FFCC and friends and that one retarded cousin we don't talk about

Why is it that an IP can never stay what it was when "sequels" or just more games with the same title come out?
If you look at FFCC, the gamecube game was great. But then came the little spin offs with "My life as a King/Darklord" and around that time I knew they were up to something dumb but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Before that, around 2007 came the DS games with Ring of Fates and later Echoes of Time and personally I'd say they were proper and enjoyable, but fairly limited by being on a handheld.
But what really pissed me the fuck off was this last piece of fucking horseshit, namely "Crystal Bearers".

What fucking crackhead was payed even a single penny to fabricate this disgusting abomination. This pathetic excuse of a video game.
How the fuck do you go from a fun game with amazing OST to this shit?
Was it because the Wii sold like shit at the time, so they dug up an IP that sold well and shat out this junk just so they have more games that use the wiimote?

At this point I'm sure everyone has a game or two or more that had this happen to them.
If there even is any games that are to release in the near future, do you think that as soon as they gain traction and people start havin expectations of them they will automatically be doomed to fall into this cycle?
Or maybe the more budget the devs receive, the more they dillude themselves that they can shove more junk into their next iterations and pass it off as the same game only "improved"?

I was surprised to find that the same guy who worked on the first game on GC also worked on Crystal Bearers and Explorers, which turned out shit as well.
What is it that makes a dev shit on their own game like this?

God-tier game, if you had the 99999999999usd necessary to play it 4-player.

The short answer is that Squeenix doesn't care about any games that aren't mainline FF or Kindom Hearts.

jokes aside, it was still enjoyable as single player
especially since you had to deal with carrying the chalice on your own once your moogle got tired

I had my 4(+) party of nerds ready and willing. Those were actually some of the funnest days in all my vidya gayming.

It's still an objective fact though. That game was fucking expensive as hell to play properly.

it's not like you had to provide a gba to everyone
I see it as an up to four player game, not a mandatory four player requirement


What really bugs me is that with Ring of Fates/Echoes of Time they weren't going down the drain like with Crystal Bearers
Just what the fuck happened?
Even Explorers was closer to CC than that shit, but it was still a bad game.

Problem is that devs need a good vision to make a good game, and if they're looking to consumers for feedback, they're gonna get an amalgamation of conflicting viewpoints and opinions. This is what creates a potential shitstorm. That, and of course the obvious fact that when something grows large enough that the brand alone has penetrated the greater consciousness (Mario, Final Fantasy, Mickey Mouse, etc), it will most definitely be milked to its fullest in order to squeeze every last shekel out of the cash cow.

Simple. Money and all of the restrictions it brings, a lack of direction or vision, and pandering to dipshits all fuse together to varying degrees to create shitty, bland, homogenized, corporately produced shite. There are other factors, but this is the modern day dev cycle that is responsible for producing such boring tripe.

Never played any of these games. I wanted to play Crystal Chronicles when it came out, never got around to it. I tried the demo for My Life as a Darklord, it wasn't that bad. I had fun with Crystal Defenders. They can't all be that bad. What's your problem with Crystal Bearers? Can't be worse than All The Bravest.

It's more difficult to explain if you didn't play original CC.
It's absolutely unlike CC. You are stripped of any freedom, you're held by the hand like a moron in combat, there is fucking QTEs like in shenmue. When you fail them, the scene just starts over again. It's nothing like the first game, which is really weird to me.
The development of Crystal Bearers was even before the DS games but it came out later because they had trouble during development.
So they had started making this shit that is nothing like CC and during that time they delivered Ring of Fates and Echoes of Time which were pretty alright and worthy of carrying the CC name.

Yeah, that sounds like shit. I have nothing more relevant to add, though. Have a bump anyway.

hand-holding QTEs when

thanks, fraggot


what happens when you fail the QTE?

A harder QTE appears where you have to avoid getting raped

You have actual sex.

(Checked)
My life as a king is fairly good and nothing like CC either. I understand your frustration, but we will probably never get a game like CC again, specially considering that most of the CC games are nothing like the others, except direct sequels. I think CC was considered a failure, even when it was their fault, so there's that too.

