Of course the FF7 remake was too good to be true

As we all know, Square recently announced the remake to FF7 that we've all essentially been begging for since they trolled us with the Playstation 3 tech demo so many years ago. Director Tetsuya Nomura will be helming it and so far all we know about platforms is that it will be releasing on the Playstation 4. So far so good. But of course, Square wasted no time with destroying the hype, as immediately when asked about if the story will remain the same or feature new elements, Nomura responded, "We've announced an HD port version on the Playstation 4, and then we have the remake coming to PS4. You'll have this extremely, very, very pretty FFVII existing on the same plane. We feel that if that happens, it's like, why have the same exact game?" Yeah I dunno Nomura, it's almost like you're doing a remake and not an original game. And then when asked about if the gameplay would at least remain intact, Nomura again responds that there will be "dramatic changes" to the combat.

Oh for god sakes. YOU HAD ONE JOB SQUARE. ONE JOB. Just make a straight remake of FF7 with modern production values and that's it. Guaranteed dollar bills pouring in so fast that it would cave in through the rooftops. I mean it literally doesn't get any easier than that. But whatever, let's break this down for a moment. I love how he's treating this "HD" port as if it's already a sufficient alternative if you want to go back and relive the original game. No dude, the entire reason why fans were clamoring for a remake for so long was that we wanted to play the original game with better graphics, because the reality is, those chibi field models look like ass.

Seriously. What the hell am I looking at here?

It's not even that the game's graphics haven't aged well; the truth of the matter is those models always looked awful, even from day one. And that's the number one reason I hear that modern gamers tend to shy away from it. It just looks atrocious. That is to be more specific, the graphics are atrocious. The actual gameplay and story itself still holds up fantastically well. Many of the story's themes are still very relevant. There's no reason to change anything there. Has Square learned nothing from the success of Bravely Default? Square seems so scared that a traditional JRPG can't hold up in a modern market that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They try to make their JRPGs "streamlined" for the modern gamer so as to try and appeal to a broader audience, and then you get stuff like FFXIII that performs poorly with fans and critics, and then they turn around and conclude, "Clearly JRPGs can't survive in a modern market, we need to modernize it more." NO genius, it's precisely because you tried to deviate from the original formula too much and dumb the game down that it was poorly received. It's not because the traditional JRPG formula doesn't hold up. FFXIII didn't receive a lukewarm response because it was using an aging design formula that only appeals to a niche audience. It was panned because the story was flat, and there wasn't anything to do in the game except run in a straight line and fight; problems that don't exist in previous Final Fantasy games.

We already have examples of successful remakes from FF7's era. Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Star Fox 64 got some notable graphical overhauls on the 3DS while the gameplay remained almost identical with some slight tweaks. Pokemon X and Y have sold over 12 million copies, and their turn-based combat is more primitive than Final Fantasy's. So maybe it's about time Square takes a cue from Nintendo and have a little faith in their own products.

I'm not normally one to get worked up about changes to source material. I recognize that there are flaws in everything, and there's pretty much always room for improvement. But Final Fantasy VII already is a masterpiece, and it doesn't need much changing. The mini games were arguably the weakest part about the game, with many of them being too basic or gimmicky, and could certainly use some more polish. But Square has no business doing a complete overhaul of the combat, much less any other major aspect of the game.

I guess part of what irks me so much about this remake is that now the game will be introduced to a new generation of gamers, and much like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask before it, this remake could have served as a good introduction to some more classic games, which could motivate modern gamers to maybe explore some more classics that they might have missed out on. But now that there's going to be "dramatic changes", modern gamers aren't really getting a taste of gaming history. My worst fear ironically is that this new game might actually turn out great, but not a masterpiece. Because then the majority of gamers will flock to it and sacrifice quality gameplay in favor of shiny graphics because it's merely "good enough", while the original superior game is left in the dust, despite being the superior game, and newer generations will wonder why FF7 is viewed as such a classic.

Well, because you played the watered down botched version, not the iconic masterpiece that it's based on. At least we've still got those mods for the PC version to offer us what apparently Square cannot.

