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Hey man! Since we didn't answer this on the podcast itself I figured I'd answer it here. Generally speaking I would have no problem with an LGBT character being in a Final Fantasy game. The only caveat I would give to that would be to avoid being inclusive for the sake of being inclusive. If there is a strong story that calls for it, and the writer was passionate about it, then I'm sure it would be excellent. If it's tacked on just for novelty or to appear PC then I think it would only serve as a distraction. I recently played Night In The Woods, and the way they worked in the fact that the main character is lesbian was very well done in my opinion.

Resonant Arc

Thanks for the answer guys! The book is called Spelsamlarboken by Sebastian Holmberg. Personally I love 90s games but I feel modern ones are better. I guess the authir being a collector as you said taints his opinion. A lot of things sucked about gaming back then, prices, localization, censorship, the library was way smaller etc.

Oh come on! :) Off the top of my head, Secret of Mana was awful, as it didn't even tell you if an item was better until after you bought it, and trying to navigate that preposterous menu system was outrageous. FFXIII was bad too, every time we tried to sell items we had to research them to figure out if it was acceptable to sell, Tales of Berseria had such a good story, but trying to figure out which of the 17 short swords in your inventory was the best was mind numbing, Fable 3 required you to walk around a freaking room every time you wanted an item, Xenoblade Chronicles factors in attached gems into equipment comparisons, so then you have to constantly remove them or try to remember specific gems that are attached to each piece of equipment in order to figure out if the newest piece of gear really weakens you or not.. I thought FFXII had a great inventory system, it had one menu that said "Loot", anything there, sell it, doesn't matter. You bought new armor, you equipped it on the spot and the game offered you the chance to sell the old item on the spot also.

Hat

This is a good question, but I can't really think of good examples to turn it into a conversation. The things you listed annoy me too, but probably not the extent to where I have a clear memory of a game that has a horrible UI for things like this... except for FF11. It's probably the worst I've seen. -Mike

Resonant Arc

How would you feel if an LGBT character was added to the series in a main series game? Possibly as a leading role? I personally think this would be a great idea, and there are so many members of the LGBT community who love and appreciate the FF series, including myself.

Let's try this for a question: In a cosmic catastrophe, the Final Fantasy series is wiped from existence and the minds of everyone but you (and the world is otherwise unchanged). To educate people on the importance of it to the history of JRPGs, you have to compile together other games into a series representative of what Final Fantasy was to help illustrate the steps it made along the way and how it evolved and influenced gaming. What games do you pick to make up this replacement series and why?

Bryan Gillis

Here's a link to an article, but there are videos you can find on YouTube as well. Possibly other articles covering it also: <a href="https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-7-remake-development-progress/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-7-remake-development-progress/</a>

In case this is not already a topic or THE topic of discussion...it has been recently claimed that the FF7 remake is way more behind than we ever thought. Many assumed that when Square took the project in-house from CyberConnect2 that they made some adjustments and proceeded to work from there meaning that the total project had 4 years of development time so far. Now we are hearing that Square actually scrapped all of CyberConnect2's work which means that, really, the game has only had 2 years of development time. Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this in case you guys did not hear about this in time.

New here, so I don't know if you've covered this topic... but my biggest question that I'm struggling with is: How do you balance the classic feel of old JRPGs and still bring forward innovations in gameplay? It seems that fans always scream for either nostalgia or "innovation", and any push in either direction causes everyone to freak out. Obviously it's a matter of personal preference for the end user, but it has to be anxiety inducing for the developers.

This might be beating a dead horse: I was reading this (Swedish) book on video game collecting: And the author claims that, objectively, games released in the 90's were better than the ones in the next decade (the 00's). The author makes the case that in the late 90’s there was enormous hype and focus on what the future might bring, especially in contemporary gaming magazines of the era. At the time we had experienced enormous jumps in quality since the 80’s. Compare FF1 (1987) to FFVII (1997). Or Super Mario Bros (1985) to Mario 64 (1996). The author’s conclusion being that, ultimately, the 00’s ended up disappointing us in terms of quality. If we limit our scope to RPG’s, what are your thoughts looking back? Now that we’ve had time to distance ourselves from the previous decade (the 00’s).

What's the hardest you've ever laughed when playing a JRPG?

So ive been thinking a lot about the game tales of vesperia, one of my favorite games ever. Without spoiling to much, the story focuses on two main characters, yuri lowell and flynn scifo. Flynn is a fairly standard protagonist whos dream is to fight corruption from inside the system in the empire they live under. He has a high standard of morals and honor, and wants to protect life and the law. Yuri on the other hand is a bit different. He and flynn are from the same poor town, and yuri also wants to eliminate corrpution, but he goes about it in a very different and violent way, performing some despicable acts to achieve his goal. The kicker is that yuri is the main protagonist, and flynn isnt playable. Both of these characters are in morally gray situations, as flynn cant stop some of these officials, but yuri breaks the law on multiple occasions, and the game brings this up fairly often. Whenever yuri and flynn meet, they exchange some pretty heavy words. The point of this incredibly convulted intro was to ask, how should characters be written? What i mean is, these two characters were written to coexist, to fight, to clash. So should this approach be adopted generally, or would you rather see characters written focusing on the self first, and then moving to interactions? Thanks as always!

I can deal with quite a bit of poorly built mechanics in a game, as long as the story has an impact on me. However, one aspect that I simply have little patience for, is when inventory management is horribly implemented. I don't know why, but it drives me nuts when a game makes it absurdly difficult to see if the equipment I'm purchasing is actually better, or it portrays every item as potentially important, and I have to constantly google item names to see if its okay to sell it. Even worse is when the game makes me unequip armor to sell it, or it forces me to locate the armor I just bought in my inventory instead of simply giving me an option to equip after purchase. I would rather spend my time playing the game instead of combing through my inventory for a half hour, in hopes I don't accidentally screw myself by selling something important. What games had quality inventory systems, and what did you like about them? What is some of the worst offenders you can think of?

Hat