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Lost Odyssey To Span Four DVDs
Perhaps proving that Sony has something to their 'bigger disc as standard' argument, IGN is reporting that Lost Odyssey will span multiple DVDs when it is released for the Xbox 360 next year. "Hot on the heels of the three DVD long Blue Dragon, Sakaguchi informed the crowd that Lost Odyssey will span a massive four DVDs. The game, which uses a mixture of CG and real-time cutscenes, will last roughly 40 to 50 hours. Lost Odyssey will follow in Blue Dragon's footsteps in another way as well. The team plans to ship the game with multiple language options, including English and Japanese. However, the voice animations will be synched to English on all versions, including the Japanese release."
HD-DVD also has more room. The DVD versus Blu-ray argument simply is not standing ground.
Besides, you can make something fit in most format, granted you take the time to do so.
On the other hand, Microsoft really seemed to have something with getting the console out first for a lower price.
On the gripping hand, I'd say Nintendo really had something with dropping out of the technological race to armageddon. They seem to have found the sweet spot this generation.
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Actually, having multiple disks didn't really bother me so much in Final Fantasy VIII. But in VIII, the discs were used pretty much sequentially. When you were finished with one, you wouldn't need it a second time around. But if a game required constant switching back and forth between disks, that could get real annoying real fast.
It makes me wonder how much of it is really necessary given how powerful game engines are now, that and the break from the action being seemlessly integrated into the story points. Something I thought gears took to a new level. Something Too Human promises to greatly expand, or so I've heard.
I hope SonyDefenseForce doesn't find out about this.
Just using a nice round number for DVDs of 5 GB (I know 360 may be less than this), so Lost Odyssey might take up 20 GB of space. If we're using that much space in art assets of large RPGs this year, what about 2 years from now? Seems like the massive 50 GB of Blu-Ray will not even be enough and by the end of the PS3 life cycle we will for sure be seeing multi-disc releases. I'm a 360 owner but i'm not overly worried about multi-disc releases. What I am overly worried about is those developers that feel that their gameplay should have more cinematics than actual game, that seems to be a growing trend with JRPG's. Don't get me wrong, I love cinematics and story, but when you take out the interactivity it is more like you are paying for a movie than a game. I also hate inflated play-times through use of crappy random encounters, but I guess that is a staple of many RPGs and not just something that Japanese developed RPGs do. I definitely see the Xbox 720 or whatever using some sort of higher storage format for the next-generation since by the end of this life cycle we could be getting into floppy disk ridiculousness with 10 and 12 disc releases!
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware#Storage
"Games are stored on standard dual-layer DVD-ROMs with 7 GB of usable space available for game content."
Moving on to "the next disc" after 10-15 hours of play doesn't bother me. It worked for all the Final Fantasies of the PS1 era, so meh... whatever. What DOES bother me, is why are they STILL doing CG cutscenes? With the in game quality of Lost Odyssey, or any other "Current Gen game" why not use the in game engine to run them? It not only saves space, but makes the experience less jarring/ more immersive.
Why does it matter if a game takes more than one disc?
Having to get up every 15hrs of game time to swap discs is not a problem.
How much does it cost the manufacturer for three extra discs and larger packaging? Its likely to be pennies extra, though its better than spending extra dollars on a new disc format that causes everyone to hemorrhage money when they sell their hardware.
In game engines can't do everything unfortunately.
Take for example, an epic scene with thousands of troops, an in game engine would struggle to produce high detail with a decent framerate.
In game engines are also unsuitable for quick cuts to different environments (textures etc would need to be loaded).
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
Agreed. In fact, so does the game's creator: http://kotaku.com/gaming/microsoft/lost-odyssey-lights-out-301746.php/
I request that all PS3 fanbois post their "360 is shit!" posts under this one. Please make sure that you also list other platforms that were totally shit for requiring games that span multiple discs, and also how those games placed an awful strain on you and you just couldn't play them. Here, I'll start you out:
For every 360 game that requires you to swap discs every 20hrs (blue Dragon so far) there's a whole plethora of games for all consoles where you'll have finished with the disc, that is, the entire game in half that time.
I'd much rather swap the disc on Blue Dragon every 20hrs than have completed a game like Heavenly Sword in it's entirety in 6hrs.
The game will last roughly 40 to 50 hours and required FOUD DVDs?! Wtf do they need all that space for? Blue Dragon was 3 DVDs long and reviewers were complaining about the game's storyline being slow to unfold.
FFVII was mostly linear in what it presented. The cut scenes included in each disc were arranged by timing of the event with some data spread over all the discs as needed. This is why (annoyingly) some event could only be triggered on a specific disc even through the area was open to you. If you ever wanted to develop a large sandbox type game with the same richness of content, there'd be no reasonable way of making the content fit.
The sad thing is developers know this and are most likely shearing the design of the game based on content size limitations.
Now before I get modded fan-boy, I don't have any Sony gaming products and I don't own any of their consoles.
Bye!
Warcraft III does this, and it's cool :D
Excuse me? Final Fantasy 7 was released in 1997, ten years ago now.
Heck, don't you remember multiple CD games like "Under a Killing Moon" in 1994?
It's not restricted to JRPGs, and it's not even remotely new. This is something Microsoft should have anticipated, even if it meant going the HD-DVD route.
GPL Deconstructed
Subject says it all. Game for amiga on three discs, where you most often had to change disc 2 times for each fight or similair... A very good reason to get a second, or maybe even third external drive ;D
Monkey Island II where on 11 discs but required less swapping.
I think the developers at Bethesta would disagree. They fit Oblivion on a DVD9.
You say that as if it's a new thing. Every developer works around a systems' strengths and limitations.
Actually, I'd much rather have some CG or a nice FMV than an in-engine cutscene. When I'm watching rather than playing a game, I want it to look as nice as possible. Even on Gears of War and Bioshock, which are, in my opinion, the best-looking games currently available, the quality of the visuals isn't as good as what can be achieved with a proper, traditional cut-scene. As for immersion, I don't think I find anything more jarring than having supposedly emotional game-events rendered comic by close-up views of game-engine faces, with textures stretched to breaking point and two-frame lip animations.
I remember how, back more than a decade ago, when CD drives started to become more common in PCs and Sega launched the Mega CD addon for the Megadrive/Genesis, suddenly every game on the market had low-budget, badly acted FMV cutscenes. We got barely-interactive horrors such as Rebel Assault, Night Trap, Sewer Shark and Mad Dog McRee (as well as a few better offerings, such as Wing Commanders 3 and 4). Inevitably, there was a huge backlash against the use of FMV cutscenes, due to the expense of making them and the usually amateurish quality of the results. However, I personally feel that the backlash went too far; I've been glad to see FMV cutscenes starting to make a return over the last 12 months, in games such as Command & Conquer 3 (admittedly, the C&C series held onto them for longer than most, but I thought they were gone for good when Generals dropped them).
Is it just me or do Japanese RPG's always seem to fall into one of two deeply uninteresting categories:
1) "Cute RPG's" starring groups of orphaned, round-eyed children weilding cute, oversized weapons, or
2) RPG's starring androgynous (or downright female-looking) men with overtly gay salon-styled haircuts, adolescent voices and hilariously useless-looking, oversized weapons.
Hey Japan, can we get an RPG which actually features adult men who aren't pretty?
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