BioWare and Interplay never expected Baldur’s Gate to sell as well as it did. The game resurrected the PC RPG genre, which is why it sold so well. The only other RPG that even came close to matching its quality at the time was Diablo. PC RPG fans were starved of decent RPGs, and one set in the popular Forgotten Realms D&D setting that exuded the quality of Baldur’s Gate soon drew everyone’s attention. Baldur’s Gate was a labor of love. BioWare didn’t develop it simply because they knew it would sell over 2 million copies (they never even imagined how successful it would later prove to be). They developed the game for PC RPG fans and to fill a rather huge gap in the market.
Baldur’s Gate 2 is another story. It was widely anticipated for a start by everyone who had bought the first game, but the advertising (across the net and in magazines) you’re referring to helped secure the interest of newcomers as well (some aspects of the game were changed for the benefit of those who had never played the original). Did you know Interplay rushed the game’s release because the mighty publisher was desperate for money? Despite the fact Interplay has earned millions of dollars from the Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Fallout series, Titus, its owner has squeezed it for all its worth.
Final Fantasy’s success, however, can easily be attributed to mass media hype. When Panzer Dragoon Saga was released, the Saturn was still very popular in Japan. Therefore fans couldn’t make the excuse that they were simply unaware of the game because it wasn’t advertised (surely they would’ve read about it in the Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine). They couldn’t bring themselves to like a great game and I can only wonder why. Perhaps the lack of the mass media hype we normally associate with the Final Fantasy series is to blame. Only popular RPGs gain the attention of mainstream gamers.
Why do such terrible games like Enter The Matrix sell by the truckload when great games remain stuck on the shelf until the end of time? How many other great games have been overshadowed by poor-quality popular games?
Oh, I see. My prejudgement of Final Fantasy 6 as a whole is bad, but your prejudgement of Final Fantasy 10 as a whole is A-OK.
Your credibility in being objective just got shot down really fast… I think I’ll remain with the opinion that I think Final Fantasy 6’s artwork is disgusting and that the main battle theme is utter crap, and you continue with your decision that 10 is garbage because you didn’t like 8 and 9. Cool? Cool.
Oh, I see. My prejudgement of Final Fantasy 6 as a whole is bad, but your prejudgement of Final Fantasy 10 as a whole is A-OK.
Your credibility in being objective just got shot down really fast… I think I’ll remain with the opinion that I think Final Fantasy 6’s artwork is disgusting and that the main battle theme is utter crap, and you continue with your decision that 10 is garbage because you didn’t like 8 and 9. Cool? Cool.[/quote]
Maybe that was said a bit rashly, I simply say that because I have seen people play that game before my eyes. I have heard its music, I have seens it movies, and its art. I even know what the freaken story line is, but none of it really catches my attention to play it. shrugsIt is really too glitterly for my liking. Especially on character design (it felt like they just slapped a whole bunch of cool looking accesories, especially with whats her face? Lulu? the one with the silly looking mass of belts?). I especially do not really care for the method of leveling up, that sphere thing. hell I dont remember what it is called.
It just simply does not catch my interest at all, not comapred to the others ones I have played anyways.
Those are my reasons for not wanting to play this particular game, if I do ever give it a try I would at least play a few hours worth into it and not a few minutes worth. At least get a taste of the game. =D
Although I do find the irony of the both of us sticking up for a particualr FF title at a PD forum. >.>
I like FF and I wasn’t offended… hell, most of it was true ^_^. I like the “Random Battles” w/ FFVII and The Return of Ganondorf as well XD.
And FFVI does not have terrible music… The battle music is just “ok”, but you must not have gotten very far =/. The game has excellent music. By the way, the music for that little tribute comes from a Final Fantasy VI song: ffonline.com/media/music/ff6 … hocobo.mid
Notice a similarity? ffonline.com/ff6/music.htm is the main page for the music… I really think you judged FFVI too early =/.
The battle theme for FFVI was not exactly my favorite either, but ones like “Dancing Mad” “The Fierce Battle,” Celes’ theme and Doma (I really like this particular one) really do make up for it.
So strange to quote something from a topic so old… but, simply because I am curious, do you ever intend to try out any of the FF games? There is a few of us that are fans of some of the FF games, and we also like games like PDS, SOA, Morrowind and so forth. I dont like the FF hype as much as the rest of us here, but that is not exactly being fair to a game series that actually does have very good games(FF4, FF5, FF6 are the ones that I am very fond of and these games came out before there was even a FF hype.)
i’m not what you call an FF fan… i liked 6 for the composite storyline (not that i think it’s a good idea, just that it was different), some good characters, and there was a ton of crap to do. 7 was ok, had some parts i liked with large sections of crap that i didn’t like between. i wanted to kill myself the entire way through 10. i am repulsed by hollow, naive, angst ridden stories and i wanted to kill tidus every time he was on the screen. really, when will there be an RPG with the cultural intelligence of something like cowboy bebop? the japanese market (RPGs especially) is sickeningly inbred.
