Games Take Too Long to Make 

Nice video detailing the lore of the Todd Howard demon.

the obsession with number go up, businessmen CEOs, and satisfying shareholders has done irrepairable damage to non-indie game development

Spiderman games should not cost $300 million dollars to make.

he forgot about smt5. that's all that you need to know about smt5 (even though I liked smt5)

At a GDC presentation, the former president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata talked about this. Mind you this was in 2005. Nearly 20 years ago he and Nintendo foresaw this exact problem and was hoping the industry would listen and make adjustments in the future. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. He told them that video games need big ideas. Not big budgets.

I honestly wouldn't mind some companies to spend So much money on games they go bankrupt

Tony, you're not being fair with the Nocturne remaster. You forgot that they also added framerate drops that didn't exist in the PS2 version at numerous places throughout the game and kept things traditional by keeping the compressed PS2 versions of the music so it sounds awful, even though they could have easily added the original studio cuts of the music. They also removed Dante and replaced him with Raidou, then made Dante paid DLC. See? Those decisions made it so much better!!!🤪

>Shin Megami Tensei centered youtuber >Talks about Atlus releases in the last 6 years >Forgets about Shin Megami Tensei V How did this happened ?

Feel a bit mixed on this video, 1/3 of it was talking about your thesis and video title while the remainder was criticizing atlus for various games made by different teams with widely different budgets. To play devils advocate games, especially rpgs are held to a higher standard than others genres when it comes to graphics quality as articulating a quality story or setting via commercials and trailers isn't the strong point of the genre. Let's be real what rpg with subpar graphics has sold over 1 million units? There is a very good reasons devs spend so much time on visuals because it directly correlates to a return on investment. I'd also argue in the case of P3R the game's biggest strength was adjusting the game's script and adding to the social links of the game fleshing them out and in some cases completely reworking social link segments.

My man baited me with a Persona filled thumbnail and a title that I instantly agreed with just to sit me down and force me to listen to him rant about FF16 for the first 6 minutes, _and i love it_

As a software engineer, many people don't really realize how much time consuming a lot of aspects in game development are, yeah we had a ton of games realeasing back in the day but those game were a hell of a lot less complex than what they are today and not only that but the "people in suits" are the ones that move all the strings. You'll be surprise to know how little power developers have and that's why almost all games have a ton of bugs nowadays because the project leads (who responds to the executives and whatnot) set these really unrealistic expectations and dates and not only that if you find a bug or want to make a change, it first have to be approve and pass down to a lot of departments and people and most of the time they just tell you to not worry about it and instead focus on other stupid things and that's why modders make this fixes so fast, they don't have to repond to anyone. So yeah, those times were a bunch of frineds could gather up in their mothers garage to make really good games are long gone TLDR: Games are not longer made by passion, they are made for money (in most cases obviously) Sorry for my shitty english

What happened is that game teams became too large. Compare credit lists between games made in the early 2000s and now; not only have team sizes ballooned, but contracted help from other companies became a thing. Too many people with not enough care to take responsibility and get things done or, failing that, getting it to a 'good enough' point.

that's cool and all but what happens after you die

The gaming industry has quickly fallen into this cycle of huge projects where tons of money and resources are dumped into an idea that may be hot right now, but could eventually fall off later on in the years, but before that even happens, so many employees and resources that could have been spent elsewhere is spent all on this one project, crunch culture is employed and fans get angsty waiting for any news the game to come out. The worst part is that if it fails which at this point looking at all the recent aaa titles is looking more and more inevitable, then everyone suffers from the workers who are now going to be laid off and the players who were looking forward to this game for a long time only to be disappointed. The only ones not so affected is of course, those at the top who just take a tax cut by letting go everyone and get to enjoy another bonus.

You would think games would be better since they take so long. Remember when we would get a new banger every month in the 2000s wtf

If you didn’t finish Chapter One of Tactica before learning anything about the new characters then you don’t really have any room to talk. You haven’t learned anything about the story or the characters. For Reload, FES just isn’t accessible for a lot of people. This is a version you can play that lets you experience this game at its full scope, and even if you don’t like the new direction there was still clear passion and love put behind the game.

Downward spiral downward spiral downward spiral

I played ff7 remake and ff16 back to back last year. I played ff7 for the first time in about 2014. I really enjoyed but maybe I don’t have quite as much nostalgia for it. I think I liked ff16 more. Ff7rm felt like it just added too many side quests. They felt shoehorned in. And the combat system felt very clunky to me. Ff16 story and side quests felt a lot better paced and combat felt way better. It felt like ff7rm tried to take the original combat and meld it with Arpg and it just didn’t feel as good. That being said I really enjoyed both. But now I started ff7rb and I’ve since dropped it. I’ll probably come back to but it just feels so slow.