CC could have been incredible in 3DS, considering you have the second screen to manage your shit.

...

Then it's uncensored

Absolutely. That was one of the reasons I was looking forward to Explorer and it fucking let me down.

I'd hate to see it just fade away, despite the potential. I just hope the main series fucking dies with 15 so they can focus on making actual games again and who knows, they just might have learned their lesson with Explorer.

Explorers was alright for a bootleg copy of Mpnster Hunter and the first time I ever had fun with anons here.
Also, consider that the main serie is not that consistent with the gameplay anymore, so they'll probably shit a FF16 with completely different gameplay for all we know.

I expect it to be a full fucking movie ala Last of Us

As true as that may be, it was lacking so many things that Ring of Fates already had.
Fighting the fucking eidolons 20 times and then come color changed Donut Steel version was just retarded. The area was way too small and tedious to walk through, it was a disaster.

KH3 and FF7Remake will sell like hotcakes on brand recognition alone, so I fully expect Square to copy elements from those two, such as their shared shitty pseudo action combat.

There's no way they'll persist with FF15's dogshit system, right? Right.

I doubt even Fujoshits could carry this abomination and make up for the money that was wasted making this shit.
But who knows, squeenix seems to hate making money

If 2.9 is solid, as in better than the previous ones or at least the same, I'll like it.
That's true for FF7 remake that is more like FF13, supposedly, but if you refer to Kingdom Hearts, you should either actually play it or kill yourself.

I am nigga. What are you gonna do about it? The combat is simplistic and shitty. Fun, but shit.

I seriously hope you're not implying that, specially when you say it's fun yourself.

I am.

Smash O to win is not what I would describe as good gameplay.

Smash O to win is not how I would describe KH either.

Was it X, then? It's been about 8+ years since I last played it, so I might be getting the exact button wrong.

...

You might want to play again to see how wrong you are, specially the Final Mix version.

I've played both the mainstay KH's to 100% completion twice in my life, both on the hardest difficulty available (though not in the Final Mix version since I didn't have that.)

I stand by my statements.

If I remember right, Crystal Bearers was changed heavily from its inception to what it is now. The gameplay as it is however is, in a word, miserable. 85% QTEs or minigames while actual combat is dull wagglan. The story is also rather trite. That said, the Keijo minigame was decently entertaining if only because of the bikini girls and the protag not giving a single swinging fuck about anything was cool. Those two things, and the 10/10 soundtrack, are the only saving graces of that game.

That said, I'm always baffled that Squeenix never even made an attempt to 1:1 port Crystal Chronicles to the 3DS or Wii U to utilize the 3DS as a multiplayer controller. The game's own design would have lent a lot better to the complexities of the 3DS as a controller than the GBA at the time, and the Moogle/Chalice Bearer could be controlled via Wii U gamepad while 4 people dicked around as explorers on 3DSes. Yes, it would be extremely lazy and very cash-grabby…but at least admit that the idea of playing online to collect myrrh and be comfy is pretty appealing.

it doesn't compare to the original CC soundtrack, but I'll give it that it was alright to listen to

I would've liked to see at least that much
could've easily added new areas and maybe even a new arc after the meteor

There's a lot of things you could have done with a port-grade. Nintendo was able to take a barebones 3D platformer (SM64) and make the DS port of it a lot of fun to playthrough and 100%, even seeing some replay with the 3DS via its circle pad. (Now if only the camera was CCP-compatible…)

Add extra areas for CC, extra missions, some bonus armor/weapons to get, and make it online multiplayer friendly and you're gold. The base game is already so solid as it is.

They could've done what they did with Ring of Fates where you can play through the individual levels solo, level your character and improve your gear. And with every beat level you not only the next one but also a higher difficulty for the level you beat.
And if it was too hard, you'd get friends and form a party to beat it.

I never got into it even thought I owned it. There wasn't much substance to the game.

I forget was it one of those 4 player games that needed Gameboy Advances to play?

because spin-off IP's are actually just different games that the B team developed and the Developers slap the Name on in hopes to boost sales. Most likely the orignal FFCC was not meant to be a Final Fantasy and the squeals to FFCC where not originally designed as squeals but they slapped the FFCC label on them to sell more copies of an experimental game.