No offense intended Vanessa, but I cannot stand any of the latest Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy 7 received far more recognition than it deserved especially in the light of the fact that far better RPGs went unnoticed during the time of its release by the people who claimed to love it, and I found the barely-dressed all female lead in Final Fantasy X-2 to be nothing more than a way of capturing the attention of the male gamers who constitute the majority of gamers today. I wonder how straight female gamers reacted to those characters, especially with their revealing clothes and endless posing? Honestly, how can anyone save the world in a bikini? Whenever I raise this issue I’m made to feel that I’m somehow less of a man just because I don’t drool over fictional women; when in truth, the gamers who allow their desires to be exploited without even realising it are the real losers.
The Final Fantasy series has no right to call itself a series since most of the games thus far have no story ties to speak of. Before Final Fantasy X-2 there was little to no sense of continuity which is the backbone of any great series of games in my opinion regardless of whether or not potential consumers lack or possess any knowledge of prior games. Sure, a single game must contain a story that can stand on its own two feet, but everything becomes meaningless if we don’t witness how the outcome of that story shapes the future. The Final Fantasy games are more akin to soap operas whose stories focus on the tenuous grip a bunch of young people have on their emotions (which of course naturally rage out of control) than RPGs. I, unlike most “RPG fans”, prefer RPGs with real depth and mature[r] character development. However, now that I’m forced to buy a Playstation 2 just to play the latest installments in the Shining series, I might be tempted to buy a few mainstream RPGs if only to remind myself of how childish they can be. If the new Shining games do their best to emulate the character development of the Final Fantasy games merely for the sake of sales, I will abandon the series altogether. That’s how much I hate that type of storytelling. I hate games that are dumbed down and sexed up in order to appeal to a wider audience.
If you’re fond of the Final Fantasy series, then good for you. I on the other hand cannot bring myself to share your fondness for it.
I wanted to try out Vagrant story for some time now, I just gotta steal the copy from my BF. =)
Geoffrey Duke: Personally I think the females dressed in X-2 was really really amusing. I was just wondering how many males would buy the game just for that. I could care less but it just shows where the hype is.
Although I do believe that FF6 had something that was lost in 7,8,9,10. It just kinda makes me sad that you wont try out one simple game because of the “sucess” of a few other games.
Final Fantasy… lets see. I have played I, V, VI, VII, and X-2 (and I’ve seen a fair bit of FFX too). I’ve played, but not finished any of them - not because they’re bad games, simply because I’ve never owned any of them, I’ve just tried other peoples copies.
Personally I don’t think that the Final Fantasy series are bad games. I played FFVII for about 10 hours (before I had to give it back) and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s not the greatest game ever made (I like a certain RPG that came out about a year later better :)) but it’s still a quality title IMO.
However, I can understand why Geoffrey is so upset about the Final Fantasy games. The Final Fantasy series has become extremely mainstream, from what I’ve seen of it. While the Dressphere in FFX-2 is an interesting concept (more RPGs should allow you to change the physical appearance of your clothes/armour IMO), it does sicken me that this kind of sex appeal in RPGs is responsible for selling the game to the masses. Turning Yuna into a Lara Croft-style marketing tool isn’t my idea of a step forward for the Final Fantasy series. The game didn’t actually feel like a FF game at all to me, even the classic battle victory theme had been replaced by some other zany tune. Saying that, FFX-2 isn’t a bad game, but it’s popular for the wrong reasons IMO.
Also, because Square-Enix has so much money, they’re able to spend a lot more on expensive flashy FMV sequences that will undoubtably sell the game, when other great games will be ignored because they don’t have as impressive graphics or they’re simply not as well known. I hope to make my own RPG one day (a classic, 2D one, but with some original concepts), however I’m wondering if it would even be worth it because people would simply rather play their glittery Final Fantasy games, even if the game was released for free. I’ve been playing Golden Sun on the GBA recently and it’s the most fun I’ve had with a Japanese RPG for a while, but with handhelds rapidly catching up to consoles, I can’t help but wonder if any RPG that doesn’t have graphics as good as Final Fantasy, that doesn’t have voice acting and impressive movies, and that doesn’t have the mainstream appeal of FF, will remain at the bottom of the heap.
Actually, they wasted all their money on The Spirits Within and merged with Enix, and Enix has a controlling interest in the new company ^_~. It’s not the fact that it is mainstream that bugs me about the newer ones… It is the fact that so many new players start with VII and don’t realize that some of the older games were just as good and, in VI’s case, quite a bit better.
True, although I wouldn’t blame people for not knowing about the previous games in series, even if they are better. Final Fantasy VII was the first game I played in the series too, but that was simply because I had never heard of the others before it until after I have played VII (although it’s logical that there were 6 games before it :)). I don’t doubt that Final Fantasy VI was a quality title.
I gave FF7 an 8 out of 10 on Gamefaqs. But the trouble with it was that it was too dark but didn’t have PDS’s sense of grit or maturity, the character designs resembled dolls, and the hero just bugged me with his angst in the beginning. FF9 returned to the true spirit of the originals and balanced light with dark.