When talking about Square's output, i think it is worth noting that since the start of 2023 we've effectively gotten 3 large-scale games from teams that have developed mainline Final Fantasy titles (Forspoken, FF16, and 7R2), with a large expansion for FF14 on the way in a couple months. As a whole Square has been releasing a ton of games in the past few years. Not all of them have necessarily been great but a fair amount have hit well (NEO TWEWY, Octopath 2, Triangle Strategy, etc). Not every company is like this obviously but I feel like people tend to focus too much on the larger AAA releases (a la FF, KH, DQ) and ignore everything else getting put out. Similarly Atlus putting out P5T, P3R, SMTVV, and Metaphor within a year is notable. There definitely could've been more research done here.

I have my issues with FFXVI but I think you are discrediting a lot of it, yeah the story is not great, writing dropped the ball hard mid game, but gameplay is amazing, it feels too me like the director didn't care enough about it, but you can definetly tell there is chunky story bible for this world. on persona 3 reload I think you can have your opinion but to me the only reason it didn't hit as hard as the first time I played FES is because this is my third time reliving this story and I was close to tears again on some points. the aditions to aragaki's story had heart and the voice overs did made an impact. to me it sounds like you need a break from JRPGs, and I mean no offense by this 😓😓.

Haven't finished it since it dropped 50 seconds before clicking, but imo its why the switch has been doing well. Only a small handful, maybe 10-20 companies even have enough money and time to make titles that actually require current gen hardware. These AAA companies are big because they're public, so they listen to what ignorant suits have to say to get the line higher, making them do the same mistakes major movie studios have been making the past couple years - dumping hundreds of millions into stupid shit that needs to crack half a billion to make even

Ypu can roast everything about FFXVI EXCEPT for the music, come on man, its some of Soken's best work!

Millions down the drain. Games are a money pit

>says he’s not going to talk about soul >talks about soul(passion) Meaningless buzzwords are meaningless.

See you in the next Yap4You

While I do agree with Reload’s Theurgies being a bit much as an addition, my bigger issue with it is how it didn’t really go the whole mile in being a “definitive” Persona 3 experience, particularly because it’s lacking Portable content like the FeMC and the endgame Vision Quest (being able to fight the Full Moon bosses but actually kinda threatening was so cool), and didn’t even have The Answer in base game and is now expecting players to pay for almost half the price of Reload to add it in, so I end up feeling like it’s just so similar to FES minus The Answer, but it got a facelift and caught P5’s easier difficulty.

My uncle is a big Diablo fan, we used to play 3 a lot, and whenever game got out, he bought it day one and we started playing together, on the brand new Xbox he also bought to accompany the game! ...we couldn't play the game cuz of the lag, we are teleporting all the time, our attacks aren't connecting, we had a lengthy wait time to start playing and we later got KICKED OUT because of the lag. I remember talking that we had, were so disappointed, that I we eventually stopped playing, and we just stopped gaming entirely that day.

Its the same problem the film industry has, bloated budgets make them need everything to be a superhit or else, and because of that they make them "apeal to everyone" which means it will be bland, boring and corporate...

Actually the modeling is probably the easier part. Photogrammetry makes some stuff much quicker and some of the tools do help but we don't have The power to use these tools to their fullest extent yet. And that's kind of the problem. We were like four fists of the way to being able to power tools to make games fast and pretty at the same time. The problem is that didn't quite work out. And that's where we get hitching that's where we get stuttering. That's where we get not very good looking or long development times from right now and that's why a lot of AA developers who make reasonably large games can really just give a walloping to AAA titles a lot of times because they use tools in simpler and older ways or simpler tools to make games that are better as games because they are functional or unique. Sega is also making a killing on this sort of thing. Pounding square into the ground in terms of profit. Also, the Moguri mod for nine is better and more fun than final fantasy 10. Honestly forgot. RPGs go to Atlas or oddly I'd like to say namco at the moment.

Tony is back!!!!! I love Tony ❤

Tony you're da man but I can't agree with all the takes you've provided me for P3r. The way I see it P3r provides a fresh experience not from a strictly narrative or gameplay perspective, but from the perspective of the main player. I like to think that P3r is the canon NG+ of the storyline where mc can see life in a new light. The colors shine brightest and it becomes clear as the new opening plays "full moon full life", a bittersweet piece, that the game is about living life without second chances or compromises. I find that the change is not one of lacking in passion but one of wanting to enrich the message of the game, to put vibrant colors where there were none before. The dorm's tone has turned from bland and monochromatic almost to lively and optimistic. For the returning player who's played p3 I think this should be of much delight. We spend the game with our silent protagonist who in the end is finally happy. This happiness carries over to this game and I find this thematically intriguing.