Square is really playing with fire here. They're messing with people's childhoods and taking a huge risk that they really don't have to. Let's not make the same mistake that Devil May Cry did where an unnecessary reinvention alienated its core fanbase and failed to pull in many newcomers either. Tweaks around the edges make sense, but this is supposed to be a remake; not a reboot, and certainly not a new original game either, so let's treat it like one. Hopefully some day Square will realize that if they just embraced their own culture, stopped trying to emulate the Call of Duties of the world, and made a game that is unapologetically a Japanese passion project that celebrates JRPGs, then they can reignite that old spark that once made FF7 so popular in the first place.

Does video game length matter?

Well the big discussion happening this week centers around Ready at Dawn's new Playstation-exclusive release, The Order 1886. It's been getting a lot of flack from critics for being dull and poorly-paced, while another debate is being had by players about the game's supposed short length. Some rumors have spread around that the game only clocks in at about 5 hours of content, and there is no multiplayer mode or additional content to keep you coming back. On the other hand, I've heard some counter-arguments that this is only true if you play through the game as fast as you can while skipping side quests and other additional content within the campaign, but regardless of the game's actual length, I think this is a good segue into a more general discussion about what should and shouldn't be an acceptable length for gameplay time.

I want to start off by saying though that overall I think too much emphasis is placed on game length nowadays; though it also doesn't help that there now exists exploitative DLC schemes that might have exacerbated this issue. In the old days, when a game was released, it was generally considered complete as-is. There was no Internet, no patches to fix bugs, and no DLC to expand the amount of content in the game, so developers couldn't just get away with cutting corners and fixing problems with their games months later down the road while charging you extra for it. Now it seems like everyone has to be on high alert about the amount of content they're getting because it is so easy for developers to just cut something out of the game that would have been in it at release if it weren't for the fact that they can now just cut it out instead and charge extra for it as DLC. As a quick aside, this is one of the reasons why I just hate the concept of DLC in general and I don't think it should exist as a content delivery method at all. If developers want to release more content for a game, it should come in the form of a worthwhile expansion pack that adds a significant amount of gameplay, like Blizzard Entertainment's expansion release paradigm.

But getting back to the topic at hand, when it comes right down to it, I would much rather pay $60 for a game that is a 5-hour blast to play as opposed to a 30-hour generally mediocre experience. Quality of content is far more important than quantity, but at the same time I would be lying if I said that quantity doesn't matter at all. At the end of the day, if a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy for example turned out to be only half an hour long and I went to the movie theater to watch it, I would come out of that theater feeling a bit cheated out of my money, as I'm sure many other people would. So length of content does matter, but I think there's a lot of factors we should consider before writing something off as too short. When it comes to video games in particular, one of the first things I consider is the genre. Video games unlike movies don't have a consistent standard where they almost all fall into a typical length of 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours regardless of genre. With video games the experience can range anywhere from 5 minutes to literally 200 hours of content. Simple puzzle-solving games meant to be played in short bursts like Tetris for example are only going to be 5 minutes on average, while an MMORPG like World of Warcraft can easily surpass 200 hours. It would be completely unreasonable to expect a game like Tetris to offer the same amount of content as World of Warcraft; the genre just doesn't lend itself to offering that much to the player.

But with that being said, this is also where pricing should come into play. Since Tetris is such a short game, it would also be unreasonable to charge the same $60 price tag as a full-fledged AAA title. So as long as developers are properly scaling their prices to the experience you're getting, it's OK to trim the length. As another example, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes was priced cheaper at launch than a typical AAA game despite offering AAA production values because the campaign only clocked in at around roughly 2 hours. This makes sense given that you're getting less content than normal for a game of that particular genre. But at some point there is a cutoff for me that usually falls at around 4-5 hours of gameplay, and at that point the amount of content in proportion to the price tag starts to matter far less than the quality of content. Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner is a mecha action game that I'd say probably only clocks in around 4 hours, but in that 4 hours you will experience some of the most intense and satisfying mecha combat ever, along with an interesting story that has a large sweeping scope and climactic conclusion. By the time I got to the end of the game, even though I knew it was short, I didn't feel cheated out of my money in the slightest, even though the game was given a full AAA price tag at the time. When it comes right down to it, quality ultimately trumps quantity. So I think the issue is a bit more complicated than just boiling down to a simple price-per-hour formula.

