"Jumping ship"

[Fynn]

Considering this is an FF forum, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume a lot of us have started out with this series in some capacity, and that we've been following various SE developments over the years. But it's also safe to assume a lot of people have become more disillusioned with the company in recent years, so my question to you is: has your "main" video game company or franchise changed? Has Square Enix lost relevance to you and are your eyes on (ha!) another company?

[Scotty_ffgamer]

It's hard to say since Square Enix still has stuff I like. Dragon Quest still seems great, and I'm always up for Kingdom Hearts. Final fantasy is also the series I often return to when playing older games.

Altus could overturn them for me. I also like monolith soft too.

[Wolf Kanno]

If doing my Top 100 game list has shown me anything, it's that Konami used to be a much bigger part of my life when I was younger and they just kind of imploded on themselves for me. Even counting the quality of MGSV and the hype for Silent Hills, the company had this annoying knack of just killing off my favorite franchises and ignoring others I loved as well. I mean where is Konami's arcade collections? I get some of them are nailed behind licensing issues but others are not. Suikoden is gone, Silent Hill and Castlevania were run into the ground, and even MGS was slipping a few places here and there, and now it's just all gone.

Capcom is another that I go back and forth with. While I feel Mega Man has kind of run it's course and was in need of a serious break. Street Fighter has also been having issues. I mean Marvel vs. Capcom Infinity looks promising, but it still hasn't quite brought the series back to its more engaging roots, and Resident Evil VII looks like it's reviving the franchise, but noticing that Capcom has DLC planned for a Chris Redfield mode makes me see that RE has the same issue as Silent Hill and needs to learn they should drop their old and overused plot threads and characters and keep it fresh.

Square-Enix... eh well I've already resigned myself to the fact that the company I grew up with is not the same one we have today and that their values and business models have changed in a way that I don't care for. That's not to say they can't still make great games, but I have certainly shifted to a more cautious approach and understand I have to look elsewhere to get my real "RPG" fix cause I'm not really getting it from them. At least I can stick around when they decide to do something like remake a game from their Golden Age.

[Mercen-X]

I have got to at least reserve a bit of love for Konami's Ephemeral Fantasia. I'm disappointed it never got a sequel or at least a spiritual successor. Level 5 also if mostly for Dark Cloud.

As for Squee, there are definitely many more titles in their repertoire that I have no affinity for than those I do. I haven't actually played Final Fantasy XIII since I never owned a PS3 or Xbox 360, but aside from that and the online-only experience of XI and XIV, there haven't been any sequential FFs I haven't enjoyed. As for other titles... Hit and miss.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Most of those big companies from my childhood seem to have this problem for me. I used to love capcom, konami, square, sega... but they all have kind of stopped making stuff I like in general. I still enjoy Nintendo produced stuff for the most part though.

[Edge7]

My love-hate relationship with Square Enix remains right where it's been since the 2010; I'm ready to sing their praises at any time, but they have to release something that'll actually impress me (I had often said back in the day that FFXV was the last chance I was giving the franchise, but tbh the FFVII remake has me intrigued). This is mostly a criticism of the Square properties; Dragon Quest XI is possibly the most excited I've been for a brand new RPG since Tales of the Abyss, and a third Valkyrie Profile would be awesome (just hope it's not a dud like Star Ocean V).

Konami was dead to me, but I guess a VR release of ZoE2 is pretty dope.

Weirdly enough, the one company I can say I'd truly jumped ship is Naughty Dog, which is a shame, because I loved all their games up to and including Uncharted 2, but Uncharted 3 was just a poorer paced retread, The Last of Us was fun, but I was never compelled to revisit it, and Uncharted 4 wasn't fun for me until the last third of the game (when I got to the segment that was the first gameplay trailer). I'd say the same thing about Sucker Punch, but that's less because I didn't like their recent games and more because I forgot they existed. No one really talks about Infamous anymore, and the company hasn't put anything out in 3 years. What happened to them?

[maybee]

Yeah. I've been hoping to find a new JRPG series to move into and get into since about 2011. Tales games are either hit or miss and Persona ? Maybe. SE is just trying too hard to go Western mainstream. Don't get me started on the DLC.

About DQ, I'm worried that they're going to go down the FF path eventually.

Atlus is DLC crazy too, but at least the moment it's for optional clothing and a optional dance party game. Not important story/ character development that SHOULD OF BEEN IN THE GAME.

[Fynn]

As for me, it's not really that I've jumped ship, since I still like FF a lot, it's more like I've just... drifted away from it, I guess? I used to be THE FF guy in my circle of friends, but then I've kind of spread my horizons a bit, and even within SE, I'm far more passionate about KH and DQ nowadays than FF. Atlus is pretty much my main squeeze, though, with all of MegaTen forming an important backbone of my current personality, as these games have molded me significantly during my university years. Also, CD Project Red, for more personal reasons, I guess.

[Freya]

Yeah pretty much. SE used to be THE dev I enjoyed. The past few years, as WK said, their business practices and values have changed and i'm just not okay with it.

Now I find myself back firmly with Blizzard.

[WarZidane]

Yeah. I've been hoping to find a new JRPG series to move into and get into since about 2011. Tales games are either hit or miss and Persona ? Maybe. SE is just trying too hard to go Western mainstream. Don't get me started on the DLC.

About DQ, I'm worried that they're going to go down the FF path eventually.

Atlus is DLC crazy too, but at least the moment it's for optional clothing and a optional dance party game. Not important story/ character development that SHOULD OF BEEN IN THE GAME.

*cough*Legend of Heroes: Trails*cough*

...anyway, shameless plug aside, yeah, my go-to developers have changed over the years, I think it's to be expected really, nobody can be top dog forever, and to stick blindly to one name would be silly.