It's a shame you didn't like ff16, as I thought the game actually had plenty of passion behind it

A couple things. I can definitely say that while I think the original version has its place, I don't think it's fair to say Reload is pointless. A friend was able to get gamepass for cheap, play through the whole game and had a complete blast and fell in love with the series as a result. Remakes aren't JUST for old people, they can also be for new people who don't have easy access to the older stuff. In general, I also think mixing "time taken" with "budget spent" is not good. Undertale for example took almost 3 years to complete, while FF8 was much quicker; and I wouldn't call Undertale a worse game. The difference has entirely to do with mismanaging budget and too much money being spent on marketting and other things, with time spent to make the game simply being a symptom of the core problem. To be honest, I like your content, but this video felt like more of an excuse to rant about directions of franchises you like rather than actually being a concrete discussion on gaming as a whole, and while those opinions are valid it shouldn't be framed as speaking to a greatest issue.

good video. the graphics discussion is definitely one that resonates with me. when every game is trying to look photorealistic or like the newest series entry, that pretty much kills any sense of unique art direction. persona 3 reload was also a bit of a let down. it frustrates me how the game with better voice acting and anime cutscene animation has weaker cutscene *direction* and discards so much of the original's gameplay quirks when the point of a remake is to refine and improve those types of things, not remove them entirely.

I enjoyed reload a lot, but I do dislike how theurgy was implemented. I like that the bosses have more health to balance the damage you can deal, however I still think the piercing is too much and I think the gauges should’ve been harder to fill. A special attack feels less special when you can use it multiple times in a single fight to delete your opponent. Makes me wish bosses could use something similar to theurgy to spice it up and even the playing field.

I completely disagree with your takes on FFXVI. It ks s my favorite game of 2023, and i like it more than several other Final Fantasy games i have played. And i disagree with the idea that there was no passion in it. But that said, i agree with what you are saying about the industry. Games are taking way too long to be made, and i really dont think that they should be these giant money pits where nothing releases for 7 years. And i feel if we keep going down this path we will inevitably lead to some sort of game crash

This isn't just triple AAA taking, indie games can also take a lot time, omori took 6-7 years, while deltarune is still trying to make chapter 3-4 granted these are more understandable as they have very small teams and just starting out in game development, but still. Yeah it's annoying how atlus has been slow on games, especially with persona 6, I get COVID has delayed some things but still, we should have at least a trailer for it by now

What's your opinion on indie games in general?

You keep using the word passion. That word is quite vague. I would further elaborate by saying that the games are not created for the sole purpose of making the game, but to make money. Of course this is not anything new. I think that the hardware of today is enough and we do not need anymore technological improvements to the graphics of games. I acknowledge that complacency is bad as it creates stagnation. I actually have a hatred for the "realistic" looking graphics: they all look the same. Nevertheless, there was a golden era of games and that now must come to an end. We can eventually get good games again in around 20 years from now once a new generation moves into controlling the game studios. The Roman Empire was destroyed, but from its death rose the Holy Roman Empire. But Europe then was still weak. There is nothing new under the sun, we just have to facilitate the change in generations to create a comeback.

I think the issue with newer stories is that because development teams are bigger, there’s less personality that can be shown. I’m a firm believer individual expression is what makes stories or any art (be it music, games, anime/manga, tv shows, books, etc.). With these teams getting bigger and bigger though and wit the story getting passed off to more people, that individuality kind of dies down more and more

Definitely agree. people put put way to much stock in graphic presentation in comparison to compelling art direction

I agree with everything but the persona 3 rant, I mean ive played every version and I still perfer reload and i do have some complaints about it but i just dont get the balance complaint at all. I wish someone would make a video or something going indepth on this idea because i really dont get it and i played on the hardest difficulty. Other than that yeah i agree with you for ff16 that game is so bland with so much generic vertical progression and repetitive gameplay in a shell of an rpg Like it has no substance and it tries to pretend it does and it dissappinted me more than ff15 which had actual interesting ideas here and there.

Not every game needs to be a huge map, with huge plots, with amazing graphics (polygon count wise) and sound-tracks. Give me a game with 2015 graphics, a 10 hour plot, and some replayability, and im good. I miss when games re-used engines and assets, it was a cheap way to make a new game, with a new story, with an engine that WORKED! "oH, BUT VISUALS!" Mario Galaxy looked amazing, and i never felt the polygon count was too low. Good gameplay doesn't need years to make, good gameplay doesnt need 130 gbs of space on my computer to run!

