What would it take to restore your faith in Square Enix?

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Just answer the question in the title. I feel like a lot of people have gotten burnt out with the company over the years, what with the XIII trilogy being pretty poorly received here and Versus XIII (now XV) existing in development hell for so long.

I think they are making steps in the right direction. XIII-2 and LR both greatly improved aspects of the gameplay and world that were greatly lacking in the first game. XIV:ARR was able to turn a dying game completely around into a success with a continual stream of information from the developers to the players. (Unfortunately, this constant communication is still lacking in terms of other games. *cough XV *cough*) Bravely Default brought a return to the roots of the genre, so to speak, bringing us that traditional JRPG formula we've craved from Square for a while.

What do you want from Square Enix? What did they used to have during the SNES/PS1/beginning of PS2 eras that you feel they are lacking now?

[Ergroilnin]

I won't be so specific on the topic but pretty much the only way I could see FF games from SE the same would be if they returned many of the things that were in FF VI-X without the sequel stuff.

[Mo-Nercy]

Square Enix isn't doing a whole lot wrong at the moment in a business sense. As a publisher, they've got their name on the rebooted Tomb Raider, the Sleeping Dogs franchise, Thief etc. The X/X-2 HD Remaster and XIV: A Realm Reborn has helped put them back in the black.

In actually developing games though, SE has been doing a lot of HD Remasters, Remixes and sequels. Really, all I want is just one truly great game in the main Final Fantasy series. I don't care if it takes the form of an action-RPG or if it's a big departure from the traditional elements of the series - just make it something that just about everyone with a current gen console will want to play. Real AAA, Game of the Year quality stuff.

[Pumpkin]

I have faith enough I suppose. They've made games I love, they've made games I like, they've made games I don't like. Same as any other game developer I suppose.

At worst I don't buy one of their games. Really not a big thing to me. Heck, I can't even remember who makes what games for the most part without looking it up. I base merit more on individual games rather than the company as a whole. When I buy a game, very rarely is my criteria "who made it", but more "Do the characters look interesting? What's the story? What does the gameplay look like?" The only company I can think of specifically turning me off to games is Atlus because I've had some bad experiences in the past with the games scaring me, but I've played some since and I'm still not totally opposed to buying one of their games if it seems lighter.

tl;dr I never lost faith or had faith. If they make a good game, I'll buy it. If they make a game that doesn't interest me, I won't

[escobert]

I don't think there is much they can do. I just don't care for their games like I used to. RPGs are slow to me now. They used to excite me but now it's something I can play when I don't feel like paying much attention. I guess if they came out with a real FFVII remake or something I'd get into that. But, since IX the direction the FFs have been going just annoys the hell out of me. maybe its the detail they can give the characters now but, I don't like it.

[metagloria]

I haven't lost faith per se, but they definitely have lost some of the shine from their golden age. Here's what I would like to see them do, if it were all up to me:

1) Make sure XV is a really good, engaging, futuristic-style FF that blends new ideas with the best parts of VII/VIII (and the XIII sequels) and avoids the mistakes of XIII.
2) Give the XII team total control over XVI. Bigger worlds, more sidequests. What XII was to XI, let XVI be to XIV.
3) Keep making great modern-classic JRPGs, as they're trying to do with Bravely Default/Second. Don't forsake that niche.

[jodymcdougle]

they still put out games with breath taking music and graphics! I think I'm going to explore their back catalog a little bit and get a few of those titles completed while I wait on anything big from Square. kind of get back to my roots. :)

[Wolf Kanno]

There are too many elements to say, I guess if I had to boil this down to three things:

1) Better turn a-around time for in-house development, it doesn't take a decade to make a great game and the longer you prolong the titles development the more likely you're just digging yourself into a deeper grave.

2) More transparency about development, like I mentioned in a XV thread, SE may have avoided a lot of bad publicity if they just came out and said they were having development problems. No one was pissed off when Type-0 was delayed in Japan after the negative feedback given by fans from the demo made the team delay the title to fix those problems. True fans will stick with you so don't worry about sometimes delivering bad news. It's better than leaving it to the fans or critics imagination to come up with why you are dragging your feet.

3) Release a slew of great games, as a publisher you don't have to worry, this is more for the internal development side, I need you people to release some awesome games in a row. Maybe not best sellers but games that prove you still know what your doing, XV being good isn't going to save you from releasing another turd right after it nor is it going to allow you to wait ten years to release FFXVI, only Atlus is allowed to release a numbered title from their flagship franchise once a decade. :p

[Ayen]

Wolf put it better than I could.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I personally would love to see Square get involved in creating some new, original IPs. Honestly, they could return to some of their older ones that haven't gotten love in a long time.