For me, it probably went something like Nintendo -> Square -> Blizzard -> Gust -> Falcom for my go-to dev in terms of "what am I looking forward to the most".

I will say that despite this, it's not like I dislike the other companies all of a sudden like some other people do :p

[Formalhaut]

I've never strongly attached myself to a particular developer in the first place, so this hasn't really affected me so much, though probably I'm most attached to BioWare now, mainly because they have two game series I really enjoy.

As for Square Enix, I've always been a fan but my gaming horizons have expanded far beyond them at this point. There's just so many game series besides Final Fantasy that I enjoy now. And that's a good thing.

[Darth Ganon]

I'm in a love-hate relationship with Nintendo. It seems like their strategy is forever stuck in "one step forward, two steps back." It doesn't help that North America is under the direction of NoA which is abysmal from not bringing over collector's edition to awful localization decisions. I won't even go into the wasted potential of the Virtual Console or the atrocious so-called reward program that is My Nintendo.

But they make Zelda, so what am I going to do?

[sharkythesharkdogg]

There was a time when Konami, Capcom, Sierra, Crystal Dynamics, Square, Rare, etc., etc. all excited me. Eventually they've all changed how they operate or the kinds of games they're putting out either through their own decisions or by being part of some acquisition that changed the company.

I still enjoy Bandai-Namco, Naughty Dog, Atlus, and NIS stuff typically. Even if they make games I don't enjoy, they just seem to have more heart in what they make.

I think it's just become a revolving door on younger development companies either getting purchased by larger ones and changing their corporate philosophy, or becoming that larger company and changing that way.

[Sephex]

I pretty much stopped following game companies all together. I don't care where it is from. Just make a good game.

[Spuuky]

I was never much of a "studio guy." I just like the games I like. I hate some games by some companies and love others by the same people.

[Chibi Youkai]

I keep hoping that SE will return to it's days of jrpg's, but not holding my breath. Used to be a huge Bioware fan as well, but as much as I love swtor, a lot of things they did with it was just disappointing. I guess there's still some faith in Blizzard. Other than that, it's really just a game by game basis. Don't really keep up with any other companies in specific.

[Del Murder]

I've pretty much jumped ship from SE since back in the day I was willing to try pretty much any product they put out. These days I wait for the reviews and weigh it against what I'm in the mood for. However, they aren't my main company. That has always been, and still is, Nintendo. Breath of the Wild just reminds me that my loyalties are well placed. So far, Mario Odyssey looks to be another gem, and they released a 2D Metroid recently, continue to put out quality Pokemon and Fire Emblem games, etc. Long live Nintendo!

[Vyk]

My honeymoon with Squeenix ended around 1998, and it had only started in like 1996 when I got my first chance at FFIV and VI, then went on to thoroughly enjoy VII and Xenogears and Brave Fencer Musashi. And then FFVIII came out and ruined everything. They made a terrible movie with characters and politics too similar to VIII for my taste, and almost bankrupted the company. They made a bland throw-back and then Sakaguchi bailed out. FFX and Kingdom Hearts were too childish for me to enjoy, and then they went on record to say that they didn't want lifelong fans that they had to cater to, they always wanted to make games for kids and for us to move on as we grow older. And I decided they weren't worth waiting on after that. Much like Lucas Films, they didn't care about their older fans, and mistakenly believed they were always meant for kids. So I left them to pander to their kids

But I don't think any of the companies I've enjoyed has stayed making intelligent mature decisions. BioWare went to EA, Bethesda lets Zenimax use them as a scapegoat for all their greedy and deceitful shenanigans. SEGA has NO idea what they used to do or how they used to do it, and refuse to even look back on their past and attempt to learn. Capcom is too scared to try anything new, and too scared to rehash many old things either. They're very reliant on Street Fighter. No more Chaos Legion, no more Onimusha, no more Sengoku Basara, no more Megaman, no more Ghosts and Goblins, no more Breath of Fire. They even forgot how to do Resident Evil for a long time. How sad is that?

Of all the companies I've had long-standing relationships with, I think maybe Obsidian has the best track record. They keep getting into situations with publishers who force them to rush a game and release a fairly incomplete product, and even their incomplete stuff is usually pretty decent. And you can tell the people in the studio still care and want to do good by their customers and make good games. They actually want to listen to their fans and make the games people are asking for. Unlike other studios and publishers who just arbitrarily decide that single player games are dead, or survival horror games are dead, or (point and click) adventure games are dead

[Aulayna]

All I tend to play these days is World of Warcraft and Overwatch.

Occassionally League of Legends and FFXIV.

I'll no life KH3 when it comes out, but in general - as the amount of free time I've had has decreased as I've got older - I find myself very rarely being gripped by games the way I did when I was younger. Plus I guess the wool was pulled off my head, as these days I look at the market (especially AAA) and it's like oh look another zombie game, oh look another FPS, oh look another yearly instalment of a sports game, oh look another sandbox game. There's rarely anything I look at that screams "must play" anymore.

[Zora]

I never really felt on the ship to begin with, tbh. Sure, I played through a lot of the FF series--most of it as a Freshman in high school--but once I got my fill of the series I moved onto others and expanded my horizons. FF seems to have lost some sort of magic; FFXV felt more like SE was playing catch-up with JRPG trends rather than being the trend-setter. Like Fynn, I feel more passionate about KH and DQ from SE right now.

The series I'm probably most passionate about is Trails--even if there's no information about Cold Steel 3 coming stateside; I picked up Tokyo Xanadu and Ys VIII since they're the same developer but need to finish up a few games before going through Xanadu and Ys VIII doesn't feel like its truly out until 1/30.

And I've always been a big Pokemon fan, but uhh, USUM left a bad taste in my mouth.