None of those games had any particularly rocky development from what we know and well also there was a Pandemic that hindered/delayed a lot of projects. With FF7R they basically had to remake the game from scratch since CyberConnect5's work was apparently not up to par. Plus in cases like Anthem you have basically a 1-2 year effort in a 5-6 year development cycle because they waste years not coming up with anything concrete. They also spent a year on localization for P3R. Also video might be better if you tied your distaste of FF16 with the thesis, like why do you think the characters and music are so bad and the old ones are better besides nostalgia. Otherwise it's just a generic "Big graphics bad, old graphics good. New thing bad, old thing good" argument you've heard one hundred times. Like you can make an argument they have to make something more broad but boring to try and capture a bigger audience to cover the cost or that the long dev time just made the game feel outdated.

I will make one argument for Persona 3: Reload. I have heard so many people say something along the lines of "I want to like Persona 3 FES, but I can't get over this mechanic." The "mechanic" mentioned is usually Tartarus or non-controllable party members. Persona Portable did change the controllable party members, but kept Tartarus mostly the same and came with its own drawbacks, particularly if the only way you can easily play it is the switch port (like me). I can sympathize with people who WANT to like a game, but can't get over one issue. I think we've all been there. So while I'm not going to claim that P3R is the definitive version of Persona 3, I can understand why so many people prefer this version. And that's not even considering that P3R is many people's first persona game. I'm always going to have a soft spot for the original SMTV because it was my first mainline game. I know its flawed in many areas, but I love it in spite of the flaws. Similarly, as someone who has NOT played P3 FES, but did play the switch port of P3P, I greatly enjoyed my time with P3R, despite its flaws compared to the original. But I do understand if people are disappointed with P3R, especially if you grew up with FES. I was still a toddler when FES came out, so I never got a chance to play it. I think the realization that past memories will always be better than current experiences can be a hard pill to swallow. There's an entire book of the bible about it (It's called the book of Ezra, and I recommend giving it a read). But that's not a bad thing. I enjoy P3R, P3P switch, and if I ever get a chance, I'm sure I'd love P3 FES. Let's just hope that SMT V: Vengeance can remedy and mistakes of the original and that Metaphor can exceed all our expectations.

I mean I definitely agree for the most part, and if I can rant for a minute, FF16 was my most anticipated game that I thought with Yoshi P’s direction would lead us no a new golden age of final fantasy. I never even finished that game it was so fucking boring and didn’t have a scrap of soul. BUT, I really can’t stand when people wank Indie developers to no end because you play the 2% indie games that are actually worth playing. I just hate the “indie good, AAA bad” “old good, new bad” way of looking at things.

Hoo boy, a SE rant, always here for that. I love a lot of older stuff/smaller stuff they do now + Dragon Quest, but they are very lost when it comes to Final Fantasy currently. They are the very definition of "One step forward, two steps back" in a lot of ways. Also, every conversation between Clive and Ultima boiled down to "Hey, I am going to take over your body" and Clive going "Nuh-uh" Forgetting SMT5 is pretty funny there, it has a lot of issues, and the recent interview where the director sadi something along the lines of "Oh, we just had so many ideas for SMT5's direction that we tried fitting in" was interesting because it's both true, and yet the story is a lot of nothing at the same time. I would actually love a video from you detailing how you would hope the new iteration of 5 will go since it does seem to also be a sidequel there.

I'm praying that metaphor will be what we are looking for.

13:55 I haven’t a clue of what you’re talking about here. What new stuff did they add in reload other than than the party member events? I’d watch you do a full review of that game if you want to. I just don’t have the proper clarification.

I agree with Tony4u. FF16 is mid. I don't care how a fanboy tries to defend it. It's a game of imitation and half measures. Nothing groundbreaking or innovative. It didn't deserve being a mainline installment. By far the worst FF. And yes FF13 was better than it. 😮

ive had a script in the works that follows a very similar line of thinking and i think amongst our circle of JRPG non live service game enjoyers we really are lacking in good games as it seems like the writing has become lacklustre the time for games to come out has quadrupled its such a shame that the high fi rush people got killed by Microsoft

14:16 Is it the more punishing systems?

