I just saw dis thread.
First, I'd KILL for another non-portable Valkyria chronicle...err.. valkyrie profile game! Just tell me who!
That said, I have a feeling that old CEO dude has some kinda sore point regarding lightning being female. Like, I don't think he's taking it personally that people don't like lightning, I think he's taking it personally they they don't like a female MC, whether he knows it or not. But I can't say I should know since I really haven't played those FF games much, nor have I researched that whole angle of opinions about it. It's just a hunch.
But the real issue I wanted to comment on was the whole "Triple-A" business. Frankly, I hate the term, I hate what it stands for, and I hate what it's doing to the whole industry, and I have for years. I mean I have played and even loved more than one triple-A game myself, but the fact that game developers, reviewers, journalists, etc all seem to think that triple-A is some kind of STANDARD, and everything else is crap or casual is really hurting the industry. I don't think there will be a big huge crash for all of gaming per say, because the whole doujin/indie scene is larger now than it ever has been before, and those developers aren't really affected by the triple-A crowd I don't think. But it IS hurting the rate of which games (even indie ones) evolve IMO.
I mean alot of game designers/devs like to try and make their games based off other games, only with a tweak or change or whatever in certain area. I mean Torchlight is very clearly "Diablo, only with ____", and media is completely deadset against games having different elements or whatever in certain catagories. I mean people way overrate innovation and uniqueness IMO, but at the same time people are so darn pigeon-holed with other elements in games.
For example, I think RPG devs should steal a little bit of stuff from strategy games, and I don't mean tile based tactical combat. I mean new game options menu. Strategy games offer the player all kinds of global-scale customization. Size of the worst, speed of research, # of players, planet climate, land/water ratio, special event frequency, difficulty, AI diplomacy stubbornness, etc. Now obviously # of players and such woudln't make sense in an RPG, and alot of those other options would be way too hard to impliment in an RPG. But I'm talking about that option for the player to adjust the game how they like it when they start it at all! In an RPG I'd love to see things like: Exp gain coefficient, Gold gain coefficient, drop rate coefficient, enemy difficulty scaling (preferably separate sliders for hp, damage, defense, avoidance, spawn rate), etc. Fact is nobody seems interested in this change but me. Yet nobody has said why either, I don't think it's because people think it's a bad idea, nor do I think it's because anybody think it'll be too much time/budget to impliment (It'd be dirt easy actually). I think people simply like...just...they don't think about it, they take it for granted. They're CONDITIONED to think "RPGs can't do that!", PERIOD. I mean I'm all ears for anybody giving me a legitimate reason why NOT to do that, but I just can't think of any (don't complain about balance, if you care about balance just leave it at default). I think it's like that Dyson vaccuum motto where the guy says his goal is to design them by addressing issues everyone else "seems" to ignore. People are so hard set on complaining that an rpg requires too much grinding, or is too easy because you grind so fast, or whatever. My solution would satisfy both crowds, and I can't think of any downsides.
That said, that whole "play mario RPG" thing is a pretty cool idea, but that just supports what I'm trying to say. Game developers these days seem to rely on other games as a design "crutch" so to speak so much that it seems like they completely forgot how to design from the ground up. Not that they can't create really unique new ideas and concepts, but that it STILL feels like they force some kinda template on what their game's genre MUST HAVE to begin with (sometimes they make games that don't really fit ANY genre, and it truly is unique from the ground up, but if it fits into a genre, it almost always has that same template that nobody seems to change). I mean I think the concept of designing a game based off other games you like is a perfectly good idea, I don't demand 100% innovation all the time. I think that's dumb actually, but the "template chunks" if you will are large, and people seem to be unable to splice these "template chunks" at all. This is very much a larger issue with commercial gaming than indie/doujin, but I still think commercial has a strong influence no matter who the developers are.
That said, the guy who said he liked the minigame content in mario rpg kinda makes me cry a little. I mean sometimes I love minigames (xenosaga ep1's cardgame that means you), but I find most games which include minigames that you must play make me wish the whole minigame fad died horribly.