Square Enix spitting out tons of mediocre games lately?

[Varg]

Is it just me noticing this? At first I was glad seeing them bringing out lots of new games but they all seem rather ...generic kind of.
I get Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title, which was a total burn for expensive money.

[PocketYoda]

I noticed that myself.

[Chocos Ramabotti]

Triangle Strategy was a very good game.

[Ryulightorb]

"Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title" Octopath traveler was great so that's a plus

[Freak4Leeks]

im looking forward to valkyrie

[Varg]

Originally posted by God:

"Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title" Octopath traveler was great so that's a plus

Are you new to JRPG's? It had absolutely nothing exciting to offer and had an obvious copy/paste mechanic for all the stories. After playing 2 of them you already could figure out how all the rest would play out. It was a drag.
I only paid 50% of full price and that was barely worth it. I honestly expect better from SE but seeing the games coming out now.. I kinda feel bummed.

[Livy]

Originally posted by God:

"Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title" Octopath traveler was great so that's a plus

Octopath has great aesthetics, but it was lacking in story while the gameplay ended up way too grindy.

Music was great tho. And can see Go Shiina is the composer for this game so the soundtrack will probably be good.

[Kirioz]

Originally posted by Chocos Ramabotti:

Triangle Strategy was a very good game.

agreed, much better than octopath

[Baka]

Originally posted by Ulcerus:

Is it just me noticing this? At first I was glad seing them bringing out lots of new games but they all seem rather ...generic kind of.
I get Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title, which was a total burn for expensive money.

Copy paste for the consumers is the new norm in gaming. And who can blame them? people just keep buying the same rehashed games over and over.

[letsTPKothers]

Nah, your not the only one, there are tens of millions that feel this way. There are forums everywhere covering this very topic.
These days its pretty much copy paste ideas with nothing unique to offer as far as story telling and imagination go. ENIX has become VERY corporate heavy these last 5+ yrs (Sony as well) primarily putting their bottom line / share holders before a quality product.
Id say this holds most true in the JRPG / RPG side of things.
Most have decent enough graphics but the games have been falling short in a massive way and obviously a huge portion of their budget is going towards roping in suckers that cant tell the difference between something of quality and extreme mediocrity, which tends to happen when there is so much trash out there. Just look at how **** cellphone games are, yet people play them constantly.
Lately people tend to reward those least deserving fearing criticism / being critical, so its no surprise the AAA game industry is falling apart quality wise.
A good example would be personal Data Collection, which will often make more money than the game it self, and being that most modern AAA games come with a TOS (Terms of Service) you have to agree to, which in most cases the terms borderline criminal for just that purpose, you can see why there is so little effort being put in, because they have yo by the b****.
What you do in a game / with a launcher is more valuable to them as a service, and being that online "services" are the new trend(Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, etc), makes your information (personal and otherwise) invaluable to third party companies / the future of the company (Enix in this case) to do being traded on the Stalk Market.
From a Psych point of view- monitoring your every move while using their "service"(DRM, launchers, Anti cheat, etc ) AAA publishers (aka Billion dollar corporations) learn your behavior, EG what your willing to put up with, meaning in most cases they know exactly how hard to push, and how little effort does or doesnt need to be put into a AAA project.
Right now, at this very moment, your data is being traded and currently worth more than Platinum. Welcome to "modern"AAA gaming.

Support indie Devs people, they are the future.

[Varg]

Originally posted by letsTPKothers:

Nah, your not the only one, there are tens of millions that feel this way. There are forums everywhere covering this very topic.
These days its pretty much copy paste ideas with nothing unique to offer as far as story telling and imagination go. ENIX has become VERY corporate heavy these last 5+ yrs (Sony as well) primarily putting their bottom line / share holders before a quality product.
Id say this holds most true in the JRPG / RPG side of things.
Most have decent enough graphics but the games have been falling short in a massive way and obviously a huge portion of their budget is going towards roping in suckers that cant tell the difference between something of quality and extreme mediocrity, which tends to happen when there is so much trash out there. Just look at how **** cellphone games are, yet people play them constantly.
Lately people tend to reward those least deserving fearing criticism / being critical, so its no surprise the AAA game industry is falling apart quality wise.
A good example would be personal Data Collection, which will often make more money than the game it self, and being that most modern AAA games come with a TOS (Terms of Service) you have to agree to, which in most cases the terms borderline criminal for just that purpose, you can see why there is so little effort being put in, because they have yo by the b****.
What you do in a game / with a launcher is more valuable to them as a service, and being that online "services" are the new trend(Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, etc), makes your information (personal and otherwise) invaluable to third party companies / the future of the company (Enix in this case) to do being traded on the Stalk Market.
From a Psych point of view- monitoring your every move while using their "service"(DRM, launchers, Anti cheat, etc ) AAA publishers (aka Billion dollar corporations) learn your behavior, EG what your willing to put up with, meaning in most cases they know exactly how hard to push, and how little effort does or doesnt need to be put into a AAA project.
Right now, at this very moment, your data is being traded and currently worth more than Platinum. Welcome to "modern"AAA gaming.

Support indie Devs people, they are the future.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one seeing the issue. Thanks for the reply!