I never got into it even thought I owned it. There wasn't much substance to the game.
I reckon you didn't play very far, probably not even past the 3rd year

yes, it was maximum comfy though

probably not, but FFCC and Ring of Fates share several places like Belle River and RebenaTeRa
there's probably no connection besides the names, but it was a nice touch

you might be right, last time I played the game was back in 2003. I don't honestly remember doing a quick brows of a lets play on youtube as a reminder I think I got as far as pic related but got board and never touched it again. I think I ended up trading it in for Tales of Symphonia at a Gamestop.

yeah that's very early in the game
there's plenty of things to explore later on, you travel to many places, you need to unravel the mistery of the 5th element and so on
I guess it just starts rather slow, but it does pick up pace

game was pretty fun tbh

man, combining magic was pretty ballin
farming the rings usually took a while, and at the end you'd argue who gets what reward
it's the kind of game I'd love to be able to recreate

and I know I would play it
maybe some fags in the agdg threads would be up for that, but I think they're busy with their own stuff

The best part of it all. Then you'd rerun the map again, multiple times, so everyone could bulk up.

...

but why not just skip the gba's and play champions of norrath instead?

>You will never defeat the last boss with the power of your fond memories of your loved ones and friends


because that's another game, another universe
not that it's not as fun, it's just that I want to play this very game

I mean, the no GBA is a plus, but still.

My brother and I never made it to the final boss. I forgot to save after we got the ring and got the chalice and we died in the final area. We lost hours of game time, and we ended up doing a lot of moving around and moving on in life after. I don't even know what it looks like.

play it again, faggot
buy it, emulate it, just do it

So your great-great-great-great-great-great..grandchildren will live to experience Final Fantasy XXVXIVIXVIXVIXIIIXVIXVXIVXXVIXVMXIVCCMIVXC

You can't just deny the future that.

that is actually the same exact ending to ffXV

honestly the best they can hope for is to sell the rights for FFXXX to pornhub and be done with it

I've been tempted to emulate it in order to play the multiplayer with my cousin. How can you even emulate that in, say dolphin?


Does FFXV last enough to build up all the fond memories you make during your travels in CC?

It just wouldn't be the same without my brother, though.

I personally like really like it, one of the best FF games in years which is not saying much considering how shit FF has been but I know I am in the minority around here. Or people are just hating on it because its Holla Forums. As for FFCC I owned it but never played very far into the game.

So I don't know.

I-I liked Crystal Bearers
I payed $7 for it

The final boss was hard as fuck by which I mean waggle as hard as you can to stop to bus from crashing.

there should be tutorials for that online, last I heard dolphin ran pretty well, maybe someone in the cemu threads knows more


understandable

Crystal Chronicles is a pretty sad case because it had a good core, they just had to fix the many small problems and it would have been great:

Even if you want to play with just two people you already need two GBAs plus two cables (cables aren't free).

It doesn't add anything to the challenge, it's a crutch to keep all players on the screen. Just do it like in Secret of Mana by following player 1, or put the camera somewhere between all players. The crystal was just some shitty busywork.

That one should be self-explanatory

I don't think I need to explain this one, those tunnels were entirely pointless and just wasted time

Seriously, just what the fuck am I looking at on the cover? I know this is SE and their art style is always shit, but this looks like they weren't even trying.

They don't even have to call it Crystal Chronicles or Final Fantasy, I just want a fun hack & slash game with multiplayer. Game companies are willing to blow away millions on interactive movies, but no one can be assed to make just a well-rounded hack & slash? Come on.

The sequels lacked the way the first one subtly imparted its narrative to the player. That was one of the better aspects of the game. Were they made by the same team (especially the writers) or did they just cobble up whoever? I remember the devs having to create a shell company just to make the first game because Sony owned controlling shares in Squeenix and wouldn't let them make it otherwise.

sorry if my ID changed, OP here

you not liking it doesn#t make it a bad thing
having to operate within a limited area and someone having to move the chalice to keep everyone safe from the Miasma was a nice touch to keep the party together

The four different races and the objective, the Mhyrr Chalice. Pretty straight forward if you ask me.
You could argue about how pretty it looks, but the cover is okay.