However, I think experimenting with different price points is something that more developers should consider looking into, as there's technically no law that says your game must hit that $60 gold standard, and this could help alleviate problems with many modern games too. A common bad trend I've noticed with the industry is a formula where the game starts out very engaging and story-driven; the developers really try hard to suck you into it, but then after the first couple of hours or so, the gameplay quickly drops off a cliff and is padded out with tons of repetition; usually in the form of performing pointless mundane tasks or grinding out armies of baddies that you have to kill. Eventually the gameplay might start to pick up some steam again towards the end if you're lucky. But generally speaking, all this filler and padding adds up to greatly damaging the overall gameplay experience if it is overused enough, and in no franchise can I think of a better example of this than Assassin's Creed. This is particularly noticeable in the first game, where it starts off incredibly engaging and story-driven; full of mystery and intrigue, interesting characters, and well-paced gameplay, but then about a couple hours into the game the story just evaporates and it mostly leaves you to your own devices. All you can do is travel from city-to-city performing lots of mundane tasks for people around town until you acquire enough information to track your real assassination target. It's all very repetitious and predictable, and not particularly engaging. Because of this, the game really went from a day-one purchase to maybe a rental at best in terms of its value. And the franchise has never really been able to pull itself out of this rut. Even when the series was at its best in Assassin's Creed II, there was still a large segment throughout the middle of the game that eventually devolved into needless tedium. This was most likely done because there is an established precedent and expectation that these games must reach a certain amount of content length in order for the purchase to be "justified". But that's just it; how about instead of filling these games up with boring padding, just adjust the price tag according to the amount of worthwhile content in the game. Cut all the padding out of Assassin's Creed II and make it several hours shorter, but then charge $20-30 less for it. I think this would have been a much better alternative than what we got, and it would have been a stronger game for it. Adding content purely for the sake of having more content doesn't necessarily make a better game.

But jumping back to The Order 1886 for a moment, I think it's rather interesting that people are making a big deal out of this game's length in particular, as there's been plenty of single player games before it that offer similar amounts of content. I think perhaps what is going on is that people are mistaking lack of quality content for lack of quantity, because if the game were as consistently exciting as something like Zone of the Enders 2, I'm sure there would be a lot less complaint about the game's length. But who knows, I haven't actually had a chance to play the game yet myself.

So what do you think? Does game length matter? And if it does, how does it factor into your purchasing decisions? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Nintendo's new YouTube Creators Program: Still problematic

Nintendo just recently launched their new "Creators Program", which now allows YouTubers to share ad revenue with Nintendo. To quote directly from their website, "In the past, advertising proceeds that could be received for videos that included Nintendo-copyrighted content (such as gameplay videos) went to Nintendo, according to YouTube rules. Now, through this service, Nintendo will send you a share of these advertising proceeds for any YouTube videos or channels containing Nintendo-copyrighted content that you register."

Am I not merciful?

So first of all, you gotta love that sly wording in Nintendo's statement there. They make it sound as if it's because of YouTube's policies that they were just forced against their own will to take your money and pocket it for themselves. Poor Nintendo, we really feel for you. I know I just get filled with an overwhelming sense of sadness too whenever piles of money are funneled to my PayPal account for content that I didn't even create. Please Nintendo, you're not fooling anyone. We all know it was precisely because you went out of your way to demand that YouTube enforces strict copyright policies on your gameplay footage, which is why everyone keeps getting flagged for it. Your hands aren't tied; it's YouTube that is getting tied, and yet Nintendo is acting like they're offering this program out of the generosity of their hearts, as if no one else would be so considerate as to share ad revenue with content creators... except for Activision, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft, Valve, SEGA; hell, even EA. And mind you, all of these companies don't just share revenue, they give all of it to content creators, because these companies understand that YouTube videos already serve as a form of free advertisement for all their games.

