She was being generous with the review...although the real reason I personally gave this game a low score is because of how much the story changed from the manga. Not only is the story told slowly and inefficiently (as Carolyn mentioned) it's plain different -in a bad way.
At least Ninja Storm 2 followed the story very closely and added the Naruto/Sasuke fight in Orochimaru's den beautifully (better than the manga, in fact). Here they have changed the whole fight between the Kages and Madara, and again between Naruto and Tobi. Any fan of the series would be thinking the same thing as me during the game - why did they change the storyline?
@Dreamagus @Speranza318 I agree with you to an extent Dreamagus - we are saying the same thing in different words. The developer was not able to keep his personal beliefs separate from his job and that's why I feel he should have been fired. I didn't phrase it as elegantly as I should have. The company kept it politically correct for various reasons. Maybe in the future, they should screen employees: "Do you have any bias towards x" (similar to jury duty). This will avoid these kinds of situations in the future.
Square Enix here's a suggestion: stop making MMO's and shitty RPG that focus on cool visuals and lackluster stories and go back to making quality games. I'd rather pay $60 for a deep engrossing story like Final Fantasy IV/VI with no improvement in graphics than suffer through another Final Fantasy XIII. I'm sure most fans of the genre would agree.
The sad thing is - you have the technology to make amazing visuals AND a engrossing story, but you choose to use the same old story formula and expect people to accept that. I can only hope the tale of Versus FF XIII is as "epic" as you are making it out to be.
Proof that this is an amazing game: it evoked emotion just like a great movie or novel. No one wants boring, non-controversial topics as a plot hook. Games have become too predictable and repetitious - it's great to go out on a limb and try something innovative.
They shouldn't have let the developer resign, they should have fired him for failing as an open minded developer.
Pro of this news: It's honorable that Square went back to fix it's mistakes and make the game what it should have been on original release.
Cons of this news: Unfortunately this game will fail, as it's done nothing novel in the MMO genre. A new coat of paint will not draw new customers in the long term. Hell, even Tera which made breakthroughs in the gameplay of MMOs could not hold people's attention because they neglected the quests, repeated the same thing on the grind to max level, and wrote a poor story to go with it.
The conclusion: One day, people will realize that the MMO genre is nothing but a dangerous addiction that rewards hours played and ignores everything else. No matter what people do to "make it different" the end result is always the same - get to max level, put in time to become better than everyone else, repeat with new content.
I miss the days when Square focused their efforts on masterpieces that defined the genre of RPGs - they have clearly lost their touch.
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