PS1 era Square will always be my favorite just because of how many different things they were doing. Sure, nowadays Square has been publishing a bunch of different games not in the FF franchise, but these games exist within already established franchises of their own. They used to have things like Threads of Fate, Vagrant Story, the Chrono series, Xenogears, Ehrgeiz, Einhander, Brave Fencer Musashi, etc. etc. Nowadays we've gotten Bravely Default, Nier, the World Ends With You... maybe some others. Sure, FF and Kingdom Hearts can take a long time to produce more numbered titles, but I'd love to see more work being done on original IPs like these in between those main franchises.

[Freya]

Get XV out. Get some new IPs that aren't new technofangled stuff. Like bravely default but on a grander scale with an actual console game.

ALSO GET XV OUT ALREADY. Stop having development times so high, it's getting ridiculous.

Also what kanno said, be more transparent. What is so great about ARR is that Yoshi-P is so open about it. This, as in an article I wrote (http://home.eyesonff.com/content.php/3046-How-Flowerpots-killed-XIV) a while ago, has bothered some of the higher SE execs but it let's the fans know they are working on things and they care.

[Quindiana Jones]

Yeah, they desperately need to cut development times and, as Jiro said somewhere, stop advertising games decades in advance of their release. Just fucking silly ways to do things.

[Spooniest]

Put out another 2-D game...really getting tired of this uncanny valley stuff...

[Uchu]

I agree with a lot of what has already been said, especially about being more honest and not having ridiculous development cycles.


For me, SE's problems really began around the same time when Japanese devs decided to try and tackle the western audience by making "western" games... which for obvious reasons didn't work.


I feel that is a topic in it's own right, so to keep the reply on topic I will say that SE should have faith in making Japanese games and trust they will (hopefully) do well in the western market. While a slight generalisation, people played the original games not because they were like western games, but because they were a type of game that *typically* only came from Japanese devs. Of course this mainly points to their Japan/RPG making studios. Oh, and trusting the fans... I have no idea why they suddenly decided that western gamers didn't understand how to play RPG's and required 20 hours of tutorial driven gameplay.


Also, cut back on the smart phone games, or at least stop producing money grabbing shovelware. Things have gotten better on this front and I appreciate the smart phone market is on fire here, but that doesn't mean you should just not bother putting effort into them.


Regarding FF, I am glad they seems to be on the right track again and while I want to see FFXV, i think FFXVI will be the true work that will show if lessons have been learned.

[Bolivar]

Yeah, I was under the impression public opinion on SE is pretty high right now. FFXIV ARR was a resounding success, Bravely Default shifted a million units (and their corporate focus), the FFX and Tomb Raider remasters were well received, and Type-0 is releasing imminently with some HD eye candy making it worth the wait. FFXV and a new Deus Ex are on the horizon, as are more handheld games, with Chaos Rings III just announced for Vita today.

If they wanted to become my favorite publisher again, they'd just need to keep a steady output on PS4 and Vita (cross-buy titles wouldn't hurt).

[DMKA]

I've never lost my faith in them, and have quite enjoyed their more recent games that everyone complains about.

I'd prefer them to keep doing what they're doing. *shrugs*

[Uchu]

Yeah, I was under the impression public opinion on SE is pretty high right now. FFXIV ARR was a resounding success, Bravely Default shifted a million units (and their corporate focus), the FFX and Tomb Raider remasters were well received, and Type-0 is releasing imminently with some HD eye candy making it worth the wait. FFXV and a new Deus Ex are on the horizon, as are more handheld games, with Chaos Rings III just announced for Vita today.

If they wanted to become my favorite publisher again, they'd just need to keep a steady output on PS4 and Vita (cross-buy titles wouldn't hurt).

Yeah, i think they have a great thing going on right now and i feel that is mostly due to the mess that was the original release of FFXIV. It seemed that after that bombed big time SE suddenly realised they need to put more effort into the FF franchise and appreciate their fans more (further proven by the success that was Bravely Default).

But its early days yet and while it's good to see positive change... a lot of what SE has said about company direction etc. has yet to be proven in the long term. But yeah, I like seeing positive news about one of my favourite game companies so I hope they keep it up.

[Wolf Kanno]

I would like to point out that there should be an asterisk next to Bravery Default, as SE had no intention of releasing it outside of Japan and it was due to Nintendo picking up the publishing rights that we ever saw it, the same thing happened with DQVI and IX, there were also rumors that SE is purposely trying to keep DQVII Japan only as well as they apparently stopped Nintendo from releasing it overseas. So I wouldn't be patting them too much on the back for releasing this great game that only got released cause other marketing departments saw an audience for them when SE's didn't.