I agree entirely, but that meme imsge of Blackbeard writing cane out of left field and had me howling. I need to know who made that art lmao

Only point i disagree with is allowing your team to act on their own. NOOOOOO

I think you’re being a little hyperbolic here. I understand and agree with the sentiment that games don’t always need to have hyper realistic graphics to be good but I feel like when you compare FFXVI to FFX and say things like “I can name all of my favourite tracks, locations and characters from 10 but I forget pretty much everything about 16” that you’re talking more out of nostalgia. FFX has been out for 20 years so it makes sense that it would be more memorable to you since you’ve had more time to sit with it. Granted I haven’t played either game so obviously take what I say with a pinch of salt, but I’ve never heard a “Old one more memorable” take that I’ve agreed with. Something I have played though, and something I’m very passionate about is Persona 3. I’ve played P3 six times (once on vanilla, once on FES, 3 times on portable, and once on Reload) and loved it every single time, to the point I consider it my favourite game ever made. And while I do still think FES should be everyone’s FIRST experience with P3, I think calling Reload “soulless” or “pointless” is just plain unfair. As someone who played FES and loved it, I think Reload is by far the best version of P3, it my not be perfect but neither are FES or Portable. I think the fact that you admit that it plays, looks and sounds great yet still complain about it’s “lack of passion” is if I’m honest, kind of stupid. First off I by no means think the game was made without passion, it has plenty of things that make it unique from the other versions of P3 and despite what you say I think the new content is absolutely fantastic. I think you’re getting too caught up in P3’s original vision to the point you’re not taking Reload on it’s own merit. Reload isn’t (or at least it shouldn’t be) trying to replace FES, Reload has it’s own vision different from that of FES that I think it accomplishes really well. If Reload DID just copy everything FES did, THEN I would consider it soulless, since it’s trying to just BE FES rather than its own thing.

Craziest takes I've seen from you, but I can respect that.

Calling Reload soulless isn’t really being fair to it. I have my issues with Reload but the link episodes, especially Shinjiro’s were amazing additions to the Persona 3 mythos. It gave the male party members and Strega more depth and layers that wasn’t as present in fes

At 2:30 you say these things but I have to disagree because of Unreal 5, 3d-scanned and photographed assets, in fact I bet it's a lot harder to program on older hardware and its easier than ever before nowadays with visual coding and what-not.

Games need to take as long as they need to make. Personally I honestly don't give a crap about high fidelity or high resolution or even crazy frame rate. If its visually distinct purely due to the aesthetic and it runs a stable 60 or 30 and it doesn't crash. I'm fine. This is why I'm generally fine with switch games. The hardware could use a bit for power more stability. But thats all I want. More stability. You don't need to cash out on crazy expensive and detailed renders. I just want good game design and the enough visual clarity to see wtf I'm doing to effectively play it.

4:39 BBL Drizzy slander??? I love it

I have to disagree on a few things. I played FES back in High School, and as a teenager I had all the time in the world. When P3P came out in my Freshmen year of College, I had all the time. P3R with its additional mechanics to speed things up, is good for me for someone who doesn't have the same amount of free time I had as a kid. Seeing innovation is the fun parts of it all.

whats the solution then?

Hollywood has a similar problem in how bloated their budgets are and direction less a lot of their stuff is. Simply put, shit gets corporate and the art starts to suffer. Play Indies everyone, they deserve your support.

I think you've forgot from 2017 - 2024, Square had more projects rather than FF7 era. One of the project that make gamer headache with the story & look at spiky hair man with lot of zippers are called Kingdom Hearts 3. Other than that, at that time Square enix also trying to milking FF 7 to the bone until dry with Remake, rebirth, FF 7 crisis core, ever crisis and many FF 7 spin off games. If they could focus just FF 16, it'll be faster in development. Other than that I completely concur about FF 16 that really easier version of DMC & too many plot holes. There's nothing that stuck in my mind when playing FF 16. If you compared the art direction of the environment between Elden ring & FF 16, it's like a classic painting against first semester art school projects.

does anyone know what songs he uses on the background?

You CANNOT just do my man Clive like that 😭😭 "I had to look it up real quick, because I forgot"

Sorry if it this comment end up being too emotionally packed, I don't intend to hurt you with these words, as I accompany your content there's a good while already. I'm pretty sure Persona 5 Tactica is canon though, nothing in the game necessarily negates it's ability to be canon. And about Persona 3 Reload, P3 FES is my favorite persona game, but Reload is so much fun to play It sounds pretty petty complaining about it, it's bot like FES is gone and overall it's a new way to experience it, i say this as someone who did a Persona 3 FES Orpheus Only no downfusing, i can feel the passion they had for this remake in every little detail, extra places you can explore and all, it's easy? Yes, but sometimes a low challenge is still fun, and i mostly played with AI controlled party members, only changed it on bosses because they have better movesets in Reload.