That's why I was having high expectations of Explorers, which turned out to be a dumbed down MonHun with next to no content that make sit worth playing for more than a day.

Did you buy any of the DLC for My Life as a King? I was curious in getting it because it sounded like a nice little town builder/manger game.


Played through Crystal Bearers for the first time this year. It's far from being a terrible game but it's certainly not perfect for something that was YEARS in development and was even thought be cancelled by many (even SE had to refute this and then included a trailer with the Wii version of Echoes of Time). Now sorry for the upcoming blogpost.

CB feels like a bizarre attempt from SE to make "sandbox" open world like game that even includes "sandbox" like combat involving "reactions" by throwing environmental objects/enemies at other object/enemies or just holding on to said enemy and firing what ever attack it will send out to kill enemies. Basically the game wants to experiment with everything and see what happens (and sometimes being awarded for it in game achievement style).

This use of the gravity/telekinetic crystal power of grabbing and throwing monsters at one another (and witnessing their "reaction" (and being awarded for it in game achievement style) and then shutting off the "miasma stream/enemy portal" in the time limit. But this starts to be a pain in the ass when you don't succeed the first time and then have to wait for the enemy phase to start again or if you get unlucky and struggle to kill a particular large monster because you haven't figured out it's gimmick or if a small monster has ran away from you.

The "open world" is pretty linear when you start out and can be confusing to travel around at first, (the in game world map is too simple and mostly useless, even OoT was better than this and that's from over 10 years earlier) when it does open up via trains and then later warp points (which can be tricky to find in the first place). The locations are pretty nice (like Costa Faguitta) and the little "news ticker" at the bottom of the screen that gives you lore/world building info about each area is nice but can't be sped up or re-winded if you weren't reading it and missed a part. You can ride Chocobo's but you won't be able to read the lore/world building info and can't use your powers (or get into combat) and if you get off a Chocobo it will run away from you and vanish. The environment have signposts that you use your powers on to remove their direction arrow which will then act like a compass pointing to it's location but doesn't really help with linear/single path environments (and no you can't read these while on a Chocobo).

There's not that many QTE style events in the game and they can be replayed later on if you want to get their achievement bonuses. Strangely enough the devs put them in because they wanted to have these "cool" intractable moments that other games would have used cutscenes for. And speaking of cutscenes, they are unskippable even in New Game+. Goddamit Japan, why do you enjoy wasting peoples time with that?

The game has some standard minigames like fishing, a soccer ripoff (that you can easily cheat at using you powers), fruit picking, scavenger hunt, hide n'seek, a very subpar chocbo flag collecting race and even strangely enough a shrubbery garden editing mode penis swastika garden layout anyone?. And using the in game screenshot button you can take a photo of it (complete with SE trademark/copyright text) and probably upload online via SD card.

TL:DR The game has some nice idea/features like the main characters gravity power for interacting with the environment/combat and it's massive in game "reaction" achievement system but it has other faults that fuck it over (including a camera that feels too close and low to the in game character). Not enough to ruin the game but will frustrate people who play it for the first time. It does sadden me that CB may have killed the series though, it feels like a massive missed opportunity to not remake the original FFCC with online.

CB was a pathetic attempt at making the wiimote useful, the whole game is based on that shit gimmick instead of some actual gameplay
that is where the whole game falls apart for me

they pretty much tried with Explorers to come back, but there was no effort put into it whatsoever, a real disappointment

Best FFCC theme?
Best FFCC theme.

step your game up, m8

You misunderstood me, I meant the tunnels/caves/canyons you had to go through every time you wanted to cross from one overwold map to another. All you did was just carry around the chalice from entrance to exit very slowly, no enemies, no treasure, no forks in the road, just one long passage.

My Life as a King is great, I wish to play it again

I like Sound of the Wind the best

superb taste

Disappointing Holla Forums