Podcast Questions!

Would you rather a video game character be charismatic and strong or relatable and believable? I personally think both are very important and the best games have protagonists that have a nice balance between these two traits.

I’ll try my hand at asking four questions and see which one you like best, or none-at-all, I’m not sure if these have been asked: (1) Scenario: A top-level Sony Executive approaches DPG and states, “We’d like to try and emulate the success of the NES and SNES-Classic by releasing our own PS-One Classic, and we’d like DPG’s recommendations for this system”. Naturally you point out that Sony should just release their back catalog on the PS4, but the Sony executive won’t have it. Instead, he demands a list of 10 games (at least), that DPG thinks should be on a PS-One classic. He assures you all licensing issues etc.. will be handled, and the games selected will be remastered with care for HD televisions. For your cooperation, you will receive three PS5s, 3 months prior to any other gaming publication to help promote your channel. (2) The Final Fantasy fanbase is divided (somewhat), about the proper way to pronounce FFX’s protagonist’s name in the West. Give the very best argument for why Tie-dus/Tee-dus should be pronounced each way, then give your personal preference and why you find one argument more persuasive over the other. (3) Many fans of Final Fantasy have observed that both Kitase and Nomura enjoy directing/producing extremely complicated, and often vague stories when left unsupervised. Whether it be FF8, FFX and FFXIII (Producer) for Kitase without Sakaguchi, or the entire Kingdom Hearts series for Nomura. Given both these gentlemen are working on the FF7 Remake, and quite a bit is being added to the story in order to make it episodic… How do you think this will affect the FF7 Remake’s storytelling, or maybe not at all? (4) How would you feel if the next FF7 Remake trailer had Sakaguchi’s name listed as an advisor or some other influential role on it? In what ways would his impact help the game, in your opinion, or not at all?

Hat

How would you design a JRPG differently to optimize it for PC gaming? Do you think that the JRPG format could carve out a separate identity on the platform from some of the best turn-based computer RPGs like Baldur's Gate? I may be in the minority of people who have only experienced Final Fantasy on PC since I didn't own a Playstation growing up. Aside from the wealth of Steam ports that are now available, the only PC-native JRPG-style game I'm aware of is Anachronox, a unique but heavily flawed game by Ion Storm. It did things like incorporating your mouse cursor as an in-game character that would physically interact with items in the environment, and the control scheme was mouse and keyboard. The game was built on the Quake II engine, but played like Final Fantasy with turn-based battles, creating an odd mishmash. I'd be very curious to see a developer try to modernize and adapt the this concept for a new title.

What game do you feel most NEEDS an HD remake/remaster? I’d love to see Super Mario 64 with today’s graphics and camera controls. Skyward Sword with joy cons would be a vast improvement over the Wii motion plus.

This is interesting because at the beginning of the game you play as Terra and after ***Spoiler*** the world of ruin you start out with just Celes. They also have similar stats and share much, if not all, of the same equipment. So they do fill in very similar roles mechanically, but I personally don't think that they could be combined because their motives are are very different. Terra was kidnapped as a baby by the empire, and is understandably aprehensive about joining the returners. Whereas Celes, to me, feels like a much more determined character without as much self doubt as Terra has. I think the story would lose a lot by not having a party member who is a general of the empire and another character who was enslaved by the empire. Not to mention that by combining them we'd go down to only 2 female characters in a party of 14 (unless gogo is female lol). Still, I do see how they are very similar.

It seems obvious to me that long gaps between Japanese and worldwide releases of games dilutes the hype and thus likely the reception and sales of games, but this is still the norm for most JRPGs. Why do you think this is? Are Japanese companies just being overly cautious?

Bryan Gillis

I saw somebody the other day arguing that Terra and Celes ought to have been combined into one character in Final Fantasy 6 - they have similar backstories, they have similar combat roles, and together they could be the central protagonist that would make the story cohere better. I'm not sure how I feel about that - on the one hand, I kinda see the point, but on the other... something about it just doesn't work. What do y'all think?