Final Fantasy X was just re-released on the PS3 with a bunch of enhancements, and yet your first Final Fantasy fix is Lightning Returns? You have no idea what you're missing.
Then again, you say you've never finished Chrono Trigger, so I wonder why you're reviewing an RPG at all.
What is this? An RPG that punishes people for taking their time and exploring the game world properly? This is a failure of leadership. Any director of an RPG must be conscious of what has historically made RPGs fun, and if a bad idea makes it into development, the director must take the time to remove it and then refine the core game into something people want to play. There is nothing fun about rushing through a game-world meant to be enjoyed at a player's own pace.
I have said this in the past: Square-Enix's woes are primarily due to bad leadership. We can only wonder what the XIII series might have been like under different direction.
@Dk_Knight_Ronin @rhymesmatter Maybe, but the MMO market, it seems to me, is badly oversaturated. Between Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, DDO, and Star Trek Online, it will be hard for me to justify putting down more subscription money, to say nothing of gaming time. I AM interested, but the review will have to be pretty awesome for me to seriously consider FF XIV.
@frylock1987 @Bubble_Man @jcr8 An "Americanized" version of Cloud's adventures wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. As long as it is true to the spirit of the original material, I say go for it. Some aspects of the original story were perhaps "too" Japanese to translate well to a larger market, so I appreciate a serious effort to retell the story in a clearer fashion.
@zenogandia There have been many fan-made movies and web-series set in the Star Wars universe that Lucasfilm never took issue with, mainly because the plotlines didn't trod on familiar territory. Remaking Phantom Menace as a web series, on the other hand, isn't something George Lucas or Disney would let happen unless they were directly involved, so you shouldn't get your hopes up. My advice is to refine your idea as much as possible on paper and then pitch it to them. The whole Expanded Universe was created by people who went that route. (Of course, it helps when an intellectual property holder actually listens to what other people say...)
@blackace In fairness to these guys, Square-Enix doesn't have a reputation for saying yes, so it's no surprise they didn't ask permission first. That said, going the kickstarter route where money is very clearly visible from the outset was not smart. Kickstarter is a crowd-sourcing vehicle mainly used to generate funds for a monitizable product, and you can bet Square-Enix would have an issue with that.
@advilsteinhardt @JRLennis Truthfully, I understand little about how ad revenues work online. Things are changing so fast I can't keep up, and, like I said, it seems to be a grey area of the law.
As for the rest, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that downloading anything related to property x not authorized by the intellectual property holder is unlawful no matter what it is or who made it? Say I download a piece of fan art not authorized by Square-Enix. Does that make me a pirate for not paying them for the privilege? If so, that's a very loose definition of piracy, and I resent the implication. And on the question of standards, nobody seems to know what the standard is. That's the problem. My opinion is that Square-Enix's legal stances are doing themselves more harm than good.
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