I was wondering, hypothetically speaking if the scenario writer of a game changed, and the sequel for said game was written by a different person. Would that make the sequel much worse than the original? Or perhaps better?
What are some cases where the scenario writer has changed for a series?
It seriously depends. Are we talking “big time” or “small time” companies? In my experience with “big time” companies, lead scenario writers can be overrated prima donna. Are there good scenario writers? Of course. Do good scenario writers always guarantee success? Hell no.
In game production the lead scenario writer is a pretty big gear, but if the rest of the machine isn’t oiled and tuned, then it will still incredibly suck - or as a reviewer would say: great dialog, horrible experience. On that same token, if a game has a great concept, tightly knit crew, and experienced coordination (i.e. the director and producer) ¬ñ the loss of the lead scenario writer hurts, but does not result in instant failure. Also note that with big companies, while one or two people get full credit, flagship games can have somewhere in the range of a 10 to 30 staff writers involved. The lead scenario writer is predominantly in charge of the “main cast” dialog and “main plot” events. In certain cases, memorable cool one liners and neat setting details may never came from him or her ¬ñ it might have been one of the unsung little guys…
Now examples of when the guard changed?
Soraya Saga was the scenario writer for Xenogears, Xenosaga 1, and Xenosaga 2. She quit before the production of Xenosaga 3. Obviously the series died after she left.
Final Fantasy is probably one of most well known and best documented examples. As you can see from the list below, the quality of scenarios really varies depending on the writer involved (and personal tastes):
[list]FF1 = Kenji Terada
FF2 = Kenji Terada
FF3 = Kenji Terada
FF4 = Takashi Tokita
FF5 = Yoshinori Kitase
FF6 = Yoshinori Kitase
FF7 = Yoshinori Kitase + Kazushige Nojima
FF8 = Kazushige Nojima
FF9 = Kazuhiko Aoki
FF10 = Kazushige Nojima
FF10-2 = Kazushige Nojima + Daisuke Watanabe
FF11 = Masato Kato (I think… kinda hard to tell…)
FF12 = Daisuke Watanabe
FF13 = Kazushige Nojima (for the PS3 version at least)[/list]
Koji Igarashi has been in charge of the Castlevania series since Symphony of the Night. While he made it awesome and full of win, he also released ALL of the Castlevania since SotN… therefore he’s had a lot of duds too.
Then you have guys like Keiji Inafune ¬ñ who’s had a hand in almost every Megaman game ever made (except with the notable exception of MMX5, MMX7, MMX8, and the MM Xtreme titles). He’s had MEGA successes… and MEGA failures…
So yea… how important is a scenario writer at game success? It REALLY depends. Historically speaking, switching the guard can be a good thing, after three or so game. After that, they seem to run out of creative steam. If anything else, getting someone new adds new breath to an old concept.
Now in the case of small time companies, the scenario writer tends to also be the originator of the concept. He or she is also typically the ONLY writer involved. For that reason, changing of the guard can have strongly detrimental effect, because said person tends to be the “soul” of the game. If you look at big companies, while the lead scenario writer might change, the director remains the same and/or is the old scenario writer. Therefore while things change, the “spirit” remains the same. For smalltime titles, which technically lack a formal director, scenario writer loss can cause and a complete alteration of how the title “feels”.
In all honesty though, the factor of scenario writer changing is dependant on a lot of things. While being general on the topic is possible, this discussion would probably be more helpful if you could name the specific series you’re worried about. 
Yeah, there’s no foolproof way to tell. Obviously, there’s more risk and uncertainty when a team changes (probably less guarantee of a solid product), but even veteran writers tend to fizzle out after a while.
Regarding English-translated titles, I can think of the X-Change and EVE series. I think every EVE game was written by a different person.
Successful long-running series aren’t as common in the bishoujo game world, but there’re some high profile properties that have switched scenarists along the way: Tokimeki Memorial, Sentimental Graffiti (never particularly well received though), Memories Off, ONE, To Heart, Da Capo, Tsuyokiss, etc. Fortunately, most stories are relatively standalone, which helps in the transition.
