Rose is definitely a sue, or at least the writer's own pet. She doesn't even make much sense in the setting being a pure-hearted assassin (WAT).
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Why is Hideo Baba so hated among Tales fans?
- Thread starter Comic Obsessed
- Start date
I don't necessarily hate him, but everything Nomura touches is garbage and I don't see why they keep giving him work.
OP
OP
By the way, I don't understand how people can see Alisha as a, ugh, "waifu" since to do so you would have to insert yourself in the role of the protagonist and I think we all realize that the closest thing Sorey has of a romantic interest is Mikleo.
Eh, most of them are decent at least.
Till today, I really don't understand the Alicia/Rose thing. Easily one of the more bizarre gaming controversies I've encountered.
On one end- I think the treatment of the characters themselves are fine. I like Alicia, and I like Rose. Rose winds up actually a WAY more interesting character than Alicia ever was, IMO. (which flies in the face of all the people pissed about Alicia's "absence" and subsequent hate for Rose as a "replacement") But all those biases aside Alicia has an interesting and valid reason that works within the games plot to need to leave the party early, but is still featured enough to make an impression, and makes later appearances in game. Obviously, all was done from a creative standpoint to tell the story they wanted to with the characters. Zesteria isn't the first JRPG to have a party member leave early due to plot reasons. Namco clearing wasn't trying to troll anyone, and just wanted to tell the story they set out to tell. But it obviously all blew up in their face. Then that DLC was made to try and appease people and that didn't go over well either.
But I guess it was the messaging that went wrong. All early previews showed Sorey & Alicia as the introductory characters- therefore to a lot of people- SHE was lead girl/heroine/waifu. I guess people really took to this particular "lady knight" character and really looked forward to adventuring with her. And then when it turned out she wasn't the lead, then came the rage.
How could it have gone better? Show Rose from the start, not Alicia? Don't show any characters early, Keep the plot closer to the vest, so people don't foster certain expectations, I don't know?. But definitely expectations got out of hand, and granted, Namco didn't bother correcting people on this perception - however I don't even know if they should have done that since it would have spoiled things with the plot, but then again it didn't go over well, so I don't really know what the right answer was.
All that said, I won't deny the game has its problems, major ones, but for me the least of them was the Alicia/Rose thing. But alas it was a big deal for many, so... yeah.
On one end- I think the treatment of the characters themselves are fine. I like Alicia, and I like Rose. Rose winds up actually a WAY more interesting character than Alicia ever was, IMO. (which flies in the face of all the people pissed about Alicia's "absence" and subsequent hate for Rose as a "replacement") But all those biases aside Alicia has an interesting and valid reason that works within the games plot to need to leave the party early, but is still featured enough to make an impression, and makes later appearances in game. Obviously, all was done from a creative standpoint to tell the story they wanted to with the characters. Zesteria isn't the first JRPG to have a party member leave early due to plot reasons. Namco clearing wasn't trying to troll anyone, and just wanted to tell the story they set out to tell. But it obviously all blew up in their face. Then that DLC was made to try and appease people and that didn't go over well either.
But I guess it was the messaging that went wrong. All early previews showed Sorey & Alicia as the introductory characters- therefore to a lot of people- SHE was lead girl/heroine/waifu. I guess people really took to this particular "lady knight" character and really looked forward to adventuring with her. And then when it turned out she wasn't the lead, then came the rage.
How could it have gone better? Show Rose from the start, not Alicia? Don't show any characters early, Keep the plot closer to the vest, so people don't foster certain expectations, I don't know?. But definitely expectations got out of hand, and granted, Namco didn't bother correcting people on this perception - however I don't even know if they should have done that since it would have spoiled things with the plot, but then again it didn't go over well, so I don't really know what the right answer was.
All that said, I won't deny the game has its problems, major ones, but for me the least of them was the Alicia/Rose thing. But alas it was a big deal for many, so... yeah.
Can't find an english source for it, but here is a Japanese site with reactions to it, though all in Japanese.
http://yaraon-blog.com/archives/63909
It was an MGS2-esque protagonist swap where I suppose fans got really hyped for Snake only to realize you spend the game playing as Raiden.
I personally didn't think it was a big deal really when I played, but Zestiria had other more systemic problems.
I don't hate him, but the rumors of his involvement with Zestiria (heroine drama and the lies surrounding it), and all his produced games getting worse and worse in terms of overall design (Graces to Zestiria), people just started hating him. I do think the heroine crap is overblown; Alisha is a boring character and the wanking off of Rose in game gets super annoying. However, it can't be understated that the series went in a downward spiral once he took over. I blame this more on the transition to HD and lack of budget, though.