I’m much of a remake culture hater like Electric Underground articulates beautifully (especially about Resident Evil 4 Remake being very bland). However, Persona 3 Remake did a great job modernizing, polishing, and reinterpreting the source material. Personally I think they added more to the game and brought their engaging gameplay to the turn-based JRPG formula

I disagree with pretty much all your takes here. 1: You are completely ignoring SMT5's existance in your "why modern Atlus sucks" section, which was an already awesome game that would have been even more awesome if it wasn't for COVID, and that was JUST THE DEMO! Now we're finally getting the true game SMT5 Vengeance and it looks freaking amazing. Everything was delayed due to COVID and only now are the delayed releases starting to come out with THREE major Atlus releases coming out in just this year and P6 probably being next year. 2: Strange Journey Redux WAS NOT an "abomination" that "ruined the original game." Yes, I do wish that the Alex stuff was more skippable so you could experience the original story without her interrupting if you weren't interested in the new stuff. But in the end SJR is objectively better for all the new QoL apps that makes the game not any more easier, just less frustrating with less backtracking and being FAR less tedious.. The new app system was not a downgrade that ruined the game, it simply made the game more like SMT4 and removed unneeded frustration, and SMT4 was great. The core of OG SJ wasn't even managing apps, it was the challenging combat and bosses as well as the complex first person dungeon exploration, which is all there is SJR. Also the difficulty was ramped up from the OG as well to compensate for your new tools, it's not easier by any means and multiple bosses gave me A TON of trouble even on Normal. Commander skills ARE NOT broken and are well balanced, the auto ones barelly ever trigger, and they give the normally useless protagonist SOMETHING to not make him completely useless and gives him a unique gimmick to stand out from the other protags who all have a gimmick. (Magatama for DF, Daemon Whisper for Flynn, Element Bullets for Aleph, Sources for Naobino, etc.) The new content was great and made the game actually worth playing with worthwhile, satisfying endings instead of just "lol everyone died the end" like the endings in OG." OG Chaos is LITERALLY just the normal game over screen but as an ending. The result of going for OG Chaos is the same as dying to a pixie in Sector A. There's no point in even playing the game and going on this journey when no matter what you do everyone dies and the bad guys win unless you go law which is arguably an even worse result. The new endings in Redux actually leave the game with hope with some of the only positive law and chaos endings in the series that make sense for their characters and alignments to the point where all three new endings are all great, impactful results without being obvious bad endings that leave you feeling empty after all you've been through. I despite all the haters of SJR calling the game "the worst Atlus rerelease" when it's not even close to bad, let alone an "abomination." SJR was great and improves upon everything the original did and more. I won't take any more SJR slander. 3: Tactica IS canon to the Persona series. It's just a story mainly about that new politician guy and NOT the phantom thieves and takes place after P5 but before Strikers. The PT DO NOT get their memories erased at the end of it unlike PQ and also unlike PQ everyone acts in character. If you actually played the game the "marriage scenes" were literally just dream sequences and didn't actually happen, even if they were in the end just fanservice for shippers. (and western Fujoshis for the Ryuji wedding scene) I'm not a fan of the gameplay and the later two worlds get pretty boring and repetitive, but the game is by no means bad, lazy, or reused content and the ACTUAL main character (I think his name is Tanjiro?) is well written and the PTs act in character. 4: WTF on your take of "reload being garbage". 99% of everything in reload is a MASSIVE improvement. The thergies, the new graphics, the side stories, the new strega scenes making them probably the best villains in Persona now, (minus Adachi baby) the ability to do platonic SLs, the rebalancing, the FAR superior Tartarus, everything in Reload freaking rocks. It's ONLY flaws are inferior art DIRECTION (the graphics are objectively better) and some songs being worse than the original like Battle for Everyone's Souls and Unavoidable Battle. But then again some songs are drastically improved like the new Iwatodai Dorm, Changing Seasons, and Master of Tartarus. As for the AI party members in the OG, no their AI sucked and was god-awful. The game was unnecessarily difficult and frustrating because the AI never did what you wanted then to do and forfeited strategy and skill for pure luck. It WAS NOT a good system and anyone who says it is is a brain dead boomer with nostalgia bias. Also, having weapons have fixed statistics makes the game less grindy and more balanced. It also allows you to plan making strong weapons much easier with the new crafting system instead of soft resetting for hours to get the weapon you want with the best stats and skills. It was a good change to rework weapon fusion. Also the MC being able to weild any weapon isn't a big deal when you'll barely be using basic attacks anyways by the mid/late game. Plus it doesn't make sense for MC to be able to use Aigis or Koromaru's weapons anyways. 5: New FF games take so long to come out now mainly has to do with the absolute HELL Square was in in the mid 2010s having FFXV and KH3 in development hell for so long, Luminous Engine being hell to work with, and so many other issues internally. FFXVI was only made in like 3 or 4 years which is average for an AAA game these days. FFXVI only started development in 2019 when FFXV ended development. 3-4 years of development, not 7. Compared to the torture that was FFXV, KH3, or DQ12 FFXVI's development went very smoothly. Because if you didn't know FFXV was developed episodically/as a live service with the version released in 2015 being HEAVILY incomplete and only partially finished by time all the DLC came out as the last 3 DLC expansions were cancelled. Royal Edition includes the ACTUAL full game with all DLC except for the final one which released in 2019. We would probably be up to FF20 right now if the sequels to FF13 were never made, which includes FFXV which was originally FF VsXIII. We would have gotten two ORIGINAL FFs on PS3 instead of sequels to FFXIII, (alternate timeline FFXIV and FFXV) and FFXVI would be FFXIX and we would have gotten 2 other mainline original FFs on PS4 beforehand. (FFXVII and FFXVIII) The reason we've gotten so few FF's in recent years is entirely due to the Fabula Nova Crystalis trilogy/saga and it's consequences, not FF games "losing soul." FFX wasn't even that good the sphere grid sucked balls. 6: Also Spider Man 2 isn't bad, just insanely over funded. There's no reason why that game should have 20x the budget of the first game when it's just "more of the same" (which is good because the first game already rocked) with no visible differences in production value or quality and arguably a DOWNGRADE due to how bad the SM2 sidequests are.