When it comes to rpgs it has really tended to disfavor guard changes, especially when they happen too often. Final Fantasy may be the one exception, but if you ask a lot of people few like all of a series. They either like old stuff or the new stuff. Too much reinvention isn’t always a good thing, especially when you want to put out remakes.
Chrono Trigger → Chono Cross is probably the most infamous example, even more than Xenosaga. While it has been praised as a good stand-alone game, it has been been shown, except for the FMV that weren’t in the original, to be inferior in every way, not because of the concept but because of the implimentation of the concept.
Take that with Dragon Quest which has has Yuuji Horii as the lead scenerio designer since the original game. Not only that, but Koichi Sugiyama & Akira Toriyama have been lead muscian and artist respectively. Considering the popularity of this series in Japan is higher than Final Fantasy and, until the SNES debacle, was more popular in the US, changing a team isn’t always a good thing.
Actually changing scenario writers happens more often than not for Japanese RPG’s: Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy, Star Ocean and Wild Arms to just name a handful. These series have had their ups and downs thanks to shifting writers. Sometimes the very scenario writer who makes the best game in the series, also happens to produce the worst game. The irony, eh? However “reinvention” isn’t something the scenario writer is in charge of. That’s the task of the event planner.
Not arguing with you on this note, but be aware that “concept designer” often times another position as well. For example in the case of Final Fantasy 7:
[list]* Concept Designer: Hironobu Sakaguchi (primary) + Tetsuya Nomura (assistant)
I never was a Chrono fan, so I’ve never played it, but when pointing out fault in the Cross title, which was it: The scenario? The concept? The game events? These are totally different people. If its all of these factors, then its none of these people’s fault. That would be the Director’s and Producer’s fault. Game production - when we’re talking about the big companies - is a massive bureaucratic beast. Then when you have “old school” people mucking around and “checking on things” - in the case of FF this would be Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshitaka Amano, and Nobuo Uematsu - then it can become a massive cluster fuck and ass kissing contest.
The OP was asking about the scenario writer position, so I’m trying to stay specific with that position. Not really easy though…
Actually, DQ outsources now. Yuuji Horii currently just sticks his name on there, as a “seal of approval” thing. Koichi Sugiyama and Akira Toriyama are always active in all the titles, but with a slight catch… However in the case of scenario writer, only DQ1 thru DQ6 and DQ Swords (the Wii title) were actually done by Yuuji Horii.
DQ7 - which some argue is the best DQ - was written by Heartbeat and programmed by ArtePiazza.
DQ8 - which some argue is the best DQ too - was written and programmed by Level-5.
According to the interviews, for these two titles, Akira was given the complete script to draw his designs from. Koichi Sugiyama wrote the music after seeing the complete game (without the music of course). Thus while they made major contributions, they aren’t actually involved in the game design process itself. Someone else built the car, they just pick what color to paint it… Also on a side note, Manami Matsumae composed the music for DQ Swords. A lot of people don’t seem to notice that… style mimics Sugiyama perfectly. All the remakes were always outsourced - although since they were based on the originals, Yuuji remains the scenario designer by default.
For the record, the upcoming DQ9 is being written and programmed by Level-5. How much Yuuji really has in the development, probably won’t be known until AFTER it’s released. I’m still assuming he’s just “rubber stamping” everything. Not a bad thing mind you… but that doesn’t make him the scenario writer. 
Also I’ve noticed that the title of “Scenario Director” - especially in the case of Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and most Nintendo franchise titles (like Mario Brothers and Zelda) - is more of an honorary title to give credit to the original person who created the series… it doesn’t mean said person actually contributed directly.
EDIT
I went to look up the scenario writer for Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross- its the same guy: Masato Kato. Also, Masato specifically said he made differences between Trigger and Cross on purpose, according to this interview I ran across:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Pr … tudio.html
So if Cross is inferior to Trigger, then that would be an example of keeping the same scenario writer, as a mistake.