He did initiate the push to get the games localized again, so I am ultimately grateful to him for that.
He did initiate the push to get the games localized again, so I am ultimately grateful to him for that.
ToDR is arguably one of the best games in the franchise among critics.
Though it seems like it was undone since it got a directors cut.
He produced Tales of Graces F... one of the best Tales games ever and for that alone he got my love and appreciation.
He didn't produce that one. He just directed the Namco side of the development (so voice acting, anime scenes). Though expanded year after re-releases/ports that started with ToD DC may have been his idea.
They were pumping out these games so quickly under his management and quality was getting worse and worse. Zestiria was really bad and felt very unfinished. Then you had games like ToX2 that was asset copy/paste for a very large portion of the game. It felt like the rush culture and milking at any cost under his management. ToX made record sales but then it was downhill from there and the backlash to Zestiria with DLC and quality of the game was too much and it was mostly directed at him. Waifu stuff is just the surface of it, the game was junk people were unhappy. Now look, he's gone, Berseria is almost 3 years old and they still have not announced the next game, there is still no current gen tales game. They are taking their time.
Last edited:
OP
OP
Speaking of Tales of Destiny. I hope we eventually see a HD collection of the 2 games. Is a crime they were never translated.
Well, he basically killed the multi-player aspect of the franchise with the later games.
The story telling and character development was abysmal in most of his games. Everything had to be somewhat convoluted, even in instances in which a simple and basic story would have worked
The story telling and character development was abysmal in most of his games. Everything had to be somewhat convoluted, even in instances in which a simple and basic story would have worked
Well he directed Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut, so he's pretty much made the single best Tales game. Can't hate that.
A lot of people equate everything wrong with Tales games they don't like with him, even things he most likely had little involvement with. I mean even in this thread you have people blaming him for the story and the constant releases and short development time, which were primarily results of the writers and Namco higher-ups respectively as far as I'm aware.
Of course he was in charge of a lot of things that did decline in quality over his tenure as producer and I welcome whoever produced Berseria. But I also think the hate for Baba is overblown and I wish him luck on his newest game.
Of course he was in charge of a lot of things that did decline in quality over his tenure as producer and I welcome whoever produced Berseria. But I also think the hate for Baba is overblown and I wish him luck on his newest game.
I can't say I hate Hideo Baba, but I don't think he had much involvement, if any, in my four favourite games in this series (Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia, and Berseria), although he was at least involved in Xillia (number five on my list). It doesn't speak that well for him that the series seemed to get worse right after he got promoted and immediately got better as soon as he left.
He didn't do Hearts R, this is a popular misconception. He did the DS version Hearts, which bombed and was horrible. They farmed out Hearts R to a third party company who did a full remake.
Because producers are responsible for a bit of everything, that's what a producer's role is. From project management, to dev team structure, budgeting, timelines, deliverables, deadlines, scheduling, PR, QA, licensing, community management, etc. It's nonsense to skip to the offhand dismissal that he probably didn't have anything to do with xyz, it's his job to be involved in nearly everything. And the games he has worked on speak for themselves, that's how we got a consistent track record of nosediving quality and bad entries until he finally left.
Last edited:
It might have bombed but it sure as hell isn't terrible. The game is mighty impressive for a DS game. It felt like a PS1 RPG which is a good thing.
He might have had bad games, but don't exaggerate just to make a point.
The DS version of Hearts was good from my knowledge. It's the Vita version that's terrible.
Tales games have been getting repetitive and somehow the combat has gotten worse instead of improving upon Graces F. Baba isn't the problem because I also didn't enjoy Berseria enough to get past the first 10 hours or so. It's the lack of budget that bothers me. Skits with talking panels isn't my thing anymore and isn't acceptable in 2019. It's not 2008 anymore.
Nothing special, but I recently remembered that they announced an Alisha figure months before the game would released, something that is usually done for main characters. I'm not talking about a price figure that cost 15$, but one that costed near a hundred dollars on released. It can't be under stated how much of a bait and switch this whole heroine situation was, and funnily enough Rose never got a figure herself.
Not everything is Babas fault, but the Tales of games that he was responsible for weren't really great and in his position it would be natural to get some of the backlash from fans.
I really hope Namco does something about the ugly dungeons and the boring overworlds (with lack of interesting sidecontent) in the future. At least Story and characters got a bit better in Berseria so i haven't lost all hope.