You really should give Tactica another try. As the story does pick up in the later chapters.

New Vegas and Majora's mask took less than 2 years to make.

Yeah I don't know about the FFVII remake. Those two games have some great moments but there's so much padding in them. Granted, gameplay is more enjoyable than the original, which has aged terribly and I've never managed to sit through, but pacing back then was much better. I agree with XVI being worse than X, but it's miles ahead of any FF since X (excluding MMOs).

Spider-Man 2 sold like 20 million copies or something and apparently still struggled to break even, and that game looks basically the same as the first one.

Hardware is not harder to develop for. Even if you use custom engine you have much more abstractions for dealing with hardware. Assets are the problem. Creating game models with high fidelity takes shit ton of time.

square-enix has an unhealthy addiction to high graphical fidelity. this is why games take too long to make. they put the most important thing in a jrpg on the backburner. and shoehorn in at the end of development. wanna know what the most important thing in a jrpg is? the one thing that gets remembered above all else? the one thing that mostly people play jrpgs to begin with???? the story.

I disagree with games lacking passion. I agree with art direction and gameplay being much weaker though. Reload is a magnificent on it's own game that oozes passion in every new music track, UI, voice acting, etc. The only thing i would put against it is that simplified balancing for the gameplay ensure that you will have no memories of it - who tf is going to remember anything in tartarus if there is no table that nukes your party for no reason? Like, at that point, why even have a game if it's not pushing back - gotta give it to "i completed persona on youtube" crowd - 3r and 5r do feel like a game that offers the same experience between youtube and actual playthrough. I don't like lighting and remixes of reload to the point of it being a deal breaker for me though. They suck, sorry.

I think you make some good points in this video, but parts of it feel tangential to the point of "games take too long to make". I almost feel like the Persona 3 Reload critiques could have better fit into a separate video

You have voiced my opinions on modern day video games perfectly. I do have to say I've been playing Unicorn Overlord and that game is restoring my faith in modern games a little bit.

SMT V would have fit very neatly into this argument, but forgetting about it proves enough on its own lol

I can't believe you discussed about how soulless persona 3 reload is without mentioning the cutscenes, it lost a lot of it's gritty atmosphere that the original have (and I'm a guy who actually prefers reload over portable and on par with FES.)

Counterpoint: You can pet Torgal

Glad to see another person who really appreciated what they were going for with the original P3. To this day it kills me that Atlus dumped a lot of those early concepts instead of improving them for the sequels.

To some degree I agree with you in that there is a lack of passion for triple a releases, however I'd say the time it takes for them to release is inconsequential. Games can take as long as they need (for instance fallout new vegas was rushed and would be a better game if it had more than 11 months), but it seems like the creative direction of the games coming out of many AAA releases have a very narrow view of what can be successful and limit creativity. I don't want this to feel like an attack on the developers because I am sure they wish and are capable of making creative pieces of media.

Okay man.. the music is good in ff16 come on lol. I get the rest but the soundtrack is a banger

This why I stick to the normal content of a RU-vidr I like

That "All you ever do is complain" ?made me time travel back to 2016 when I discovered EmpLemon and now I wish I was an edgy teen again

I watched one of the interviews fro reload and I shit you not they guy said they spent most of the dev time getting it to look "good" and run at 60fps. Meanwhile all the cutscenes are still stationary dolls in a diarama.

clive's design pisses me off so much. it's like they asked chat gpt to make a linkin park action fantasy hero.

I heard of something like before involving countries with abundant resources called the Paradox of Plenty. Countries that have an abundance of resources are ironically economically worse than the ones with scarce resources. Like wise this kind of logic can be applied to games with budgets, teams, and resources compared to a small country. However Ironically they are broken, unfinished or underwhelming. Indie games however have scarce resources and have less resources but still manage to produce quality games.