Actually the reason why I asked this question to begin with is because the Tsuyokiss scenario writer changed. I’m very worried if they will totally shit on my favorite character (Otome) and basically suck the soul out of the game.
Just looked up at EGS site, looks like writer behind Tsuyokiss 2 haven’t had any experience with eroge writing so far http://erogamescape.ddo.jp/~ap2/ero/tou … game=10088 , so you should be worrying a little, I guess…but then be patient and check comments on EGS once the game comes out, if the writing in the sequel has gone wrong you’ll know it soon enough.
For Xenosaga, I think the series died at 2 when the battle system turned everyone off. I personally liked 3 solely because of the character designs but thats just me. X1 had the best storyline in my opinion and the artwork was best then as well when KOSMOS did not look fucked up.
Final Fantasy, you can really tell how much they change just by looking at the story. FFVIII stood out the most for me and I haven’t since found another FF that tops it. (Thinks of FFXII, shudders…)
Castlevania, you can pretty much tell which ones sucked the most by the battle systems. The storylines are almost a bit too predictable but its the gameplay that really decides the game. It can have all the storylines you wished but that does not change the fact that Harmony of Dissonance sucked balls compared to the other iterations like Circle of the Moon. (LONG LIVE SotN!!!)
Well For Keiji Inagune, I believe that his best work is in the GBA game Rockman.exe series. Its really the character designs and the story involved, I believe that they have much more to offer than anything that the other Rockman series have. Although I am mainly pointing my fingers at 3 and 6 which are much more fun than the other four. (5 was good and a fresh idea from the dismal 4 but it was tedious.)
I really can’t complain about the DQ series but personally, i would play it more often if it were to get rid of Akira Toriyama as the head artist. God, I hate his artwork.
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So I take it you like the “Metrovania” style over the platform level format?
Personally I feel that Castlevania should use the 2.5D format as seen in the PSP remake. Going “three dimensional” like Devil May Cry does not fit the Castlevania lineage. However, I am a strong supporter of the series going back to its roots and creating a TRUE Castlevania ¬ñ i.e. like Castlevania 3 and not like SotN.
Its not that I dislike SotN (indeed I absolutely loved Portrait of Ruin) ¬ñ but I think the original format of Castlevania was awesome. The PSP remake only cements it IMHO… although it should have been harder ¬ñ they made it too easy.
On a personal note, I tend to think that while SotN is an awesome game, people have been using it to downplay the following of the series. For example Portrait of Ruin ¬ñ I keep hearing it being called a watered down version of SotN. In many respects, PoR has a large number of superior qualities over SotN: my favorite being the “little things” that have nothing to do with actual game play (the tree of ravens, the bloody hand ghost in the background, etc).
I think the Rockman Zero series is his crowning achievement. I love how he wasn’t afraid to kill off major characters ¬ñ because he had a planned ending for it. That makes it more epic in my opinion. The new ZX spinoff is just a whoring cash cow.
Never got into the EXE stuff. To me Rockman was always about great platform gaming. However EXE was the most profitable format of Rockman, so what I think obviously doesn’t match what reality says.
I used to think like that too. Toriyama’s style used to look the same: everyone in Dragonball Z has the same body, just different heads.
However Dragon Quest really changed my opinion of him. He designed all the monsters. Palette color swap aside ¬ñ there’s some seriously neat originality in them. Another thing I’ve noticed: while Toriyama had a “cloning” problem with DBZ, he started to honestly make characters look different in Dragon Quest ¬ñ it really started taking off since DQ3. Over the years, his artwork has greatly improved as well: take a look at the character designs in DQ8 and DQ Swords.
What Toriyama does, is make memorable looks. For character designing that’s a REALLY important step. While I disagreed with how he drew (note past tense) “human” characters ¬ñ I have a great sense of respect for him. I like his new style too: Jessica and Fleurette are purest of win.