[null]

Originally posted by Ulcerus:

Originally posted by God:

"Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title" Octopath traveler was great so that's a plus

Are you new to JRPG's? It had absolutely nothing exciting to offer and had an obvious copy/paste mechanic for all the stories. After playing 2 of them you already could figure out how all the rest would play out. It was a drag.
I only paid 50% of full price and that was barely worth it. I honestly expect better from SE but seeing the games coming out now.. I kinda feel bummed.

I loved octopath. Great combat system, job/subjob stuff which I love in JRPGs, some of the best modern sprite work out there and a fantastic soundtrack. The chapter structure was a bit repetitive but overall I enjoyed Octopath a lot. Very excited for the sequel to hopefully iron out a bit of the rough edges

[Doctrine Dark]

Originally posted by Ulcerus:

Is it just me noticing this? At first I was glad seing them bringing out lots of new games but they all seem rather ...generic kind of.
I get Octopath Traveler vibes on every new title, which was a total burn for expensive money.

Well I feel like your just in your own personal bubble when it comes to calling games mediocre because you can scream and shout but numbers don't lie.

Lets use your example of octopath traveler.

Sales as of this year has reached over 3 million copies - and for a niche japanese game is allot

Review scores - are mostly positive between users and critics and it held steady on the charts for games during its first week period.

-----

Triangle Strategy - Sales numbers and user/critic reviews are also pretty high as its sold more than 800,000 copies in the first 2 weeks.

------

Star Ocean Divine Force - And extremely Niche game and even tho its the lowest launch for
sales as far as Star Oceans go it was still the highest selling Multi Sku title from the 24th to the 30th.

-------

Diofeild Chronicles - This game was the 8th best selling game the week of its launch in Japan and has average but not low reviews ( So review wise this is the only "mediocre" game.

------------

I understand not liking something I have plenty of games I don't like but definitively stating that Square is mediocre is ignorant or trolling

[Its Almost Harvesting Season]

I... somewhat agree. These games aren't exactly bad games; Triangle Strategy is good, Octopath Traveler was rather ok... Problem for me is the price. They're priced like they're Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest but these games don't have those kinds of budgets and it's obvious. Triangle Strategy, good game... TERRIBLE voice acting. Octopath had a nice combat system but was dragged down by fights being tedious instead of fast because of it, unlike something seen in the Press Turn system from SMT games. I think most people wouldn't be so bothered if these games being made by smaller studios under SE were priced liked games made by smaller studios...

I do have to say the Live-A-Live remake is exceptional though. They really should of brought that to PC quickly.

[Elsydeon]

Likely market testing and/or letting their devs do their own things to fish for the next rockstar dev/power franchise that won't torch millions like Tetsuya Nomura. Also, sometimes, they are just publishing for indie devs like power wash simulator. Multiple smaller budget productions to give their devs experience and let their Yoko Taros have some creative freedom. It may hurt for some of the gamers that have high dopamine thresholds, but it's a strategy that has paid off in the past.

[OmegaReaper]

Originally posted by letsTPKothers:

Nah, your not the only one, there are tens of millions that feel this way. There are forums everywhere covering this very topic.
These days its pretty much copy paste ideas with nothing unique to offer as far as story telling and imagination go. ENIX has become VERY corporate heavy these last 5+ yrs (Sony as well) primarily putting their bottom line / share holders before a quality product.
Id say this holds most true in the JRPG / RPG side of things.
Most have decent enough graphics but the games have been falling short in a massive way and obviously a huge portion of their budget is going towards roping in suckers that cant tell the difference between something of quality and extreme mediocrity, which tends to happen when there is so much trash out there. Just look at how **** cellphone games are, yet people play them constantly.
Lately people tend to reward those least deserving fearing criticism / being critical, so its no surprise the AAA game industry is falling apart quality wise.
A good example would be personal Data Collection, which will often make more money than the game it self, and being that most modern AAA games come with a TOS (Terms of Service) you have to agree to, which in most cases the terms borderline criminal for just that purpose, you can see why there is so little effort being put in, because they have yo by the b****.
What you do in a game / with a launcher is more valuable to them as a service, and being that online "services" are the new trend(Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, etc), makes your information (personal and otherwise) invaluable to third party companies / the future of the company (Enix in this case) to do being traded on the Stalk Market.
From a Psych point of view- monitoring your every move while using their "service"(DRM, launchers, Anti cheat, etc ) AAA publishers (aka Billion dollar corporations) learn your behavior, EG what your willing to put up with, meaning in most cases they know exactly how hard to push, and how little effort does or doesnt need to be put into a AAA project.
Right now, at this very moment, your data is being traded and currently worth more than Platinum. Welcome to "modern"AAA gaming.

Support indie Devs people, they are the future.

As much as I agree with supporting Indie devs, even those games are copy and pasted with their own twist and flair to the already ongoing same type games.

I remember when people cried about Square moving to action type rpgs, how the west cried about no turn based battles anymore and yet they bought the ff13 series FF15 and FF7R, well they totally cried about 7 more.

Octopath Traveller was a new start to turn based rpgs from Square moving away from the FF lark with super summons/machine etc. While have Character names spelling OCTOPATH, can't wait till next year for number 2.