Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer • Hacker News Board

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#181

Post by nostromo95 » Mon, May 02, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

oneoff786 wrote: post #173

dayvid wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They require different design skillsets or experiences. Elden Ring and Zelda are designed to be more non-linear and they work, but have completely different strengths and focuses vs. a linear approach. More based on creating an engrossing world and mechanics that allow you to play most sections out of order and create your own adventure vs. the control you have over story nuances when you make a linear title (e.g. Ha…

I feel elden ring really failed on the non linear aspect to be honest. It was frustratingly open ended up front, and then very linear at the end. I started the game, went to margit, found him too difficult, and then, with no particular alternatives, pretty much explored the entire map aimlessly, wishing for a clear direction on level appropriate content. It was hard to find the next thing to do. I didn’t want to skip…

Agreed.

Playing through Elden Ring made it clear to me how impressive Breath of the Wild was in retrospect. Even without any meaningful awards (or because of?) the exploration in BotW is just so much more memorable and dynamic.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#182

Post by Wowfunhappy » Mon, May 02, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

brimble wrote: post #138

giobox wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had to root for him to fail because clearly this humanity-on-the-brink would be better off with one fewer self-interested mass-murders around making things even worse. That's... not a great way to motivate the player. Isn't the question of the players morality vs the "enemies" core to the entire concept of the game though? I think the lesson the game is trying to teach is exactly that: by what standard is the pro…

Maybe, but it was kind of a problem when I was already like "is there a way to progress the game but have this guy not accomplish what he wants?" on like mission 1 (past the prologue)—there was no build-up to it, I thought he was wrong and should fail immediately. And they might have gone for some kind of turn-around on that when the girl comes into the story, so that I start wanting him to succeed, but then, I also…

...if you haven't already heard of it, I feel like you'd enjoy Spec Ops: The Line. Go in completely blind if at all possible, and don't be turned off by the fact that it seems like a generic dudebro war shooter. It does start out that way.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#183

Post by adra » Mon, May 02, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #125

devmor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At current TSE prices it'd cost Sony at least 5% of their entire market cap to acquire SE so I think we'd hear a bit more about it if something like that were in the works. A trillion yen is nothing to sneeze at.

Sony did invest close to or exactly $1B into Fornite last month. It wasn’t stated outright but they were one of two main investors with the Lego parent company investing $1 of $2B raised. Though yeah an SE acquisition would be a far bigger deal even without being over 5x as much.

Gotta kill the only wildly successful Metaverse company... ROBLOX!

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#184

Post by musicale » Mon, May 02, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #115

morelisp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Nier was even more interesting (formally experimental, better writing - at least in English translation, deeper characterization) and sold poorly. I guess the lesson if you want to make an art game is to make half an art game and the other half ass.

The gameplay of the original Nier is dogshit though. That leads to poor reviews, which leads to poor sales.

Nier Replicant ver.1.22... is a remake of the original and has gotten positive reviews (80+ on Metacritic.)

I did not find Nier Gestalt to be worse than any other JRPGs of its era in terms of gameplay, and it had some clever bits like switching between 2D and 3D perspectives as well as game styles. My main complaints were the tedious fetch quests (I completed about half of them before deciding it wasn't worth finishing them all), the fact that the fishing minigame was explained incorrectly, and (slight spoiler) a story that I found to be sad and depressing. Completing multiple endings can be somewhat tedious as well. But the creativity, the atmospheric graphics, and the soundtrack were exceptional.

I think Nier Gestalt and Replicant on the PS3 were underrated (if flawed) gems.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#185

Post by vmception » Mon, May 02, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

Sakos wrote: post #106

SllX wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is a good start but they’d need to lose Enix and Taito too.

They'd also have to lose people like Nomura and Kitase.

Anything to prevent people from redefining the word remake

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#186

Post by Melatonic » Mon, May 02, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

If they can release new Deus Ex game that keeps the spirit and best aspects of the first games, uses the best of Cyberpunk 2077, and a dash of the amazingness that was Prey we could have an absolutely EPIC game.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#187

Post by Dudeman112 » Mon, May 02, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

mrtranscendence wrote: post #158

Dudeman112 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest God of War just needed more actual bosses. Feels like the queen bitch valkyrie was the only encounter where they actually decided to push the combat. Imagine if Sekiro or Souls games only had a couple of bosses that felt like real bosses. Overall a phenomenal game, though.

We must have been playing different games, or I’m just terrible at them. I found the non-queen Valkyries immensely difficult, certainly boss level, and some of the other boss-like encounters took me a few tries.

Ah, I think there's an important distinction here my original comment didn't properly touch on: it doesn't mean the bosses weren't punishing.

Consider fighting a normal high level draugr with an under leveled/geared Kratos. Assume we are on the highest difficulty.

You'll basically have to dodge a lot (or spam ranged attacks), your attacks won't reliably stagger them, you'll tickle their health bar and getting hit once or twice will kill you. That is punishing and hard if there's more than one of them.

However, if your levels are similar you'll be able to count on staggers, there will be certain attacks that cannot be blocked, certain attacks that will stagger you if the block wasn't perfect, you can freeze one of the enemies.

The hard case is far simpler and less involved than the normal combat.

I consider the normal valkyries hard, but individually they don't really have lots of tricks that require hyper focusing both on reading them and executing the appropriate counter. They are fairly simple to understand for the most part.

You need to have cached a butt load of movements and their appropriate counters to fight the queen valkyrie. You might even find some non obvious openings for poking.

Most valkyries are straightforward when you get their 1-3 special attacks. That's not much more than regular enemies.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#188

Post by houli » Mon, May 02, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

Sakos wrote: post #106

SllX wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is a good start but they’d need to lose Enix and Taito too.

They'd also have to lose people like Nomura and Kitase.

Nomura has been around since at least FF5, and Kitase before that. Long before the Enix merger

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#189

Post by bovermyer » Mon, May 02, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #37

bovermyer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the noclip documentary on FFXIV a few years back, Yoshida mentioned that he was considering leaving Square-Enix to make his own games. FFXIV is really good, but Yoshida is the soul of that game. If he left, that would be devastating. If you haven't seen the noclip documentary, you should. It's on YouTube.

He has since stated that he won't leave FFXIV. Has re-iterated it in the face of the 6.0 launch, since 6.0 wrapped up the main storyline and there were fears of his departure following that.

That's great to hear!

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#190

Post by wetpaws » Mon, May 02, 2022, 10:20 PM UTC

oneoff786 wrote: post #4

The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too. SquareEnix felt legendary growing up.

I want to see more Tomb Raider, but I absolutely don't want to see more AAA Tomb Raider.

If it is a future of squenix, maybe it would be better for them to stop making games.