Jessica’s handlebar hairdo is sexy - and a loligoth nun? Seriously: God says she needs a spanking!!! :twisted:
However you look at games like .hack and they have for the entire series the same time. Even from the original 4 dot hacks to the GU they keep many of the core personal, the character designer, the original story designer & the director. The other personel change, but the core team remains the same.
And you then have to look at the success at series like this that keep overall core team vs those that don’t. Final Fantasy is popular, but it’s been losing more of it’s core fanbase as it tries to adapt to a different audience and it has trouble getting those newcomers to buy their remakes of games (which they can earn a higher profit margin on generally).
BoF went downhill with 5 aka Dragonquarter and may have killed the series. Wild Arms continues to go downhill since Wild Arms 2 and there were a lot of complaints about Star Ocean: Till the End of Time mostly because of it’s lack of connectivity with the previous titles and lack of game-architecture from the previous titles, which was a direct result of change of guard. It still wasn’t as bad as the other ones though because they kept some of the core team.
It was, one the artwork. Akira Toriyama did the artwork for CT. The scenerio & concept also were equally to blame and finally the lank good story continuation that didn’t seem to build upon the CT world, plus re-interpretations of stuff, like Chrono Trigger. Some of it was caused by poor character design due to overabundance cardboard characters with little to no background (only 4 characters had major character development and only a slight few more had decent development), the, to some, seemingly too complex issues not done in a way they can understand (don’t ask me, i understood it quite easily, but I understood a lot of stuff in anime and video games (like Ghost in the Shell and Akira that everyone was going WTF). I was able to follow quite easily the plot of Xenosaga and Xenogears and I know they had complaints about it from people. Also the gameplay system was entirely different than CT and the sheer lack of anime quality of the first series, including stuff like the reaction shots, etc and the whole development of the plot.
Part of it was due to budget cuts, but a larger part was due to having almost no one, except Masato, from the core team.
I do know that more of it has been outsourced over team, especially the game-engine and 3-d animations. The game programmer however often changes in a company and it was well known Akira Toriyama did not work on the 3D aspect, but on the character designs themselves. As for Yuuji Horii, I do believe he took some leave to try to start his own company and after DQ7 Square-Enix clearly wanted to take it in a new direction, however as for DQ9, his company is working on it just as they did with DQ Swords, so if Horii contributed to that, he likely is contributing to DQ9.
As for Sugiyama & Matsumae I believe it may have been a way to pass on the baton. Obviously they need to pass on things to new people eventually and as Swords is an offshoot title it is a good way for Matsumae to test things out, so it’s possible DQ9 will have him, but not as primary, and DQ10 could see him has it as main.
However I cannot see them dropping Toriyama anytime soon. Much of the sales of DQ are because of Toriyama linkage and imo without somone as equal to his magika status it would hurt them, rather than help, to drop him.
The original was actually done by Enix and rewritten by Squaresoft with constant arguments between Hironobu Sakaguchi and Horii, each one complaining about the edits the other did. Square ultimarely had the final say, but not much and it left a bitter rivalry between the two. Masato Kato actually had less of a say in it than those two.
As mentioned, Masato Kato didn’t do a bad job, but generally without the rest of the underlying team it didn’t work. I think it was his trying to not make Chrono Cross a sequal, plus too many characters and a slash in budget that hurt him.
That and when you try to make a sequal to game that many consider one of the greatest ever produced, on the level of a legendary game, you’re almost destined to fall short.
Aye. But just because you keep the same team, doesn’t mean it’s always a success. Look at Xenosaga. After the first title, there was a major drop of interest for the second. Second pretty much sounded the death song. Third was the fat lady. Changing of the guard does not mean it automatically sucks: just like keep the guard does not mean it will succeed.
As I first said, it all depends…
I can tell ya from first hand experience that core fanbase doesn’t mean a damn thing to executives. Opening to a wide market is more important. Its numbers plain and simple - if your “core” fan base is 200,000 but the potential market is 20 million, then you go for the potential market.
