outlawauron said:
Nuvendil said:
outlawauron said:
spemanig said:
outlawauron said:
It's pretty easy to make a judgment at a glance. Monolith Soft is a B-tier developer. Square and Level 5 (referring to DQ) are really the only JRPG developers with enough time and money to put the time in to make whatever they want.
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Yeah, but last generation, Monolith Soft did more with less than both of them. Monolith Soft has more than proved themselves equal and even superior to the competition.
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They've made one great game ever, a couple of good games, and some meh games. Not sure how you can make that strecth unless you're giving them credit for all partnerships (Brawl, SRT, etc).
They fit right in with Tri-Ace, Namco, and From Software.
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As EA, Activision, and Square themselves have demonstrated, all the money in the world can't fix stupid. You can be a "AAA" studio and make a game that might as well be B tier for all the shiny paint you lavish on it. Monolith Soft has the money and the resources now that they didn't have during the partnership with Namco; they are a part of Nintendo now, a first party developer. And Nintendo has demonstrated a willingness to give them the resources needed, as seen with Xenoblade and with Xenoblade X so far. These are big games by anyone's measure. And if having a less-than-perfect track record makes you an inferior studio B-tier studio, then that should make Monolith Soft and Square an even match cause Square has put out some stinkers over the years; I mean, last gen they put out three entries in 13 despite declining approval from all sides and put out the orignal 14, which was an outright shameful display. So yeah, just tossing Square the win is very premature.
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Not sure how you can say this when the strengths and weaknesses are almost exactly the same as previous games.
The EA/Activision comparison holds no water, because they rush games out and have yearly sequels of its major franchises. Square takes as much time as they want and have no qualms over delays.
And if you read the original post, I never said you could just toss them the win. I said if you had to make a decision at first glance, it's not a reach to pick Square. That's all.
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Ah, I thought you were saying that Square was the obvious choice; my apologiez.
The EA and Activision comparison was purely me naming wealthy devs who frequently screw up or produce something sub-par. I could name other companies who burn up money and accomplish nothing special.
Also, Nintendo's willingness to give resources for the developments stage can be seen in the fact that Xenoblade is the only fully finished "Xeno" game; Xenogears was about 2/3 of a game with the third act cut all to pieces. Xenosaga was a 6-part game cut into a trilogy with the entire second half cut to pieces to cram in at the end. There's actually an article out there with an interview with Takahashi in it who mentions that he thought the same thing would happen with Xenoblade, but rather than cut resources and rush the game, Nintendo told Takahashi to finish his vision and supplied the resources and allowed for the time neeeded for Xenoblade to be finished properly.
