Golden Deer Pub Community Forums

Atlus are just a very low budget company. It's a simple case of them not making that much money so they can't afford to be as rigorous in their testing as bigger companies. Even little attentions to detail are often lacking from their games because they weren't a priority. For example, in FFXII and Digital Devil Saga, when you get to the edge of an area or to a doorway, the computer takes over and walks you off the map (only when you're right on top of the loadzone, of course). In FFXII if you're running you keep on running when it takes over and if you're walking you keep on walking. In DDS whatever speed you're going at, you run off the map when the computer takes over - it looks pretty stupid and feels weird if you're walking.

Now I know that's just nitpicking but the point is that bigger companies can think of, and deal with, everything they want to and can sort out bugs at a much higher rate. I mean, even the slickly presented Persona 3 has weird things like when you press Triange to enter the menu, the Hero and anyone in your party vanish off the screen and get loaded back in again after you quit the menu. It looks really odd as all NPCs stay on screen.

Just as a last point about that, Atlus don't even have a European branch. They don't release their games over here - usually it's Koei or in the case of DDS1 and 2 it was a very small company called Ghostlight. EO was released in Europe and Australia by Nintendo themselves. EO2 isn't out yet (EO only just came out and already only costs £12 new, bearing in mind that normally a new game costs about $40).

Yeah, I didn't want to you think that my point is "OMFG ATLUS IS A BAD COMPANY CUZ THEY HAD BUGS!" Every game has a bug or two, and I understand Atlus is a hardworking company that is very small and the shittiest official forum ever. I'm just saying the bug in question seems a little MAJOR to slip by, not like one of the little understandable bugs.

Well I wasn't trying to defend them that much. I actually think a lot of it is laziness because they know they can get away with it. Even though you'd think that the hardcore gamers that make up their target audience would be more discerning, they actually seem to get away with all sort of shit because their fans will say that "it's the core gameplay that counts" or something along those lines, while ignoring something that a "bad" company like Square Enix would never do. Of course, then you have EA who are rich and shit.

After playing Heavenly Guardian and Chameleon (both Starfish developed games), I don't believe hardcore=quality anymore.

EO1 cost me €45 here in the Netherlands