With a few exceptions, each consecutive Final Fantasy generally sells to a larger market than the one before it. I’ve heard the complaints that all the FF have alienated the “core fanbase” since the sixth title ¬ñ well the profits don’t care for that. FF7 is one of the best selling game releases of all time ¬ñ and thus so far the best marketed Square-Enix product. Hardcore gamers have periodically claimed FF7 is one of the suckiest. Well for something sucky, it does pretty damn well. If you cater to the core fanbase, then that’s perfectly fine. But when you’re listed on the Nikkei, core fanbase isn’t going to keep you there. Expanding market is.
I can see you a member of the “core fanbase” ¬ñ that’s perfectly fine. I am too. But just because the core fanbase feel a title is a failure, does not mean the title is a failure. Game sale defines success or failure as far as the larger corporate entities are concerned. The people involved in the game production care - or else they wouldn’t be in game production; the pay is shitty as hell - but don’t expect the executives writing the checks to care. They’re in it for the money. They practically tell it to our face. Why? Because they can, and its the truth.
As a gamer I agree, BoF5 sucked balls. The highlight of the series was BoF4. However the poor sales of BoF5 has nothing to do with killing the series: Capcom regularly takes losses and there are “safety nets” for such things. The failure of BoF3 is proof of that (hence the making of a fourth title).
The reason why Capcom is abandoning the RPG market, is simply because Capcom finds the RPG market unprofitable. Two or three years ago, there was a corporate announcement that Capcom would streamline game production (basically they were firing people). While BoF4 made a lot of money for an RPG, it didn’t make a lot of money as far as Capcom executives were concerned. The production of BoF5 was a last ditch attempt to prove the series could make money to the executives. Obviously it failed. But even if the title succeeded and matched the sale of the fourth title, everything would have been axed.
However I hear there’s a new RPG team in Capcom, due to the expanding RPG market in the US and Europe. If they are actually making a game, or just evaluating the situation, is beyond me. Don’t work for Capcom, so they won’t share that info with me… and the NDA prevents my friends from telling me anything.
Well… I think that’s you as a gamer speaking. WA3 sold better than WA2, so from a corporate viewpoint only the fourth game was a commercial failure. The fifth is still being assessed.
Star Ocean: Till of the End of Time did OUTSTANDING in Japan. Hence the Director’s Cut ¬ñ which sold quite well too. The whole “marketing to America” was just gravy ¬ñ not a real intention. For awhile, the game was considered to NOT be released outside Japan. There were a lot of problems with the development of TotE ¬ñ but none of them hardly matter for our discussion. But as far as sales and love go: it earned over $40 million worldwide (half of that in the US alone). One of the most successful RPG’s ever made.
TotE did NOT keep the core team. It had a totally new and inexperienced group involved ¬ñ hence Sony’s side of the development nightmare.
That’s what I said. Toriyama only does character designs, and only has done character designs. He’s never done sprites either: not how he operates.
Horii made his own company years before Square and Enix merged. Furthermore he’s gone on the record to say, that the merger between the two companies was the best thing that ever happened for Dragon Quest. He’s a major supporter of it. The proof is in the pudding, as Horii signed a new “I only work for you” contract when the companies merged. Horii loved DQ8 ¬ñ which is why DQ Swords has the same “environmental feel” to it. He greatly approves of Level-5 in general: hence him happily handing over the DQ series to them.
Aye. Evidence points that Sugiyama wants to retire. He’s only working on DQ9 because it means so much to Horii.
As mentioned above: DQ9 is Sugiyama. According to the official guide interview, Horii liked what Matsumae provided. However since DQ9 is not using Matsumae, I think he might have just said that to be nice. Then again, it could have been that Matsumae didn’t like working with whomever he worked with. Don’t really know… Matsumae hasn’t said much since then.
Important and as much as I like Toriyama, I strongly believe DQ can survive without him. What he did was provide a distinct style to the series. That style can easily be mimicked. Case in point, see Sakura Taisen and Oh! My Goddess: Fujishima doesn’t do the art in them anymore. Pokemon is another good case, where new artists have been providing new designs.
