I think it would have been AWESOME if they would have used the Xenogears plot for Final Fantasy 8. Don't get me wrong, I love FF8, but it could have been better. The plot of FF8 was inferior to Xenogears. In game mechanics, the opposite can be said of Xenogears. If Square had given Xenogears the FF treatment the planet, towns, villages, and battles would have been more vibrant and just imagine Fei, Citan, and Bart in 3D polygons AND using the FF8 battle engine! Instead of summoning Guardians Forces there would be the Gears making their appearance. There would have been a lot more cutscenes and it would have been a 4 disc game instead of 2 discs. I guess I'm just dreaming about what could have been...
Final Fantasy is Square's flagship game series. So obviously they're going to devote a longer development cycle and a higher budget to it than their other titles. They want to keep final fantasy as the name synonomous with high quality role-playing games. Xenogears was made with a much more modest budget and time frame, but that team made the most of what they had.
Xenogears' plot was a too controversial anyway to be a Final Fantasy. Sure there's death in FF, but when you throw in religion and borrow great things from other great works it may have been too much.
Isn't that chick from Soul Calibur in your AV? god she's hot. :P
This topic is roughly about eight years late. Sure, bigger production values would have been nice, but in Square-land, Final Fantasy is first, second, and third in the pecking order.
Despite all that, Xenogears stands far above any Final Fantasy game to date.
I think it would have been AWESOME if they would have used the Xenogears plot for Final Fantasy 8. Don't get me wrong, I love FF8, but it could have been better. The plot of FF8 was inferior to Xenogears. In game mechanics, the opposite can be said of Xenogears. If Square had given Xenogears the FF treatment the planet, towns, villages, and battles would have been more vibrant and just imagine Fei, Citan, and Bart in 3D polygons AND using the FF8 battle engine! Instead of summoning Guardians Forces there would be the Gears making their appearance. There would have been a lot more cutscenes and it would have been a 4 disc game instead of 2 discs. I guess I'm just dreaming about what could have been... Anslasax
Xenogears was a classic game with great production values (hand drawn and inferior are not synonyms) and a strong combat system (it handled both out of mech and in mech combat far better than Xenosaga).
The last thing Xenogears needed was more cutscenes (cutscenes popped up pretty often and at least one of them lasted an hour).
Heck, a modest budget might have been the reason that Xenogears was a better, more restrained, more focused game than its sequels. Namco gave the Xenosaga team a blank check and they spent a lot of time creating elaborate cinemas (my controller collected dust during some of the cinemas) and very little time on gameplay/game design (Xenosaga's combat system was terrible and the dungeon design was weak).
Well I started to like Final Fantasy 8 storyline after reading documents and analysis for the game's story and it makes sense... For square, it's more profitable to make two seperate, popular and different games. Making a popular game identical to a game from a very popular franchise isn't the best thing to sell it. PEople often get bored of repetitve things and then FF8 battle system and GF summon wasn't loved by many.
(Xenosaga's combat system was terrible and the dungeon design was weak).
CarnageHeart
Its a shame you feel that way considering its nearly identical to Xenogears. You're being inconsistent. I don't understand you on this one.
As far as Xenosaga's dungeon design, I can't disagree with you more. It was streamlined and not excessively long so as to artificially lenghten gameplay. Of the many things Xenosaga did wrong, that was something the series actually did right and more so than most RPGs that have ever been released now that I think about it.
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