I just wonder how popular the Final Fantasy series remains in Japan. If they're raking in the big bucks with hilarious Nomura characterizations (and costumes, eesh), then maybe more power to them.

I heard that they removed QTEs due to complaints. From the gameplay trailers, it looks a lot like the old games, and IIRC it's the same devs that made the new Deus Ex, so I'm not worried.

I just don't understand why they need to be convoluted; however this is one of my most hated aspects from a lot of Japanese storytelling. It's like they add in complexity for complexity's sake.

Like a lot of the sentiments above, I feel that it isn't really elitism, at least not in all cases. I definitely can understand if someone doesn't like it (or any other great game), but it frustrates me (and probably others) to no end that that is the case. It's just a really fun game once you get the mechanics down.…

…Which deprived your characters of Esper level-up bonuses later on in the game, hamstringing their development.

[BIG GODDAMN SPOILERS!]
For a minute or so when Alex (I wasn't really sure what his name was, honestly) was introduced, I thought he was Shae and that Shae's story took place ages before Vella's. By the end it was obvious that the two stories were taking place at the same time. I did love the feeling of realization the…

I definitely enjoyed the art style and wide shots, but as I pointed out before, when the game zooms in on something it loses a lot of that glamour due to the relatively low-res environments. It gets especially muddled when the characters appear crisp and clean on a dirty, sloppy, and blurry background. Maybe that's a…

Something similar is the sense of wonder in an unexplored direction. I'd always imagine what must be down some road or path that I never took as a kid, and I feel like a lot of people had the same feeling about games. Look at how many people obsessed over getting past a truck in Pokemon Red to get to some mysterious…

It would be cool if the guy made updates specifically for real-world paintings represented in games. Like if he just put a bunch of pixellated Mona Lisas or Starry Nights side by side.

The painting picture for Snow Man's Land should have just been a segment of wall for maximum authenticity.

I know that GTAIV and maybe GTAV would have alternate dialog for repeated mission attempts. It was the same general conversation, just with a different flavor. I always thought that was a really nice touch, which sort of prevented an "All you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!" or "Look at all that juice!"…

It was fun, but the only part of the game I actually remember is dying repeatedly to animated stone cherubs.

What I was trying to express was that even if you had a collection of saves back before you mucked things up, it would still be a slog to replay all of that. And really, it's only possible to mess up the optional stuff without knowing it. I find it hard to believe that there are gamers who simultaneously want to…

It's very good looking, except one thing is really bugging me as I play. The backgrounds are surprisingly low-res. I know it's meant to look painterly and everything, but when the game zooms in on something, it just looks blurry as heck.

This review reminds me of my experience with Odin Sphere. It was a game that was just so beautiful, but the gameplay wasn't as good as the art, which led to some frustration. It's a bit odd that if you have a great playing game with mediocre art, it's not as jarring as a great looking game with mediocre gameplay.

I think game devs realized how broken offering too much flexibility is in terms of saving your game. Quicksaves made the FPS series a joke, where you only need to care about one enemy or room at a time. It also broke immersion like crazy. So giving gamers too many options for saving can be a problem, too. I personally…

After seeing a screenshot of an XCOM Ironman run where every single enemy in the Alien Base inexplicably spawned at the start of the map, I think I'm not about to attempt any sort of auto-save only run in a game with such dire consequences for failure.

I found the hardest thing to adjust to in terms of controls was controlling the momentum on your attacks. Once you get that down, it's gravy. I never bemoaned the lack of 360 degree aiming, because I felt that implementing that would ruin a lot of the point of the game, since it's basically built around tiles.

Crash Bandicoot, unremarkable? You take that back! You take that back right now!

My mom had randomly purchased a Playstation 2 at a K-mart the January or February after it came out, and just alleged that it was both mine and my brother's birthday presents for that year (which I think was an utter fabrication). I think the main driver behind that purchase was how rare the Playstation 2 was at that…