If the new artist is creative enough, I think it will do fine. Consider the reputation it has to live up too - the greatest RPG series ever made; at least in Japan – the screening process will be VERY high profile and VERY handpicked. I assume Toriyama would choose his own successor or apprentice.
As I know nothing about the Chrono series, and fortunately never had to provide research on it, I have nothing at all to comment about your reply on it, so I’ll support them by default. Never liked or found it remotely interesting. 
There were more issues with the second, mostly the change midway through, not at the beginning or end and the radical change in the way they implemented the storyline from very complex to a simplified good vs. evil. The fact it was implemented midway through is critical and it left fans of the first game pissed at the simplification and the market they were aiming at pissed at the complexity early on and everyone pissed at the sudden change in style that was pretty blatant. It was obviously rushed as if they could have made the transition more seamless with a few more months of work. This is the result of poor management descions higher up trying to get more money and not knowing the fanbase ruining for them what could have been a lucrative franchise.
Indeed. I realize they do not look at core fanbase when they can get better profits elsewhere. However, it isn’t always the best move (see above Xenosaga). As long as they continue to sell more copies doing what they do, they’ll keep doing it. However the further they diverse, the further they risk removing even non-core members. So far they seem to be doing okay, but I know after FF12 changed the battle system a lot of people just said they wouldn’t even play FF13. It’s a big risk they’re taking as these are people who you wouldn’t consider core. Hopefully they can persuade them otherwise or find enough sales to mitigate the loss.
Yea I don’t want your friends to get fired.
Yea, and I beleive it sold less because of Wild Arms 3. The 3rd one left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and the 4th didn’t really have the same charm as the first 2. One thing I noticed is that companies just look at the figures of sales to determine whether their game was a success if it was based on a sequel, not really paying much attention to reviews and return rate to used video game stores or put online at ebay.
That’s what imo happened with Wild Arms 3. Sales figures were good because of the greatness of the previous 2 games, so then the third game came out, title recognition sold a lot and then it wasn’t as good so when they went to see Wild Arms 4 they remembered the last game…
And i really don’t have too much complaints overall with the game, just a few like almost anyone has about anything.
That’s what I said. Toriyama only does character designs, and only has done character designs. He’s never done sprites either: not how he operates.
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Never said he did. Just pointing out as character designer he has a lot of impact because that’s what all the people are going to see as a visual reference to the character until the sprite or polygon model is developed.
That may be the case. I think he’s likely to stick with it for at least the next few.
I am not saying it can’t survive or even not thrive without Toriyama, however it is also about name recognition. Dragon Quest is well known in Japan and thus if Toriyama were to retire with some good artist replacing him, it would likely not mean much there. However it’s not the case outside Japan. I can attest to the fact that 2 major things sold DQ8 to a number of fans in the US: FF12 demo & Akira Toriyama’s name. Since Square-Enix is looking to make Dragon Quest the major world title it once held in the distant past, not just Japanese title, name recognition is key here and Toriyama has more pull worldwide than the series title.
You have never played it.
Xenosaga is one of the most confounding failures in the gaming market. It’s actually an industry “case model” that’s studied, believe it or not. The basics ¬ñ looking from a corporate side of the issue ¬ñ goes a bit like this:
When Namco funded the project it cost a lot of money: more than any other game they produced till that point. Whatever the Xenosaga team wanted, they got. More time? They got it. More budget? They got it. It wasn’t just a dream project: it was THE DREAM PROJECT. Game developers allover Japan were jealous. Xenosaga was a game that was going to be EXACTLY like the makers wanted it to be.
It was going to be perfect.
As you can imagine, the hype was awesome. EVERYONE wanted to play Xenosaga. In the “sneak peak” reviews, there wasn’t a single complaint level against it. The game was perfect. The executives were salivating. This was going to be THE greatest moneymaker ever. At least 1.5 million copies total in Japan alone: that’s the number they were expecting to be sold.
It was going to be perfect.
Then the game was on the shelves. Game magazines all over the country were giving it scores of 10 out of 10 and 100 out of 100. Critics claimed it was the greatest RPG ever made. Gamers loved the story, the characters, and the setting. Xenosaga got rave reviews after rave reviews. Square was scared shitless: Final Fantasy had dangerous competition now, and it was only because they let it slip from their hands. Xenosaga was PURE WIN!!!
It was going to be perfect.
Then the numbers came in… only 300K sold. Now if Xenosaga was any other game, then that number would have made people wet themselves. But this was not any other game ¬ñ this was Xenosaga. The executives only had one thing to say: “WTF!?” It cost so much to produce Xenosaga ¬ñ the expectations were so high for it ¬ñ that this return was a failure.
Why didn’t customers buy Xenosaga? Why didn’t people flock to the perfect RPG? That’s the question still being asked today… and one that EVERY game company wants to avoid. Executives in other gaming companies laughed at Namco’s: “that’s what you get for doing what the game developers want you to.” Needless to say, Namco was pissed. The executives felt like they got screwed hardcore. They gave the development team EVERYTHING they wanted, all they got back was a financial loss.
It was NOT perfect.
Namco was ready to pull the plug. Production on Xenosaga 2 was hell and constantly delayed. Then someone in Namco finally convinced the big wigs to release the title in English and at least try to scrape the bone for more money. According to all accounts, that was a MAJOR undertaking worthy of it’s own book: but the game was released in English. Some thought it would sell around 150K tops. Perhaps even a third that. The game sold somewhere in the range of 800K. Now granted, that wasn’t exactly 1.5 million, but it made back all the costs and turned some profit.
“JACKPOT!!!” screams the executives in Namco. We got a winner here!
As far as Namco was concerned, the production team in charge of Xenosaga was a failure. Only because they could sell to Americans, was the series saved. They didn’t want the original team involved, because the original team created a sales failure. Who cares about reviews? Reviews don’t sell copies, because obviously shitter games have sold better. End result? Firings. Budget cuts. Deadlines. Doing what the executives wanted, not what the production team wanted. Thus the nightmare of Xenosaga 2… and the total hell of Xenosaga 3 that followed afterwards.
Who’s right and who’s wrong? Again… a MASSIVE case study with multiple answers that doesn’t really solve anything…
Aye. But that’s executives for ya… they don’t care if the game is shitty or not: they just want more $$$. It’s the game production team that has to care ¬ñ and if for some odd reason they don’t care, then you get the REALLY crappy games that people hate with a passion.
Thus the “perfect” game is something that the production team AND the executives can find a middle ground on. This is why Nintendo is so often successful and VERY envied: their executives are part of the production team.
Gotcha!
That’s the neat thing about DQ: the executives at Square-Enix would LOVE to sell DQ outside of Japan and make it #1 everywhere in the world. The problem is, Horii doesn’t give a damn about that. He wants DQ to be the best RPG in Japan. If it keeps that title so long as he lives, he can die a happy man. Therefore, DQ is always developed for the Japanese gamer. It’s one of the few game series that’s done that way: most others study how Americans and Europeans will like it. While they haven’t said it out loud, CAPCOM and Konami have been making the American gamer their primary target. Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Solid are the most obvious ¬ñ but Castlevania and Street Fighter too.
However Horii has a LOT of pull ¬ñ and even the greediest executive won’t challenge him on this. The man is a Gaming God. Piss him off, and you piss off MILLIONS of customers. Plus Dragon Quest always sells millions of copies. He never fails.
Thus while DQ will be imported into the US so long as it makes money, Horii could give a rat’s ass if it sold outside Japan or not. But he has made the comment, that he liked the treatment the Westernized DQ8 got. It made him proud… but he’s still only aiming for Japan.
Naw… just never liked how it looked. I know the plot ¬ñ pretty impossible for me not too, being as legendary as it is ¬ñ but I just don’t like the series. Just doesn’t ring to me.
Needs moar twincest maybe.
Has been one i’ve been considering for my senior overview project and have been doing research into that.