This is what drives me nuts about this whole situation with Nintendo. What they're doing here is only hurting them by denying free advertisement for their games, and at a time when they so desperately need it. Angry Joe is a video game critic on YouTube with nearly two million subscribers. He's garnered most of his audience through reviewing games like Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, DragonAge, Titanfall, and essentially a whole lot of games that are very different in tone and feel from Nintendo's, so this is a potential new market of gamers for Nintendo to reach, but Joe also just recently picked up a Wii U and has expressed a lot of positive things about it, and yet unfortunately he can't really review any games for it because it will get flagged for copyrighted content. So because of Nintendo's YouTube copyright policy, they're actually denying exposure to a potentially whole new audience of over a million people that might have otherwise ignored their games. And that's the most frustrating thing about this; if Nintendo would just let YouTube critics do their job, they don't need all this censorship and control. They would get great glowing reviews on their games anyway. It's not like they need to be hiding opinions about Mario Kart 8 or Super Smash Brothers; pretty much everyone who's played these games will tell you that they've had a blast with them, so it just doesn't make sense that they're discouraging content creators from critiquing them.

Then again, Mario does have a hobby of coin collection.

Even putting aside now that they're at least offering some revenue sharing instead of none, there's still a lot wrong with Nintendo's new policies. First, it's an opt-in program that you have to sign up for before the revenue can apply, and this comes with its own set of rules and caveats too, including stipulations like needing to wait for approval on each video even after you've already signed up for the program. For reviews, this can be especially crippling because many critics aim to have them out before game releases, which is when they can expect to get the most traffic on their viewership. Not to mention that this sets an incredibly bad precedent where Nintendo has free rein to disapprove whatever videos they personally don't like, which could easily result in abuses like denying approval of game reviews simply because they don't agree with the critic's score or opinion.

On top of this, the whole program has potential to get much more insidious, and this partially gets into why I've always had problems with Steam even in spite of all its love and success. I know I'm the bad guy for always hating on Steam, but this is the double-edged sword that is part of how capitalism works. When a company proves that a certain market is viable, you can bet other companies will follow suit, which is why we've now seen the rise of DRM clients like Origin, Uplay, and Battle.net. Valve proved that Steam could work, and now we have a slew of copy-cats each with their own annoying platform that you have to install and load up on your machine every time you want to play a different game. It's annoying, and we shouldn't have to tolerate it. But much like how DRM clients have taken over the PC gaming scene, you can bet that once these other companies see that what Nintendo is doing is actually successful, then they're going to want a slice of that money pie too, and you can expect that you'll find yourself having to sign up for and agree to all sorts of varying different terms and rules from a bunch of different companies every time you want to post gameplay footage of any game on YouTube. This would of course become a figurative paperwork nightmare for the Let's Play scene, so let's just hope this program doesn't succeed.

Now some defenders have argued that they can see why game companies might feel entitled to this money at least for certain games like perhaps RPGs that are heavily story-driven, or a game like Metal Gear Solid where there are long cutscenes and cinematics that make up a large part of the game. I am not in this camp however. As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo is not entitled to this ad revenue at all. It doesn't matter what kind of game we're talking about here. If your gameplay is so poor that someone would go out of their way to only watch videos of it on YouTube to the point that they no longer feel compelled to buy the game, then that's a fundamental problem with your game design, not YouTube content creators. Mass Effect is a story-driven game. I could have just gone on YouTube and watched someone else play it, but I didn't, because it turns out the game is actually fun to play too, and I would only be robbing myself of the full experience if I had skipped out on it. Furthermore, the idea that watching someone else play a video game constitutes as copyright infringement is as silly as suggesting that it should be copyright infringement to showcase your movie collection in spite of not actually showing the video content itself; only the physical DVDs. Watching a game just isn't the same as playing it, and they can't be equivocated. So I'm sorry, but I'm not giving Nintendo a break here. Content creators put a lot of work into their videos outside of just including gameplay footage, and for most YouTubers, the main focus of the video isn't even the gameplay but their commentary over it, which brings me to my next point.