I think how they turned XIV around is great, but I attribute that to two things, namely Yoshi-P and the extreme circumstances that XIV's failure caused which I feel allowed Yoshi-P to take several steps beyond what SE is comfortable with and luckily worked out for them. SE still announced KHIII too early despite the game not even being near full production yet and is still in the experimental R&D portion meaning the game will probably not see the light of day until the latter half of the decade which is pretty much the PR problem that Versus XIII was constantly scrutinized with, XV still has no release date, and many of their in-house productions on the horizon are either cell phone titles for the Japanese market, or for niche markets like TheaterRhythm.

On the horizon, SE has seven titles coming for worldwide release in their mobile division, most of which are slated this year, on the gaming console front, SE only has only six titles from their in-house two of which are HD remakes with one of them actually having a release date, two more are slated for this year but neither has a confirmed date and these are for the Japanese releases of which the PAL, EU, and US releases are not in the cards yet, and two of them we've known about for nearly a decade and the rest are niche titles nobody really cares about. The majority of their lineup for this and next year are from companies they've absorbed like Eidos or are being outsourced like TheaterRhythm.

Sorry to burst your bubbles folks, but I feel that SE is still in the "talking phase" of their rehabilitation and a few successes largely the result of other people's hard work and bad circumstances doesn't necessarily conclude to "SE is back on top!". I'm hoping to see them turn everything around and right now they are in a bit of good PR but I feel other factors show it is way too soon to be talking like the company doesn't have the same issues it had that plagued them throughout the last console generation.

[Quindiana Jones]

12:34:45. So close, WK.

[Carl the Llama]

I honestly haven't lost faith in Square Enix, I think its just a vocal minority that like to speak out that always judge a game and tell what they think should be done to make the game "better". I have always enjoyed the games of theirs that I have played, sure the people have their favourite but as time goes on SE will get new fans as the older generation keeps moaning. The problem is as we get older we lose faith in the world, our views become jaded as we grow more mature and we don't take the game for what it is, rather we moan as to what it should be.

Sure I would love to see a game like Final Fantasy VII, the amount of people demanding a remake of VII just goes to show we are stubborn and intractable... I have thoroughly enjoyed every final fantasy game I have laid my hands on, so why does it matter if they make whatever it is they make, either way I will still continue to buy SE products because I always have a good time playing the games. People say "I will wait for reviews" or "I don't know if I want to buy it" but you gotta understand that while people might or might not buy their products, there are thousands of people out there who, like me, will still continue to buy their games.

[Rin Heartilly]

I haven't lost faith in Square enix, I lovetheatrhythm (https://www.google.com.au/search?client=firefox-a&hs=ph6&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=theatrhythm&spell=1&sa=X&ei=bLo_VM1S0fXxBbTFgAg&ved=0CBsQBSgA), Crisis Core, dissidia, Bravely default...etc

I just really hope XV is good. Really good. For the fans that have waited almost a decade and the staff which have been working on it for ages.

[DanielCLFFF13]

For me, Square Enix should release the future Final Fantasy for PC alongside the console. I'm really happy when Final Fantasy XIII trilogy comes to PC, because Final Fanatsy XIII is the Final Fantasy game that brought me to Final Fantasy world and Eyes on Final Fantasy community. I just hope they plan to make the future single player Final Fantasy out for both PC and console, or well, for the rest of JRPG genre kind of game too.

But this is my opinion :)

[black orb]

What would it take to restore your faith in Square Enix?
>>> I want one million dollars :shifty:..:luca:

[VeloZer0]

Conversely if they gave you one million dollars it would greatly diminish my view of their business model.

[Venom65437]

I have no idea. Probably nothing anymore. I am very jaded about almost everything they've done for the last 10 years or so.

[Pike]

For me, Square Enix should release the future Final Fantasy for PC alongside the console.

This. I also want all past FFs on PC. Just put 'em all on Steam, Squeenix!

[Spooniest]

Hire someone who knows how to write a story, and let him/her write, stop breathing down their necks.

[maybee]

Games coming out a little quicker would be nice. No seven-eight year waiting period.

[Vyk]

Spoony's was good. As well if they make a story about adults let it be, don't shoehorn in teenagers and coming of age plot mechanics when not necessary.... FFXII...

[Jowy]

I'd buy Chrono Break and whatever console it happens to be on. Just make it happen.

[black orb]

Conversely if they gave you one million dollars it would greatly diminish my view of their business model.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/rodv/d8clcicfihuoevs91l6z.gif

>>> Gotta love their new business model..:luca: