Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:40 am
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).
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).