Still some other defenders say who are we to complain; YouTubers should get a real job, which really just exposes how bitter some people are that they couldn't make it doing something they enjoy. It's not the content creator's fault that you chose the profession that you did, and it's not like they didn't put any effort into reaching the status that they have either. Do people really know how hard it is to pick up subscribers? It's not like you can just up and release your first video one day and instantly expect to hit a million views. This rarely happens, and more often than not it can take years of dedication and hard work for someone to build up a subscriber-base to the point that they can actually depend on it for their livelihood. Even for videos as simple as the commentaries I do, between writing the script for them, recording the gameplay footage, recording my voice commentary, designing the graphics for them, editing the footage together in Adobe Premiere, and rendering the video out in Adobe Media Encoder, you're easily looking at 5-10 hours of work for about 5-10 minutes of footage. It's not as simple as it looks, and why shouldn't people be allowed to work jobs that they also happen to enjoy? This is no different from people who make a living off of any other entertainment medium. YouTube has opened up a whole new marketplace of entertainment that has created lots of new jobs for people, many of whom previously had no other reasonable way of earning a living like boogie2988 for example, and I personally think that's fantastic, not something that should be frowned upon.

I want to go on record though and emphasize that while I do find this whole Creators Program petty and stupid on the part of Nintendo, I certainly don't hate them overall as a company, and this is one of the most irritating things about whenever I have to do commentaries like this, because Nintendo already gets such undeserved hate as it is, and the hecklers always take opportunities like this to try and spell doom and gloom for Nintendo, as if this is the last nail in the coffin for them; their glory days have long gone by and they're out of touch with the industry. Never mind that just last generation the Wii outsold both its competitors by over 20 million units, never mind that the 3DS is currently far outselling the PS Vita, never mind that they're now the only company of the Big Three that offers free online play, never mind that they just came out with several critically acclaimed titles that all worked on release; the Nintendo hate wagon prefers to ignore all of this and pretend like Nintendo is somehow going the way of SEGA. The reality is though, Nintendo isn't going anywhere soon, and they've otherwise done a good job with a lot of other things, so let's ground our criticisms with some proper perspective. There's no question that what Nintendo is doing here is bad, but I'm criticizing Nintendo right now because I want them to succeed as a company, not because I want them to fail. Make the right choice, Nintendo. YouTube videos can be free advertisement for your games, and letting content creators post gameplay unrestricted will make your fanbase happier too.

SOE releases free-to-play game for $20

Sony Online Entertainment just recently launched an early access version of their upcoming online zombie survival game, H1Z1. The game obviously takes inspiration from titles like DayZ and WarZ, attempting to create a persistent online world in a zombie apocalypse setting, which is something I'm personally totally OK with, as the original concept behind DayZ is great but has still never really been perfected yet, so I'm all for bringing more competition into this genre until somebody gets it right. Zombie settings in video games of course are hardly something new, but the way in which DayZ brought it to life was really unique because players would actually have to scavenge for food and supplies to survive, and when you die, there is a real sense of permanence to it because you lose all your gear, so getting into a shootout with other players or being chased down by zombies would create some incredibly tense and fun moments.

But of course, Sony only saw dollar signs and had to fuck everything up. Now how did they manage to do this you might ask? Well, H1Z1 is supposed to be a free-to-play game that would be supported through microtransactions. OK, fair enough. Lots of free-to-play games use this model. They gotta make money through it somehow, so as long as it's not pay-to-win, it's all fine, right? Well not really, because even though the game is supposedly "free-to-play", this early access version actually costs $20 upfront. $20 for an incomplete free-to-play game! You can't actually start playing the game until you pay $20. Since when did a free-to-play game cost money upfront?! Is this seriously what the industry has come to at this point? We've gone from developers cutting content out of the game and making us pay separately for day one DLC or disc-locked DLC, to releasing buggy incomplete games that serve as unofficial public beta tests until the developers can patch them up months later, to now just straight up openly telling players "Yeah, we know the game is incomplete, but we're going to release it anyway AND make you pay for it even though it's supposed to be free-to-play." Brilliant Sony! Just brilliant.