I don't mind the skits and i enjoyed Berseria even when the dungeons were boring as hell and the world itself a little bit bland, characters and story were ok - good. But i agree with the fighting systems. Berserias wasn't as anoying as Zestirias, but all newer games have a worse fighting system than Graces or even Abyss in my opinion.
I really hope Namco does something about the ugly dungeons and the boring overworlds (with lack of interesting sidecontent) in the future. At least Story and characters got a bit better in Berseria so i haven't lost all hope.
I don't mind the skits and i enjoyed Berseria even when the dungeons were boring as hell and the world itself a little bit bland, characters and story were ok - good. But i agree with the fighting systems. Berserias wasn't as anoying as Zestirias, but all newer games have a worse fighting system than Graces or even Abyss in my opinion.
Last edited:
I wouldn't say he was hated, but I won't deny Baba was associated with B-team efforts. He was basically just the producer of the spin-off titles and lower budget entries for a long time. When the Tales series was restructuring and trying to re-invent itself after stagnating creatively and in sales, the series made some choices that were not universally liked among the series fans, and that pretty much coincided with Baba being given the keys to the franchise. He pretty much became a lightning rod for the folks who weren't pleased with the direction of the series. I still think to this day that in spite of mixed results, the experimentation and changes were ultimate for the benefit of the franchise. A lot of the Tales series' issues can ultimately be traced back to budgetary limitations, and I'm afraid that's something that isn't about to change any time soon. Home consoles aren't doing so hot in Japan, and the aforementioned changes put a chunk of the reliable fanbase off the series too. The only silver lining is that in spite of Japanese fans dropping off, global fans seem to be picking up the slack, especially with Steam contributing now too.
Baba's final Tales game also was a bit marred by questionable marketing, but I feel like his legacy was already set in stone by that point.
Baba's final Tales game also was a bit marred by questionable marketing, but I feel like his legacy was already set in stone by that point.
I'm personally excited for his Square Enix game even though I'm just now playing my first Tales from his tenure.
He wasn't the sole director, he was just responsible for directing the Namco side of things which for "Team Destiny" games was pretty limited (jpop act which wasn't new for ToD PS2, anime cutscenes, voice actors).
It was the first mothership Tales game he produced from start to finish and a personal favorite apparently. This and Zestiria as well as his statements in conjunction with Studio Istolla make me think he wanted to go for generally more lighthearted games while much of the staff (like prominently Daigo Okumura) pushed for more realistic dark, gritty entries.
Then he did well in my book.
I haven't played the newer ones and can't tell if they're good but hearing that it's usually for budget reasons, then is it fair to blame that on Baba? ToV was probably funded by Microsoft and they had to get used to HD development before getting it right with Berseria.
A producer is responsible for ensuring that the budget allows the vision pursued and what's the order of priorities once they run out of budget/ensuring an increase of the resources. His responsibility is also assembling the staff necessary for development. Hideo Baba was the series producer, so he was in the position of deciding what products are made when, including the games. I'm sure he had a difficult job considering Tales within Bandai Namco is neither a big brand nor a very profitable one, but if there's one position to make a difference in that regard it was his. Tales of Zestiria, being the first game outside of the closed Namco Tales Studio's structure, was the most direct application of his responsibilities, and it had plenty obvious issues.
I'm looking forward to what Hideo Baba manages at Studio Istolla since there he's confronted with the same issues but with even less leeway, managing budget of a studio and assembling its staff from the ground up. I wish him the best of luck, maybe I got him all wrong and he's actually recruiting all the staff that left Tales development during his leadership.
The Rose/Alicia thing was rather silly, and is more indicative of how badly Tales games manage guest characters. Multiple games in the series have them, but very few are satisfying, and honestly make me question why they weren't included fully.Vesperia had the Flynn issue, when he was basically on the cover of the game and looked more like the protagonist, and look how much he was playable for. Graces had Richard and the convoluted times he was playable in one small section, and then a post-game separate from the main game. Alicia was clearly the worst though, marketing waifu stuff is one thing, but the game makes it very clear her very presence is """not good""" for the main character. It would have been much more satisfying for her to come in and out of the party more often, and would make her character arc much better. I hope the next games learn their lesson.
As for Baba, I don't hate him but I'm a bit weary after Zestria felt rather clunky with both plot and characters.
As for Baba, I don't hate him but I'm a bit weary after Zestria felt rather clunky with both plot and characters.
It's mostly because of how bad Zestiria was and how suddenly they turned it back around with Berseria after he left. His resume overall is fine but he wasn't involved with any of the games that get the most props.
I like Graces, I don't care what anyone says. The combat is fun and the story is solid, and the characters actually aren't that bad (except Cheria)