{"id":393,"date":"2013-08-06T14:44:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T18:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/?p=393"},"modified":"2013-08-06T14:44:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T18:44:03","slug":"dispatch-from-the-bureau-of-critical-vitriol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/dispatch-from-the-bureau-of-critical-vitriol\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatch From the Bureau of Critical Vitriol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay I don’t like getting into blog fights where people asynchronously duke it out without ever engaging each other, but I don’t know Chris Kohler personally and I am… disinclined to battle it out with him on Twitter, 140 characters at a time, while I infuriate everyone who follows me, him, or both.<\/p>\n

So when I read his response to critiques of his piece<\/a>\u00a0(including a post from a few days ago<\/a> from yours truly) I realized I had to make another post if I wanted to engage with the ideas. I know this now paints me squarely (puns!) as an internet pedant who strives for the last word, and I am sorry. I would like to be better than that, but apparently I am not. Mea culpa.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I am very sorry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Right, so. To be brief, Kohler says that those of us who disagreed claimed he didn’t offer enough evidence (I don’t remember doing that, but who knows, I might have implied it!). Thus his argument in the rebuttal is his attempt to offer said evidence.<\/p>\n

Needless to say I didn’t find it compelling. Why? Read on to find out.<\/p>\n

I wanna keep this brief, so I’m going to lay out his points and then give a short description of my issue with each. He helpfully bullet listed them, so structure already in place!\u00a0Also, if you want me to go in more depth on things, ask in comments, or email (if you have mine), or even Twitter<\/a>\u00a0though I warn you I will be terse on Twitter. I don’t want to shut down broader discussion, but I also don’t want this to spiral into half my damn afternoon since I just bought\u00a0Dragon’s Crown<\/em> and\u00a0Tales of Xilia<\/em> and would like to play them.<\/p>\n

Without further ado:<\/p>\n

1. The people behind the first few\/older FF games are “gone.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I guess that’s right. Hironobu Sakaguchi, Nobuo Uematsu, Yoshitaka Amano… the people who were the core creative leaders of the first six\u00a0Final Fantasy<\/em> games have, indeed, moved on to other stuff. Stuff like\u00a0Blue Dragon<\/em> and\u00a0Lost Odyssey<\/em> and\u00a0The Last Story<\/em> which were… received pretty well. If you’re a believer in Metacritic scores, they were received about as well as\u00a0Final Fantasy XIII<\/em> and\u00a0Final Fantasy X-2<\/em>. In fact all 5 games got roughly the same score within 1-2 points: between 78 ad 82.\u00a0Let me be up front that\u00a0I don’t believe in Metacritic\u00a0scores<\/strong> and I don’t necessarily find this a compelling argument but I’m offering it because I know there are many who do, and because one of Kohler’s later points involves sales metrics so if he can bring in dominant market paradigm logic, so can I.<\/p>\n

My point is that those creators are gone and they’ve moved on to projects that have gone on fine but are not necessarily shattering our worldview, while\u00a0Final Fantasy<\/em> have moved on with other people at the helm and… done okay too. So I have to ask,\u00a0what does the original creators being gone have to do with<\/strong>\u00a0anything<\/em><\/strong>? Kohler says point blank:<\/p>\n

This is not to say that if these three creators were to reunite tomorrow they would necessarily produce another\u00a0Final Fantasy<\/cite>\u00a0as critically acclaimed as the work they did decades ago. But the staggered departure of Amano, Sakaguchi and Uematsu means that whatever creative impulses were driving the series then are gone now \u2014 so why expect anything to revive them?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So let me get this straight: once the creators have left, it is pointless for anyone to take on a franchise name? Nobody ever reboots, remakes, or retools anything in a satisfying way? And the result can never be a commercial success?<\/p>\n