Brilliant!

So this just in guys, I guess World of Warcraft is "free-to-play" now! Let's all head on over to WoW, because it's only $15 a month, and after that for the next 30 days, the game is "free-to-play"! Isn't free-to-play just great guys? No, no. Just stop it. You don't just get to change the definition of free-to-play to whatever the hell you want so you can use it as a friendly buzzword to lure in more players. Your game isn't free-to-play if you have to pay $20 for it.

But OK, let's just backtrack a little bit and try to give SOE the benefit of the doubt here. This is after all supposed to be the early access version of the game, and when H1Z1 actually goes live with its full game release, they will probably make it be free-to-play then. But that still doesn't make any sense. Because typically the way the early access model is supposed to work--at least if you're following a good early access model like Minecraft--is that you pay less for supporting the game early into its development because you're technically getting an incomplete product, so it's a reward to dedicated fans who supported it early on that they get to have the game at a cheaper price, and as time goes on with the game's development, the pricing gets more expensive towards its release date. Here they have it completely backwards. You're paying $20 for a game that will eventually just be free-to-play anyway. You don't save any money, and you don't even get a complete game.

But then again, let's still try to give Sony the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're having trouble getting funding for the game, so this early access model that they're using is their answer to that, but that just raises more questions. Have we forgotten who is producing this title? Sony Online Entertainment. This is not some fresh upstart indie developer hurting for cash. This is a long-established tried-and-true big game publisher. What the hell do they need funding for? So their CEO can make a swimming pool out of dollar bills? They're not an indie developer. They're not struggling for money. Why is Sony even using the early access model in any form? Is this some hugely risky never-been-done-before project? "I don't know guys, the zombie apocalypse setting has never been done before. I've never seen zombies in video games; we're taking a pretty big risk here." Yeah, I'm sure that's what went down when Sony was contemplating development of this game. They have absolutely no reason to be doing this. You have the money, so fund your own damn game Sony, and release it when it's actually ready. Early access is a model that should be used for indie developers looking to seek extra funding to finish development, not big-name publishers that already have the means and resources available to fund their projects.

But OK again, I'm still trying to give Sony the benefit of the doubt here. It does say on their Steam page that they're trying to be as transparent with the game's development as possible, so part of achieving this level of transparency that they're seeking involves getting player feedback in the middle of development so that they can make improvements based on what the players want. OK, that's a noble goal. That's respectable. But then why do you still charge $20?! You don't need to charge $20 if you're just looking for player input with your game. In fact you'd probably get more player input if the game were actually free. It doesn't matter what angle you come at this from. Sony has no excuse for charging $20 for early access.

But it gets worse. So on top of the fact that you have to pay $20 for an incomplete game that is supposed to be free-to-play, from what I hear, it turns out that the microtransaction model is in fact pay-to-win after all, as players who fork over the extra cash get huge advantages over players that don't, and it's practically a necessity to get by in the game. So even after you pay your initial $20, you're still stuck needing to keep paying more in order to accomplish anything in the game. Bravo Sony, you've really set a new standard that even EA would be jealous of.

Yep, better skip this game.

This is really sad and stupid because if Sony would just put their due diligence into properly funding and developing the game, the concept behind it is actually really solid, and it would easily sell and make plenty of money for them without pissing off their customers. This isn't even a controversial or ground-breaking new concept that players might avoid because it's just too strange and unique. This is zombie survival; zombies are one of the most common overused video game tropes in the world. DayZ has already proven to be quite profitable even in its incomplete form. All Sony had to do was just polish it up and offer us a more complete game, and they would effortlessly beat even DayZ's sales figures. There's no need for all this early access and pay-to-win nonsense.