying by Gates of Hell pretty much after I destroyed all of its four-five minions three rounds before he opens his pit. But they had low HP. I assimilated them into my stronger parties, ultimately increasing the HP per troop even more and everyone was able to rejuvenate or bring teams back to life. Only one group died once, brought them back to life once . . .  it sorta became honky dory after that. I raped him. It was long due for how I was boggled with how my teammates were supposed to survive the majority of his attacks.

Duke Heiermein's arc was kinda . . well, the second to last scene shows the voice actor's best before Disc 1 is over. Originally it was pretty lackluster. Disc 1 ended on a "Hmm," as far as storyline is concerned.

Anyway, it was great gaming for a bit, but I need to buckle down on my research because all my classes end this end of April. Hurr. (: Gradumuation.