I'll eventually get around playing Reload as P3 is one of my favorites, but I agree that a lot of the feel and personality of the game seem to be missing from the presentation alone.Theurgy moves in particular feel too over the top for P3 overall tone. I'm not a defender of the AI controlled party members so I don't care that was removed, but I bet they put too much focus on that and not enough on some other issues P3 has like how whack the links schedules were for the male route (a change I really appreciated upon playing femc in Portable due to having a lot more night options, besides most of her links being better anyhow). I think I'd have been happy with just a dual pack of FES and Portable if Atlus couldn't be bothered to integrate the best of both versions into a single package than a remake from the looks of it. I just look at big budget gaming generally moving in a direction I don't care for all that much, but that's just life, I think it's nearly unavoidable for media consumption to reach a point you don't care for as much as you used to. I enjoy revisiting old favorites to not find the lack of big releases that interest me all that bad thankfully, besides that there's always a few cool indie games on the horizong as a PC player. I'm also always down for Soul Hackers 2 dunking because man, that game is just so dumb. Edit: also while I can't comment on Reloads difficulty having not played it, after sitting through Portable in Maniac and playing FES in hard about 3 times, I can't say difficulty was ever the games strong suit. It can be punishing, but never exactly for the fun reasons, especially with how skewed rng feels in FES with stuff like advantage encounters and hit rates.

6:50 its a remake? I thought this counted as a remaster.

I agree with so much of this, but I've got to say i loved FF16. There were massive flaws in it for sure, specifically with the RPG elements and quest design, but I thought Clive was a great protagonist, Cid was my favorite side character in any FF game. Great acting, beautiful visuals, the music was amazing, and had some of the best boss fights I've ever experienced. Obviously, thats not really what this video is about, and for your main thesis, i completely agree. Just had to throw up a defence for my boy Clive haha

As always, a very good video. As for the topic, yes you are right that current games have too long a production process. One of the reasons could be what Timothy Cain (creator of Fallout) revealed, that is, the caution of game developers causing extended time for certain segments of the game that could have taken much less time than they do now. The other is the quality of people in game development with the new technology, the games you mentioned (D4, redfall, starfield) despite their abysmal quality are financial successes due to pre-orders, micro-transactions, so it pays to release crap nowadays. So either we stop buying new games in our time or we become retro game players.

These are the type of videos I love, the ones where I feel like you're cooking and not cooking at the same time LOL While I mostly agree about most modern games feeling bland, soulless and blatant cashgrabs, I really don't get that feeling with Persona 3 Reload. Maybe it's because it's my first time playing through the story, and so because they kept a lot of things similar or the same to the original I just am experiencing that "new player" syndrome. But yeah, Atlus has really leaned hard into rehashing the same stuff over and over these days. Also, did you forget about SMTV's existence when you talked about new Atlus games, or is it an inside joke I need to subscribe to get 🤣

I'm still super confused as to why you hate SMT SJ Redux. You've got to elaborate on that at some point.

Looks like you got pretty unlucky with modern game as a whole Yakuza 0 and 7 are stellar games, and I heard pretty good stuff about Infinite Wealth too Armored Core 6 is the only From Software game that I bought with my own money and that one has tons of content and replayability with different endings, builds you can make for your mecha and so on. And even if it's old by today standards, Bloodborne is stupidly fun as well (Before people ask, I haven't tried Elden Ring yet, shut up) The remake of CTR added so much cool stuff like every track from Nitro Kart, nearly every characters from the Crash universe, new challenges, a QoL that helps if you wanna use your favorite character competitively, many new karts and cool easter eggs for whoever knows the series' lore. The love put in that game is undeniable and the same goes for Crash 4 About Time Trials of Mana, a game that came out in 2020, is one of the simplest yet most fun actions rpgs that I have played. A true remake of a snes game that managed to feel new yet it doesn't betray the original Seiken Densetsu 3 Are there stinkers? Yes, but there is also plenty of good stuff out there

As a 3d artist I think of it this way if a person can’t draw/sketch your character from memory , you added way to many details. Example look at the original masterchief armor compared to any armor in halo 5.

Graphics takes long production means more money spend so they play it save.

ff16 may have not panned out well, due to needing to dumb down the FF formula to cast the widest net, but to imply the story, music, and art didnt have any passion behind it is actually so disengenious it made my head spin. Its fine not liking the game, i didnt either, but undeniably of all AAA games released recently ff16 has some of the most passion behind it

It's naive to think that passion makes or gives quality to something, a bad writer/creator/ what have you can put all the love and passion in their work and it still would be bad because they are bad creators.