3 ms·

Yeah I wonder if Square could have taken the series in a more Kingdom Hearts-like direction if it had had the runway to do so.

noirscape 3y ago
I wouldn't consider that to be the "Square weirdness" from the Square of the 90s... For today, maybe. What I mean moreso by that is that FF games up until 9 more or less had this shared tone of "stories with gravity interspliced with extremely goofy moments and oneliners". SMRPG fits that tightrope almost as well as the more well known games it shares a platform with (Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6); there's multiple gags but the game also still treats this idea of "Bowser just got upstaged by this army of metal guys" with a completely straight face. The stuff surrounding the core story of the Seven Stars isn't undercut by anything but it's still followed up by the running gags of Mario doing impressions of the various NPCs he's met because he's a silent protagonist and they wanted to animate an explanation. Later Mario RPGs would largely ditch that gravity in favor of just going all-in on the goofiness as the RPGs went on (Mario & Luigi got a really bad case of that). Square on the other hand bled creatives during the merger with Enix until Nomura was the only one left and he got super up in his own ass about storytelling... which led to Kingdom Hearts becoming what it is.
PaulHoule 3y ago
I dunno. I was a big fan of Secret of Mana which has a really disappointing multiplayer. Three people really can control three characters at once but if you want to cast a spell or change weapons you open up a menu that stops the action for everyone else. Sometimes I think about hacking the game so the menus appear out-of-line so the multiplayer really is fun.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  A multiplayer RPG was almost unheard of though until MMOs became a thing. Local multiplayer RPG was always quite rare. Interesting that Secret of Mana even attempted it.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    Uh... except MUDs - which absolutely dominated the early era of gaming and still exist as a small but extremely dedicated player base to this day. Text will always be an extremely compelling medium for RPGs since you're only limited in your expression by your imagination - there is no graphical hindrance to what actions occur.
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      True, and I enjoyed a space based one that I used to play quite a bit back then, but I guess I would consider MUDs to be MMOs as well. They still ultimately required an internet connection and console games didn't really become popular for net based play until PS2.
- djtango 3y ago
  how does SoM compare to FF:CC?

noirscape 3y ago

I wouldn't consider that to be the "Square weirdness" from the Square of the 90s... For today, maybe. What I mean moreso by that is that FF games up until 9 more or less had this shared tone of "stories with gravity interspliced with extremely goofy moments and oneliners". SMRPG fits that tightrope almost as well as the more well known games it shares a platform with (Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6); there's multiple gags but the game also still treats this idea of "Bowser just got upstaged by this army of metal guys" with a completely straight face. The stuff surrounding the core story of the Seven Stars isn't undercut by anything but it's still followed up by the running gags of Mario doing impressions of the various NPCs he's met because he's a silent protagonist and they wanted to animate an explanation. Later Mario RPGs would largely ditch that gravity in favor of just going all-in on the goofiness as the RPGs went on (Mario & Luigi got a really bad case of that). Square on the other hand bled creatives during the merger with Enix until Nomura was the only one left and he got super up in his own ass about storytelling... which led to Kingdom Hearts becoming what it is.

PaulHoule 3y ago

I dunno. I was a big fan of Secret of Mana which has a really disappointing multiplayer. Three people really can control three characters at once but if you want to cast a spell or change weapons you open up a menu that stops the action for everyone else. Sometimes I think about hacking the game so the menus appear out-of-line so the multiplayer really is fun.

chrisco255 3y ago
A multiplayer RPG was almost unheard of though until MMOs became a thing. Local multiplayer RPG was always quite rare. Interesting that Secret of Mana even attempted it.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Uh... except MUDs - which absolutely dominated the early era of gaming and still exist as a small but extremely dedicated player base to this day. Text will always be an extremely compelling medium for RPGs since you're only limited in your expression by your imagination - there is no graphical hindrance to what actions occur.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    True, and I enjoyed a space based one that I used to play quite a bit back then, but I guess I would consider MUDs to be MMOs as well. They still ultimately required an internet connection and console games didn't really become popular for net based play until PS2.
djtango 3y ago
how does SoM compare to FF:CC?