And in all respects it appears the Namco execs were at fault, probably not completely to blame, but at every juncture the fault at least partly lies with them. From not putting any constraints initially, to not having a global market perspective, to overreacting when sales skyrocketed in the US. The reviewers likely played a part as well overhyping the game. Probably the market analysis team as well.
Quite so. You need a product that can sell so you can make money to pay everyone and have enough to make more. Bandai (now Bandai-Namco holdings( and Square-Enix are pretty good at this. No one is perfect though. Everyone makes a flop. N64.
Actually SE have made America their tesurary market. China is now their secondary market. Europe is well a distant thought.
Yea, I get that. Personally I’d prefer it not to be modeled for a US market as I’ve seen what’s happened to FF series…
However it is saying something that the port made him proud since they did change the menu system and added voice acting. Not sure if he was/is aware of that.
Yea no twincest, though they do have a mention about twins. I would seriously consider sitting down and playing it. It’s not that long of a game, just don’t play the PS1 copy (unless you play it on your psp) or you’ll complain about load times, which everyone does, because of the cheap way Squaresoft ported it.
It’s just odd though… When Xenosaga was first released, there was major talk of 9 episodes ¬ñ including a remake of Xenogears when they got to that chapter. Money was going to be no object. Namco was willing to take huge loans if they needed too.
The executives wanted the riches. The production team wanted to be legends. By all accounts, Xenosaga should have been one of the greatest selling games of all time. But for some reason, gamers just didn’t buy the game… and yet the majority of gamers claim Xeosaga is pure awesome. For its time, Xenosaga was the prefect RPG ¬ñ but sales say otherwise.
Personally, I feel it’s not the executives or production team who failed Xenosaga. I think it’s the customers. The people making the game did their part. The people paying for the game did their part. The people who were supposed to buy the game did not.
Had Xenosaga sold 1.5 million copies, then Xenosaga would have been marketed outside Japan without delay. The 800K copies sold in the US (and I think Europe sold like 400K) would have sealed the series. Xenosaga 2 would have gotten whatever it wanted ¬ñ no firings, no over rulings. That game would have been perfect too… and perhaps all nine of them.
As I see it, the failure was the customer. As far as the gamer was concerned, Xenosaga gave them everything they wanted. For whatever reason, they failed the game makers and the company that paid them. So while American gamers have the right to bitch about quality failure, the Japanese gamers do not. They sowed the seeds that resulted in the destruction of Xenosaga and Namco’s ultra pissed attitude to the original development team.
The rewrite to the Xenosaga 2 script happened, because Namco felt the game would sell better in the West with those modifications… and everything went downhill from there.
You want the best? Then show that you want it.
All Xenosaga proved, was that giving the customer and game developers everything they want, is a fast road to failure.
I doubt he understands English fluently… and I REALLY doubt that he caught the game had a strong medieval feel because of the British accents. I also doubt he knows that the original English Dragon Warrior used Thy and Thou all the time ¬ñ which made the whole British thing even cooler for DQ8.
However the game featured voice acting and the orchestra soundtrack. That alone must have REALLY impressed him. The Japanese version of DQ Swords has voice acting, and I think that was an influence from the Westernized DQ8.
Well can’t blame me as a customer. I bought the game when it came out and told others to.
However, as mentioned it was probably marketing that was off. They probably were expecting a game more like xenogears. Customers might be part to blame, but the Execs should have had a global perspective to begin with. Square-Enix just earlier last year announced the importance of overseas market. They also then blamed the original team for all the problems when it clearly made good sales in the US. Nothing ever comes good from saccing a team in entirety just because something needs to be done.
So Japanese customers might take some of the blame, if market analysis could be considered accurate. but that doesn’t excuse the execs from the other 2 things. The US customers certainly did their part.
No, and I doubt he realizes that the cross was changed to an ankh for political reasons. I’m just wondering about the menu system as well though because that got a lot of gripe from some DQ7 players.
Anyway what are your’re thoughts on whether or not the game should change or not?
